The Mastiff-Lions were moving at an incredible speed. When the more than a thousand Mastiff-Lions suddenly braked hard, it wasn't just Vihaya who was thrown off balance; at least a thousand men lost their footing and were catapulted forward. Vihaya was slightly better off, as nothing was in front of him, but the Mastiff-Lion warriors following close behind were not so lucky. Those behind crashed directly into the beasts in front, eliciting screams from the already terrified Mastiff-Lions...
With a powerful twist, the beast flung the Aoshi warrior off its back. In terror, it thrashed wildly, its sharp claws landing mercilessly on the warrior. In just that single strike, several hundred men sustained injuries of varying severity, and their entire charging formation dissolved into chaos...
The Taotie—one of the Four Great Fiends of antiquity—its mere aura struck fear even into Rank Six Desolate Beasts, let alone these mere N-Rank Desolate Beasts. This was Ye Jingyu’s ultimate trump card...
A single roar from the Taotie, a mere full release of its terrifying aura, was enough to completely neutralize the fighting capability of over a thousand Mastiff-Lions, throwing the entire Mastiff-Lion contingent into massive disarray...
It was during this brief window of opportunity that Ye Jingyu’s Iron Army, led by him, crashed into the heart of the Mastiff-Lion formation. Ye Jingyu, the broken saber strapped to his back, gripped a meter-long cavalry saber in his hand and began hacking directly at the Aoshi warriors sprawled on the ground...
These newly fallen warriors, before they could even grasp what was happening, saw gleaming military blades descending upon them, their faces contorting in sheer terror...
Vihaya truly lived up to his reputation as a master of the Xiantian Realm. The instant he hit the ground, his body was already coiled for a spring, but just as he regained his footing, a giant figure, easily over three meters tall, swung a massive battle-axe down at him with crushing force...
Faced with an imposing presence that seemed capable of cleaving heaven and earth, Vihaya dared not meet the blow. Disregarding all decorum, he rolled aside, narrowly dodging the colossal axe strike. Where he had just stood, the ground erupted with a thunderous boom, splitting open a massive crater over three meters in diameter...
This was accomplished without a shred of Zhenqi—this was purely the result of raw, brute strength...
Seeing this display, Vihaya’s heart filled with profound shock...
But at that very moment, Bie Li, who had been tracking him relentlessly, had closed the distance. Bie Li held no weapon, yet the intensity of the Xiantian Zhenqi radiating from him was no less than Vihaya's own...
"Heartless Finger..." Bie Li hissed coldly, suddenly extending a single finger. A flash of emerald light erupted, shooting directly toward Vihaya’s chest...
It seemed to happen instantaneously; the strike arrived at Vihaya’s sternum before he could process it. Horror gripping him, Vihaya tried to twist his body further aside, but under such rapid assault, a complete evasion was impossible...
With a sharp ch't, a crimson jet of blood burst from Vihaya’s shoulder. Just as he clenched his jaw against the excruciating pain, intending to retaliate, Yue Youqun materialized beside him. He held an ancient, unadorned longsword, and with a mere flick of his wrist, several streaks of sword light instantly flared. In the blink of an eye, thirty-six beams of sword energy formed a complex, weaving pattern, closing in to envelop him...
"Tiangang Sword Style?" Vihaya exclaimed, his curved saber hacking out with desperate force, unleashing crescent-shaped arcs of blade energy...
The Tiangang Sword Style was the most formidable technique of the Tiangang Sect; legend claimed its highest achievement could summon the Thirty-Six Heavenly Stars. While Yue Youqun was far from mastering that level, the thirty-six coalesced sword auras he unleashed were lethally sharp and intricately linked, placing immense pressure on Vihaya, forcing him to defend with all his might...
His Xiantian Zhenqi surged forth, his curved saber meeting the assault again and again. Wave after wave of blade energy sliced through the void, colliding with the sword auras descending from the sky, producing sharp hissing sounds...
Just then, a streak of pure black light shot in from the empty space, appearing as if summoned from nowhere, arriving directly before Vihaya’s eyes...
It was the arrow loosed by Hu Yan Qi...
Vihaya gasped in alarm and instinctively wrenched his body to the left, but the arrow whistled past his ear, shearing off his entire right earlobe. Splatters of bright crimson blood were startlingly vivid...
The intense pain nearly brought tears to Vihaya’s eyes, but the true cause of his despair was the realization that this Iron Army contained two Xiantian masters, plus a monster whose sheer physical strength rivaled a Xiantian expert. How was he supposed to fight this? While the Mastiff-Lion Corps was fearsome, Vihaya was the only one at the Xiantian level; even his two deputies were merely at the peak of the Martial Master realm, far from true Xiantian power. How could this army possess so many masters of that caliber?
Xiantian masters were considered top-tier experts. With even the slightest inclination, they could secure a general’s commission anywhere; why would they settle for serving under another general?
Vihaya was bewildered, Vihaya was anguished, Vihaya was utterly helpless...
By this time, the Iron Army had fully breached the Mastiff-Lion ranks. Before the Aoshi warriors could fully recover their senses, several hundred heads had already been cleaved off...
However, the Mastiff-Lion Corps proved worthy of its reputation as the Kingdom of Hu’s elite—even in this desperate situation, they rapidly rallied to fight back. They could no longer rely on the Mastiff-Lions, but the skill of their warriors, many nearing the Martial Master level, was unleashed fully in this moment...
Aside from the initial two or three hundred slain by the Iron Army and the seriously injured Mastiff-Lion warriors, the remaining thousand-plus men quickly rose, drawing their weapons and engaging the soldiers of the Iron Army in fierce combat...
What surprised them, however, was that every single soldier in the Iron Army was a martial artist themselves, the lowest ranking at least reaching the Martial Apprentice level. Though individually weaker than the Aoshi warriors, two or three fighting together were more than enough to hold one down...
Excluding the two thousand troops left with Chen Qi, this charge involved over eight thousand soldiers—a four or even five-fold numerical advantage over the Mastiff-Lion Corps. Facing the Aoshi warriors stripped of their Mastiff-Lion support, the Iron Army held an absolute advantage...
It was almost four or five men overwhelming a single foe...
Their initial fear had been the terrifying aura of the Mastiff-Lions. Now, with over a thousand beasts trembling harmlessly on the sidelines like frightened pets, that threat was entirely gone...
These were all men of the martial world, hardened veterans who cared little for killing...
Especially in this kind of mass melee—though it was their first time experiencing it—every man was surging with hot blood and excitement...
The mighty Mastiff-Lion Corps had been thrown into such disarray by their own General’s strategy. If they couldn't even handle the remaining thousand-plus fighters, they might as well all slit their own throats...