Martial Army Clashes

"They're finally here!"

Lu Lin's expression sank slightly. He quickly put away the iron pickaxe and bamboo basket in his hands, then strode toward the outside of the mine tunnel.

As a martial artist, his usual duty was to mine ore and quarry stone, but once war broke out, he had to take the field.

Those who avoided battle had only one road: death!

The sound of war drums kept coming from the north, each beat more urgent than the last.

Lu Lin rushed out of the mine tunnel without the slightest hesitation, accelerating as he headed north.

By the time he reached the assembly point, he saw that the eleven personal guards under Luo Siqing were almost all present. Lu Lin kept his expression unchanged and quickly joined Fang Hong and the others, then warily surveyed the situation around them.

Not far away stood a structure shaped like an altar, its surface carved all over with profound, unfathomable patterns.

Nine immortal cultivators were sitting cross-legged around the "altar," continuously pouring their spiritual power into it. Infused with that spiritual power, the "altar" shone brilliantly, condensing into a blazing pillar of light that shot into the sky and connected with the enormous light barrier enveloping the entire mountain peak.

It was a formation base.

Lu Lin's heart stirred.

With the formation base as the center, Demonic Sect immortal masters in ornate ritual robes were stationed all around. At a rough glance, there were no fewer than two hundred of them.

As for the martial artists, their numbers were even greater.

The Martial Army, clad in identical "Black Demon Battle Armor," numbered at least a thousand, while the other guards in all manner of battle armor, belonging to different immortal masters, also came to roughly another thousand.

And almost all of them were high-level martial artists above the seventh layer of Body Tempering.

But in the next instant, Lu Lin's attention was completely drawn by the movement below the mountain.

Roar, roar, roar...

Low, savage roars were rapidly closing in from the foot of the mountain.

Lu Lin turned his head to look and saw a vast black mass in the distance, surging over like a swarm of ants at tremendous speed, swift as wind and lightning.

In only a moment, the enemy had already charged to the front of the mountain.

Lu Lin's pupils constricted slightly.

It was a Martial Army with a sharp, imposing aura. Every one of them wore blue-black battle armor, carried a longsword on his back, held a round shield, and rode on the back of a hunting leopard similarly draped in blue-black armor.

Bows and arrows hung on both sides of the leopards' bodies. Each leopard was around five meters long, lithe and ferocious; when they ran, they leaped as if flying, treating the rugged mountain path as though it were flat ground.

Judging by the scale, there were no fewer than a thousand of these Leopard Army troops!

Behind the Leopard Army followed a large number of infantry martial artists. Although these martial artists had no mounts, every one of them burst with vital blood, and their running speed was not the least bit slow.

"It's the Green Duckweed Sword Sect's Leopard Army! All martial artists, draw bows and nock arrows. Await my command!"

Dongfang Yu stood atop a towering piece of bluestone and looked down the mountain, his cool, clear voice spreading across the entire peak.

All the martial artists drew their bows at the same time, arrowheads aimed straight below.

"No need to use Spirit-Breaking Arrows. Switch to ordinary Armor-Piercing Arrows."

Luo Siqing suddenly spoke. With a casual wave of her hand, bundle after bundle of arrows forged from black iron landed beside Lu Lin and the others.

Lu Lin and the others immediately put away the precious Spirit-Breaking Arrows. These specially made arrows were meant specifically for dealing with immortal cultivators; using them on ordinary martial artists would be an utter waste. Moreover, the battlefield was chaotic, and once shot out, they would be very difficult to retrieve.

Roar, roar, roar...

The Leopard Army drew closer and closer, gradually approaching the summit.

Two thousand five hundred meters, two thousand meters, one thousand five hundred meters, one thousand meters, eight hundred meters...

"Loose!"

Dongfang Yu gave the order.

Bzzzz—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The humming vibration of bowstrings instantly tore through the air. More than two thousand arrows, wrapped in dense vital blood, sliced across the sky, trailing a canopy of scarlet streams of light as they crossed eight hundred meters and poured down toward the Green Duckweed Sword Sect's Martial Army!

Almost at the same moment the rain of arrows was released, the Green Duckweed Sword Sect's martial artists moved as well.

Their longswords came out in unison, vital blood pouring into them. Specks of red light glimmered over their sword blades and round shields as they parried or blocked, meeting the arrows with precision.

Clang, clang, clang...

A series of metallic clashes rang out. Most of the arrows were successfully knocked aside, but thirty to forty people still failed to fully defend themselves, taking arrows and falling from the backs of their leopards.

Yet the others seemed completely unaffected and continued their fierce charge upward.

No one drew bows to return fire. They knew very well that the Demonic Sect martial artists held the high ground, and eight hundred meters was still within their effective range; if they shot upward in retaliation, by the time their arrows reached the mountaintop, their force would already be spent. Not only would they pose no threat, they would instead expose openings.

"Shoot again!"

Dongfang Yu gave another order.

The second wave of arrows fell at once, but this round was even less effective, with only a dozen or so people hit.

"Aim at the leopards beneath them!" Dongfang Yu immediately changed tactics.

For the third volley, every arrow shot straight toward those charging leopards!

This time, it worked.

The leopards' bodies were larger targets, and the martial artists wielding their swords found it hard to protect them completely. In the blink of an eye, over a hundred cheetahs were struck by arrows, howling miserably as they rolled and collapsed to the ground.

The martial artists on their backs leaped off one after another, then continued charging madly upward after landing.

Bowstrings thrummed without end, and the rain of arrows poured down another seven or eight rounds in succession.

The Green Duckweed Sword Sect's martial artists lost over a hundred men one after another, but the survivors still charged upward like mad. The closest among them had already pressed to within less than three hundred meters of the summit!

And right at that moment, the martial artists at the very front abruptly used the mountain's terrain to conceal themselves.

The martial artists following behind did the same. The moment they rushed within the three-hundred-meter range, they quickly hid among the jagged rocks and behind the steep slopes.

In just a short while, the several thousand martial artists of the Green Duckweed Sword Sect seemed to have vanished completely.

At the foot of the mountain, the several hundred immortal cultivators of the Green Duckweed Sword Sect, dressed in ritual robes and carrying long swords on their backs, still stood quietly, expressionless, showing not the slightest intention of taking action.

Dongfang Yu, Luo Siqing, and the others furrowed their brows tightly.

The Green Duckweed Sword Sect... what exactly were they trying to do?

"Could they be planning to secretly dig into the mountain and destroy the foundation of our formation?"

Suddenly, someone voiced the guess in a low tone.

Those words sent a tremor through the hearts of all the Demonic Sect cultivators!

It was very possible!

The core principle of a formation was to communicate with and borrow the power of heaven and earth through profound formation patterns.

And the terrain of mountains and rivers was precisely the root source of the Myriad Phenomena Mountain and River Formation's power.

This formation was rooted in the mountains, rivers, and earth veins. Its protective power was vast and enduring, flowing without end. It was precisely because of this that the Red Gold Mine had been solid as a golden soup, unmoved despite the Green Duckweed Sword Sect's several previous forceful assaults.

If they wanted to break the formation, the only path was to destroy the mountain and river terrain and damage the formation's foundation.

Now, several thousand martial artists of the Green Duckweed Sword Sect were hiding a few hundred meters below the summit. If they all started digging together, they might truly damage the structure of the earth veins, leaving the Myriad Phenomena Mountain and River Formation with no power to borrow!

"We must stop them!" Dongfang Yu shouted coldly. "All martial artists, heed my order: attack at once! Kill or drive away every martial artist of the Green Duckweed Sword Sect!"

The moment this order was given, the hearts of all the Demonic Sect's martial artists sank.

Everyone understood that once they charged out from the formation's protection, they would have to engage the Green Duckweed Sword Sect's martial artists at close quarters, fighting in a bloody slaughter.

This battle was bound to be incomparably brutal, with life and death impossible to predict.

But no one dared defy the order!

If they charged out and fought, there was still a thread of hope for survival. If they disobeyed and refused to advance, they would be killed on the spot!

"Attack!"

With a wave of Dongfang Yu's hand, killing cries rose and shook the heavens.

"Kill!"

More than two thousand soldiers of the Martial Army surged downward like a tide.

Lu Lin had also begun circulating his qi and blood and was just about to charge out with the squad when he suddenly heard Luo Siqing's cool voice ring out:

"Lu Lin, you stay."

He abruptly stopped in his tracks.

"Mm?" Dongfang Yu's gaze immediately swept over, cold and sharp as a blade, but then the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, revealing a knowing smile. "Junior Sister Luo, it seems you've found yourself a good seedling? This boy... could he perhaps have innate potential?"

Clearly, Luo Siqing intended to protect Lu Lin.

And the only reasonable explanation was that Lu Lin's martial talent was extremely high, and she had already regarded him as a guard to be nurtured with special focus, unwilling to let him easily risk danger.

In truth, at this moment, Lu Lin was not the only martial artist being deliberately kept back by the various immortal masters.

There were also several other cultivators with one or two exclusive guards standing behind them who had not attacked, all of them targets of special protection.

Luo Siqing's face was cool and detached. She only nodded faintly and said nothing more.

"It seems... choosing to reveal my talent earlier was the right move."

Lu Lin's thoughts shifted slightly, and he secretly let out a breath of relief.

Indeed, the higher one's talent, the more importance the immortal masters placed on them, and naturally, the lower the risk of being forced to become cannon fodder.

Of course, the prerequisite for all of this was that the cultivator themselves was not facing direct danger.

If the cultivator encountered a life-or-death crisis, then no matter how good one's talent was, it still could not compare to the importance of dying in their place.

The ultimate purpose of cultivators raising martial artists was, after all, so that at the critical hour, someone could block calamity for them and go to their death.