Which should have been nothing surprising. Amber had some degree of sway over spectral entities—which explains how its roars could have some manner of spiritual effect on the human mind.
One could call this an ability, or just simply a gift.
Lu Ye, Ju Jia, and Yi Yi had all enjoyed the benefits of entering the Pool of Divine Purification, making it perfectly logical to expect that even Amber, too, must have derived some good from being in the Pool with them. One of them was how powerful its roars had become.
The Sunlit Mountain acolytes were thrown into disarray at Amber’s thunderous roars. That greatly weakened the strength of whatever attacks they were launching. Even flying weapons were falling out of the skies like flies.
Yi Yi materialized. Raising her arms above her head, a large disc-like mass of energy coagulated over her hands. Intricately detailed runes ran all over the disc.
Without warning, the glowing mass of energy spewed out swarms of projectiles, raining the enemies below with a deluge of scythes.
Gu Canyang and Zhou Pei could only watch from outside in disbelieving bewilderment. Even from the other side of the shield, they could feel the tremors from the onslaught Yi Yi was hammering into the enemy defenders. The emanation from her use of Spiritual Power told them what they needed to know about her strength, but they could not understand how she was able to use such a wide area-of-effect spell.
Spells of such potency and magnitude could only be used by Spell Cultivators who had transitioned to a Heaven-grade cultivation discipline. Only they had the precise control and the prerequisite amount of Spiritual Power required for such complex magic.
That should not have been happening right here, right now, was taking place right before their very eyes and they were having trouble believing it.
The two-pronged attack by Yi Yi and Amber was a highly synergistic one; Amber’s roar had first stunned the enemies both mentally and spiritually, rendering them all paralyzed and helpless. Before they could even recover, Yi Yi was ready to rain hell down on them. The first volley immediately claimed several casualties and the rest did enough to annihilate the others.
Lu Ye did not remain idle; he flapped his wings and swooped down on the Sunlit Mountain legate in a streaking jet of flames that zipped down from the air.
Four deadly sparkles flitted amongst the defenders like wasps, weaving and crisscrossing incessantly while eliciting more shrieks and screams of agony amid the veritable purgatory that was Yi Yi’s handiwork. But the din was hardly the only byproduct of the dance of Lu Ye’s own metallic bumblebees; men fell to the ground, dead and bloodied.
Flying weaponry was known for its extreme speed. A flying weapon imbued with Glyph: Windwalk would be even faster—so fast that the naked eye would not be able to catch up. While Lu Ye might lack what was needed to further imbue his flying weapons with more Windwalk Glyphs, the weapons in their current state were already deadly enough to deal with Cultivators in the inner regions of the Battlefield.
Nevertheless, using Glyphs on flying weapons came with its caveat: it reduced the flight duration of the weapon since flying weapons had a limited Spiritual Power reserve capacity.
Which was still enough to deal with his current enemies. By the time Lu Ye reached his prey, the legate’s retinue of more than thirty men had dropped dead to the ground.
Lu Ye drew Inviolable. With the momentum of his descent and every ounce of strength behind it, he brought it down hard on the enemy legate.
The latter had been fortunate. Amber’s earlier roars had affected him too, but the tireless sacrifice of his men to keep him safe, plus some amount of luck, had spared him from the death that Yi Yi’s spell was bringing down on both men and earth beneath her.
The enemy legate did all he could to defend himself. He seized his weapon and swung it up to meet Lu Ye, only for it to be knocked out of his grasp. Recoiling at the throbbing jolt of pain that shot up his arm, the legate dropped to his knees.
His strength was nowhere near Lu Ye’s in the first place, let alone withstanding a blow augmented by the momentum of his fall.
That he tried to attack Lu Ye in retaliation was what saved him—for now. It was what prevented Lu Ye from coming back with a follow-up attack and the latter did not want to haphazardly risk losing his initiative only to land himself at a disadvantage.
Lu Ye used the momentum of his opponent’s swing to propel himself back into the air.
Rumbles shook the ground. It was the calvary arriving—Ju Jia and the rest of the arrowhead formation of Body-tempering Cultivators. They had been bogged down by the defenders when Lu Ye took to the skies earlier. Amber and Yi Yi’s attacks had helped to lift the pressure off their backs, allowing them to catch up when Lu Ye began his assault on the Sunlit Mountain legate.
The stampede blasted through the last of the Sunlit Mountain defensive lines, much to the despondent dismay of the acolytes who had been giving their all trying to repel the invaders.
Like the predator it was, Amber roamed the area, launching attacks on its own on any unsuspecting Sunlit Mountain defender while Yi Yi picked off one target after another. With her allies now making an entry and the status quo pretty much under control, she had stopped her area-of-effect spell.
Still, each and every blast she fired remained as potent and deadly as ever.
In the meantime, Lu Ye was wheeling back for a second charge at his target.
Still on his knees, the Sunlit Mountain legate barely had time to react when he felt a sudden chill run down his spine. He looked up frantically, just in time to see the glimmer of steel blinding his sight. In his panic, he groped for his weapon. Only then did he realize that it was knocked out of his hand earlier. Desperate to survive, he lunged, aiming a bare-handed punch at Lu Ye.
It caught Lu Ye squarely in the shoulder, the blow causing him to careen sideways and they collided headlong into each other, crashing to the ground and rolling in a mass.
Lu Ye sprang to his feet quickly with his prize, the jade tablet, firmly between his fingers. The legate laid on the ground, motionless with a spreading pool of red beneath him.
Jade tablets used to manipulate defensive wards required a constant connection to the magical ward they controlled or the ward would cease to operate. That prevented individuals who were carrying these tablets from stowing them away inside their Storage Bags.
Lu Ye had noticed the jade tablet hanging off the legate’s belt the first time he attacked him. Hence he was ready to snatch it the second time he wheeled around for a renewed attack.
Lu Ye gripped the jade tablet in one hand and brought Inviolable down on it, smashing it with a crash, and the defensive ward gave an involuntary shudder.
The invaders outside launched their last attacks, overwhelming the shield enough that it shattered with a huge burst. The unstoppable tide of the invaders surged into the outpost, pouring through every door, every alcove, and every corridor. Any surviving Sunlit Mountain acolyte did not have to be told to escape; they began rushing for the Sanctum of Providence. The Divine Opportunity Column inside was their only chance at making it back to Jiu Zhou alive.
The choice was obvious enough, it was either retreat or certain death.
Therefore, by the time the invaders reached the inner depths of the outpost, everyone was gone. Aside from the handful of stragglers, the outpost was almost deserted.
But the battle was not yet won. Far from it. At another battlefront outside the outpost, it was still ongoing.
The Sunlit Mountain prolegate and more than three hundred of his men were stranded outside when the invasion began. Charged by the legate to launch a diversionary attack on the Lofty Plume Court outpost in a bid to force both the Hidden Light Sanctuary and Lofty Plume Court forces from attacking the House of Wintry Blossoms, the men marched away from the safety of their own outpost only to realize that they were now under attack as well!
The three-hundred-man-strong assault force hurried back home at once, but there was a larger force besieging their outpost—the eight hundred acolytes of the Hidden Light Sanctuary and Lofty Plume Court outposts—barring their way home. That was when the Sunlit Mountain assault force decided to just lay low.
Until the moment when scouts reported to the prolegate that Lu Yi Ye had managed to gain entry with ten Body-tempering Cultivators. That forced the assault force to take action.
None of them could just sit by and watch their outpost being invaded and their brethren slain.
Hence, the prolegate made the suicidal decision of engaging the stronger enemy force from behind, hoping that this would at least relieve some of the pressure.
But they had only just revealed themselves when, to the shocking despair of the Sunlit Mountain assault force, their outpost’s defensive ward shattered right before their eyes. What hope there was that the defense would triumph dissolved into air, just like the flakes of energy dregs from the shattered shield that vanished with the winds.
The very thing they had been dreading had happened and they had failed to stop it.
But things had now changed. The magical ward had failed and the outpost had been overrun. There was no longer any need to continue the fight, especially with the enemy’s superior numbers whittling down theirs. The prolegate gave the signal to retreat and the Sunlit Mountain force steadily began to withdraw.
But the Hidden Light Sanctuary and Lofty Plume Court acolytes were not eager to let their quarry leave just yet.
The main invasion force had been outside long enough to rush inside as long as the shield fell. But they had barely seen any action at all aside from hurling blows at the shield and slaying a few mice that got left behind.
Back when the House of Wintry Blossoms outpost was breached, the acolytes had managed to withdraw to the real world of Jiu Zhou fast enough to prevent further loss of life.
Similarly, there were barely dozens when the Sunlit Mountain outpost fell.
For this reason, the invaders were restless— struggling with an itch they could not scratch. Until the three-hundred-man-strong-Sunlit Mountain assault force appeared. Three hundred extra targets to hunt.
The invaders gave chase. They hunted the assault force down like dogs, cutting them down man after man until what remained of the force numbered less than half the original number. At last, the invaders decided to call off the hunt when they finally had their fill of bloodlust. The remnants could finally escape alive.
On the other hand, the invaders did not want to back the remnants into a corner. Rat or tiger, anyone trapped with no way out would fight to their deaths and that would mean further unnecessary losses for the invaders.
The Sunlit Mountain prolegate might have survived, but he must be regretting the deaths of his men.
He had made the call to send his men to their deaths and the fall of the shield had proven that their deaths had been for absolutely nothing. As he grieved his men, he blamed himself for the poor judgment. If only they had stayed hidden.
The magical ward could fail and the outpost could fall. But if he had spared his men such reckless deaths, they could always rebuild.
What followed next was straightforward enough. The invaders spent the following hours stripping the outpost bare while Lu Ye, Gu Canyang, and Zhou Pei divided the Blessings of the outpost’s Divine Opportunity Column among themselves, each of them immensely pleased at the booty.
But the only rain on the proverbial parade was the outcome of the ten Body-tempering Cultivators who went into the outpost first with Lu Ye. Of the ten that went in, four were killed and five were grievously wounded. Only Ju Jia emerged with light injuries.
Such were the differences in prowess between the Body-tempering Cultivators. All of them were of similar strength and cultivation rank to Ju Jia and few would dispute that they were the absolute best from each order.
Nevertheless, Ju Jia was the one that took the brunt of the abuse being in front, yet he was the one who was with the fewest wounds, unlike the other nine.
Compared to other types of Cultivators, this illustrated how important talents and innate qualities were to Body-tempering Cultivators. A Combat Cultivator could still improve himself through hard work, training, or through other methods. But Body-tempering Cultivators without the much-needed qualities of physical strength and endurance, oftentimes being the ones to spearhead attacks in battles, would die very easily.
To that end, Body-tempering Cultivators oftentimes received the most priority and attention. They would get the best portion of supplies and resources and the best training infrastructure since their presence on the battlefield could dictate the outcome.
That was what Hua Ci told Lu Ye before, Body-tempering Cultivators receive the best amount of care and benefits, but they also needed to justify the favor by winning battles using their blood, sweat, and tears.
The plundering took two hours before everyone finally boarded their aerial conveyances. The two flying ships took into the air with acolytes from both orders still exchanging tales and giggles in merriment. Beneath the ship, the outpost was engulfed in a furious conflagration.
It was common for victors to lay waste to and raze enemy outposts to the ground. After all, the bad blood between Lofty Plume Court and Sunlit Mountain was the cast-iron guarantee of this happening.
The flying ships flew together before they separated halfway and acolytes from both orders traded farewells and withdrew to their respective outposts.
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