Chapter 416: War

In the Shaman realm, within the canopy of an ancient tree, a pair of eyes suddenly opened and fixed their gaze on the distance. There, a squadron of human cavalrymen surrounded by thick army aura appeared, galloping in short, quick strides.

Just as the cavalry approached, a figure darted out from the tree, spread its wings, and soared off into the distance. However, a stream of fire suddenly rained down from the sky and engulfed it.

Wei Yuan had used a Skyfire Spell to eliminate the Shaman scout. He could no longer remember how many he had already eliminated along the way.

He was leading this small squadron of cavalry in a relentless advance—push, push, and push again. They did not attack the villages and towns they encountered along the way, leaving them for the forces following behind.

Suddenly, Wei Yuan’s perception stirred, and he detected a Shaman force moving along another road several thousand zhang away. They were headed in the same direction as his own.

He immediately flew over to investigate and discovered that this was a migrating tribe. Numbering over 20,000 people and guarded by approximately 5,000 armored warriors, they were moving several hundred boat-carriages including a mobile altar built atop a large eight-wheeled carriage.

Wei Yuan immediately returned to his squadron upon discovery. The entire unit changed course, cutting diagonally in front of the Shamans and taking up position on a small hill. Chaos erupted among the Shamans as they frantically reorganized their formation, and a Great Warlock within their ranks ascended the altar and began a complex ritual.

Just then, the sound of hooves suddenly thundered from behind the Shaman tribe. Two cavalry units of 1,000 each were charging at their rear!

That was the moment Wei Yuan chose to launch his assault. Pinned between three forces, the enemy was routed in an instant. At the same time, Wei Yuan struck down the Great Warlock with over ten consecutive Dao spells, leaving them on the brink of death, before dragging them back to the ranks to spread the Heaven Merits around.

With the battle decided, Wei Yuan continued to lead the vanguard deeper into enemy territory, leaving the two cavalry units behind to indiscriminately slaughter the surviving members of the Shaman The first principle of engagement Wei Yuan had established for this battle was to slaughter every mobile Shaman of the Kingdom of Rain.

A little less than an hour later, the projection in the Great Realm showed that nearly every enemy marker around the two cavalry units had vanished. Only a little over a thousand Shamans managed to flee into the mountains. Without clearing the battlefield, the two cavalry units set off toward two other unexplored directions.

Four hours later, another Shaman force appeared.

They were horrified by the carnage on the battlefield, but could not resist picking up the loot strewn across the ground. As a result, they were spotted by a third 1,000-man cavalry unit passing through the area and took a devastating surprise attack from the rear, losing more than half of their men. After defeating the enemy, this cavalry unit likewise did not clear the battlefield and continued to advance deeper into the territory.

Wei Yuan’s objective in this battle was clear: the city of the Kingdom of Rain several hundred li away from him. This particular city had existed for over 1,000 years and hundreds of thousands of Shamans living within its walls. A million more resided in the scattered villages and towns surrounding it.

Wei Yuan advanced strictly according to plan, controlling his pace to conserve his horses’ stamina.

On the way, if he encountered a Shaman force that was marching toward the city, he would make sure to eliminate them first. Though small individually, these forces could add up to a significant force. Allowing them to reach the city and take refuge there would have been a major mistake.

It wasn’t until they were twenty li of that city that Wei Yuan began leading his troops in a charge.

At this point, the landscape consisted of gentle rolling hills and countless stakes standing in low-lying ponds. These were the paddy fields upon which the Shamans depended for their livelihood. Dotted among the fields were village huts, all built in a style where the houses were partially submerged in the water.

A faint green qi rose from the huts, constantly spreading out into the surrounding world.

The Shamans working in the fields all stood up and watched with some bewilderment as the iron cavalry of Qingming galloped past them, momentarily unable to comprehend what was happening. When they did, they screamed and fled back to the village to sound the alarm bells and light the smoke signals.

In an instant, more than ten smoke signals were lit in quick succession. From a bird’s eye view, the smoke signals moved in a straight line straight toward the city!

Wei Yuan rode at the head of the column. He could already see the city in the distance. Smoke signals were also rising from within the city. Bells rang chaotically, and the city gates were slowly closing. Countless Shamans were scrambling to rush through the gates, while those who couldn’t make it in time scattered into the surrounding countryside.

Wei Yuan’s arrival was so sudden that the city-wide defense array hadn’t even had the time to activate.

Watching the city gates close, Wei Yuan leaped directly onto the city walls. At the same time, two tiny figures darted out from his body. They pounced back and forth, swift as lightning, and fell Shaman fighters in droves wherever they passed.

Two Great Warlock-level warriors, filled with a mix of shock and rage, rushed forward to engage him. But the moment one of them showed his head, Wei Yuan used the Immaculate Pure Land to riddle him with holes. Since becoming an Avatar, the firing rate of the Immaculate Pure Land had risen accordingly. He could empty a magazine of twenty flying swords in a single second. An ordinary Great Warlock simply couldn’t withstand such a ferocious assault.

The other Great Warlock was attacked by the two tiny figures. They were torn to pieces in an instant.

During this time, the cavalry had arrived at the city walls. Several cavalrymen used heavy hammers to chisel holes in the wall, then packed them with explosives.

A series of explosions erupted, and half the gatehouse collapsed. The city-wide defense array was destroyed as well. The cavalry added another two rounds of explosives, this time completely blowing down the two massive gates. The cavalry then surged into the city like wolves among sheep!

At that moment, Wei Yuan soared into the air and surveyed the entire city. A brand-new map of the city’s defenses quickly materialized within the Great Realm, with details constantly being added in real time.

The ferret and the cat raced along the city walls, specifically targeting and destroying war machines such as large bed crossbows, as well as the nodes of the city-wide defense array. They moved with blinding speed. Although three Great Warlocks were chasing desperately behind them, they could not catch up no matter how hard they tried.

Wei Yuan quickly located the altar, and the moment he did, the cavalry inside the city instantly changed course, charging toward it. By now, the city was in utter chaos. Small groups of Shaman soldiers had no idea what was happening. They didn’t even know where the enemy was.

Seated on the altar was an elderly Great Warlock. His entire body was submerged in the blood pool, and the altar itself was radiating a hazy, blood-red glow. A mist of blood qi rose from it.

In Wei Yuan’s eyes, subtle forces rose from the altar and dispersed into Heaven and Earth. In turn, Heaven and Earth fed an equivalent amount of origin qi into the Blood Warlock’s body. This exchange seemed to be the truth of the Sacrifice to Heaven ritual.

For a moment, Wei Yuan did nothing and simply observed quietly. This was a rare opportunity to observe a Shaman performing a Sacrifice to Heaven ritual. This particular ritual clearly was no ordinary affair either—there were several hundred human heads and corpses arranged around the altar, most of them young and strong.

The blood flowing toward the center of the altar pulsed with vibrant vitality, but as soon as it entered the blood pool, what flowed out from the bottom was a pale, viscous liquid, discharged as wastewater. The blood qi itself had vanished without a trace.

As Wei Yuan observed, it seemed that the vitality with the blood had been delivered to Heaven and Earth, rather than being absorbed by the old Shaman. The old Shaman was absorbing the origin qi returned by Heaven and Earth.

After Wei Yuan occupied the altar, the cavalry shifted their focus and split into ten squadrons of 100 men each, heading toward the key locations Wei Yuan had identified.

The vanguard cavalry consisted entirely of Dao Foundation stage cultivators, each armed with a flying-sword gun. Small units of two to three hundred Shamans were decimated at first contact, while those who hesitated even a little were utterly annihilated.

The cavalrymen periodically hurled explosives into the surrounding buildings as well. Just a few blasts were enough to bring a whole building crashing down.

The massive commotion happening throughout the city finally caught the attention of the old Shaman at the altar. The blood qi on the altar rippled, and he slowly opened his eyes, about to awaken from the ritual.

Wei Yuan stopped observing, took out a crate of explosives, and threw it directly into the blood pool.

A deafening roar echoed through the air. A column of blood shot up from the pool, soaring dozens of zhang high, while the old Shaman’s body was hurled into the air, tumbling like a tattered rag doll.

Wei Yuan pointed at him, and streaks of skyfire descended one after another, instantly engulfing the old Shaman!

When the smoke cleared, the surface of the altar lay in utter ruin. All the mystic arrays had been destroyed, and the blood had been burned into vast patches of charred residue.

All four of the old Shaman’s arms had vanished, and his shriveled, aged body was curled up in agony. Glancing at the city and his cavalrymen, Wei Yuan felt that it wasn’t the right time to distribute the Heaven Merits. A mere 100 Heaven Merits weren’t worth the trouble anyway. So, he shot a Water Blade and obliterated the old Shaman’s sea of consciousness.

By now, every scion following Wei Yuan possessed a substantial amount of Heaven Merits in their pockets. There was no longer any need to disrupt an ongoing battle just for a few or a dozen Heaven Merits. Gone were the days when they would go mad with greed at the mere sight of Heaven Merits.

With the altar destroyed and the cavalry launching indiscriminate attacks, the entire city descended into chaos. The Shamans had no idea how many enemies had arrived; all they could hear was the sound of gunfire everywhere. Flames burned in every corner, and a ceaseless series of explosions blew one magnificent building after another to the ground.

At this point, Wei Yuan felt somewhat relieved. Had the Shamans reinforced their buildings with steel bars, as Xu Wenwu had mentioned in his materials, there was no way they would have collapsed with a single explosion.

The cavalry units split up once more, forming squads of twenty to thirty men each as they advanced through the streets and alleys. Whenever they encountered Shaman troops, they would unleash a barrage of gunfire that left the ground littered with corpses in the blink of an eye.

The flying swords proved devastating against the Shaman civilians and ordinary fighters. It was common for a single flying sword to sever limbs or pierce through three or four people at once.

Whenever they encountered a Shaman ambush or a building where enemies were hiding, the cavalrymen would simply toss explosives to bring down the entire structure, burying all the Shamans inside.

Every now and then, a Shaman warrior would make a desperate, all-or-nothing charge and fight their way to the cavalrymen, only to discover in despair that these heavily armored, formidably-armed cavalrymen were all Dao Foundations!

Meanwhile, Wei Yuan glided slowly through the air and occasionally bestowed the Great Realm’s blessings upon the troops below. If he spotted signs of the enemy army regrouping, he would hurl several Skyfire Spells at them and scatter them instantly.

There were a total of six Great Warlocks in the city. By this point, three had died, and the other three had fled.

Though Wei Yuan appeared relaxed and in full control of the situation, he was actually using up a ton of mystic energy. He was constantly replenishing his troops’ army aura with his mystic energy because otherwise, they would become directly exposed to the Shaman realm’s environment, and their strength would be drastically weakened.

At that moment, a towering column of army aura appeared in the distance—the middle guard of 20,000 mounted infantry had finally arrived!

No more than two hours had passed from the moment Wei Yuan’s vanguard entered the city to the arrival of the middle guard from the rear. However, due to an unexpected incident along the way, the middle guard ultimately arrived a ke later than planned.

There were no further complications after the main force had arrived, and the entire city fell into Wei Yuan’s hands.

The one leading the main force was Cui Yu. After arranging his troops to take control of the city and clear the battlefield, he sought out Wei Yuan and remarked emotionally, “How come this was so easy? Since when did the Shamans become so weak?”

Wei Yuan was taken aback. “What do you mean, ‘easy’?”

Cui Yu replied, “The main force hadn’t fought a single skirmish along the way since departing from the realm. The only real issue we encountered was that many of our vehicles broke down along the way. After we arrive here, all that’s left to do is to enter the city and handle the aftermath.”

Only then did Wei Yuan understand. From Cui Yu’s perspective, this battle consisted of three simple steps only: departing from the realm, entering the city, and seizing it. A city where hundreds of thousands of Shamans had held sway for over 1,000 years had fallen into his hands just like that—it was practically child’s play.

Wei Yuan patted Cui Yu on the shoulder and said, “It won’t be this easy from now on. The real battle is still ahead.”

As the main body of infantry entered the city, the Shamans realized the battle was lost and fled through the four city gates. Wei Yuan would not allow any civilians to remain within the city. He drove them all out and executed those who fled too slowly. In Wei Yuan’s eyes, the only difference between a Shaman civilian and a fighter was whether they carried weapons, and this was war. In the heat of battle, no one in their right mind would try to differentiate between the two—they simply killed anything that moved.

Next, the infantry dismantled the city-wide defense, collected the spoils of war, and rescued all surviving human sacrifices, while the cavalry rested and regrouped.

Twelve hours later, a supply convoy arrived on schedule, fully replenishing Wei yuan’s vanguard cavalry of the flying swords, bullets, and explosives they had expended.

Twenty-four hours later, a supply convoy carrying important supplies arrived on schedule, replenishing the troops’ rations for five days.

Both supply convoys were led by officers who had originally served in the Xu Clan’s private army or the official troops. All of them had sworn undying loyalty to Wei Yuan after attaining their Dao Foundation in the Realm of Qingming.

To them, this was also an unprecedented war experience.

The marching routes had been provided in advance, and it was so detailed that they knew exactly what time they should arrive at each checkpoint. All they needed to do was to march according to plan, unload their cargo at the designated points, and then return to the realm to load new supplies. It was practically like merchants traveling through peaceful regions.