Chapter 262: The Assassination by Men of Sacrifice
Translator: StackThatCoin Editor: Hitesh
Bringing with him the amazing loot, Wu Qi traveled straight back towards Meng Fortress. He had no intention to poke his nose into the place where Ying Zheng was trapped, as that was the heart of the conflict, and it bore great risks. Countless experts from three dynasties were fighting each other there, filling the area with all kinds of powerful divine abilities and mystical arts. He did not want to be caught in the middle, as he might get himself killed accidentally by some random strikes that were unleashed by those experts.
He still had several hundred ghosts and deities kept captive in his Spirit Breeding Ring, and currently, they were being crazily tortured by the Long Bo men. These were some poor ghosts and deities, and once Wu Qi refined them with Divine Flame of Order, they would be turned into the purest source energy of soul that could provide nourishment to Wu Qi's soul and Nascent Divinity. Perhaps, from the nourishment provided by these several hundred ghosts and deities, Wu Qi could have a Nascent Divinity that strong enough to fight against a Nascent Divinity cultivator, even though he was only a Gold Core cultivator. This was not something impossible!
Wu Qi kept running at top speed under the ground while having a big smile on his face. He purposely took a long detour and avoided running straight into the hot springs pools where Ying Zheng was currently being trapped, as he feared that somebody might discover his trace. However, although he wished he could avoid any potential troubles, the troubles had come to him deliberately. While he had transformed into a clump of earthy mist and was running wildly under the ground, all of a sudden came three loud piercing noises from both his left and right. Three bright lights were being shot into the ground from the sky above, which passed very closely near his body and went deeper into the ground.
The bright lights came with very high temperature and strong forces. They grazed the earthy mist, which was actually Wu Qi himself, and took away three large portions of it. That was no different from cutting away three large pieces of flesh from Wu Qi's body. Wu Qi howled with great pain, immediately transformed back to his true form and shot out from the ground. Then he saw three huge, bottomless holes on the ground. A massive amount of magma was in the middle of being spraying out from these holes, rolling and steaming, while scorching hot bubbles kept forming and bursting, slowly filling the three large holes.
Greatly infuriated, Wu Qi raised his head. He had already taken a long detour of over several hundred miles, just to avoid from running into the hot springs pools. But how was he still struck by this unwanted trouble for no apparent reasons?
Looking up into the sky, he saw Li Xin bring a group of several hundred soldiers off in the distance, each holding a strong crossbow in their hands and fighting a fierce battle with an army of nearly one thousand soldiers of Xiang Clan led by both Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang. Leading the army, Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang were letting out aggressive battle cries while charging viciously towards Li Xin. In the meanwhile, stepping on a flying machine with incredible speed, Li Xin and all the soldiers around him were flying and darting back and forth in the air. They tried distancing themselves from Xiang Ta and his soldiers while shooting bolts that looked dazzling like thunderbolts, killing mighty soldiers of Xiang Clan one after another.
The three bolts that nearly killed Wu Qi just now were actually shot out by Li Xin. They hit and killed a middle-grade captain of Chu army, throwing his body down to the ground, while maintaining their momentum and piercing into the earth, nearly nailing Wu Qi deep into the soil.
"You again, Li Xin!" cried Wu Qi sulkily under his breath as he glared at Li Xin, who was holding a crossbow and fighting with Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang in midair. With a twist of his body, he exercised the escape art of wood, turning himself into a misty green fog. Relying on the cover provided by the surrounding vegetation, he dashed towards the battlefield. He only wanted to return safely to Meng Fortress, but as he was hit by three bolts for no apparent reason, it made him boiling with rage now.
Very quickly, he arrived near the battlefield where Li Xin was fighting. Wu Qi then pulled out three Fiery Thunder Talismans made by Earth Immortals of Heavenly Spirit Sect, raised them up, and aimed right at Li Xin. He waited patiently, until when Xiang Zhuang thrust his sword towards Li Xin, and Li Xin sprung up in the air, pulled the bowstring, and shot out a bolt. Wu Qi immediately flicked his fingers. With that, all three talismans burned off instantly. All of a sudden, some red clouds that looked like burning flame came gathering quickly from all directions. In the next moment, a series of nine deafening thunderclaps burst out in the sky, while nine blinding balls of lights exploded right on Li Xin's body, breaking and shattering his body armor and turning him stiff.
Xiang Ta immediately saw the opportunity. With a blink of his body he came right next to Li Xin, thrust his sword forward and hacked viciously into Li Xin's waist. Li Xin howled as his armor was broken by Xiang Ta's powerful sword strike, while half of his waist was ripped apart. Blood sprayed and splashed out violently With that, Li Xin no longer dared to fight with Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang. Abruptly, a white Heavenly Horse emerged under him, as a pair of huge white wings spread out from its back. Then, it flapped the wings, brought Li Xin and turned into a white stream of light, shooting towards the direction of the hot springs pools.
Both Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang roared with laughter. Suddenly, a very strong blood red light burst out from their bodies, and abruptly, their height took a leap to about thirty feet tall. They were shrouded in a fiendish aura that rolled violently, and the blood red light spread and blanketed an area of about ten miles circumference. Together with nearly one thousand mighty soldiers of Xiang Clan whose eyes were bloodshot, they leaped towards those soldiers who were brought here by Li Xin. They hacked and slashed each of them and threw them to the ground. As Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang were both experts with cultivation base as strong as Nascent Divinity cultivators, none of these Qin soldiers could survive before them.
In just the time to finish a pot of tea, all Qin soldiers were killed by them. After that, Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang threw their heads back and issued a long cry. They brought their soldiers and charged towards another army of Qin soldiers off in a distance.
After unleashing the attack with three talismans, Wu Qi had immediately fled several tens of miles away. He was now hiding half way up a lofty mountain, carefully raising his head and looking into the direction of the hot springs pools. He saw that the pools were still completely covered with a layer of very dense pinkish mist and white steams, obscured and opaque.
Meanwhile, Bai Qi and many formidable civilian and military officials of Great Qin had woken up with a start by those Earth Immortals, who risked their lives to deliver the message. They were now crazily attacking while advancing towards the hot springs pools.
However, it would take some time before they could rush into the area, if they ever made it in the end. The outer perimeter was guarded by Xiang Ta and Xiang Zhuang, and an army of elite Chu soldiers, who kept hindering them by engaging them in a guerrilla warfare. At the same time, led by Fan Yuqi, Tian Guang, and Yue Yi, a battle formation consisting of elite soldiers from Great Yan had formed a tight encirclement around the hot springs pools.
Fan Yuqi had tied down Bai Qi in a fierce battle, while Tian Guang greeted upon Wang Jian smilingly. Yue Yi, on the other hand, had picked a general as his opponent, who stood right next to Bai Qi and Wang Jian, having a skinny stature, a pointy nose, and deep eyes. The three pairs of formidable generals were now fighting against each other in the sky. Laughing joyfully Yue Yi shouted, "Oh, Meng Ao?! So, you're also a famous general! Come, let's fight and see who is better!"
Under the lead of Bai Qitian and many other generals of Great Qin, the Qin army consisting of several hundreds of thousands of soldiers had lined up into a battle formation and were charging towards the hot springs pools. However, their assault was stopped by a military camp that was built in the vicinity of the hot springs. A Yan army consisting of several tens of thousands of soldiers had deployed several thousands of strange and peculiar machines in the area, constructed a military camp and stood up against the aggressive assault. The sky was blotted with raging flames, lightning bolts, and countless bolts and arrows. No matter how the Qin army kept launching assault after assault, the military camp that was formed from many machines with great offensive power still could not be moved by them.
Right when Wu Qi was looking around, a group of several tens of enormous steel beasts, each standing roughly one hundred feet tall and had taken the appearance of the mammoth, rushed savagely out from Great Yan's military camp while issuing loud and furious roars. These enormous steel beasts had a pair of large tusks that stretched nearly one hundred feet long, and were as sharp as the sharpest blade. When their bodies swayed from left to right, the several hundred long tusks would sweep across the land, cutting and slicing any Qin soldiers before them like a sickle cutting off weeds in the field.
Before Bai Qitian and any generals of Great Qin could come forth to fight these giant beasts, they suddenly opened their mouths, revealing a pitch-black, rounded steel pipe that came straight out from their throats.
*BOOM!!* *BOOOOM!!* Loud booming noises rang out in an instant, as several hundred steel balls with the size of a water bucket and purely forged using steel, their surfaces engraved with many runes and socketed with numerous upper-grade fire element energy stones, shot right out from these pipes and landed right into the troops of Qin army with the highest density.
Noises of loud booming filed the air without end, while an area of over ten miles was completely enveloped in scorching flame. The power of each of these rounded steel balls was at least twenty times stronger than the most powerful aerial bomb Wu Qi ever saw when he was on Earth. The destructive forces that generated by the explosion of one single steel ball could blanket an area of one mile. When several hundreds of these steel balls exploded in a rather small area, they generated a tremendous shockwave that rolled up several tens of steel mammoths and threw them back into Great Yan's military camp, crashing into and killing several thousand Yan soldiers and captains.
"Oh my goodness!" Wu Qi cried out with great shock.
These strange looking machines should be the weapons of mass destruction that were produced by Mo Sect. And sure enough, after combined the power of mechanical and the Dao of Dharmic Puppet, these were some formidable gears of war with incredible forces. The power of those steel balls was almost equal to a full force attack of a peak-stage Gold Core cultivator. Nevertheless, none of the generals of Great Qin suffered too much of damage when several hundred steel balls exploded at the same time. But, it was a completely different scenario for the elite soldiers of Qin army. Many of them were either killed on the spot or severely wounded, with broken and badly mutilated dead bodies of Qin soldiers scattered all over the place.
While fighting Fan Yuqi in midair, Bai Qi had his body trembling from head to toe. He looked down at the soldiers of Qin army, who had just suffered a great loss from the explosion, then roared furiously, "Mo Di! How dare you help Great Yan in killing the soldiers and captains of Great Qin?! We, the Great Qin, will definitely eradicate your orthodox sect in the future!"
While Bai Qi was roaring and yelling furiously, Wu Qi suddenly felt there was an extremely sharp air shooting at him from behind, aiming right at the vital part on his back.
In the briefest moment, Wu Qi leaned forward and balled himself up, then rolled straight down from the mountain. Immediately after that, a blue sword, six feet long brushed against Wu Qi's back, but missed by a distance of merely a sesame seed. The sword was glinting with a rainbow gleam, and was just about the size of a finger from edge to edge, so thin it looked nearly transparent. Its surface was faintly stained with some liquid. Obviously, it contained some deadly poison.
Some shadows were seen twisting and blinking in midair. Suddenly a group of several dozens of vague human figures rushed out from the air, all carrying the same strange blue sword with them. Upon revealing themselves, they immediately pursued behind Wu Qi without making any noise. It seemed like they knew some kind of very strange escape art, as every now and then, they would disappear for a brief moment, then reappeared at a further distance. In such a manner, they pressed forward, and in just a blink of an eye, they had caught up with Wu Qi. Like a shower of rain, several tens of blue swords fell thrusting down onto him at the same time.
On top of that, some figures were seen performing hand incantations not far behind while snapping at Wu Qi under their breath. Waves of strange Dharmic powers came to Wu Qi like tidal waves, trying to freeze him right in the air and restrain his movement.
The speed Wu Qi rolling down the mountain became slower and slower, and there were even a few times he nearly had his body cut by those swords.
Right when Wu Qi was about to launch a counterattack, four vague and obscure figures suddenly sprung to his side. Then, they self-exploded without the slightest hesitation. The sound of loud boom echoed throughout the entire battlefield, and very bright pillars of light towered into the sky. Shockingly, all four self-exploded figures were Human Immortals of mid-stage Gold Core realm!!
The self-explosion of Human Immortals was meant to kill Wu Qi! All of these figures were men of sacrifice!
Wu Qi could only feel a tremendous shockwave rushing at him from all directions. Even with his fleshly body a few months into cultivating the Dragon Transformation Script, he felt he could not withstand such a strong pressure. Hastily, he waved his left hand and activated the Earth Element Dragon Scales Shield, transforming it into a layer of yellow light that wrapped around him. All thirty-six thousand dragon scales shot whistling out, wheeling around him and providing a strict protection to all his vital points.
The self-explosion could not hurt Wu Qi, even by the tiniest bit. However, he was badly shaken by the shockwave, while it also brought him high up in the air, then threw him right into the battlefield where Bai Qi and all the other people were fighting fiercely.
Wu Qi let out a long cry furiously, "You b*stards!!!!"
He could do nothing but just keep watching as he flew straight towards Bai Qi. He had no clue as to who those men of sacrifice pledged loyalty to, but they were still chasing closely behind, and one after another kept self-exploding, three to five Human Immortals of Gold Core realm at once. The constant shockwave made him unable to adjust his direction, and could only shoot straight towards Bai Qi like a cannonball.