War

Without any warning, the Fog Blades struck, and battle erupted.

As nearly a thousand Fog Blade assassins launched their assault on the Longevity Cult stronghold, Grandma Chi, Eunuch Gu, and Eunuch Lan steered their three wooden boats in three great arcs, rushing back toward the stronghold at full speed.

Five columns of water burst from the great river. Two Fog Blade experts clad in tight leather armor, their auras grim and icy, soared into the sky alongside three elderly men in long robes whose composed bearing made it clear they had long held high positions. Two in front and three behind, they met the three wooden boats.

Grandma Chi shrieked, "Seventh Commander, Eighth Commander, what are you Fog Blades trying to do?"

The two Fog Blade Commanders sneered in unison. "Old Nine is dead. Did you think... our Fog Blades have always repaid every grievance, tooth for tooth!"

The Fog Blade Seventh Commander and Eighth Commander whipped up twin gales as they fiercely attacked Eunuch Gu's and Eunuch Lan's boats. Neither Eunuch Gu nor Eunuch Lan dared let the two approach their vessels. They too rose into the air, stepping on blood clouds as they met the attack.

Four figures tangled in battle in midair. Cold gleams and bloody mist twisted together; at times the bloody mist ensnared the cold gleams, and at times the cold gleams tore through the bloody mist. Their strengths were clearly evenly matched, and neither could suppress the other for the moment.

The other three robed elders joined forces to attack Grandma Chi.

Grandma Chi sneered repeatedly and likewise stepped on a blood cloud to charge forth. Her long hair flew wildly as she somehow drew a black iron spear half again as tall as herself, a full eighteen feet long. Whirling up rings of violent wind, she smashed it viciously down at the three elders.

"Lin Family Head, Jin Family Head, He Family Head, are your three families courting death?" Grandma Chi was small and appeared delicate and frail, yet the eighteen-foot spear in her hands carried terrifying force. Like a monstrous dragon, it cast dozens of afterimages that enveloped all three men.

She clearly recognized the three elders. As she attacked with violent fury, she roared, "Do your three families want to be exterminated?"

The three elders each drew blades and swords. Rather than clash head-on with Grandma Chi, they spun around her like whirlwinds, circling her in a blur. Their swords and sabers constantly turned into streaming light that flew everywhere, stabbing and slashing at her vital points whenever an opening appeared.

Hearing Grandma Chi's furious shout, the three elders sneered together.

An elder with round eyes and a leopard-like head barked, "Those people you planted in my Lin Family—weren't they meant to wipe out my entire Lin Family? Why should we fear your Longevity Cult? My Lin Family has held its foundations in the Azure Flame Domain for centuries. Why should we fear you foreign upstarts of the Longevity Cult?"

The other two elders cursed furiously as well. Each was full of vigor, their voices thunderously loud. With the echoes beneath the dome, their words could be heard for dozens of miles around.

Wu Tie understood. It turned out the Longevity Cult had somehow bought traitors within the Lin, Jin, and He Families. Moreover, these traitors were important figures in high positions, and they had already corroded the three families from within until they were riddled with holes.

With their own lives and Lineages directly threatened, why would the three Family Heads care about Grandma Chi's threats?

The two Fog Blade Commanders had invited the three Family Heads to join forces against the Longevity Cult, and they had hit it off at once. The four sides joined hands, first clearing out all the traitors within the three families. Then, under the Fog Blades' arrangements, they seized the right moment and launched their attack.

One spindle-shaped stealth boat after another surfaced from the water. Large groups of Lin Family, Jin Family, and He Family warriors rowed toward the shore. After landing, they swiftly attacked the stronghold.

Inside the stronghold, the Longevity Cult's servant warriors had recovered from the fierce blow. They began organizing the Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes to counterattack. Against the elite Fog Blade assassins, these Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes were clearly lacking in combat power, but they held the advantage in numbers.

But as the three families' warriors continued landing, and nearly a thousand more Lineage warriors joined the attack, the Longevity Cult's slaves could no longer hold on.

Hut after hut was destroyed. Great numbers of slaves were continuously cut down, blood spilling all over the ground. The Longevity Cult's forces were retreating step by step, on the verge of being completely driven from the stronghold they had painstakingly built.

High in the air, Grandma Chi, holding off the three Family Heads alone and barely maintaining an even balance, let out a furious roar.

Eunuch Gu and Eunuch Lan shouted at the same time. Their three boats immediately descended rapidly toward the ground. On the three boats, nearly a hundred young men and women returned to their cabins. Before long, they emerged clad in armor, armed and fully equipped.

They did not disembark. Instead, they drove their boats through the air above the stronghold at high speed, unleashing volleys from strange-looking bows and crossbows at the ground below.

These young men and women were elites even among the Longevity Cult's assassins, far stronger than the three families' warriors. Their bows and crossbows were immensely powerful and extraordinarily accurate, and their arrowheads had been soaked in deadly poison.

In less than half a quarter-hour, after the three boats swept across the stronghold two or three times, two to three hundred Fog Blade assassins and three-family warriors had been wounded by crossbow bolts. At least half had suffered wounds to vital areas and collapsed dead on the spot before they could take antidotes.

The savage assault from the three wooden boats abruptly stalled the Fog Blades' and three families' advance. The Longevity Cult's elite servant warriors also steadied themselves and launched a counterattack in coordination with the three boats.

For a time, the battle was incredibly fierce. People on both sides died without cease. The ground was covered in wounded men, and agonized groans and wails echoed everywhere.

This was the first time in Wu Tie's life that he had witnessed a war on such a scale.

Several thousand people repeatedly charged and slaughtered one another around a stronghold roughly two miles long and wide. Shouts, furious curses, the sound of blades cutting into bodies and slicing bone from flesh, as well as the miserable howls and pleas of the dying...

"They've gone mad!" Wu Tie's body trembled violently.

It was not fear, but shock. A shock born from the depths of his bloodline—immensely complicated, something even Wu Tie could neither understand nor explain.

Hot blood burned within him. An impulsive urge scorched his mind like flame. Wu Tie gripped his long spear, seized by the urge to charge into the battlefield and, without caring about anything else, fight a grand battle first.

"This is supposed to be something?" The Metal Spider sprawled across Wu Tie's shoulder and let out a cold laugh. "This tiny little scene... a situation like fly droppings... what does this even count as?"

Wu Tie fell silent. The boiling blood in his belly was abruptly doused by Old Tie's mocking words.

Glancing sidelong at the Metal Spider, Wu Tie snorted. "Then what counts as a true grand scene?"

Old Tie fell silent for a while, saying nothing for a long time.

Just as Wu Tie was about to mock Old Tie in return, Old Tie suddenly spoke. "A scene you absolutely cannot imagine unless you experience it yourself... Your grandpa isn't a scholar, so I can't describe it well... But Ox Hero is big enough, right?"

Wu Tie hurriedly nodded.

Ox Hero stood around a thousand meters tall. That was an enormous body indeed.

"Imagine this: as far as your eyes can see, on the ground and in the sky alike, there are densely packed hulking brutes like Ox Hero. They are packed so tightly there isn't a crack between them, swinging weapons and hacking at each other..."

"Blood rains down everywhere like waterfalls."

"Countless arms, countless legs, countless organs, countless heads of fine heroes... falling endlessly, just like that."

"If you were a little shorter, then in the time of a single breath, you would be buried beneath thick flesh and blood by the heroes' heads falling from the sky..."

Wu Tie shuddered all over, massive goosebumps spreading across his body.

He could not imagine such a sight... Countless Ox Heroes packed together, hacking madly at one another?

Looking at the sky, the battlefield where the two Commanders, the three elders, and the three Family Heads fought only affected an area of several hundred meters at most.

A single Ox Hero stood over a thousand meters tall.

"It really is a small scene." Wu Tie exhaled and shook his head.

Old Tie suddenly barked, "Watch out."

The invisible force field spread around Wu Tie was abruptly disturbed. He immediately sensed three people pouncing at him from behind. Three straight sabers silently stabbed toward his back.

The three came extremely fast. Their straight sabers thrust almost perfectly straight forward. The instant the invisible force field detected their presence, the blades had nearly reached Wu Tie's back.

An incomparably vicious, incomparably professional assassination.

Even with his invisible force field spread over a hundred-meter radius, Wu Tie could only barely turn around and watch helplessly as the three straight sabers stabbed into his flanks.

"Kid, you died again." Old Tie's icy mocking voice came from the Metal Spider's abdomen.

Wu Tie gave an angry shout. His invisible force field churned, and his body sprang upward in a bizarre posture, without the slightest sign of exertion.

The three straight sabers stabbed viciously into his body. Sparks flew, and the sabers snapped apart.

Rather than retreat, Wu Tie advanced. His long spear carried specks of cold light as it stabbed like lightning into one Fog Blade assassin's throat.

A flash of blood passed. The other two Fog Blade assassins threw down their weapons and charged Wu Tie with their hands spread wide. Wu Tie saw clearly that each held a metal pellet used to bombard the Longevity Cult stronghold.

These were weapons of the same kind as the Mountain Splitting Thunder used by the Wu Family's mine slaves, and they possessed tremendous destructive power.

Wu Tie neither dared nor wished to let the two assassins get close. He suddenly widened his eyes. His brow burned, and Wu Tie's innate divine ability, Control Heaven and Earth, erupted at full force. A powerful invisible force field surged outward like an unseen tide.

The two Fog Blade assassins cried out strangely. Their arms and legs flailed as they were hurled into the air by a powerful force, like fallen leaves in the wind.

Wu Tie flicked out his spear. Two sprays of blood burst from the Fog Blade assassins' throats, and Wu Tie sealed their throats with a single spear thrust each, killing them on the spot.

"There's a tough one here." A deep, muffled voice sounded from several dozen meters away. Two Ox Tribe warriors, each over ten feet tall and clad in crude, heavy iron armor, their bodies packed with explosive muscles, charged out fiercely.

Wu Tie had no idea which of the three families these two Ox Tribe warriors belonged to. Carrying thick iron clubs as wide as bowls, they lowered their heads and charged at Wu Tie, wildly smashing their clubs down at him.

Wu Tie retreated rapidly.

An iron club swept past, nearly brushing his nose.

Wu Tie was not afraid of these two Ox Tribe warriors, who had not cultivated and could only use brute physical strength. He heard footsteps approaching nearby. From the vigorous and forceful rhythm, it was clearly a large group of Azure Wolf or gray wolf warriors closing in.

The tight armor on his body was indestructible, and Wu Tie was not afraid of being surrounded by Wolf Tribe warriors.

He simply did not want to fight or kill for no reason.

Whether it was the Longevity Cult, the Fog Blades, or especially the newly involved three families... Shi Lingqing was dead, and Luolin and the others were dead as well. Wu Tie had no grudges against any of the three sides, so why should he wade into this muddy water?

Retreating at top speed, Wu Tie called out in a low voice, "I'm not your enemy..."

"Bullshit!" An Ox Tribe warrior roared in his muffled voice, swinging his thick iron club in a vicious horizontal strike that nearly smashed into Wu Tie's waist. "Everyone here who isn't one of us is an enemy... And you killed Fog Blade people."

The Ox Tribe warrior's simple distinction between friend and foe left Wu Tie speechless.

He could only retreat quickly. He was far faster than the two Ox Tribe warriors, and the Wolf Tribe warriors closing in from all sides clearly could not match Wu Tie's speed either. After a few breaths, Wu Tie shook off his enemies and quickly slipped behind a thicket of ferns.

By the time those Ox Tribe and Wolf Tribe warriors caught up, they could no longer find any trace Wu Tie had left behind.

Wu Tie changed direction and hid behind another small hill, watching the battlefield from afar.

The Fog Blades' alliance with the three families held the advantage. Within the stronghold, the Longevity Cult's warriors could still barely contend with them with support from the three wooden boats. But outside the stronghold, scattered Fog Blade assassins were already leading patrol teams from the three families in a tightening encirclement.

Teams large and small filled an area spanning more than a dozen miles, surrounding the entire Longevity Cult stronghold.

Clearly, the Fog Blades did not intend to let a single living person escape.

Naturally, that was on the condition that they could keep Eunuch Gu and the other two behind.

Wu Tie raised his head to look at the sky. The battle between the two Commanders and Eunuch Gu and Eunuch Lan continued, while Grandma Chi had already been driven into gasping breaths by the three Family Heads working together.

None of the three Family Heads was a match for Grandma Chi alone. Even two working together would find it difficult to suppress her.

But once all three joined forces, Grandma Chi found it somewhat hard to handle.

Three streaks of light darted rapidly around Grandma Chi. Her spear cracked through the air with booming blasts, yet she could never do anything to the three Family Heads.

They fought in a stalemate for a full two or three hours. The battle on the ground had nearly ended when a miserable scream suddenly rang out. Wu Tie did not even see what had happened in the sky before Grandma Chi abruptly threw down her spear and fled, covered in blood.

Great sprays of blood continuously burst from behind Grandma Chi as she fled, all the while letting out shrill roars.

But she did not get far. The three Family Heads, along with a shadowy figure that had appeared at some unknown time, caught up to her and unleashed a wild barrage of attacks.

Cursing furiously, Grandma Chi barely blocked a dozen or so moves. Then several cold flashes swept past. With a thunderous boom, a rapidly blooming cloud of blood mist enveloped several hundred meters of sky.

Seeing that she was about to be killed, Grandma Chi brazenly detonated herself.

A shadowy figure dressed like the Seventh Commander and Eighth Commander rapidly fled several hundred meters away. Wu Tie saw clearly that his left arm hung limp at his side. Grandma Chi's self-destruction had merely injured one of his arms.

The three Family Heads, however, failed to escape.

They were blown directly to pieces in Grandma Chi's self-destruction. Dozens of severed limbs continuously fell from the sky, landing in the great river and drawing swarms of fish to fight over them.

Eunuch Gu and Eunuch Lan broke away from their enemies without saying a word and fled at full speed toward the waterfall.

"Fog Blades? This is war!"

"Wait for the full retaliation of our Longevity Hall... This is war..."