With Zong Shou's great halberd slashing across, the four thousand two hundred and fifty-one great halberds were simultaneously swung.

Over four thousand crimson blade-lights immediately swept across the heavens. Merging together, they seemed to emanate from a single hand.

Where the blade-light passed, it was precisely the direction where the four hundred Cloud Dragon Iron Swordsmen stood.

"Boom!"

A deafening roar of clashing vital energy erupted. The four thousand two hundred and fifty-two halberd lights first completely shattered the Cloud Dragon Astral Qi of the four hundred men. Then, they swept through, impossibly sharp, reaping the lives of several hundred sixth-rank Cloud Dragon Iron Swordsmen as if they were mere stalks of grain.

When the blade-light had completely passed, only a single survivor remained among the four hundred. It was the ninth-rank Elder leading the contingent from the Lingyun Sect. His body was riddled with wounds, exposing bone. He let out a mournful cry toward the sky, tears tracing lines across his aged face.

Yet, the corpses of the Cloud Dragon Iron Swordsmen falling around him were still having their traces of vital blood drawn out and absorbed down below, into the armor of the four thousand Blood Riders.

Zong Shou remained impassive, only a sliver of sharp light flickering in his eyes. Having stepped into the seventh rank of Martial Dao, his control over this Iron Cavalry had become increasingly effortless.

With the Blood Cavalry increasing by a thousand men, their combat power had nearly doubled!

"Draw bows! Blood Rider Killing Arrows, volley fire with me!"

At Zong Shou's command, the four thousand two hundred and fifty-two blood-red great bows were drawn taut. Blood-red long arrows were nocked onto the strings.

While charging forward at a full gallop, they unleashed their volley simultaneously.

"Hummm!"

It was as if over four thousand meteors had suddenly appeared in the sky, ascending from below. A wave of arrows enveloped the two hundred Spiritual Profound Wind Masters completely.

Then, they detonated, bursting forth with countless flashes of bloody light. When the dazzling, blinding crimson light receded, only scattered shreds of flesh remained in that expanse of sky—a cloud of blood beginning its descent.

At this moment, the four thousand Blood Cloud Cavalry were mere breaths away from the hundreds of thousands of Iron Cavalry converging around them.

But in their hands, they still clutched their great bows, having no time to switch weapons.

Zong Shou paid no mind. He continued to nock arrows, squinting as he watched the remaining Dao Soldiers in the sky.

At that very instant, the Blood Cloud Cavalry collided with the massive torrent of iron before them.

But in that fleeting moment, what they encountered was annihilation. Almost every rider who had not yet reached the Innate realm had their life silently drained away the moment they neared the thousand-foot mark, absorbed by the blood mist surrounding the contingent of Blood Cavalry. All essence and blood were siphoned away by the bloody miasma and added to it.

Even the fifth-rank innate Martial Masters and Soul Manifestation Spiritualists could no longer sustain themselves when within a hundred feet.

As the four thousand Blood Riders trampled past, a terrifying void instantly appeared within the ranks of hundreds of thousands of cavalry!

Where the sixteen thousand-plus iron hooves struck, the ground was littered with fragmented corpses; many had already been reduced to stark white bone.

In merely a dozen breaths, tens of thousands perished silently!

"Hiss—"

On the hillside, Jin Buhui sucked in a sharp breath, staring dumbfounded at the scene unfolding.

He had initially thought that with hundreds of thousands of men here, even if the Blood Cloud Cavalry slaughtered like butchering pigs, it would still take over a thousand cuts per man.

—Yet, what he witnessed in the end was such a horrific sight!

Was this the Blood Cloud Cavalry? The divine might of the foremost Iron Cavalry of antiquity?

"Nothing to be surprised about!"

Lei Dong shook his head, his expression deeply complex. "They can absorb the vital energy and essence of living beings to enhance the power of the cavalry. As long as there are living things to slaughter, they can sustain combat for several days straight. This is why the Blood Cloud Cavalry were called invincible in the ancient era! Do you know that during the era of the Wulie Kingdom, all Martial Cultivators and Spiritualists below the fifth rank were forbidden from setting foot on the battlefield? This is because if any below the Martial Ancestor rank faced this Blood Cloud Cavalry, the only outcome was being drained of essence and blood to become the malevolent vital energy that the Blood Cloud could borrow at will—"

As he spoke, Lei Dong gazed up at the pale azure canopy overhead.

In a short span, that layer of light barrier had become visibly more solid. This Ten Ultimate Sky-Sealing Formation had completely isolated this piece of heaven and earth.

Was Zong Shou intending to wipe them out completely today?

—The ruin of a Sect, the prosperity of a Nation, apparently, was this simple.

"That is precisely it!"

Tian Qi smiled upon hearing this. "After today, there will be no Shangxiao Profound Spirits left in this world—"

Waving his hand, he signaled that the disciples of the Kongqi Sect understood. They advanced, positioning themselves approximately thirty-three thousand zhang away from Shangxiao Mountain, and once again deployed the World Destruction Divine Crossbows.

This location offered the optimal firing range.

Aside from the forty-seven seventh-rank colossal crossbows, there were a staggering four hundred sixth-rank World Destruction Divine Crossbows, each being fed Beast Cores into their recessed cradles.

Lei Dong glanced over and immediately his lips twitched. "Your Kongqi Sect is truly generous, daring to waste seventh-rank Beast Cores like this. What reward did Zong Shou promise you that you are willing to invest so heavily—"

Tian Qi laughed heartily, completely unfazed. And amidst his laughter, hundreds of beams of light, refined from the essence of Beast Cores, shot out simultaneously, hammering toward the direction of Shangxiao Mountain.

When the World Destruction Crossbows fired, aside from dull spiritual explosions, there was no other sound.

But when those hundreds of dazzling beams of primal energy struck the mountainside of Shangxiao Mountain, the mountain immediately shook and trembled, terrifying ripples spreading out from that point. Under the concussion of the sound wall, everything was pulverized into dust.

Innumerable golden runic spiritual restrictions manifested on the exterior of the mountain body, but they were already severely damaged!

Meanwhile, down at the command platform below Shangxiao Mountain, Yang Fan's ears were bleeding, but what preoccupied him even more now was what lay before him: the four thousand Blood Cavalry charging toward them from fifteen thousand zhang away!

Where their iron hooves trod, these scarlet knights did not even need to strike. Merely a slight touch from the surrounding blood mist caused his elite troops to drop dead.

The malevolent bloody aura spread for a thousand li!

In barely ten breaths, the four hundred Cloud Dragon Iron Swordsmen were annihilated! The two hundred Spiritual Profound Wind Soldiers were likewise wiped out!

The one hundred and forty thousand elite cavalry he had positioned at the front, equipped with spiritual artifacts and composed of at least Martial Master realm fighters, were equally annihilated!

The offensive that had recently surged like a raging tide had now completely dissolved!

"Blood Cloud Iron Cavalry? Wulie Kingdom!"

Yang Fan spun around madly, his gaze sharp as blades. "Someone tell this King, what in the blazes is this so-called Blood Cloud Cavalry?"

At his outburst, the lords of the other cities looked around in equal confusion.

After all, this was an event from over ten thousand years ago; few people had knowledge of it, and there was no time now to inquire.

However, they saw that the cultivators from the various sects nearby all had faces ashen, showing no inclination to answer. Several of them even took flight, rushing toward Shangxiao Mountain.

Finally, the seventy-year-old Daoist next to Yang Fan spoke coldly. "What use is knowing? You only need to know that two battalions of these Blood Cloud Cavalry are enough to contend with our Sect's four hundred Cloud Dragon Iron Swordsmen—"

He then looked up at the canopy overhead. "In today's battle, that Demon King intends to cut down every last one! If we do not win, we perish! We can only fight to the death—"

No one responded to this declaration. The city lords had already begun fleeing backward.

In truth, the thought had already crossed their minds when they saw the scarlet iron cavalry charging toward them.

The old man's words now became the final straw that broke the camel's back.

They were all astute individuals; how could they not understand the intention behind the Qiankun Mountain deploying the Ten Ultimate Sky-Sealing Formation to lock down the world?

They knew clearly that unless this contingent of scarlet cavalry was utterly destroyed, only death awaited them—

But the problem was how to fight them? And what could they fight them with?

A unit of cavalry, according to the usual structure of high-grade Dao Soldiers, should number three hundred; two units would be six hundred.

In other words, these four thousand two hundred Blood Cavalry were equivalent to two thousand eight hundred Cloud Dragon Iron Swordsmen.

Such a scale of high-grade iron cavalry was enough to sweep across the East Lin Cloud Continent. The mere three hundred and seventy million armored troops present here wouldn't even be enough to fill their teeth gaps!

But if they fled now, there might still be a chance to tear open a small gap in the Ten Ultimate Sky-Sealing Formation—

Yang Fan stood frozen on the spot, his eyes wide with rage, his teeth clenched and grinding.

The coldness that washed over his heart at this moment was almost indescribable; a bone-chilling frigidity enveloped him entirely.

He had arrived with absolute confidence, thinking he could neutralize this future strong enemy, only to conclude the day with this outcome?

The Demon King opposite him must surely be mocking his arrogance and overestimation of himself, right?

Reflecting on the past, all his previous efforts seemed utterly laughable, like an ant trying to shake an elephant.

Knowing fully that Zong Shou’s gaze was not even directed at him, Yang Fan still felt his face burn with shame, feeling as if everyone around him was mocking him.

All that man’s scheming had long operated on a level far beyond his own. The true opponent he had focused on had always been the various sects of East Lin, not a mere Thousand Cities Alliance.

So what was he? A clown?

"Pfft!"

At the peak of Shangxiao Mountain, Wuyue suddenly spat out a mouthful of vital blood, his face turning ashen, like death itself.

The body of Shangxiao Mountain was currently enduring the second wave of shock impacts from the World Destruction Divine Crossbows, yet he was completely oblivious.

—It’s over, everything is over! Two hundred sixth-rank Dao Soldiers, perhaps they mean little to those Sacred Lands and Great Sects.

But to the Dao Ming Sect, they were the true cream of the crop of the Daoist lineage; even some of the so-called elite disciples in the Sect could not compare to them. Seven-tenths of their true strength had been buried here in a single day!

Without these deadly weapons, how could the Dao Ming Sect suppress demons and evil in the future?

If only they had been more cautious back then; they should never have come at all.

At this time, Yuankong’s face was equally devoid of color.

Four hundred Profound Dragon Iron Swordsmen were dead, and two hundred Dao Spiritual Profound Soldiers were also gone. But their Shangxiao Sect’s Upper Purity Profound Thunder Soldiers were also close to ruin, on the verge of collapse.

"Is there no other way? How was the Blood Cloud Iron Cavalry destroyed in the past? Wasn't it at the hands of the Cang Sheng Dao?"

"Exactly! What the nearly-extinct Cang Sheng Dao could achieve ten thousand years ago, perhaps we can achieve it too—"

"I vaguely recall that it involved using cold-element spiritual arts to solidify the blood mist. Then, using spirit-summoning methods to interfere, causing flaws to appear in the spiritual formations within their armor!"

"But wasn't that method said to only be effective against fewer than three hundred riders? How can we strike against such a massive torrent of cavalry now?" (To be continued) RQ