The sun blazed down from the sky, its unforgiving heat whipping across the Ancient Desolation Sands like a blade, churning up countless grains of dust that howled and roared, seemingly unstoppable in their violence.
They dashed and charged, running wild, free across the ground of the Ancient Desolation Sands.
Suddenly, the wind stopped! This sudden, free wind halted abruptly as it slammed into a formation! A formation that could only be described as an army.
There were no banners fluttering, no iron-blooded war flags snapping in the great wind! Nor was there the sound of majestic war drums meant to stir the soul to shuddering heights of morale, nor even the oppressive sense of grim finality that usually accompanies a massive military deployment.
Instead of an overwhelming aura, this immense formation manifested a peculiar solemnity—a stillness as deep and profound as the night of the Ancient Desolation Sands, or the abyssal depths of an endless ocean.
The wind, upon encountering this army, itself seemed to falter, sacrificing its freedom.
Sturdy, jet-black Blackflame Warhorses, snorting fire from their nostrils, stood in silent ranks. Proudly, creatures rode upon their backs, their foreheads bearing strange metallic crests that radiated an alien power.
Black armor, black plating, black reins, black boots, black scabbards!
This contingent of cavalry, resembling specters of the night, moved forward with unnerving calmness. The yellow sand beneath their hooves flew up repeatedly with each impact, producing a dry, rasping sound.
The skeletons of humans, long since stripped of flesh, also bore markings of varying patterns etched upon their foreheads; some even had these sigils carved across their rib cages.
These bizarre warriors carried no clumsy longswords whispered of by the bards; instead, they were uniformly armed with razor-sharp longswords that glimmered with cold light.
As their feet pressed into the sand, their knees and joints emitted a grating, harsh friction—creak, creak, creak... a continuous, grating sound. Tattered rags were bound around various parts of their bodies, fluttering gently in the heat haze, creating an atmosphere of indescribable strangeness, horror, and pressure.
Different groups of Magical Beasts displayed strange emblems on varying parts of their forms; these emblems resonated with the magical cores within them, unleashing even more terrifying energies.
For a moment, the Ancient Desolation Sands seemed to contain nothing else but these entities. A faint figure slowly shifted forward across the dunes.
Qian Jin had all but disguised himself as a Sand Worm beast. This was a camouflage technique learned at the West Mountain Academy in the Endless World; otherwise, many of the tasks assigned by the seniors would be impossible to complete.
On the golden, scorching sand, his nostrils filled with air as hot as boiling water. Qian Jin replayed the scene from his earlier observation point, using memory to calculate his current position and how far he remained from the seemingly boundless undead horde.
Careful, careful, ever more careful! Qian Jin proceeded with extreme caution. Faced with the crushing tide of an army numbering in the countless thousands, individual combat prowess often proved terribly insignificant.
Caution permeated Qian Jin’s being; his mind constantly ran calculations. Perhaps only by moving carefully beneath the earth would he have a chance to pass through?
Struggling through the sand, Qian Jin realized his mood was exceptionally tranquil, like gazing upon a rare piece of bluestone revealed on a dusty street after a torrential downpour.
One meter... ten meters... a hundred meters... a thousand meters...
“Hee-hee-hee...”
A sound like tearing metal from a broken gong echoed across the sky. Every hair on Qian Jin’s body tightened. He thrust his hands against the sand and recoiled violently as a blazing sphere of fire instantly melted the sand beneath him, smashing down exactly where he had just been.
Puff! Golden sand shot skyward, forming a waterfall of golden streams that rained down, becoming a shower of grit.
Qian Jin burst from the sand, his gaze immediately locking onto the maiden standing atop the Thunder-Carving Golden Roc in the air. Her three thousand strands of dark hair danced in the wind. Her simple attire could not conceal her beauty, and her nearly vacant eyes held an indescribable, clear emptiness.
Hai Qing’er! Qian Jin’s pupils dilated. Was this due to some mutual connection, or something else? His concealment was so thorough that even top-tier magical beasts struggled to detect him; how could she...?
Boom! Boom!
The undead mages, their bodies wrapped in decaying strips of cloth, standing behind the warhorses, jointly formed a magic circle. They conjured forth fireballs the size of washbasins from thin air. These balls wriggled and combined in the air, coalescing into a single new fireball.
Over a hundred washbasin-sized fireballs merged, yet their volume did not increase in the slightest; they remained the original size.
But their power...
Wherever the fireball passed, it ignited the very air, forming a colossal serpent of flame that roared straight toward Qian Jin. The sand beneath it began to crackle and pop as the intense heat caused it to explode and shatter.
Discovered! Qian Jin stood before the opposing army, his expression cold and grim. He hadn't even breached their ranks, and these things had already detected him.
Fireball? Compressed flame! The image of that flame flickered in Qian Jin's pupils. He instantly activated Myriad Shadows beneath his feet. The searing fireball pierced through the illusion, sending it flying; the phantom evaporated instantly, incinerated.
Potent magical flame! Even the current strength of the Wind and Cloud Golden Physique might not be able to truly block this! A flicker of surprise crossed Qian Jin’s mind. Perhaps if that half-shield fragment that shattered inside him had completely fused with his body, granting him its power, otherwise...
The soaring serpent of flame wheeled in the air and lunged again at Qian Jin’s body! Over a hundred undead mages controlled this fiery python freely, seeking to devour everything.
Qian Jin flipped his right hand, and the Soul-Fighting Battle Hammer, massive as a blacksmith's tool, appeared in his grip. Four distinct flames instantly caused the Battle Soul to change colors repeatedly. With a roaring cry, he smashed it down upon the serpent’s head.
The Soul, shaped by the Heart of Earth Fire, met the compressed fire magic of the fireball. Instead of a deafening explosion, the Ice Flame Battle Qi instantly released from the Soul froze the flames! The savage Battle Soul violently shattered the giant basin of fire.
Chunks of frozen flame fell onto the sand. They melted, they burned, igniting the surrounding grains before the flames and sand vanished simultaneously.
Crack... crack...
A series of bone-breaking sounds emanated from the bodies beneath the tattered wrappings of the undead mages. Threads of energy seeped out from the cloth, and vivid crimson flesh rapidly oozed out. The magic circle on the ground cracked instantly, and several mages staggered backward simultaneously.
A powerful magical backlash instantly buffeted the undead mages, temporarily extinguishing the deadly fire magic.
Blood? Qian Jin’s pupils registered surprise. He could clearly sense no muscle beneath those rags; how could blood be seeping out?
Time was critical. Qian Jin had no spare moments to dwell on the question. He pulled the Moon-Swallowing Bow from his Soul Realm with his left hand, bracing his left foot against the bow's body. Three arrows appeared magically between his fingers, miraculously nocked onto the string.
A brace, a draw, a pull—the Moon-Swallowing Bow was drawn taut. The three arrows roared like angry dragons, intertwining as they tore through space, devouring the air to form a visible wave of energy, a long dragon, which lunged toward the undead army not far ahead.
Whoosh... whoosh...
The skeleton undead, holding shields in their left hands and chillingly sharp swords in their right, were the first to meet the world-shattering onslaught of these three arrows. The front ranks didn't even have time to react before they were shredded and pierced through. The sounds of splintering bone echoed rapidly, white bone fragments mixing with the whirlwind, continuing forward.
From within the white bone shards sprayed blinding, bright red blood!
Yes! These undead, lacking muscle or internal organs, spurted forth startlingly bright blood from their very bones the moment they shattered.
This blood mingled with the energy dragon, becoming a magnificent crimson dragon that roared, plunging deeper into the army. Anything it touched was instantly torn apart and absorbed into the mass!
Alive? Qian Jin’s eyebrows furrowed repeatedly. He had no time to investigate why these bone-only entities seemed utterly alive. Beneath his feet, the Raging Lotus Combat Skill erupted continuously. Under the effect of his Battle Qi, the golden sand surged upward, forming a colossal golden Raging Lotus.
Giant golden Raging Lotuses bloomed across the sand. They seemed to cradle Qian Jin, propelling him at high speed into the heart of the undead formation.
Retreat? Since he was discovered, there was no path of retreat!
Retreat? How could Qian Jin retreat? He could only advance! The desperate fighting inheritance from the Iron Mantis bloodline burned within him at this moment.
Retreat meant death! Advancing was the only path to survival!
Take one step back, and the sea will not widen, nor the sky grow empty.
Give way an inch, and the wind will not settle, nor the waves truly become still!
Golden Raging Lotuses exploded repeatedly amid the black-and-white mass of the undead army. Qian Jin’s charge was extremely fast. He drew his Moon-Swallowing Bow again, firing three arrows in succession, ready to follow up immediately if the force of the leading arrows weakened.
This sudden counterattack, this sudden charge—these seemingly cold undead appeared completely unprepared for the prey that had suddenly appeared, not only failing to flee but launching a suicidal counterassault.
Provocation! Such a lone soldier dared to charge an army? The undead warriors, seemingly devoid of emotion, collectively roared in fury.
A shriek like metal grating against metal tore through the air. They converged, surging into the sky, their mass shaking the sea of sand, booming beneath the heavens of that entire star. The entire desert seemed to boil with their rage.
The nearest undead warriors simultaneously altered course, lunging at Qian Jin.
“Hee-hee-hee...”
In the sky, Hai Qing’er emitted that inhuman yet clearly directive utterance once more. The undead warriors rushing toward Qian Jin halted their attack. A massive, dark shadow flashed out from the ranks. He stood squarely in the path of the three incoming arrows, holding a chillingly sharp longsword nearly five feet long, which he brought down in a thunderous, sweeping arc, stirring up torrents of gray Battle Qi as it cleaved into the arrows.
:Seeking RO