Chapter 330 — A Vast Sea of Blood

Shen Mu laughed heartily and waved farewell. The two white bats at once flew off into the valley, crying, "Wake the old ancestors and have them father a few girl children to breed the race! " "Even if they're born, they'll be our great-grandmothers — how are they supposed to breed the race? And besides, what if both old ancestors turn out to be male?

" "Shut up! " .

. . The Dragon Qilin left the Nether Valley, and before long a vast and surging battlefield came into view.

The mountain forests of the Duck-Tongue region had been trampled flat; the Duck-Tongue region of the Ruins stretched nearly a thousand li, woods and hills rolling on and on, and now it had been leveled by the armies of both sides and turned into the battlefield of the Mandi Kingdom and the Jingping Kingdom! When Shen Mu and the others arrived, a war of grand scale had just broken out.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides were slaughtering one another before the two passes; divine powers blotted out the sky and hid the sun, and enormous strange beasts trod the earth, bearing countless divine-power wielders forward, those wielders swarming around the beasts, floating in the air, alighting upon their backs. Beneath the mountain-like beasts were martial artists, sabers and swords in hand, sprinting forward with all their strength, crashing into the enemy on the ground, and in an instant flesh and blood flew in ribbons.

Above the beasts' heads, tower ships and great warships hung across the sky, banners streaming; from the ships came unceasing cannon fire, and beam after beam, thick as a water bucket, smote the enemy host with the power to annihilate all things — wherever they passed, everything was vaporized!

In midair, too, were countless glittering saber-orbs and sword-pills, spinning at furious speed; ding, ding, ding — blade-light and sword-light threaded in and out among flesh and blood. And in the air were great shamans of the Golden Palace, transformed into golden bird-headed, human-bodied forms, flying on beating wings; a shake of their hands sent countless rays of light shooting wildly in every direction.

On the ground, golden giants with elephant heads and human bodies charged recklessly about. On the passes of both sides stood great banners and great mirrors; the mirrors shone into the sky, reflecting the souls of the divine-power wielders, and the banners rolled and curled, and wind and cloud shifted, and thunderbolts hammered the battlefield like rain. There were huge cloud-carts too, hauled by bare-shouldered giants and driven into the thick of the field, leaving a trail of flying flesh and blood; reaching the front, the giants set the cloud-carts down and threw them open, and upon the carts stood countless gourds. The gourds' mouths were opened, and at once gu worms rose buzzing, blotting out sky and sun, burrowing into the bodies of the enemy soldiers and gnawing madly.

And altar after altar was pushed out; the golden great shamans of the Golden Palace worked their rites upon them, casting some sorcery or other that killed only the Jingping commanders, leaving the enemy without a head. On the Jingping side, company after company of sword-cultivating divine-power wielders were sent out, hacking a path through every obstacle straight into the field, to cut down the golden shamans upon the altars.

The scene was truly breathtaking; the two sides had clearly fought I know not how many rounds already, killing until blood ran in rivers, killing until the Duck-Tongue region had turned into a hell. It was the first time Shen Mu had seen so magnificent a spectacle, and his heart trembled.

This was the battlefield men yearn for — and also the place where men die. Xiong Xiyu held Xiong Qier close, her face somewhat pale, and said softly, "With a spectacle this huge, how are we to get through?

My cultivation has not yet recovered. .

. " She had recovered only to the level of the Heaven-Man realm; on a battlefield like this, the strength of the Heaven-Man realm counted for nothing at all.

On such a field, a Heaven-Man realm expert might die at any moment in a killing formation wrought by a band of Seven Stars realm soldiers. Even a Life-Death realm expert who forced his way onto the field could hardly keep himself alive. Xiong Xiyu had, after all, once been an existence of Sect Master rank; casting her eyes over the ground, she saw that wherever thirty or fifty men gathered, formation patterns kept lighting up — some laid upon the earth, some floating in the air — turning and shifting without cease, proof that vast though the battlefield was and many though the men were, the formations had never once fallen into disorder.

To break into them was to be ground to death by the war formations; if one formation failed to kill you, another would.

Shen Mu tightened the medicine basket on his back, and from inside it the village head laughed. "We just walk across. Shen'er, you've already learned that move, One Sword Opens the Imperial Bloody Ocean, haven't you? I'll perform it once more for you to watch.

" Something stirred in Shen Mu's heart, and suddenly boundless sword-light erupted and surged toward the battlefield; in an instant the radiance of the sword covered the field for li upon li before the two great passes.

Countless soldiers were bathed in an ocean of sword-light, and the sword-light circled and coiled about their bodies, so that they dared not move a muscle. The many soldiers standing atop the two great passes stared down and ahead, their scalps numb: this place had become a great sea of sword-light, and everyone was drowned in that ocean of light. "Sound the gong!

Recall the troops! " Fierce shouts came from the towers on both sides, but on the battlefield everyone stood rooted where they were, not daring to stir; not a single army withdrew, and even the tower ships in the air hung frozen in place. To move was to die. If that sword-light were to move, then it would be a sea of blood!

"A master has come! " On the tower of Qingmen Pass, a middle-aged man walked over and looked down, and saw a huge Dragon Qilin pacing neither fast nor slow through the ocean of sword-light.

"The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping! " The assembled soldiers all made their salutes.