Assault

Wu Family.

In a massive cave on the rock wall behind the stone fortress, the Rock Python lay lazily coiled into a ball.

Four Gray Dwarves wielded scrub brushes and carried buckets, busily washing the Rock Python's heavy gray scales. The Rock Python occasionally opened its mouth and exhaled a foul stench, its ten-meter-long tongue weakly flicking in and out.

A fist-sized black metal pellet was hurled violently into the Rock Python's mouth just as it opened, plunging deep into its body.

With a muffled boom, the Rock Python's body, as thick as a water vat, was blown into two pieces around seven inches from its head.

Blood and shredded flesh sprayed everywhere. The four Gray Dwarves were blasted into the air, and before they could hit the ground, a cold gleam swept through the air and cleaved them in half at the waist.

Before they could cry out, the cold gleam flashed again, and their heads had already flown high into the air.

Several miles from the stone fortress, beneath the rock wall, the three brothers Wu Jin, Wu Yin, and Wu Tong stood beside the fields, frowning as they supervised Rock Gnomes carrying bucket after bucket of diluted Rock Python dung and pouring it over the roots of plump gray-white mushrooms.

The skins of these mushrooms were nearly transparent. Within their sacs lay thumb-sized grains, arranged in neat, dense rows.

"I hate the 'porridge' made from Earth Rice Mushrooms!" Wu Jin smacked his lips and said with disgust. "Especially when I think about how they were watered with Big Gray's dung... blegh..."

Wu Jin spat viciously onto the ground.

"I still remember the 'porridge' made from that kind of 'rice' Father brought back when Taiping was half a year old... it smelled so good!" Wu Yin smacked his lips as well and said sincerely, "Even though I only had one mouthful!"

"It was good! But our family's 'Void Sun' is too small. That kind of 'rice' needs a Void Sun at least a thousand meters across to grow!" Wu Tong raised his head, glanced at the Void Sun above their stone fortress, which was no more than thirty meters in diameter, and curled his lip. "That rice porridge smelled so good... I only had one mouthful too..."

"Taiping was weak back then... He couldn't keep food down, and he'd even throw up beast milk..." Wu Jin laughed. "We were already 'adults' then. We couldn't fight Taiping for food!"

Clenching his fist and swinging it hard, Wu Jin's eyes flickered as he muttered, "Father said that once we save up enough good things, we can return to the main family and pay respects to the elders... The main family's Void Sun is a full thousand meters across, and they grow 'rice'..."

"As long as Father takes us back to the main family to worship our ancestors once, we'll qualify to trade all kinds of good things with them afterward!" Wu Jin grinned. "Then..."

The Rock Python's body had been blown apart, and the dull blast reverberated between the rock walls before swiftly reaching them.

A sharp, fang-shaped spear pierced straight through the Rock Python's head and nailed it firmly to the ground. The Rock Python suddenly opened its mouth and let out a long, hissing shriek, the piercing cry following close behind the explosion.

"Big Gray!" Wu Tong leaped up and was about to rush toward the cave where the Rock Python was.

"Enemy attack!" Wu Yin grabbed Wu Tong's belt and yanked him backward several steps, nearly pulling him to the ground.

Wu Jin had already drawn the long blade at his waist and released three sharp, urgent whistles in succession.

At the sound, the Rock Gnomes in the fields threw down their tools, spread their short legs, and dashed toward several small caves beneath the distant rock wall.

Urgent whistles sounded from several tunnel exits leading outside in the distance. Those were Wu Family warriors responding to Wu Jin's warning.

But the whistles from those places abruptly ceased. Apart from the Rock Gnomes fleeing toward the shelter caves, not another sound came from anywhere around them. More unsettling still, not a single sound came from the Wu Family's stone fortress either.

"Who is it? Get out here!" Wu Jin suddenly raised his long blade and roared toward the stone fortress. "Are you Black Wind Valley bastards? You dare provoke the Wu Family?"

A pained cry came from the direction of the stone fortress. Master Hui was thrown out from the watchtower above the courtyard gate.

Just as Master Hui was about to hit the ground, a rope tied around his waist snapped taut. Master Hui, who possessed little fighting strength, shuddered and could not help letting out a pained groan.

"Master!" This time, both Wu Yin and Wu Tong stepped forward several paces.

A sharp whistling tore through the air. A black shadow flew from the watchtower, streaked through the air in an instant, and landed heavily seven or eight meters before the three brothers.

It was a black wooden staff about two meters long, with a coiled black viper carved at its head.

Wu Jin shouted and stepped forward fiercely, slashing his blade down at the Snake Staff.

A large cloud of black gas suddenly sprayed from the open mouth of the black viper carved on the Snake Staff.

Master Hui abruptly raised his head, his eyes wide as he roared, "Poison... retreat! Find Old Wu!"

Wu Jin took a sharp step back. Dark-red force, like both light and mist, erupted from Wu Jin and Wu Yin at once. As the black gas from the Snake Staff struck the force surrounding them, it produced a piercing hiss.

Wu Tong stood beside Wu Yin. The muscles beneath his skin writhed rapidly, but no similar force burst from him.

The black gas sprayed directly onto him. With a sizzle, Wu Tong's face was struck full-on. As if instantly corroded by concentrated acid, his facial skin and large patches of flesh bubbled and rotted away, turning into thick pus that slid off his face.

His bright, alert eyes, black and white sharply defined, were struck by the poison gas as well. Both eyeballs burst with two pops, becoming streams of bloody pus that sprayed far away.

Wu Jin and Wu Yin cried out "Third Brother!" at the same time, then raised their left hands and slapped themselves viciously across the face.

The slaps were extraordinarily heavy. Wu Jin and Wu Yin snapped their heads to the side, and both brothers spat out two large teeth, spraying blood all over themselves. One on each side, they grabbed Wu Tong by the shoulders and fled toward the mine where Wu Zhan and Wu Tie were exploring.

The brothers were incredibly fast. Within a few breaths, they had already run more than a mile.

A long howl came from the flank. Heavy footsteps thundered like galloping warhorses, numbing their hearts as they came whistling closer.

More than a dozen burly men clad in metal heavy armor, each bearing a massive black emblem on the left side of the chest, charged out from a patch of extremely thin mist with long blades in hand. Like a pack of savage beasts, they rushed toward the three brothers.

Their heavy armor was immensely thick, more than an inch thick at its thickest points. One could imagine how much the armor weighed.

Yet they ran as swiftly as the wind, moving at more than twice the speed of the three brothers.

Looking closely, faint vortices of mist spun rapidly beneath each man's feet, as though currents of wind circled underfoot.

Wu Yin cursed hoarsely, "Such a thin patch of mist... how could they possibly hide inside it?"

Wu Jin let out a tremendous roar and swept the long blade in his right hand viciously backward. The blade turned into a streak of black light and shot out, piercing toward the chest of a burly man who had somehow charged behind him.

The man gave a low roar and gripped a ram-horn warhammer in both hands, smashing it down hard.

Wu Jin's five right-hand fingers spread open, then clenched into a fist. The black light's forward thrust suddenly doubled in speed. The warhammer nearly brushed past it, while the black light slammed viciously into the man's chest with a dull impact.

Sparks flew everywhere. A foot-long gash was cut into the thick armor on the man's chest, and a huge chunk of flesh was sliced open beneath it. Blood sprayed over his breastplate in sheets.

The black light spun rapidly as it flew back. The man cried out in pain and staggered backward. "This little brat... he's actually already half a step into Xuan Sensing!"

Wu Jin caught the rebounding long blade and glared hard at the man's armor. "What thick hide... This armor is good!"

Behind the dozen or so burly men, sheets of transparent mist flickered. The mist suddenly vanished, and several dozen blood-soaked figures appeared at once. They varied in height, build, and gender. Some wore heavy armor, others tight leather armor, all lean and capable, all carrying a fierce Sha Qi.

As Wu Jin roared, a bald woman wearing half-body Soft Armor, her long legs wrapped in tight black leather trousers and her face crisscrossed with scars, gave a strange laugh. She suddenly leaned forward, and a foot-long Snake-Fang Dagger shot out, silently sweeping up a faint blue cold gleam.

Wu Jin had only just retrieved his long blade when Wu Yin sent his own blade flying backward with perfect timing.

The three-foot streak of black light cut through the air and slammed heavily into the nearly transparent Snake-Fang Dagger.

With a crisp ding, the light, thin Snake-Fang Dagger bounced more than ten meters into the air, while Wu Yin's flying blade crashed heavily to the ground.

"This brat only has Foundation Establishment's Gang Yuan Body Infusion! Heh, weak!" The bald woman laughed smugly and casually pointed skyward. The Snake-Fang Dagger, which had bounced over ten meters high, became an extremely thin streak of blue light and suddenly bent downward.

The blue light rapidly closed in on the three brothers.

The brothers had already sprinted to the mine entrance, where several Gray Dwarves guarding the entrance had just heard the commotion and rushed out.

Wu Yin grabbed two Gray Dwarves and casually threw them into the air.

The dark-blue cold gleam spun through the two Gray Dwarves. Before they even knew what had happened, their bodies were cleaved apart by the cold light.

Amid shrill wails, the two Gray Dwarves delayed the Snake-Fang Dagger for an instant, and the three brothers escaped into the mine.

"Enemies... face the enemy! Fight to the death!" Wu Jin howled from within the mine.

Unlike when he had just warned the Rock Gnomes in the fields to flee, having discovered how powerful the enemy was, Wu Jin issued an order to fight to the death.

The Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes in the mine froze at once. Then more than a thousand Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes erupted in clamorous shrieks and poured from the various mine tunnels like a flood.

As the three brothers raced past, several Gray Dwarf overseers waved both hands, launching more than a dozen egg-sized iron balls through the air with piercing whistles.

These were Mountain Splitting Thunders, used to blast apart rock and search for ore veins. Their power was considerable; even rocks several meters across could easily be blown to powder.

"Shield!" A burly man over two meters tall, fully clad in heavy armor and carrying no weapon save for a massive shield more than two meters tall and over a foot thick on his back, suddenly stepped forward several paces.

The heavy shield struck the ground with a thunderous crash.

Several twisted lines of light flickered across the shield's surface. The heavy shield shuddered violently, and yellow ripples like waves spread from its face in all directions, forming a protective wall over ten meters wide that shielded the dozens behind him.

More than a dozen Mountain Splitting Thunders exploded at once.

Amid a deafening boom, the yellow light ripples on the shield's surface warped violently before finally shattering apart.

The man holding the heavy shield gave a muffled grunt, his body shaking violently before he barely managed to steady himself.

"Kill." A gentle voice drifted softly from outside the mine.

More than twenty agile men and women clad in Soft Armor simultaneously drew heavy crossbows with huge bolt cases from their backs. Accompanied by piercing shrieks, refined steel bolts trailing wisps of black smoke swept into the mine like a black storm.

The terrifyingly penetrating bolts tore madly through the bodies of Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes one after another.

Gray Dwarves stood around 1.2 meters tall, while Rock Gnomes were less than a meter tall. Their bodies were not strong, and they wore only coarse linen garments to cover themselves. The black-smoke-trailing bolts, empowered by some unknown force with dreadful killing power, easily pierced body after body.

The Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes were packed too densely. A single crossbow bolt could even punch through more than a dozen bodies in succession.

With piercing whistles, the bolts that had shot hundreds of paces away spun several times in the air, then, like birds returning to their nests, swiftly flew back trailing wisps of black smoke and neatly drilled back into their bolt cases.

In the blink of an eye, over a thousand Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes had been reduced to merely two or three hundred.

Blood flowed across the ground. The remaining Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes were terrified by the dreadful slaughter. Throwing down their weapons and tools, they scattered miserably into the surrounding mine tunnels.

The dozens of men and women laughed loudly and spoke excitedly among themselves as they quickly caught up with the fleeing Gray Dwarves and Rock Gnomes. Amid a wild flurry of blades and swords, every Gray Dwarf and Rock Gnome was slaughtered.

That gentle voice rang out from the mine. "Gray Dwarves... Rock Gnomes... They won't fetch a price!"

Wu Tie stared in shock at the broad expanse of water before him.

With his knowledge, he had no way to accurately estimate how vast this body of water was.

But he could roughly tell that it was immense, large enough to swallow three or five... no, thirty or fifty Wu Valleys.

Such a vast body of water!

Waves surged, and countless whirlpools churned.

Water... in this world filled everywhere with rock strata, water was the true source of life!

Previously, the Wu Family stone fortress could only draw water from a few pitiful water sources. With over a thousand people, though fewer than two thousand altogether, even their daily water supply was extremely tight.

Without enough water, they could not open more farmland or raise more powerful Gray Rock Lizards and Vicious Venom Hunter Spiders!

But this water before him, this boiling water!

Wu Tie remembered what Master Hui had said: such violently moving water could not be stagnant water. It had to be living water with a source!

That meant there was far more water here than what he could see!

"So much water!" Wu Tie smiled.

In his mind flashed those small, timid Rock Gnomes.

With so much water, they could grow far more white mushrooms, right?

Those pitiful little dwarves would be able to eat their fill more often too, right?

Wu Tie curled his lip. Hmph, when he saw those tiny dwarves crying from hunger in the future, he would no longer need to secretly share his own food with them!

Urgent footsteps sounded, and the three Wu Jin brothers suddenly ran in.

"Father! Enemies!" Wu Jin roared.

A heavy battle-axe cleaved out from behind him. Wu Jin, Wu Yin, and Wu Tong were all sent flying off the ground by the axe, blood spraying from their backs.