Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The setting sun glowed as red as blood, smearing the world crimson.
Three thousand elite soldiers of Great Wu fell neatly in the wide river valley. They were marching a moment ago, but in the next instant, they were killed without even having the time to react. Laying orderly on their backs in a row, each of them had a deep cut in his throat, with only strings of flesh and skin keeping the head and body together. Blood flowed all over the place, and this section of the river, about a mile wide, was stained red with blood.
Wu Renren, heavily armored and armed with a pike, looked in despair at the ten soldiers of New Yu slowly approaching him. Clad in turquoise fitted leather armor, these scouts were light-footed and had not made a sound when they moved. But, as soon as they appeared, they brought a massacre like evil spirits from hell. They murdered from the head of the column to its tail, killing all three thousand soldiers in a matter of seconds.
The dozens of soldiers in the rear of the column had just drawn their weapons when the ten terrifying scouts slew them with swords. As for the soldiers in the front, they did not even know what was happening, let alone drawing their weapons.
Wu Renren was the son of Wu Dehou, the former regent of Great Wu. He had a cultivation base that was at the peak level of the Nine Stars Realm of First Pangu Heaven. To help him achieve more military merit, his father had specially assigned him to lead the vanguard and explore the way ahead. Along the way, he did a lot of hard work such as cutting paths through the mountains and building bridges across the river, and he did them well.
As the army of Great Wu had wiped out dozens of states since the northern expedition began, Wu Renren was marching with a sense of complacency. He was proud to be part of this mighty army. However, the ten terrible killers in front of him had completely gutted that feeling. In face of New Yu’s soldiers, Great Wu’s invincible army was nothing but a joke.
His mount had been cowed by the potent killing intent emanating from the scouts. The once fierce and savage blue lion now laid on its stomach and would not budge no matter how he kicked and hit it. Wu Renren held his pike in a trembling grip and could not summon the courage to fight these men.
The gap between their strength was too huge, for each of these scouts had the cultivation base of the First Star Realm of Second Pangu Heaven. Was this New Yu’s basic strength and confidence, to use soldiers with the overall strength of Gold Immortals as scouts and have them patrol the borders? Wu Renren really wanted to cry. There were also such soldiers in Great Wu; however, not only were they very few in number, but they were all kept by Wu Tianming at his side as strategic reserves.
These soldiers in front of him were just scouts! They were only scouts! Why did they have the overall strength of the Second Pangu Heaven?
A scout grabbed Wu Renren’s pike and snatched it from his grip. Out of curiosity, he hacked the weapon with his sword. The pike, forged by Mo Di himself and for an imperial general like Wu Renren, was of course made of the best materials. The standard weapon of New Yu the scout carried could never break the pike, which was in fact, an upper-grade Gold Immortal Artifact.
A muffled noise rang out. Not even a scratch was left on the pike while the long, thin sword in the soldier’s hand specially made for scouts broke into dozens of pieces. The scouts cried out in surprise and someone said, “An excellent divine weapon!”
They fixed their eyes at Wu Renren’s face like a pack of tigers looking at a lamb. Without uttering another word, they jumped at him and quickly tied him up. Great Yu had a very rigid military system, that one would only be given weapons matching to one’s strength. Even those kings from the imperial clan could not violate this rule.
Wu Renren’s pike was of very high quality, but his strength was too weak in the eyes of these soldiers, and that made them conclude that he must have an unusual status, or he would not be given such a fine weapon. The scouts happily tied him up like a big rice dumpling, then picked him up with the pike and began running up the river valley toward the upper reaches of the river.
There was a small military town at the mouth of the valley, and only a hundred soldiers were stationed here. For New Yu, having a military town with one hundred soldiers here was more symbolic than practical, for this was its southernmost border, and it was necessary to put some soldiers here to claim the ownership of this place.
In fact, the city closest to this military town was more than two thousand miles away. No one would want to visit here save for those official herb gatherers and hunters.
The scouts rushed into the town with Wu Renren while shouting ‘We have an urgent situation!’ at the top of their lungs. The soldiers in the town, who were so bored in the normal times that they played games of slammed their heads at the mountains, were stirred at once. Hurriedly, they donned their helmets and armor and then ran out of their dwelling with weapons in hands. Everyone, including the general in charge of the town, had their eyes gleaming with ferocity, hoping that a group of enemies would come out right now so they could have some fighting.
In the valley, the river carried blood downstream. Some ten miles behind Wu Renren’s vanguard, Wu Dehou’s army was resting. Some of the soldiers were fetching water by the river, some were making fire, and some were giving water to their mounts. Suddenly, a large patch of blood was washed down from the upstream. Although the blood had become diluted after traveling for such a long distance, the soldiers had sharp senses to immediately smell the strong scent of blood in the water.
It was not just the scent of blood, but the scent of human blood!
The finding was immediately reported to Wu Dehou. Alarmed, he quickly sent someone to inform the situation to the main force led by Mo Di in the rear while he leaped onto his mount and brought a dozen loyal generals upstream. At the orders of the other generals, the army of tens of thousands of soldiers left their tents and baggage behind, carrying only their armor and weapons as they fell into ranks and then began to march forward at high speed.
Wu Dehou soon arrived where the three thousand vanguards were killed.
Three thousand soldiers laid neatly on the ground, as if their bodies had been carefully arranged. Everyone was cut on the neck with a sword, and it was the wound that had taken their lives. Obviously, they were killed before they even had time to resist. The enemy was too strong! The only good thing was that the body of his beloved son, Wu Renren, was not found. He must have been caught alive by the enemy, which was better than being killed anyway.
Wu Dehou glanced at the blue lion who was paralyzed on the ground, its legs limp with fear, and bellowed, “What do I want you for, you good-for-nothing?” He kicked it. The lion uttered a miserable howl as the kick sent it miles away into the sky. When it fell back on the ground, all its internal organs were crushed, and it was no longer breathing.
“Get ready to fight, my boys!” boomed Wu Dehou from the back of his blue-scale wildebeest, his top-grade Gold Immortal pike squeaking under his tight grip.
Tens of thousands of Great Wu’s soldiers marched forward with heavy, measured strides, filling the air with a sound like the beating of drums. Meanwhile, two Supreme Oracles, each with a seven-story pagoda above his head, hovered in midair and blessed the soldiers with the only three spells they knew: spiritual defense, enhanced defense, and enhanced morale.
Led by Wu Dehou, the army rushed like a dark cloud to the mouth of the valley. A quarter of an hour later, on the plain outside the valley, they surrounded the military town which was about two thousand feet in circumference and stationed by only a hundred soldiers. Wu Dehou saw his son stripped naked and tied to a flagpole at the town’s south gate.
His eyes quickly swept across the military town and found only one hundred soldiers and two Oracles without pagodas, the latter of whom were busy taking out bone talismans to bless the soldiers with all kinds of defensive spells. He sneered and cried out in a low voice, “You really don’t know the height of heavens and the depths of the earth! Laughable!”
With Wu Dehou’s cultivation base, he naturally looked down his nose on the meager strength of the soldiers in the town. Pointing his pike forward, he cried out in a deep voice, “Is there a general who can capture this town for me? I’ll count it as a major merit in his book of service!”
Before any of the generals could speak, the two Supreme Oracles following the army had flown out and sped toward the town, their faces proud and arrogant, while casting their most powerful offensive spell at the enemy soldiers: meteorite!
Two meteorites, each measuring about a hundred feet in circumference, fell straight from the sky toward the center of the town as one of the Supreme Oracles waved a hand. Wu Renren’s body began to sway as a great force was pulling him toward the Supreme Oracle.
All of a sudden, two loud sounds rang through the sky like thunderclaps. Everyone saw two shadows piercing through the void, and then the only two Supreme Oracles serving under Wu Dehou began to scream miserably. They looked down at their bodies with incredulous expressions; there was a hole as big as a washbasin in their chests, and a strange force was crazily devouring their life force within. Before they could think of a way to save their lives, the force had smothered the fire of their lives. In just the blink of an eye, two Supreme Oracles had become two masses of stinky water, sprinkling from the sky.
Two seven-story pagodas fell heavily to the ground. The two Supreme Oracles were killed by the enemy before they could use the pagodas to protect themselves.
On the battlements, the general in charge of the town looked at an Oracle standing beside him in surprise. “Are they stupid? How could they get within ten miles of New Yu’s military town without any protection? Do they think our ‘God-slaying Crossbows’ are mere decorations?”
The general scratched his head in bewilderment. “They are Oracles, and Oracles are supposed to stay in the rear of the army and provide support for the soldiers! Even Supreme Oracles are scarcely seen in the front! Why did they rush up to our town and walk into their own death? What are they up to? What’s their plot? Who can help me figure out what tricks they are playing? Is it some kind of malicious spell?”
All the soldiers and the two Oracles in the town were staring at each other, and no one could answer the questions of their immediate superior.
Wu Dehou almost lost grip of his pike, and his heart was twitching violently. Great Wu only had thirty-odd Supreme Oracles, and just now, two of them were slain right in front of his eyes! It did not matter to him if Wu Renren died, because he still had over a hundred children. But, there were only thirty-odd Supreme Oracles in the whole Great Wu!
“Attack! Attack! I want everyone to attack this damnable town!” Wu Dehou threw all caution to the wind and shouted out the order while trembling with anger.
Under the circumstance of not knowing each other, Great Wu and New Yu clashed for the first time on a scale that was considered large and small at the same time.
For Great Wu, it was a large-scale battle.
For New Yu, it was…Well, the situation here was not even qualified to put on their emperor, that was, King Xin Shan’s desk.
Tens of thousands of Great Wu’s soldiers began to besiege a military town of New Yu where only a hundred men were stationed. A great war had begun!