Chapter 635: Running to the Battlefield (Part 2) [V6C165 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
At the very least, she didn’t have that c.u.mbersome demonkin firearm when she was slaughtering people a while ago. Perhaps she had hidden it somewhere nearby and taken it out just now. The other possibility was that she had a spatial item just like Qianye.
This wasn’t good news at all. At least in battle, the variables would increase boundlessly. An uncomfortable feeling arose in Qianye’s heart—there were too many surprises to this Bai Kongzhao.
Qianye returned to the previous battlefield since the surviving dark race soldiers had already fled too far. The captain of the survivors limped over and bowed deeply at Qianye. “Thank you, General, for saving our lives! If you need us in the future, our entire Lifelight Ji Family will not refuse!”
Qianye accepted the man’s grat.i.tude with a nod. “Where is this place? What’s the situation up ahead?”
The man surnamed Ji said bitterly, “Our family was fighting alongside the Zhang clan at first and managed to construct Dusk City. But there were simply too many of those black-blooded b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! They actually a.s.sembled an army of two hundred thousand to besiege us. We went from sixty thousand men to forty thousand, and then soon there was only around twenty thousand left. Seeing that we can no longer hold on, the general and Duke Wei allowed smaller families to leave for the Zhao clan territory first. The general will lead the Zhang clan army into a retreat at an opportune moment.”
Qianye’s expression changed. He was also trained in the army, so he knew very well how cruel this return journey was going to be with a dominant army on their tails.
The general this man spoke of was the empire’s current General of Ambitious Might, Zhang Junshu. He was the second son of the Zhang clan lord, and by seniority, Zhang Boqian’s cousin. The Zhang clan’s current might could be attributed to Prince Greensun, but its stable position as the top major clan for the past 30 years was half due to this General of Ambitious Might.
The defeat at Dusk City was already a decided outcome. Zhang Junshu allowed the smaller families to flee while he himself held the rear. This was putting himself in a dangerous position. Hence, everyone ranked below the man surnamed Ji was full of grat.i.tude at the mention of the general.
The Lifelight Ji Family could hardly be considered an aristocratic family. It was merely one of the more powerful ones among the landowning households. Mustering over a hundred elites for the void continent battle could be considered full mobilization for them. If all of these people were to die, the Ji family would hardly be able to rise again from the setback. They would need several generations of talents in order to restore their strength.
Zhang Junshu’s decision prevented these small landowning households from being wiped out, but the price for this would have to be paid by the Zhang clan.
Qianye was silent.
Although the imperial laws prioritized those with authority and rank, it had always been the major clans who held the rear on the battlefield while the smaller families retreated first. In the recent millennium, however, this rule was gradually fading away as the aristocracy fought and schemed against one another. Everyone was s.h.i.+fting their problems onto other people. The b.l.o.o.d.y battle was a prime example of this.
The Zhang clan might be tyrannical in its actions and have problems here and there, but at the most important juncture of the war of national fate, they still followed the traditions laid down during the founding of the empire. This alone was worthy of respect.
Qianye then inquired about Bai Kongzhao’s attack. The man’s expression turned fierce as he said through gritted teeth, “Who knows what’s wrong with that lunatic?! She just popped out of nowhere and started killing indiscriminately. I heard this has happened many times already, but there are very few survivors when she attacks, and that s.l.u.t Bai Aotu keeps protecting her with all her might. There’s never a definite answer to this. Who would’ve thought we would run into her today. We would be corpses already if we weren’t lucky enough to meet General Qianye.”
At this point, he was feeling pained, apprehensive, and fortunate. It was like gaining a second lease on life to have escaped alive from Bai Kongzhao’s hands.
Qianye asked a couple more questions and realized that he was at the border of the Zhang and Zhao clan warzones. Not too far in the southeast was the designated location where the Zhao clan would cover the Zhang clan’s retreat. Reportedly, the Zhao clan was already building fortifications there to impede the dark race army step by step.
But the Zhang clan would have to depend on itself between Dusk City to the designated area.
Qianye quickly came to a decision. He said to the man surnamed Ji, “Leave all your extra ammunition with me.”
The man was astonished. “Y-You’re going to…”
Qianye didn’t reply and only pointed in the northwest direction—that was where the Zhang clan was fighting.
The man felt hot blood rush to his head. “I’ll go with you!”
However, Qianye only shook his head in silence. The man immediately understood without Qianye having to point it out for him. That wasn’t a battlefield he could go to.
Moments later, a lone Qianye headed toward the north, toward that battlefield of blood and fire.
At this moment, far to the north, the Zhang clan army was surging toward the south. It was a ma.s.sive deluge of steel and iron, consisting of combat vehicles of all shapes and sizes. The black smoke and steam merged together to form an odd smog of black and white which shrouded the entire motorcade within.
Less than a hundred meters above the convoy were dozens of airs.h.i.+ps flying slowly forward at the same speed as the land forces.
At the bridge of the central airs.h.i.+p, Zhang Junshu was standing before the windows and gazing at the receding silhouette of Dusk City.
This super fortress was built through the combined, all-out efforts of the Zhang clan and many other aristocratic families and could accommodate a hundred thousand soldiers. Currently, it had fallen into a sea of fire with pillars of dense smoke curling up into the sky. One could see everything from dozens of kilometers away.
With Zhang Junshu’s eyesight, he could even see many black specks of different sizes dancing around the sea of flames. Those were the dark race airs.h.i.+ps doing their utmost to curb the flames.
The Zhang clan warzone possessed complicated landforms. The lake area close to the Misty Wood was relatively flat and only filled with sand dunes. The part stretching toward the Zhao clan warzone saw a sudden rise in elevation with winding sh.o.r.es, rapids filled with gravel, and a mountain range along the snowy line akin to a flying hawk.
As such, there was only one way down south and its entrance was blocked by Dusk City. The elevation difference in other regions was too great, and there were even places with active glaciers—not at all suitable for marching large armies.
This path seemed to have been formed countless years ago by glacial flow from the land of frost. On the two sides were steep cliffs hundreds if not thousands of meters tall which snaked to the south for hundreds of kilometers. The narrowest points were only a thousand meters wide, but the widest borders were tens of thousands of meters apart.
Such a glacier would be considered majestic even on a vast continent, but they were not completely unheard of. It was just that this floating continent was merely the size of seven provinces. A glacial remnant of such scale was rather out of place here. It was so long that it looked like the entire Land of Frost had been toppled over.
The bottom of this glacier today was rather flat and many places had been obviously reconstructed with origin arrays. As the frantic Zhang clan army traveled within their range, even the clumsiest of their trucks would see increased speeds. This served to increase overall troop movement speeds by thirty percent.
The army resumed its normal state after pa.s.sing through several kilometers of this array zone. Afterward, explosions occurred successively on the route they had left behind. Countless rocks and giant pits blocked the smooth road once more.
At this moment on the other side of Dusk City, the hundred thousand strong dark race army could only stand and watch the sea of flames, unable to approach in the slightest.
Hundreds of different airs.h.i.+ps shuttled back and forth over Dusk City, spraying large clouds of grey powder into the flames in a bid to control the conflagration. However, a hundred vessels seemed rather weak before this burning fortress. They could hardly do anything against the raging fire even after a long while.
Outside of the flames, tens of thousands of dark race soldiers were closing in on the ground, extinguis.h.i.+ng the flames in front of them little by little. However, every tree branch and every piece of stone in this city seemed to be on fire. Their forward progress was extremely slow, and it would probably take at least a couple of days for them to extinguish all the flames in the city.
An airs.h.i.+p appeared over the horizon at this moment, and the eight appendages on its side proved that its master was an arachne.
This terribly fast wars.h.i.+p arrived before Dusk City within moments and landed slowly. Along with this vessel came an invisible pressure—be it the dark race soldiers standing in formation or those extinguis.h.i.+ng the flames, no one could withstand it. The sudden collapse of a large number of soldiers sent the formation into chaos.
Numerous bugles rang out which duly signaled the army to disperse in the four directions, having them move away from the pressure zone and clearing an area for the airs.h.i.+p to land.
However, the wars.h.i.+p only hovered hundreds of meters above the ground as a dignified voice echoed throughout the area, “Why are you not advancing? It’s already been half a day of delay.”
Dozens of vampires from the dark race army rose into the air. There was an elder among them whose hair had turned completely gray and the wrinkles on his face, comparable to the mountains and valleys.
He could no longer retain a youthful exterior. Apparently, his long life as a vampire was already nearing its end. However, the blood energy surrounding him was so intense that it was almost tangible—it was as though rolling waves of blood were lingering around him. He did nothing to hide his terrifying strength as a glorious marquis. A single step forward would take him through the threshold of a duke. Those were the people truly in control of the Evernight faction.
But the old marquis’ blood energy was suddenly restrained and began contracting rapidly as he approached the airs.h.i.+p. In the end, only a thin layer of it barely remained on his body. At this moment, he was several hundred meters away from the airs.h.i.+p. What little remained of his blood energy would be pushed into his body if he were to go within a hundred meters.
The dozens of vampires surrounding the old marquis had long since fallen behind. They couldn’t even go within a thousand meters. The pressure might send them falling to the ground if they pushed any closer.
This was the most realistic difference between them and the Arachne Grand Duke Ardak, the Weaver of Nightmares.
The old marquis spoke, “Your Excellency Ardak, we’ve been doing our utmost to put out the flames, but…”
Ardak cut the marquis short unceremoniously, “No buts! I only see you fellows buzzing about like headless flies while a hundred thousand soldiers sit around with nothing to do. Why not go around the two sides of the city or blast a path through the center.”
The old marquis replied, “All available airs.h.i.+ps have joined the extinguis.h.i.+ng effort since we need to preserve Dusk City as much as we can. But the crafty humans seemed to be prepared for this. It’s almost like the entire city’s foundations were laid with black stone. It’s truly difficult to control once the flames have broken out.”