Chapter 1505: Unable to Hold Back

Chapter 1505: Chapter 1505: Unable to Hold Back

"Pei Yan!"

A single mistake! It was only a single mistake! Yet in the blink of an eye the situation on the battlefield overturned completely! First Pei Yan shifted everyone’s attention onto himself, using the ground-launched attacks to cover up his true intent; when, following his rhythm, one’s focus fell onto resisting the seismic shock from the earth, those mechanical avatars that had been holding back their means of attack and had never once fired their railguns became the true killing move.

Looking at the shattered walls of Council City and the three great Council factions inside and outside the walls suffering heavy casualties, even the mild-tempered and elegant Aleister lost the composure he ought to have at this moment. Facing Pei Yan, who was slowly rising from the ground, he let out an enraged roar, and at the same time the boundless aura belonging to a Holy Mage burst forth from his body.

If it had been an army formed of other cultivators, had they not been relying on the combined aura of their battle formation to resist, the pressure radiating from Aleister alone would have been enough to make all enemy troops within its domain submit. Unfortunately, what Council City was facing this time was a mechanical puppet army that felt nothing toward fear and death!

"Attack!" Answering Aleister’s roar was Pei Yan’s order to advance. The shelling just now from the mechanical avatars had not only shattered the walls and slaughtered the enemy troops, it had also wrecked the Array that formed the Magic Ban Defense. With the source-energy barrier gone, the mechanical army no longer had any scruples; they dropped from the sky one after another, reformed their formations, and launched a general assault toward Council City.

Seeing the mechanical army surging up like a tidal wave, the remnants of the Templar Order outside the walls had already been completely scattered by Pei Yan’s bombardment. The few survivors left could only be like a mantis trying to stop a chariot in the face of the attacking phalanx, and the reinforcements inside the city had also taken grievous losses under the shelling. New forces were still jammed in the streets, rushing toward the breach in the wall.

It was still Aleister who, in the critical moment, turned the tide. In his fury he grabbed at the void with both hands, slashing several times in succession toward the direction of the mechanical army. Pei Yan saw the nearest Mage Towers to the wall respond to his movements from their summits, lighting up with dazzling radiance. Moments later, several beams of light shot out from the tops, sweeping across the battlefield under Aleister’s guidance.

Under the sweep of that violently raging, pure Magic element, the attack far exceeding the limit of their own magic-immune metal made entire ranks of mechanical cavalry turn into white smoke and revert to puppet state. In a single volley, more than a thousand cavalry at the very front were completely wiped out.

This counterstrike startled Pei Yan not a little. Indeed, the strength of every plane could not be underestimated. What he had originally regarded as mere towers for mages’ work actually possessed defensive functions. If a few more attacks like that were unleashed, wouldn’t his mechanical army be scrapped right here?

But he quickly dismissed that notion. If the opponent truly could do that, they would have done so long ago. Watching Aleister, who after unleashing that round of attack and slightly forcing back the mechanical army’s momentum did not continue to use this method, and then looking at those Mage Towers whose glow faded once the assault was over, Pei Yan understood that employing such strikes required paying a certain price and came with a cooldown.

He just didn’t yet know how long each interval lasted. Gazing at one Mage Tower after another of varying heights rising within Council City, and combining that with the area Aleister’s earlier attack had swept across, Pei Yan had a rough estimate of the towers’ attack range: every Mage Tower possessed its own defensive zone, and all the towers coordinated with each other to envelop the entire urban area within their protection, leaving any enemy that breached the city with nowhere to hide.

Even if each Mage Tower only hit his army once, he couldn’t afford it. It seemed he would have to predict the towers’ attack zones and destroy them first before entering.

Having settled his plan in mind, Pei Yan designated these temporarily silenced Mage Towers as his primary targets for destruction. Mechanical avatars, Steel Puppets, and the mechanical infantry regiment’s long-range rocket fire all rained down upon them.

Aleister had long anticipated that Pei Yan would react like this, but this time he no longer cared. Things had already escalated to such a degree; there was nothing left to hold back! To keep worrying now would only make matters worse! It was time for "catch the bandit, catch the king first" and to clash head-on with Pei Yan!

In this moment, the Bright Church, Mages, and Witches finally reached a consensus. If previously the Witch Association could still stand by and watch, the witches killed in this assault had now bound them to a blood feud with Pei Yan. The three forces joined hands and charged toward the Investigation Office phalanx.

Seeing this scene, the Plane Envoys who had come to watch no longer dared to posture. They hurriedly raised their altitude. Despite how brutally fierce the previous battle had been, they all knew that was merely an appetizer before the main course. In that state they had still been able to lounge around and watch from close range; but now that the top experts of both sides were about to engage in a true frontal clash, even with their strength they could not withstand being caught in the crossfire of combat at that level.

In a battle like this, anyone on Council City’s side below Heavenly Dao Apex no longer had the qualifications to participate. Fifteen Heavenly Dao Apex-level experts! Among them, six resurrected Round Table Knights from the Bright Church, three Archbishops of the Bright Church, three Holy Mages of the Mage Association, and three Saint Violet Witches of the Witch Association.

Fifteen Heavenly Dao Apex experts were of course not the entirety of Council City’s strength, but they were the highest price Council City was willing to pay for this incident. If even such a lineup could not halt Pei Yan’s offensive, then only two paths remained: one was to hand over the culprit for Pei Yan to dispose of and suffer a complete defeat in this war; the other was for the Supreme Master of Origin to personally make a move and annihilate the enemy.

Fifteen Heavenly Dao Apex experts were enough to sweep aside any single sect or faction within a plane, excepting the major Holy Lands. Even if it were any one sect among the Six Mansions of the Immortal Palace, without external reinforcement, facing a siege conducted by such a number of top experts leading an army could only end in defeat. White Deer Institute was the best example!

And if the Investigation Office managed to withstand such an encirclement, that would mean it officially rose to the level of a transcendent power, becoming an Immortal Palace of a cornerstone plane, able to stand shoulder to shoulder with Holy Lands of other planes. At that time, although it would still be somewhat lacking in underlying heritage, in terms of raw strength, no one would dare lightly question it anymore.

Pei Yan and the others understood this very well, and thus they too dispatched their strongest lineup.

Although the Elite Squad of the Investigation Office had emptied the nest this time, and although they had undergone their own awakenings, absorbed the abilities of prisoners from the Secret Prison, gained the aid of Lin Junzhao, and further experienced a massive power surge after signing a symbiotic Contracted Divine Beast pact with the Dragon Realm, among this team there were only six Children of Origin who could today stand against Heavenly Dao Apex in battle.

Pei Yan, Pei Jin, Gu Shenghui, Zheng Jia Ru, Xia Yu, and Hu Jiu, who after signing a symbiotic contract with Pei Yan likewise possessed six strands of Origin.

Thus this battle would become, before the eyes of the world, the first formal clash between the Children of Origin and the ceiling of ordinary cultivators—the Heavenly Dao Apex-level experts!