Chapter 386: Start
Translator: Law Editor: Hitesh
The Blood Cloud Mountain was nearly fifty-thousand meters tall, and was entirely red, shaped like a stone table. Compared to the other mountains in the surrounding, the Blood Cloud Mountain was soaring and rugged; with its precipitous geographic feature, the Blood Cloud Mountain had become an important stronghold for the human army’s defensive line, that was nearly ten-thousand miles long.
The Blood Cloud Mountain, which was nearly fifty-thousand meters tall, was cliffy and dangerously steep. All four sides of this mountain were basically cliffs and had zero vegetative coverage. Therefore, even apes could barely climb up to the mountaintop. A few extremely precipitous stairs were carved out of the mountains, which were the only path, leading to the mountaintop from the ground.
The mountaintop was a smooth, flat area, had the radius of around twenty miles, and was in a roughly round shape. An army force encamped in here, and tens of thousands of Senior Magi warriors had been guarding this spot. With the geographical advantages, this place looked quite like an iron fort that could never ever break.
The human army had spent a genuinely lot of efforts on this Blood Cloud Mountain, to turn it into a stronghold. A great lot of caverns were dug into the solid body of the mountain, as storage spaces for weapons and supplies; a great-scale magic formation was set up around the Blood Cloud Mountain, and the mountain was the most essential and solid core of this magic formation.
Looking from far away, one could find out that the Blood Cloud Mountain was in the middle of two great rivers, which looked like a pair of sharp and long blades. Mountains standing by the sides of the two rivers had been glowing brightly with blood-red light, reflecting the entirely blood-red Blood Cloud Mountain. Both of the two rivers had been flowing rapidly. When sunlight shone on the river surfaces, the river water would reflect the sun glow and create thousands of fierce, white light beams, dazzling everything all around them. From a great distance, one could sense an amazingly strong aura of killing, reaching straight to one’s face.
Tens of metal saucers, around a-zhang in radius each, were swiftly hovering in the sky. Yu Clan warriors who stood on those flying saucers had been carefully observing every single move that happened on and near the Blood Cloud Mountain, from hundreds of miles away and with their brightly shining, blood-red eyes.
As the Di Family was continuously sending their army forces to where the Blood Cloud Mountain was located, the number of human warriors gathered around the Blood Cloud Mountain had grown bigger and bigger as well. Normally, only twenty to thirty thousand human warriors were stationed in the camp on the mountaintop, but within only a couple of days, the scale of the camp had expanded for at least three times.
Except for those warriors stationed on the mountaintop, in the dense woods surrounding the Blood Cloud Mountain, simple wooden cottages had been built up in a line. Every day, large groups of people would sneakily walk in and out the woods. Deeper in the woods, large pieces of ground were exploited and cleaned, on which, large groups of human warriors would practice battling all day and night. The heavy breathing of those warriors sounded thunderous, and could even be heard over a hundred miles away.
Within the two great, rapid flowing rivers, which seemingly were pressing the Blood Cloud Mountain from both sides, a large number of serpents and boas were faintly visible. Among those serpents and boas, hazy silhouettes of flood dragons could be seen and from time to time, dragon roars would rise into the air as well. Northern Wasteland Senior Magi in black cloaks were mounted on those serpents and boas; each one of them held their heads high, looking proud and confident.
On the mountains, standing on both sides of the two rivers, large groups of fierce battling birds had been rising and landing. Countless archers came from the Eastern Wasteland, mounted on those large birds, and had been hovering around in the sky. Sometimes, some of them would even drive their birds and chase those Yu Clan warriors that stood on the flying saucers; archers and Yu Clan warriors often chased and launched threatening attacks against each other in the air. The winner could never be determined between them, even if this kept happening for half a day.
Hundreds of miles away from the Blood Cloud Mountain, twenty-two Blood Moon divine towers had been standing in a straight line.
Every twenty minutes, a perfectly straight, scanning light stream would be released from one divine tower towards the Blood Cloud Mountain, leaving an immense arc in the air. Every time before that scanning light stream, which was tailed by a long and huge arc, landed on the mountain, snow-white fierce light streams would rise from the rivers on both sides of the Blood Cloud Mountain, heavily clashing against the scanning blood-red light stream.
A loud series of popping noise was what would come next, followed by which, the scanning light stream would be blasted out. Countless thumb-sized, blood red spell symbols would be sent swiftly flying away in all directions, even o tens of miles away. Soon after, those blood-red spell symbols would explode all at once, after which, large amounts of twisted spell symbols would sparkle in the air and quickly merge back with the sky.
This magic formation that centered the Blood Cloud Mountain was called Perpetual Fastness magic formation, and was also located on the human army’s defensive line. It was set up upon tremendously great amount of rare and precious materials, and carefully designed on the basis of the surrounding, geographic environment. Magic formations like this could serve as a real iron wall, but it could never hide under the scanning light released by Blood Moon divine towers. Therefore, without much of a difficulty, the Di Family found out the existence of this great-scale magic formation.
Discovering this magic formation was indeed quite easy, but if they wanted to destroy it, they either had to break and evaporate the two great rivers, which extended for over hundred-thousand miles, or flatten the entire Blood Cloud Mountain. Apart from these two methods, no other ordinary move could do any harm to this great-scale, powerful magic formation.
“Hoyo~hoyo!”
Hundreds of non-humankind slaves, which had dark-brown skins that were dotted with large green flecks, were yelling in a very strange tone. They were wearing rag-like leather armors, carrying broken wooden shields, holding machetes and spears and rushing towards the Blood Cloud Mountain.
They rushed for around ten miles and stepped in the range of that great-scale magic formation set around the Blood Cloud Mountain, which was just detected by the scanning light stream.
Instantly, the two rivers let out thunderous buzzing noises and large amounts of spell symbols, which were drifting in the air, sparkled. The moisture in the air then quickly condensed into thousands of fist-sized, dazzlingly shining ice daggers, darting down towards the ground along with an ear-piercing swishing noise.
Those hundreds of non-humankind warriors burst out hoarse howls and screams. Those shining, as especially sharp ice dagger chopped them into pieces, broken body parts scattering all over the ground, while blood ceaselessly seeped into it.
The ground, which was covered by that magic formation, now became as greedy as devils. Flesh and blood of those non-humankind warriors was gradually swallowed up by the slowly squirming soil, after which, an extremely faint stream of blood mist flashed across the surface of the Blood Cloud Mountain. A gale then blew across the mountain, bringing up huge puffs of blood-red light spots, which then condensed into a thin, blood-red cloud drifting above the Blood Cloud Mountain!
Every time when living creatures died in battles within the range of this great magic formation around the Blood Cloud Mountain, a blood-red cloud would rise from the mountain. This was the origin of the name of this mountain, Blood Cloud Mountain.
“Ho~ha~ho~ha!”
Ji Hao bared his upper body, which was now completely soaked in sweat. A thick stick was carried on his shoulder, and a city-destroying demon crossbow was hung on that stick. He arduously carried that city-destroying demon crossbow and slowly moved this strangely heavy, destructive weapon into an arrow-releasing room, along one of the narrow tunnels inside the Blood Cloud Mountain.
All four walls of this arrow-releasing room were hardened by spell symbols. The north wall had a narrow breach on it, which could allow arrows to fly out of the mountain.
Normally, a hundred archers would guard this room; if the enemy attacked, they could release as many arrows as they liked from this arrow-releasing room. This room was located hundreds of meters high above the ground, and arrows released from this altitude had higher lethality. In the last few great wars, countless non-humankind warriors had been killed by arrows released from the Blood Cloud Mountain’s arrow-releasing rooms.
But today, no archers were guarding in here, and a city-destroying demon crossbow was carried in.
Even among the administrative class of the alliance of human clans, only a few knew about these city-destroying demon crossbows. With some solid difficulties, Ji Hao and a few other warriors, who were absolutely trusted by Si Wen Ming, carried these strangely heavy, giant crossbows all the way here.
While gasping desperately for air, they moved the city-destroying demon crossbow to the most strategically appropriate spot, then pressed on a huge spell symbol on the crust of the crossbow. Immediately after that, streams of bright light started flowing on this large-box-like city-destroying demon crossbow, and in the meanwhile, six sharp and thick thorns suddenly thrust out, piercing into the ground and firmly fixing the crossbow on the location.
Gasping for another while, Ji Hao and the others walked out quickly, carrying another city-destroying demon crossbow out of the storage room.
There were whole forty city-destroying demon crossbows in total, and Ji Hao and the other few warriors had just settled twenty of them. Suddenly, long and shrill horns came from the outside. Muffled footsteps started and dense clouds of dirt rose into the air. The Di Family had launched their first wave of attack.