Chapter 650: The Trap

The Rescue Army’s Flying Boats had no intention of letting the two remaining enemy Flying Boats escape so easily.

These Demon Sect Flying Boats had been tailing the Rescue Army from a distance for days, using their Eye Demons to track their movements remotely. They were as annoying as flies.

Now that they had a chance to deal with these annoying flies in one fell swoop, the Rescue Army was naturally unwilling to let them go.

Just as the Rescue Army’s Flying Boats passed over Feiman Mountain, roiling Demon Qi surged up from below.

Low Tier Little Demons, their faces flushed red, pushed their Qi Power and Demon Power to the absolute limit. They drew their heavy bows and unleashed a volley of arrows.

Because of their inferior bloodlines, these Little Demons were too dull-witted to learn any Demon Techniques. However, they relied on brute strength, instinctively wrapping their arrows in Demon Power. The resulting shots were no weaker than the Magic of a Qi Cultivator.

Even a Golden Core Cultivator would have to steer clear of such a dense rain of arrows.

With tens of thousands of Demons drawing their bows in unison, a Foundation Establishment Cultivator caught in the barrage would have their Spiritual Qi depleted in no time, even with a Defensive Spirit Light raised. They would die, pierced by a thousand arrows.

However, a barrage like this was nothing to a Tier Three Flying Boat.

The Defensive Array raised by the Flying Boat easily blocked the arrow storm. The Spiritual Qi consumed was a mere drop in the ocean compared to the massive output of the Spiritual Eye Object.

The pilots steering the Flying Boats reacted extremely quickly. Upon detecting the allied Demon army hidden below, they immediately activated the offensive Arrays and began to ascend.

BOOM!

With the Divine Crow Flying Fire Formation activated, dense swarms of divine crows made of Spiritual Fire flew out from the sides of all the Flying Boats.

These Fire Crows fell like a meteor shower, crashing down with a roar.

The Foundation Establishment Great Demons in the allied army hurriedly linked their Demon Power, forming a roiling black cloud that rose to intercept the blazing Fire Crows.

The moment the Fire Crows made of Spiritual Fire touched the Demon Cloud, they exploded, turning into massive fireballs in mid-air.

Even though the Foundation Establishment Great Demons desperately held on, straining their Demon Power to the limit, the Demon Cloud was still blasted to pieces. The remaining Fire Crows passed through the gaps in the cloud and landed amidst the allied Demon army’s formations.

Billowing Spiritual Fire bloomed like lotus flowers of flame within the allied Demon army.

No matter how strong the bodies of the Qi Refining Little Demons were, they were instantly turned to ash upon being consumed by the fiery lotuses. Even Foundation Establishment Demon Kings who were touched by the Spiritual Fire howled in agony and ran, trying to extinguish the flames that clung to them like maggots on a corpse.

Golden Core Demon Kings immediately took action, striking down the Foundation Establishment Great Demons who were disrupting the army’s formation and fending off the Fire Crows that had slipped through the Demon Cloud.

Under the forceful suppression of the Demon Kings, the allied Demon army’s commotion lasted only a moment before order was restored. They braced themselves as the whistling Fire Crows exploded around them, drew their bows, and fired their arrows high into the sky.

The two fleeing Demon Sect Flying Boats up ahead also turned around, attempting to pin down the Rescue Army’s Flying Boats.

The Rescue Army’s Flying Boats didn’t hesitate in the slightest. After unleashing three volleys from the Divine Crow Flying Fire Formation, they ignored the two returning enemy boats and chose to continue gaining altitude.

It wouldn’t be easy for the Rescue Army’s Flying Boats to completely annihilate the army of allied Demons and Demon Sect Flying Boats before them, but heavily damaging them was quite simple.

Back when the Rescue Army was first formed, these flight crews would have certainly tried every trick to kill more Demons for military merits, which could be exchanged for Spiritual Pills and Magical Artifacts. Even those who could restrain their greed and remain calm would have been swept along against their will. It might have even led to the entire squadron falling into a vortex of division and insubordination.

But under Yang Jing’s repeated orders and numerous harsh punishments, the members of the Rescue Army had shed the profit-driven habits they’d developed as Independent Cultivators—gathering when there was profit and scattering when there was none. They had, with some difficulty, begun to resemble a disciplined force that obeyed orders without question.

This particular squadron, formed specifically to hunt Demon Sect Flying Boats, was composed of the Rescue Army’s most capable, sharp, and cautious members.

An allied Demon army this large couldn’t have been mobilized on short notice. If they lingered here for too long, more Demons would surely arrive to reinforce the encirclement. At that point, leaving wouldn’t be so simple.

The retreat of the Rescue Army’s Flying Boats greatly frustrated the Nascent Soul Demon Saint who had organized the ambush.

One after another, Demon Countries had been annihilated, shaking the morale of the Demon Court’s Eastern Expedition Army. The Demon Emperor was furious because of this. The Demon Saints left guarding the Demon Court didn’t dare to be negligent. They mobilized all available forces within the Demon Court’s domain to encircle and destroy the Rescue Army.

These few Demon Sect Flying Boats were meant to, one, track the Rescue Army’s movements, and two, act as bait at the critical moment to lure them into the encirclement.

But the Rescue Army’s Power and caution had exceeded their expectations. A single small squadron had been enough to soundly defeat the Flying Boats that had been rented at great expense from the Four Great Demon Sects.

They had originally planned to use the grand Demon army and the Demon Sect Flying Boats to pin down this pursuing squadron and then draw in the main force of the Rescue Army.

Now, most of the bait had been taken, but the fish was about to slip the hook and escape. How could they tolerate that?

“Attack!”

Lu Peng Great Saint, Duqi Great Saint, and Jiao Yuan Great Saint had been watching coldly as their army was slaughtered, barely able to contain themselves. The moment they heard the command to attack, they immediately chose to reveal their True Bodies.

Three terrifying Demons, each the size of a small mountain, revealed their forms. The Demon Fiend that surged skyward was like a storm, uprooting the giant trees in the surroundings. The three Demon Saints stomped in unison. The immense Giant Power caused the mountain to shake violently, sending earth and stone tumbling as the ground rolled like ocean waves.

The next moment, the Demon Saints shot into the sky, flying in unison toward the Flying Boats above.

Although the Rescue Army on the Flying Boats had anticipated this, they still fell into a brief panic upon seeing the three menacing Demon Saints flying toward them.

It wasn’t easy for a Nascent Soul Cultivator to break through the Defensive Array of a Tier Three Flying Boat, but they were far more agile than the massive vessels. They could easily tie down a Flying Boat, using various methods to deplete its Spiritual Qi. And while the offensive Arrays installed on the Flying Boats were powerful, they were too cumbersome and had great difficulty hitting a nimble Nascent Soul Cultivator.

Once the Spiritual Eye Object at the Flying Boat’s core could no longer sustain the output and support the Defensive Grand Array, the Flying Boat would be no different from an iron coffin.

“Form the Fish Scale Formation!”

The commander of the entire Flying Boat squadron was a Golden Core Cultivator. Back when he was still the head of an Immortally Cultivation Clan, the sight of three menacing Nascent Soul Demon Saints charging at him would have likely left him frozen in fear. He would have been too terrified to make any decisions, able only to await his slaughter.

But after joining the Rescue Army, he had personally witnessed them slay more than twenty Nascent Soul Demon Cultivators and Nascent Soul Great Demons. He had even commanded a Flying Boat to pin one down himself.

Those Nascent Soul Cultivators, once figures of untouchable status, were no different from stray dogs when they died.

The Flying Boat squadron was in disarray for only a dozen breaths before they changed formation under the commander’s orders, forming the Fish Scale Formation.