Chapter 220: War Breaks Out Between the Northern Plains and Ganzhou

The battle lines between the two sides drew steadily closer. Cultivators of the Three Demonic Path Sects, originally stationed a thousand li away, were now less than a hundred li from Beiliang Mountain.

At the same time, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, and even a million li away along the border between the Northern Plains and Ganzhou, over a hundred clashes of varying scale erupted daily.

This war was more brutal than any seen in the past thousand years.

The battlefields spanned a thousand li; blood soaked a million.

Countless cultivators fell in battle, and innumerable tribes and sects were bled dry. Wherever the flames of war swept, border villages and small tribes were uprooted completely, and towns where mortals and cultivators lived side by side were reduced to scorched earth. Men and women, young and old, fled wailing through the fires, but their cries amounted to nothing against the clamor of the wider battlefield—like ash caught in the wind, vanishing the moment it fell.

Gods fight and mortals suffer.

This war sweeping across both realms brought untold misery to the low-level cultivators and common mortals struggling at the bottom to survive. Entire families fled in droves from the southern borders of the Northern Plains and the Dayong Empire.

Beiliang Mountain.

At this moment, the demonic army had already reached the fortress walls.

Jiuyou and Gu Daobian were forced into battle; together with thirty other Nascent Soul cultivators, they represented the strongest force the fortress could currently muster. Standing atop the walls, they looked out over the dark-red wasteland ahead, their eyes fixed on the rapidly approaching fleet of spirit boats.

The spirit boats varied in size—the small ones measuring a hundred zhang, the large ones spanning a full thousand, blotting out the sky with layered spiritual light. A pitch-black blood-fiend aura rolled off their hulls, staining even the distant clouds a dark red wherever they passed. Countless low-tier Northern Plains cultivators looked up in trembling dread, their faces ashen. Only the battle-tested veterans could still tighten their grips on their magic artifacts and barely maintain their footing.

The distance grew ever closer.

At last, the demonic fleet slowly ground to a halt less than twenty li from Beiliang Mountain, sprawling across the sky like a colossal dark-red serpent that completely blotted out the northern horizon. The two armies stared across the void. A heavy, suffocating stillness saturated the air, as though something stretched across that brief twenty-li gap was being slowly pulled taut, on the verge of snapping at any moment.

It was unclear who in the demonic army gave the first order. The entire fleet flared with light in unison, the drone of formations blending into a continuous roar as tens of thousands of spiritual energy beams shot from the hulls, pouring down like a torrential storm.

Simultaneously, tens of thousands of demonic cultivators swarmed from between the spirit boats. Some rode flying magic artifacts while others stepped directly through the air, unleashing their various methods—zombies, soul puppets, skeletons, vile flames... An endless tide of insidious spells rolled toward the ramparts, blotting out the sky.

The Northern Plains side responded just as quickly.

Hundreds of Spiritual Light Shuttles and Divine Light Shuttles shot into the sky, their spiritual light condensing into focused beams that accurately met the incoming demonic barrage. The two torrents of light violently clashed in midair, detonating into blinding halos of radiance. Surging shockwaves tossed nearby cultivators every which way.

Immediately after, cultivators from both sides surged onto the battlefield like opposing tides. Physical cultivators made up the bulk of the Northern Plains forces; with their blood qi surging, their fists and kicks broke the sound barrier as they crashed into the demonic spellcasters in brutal close-quarters combat.

Some fought in single combat, others joined forces in synchronized strikes; some laid down formations in midair, while others crushed spirit talismans to summon giant beasts. Magic treasures and talismans flashed and faded in turn, core light and roaring flames intertwining. Down on the ground, legions of Qi Refining cultivators engaged in a chaotic melee, their blood mixing with the soil until countless trampling boots quickly turned the earth a dark, muddy brown.

The entire expanse before Beiliang Mountain had become a churning, murky abyss, its underlying contours no longer visible.

Jiuyou stood at the highest point of the fortress wall, his expression calm. The life or death of others held no place in his eyes; his gaze pierced through the churning layers of spiritual light and flesh, landing on a place much farther away.

The slaughter between the two armies grew increasingly brutal.

The demonic cultivators attacked with savage ferocity, posturing as if they would not rest until they took Beiliang Mountain. Backed by their cruel and ruthless methods, they forced the Northern Plains cultivators to retreat step by step, steadily compressing the battle lines. With every passing quarter-hour, thousands of cultivators fell in battle. Blood soaked the wasteland, filling the air with a thick, heavy stench of gore.

The Northern Plains' Nascent Soul cultivators were forced to enter the fray ahead of schedule. As they joined the battle, the demonic side also dispatched over a dozen Nascent Soul cultivators to meet them.

At first, both sides were merely testing the waters; those dispatched were all at the Nascent Soul Early Stage, locked in a bloody tug-of-war with casualties on both sides. This lasted until several demonic cultivators in the Middle Nascent Soul Stage suddenly cut into the battlefield, instantly killing two Northern Plains early Nascent Soul physical cultivators in a single clash. The Northern Plains formation immediately fell into disarray. Gu Daobian instantly gave the order, dispatching their own Middle Nascent Soul Stage cultivators to intercept them.

The two sides' Nascent Soul cultivators clashed at low altitude. Caught in the sweeping shockwaves, countless low-tier cultivators perished, and even the spirit boats and light shuttles detonated one after another. To avoid accidentally injuring their own forces, the Nascent Soul cultivators of both sides tacitly shifted the battlefield nearly a thousand li up into the sky.

Dozens of Nascent Soul cultivators fought in a chaotic melee. Spells crisscrossed, magic treasures clashed, spirit beasts roared, and surging shockwaves tore the clouds into shredded cotton.

Right at that moment, two streaks of rainbow light shot out from the rear of the demonic camp, diving straight toward the Nascent Soul battlefield with arrogant, undisguised momentum. They were two cultivators at the Nascent Soul Late Stage, belonging to Evil Valley Heaven and the Demon Fiend Sect respectively, clearly seeking to force the Northern Plains' late Nascent Soul experts to take action.

Jiuyou did not recognize the two men, but their intentions were obvious enough. He and Gu Daobian exchanged a glance and shot into the sky simultaneously, intercepting the pair midway.

Of the two demonic cultivators, one held a round mirror that shifted with spiritual light, its refracting beams unleashing bizarre divine abilities. The other manipulated an eight-chi-long black staff that could grow or shrink, lengthen or shorten at will, pressing a fierce and blistering offensive.

Gu Daobian met the onslaught with his twin Golden-Copper Heavy Hammers, the Five-Inch Guqin suspended above his head balancing offense and defense, allowing him to trade blows back and forth.

Jiuyou, however, skipped all probing. From the very start, he unleashed over sixty Golden Li Ember Moon Swords. Sword light cascaded like a waterfall, and the razor-sharp sword qi suppressed the two men until they could barely breathe in an instant. Fighting two Nascent Soul Late Stage experts alone, he not only held his ground but fought with increasing ease, forcing his opponents into a continuous retreat and compelling them to constantly reveal their trump cards.

Gu Daobian watched from the side, dumbfounded. Several times he wanted to help, only to find he couldn't intervene at all. He was reduced to throwing in occasional support from the periphery, barely needing to exert any effort.

The Nascent Soul cultivators fighting not far away also noticed the situation here, their gazes frequently sweeping over. Everyone knew clearly that what truly determined the course of this war would ultimately be the victory or defeat of these Nascent Soul Late Stage grand masters.

And the sight of Jiuyou fighting one against two, completely suppressing his opponents, fell upon everyone's eyes like a heavy hammer striking the hearts of the Northern Plains cultivators. The Northern Plains' morale soared, while the demonic side visibly began to waver.

In less than half an incense stick of time, Jiuyou delivered a horizontal slash. The vicious sword light directly drove both men back, and the residual sword qi carved several bone-deep gashes into their bodies. Both spat mouthfuls of blood and staggered through the air, clearly unable to hold on much longer.

"Brother Qing, brilliant methods!" Gu Daobian could not help but praise.

Jiuyou did not reply, merely giving a calm reminder: "Do not get distracted."

Even as he spoke, his sword momentum did not falter; he raised his blade, moving in to press the attack.

Right at the moment his blade was about to descend, one of the two men suddenly shrieked, "Xue! How much longer are you going to watch? If you don't show yourself and we lose today, the defense line will fall, the Three Sects will suffer, and your Blood Abyss Sect will not escape the blame!"

Before his voice could even fade, a blinding beam of blood-red light suddenly flared deep within the clouds.