Yes, the time had come!
After spending so much time on Pangu Continent, Wu Qi had achieved little else but formed his innate chaotic spirit body, recruited a number of subordinates, and owned a small territory. Although he had inherited all the memories and experiences of Wu Wang and Le Xiaobai, their experiences were limited. One couldn't expect both of them to have that kind of ability and resolution to conquer the world.
So vast was the Pangu Continent, with so many outer heavenly realms and so many almighty experts… It was such a splendid world, but how could Wu Qi establish a firm foothold in this world if he were to work alone?
In this world, the lone ranger was always the earliest and fastest to die!
The best example was Reverend Gale, who lived up in the ninth heaven and passed his legacy to Wu Qi. Although he was a mighty Primordial Immortal, he was all alone, with no disciples or subordinates. The Eastern Green Emperor had merely sent dozens of ancient gods to besiege him and have him killed; even the roof tiles of his dwelling were taken away.
This was why it was so important to have loyal disciples and confidants, as well as develop his own power. Now, who else could Wu Qi rely on but the civil and military officers of Great Yan? Each one of these people was an outstanding figure, a man of courage. As long as he could bring them to Pangu Continent, by taking advantage of the chaotic situation, Great Yan could easily lay its foundation here and secretly swallow a big piece of territory.
In fact, apart from Great Yan, Wu Qi could even rope in the people of Qin, Zhao, Wei, Chu, and Qi, because he had learned the Black Celestial Forbidden Curse!
Why did the six states have to fight and kill each other? Why couldn't they form a solid alliance of interests?
'Wouldn't it be interesting to establish a Federation of Earth in Pangu Continent?' A bold thought suddenly leaped into Wu Qi's mind.
With such a plan in mind, Wu Qi immediately ended his seclusion and sent a letter to Bo Yunting, in which, he mentioned that he had fully recovered and was now returning to the army with three hundred elite warriors, all ready to teach the treacherous immortals of the alliance a lesson.
Bo Yunting was very appreciative of military officers like Wu Qi, who was not only brave and good at fighting, but also returned to the army as soon as he recovered from his injuries. So, he immediately promoted Wu Qi, making him officially a third-grade general in Great Yu military. He then ordered him to lead an army of 10,000 soldiers to attack the cultivators in the mountains southwest of Zhong Province.
Hence, Wu Qi led the army of 10,000 soldiers to confront a group of Fiend immortals in Wan Shan Province, who were besieging Qing Ling City.
Like Yuaya City in Huangsha Province, Qing Ling City was Zhong Province's most important producer of precious metals. In the mountains that stretched for millions of miles in Wan Shan Province were endless veins of metals, including several rare and indispensable spirit items, as well as materials for crafting supreme-grade Gold Immortal items. As a result, Qing Ling City had become the most inhabited city in Zhong Province. It was divided into thirty-eight sections, each consisting of hundreds of differently sized towns. The population of Qing Ling City was an astonishing three hundred million.
Among these three hundred million people, almost all, except for a small number of officials and soldiers, earned their living through the mining of minerals. Every day, the mountains in Wan Shan Province were smeared red as flames blazed in the furnaces that stood as high as a thousand feet. Countless metallic ores were excavated and scooped into these furnaces, melted into red-hot molten metal, and rushed through pipes that were dozens of feet in diameter, and eventually poured into a massive pool in the heart of Qing Ling City.
The pool was constructed by tens of thousands of Oracles with their divine abilities. It measured a hundred miles in both width and length, and about ten miles in depth. Day and night, hot waves rolled over the pool as floods of molten metal poured endlessly into it from the massive pipes, producing a low yet deafening rumble.
There were also many flying ships made from jade and shaped like leaves that hovered above the pool, on top of which stood many Oracles. They all held a variety of spirit talismans and rained down various magics into the pool, each of which attracted a different type of metal and extracted their purest forms.
Glowing with different colors and free from impurities, the molten metal would then rise up from the pool like giant dragons and rush into the huge magical storage devices suspended in the air. Each of the storage devices could hold enough metal ingots to form up a hill. A small portion of them would be sent to Zhong Province for the workshop of the army to forge various weapons. But, more than ninety percent of the precious metals would be sent to Liangzhu for the Palace of Craftsmen directly under Liangzhu's Military Court to forge all kinds of deadly weapons.
Qing Ling City produced enough precious metals in a day to scare any peak-tier Heaven Immortal to death from a heart attack, make any Gold Immortal drool, and make any Primordial Immortal's heart race with envy, eager to get people to occupy the city immediately. Every ten days, the precious metals produced here were enough for a Primordial Immortal to craft a Primordial Immortal item! This was how rich Pangu Continent was, and also one of the reasons why the immortals were casting covetous eyes on the continent.
Today, however, Qing Ling City had become a ghost land. Except for its core city, which still had a thin layer of defensive barrier to protect it against attacks that rained down like storms, all the other thirty-seven sections with thousands of towns had been completely destroyed.
The pipes that normally spewed out molten metal had cooled down, and were completely clogged. Everything inside the giant pool had solidified into one huge metal ingot, with a surface as smooth as a mirror. Its edges had become bluish-black, with only a gleam of red glowing at the center and wisps of hot steam rising up.
The flying ships that hovered above the pool had also been destroyed, and the Oracles responsible for extracting precious metals had been killed, their bodies scattered amongst the mountains. Some bodies seemed as if they had been eaten by tens of thousands of rats.
Hundreds of millions of shadows stood in the sky. They had no faces, and their twisted limbs stretched while falling down from the sky like countless fishing lines, attacking the defensive barrier that protected Qing Ling City. All the people who had once lived within the thirty-seven sections of the city were here, turned into Fiend spirits that acted as vanguards attacking the city.
The sanity of all the evil spirits had been wiped out, leaving only the most instinctive greed and cruelty. They waved their deformed limbs and attacked the defensive shield with all their might. Although the force of each strike they made was no more than five hundred kilograms, the combined attack of hundreds of millions of evil spirits still produced countless tiny flashes across the shield. They shook the surrounding mountains and scared the surviving people in the city into squealing.
There were thirty-odd strange-looking Fiend immortals hovering in the sky, generating awful screeches of pride. Thirty-six black banners, dozens of feet tall each, were suspended in the air and emitting hundreds of millions of fine black smoke trails, each connected with an evil spirit. These immortals were gently waving the banners, and all the evil spirits changed their positions in the air with each wave, absorbing the ominous aura in the air to attack Qing Ling City.
As soon as Wu Qi arrived at Qing Ling City with ten thousand soldiers on flying ships as reinforcement, he heard the defensive barrier produce a shrill whine, and then saw dozens of Oracles holding the formation fall to the ground with blood spurting out of their bodies. Immediately, hundreds of millions of deformed limbs shot into the bodies of these Oracles.
In a split-second, three Moon Oracles and forty odd Star Oracles howled miserably as they were sucked into dried corpses by the evil spirits. Then, hundreds of millions of evil spirits screeched sharply, gathering into a dense stream of black light that whistled down into Qing Ling City, which had lost its defensive barrier.
Standing on the bow, Wu Qi gave a sharp whistle and waved his hand. The next moment, one hundred Moon Oracles and one thousand Star Oracles who had come with the army raised their hands at the same time and began to chant a secret mantra in unison. Massive energies were pouring out of their bodies, which quickly condensed above the flying ship into a vague celestial fiend with three heads, twelve faces, and thirty-six arms. It had a large serpent wrapped around its body, its mouth spitting flames.
The ten thousand feet tall celestial fiend waved its arms, performing eighteen bizarre hand incantation gestures in a row to conjure a huge wheel in front of it. As soon as it appeared, the wheel that was shrouded in a raging green flame shot down into the swarm of evil spirits who were about to rush into the city.
The air rang with miserable wails. Caught off guard, more than half of the evil spirits were wiped out in a flash. The celestial fiend summoned by the Oracles was actually the projection of the 'Soul Devourer', a kind of celestial fiend known for devouring ghosts and spirits. Although these evil spirits could unleash a very strong power when they came together, they were still very vulnerable individually. Therefore, the attack had killed more than half of them at once.
The thirty odd Fiend immortals who controlled the evil spirits flew into a rage. With a wave of their banners, hundreds of millions of evil spirits screamed harshly and leaped toward Wu Qi and his army.
Wu Qi gestured again. The deck in front of the flying ship was opened, inside of which were dozens of huge crossbows that roared while firing 108 giant bolts, each as thick as a man's head and tens of feet long. Glowing brilliantly, the bolts pierced through the air and flew straight toward those Fiend immortals.
Miserable screams rang out as almost all the Fiend immortals were killed on the spot. Three of the strongest immortals rolled up eighteen banners, then turned into black smoke and fled. The rest of the evil spirits swooped in, at which moment, Wu Qi suddenly seemed to stumble and fall off the ship. He was immediately swept into the group of evil spirits that had gathered in a torrent. In the next instant, nearly a hundred million evil spirits rushed into his spiritual ocean and invaded his body.
Wu Qi's body stiffened, and his eyes suddenly became cloudy. He howled while rolling fiercely in the air with his head in his arms, then twitching and falling from the air.
All the Oracles cried out in shock and hastily rushed to Wu Qi.