Just as Princess Zhang Le ordered the soldiers to kill the two monks in An He City, far away from there, Wu Qi presented Ming Li's head in Bo Yunting's field headquarter. It was a small chest of gold sandalwood in which the monk's large head was stuffed, full of powders made of various spices to keep the head from rotting. The head with its teeth bared and its eyes wide open looked fierce, and there was even a gleam of ferociousness flickering in the eyes.
It startled Bo Yunting. Just a moment ago, Wu Qi had volunteered to break the formation, claiming that he had full confidence in doing that, making Bo Yunting quite pleased. However, after the commander seal was given to him, instead of setting off immediately, Wu Qi pulled out a man's head. What was he trying to do?
He rose to his feet and walked beside Wu Qi, then studied the head in the chest. "A cultivator of Buddhist League?" he asked with a frown.
While nodding, Wu Qi said in a deep voice, "Yes… His name is Ming Li, and he sneaked into Dong Hai County with a bunch of Myriad Immortal Alliance's rebels. While the rebels were abducting beautiful girls who were born at a certain hour of the day as cultivation vessels, this monk was preaching and recruiting believers in the villages with the most girls abducted."
Bo Yunting's face twitched a little, and his eyes flashed with a furious gleam. "Are they trying to repeat what they've done in those years?" he said through his tightly clenched teeth. "Father is right! These cultivators, whether it be Daoists or Monks, never gave up their desire to destroy Great Yu!"
He slapped Wu Qi firmly on the shoulder and assured him that he would immediately report the matter to Bo Zhongfu in an urgent document, and deploy the reserve army to guard against any possible move of the Buddhism cultivators. He also praised Wu Qi for killing Ming Li, which he counted as a major military merit in Wu Qi's book of military service.
Wu Qi cupped his fist and bowed, then turned to stride out of the tent with the commander seal in his hand.
Before long, several heralds sounded the trumpets and passed on his military orders. In addition to the ten thousand troops he had brought here, he ordered one thousand formidable soldiers who served directly under Bo Yunting to join him for the mission. Among the one thousand soldiers, the weakest one was a warrior of the Five Stars Realm of the First Pangu Heaven, while the strongest one possessed the cultivation base of the Three Stars Realm of the Second Pangu Heaven. With them following him, Wu Qi did not have to worry about immortals of the Myriad Immortal Alliance suddenly attacking his army and disrupting his arrangements.
Apart from the one thousand elite soldiers, Wu Qi also mobilized a 'Jade Armor Dark Turtle Flying Ship'. Its shape was perfectly rounded from top to bottom, and was made from the shell of a Jade Armor Dark Turtle that lived only in the Far East Ocean on Pangu Continent.
This turtle was an extraordinary creature. They were born with the cultivation base of Heaven Immortals, and when they reached adulthood they would be as strong as a peak Gold Immortal. An adult Dark Turtle's body always measured eighty-one miles long and thirty-six miles wide, and its shell was innately engraved with sixty-four layers of wonderful protective runes formations, giving it a very amazing defense. Every ten thousand years, powerful Oracles at the Directorate of Celestials would hunt and kill a certain amount of Dark Turtles, then use their shells to craft flying ships.
They would refine the shells with some special potions, reducing the size to eight miles long and six miles wide. Then three layers of specially made alloy heavy armor would be mounted on their exterior. Added with the innately engraved sixty-four layers of protective rune formation, they would have more than a hundred layers of protection. Such a defense was strong enough to withstand a series of critical attacks from a peak Gold Immortal, or even several attacks from an almighty expert who had just stepped into the realm of Primordial Immortals.
This type of flying ship was an extremely important strategic war machine of Great Yu. Had it not been because Bo Zhongfu was a confidant to the Human Emperor and had had a very strong network of connections in the imperial court, he would not have brought three with him when he took office in Zhong Province. Out of the fear that his only son in the war, Bo Yunting, might one day lose the battle, or face a fatal crisis—like the last time when a meteor was brought down by Gold Immortals in Ningbo City—he had given him two this time.
Just now, when Wu Qi asked Bo Yunting for a war machine that would keep all his soldiers safe, Bo Yunting generously assigned him a Jade Armor Dark Turtle flying ship. With its large capacity that could hold ten thousand soldiers at a time, and its amazing offensive and defensive capabilities, it was the best tool for charging into the formation.
After the flying ship was brought to him, Wu Qi ordered the soldiers to bring him a large quantity of flame-thunder from the logistics storehouse. These flame-thunders were crafted by Oracles using underground toxic flame, and once detonated, everything within a radius of ten miles would be turned into ashes. On top of that, they could spew out hot, toxic flame. Even amongst Heaven Immortals, few were able to face their horrific power.
In addition to these, Wu Qi also collected dozens of powerful bone talismans that could trigger an underground fire eruption and turn the plains into volcanoes. They were assembled from the strongest bones of the fire-elemental demons, each measuring several feet long and wide, and one-foot thick. Only people with strong enough cultivation base could use such a large bone talisman. Once it was triggered, it could send out nine flaming dragons in all directions; whenever these dragons went past, the plains would immediately collapse, and the underground flame would erupt. Eventually, the plains would fill up with volcanoes.
Then, Wu Qi gave orders to the Oracles who were offering sacrifices to the nine giant Ghost Gods hovering in the sky. He told them that as soon as they noticed any change to the east part of the fog formation, they would make the nine Ghost Gods concentrate all their fire on that side. Then, as soon as the fog cleared in the east, they would turn their fire to the few mountains to the west of the formation. He ordered them to burn the mountains to ashes in the shortest possible time. And by doing so, the fog formation would be destroyed.
Bo Yunting brought with him an army of about eighty thousand troops here, including the seven thousand veterans who had just been called back. Wu Qi ordered the few heralds to get these soldiers ready for action at any time. Once the formation was breached, he wanted them to attack from the west. At that time, he would launch a full attack from the inside of the formation with his soldiers, and together with the army attacking from the outside, they would defeat all the immortals of the Myriad Immortal Alliance.
Finally, Wu Qi requested Bo Yunting to personally lead the strongest twenty or thirty generals to guard the eastern sky of the formation, attacking anyone who was fleeing from there. He made it very clear to Bo Yunting that anyone trying to flee from that direction would definitely be the strongest immortal in the formation; so, they would have to be very careful.
Bo Yunting could not figure out how to destroy this formation himself in the first place, so he did not understand what Wu Qi's arrangements meant. But, one good thing about him was that he never pretended to understand what he did not. Therefore, he saw himself as one of Wu Qi's subordinates, unquestionably following the orders to mobilize his troops. In about an hour, he had put his army in order.
Because Wu Qi said that there would likely be very strong immortals appearing in the east of the formation, Bo Yunting deployed another Jade Armor Dark Turtle flying ship in the sky several miles to the east of the formation. He also had almost all the Oracles on board, who had laid out a brutal 'Myriad Ghosts Formation'. With that being done, he was all prepared to slaughter anyone who flew out of that direction.
Laughing heartily, Wu Qi boarded the flying ship with his soldiers. Then, the ship plunged into the formation from the southeast corner at the maximum speed.
As soon as they entered the formation, a group of about three hundred itinerant cultivators appeared before them. The strongest of these cultivators were only at the realm of Nascent Divinity, and the weakest had not even formed their Gold Cores. At the sight of such a huge flying ship breaking into the formation and appearing in front of them, these cultivators cried out in horror.
At this moment the formation was attacking the trapped army with numerous green wooden stakes and bolts and thunder. More than two thousand soldiers were killed just as Wu Qi was preparing for the attack. Deafening rumbling filled the air as all the natural energy in the formation was sucked into several hills to the east, being converted into wood-elemental energy by the formation flags on the hills and turned into bolts of thunder to attack the enemy.
Wu Qi ordered the flying ship to dash forward as fast as possible. All the decks on the ship had been opened, revealing numerous murder holes which the soldiers could use to attack from within. At Wu Qi's command, the soldiers waved their arms and threw out 1,500 flame-thunders with the greatest force, all of which were falling right toward the eastern part of the formation.
All the sound was drowned out by the continuous explosion, and huge balls of reddish-black underground toxic flame burst high up into the sky. 1,500 powerful flame-thunders ripped through the earth for thousands of miles, melting the layer of rocks underneath and turning them into piping hot lava that rushed rapidly across the land. The whole place had turned into a hell.
More than half of the wood-elemental energy in the formation was ignited by the toxic flame and began to burn brightly, while those freshly formed bolts of thunder exploded in midair before they could even land on their targets. The attack came so suddenly that the immortals who were attacking with the bolts of thunder had no time to defend themselves, and were badly injured by the sudden explosions. Some unlucky ones were even shattered by the force of the explosion, both their fleshly bodies and immortal souls.
Although it was said that the formation of five elements was full of wonderful powers, it could actually be easily destroyed with the inter-restriction rules of the five elements. Wu Qi took advantage of this weakness and rushed in from the most vulnerable part of the formation; then, he recklessly attacked it with flame-thunders, causing the whole operation of the formation to stop immediately.
Having done that, dozens of bone talismans were activated at the same time, causing hundreds of fire dragons to rise into the air and dash down the mountains to the east. Amidst the deafening roars of dragons, the few mountains whose natural energy was in a chaotic state collapsed with a boom. Pillars of fire rose hundreds of miles up into the sky, bringing with them scorching lava that rained down in all directions. Half of the sky was smeared red by the terrible fire.
If at this point of time an expert of formation could reverse the formation and transfer the water-elemental energy from the Water Gate due north to the east; the terrible fire could still be put out and the formation could continue to function. But, the immortals who controlled the formation here were no experts, and they just had no time to adjust the formation when they were already thrown into an utter confusion.
Just as the sky over the eastern part of the formation was smeared red, a roar of laughter burst out of the nine huge fireballs hanging high up in the sky. In the blink of an eye, nine fireballs whistled through the air and smashed into the formation, destroying the eastern formation base and rendering the entire formation beyond repair.
Laughing hysterically while directing the flying ship and controlling the hundreds of fire dragons the bone talismans had conjured, Wu Qi forced his way through the fierce attacks launched by hundreds of cultivators toward the western part of the formation, where the element of the metal was present.
Soon, a raging underground fire erupted. Using the rules of inter restriction where the fire was restricting metal, the western formation base was destroyed as well.