Amidst the rugged mountain ridges, the eighty thousand mighty soldiers of Great Chu had occupied and built a city on a rare flatland, with the circumference of nearly one thousand miles. At this moment, some of the soldiers were drilling, some were sitting in meditation, while some brought their single-horned rhinos to a little river that flowed through the flatland. They were using the water to wash these powerful rhino demon beasts they used to pull their chariots.
The Chu army used the clay they dug to build the city. The clay city had a circumference of thirty miles. A very tall watchtower was erected right in the center of the city, constructed using the same materials of rock and clay. It stood one thousand and five hundred feet tall, and had a platform that measured twenty feet in both width and length on top of it. Currently, two generals, Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang, both clad in full armor and carrying a longsword in their hands, were standing on the platform of the watchtower. They were casting their glances straight into the far distance. There was a dull look in their eyes, and it seemed their visions were not focusing on anything, while no one knew what were they thinking about.
After a full fifteen minutes, Xiang Ta asked in a low voice, "Second Father[1] is not with us. What should we do then?"
Xiang Zhuang gave him a fierce gaze and scolded in a low voice as well, "I only know how to kill people, so don't ask me any questions. Yes, Second Father is not here, but I thought he did send us some letters, didn’t he? Nonetheless, no woman under the heaven is dependable! You see, right after she came back, she immediately provoked our King and made him leave the camp alone. Also, the two women who brought people here just now are undependable as well! Pooh! We're going to get ourselves killed here because a group of women had gathered in this place!"
Xiang Ta gasped in shock and asked, "Are you sure? You and I are cultivating with the Immortality Technique of Chiyou, and the celestial fiend energy in all 360 acupoints of us has already condensed into fiend energy pearls. Our overall strength is comparable to cultivators who have formed their Nascent Divinity. It will not be so easy to kill us!"
Xiang Zhuang spat on the ground, then impatiently roared under his breath, "What is the use of being so powerful? Where is the King? The King is gone, and without the King, the morale and combative strength of our soldiers are immediately weakened by at least fifty percent! On top of that, without the Banner of Chiyou, as we have not attained mastery in the Immortality Technique of Chiyou, we can at most bring thirty percent of our fiend energy into play! At any rate, you and I are just comparable to two peak-stage Nascent Soul cultivators. So, how are we going to fight?"
While both men were discussing, a group of ladies walked out from a tent right below the watchtower. That included Yuji, who was wearing a long black dress, as black as the darkest shadow, Yue Tan, who was wearing a long white robe, as white as the purest snow. Two ladies, who were wearing foreign palace dresses, were also with them. Their hair were green and fluffy as clouds, their faces delicate and very beautiful, and they carried a very strong aura of nature which made them look like the spirits of mountains. While both Yuji and Yue Tan dressed in a very simple fashion, the palace dresses clad by the other two ladies were extraordinarily luxurious. Their black palace dresses were embroidered with magnificent patterns of various colors, while each of them was decorated with several dozens of pieces of exquisitely and delicately carved jade pendants, jade discs, and many other ornaments.
These jade discs and pendants were shimmering with a faint glow, and there were runes vaguely flashing and flickering inside them. Obviously, they were all very powerful magical items, and not just ordinary ornaments meant for decoration.
In addition to that, the eyes of both ladies took the magnificent hue of dark-green and dark-purple, while the color of their lips was pale blackish-red. When they were combined with their exceedingly beautiful visage, they gave those who looked at them a very enchanting and gorgeous feeling. They were escorted by a group of several dozens of ladies, with every single one of them wearing a tall crown on their head and clad in a long black robe. On their exposed skins, such as on their faces and hands, one could see countless black tattoos. Those tattoos were not the images of ordinary poisonous insects or wild beasts, but tiny runes that looked very ancient and densely arranged together. They were twisting and creeping endlessly underneath the fair skin of these ladies like countless living insects.
Standing loftily on the watchtower, Xiang Zhuang's face fell when he saw this group of ladies leaving the tent. Quickly, he prepared a mouthful of saliva and was about to spit it towards them, but luckily, Xiang Ta moved and reached out to Xiang Zhuang. He grabbed him and pushed him back a few steps. "Pooh!" Xiang Zhuang spat on the floor of the platform. The tremendous force that came with his spit caused a few cracks on the hard floor made from clay and rock.
Although Xiang Ta had ruined his plan of spitting on the ladies, Xiang Zhuang still kept struggling tirelessly. He moved to the edge of the platform and scolded towards Yuji, Yue Tan, and the few other ladies, "You demoness! Do you know you are the best example of what they call the source of all troubles? Damn it, you will cause all eighty thousand mighty soldiers to die in this place! What a bunch of damned women, your job is to be played by men on the bed. Who gave you the rights to command the army in the war?"
Without batting an eyelid, both Yuji and Yue Tan smiled, while the two ladies clad in palace dresses frowned and sighed lightly. One of the lady raised her right hand up, showing a commander seal which was engraved into the shape of a tiger and said, "General Xiang Zhuang, here is the commander seal. If you refuse to obey our commands, then don't blame me for punishing you mercilessly with the military law. With General Xiang Zhuang's cultivation base, I think you will be dead after we chop off your head for over thirty to fifty times, right?"
Fuming with rage, Xiang Zhuang threw his head back and gave out a loud roar, then resentfully stepped onto a blood-red cloud and shot into the sky towards the little river where some soldiers were washing their single-horned rhinos. The lady who held the commander seal sighed helplessly, turned to another lady and whispered to her, "Sister, what do you think?"
The second lady shook her head without saying anything. Then, she turned to Yuji and Yue Tan, bowed gently at them, and said, "Chi Bin and Lu Mei apologize for making a show of ourselves before two sisters. The stubbornness and intractableness of the mighty army from Xiang Clan is well known even back in the Great Chu. I hope two sisters can help Chi Bin and Lu Mei in pacifying them, or else a disaster is imminent."
Yuji and Yue Tan exchanged a glance, then both nodded and said, "We will obey your commands."
While the few ladies continued their discussion there in low voices, loud battle cries that sounded like muffled roarings of thunder came suddenly from all directions. Towering murderous aura burst and surged up from every direction around the camp. If one looked from a far distance, all the mountain ridges around this flatland could be seen filled with Great Qin's soldiers. They were clad in black armor and rolled and thrust down like the fiercest tidal waves. Among these armored soldiers of Great Qin, roughly eighty percent of them had the cultivation base of Houtian warriors, while about ten percent of them had the overall strength of Xiantian Daoist. The rest were about seven thousand Gold Core cultivators, and slightly over fifty Nascent Soul cultivators.
Great Qin Dynasty had executed their law in a very strict manner. All those who offended any law would be arrested and put in jail, and no personal favor would be given. In Great Yan Dynasty, if an Earth Immortal of Nascent Soul realm committed some crime, as long as it was not a crime related to rebellion, no matter what crime it was, Yan Dan would not put any restriction on the cultivator. However, if it was in Great Qin, when an Earth Immortal killed someone without a proper reason, he would be arrested and convicted immediately. Thus, among these five million condemned prisoners and convicted felons, many of them were Gold Core cultivators, while there were also about fifty Nascent Soul cultivators.
Except for these cultivators who were charging towards the clay city riding on bright beams, all the Xiantian Daoists and Houtian warriors were running crazily on their feet, while swallowing down a pill that was given to them before they came here. It was a pill that could stimulate their potential by burning their life force and even souls, allowing their overall strength to experience an explosive growth for a very short period of time. When a Xiantian Daoist consumed such pill, he would have the strength equal to a Gold Core cultivator for the next fifteen minutes. When a Houtian warrior consumed such pill, he would have the strength of a Xiantian Daoist for the next seven to eight minutes.
At the same time, on their chest, back, arms, and legs, many runes suddenly shone with bright light, blinking and flashing rapidly. The runes found on their chest and back were a fiendish spell that could restrict one's soul and control one's corpse. After they were killed by the enemies, if their dead bodies were intact, they could still rise and continue killing the enemies for a short period of time. Meanwhile, the runes on their arms and legs were runes that were used to increase their speed and strength, which could greatly improve the overall combative strength.
On top of that, all the condemned prisoners had a dark rune blinking at the area between their brows. It was a soul controlling rune that was planted by the authorities of Great Qin Dynasty. Once any of them tried to run away when the battle began, was scared of death and did not fight the enemies, their souls would be wiped out immediately, and their bodies would explode and inflict damage to the nearby enemies. Even those Gold Core and Nascent Soul cultivators had the same rune flashing between their brows. As Great Qin executed their law in a very strict manner, they extended the same treatment to all. Even if that person were a formidable cultivator, he still could not escape from the fate of having a restrictive spell planted in his soul to prevent him from escaping when he was serving his sentence.
This was a group of several million bloodthirsty beasts, who were being pushed to a dead end and forced to put up a desperate struggle, fighting for a destiny where they could ditch away their criminal records and responsibilities, and step into a path filled with wealth and happiness.
Amidst the deafening battle cries that could crumble the mountains and overturn the ocean, Great Qin's condemned prisoners had approached a group of Chu soldiers, who were at a drill outside the clay city. These prisoners kept howling and crying like wild beasts, wielding their weapons and leaping towards these elite soldiers. One hundred thousand prisoners versus eight hundred elite soldiers, this was the ratio of the strength on this flatland. In almost a blink of an eye, the dark tidal wave of prisoners had fully surrounded these elite soldiers.
The eight hundred mighty soldiers of Great Chu quickly lined up in a formation, and very easily unleashed streams upon streams of blood red energy, using them to attack the approaching enemies. The weakest soldier among them also had the overall strength of early-stage Gold Core realm. The blood-red energy unleashed from their weapons stretched several hundred feet long, and with just a single strike, several hundred prisoners would be cut in half from their waists.
However, something that struck great horror to these soldiers had happened. There was no blood or anything that came out from the wound of these prisoners who had their bodies cut in half. Instead, their lower bodies continued running, while their upper bodies also kept crawling towards the opponent using two arms. Chu soldiers were not well-versed in magic spells or divine abilities, as they only had powerful fleshly bodies and an enormous amount of fiend energies. Usually, when faced with a bizarre scene such as this, ordinary cultivators would use various magic spells in destroying the enemies, yet these soldiers could only use the weapons in their hands.
Suddenly, the bodies of these condemned prisoners exploded and tore into shreds, the way assassins secretly raised by those clans in Great Yan Dynasty exploded themselves.
Every single cell of them had exploded into pieces, as if the cells were filled with highly pressurized air. Their body fluid had turned into a pitch dark medicinal liquid, sending forth a very strong smell of herbs, splashing and spraying onto the bodies of Chu soldiers. Some soldiers were caught unprepared and did not circulate their energy to protect themselves, and had their faces and their bodies smeared by the medicinal liquid. In an instant, countless white blisters poked out from their skin, and in a blink of an eye, large patches of festering wounds were being corroded on their bodies.
The wounded Chu soldiers cried out miserably, while each of them quickly exercised the same fiendish technique that was cultivated by Xiang Yu and other generals. Immediately, the toughness of their fleshly body, their defensive strength, and the recovery ability had strengthened by several dozens of times. Their skin and flesh were creeping, quickly healing the severe wounds on their bodies. The black medicinal liquid and the blood red light burst out from their bodies kept trying to corrode and vanish each other, generating jarring hissing noises that filled the air.
Large sheets of blood red light kept bursting out from the bodies of these Chu soldiers, preventing any further damage from the dark poisonous liquid that kept spraying towards them. As these soldiers were in the middle of a drill, they did not wear their armors, and the sudden attack of Great Qin's prisoners had caught them unprepared. However, when they began circulating their fiendish technique, the blood red light that shrouded them had given them a defensive strength that was no weaker than the defensive strength brought by an upper-grade magical item. Very quickly, they lined up in a formation and kept unleashing streams after streams of blood red light while retreating back to the clay city.
Several tens of thousands of condemned prisoners had surrounded these Chu soldiers, ignoring their own safety as they kept charging and leaping towards them. One after another, bodies of prisoners exploded, the powerful impact caused the blood red light to keep rocking and rolling violently. This group of Chu soldiers was like a pack of very strong lions, struggling to escape from an ocean of ants.
When there was a great army of ants, even an elephant could be killed by them. Eventually, several dozens of Chu soldiers who fell behind the formation were forcibly dragged out by the howling and yelling Great Qin's prisoners, and were turned into pieces after a round of crazy chopping and hacking. When weapons impacted on the bodies of these Chu soldiers, their edges would coil up and sparks would generate from the point of impact, while only fine lines of wounds would be left behind on the Chu soldier's body. Yet, the wounds were healing at an incredible rate.
However, when several thousands of blades, or even tens of thousands of blades were being kept hacking and chopping on their bodies, these Chu soldiers could only be turned into meat paste amidst miserable cries and howls.
Finally, from this group of eight hundred Chu soldiers, only less than three hundred managed to return to the clay city alive, while the rest of them were killed by the enemies. Behind them, over thirty thousand condemned prisoners of Great Qin were killed. Puddles of dark blood and bloody gore filled up a thick layer on the ground. On the flatland, the army of a few million Great Qin's prisoners continued swarming towards the clay city, and in an instant had flooded the entire flatland. Over thirty thousand Chu soldiers who were carrying activities outside of the clay city were now trapped by this flood of condemned prisoners.
Hovering midair, Zhang Han held a commanding flag in his hand as he let out a stern cry, "Fight to the death! Fight to the death! Kill them all!"
Like foul ghosts that had gone crazy, the condemned prisoners of Great Qin howled insanely, "Fight to the death! Fight to the death!"
[1] Second Father - 亚父; Yafu. It refers to Fan Zeng, an adviser to Xiang Yu. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_Zeng)
[1] Second Father - 亚父; Yafu. It refers to Fan Zeng, an adviser to Xiang Yu. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_Zeng)