Chapter 343: The Dagger is Revealed

At the main defensive position, Wei Yuan couldn’t help but feel that something was odd about Xu Zhongxing’s demeanor as he walked, so he tried to recall the details carefully.

Just then, a pure and pristine white lotus faintly appeared in the pupil of his left eye, and the image Wei Yuan was recalling suddenly changed.

In the image, Xu Zhongxing no longer looked dignified or imposing. Instead, he had become a hideous, terrifying monster. His entire body was twisted and disjointed. Two horns, one long and one short, had sprung from the top of his head, each curving in a different direction and completely asymmetrical. Thick black qi swirled around him, within which countless agonized human faces floated.

Wei Yuan was startled. Through the lens that was the White Lotus of Tainted Earth, Xu Zhongxing had actually transformed into a twisted, crazed, resentment-bound monster!

This was the truth of Xu Zhongxing revealed through the White Lotus of Tainted Earth. It was vastly different from the outward appearance as seen by the naked eye.

Upon seeing this image, Wei Yuan realized that Xu Zhongxing was so consumed by karmic debt that he was on the verge of triggering a heavenly tribulation. Even if he survived the heavenly tribulation, staying in this state for too long would reduce Xu Zhongxing to a madman driven solely by instinct.

Wei Yuan was starting to understand where his 3,000 wisps of fortune had vanished.

Suddenly, a dangerous thought crossed Wei Yuan’s mind: If he invested just another 1,000 wisps of blue fortune, then Xu Zhongxing would likely perish on the spot....

4,000 Body-tempering stage cultivators for a top-tier Avatar. Anyone would think that it was a worthwhile trade—no, a huge win.

Wei Yuan closed his eyes, steadied his mind, and made his decision. This was war. Mercy could wait until after they had won.

Meanwhile, the shadowy figures of countless human cavalry had appeared within the Great Realm. They were flying mindlessly toward the jade hill and entering the All-Gate of Reincarnation. As the number of reincarnating human souls increased, a wisp of otherworldly fortune began to slowly form.

The waters of the pond were churning once more, as if something were brewing within. However, it seemed that the number of reincarnated souls was still insufficient, preventing whatever was to emerge from appearing.

Meanwhile, the Avatar-stage elder who were caught up by Trueman Chu He had finally managed to break free and return to the ranks. As long as he sealed his ears and ignored whatever the old Daoist was saying, he was essentially free to fight or retreat as he pleased[1].

On the western edge of the realm of Qingming, Fan Donghe suddenly grew wary. Since the upper hand was his, it didn’t take him much effort to pull off a sudden escape.

The cat looked at the bloodstains on its paw with a look of resentment. Then, it turned to lick the wounds on its body.

In this initial probing skirmish, Xu Zhongxing had clearly suffered a major setback. Not only had he traded nearly 30,000 cavalry for just 5,000 enemy troops, he had become burdened with karmic debt as well, which would hamper his ability to fight for the remainder of the battle.

Just then, Fan Donghe circled the realm and returned to the ranks from the east. There were three long gashes on his back, the wound so that one could see the pale golden bones within!

The sight of Fan Donghe’s injuries enraged Xu Zhongxing, but he had no choice but to keep his aide in the rearguard.

By this point, all six of the Xu Clan’s Avatars had inspected the main defensive position set up by Wei Yuan. However, none of them could come up with a viable strategy.

To put it simply, the defensive position consisted entirely of trenches. Even if they used a large-scale Dao spell to reshape the terrain, all they would be doing was making the landscape even more complex than it already was. Moreover, this was the realm of Qingming. If they tried to unleash such a Dao spell, Wei Yuan would definitely employ the power of the realm to stop them. At the moment, the realm of Qingming spanned a radius of over 200 li. There was no Avatar with enough mystic power to oppose the power of an entire realm alone.

The barbed wire was easy enough to deal with; a single Dao spell could clear an entire section. On the other hand, the explosive traps buried underground were nearly impossible to guard against. The one silver lining was that they had all been activated by the cavalry by now.

Finally, the trenches was a masterstroke for evading arrows. Their mere existence had rendered the Xu Clan’s 40,000-strong archery unit virtually useless.

After much deliberation, the group realized that, although the network of trenches was such a simple strategy, the only viable countermeasure they had... was to launch a frontal assault with infantry to wear down the enemy.

An elder suddenly spoke up, “What if we just go around it?”

Everyone looked at him as if he were an idiot. Setting aside whether it was even possible to bypass such a vast defensive position, even if they did, tens of thousands of defenders could suddenly burst out from within and launch a flanking attack. Even a 100,000-strong army would collapse in an instant under such an assault.

In the end, Xu Zhongxing made the call to launch a full-scale infantry assault!

The Xu Clan’s army regrouped. Fan Donghe was seriously injured, so he was left behind to command the rear guard. The rest of the Avatars took the lead and focused on clearing the obstacles on the battlefield. The infantry of the middleguard followed closely behind them while the remaining cavalry protected their flanks.

Both Fan Donghe and the cat were severely injured, but the Xu Clan still had five combat-ready Avatars. Xu Zhongxing was entangled by a mountain of karmic debt, but as long as he refrained from attacking ordinary soldiers, he was still a deadly Avatar on the same level as Fan Donghe in peak condition.

Meanwhile, the only true Avatars left on Qingming’s side were the old Daoist and the snake. In fact, the two combined were only equal to one Avatar. Zhang Sheng with an Immortal Sword in hand was also equivalent to a top-tier Avatar. Aside from them, no other Avatar-level combatants were currently visible[2].

Just as the Xu Clan’s Avatars reached the front lines, piercing whistles suddenly echoed through the sky once more. The next moment, countless artillery shells rained down upon the Xu Clan’s main army!

A severely injured Fan Donghe was the only one guarding the main army at the moment. He simply did not possess the ability to intercept them all. He could only watch in horror as a whopping 15 shells—each one the size of a barrel—exploded in mid-air and scattered hundreds of submunitions, instantly turning the ground into a sea of fire!

This time, every single shell was jam-packed with explosives. Thousands of soldiers were killed in an instant!

Xu Zhongxing was both shocked and enraged. He knew that Wei Yuan had led him to believe that the artillery shells could only travel so far. That was why he had felt safe to gather his troops together. But as soon as the Avatars capable of intercepting them moved away, the bastard had immediately unleashed a relentless barrage!

His face as grim as it could be, Xu Zhongxing immediately ordered two Avatar-stage elders to bypass the defensive positions and head to the rear of the battlefield to locate the source of the incoming shells. If left unchecked, the 200,000-strong army could be bombarded into a state of total demoralization.

The two Avatar-stage elders understood the gravity of the situation. Moreover, this was the battlefield. No matter how much they despised Xu Zhongxing, they were well aware of their personal abilities and recognized that their ability to command in the heat of battle was no match for the garrison commander’s. So, they obeyed his orders and set off.

Sure enough, the roguish old Daoist appeared once again and intercepted one of the elders. Although his fight was as dangerous as it could be, his mouth never stopped chattering for even a second. To an outsider, they would have thought that it was not he, but his opponent, who was about to perish.

As for the other elder, he was intercepted by a brilliant saber light. The saber light was both supple and resilient. Though it was clearly outmatched by the Avatar-stage elder in terms of mystic energy, it could not be defeated no matter what the elder tried. It even managed to launch a counterattack or sneak attack from time to time.

Xu Zhongxing had long known that Wei Yuan must have a backup plan. So, he immediately worked together with two Avatar-stage elders to clear the obstacles at the front of the defensive positions, then ordered another elder to go search for the artillery positions. As for himself, he stood at the front lines and faced off against Wei Yuan and Zhang Sheng, watching as his own army advanced.

Countless Xu Clan soldiers charged through the hail of bullets, falling in droves along the way. However, many also succeeded in breaking through the lines of fire and made it to the defensive positions, where a bloody, brutal close-quarter battle ensued between the two sides.

At that moment, the indescribable sensation descended from the heavens once more. It was Wei Yuan activating Life is a Flash for a second time. Since both sides were humans, Wei Yuan could not simply activate the ability over a wide area like before. He had to bestow the blessing upon his troops one by one.

Wei Yuan possessed a formidable primordial spirit and lightning fast thoughts. In the blink of an eye, he had already bestowed the blessing upon hundreds of men. His side’s combat effectiveness rose rapidly, while the Xu Clan’s casualties began to mount.

In the center of the battlefield, Wei Yuan, shielded by the dual cover of the concealment ability from the newly acquired fruit of the Seven Wonders Exquisite Treasure Tree and the power of the realm itself, fixed his gaze onto Xu Zhongxing, waiting for the moment he would strike. Meanwhile, as casualties on both sides continued to mount, the waters of the black pond in the jade hill churned ever more violently, and a colossal creature slowly but surely emerged from its depths.

The sole remaining Avatar-stage elder by Xu Zhongxing’s side suddenly charged toward Trueman Chu He at full speed, while the elder who had gone to scout the artillery positions also abruptly turned back to pin the old Daoist between them!

In an instant, three Avatar-stage elders had formed a pincer attack against Trueman Chu He. Only now did Xu Zhongxing reveal his dagger[3]—he intended to eliminate the weakest target, the old Daoist, first.

Wei Yuan disappeared and reappeared in front of the returning Avatar-stage elder. At the same time, two towering warriors materialized out of thin air, both radiating the unmistakable aura of Avatar-stage cultivators. They encircled the Avatar-stage elder and formed a deadly pincer attack of their own!

As for the other Avatar-stage elder charging at the old Daoist, his path was blocked by a cat.

Xu Zhongxing’s brow twitched. He could not have imagined that Wei Yuan still had two Avatar-level fighters in his reserve! He took a step forward intending to engage Zhang Sheng in battle once more, when suddenly, more than a dozen warriors appeared around the scholar. Their bodies were completely covered in armor, and their faces were tightly concealed. Although their individual cultivation levels were unremarkable, each and every single one of them was carrying a slender, exceptionally bright streak of blue qi above their heads. It did not take a genius to figure out that they represented an extremely abnormal level of fortune.

These warriors were using their own bodies as shields to protect Zhang Sheng. Meanwhile, Zhang Sheng himself had summoned a hundred-zhang-long beam of sword light and swung it straight at Xu Zhongxing.

Both sides had finally revealed their daggers!

1. I’m fairly sure some of you forgot that Chu He went to this guy after Fang Donghe shook him off. Now you know why Xu Zhongxing had to defend against the bombardment alone. ☜

2. This is a short but meaning-packed line. It means that Qingming could still have combatants who are on the same level as Avatars, they just haven’t revealed themselves yet. And we know this is true since Wei Yuan himself is one, not to mention Yu Zhizhuo, Feng Tingyu, Sun Yu.... ☜

3. Meaning to reveal his true intent. ☜