t [V6C185 – Sorrow of a Silent Parting]
Seeing Song Zining retreat with injuries, Qianye made a prompt decision to leap into the swarm of dark races below the wall. The might of his Oceanic Vortex erupted in full force, eliciting miserable cries from the dark race soldiers within a several dozen meters radius. The low-ranking soldiers were immediately crushed to the ground. The cannon fodder were deformed and perished quickly under the great pressure. Finally, the high-ranking warriors were able to struggle for a bit, but they could only hold out for a couple of moments.
Only ranked experts could resist the power of Qianye’s Oceanic Vortex, albeit barely. Just like that, the three relatively calm viscounts became evident in their midst.
Qianye stepped forth and slashed out thrice with East Peak, each strike in a different direction. And everywhere his blade fell, a viscount would fall—there was no escaping his strike no matter how they struggled or dodged.
Qianye immediately grew weaker after the three strikes. He wasn’t overzealous for battle, either, and simply jumped back into the fort.
That which Qianye had used was the sword art he had comprehended, Sweeping Calm. The move was simply too tyrannical, and up until this point, Qianye could only unleash three strikes. He was still a long way from calming the eight directions. After going all-out just now, Qianye felt an emptiness inside him as he returned to the fortress—he had already exhausted most of his origin power.
But Qianye’s slaughter of the three viscounts had intimidated the dark race army below the walls. No one dared give chase when he returned to the walls.
Qianye stood atop the fort and gazed coldly at the enemies. Countless dark race warriors were intimidated by his aura and actually didn’t dare approach the fortress. As such,an odd, empty s.p.a.ce appeared below the walls.
At this point, a cold but majestic voice echoed through the land, “A bunch of useless tras.h.!.+ I’ll give you one hour to take that fortress or else everyone will be put to death.”
The voice was cold and mechanical without the slightest of emotions. His tone was incomparably natural even when he was talking about putting a ten-thousand strong army to death. Who knew how many similar orders he had issued in the past?
However, the backbone of the fortress defense force was made up of Zhao clan elites. Among them were a fair number of officers brought in from the Fire Beacon Corps. These people had fought countless battles against the dark races, so how could mere words scare them?
The dark race wars.h.i.+ps attacking from the skies were struck repeatedly. Two corvettes burst into flames at almost the same time and fell to the ground.
That voice snorted deeply in anger. Soon afterward, a beam of prismatic light shot out from the command vessel and traversed thousands of meters toward the fortress.
At this moment, another clear voice rang out in the sky. “Attacking the juniors? What skill! Come, come, come, Zhang Xuandao is looking forward to a battle!”
These words hadn’t even ended when a figure rushed out of the imperial fleet and into the clouds. A green figure also flew out from the Evernight fleet and followed suit. Dark clouds suddenly billowed in the skies as the two divine champions began fighting.
Now that even the general was in action, the subordinate experts didn’t dare remain indifferent. They immediately pressed their armies on and launched a fierce attack. They also split off an army to circle around the fortress and chase the retreating Zhang clan forces.
Qianye had just caught his breath when the dark races once again swarmed over like tides. Moreover, this time, they were extremely fierce and attacking with reckless abandon. Right from the start, origin bullets, cannon sh.e.l.ls, and ballistae poured onto the wall like rain. In the blink of an eye, the soldiers beside Qianye had fallen in droves.
Qianye had just raised a heavy s.h.i.+eld when he heard sounds akin to rain striking banana leaves—the density of bullets was almost unbelievable. Even someone of Qianye’s strength could feel his hands trembling somewhat.
He stretched out a leg and flicked a crate of hand grenades. His free hand then blurred into countless afterimages as he removed the safety pins. The dozens of explosives froze for a split second in the air before they were sent flying with a single wave. The grenades exploded in the air, sending a rain of shrapnel pouring into the soldiers below. This effectively mowed down large swathes of enemies.
“Grenade!” Qianye roared. Two Zhao clan veterans immediately rushed over with two crates of explosives and placed them in Qianye’s reach. Afterward, they ran back to fetch more. However, they were only halfway when a stream of bullets sent them flying off the wall, never to rise again.
The battle was extremely intense at this stage. Qianye watched the soldiers beside him fall one by one as he tossed out crate after crate of grenades. Every time those nets of firepower flickered into existence, a small area would be cleared out in the dark race army.
At first, the ranked officers and high-ranking soldiers would attempt to block Qianye’s grenades. However, there were simply too many grenades exploding at the same time. They gave up on intercepting them after a couple of tries.
At the height of the battle, Qianye reached back for grenades but found nothing. There were only empty crates around him, and there weren’t any soldiers, either. He was the only one left defending this stretch of the wall.
He gave up defending the segment at this point, and with a quick roll, he soon vanished behind the fortress walls. Following his retreat, dozens of high-ranking dark race warriors rushed onto the wall, prepared to charge into the fortress. But they felt a chill run through their vitals before they could take the next step, and soon, their vitality began flowing out rapidly.
Several of the stronger warriors looked back with difficulty. Only then did they realize that Qianye had appeared amongst them at one point. The sword in his hand looked rather slow but had actually stabbed through their vitals in the blink of an eye. The dark race warriors who had charged up the walls thus lost their lives.
Qianye swung the sword sideways and swept the petrified corpses down the wall. Then, he looked around at the surroundings.
A dozen or so airs.h.i.+ps were roaming about in the skies. Most of them were small, agile vessels since the bigger ones had been called back to tangle with the imperial fleet. The fortress guns were extremely fierce in firepower. Two turrets had been destroyed already, but the defensive fire remained stable due to the all-out activation of the hidden rapid-fire cannons and ballistae. Several flaming whips formed a flaming net which struck repeatedly at the Evernight wars.h.i.+ps.
At this moment, the fortress had been surrounded by the dark race army. Most of the walls had been breached, and the enemy soldiers were pouring inside like tides. However, the Zhao clan defense forces were well-experienced in war. The fortress walls were merely the first line of defense. The fortress itself was like a giant maze. After entering it, the dark race invaders found themselves under attack from all sides. Zhao clan soldiers would appear from every door, every window, and every rooftop.
Even with a natural advantage in terms of physique, the high-ranking dark race soldiers couldn’t handle the beleaguerment. Their casualties began stacking up rapidly.
The wall under Qianye and Song Zining’s guard were one of the few segments that hadn’t been broken through. The soldiers around them were fighting and slowly retreating toward the two.
At this moment Song Zining had already jumped into the fray. The spear in his hands shuttled about like a silver dragon, spitting out a faint glow from its tip. The attacks were so sharp that none of the high-ranking warriors could take a single hit. Even those swept by the rear end would find their bodies cut open. The ranked warriors had it easier, but they still couldn’t block an all-out thrust from him.
Song Zining was surrounded by countless floating leaves. Most of them were illusions, but a couple of them would turn into sharp blades from time to time and reap the enemies’ lives.
Song Zining’s smile was nowhere to be seen, and his expression was as calm as still water. He slaughtered with all his heart, the silver spear and domain complementing one another flawlessly.
It seemed like Song Zining’s killing efficiency was much greater than Qianye"s, but he had already used up all his killing moves. Even his domain was only deployed in its most basic form in order to reduce consumption. At the same time, it was also to prevent the dark race experts launching a focused attack on his domain.
Meanwhile, Qianye looked somewhat miserable. In fact, that was the case since the very beginning. He had mostly relied on grenades and various gunpowder weapons to defend against the incoming enemies. He had only expended origin power when he was killing the three viscounts, while most of the time, he merely relied on his powerful physique to kill enemies. Hence, his strength had been well conserved.
Seeing the dark races gain momentum, Song Zining finally ordered the soldiers around him to retreat into the fortress’ interior, while he remained to guard the rear. A river of blood flowed below his spear as he entrenched himself at every step of his gradual retreat. The path leading to the fortress walls was filled with dark race corpses after Song Zining had pa.s.sed through.
The battle was at its fiercest when Song Zining suddenly felt the pressure on him decrease sharply. The soldiers in front of him fell down one after another. He looked back and saw Qianye on a certain high ground, the gatling gun in his hand spitting out tongues of flame and clearing out a large area in front of Song Zining.
Song Zining immediately retreated into a small alley and brought his subordinates toward a cannon turret. The cannon turrets and kinetic towers in the fortress were the most important areas, and the defenses were exceptionally powerful. They were more or less a fortress within the fortress. The Zhao clan defenders had set up powerful units to guard these nodes. Song Zining was naturally clear about all this, so he went to support one of them immediately after retreating from the wall.
With the fortress wall lost, the pressure on the defense side increased exponentially. Qianye was already half-mad with all the fighting. The entire fortress was his battlefield, and anything could become his weapon. He appeared unpredictably here and there; from east to west. When the great army a.s.sembled and charged into the fortress, Qianye threw caution to the wind and used his Oceanic Vortex and Life Plunder to clear out an entire area. Meanwhile, Spatial Flash and Sweeping Calm became the nightmare of every Evernight expert. Even a first-rank viscount would be killed on the spot without enough time to react.
Within moments, the casualty rates skyrocketed among the dark races. If there were any statistical reports at this time, the numbers would be enough to shock the commander.
The dark race experts finally became more vigilant after the repeated deaths. They no longer dared to attack wantonly and, instead, paid rapt attention to their surroundings. They would suddenly turn back to guard against Qianye’s sudden appearance.
The experts were pivotal in the a.s.sault. Once they became apprehensive, the entire dark race momentum started to fall.
At this point, Song Zining was standing atop one of the turrets and looking down at the entire fortress. However, Qianye was already insane and was simply fighting by instinct. He had long since stopped contacting Song Zining, and the latter couldn’t find him, either, as he flashed about the battlefield.
Although he couldn’t find Qianye, Song Zining couldn’t help but draw in a breath of cold air after seeing all the corpses appearing out of nowhere on the battlefield.