The soldiers in those square formations had cultivation no lower than the eighth or ninth layer of the Acquired realm. Many Innate martial artists led the ranks and would help draw upon the primal energy of heaven and earth.
Even three or five such martial artists would be honored guests in the mortal world. Yet in this enormous army, they seemed to be the most ordinary soldiers, gathered to resist the beast tide.
The Innate martial artists raised their hands. Powerful energy surged from their palms, and the soldiers behind them released all their strength into it.
Formless spheres of energy formed above the palms of the Innate martial artists, resonating and linking with one another. Within a few blinks, they gathered together, stretching and expanding as an earth-shaking force began to take shape!
The defensive barrier still glowed with colorful light, but far away the savage beasts were already surging forward like a bank of clouds. They advanced with the force of thunder and the ceaseless movement of water.
They ran with astonishing speed, and within barely seven or eight minutes they were upon the defenders!
Boom! Boom, boom!
Once! Twice! Three times!
A succession of impacts rang out as the savage beasts rammed their heads madly against the barrier.
In only a short time, the barrier began to tremble.
The cultivators standing upon the walls seemed prepared. Each raised a small flag and chanted, striking forward with an outstretched arm. Rays of light emerged from the flags and sank into the barrier.
The barrier flashed repeatedly and soon stabilized.
The savage beasts charged more fiercely, and the cultivators formed hand seals faster. For the moment the opposing sides were deadlocked.
Clearly, they had fought one another often enough to become practiced at this.
The one-horned savage beasts were the obvious choice for the front line. For some unknown reason, they hurled themselves forward with no regard for their lives.
Although cultivators had limited reserves of true essence, they had made preparations. Whenever one tired, another immediately stepped in to take their place. They would not allow the beasts to break the barrier!
Above the soldiers inside the shield, a transparent object several dozen zhang tall gradually formed over each square formation.
Each was taking shape from an invisible state, slowly becoming partly solid.
They differed in appearance: enormous sabers, long spears, great hammers, and other heavy or sharp weapons representing the full array of martial arms.
As these weapons took shape, they emitted increasingly formidable pressure.
Though they were formed entirely from the soldiers’ gathered power, they had grown strong enough to force many cultivators to avoid them.
That energy carried a terrifying will: the spirit of soldiers who had fought through bloody battles, who were ready to kill or die without thought of themselves. Gathered within the mighty weapons, their shared resolve gave rise to this dreadful pressure capable of mobilizing heaven-and-earth primal energy!
Perhaps the savage beasts sensed it too. From the dark mass behind the front line came a sudden high-pitched cry.
As though receiving an order, the maddened beasts abruptly halted and withdrew rapidly like a receding tide.
At that very moment, dozens of black pillars of light shot skyward and washed over the barrier like streams of water!
The cultivators atop the walls showed no relief at the beasts’ retreat.
As expected, the situation changed again. The pillars struck the barrier and triggered vast eruptions of colored light!
That radiance formed disk-like shields to resist the force of the pillars. The pillars pressed onward, relentlessly trying to bore through.
Much of the light was neutralized, but some still reached the barrier, emitting a sizzling sound like boiling water.
Black spots appeared where the beams washed over the shield, spreading visibly in all directions.
“That’s Spirit-Extinguishing Blood Poison!”
“What? They’ve released it this early? Are they planning something?”
“Look carefully! It’s only the weakest kind. Surely we can withstand it!”
“What are you afraid of? Our primal weapons will soon take shape. Even if the barrier collapses, we’ll be fine!”
The soldiers below continued refining the weapons overhead while crying out in alarm.
But they were all strong-willed people. Almost immediately, they summoned even greater strength to complete the primal weapons!
At last, after more black pillars struck, the barrier gave a clear chime like shattering glass and broke apart.
The protective barrier had fallen!
But at that same instant, the primal weapons above every formation were completed, narrowly in time!
When Xu Ziqing and the other temporarily attached cultivators arrived, they saw dozens of colossal primal weapons crashing into the savage-beast herds like mountains.
One enormous hammer struck down and killed thousands of savage beasts!
A huge saber sent blade qi sweeping across the plain, cutting deep fissures into the earth and sending countless savage beasts tumbling into them!
A long spear flickered at its tip, producing thousands of spear shadows that pierced a hundred savage beasts!
There were also whips, swords, great axes, and many more primal weapons, each displaying overwhelming force!
Though the cultivators had seen many wonders, they had never imagined that mortal martial artists of relatively low status could become so mighty when they joined their strength!
Even certain Golden Core cultivators could not match weapons of this power. Trying to block one directly would almost certainly lead to trouble.
Dozens of primal weapons struck together like dozens of Golden Core cultivators attacking at once. In only a few breaths, they cleared a broad area of the savage beasts’ vanguard, leaving countless severed limbs and mangled bodies!
Seeing that their strike had succeeded, the soldiers shouted triumphantly, morale surging.
But they knew the move required too much time to prepare. Having killed tens of thousands of beasts with one attack, they could not immediately repeat it.
Instead, they gathered their courage and formed the battle formations honed through hundreds and thousands of drills. Without fear of death, they charged into the savage-beast herds together!
A million soldiers surged forward, their battle cries shaking the heavens.
Their momentum was irresistible. Even the cultivators high above felt their blood stir, seized by the soldiers’ fearless bravery and eager to enter the battle themselves.
At once the cultivators descended toward the battlefield, scattering through the air like countless moths or falling raindrops.
Xu Ziqing and Yun Lie moved together and arrived in the middle of the battlefield.
The one-horned savage beasts below were battling the soldiers. Among them, only those with red or golden horns could release Spirit-Extinguishing Blood Poison, and even then their poison was much weaker than that of beasts with multiple horns. They were therefore the main opponents of the martial-artist soldiers.
But cultivators like Xu Ziqing and Yun Lie would have to face the herds beyond those hundreds of thousands of one-horned beasts!
After several uses of the wind-controlling art, Xu Ziqing and Yun Lie, like the other cultivators, finally reached the rear of the one-horned herds.
Beyond them were countless multi-horned savage beasts, at least as numerous as the one-horned beasts in front, watching intently!
Many cultivators immediately began casting spells.
Spiritual light erupted everywhere. Stronger cultivators sent magical treasures plunging down to smash the beasts’ heads. Weaker ones paired up to form arrays, trapping beasts before killing them.
These savage beasts were also exceptionally dangerous. They raised their heads and released pillars of light in three colors: black, red, and gold, which flared dazzlingly.
Spirit-Extinguishing Blood Poison was exceedingly powerful. Magical treasures touched by it were almost instantly defiled. Certain treasures with strong protective radiance could wear the poison down little by little, eventually prevailing in the struggle. But weaker cultivators saw their treasures blacken immediately; the poison then pierced their skin, turned their bodies black, and dropped them lifeless to the earth.
This blood poison was the savage beasts’ innate divine ability. Once a savage beast grew more than one horn, it could emit Spirit-Extinguishing Blood Poison regardless of its horn color.
The poison was horrifying. Anyone touched by it had to take an extraordinarily precious antidote immediately, or it would enter the body and turn the flesh itself poisonous. Yet that was not its worst effect. It was called “Spirit-Extinguishing” because it destroyed intelligence and spirit. Upon entering the body, it first corroded the sea of consciousness, dissolving the soul and primordial spirit. The victim’s awareness vanished completely, and only afterward did the flesh rot into a corpse.
Such a victim could not even enter reincarnation!
The poison’s strength varied with the savage beast’s rank and the colors of its horns.
Golden-horned blood poison was strongest, red-horned next, and black-horned weakest. At the same realm, a five-horned savage beast’s poison could destroy the primordial spirit of a Nascent Soul ancestor and poison even the Nascent Soul itself.
Savage beasts could not fly, but at high levels their blood poison could pierce the sky and drag cultivators down from the air.
How could anyone fail to fear such terrifying poison?
Without this divine ability, cultivators could simply remain airborne and cast spells at the beasts. They would hardly be so vigilant against the tides!
Two- and three-horned savage beasts gathered in herds, emitting ever more blood poison until half the sky seemed covered. Many cultivators could defend one side but not another. Some fought back to back, using powerful magical treasures to strike the poison-releasing beasts below.
Even so, numerous low-rank cultivators were knocked from the sky and reduced to heaps of rotting flesh.
Only those at Essence Transformation or Golden Core could endure longer.
But the fourth-rank beasts had not yet appeared, and the fifth-rank beasts remained hidden. With so many fellow cultivators dying, no one could take any pleasure in the battle.
Xu Ziqing and Yun Lie had already begun fighting.
Yun Lie’s sword qi condensed into sword aura, sweeping in every direction. The blood poison of the two- and three-horned beasts was shredded before it could approach him.
He claimed a space of his own and raised a massive golden sword. Its domineering force drove all other cultivators away from the air above that area, and he repeatedly struck down, sweeping the beasts beneath it aside.
Seeing his senior brother’s terrifying prowess, Xu Ziqing was eager to display his own skills.
Soft green light shrouded him. Yi Wood qi covered his body, repelling the stench and poisonous blood qi surrounding him. When blood-poison pillars rose toward him, he dodged from side to side; when he could not evade, the dozens of Qingyun Needles gathered into a green cloud to protect him completely.
Yet that only allowed him to defend himself. On a battlefield like this, he could not be satisfied with mere survival.
After thinking for a moment, he summoned a flash of bloody light into his palm and grasped a vine.
He could now manifest Rongjin externally without keeping it linked to his flesh and blood. If he used it as a magical treasure, he reasoned, perhaps no one would become suspicious.