The entire portal was empty. The over 1,000,000 cultivators hovered in the air looking down, and the two Swordsage Court grand elders stood by, looking somber. Everyone was looking at the person materializing in the middle of the portal. The cultivators from the Justice Palace seemed very serious. As for Yao Yunhui, who had been just about to hurry forward to clasp hands in greetings, she suddenly stopped in place and looked at the materializing figure. For some reason, this person seemed familiar to her. And then, as the light reached its most dazzling brightness, that person became clear.

It was Xu Qing!

The moment he materialized, the surrounding 1,000,000 cultivators and the two Swordsage Court grand elders clasped hands and bowed to him.

They didn’t speak a word. They just bowed. And yet, that bow was such a powerful gesture it caused heaven and earth to tremble violently. There was even an invisible convergence of destiny aura at play. 𝙡𝓲𝙧𝒂.𝙘𝓸𝒎

Xu Qing looked around at everything. He knew that as secretary-general, he didn’t deserve to be bowed to like that. But right now he represented Palace Lord Kong, and therefore, he had to accept it. Besides, the cultivators of Emperor-Receiving Prefecture and Injustice Prefecture were only here because of his leadership. Thus, he could accept that bow. Looking very respectful, he clasped hands and returned the bow.

From high in the sky, the grand elder from Emperor-Receiving Prefecture said, “Secretary-General Xu Qing is here on behalf of Palace Lord Kong with new orders!”

Holding the palace lord’s command medallion aloft, Xu Qing said, “The relief troops from Emperor-Receiving Prefecture and Injustice Prefecture will make haste… to the western front!”

“Your orders shall be followed!” the million cultivators shouted.

Some distance away, Yao Yunhui stood in place, stunned, her mind spinning, her vision growing dim. The only thing she could see was that person standing straight and tall as a million people bowed to him. The image would be etched in her mind forever.

The relief troops from Emperor-Receiving Prefecture and Injustice Prefecture didn’t stay in Rainfield Prefecture. As soon as Xu Qing issued his orders, they started moving. They would fly the rest of the way to the western front.

Yao Yunhui and her contingent of Justice Palace cultivators had their own assignments to attend to, and didn’t go along. However, even after the army was gone, she couldn’t dispel her astonishment. And she couldn’t stop thinking about that final figure who had teleported in and received honor from a million cultivators.

“That was the secretary-general from the Swordsage Palace. He works directly for Palace Lord Kong….”

“His name is Xu Qing!”

“I heard Xu Qing and Chief Yao… don’t get along.”

Though the cultivators from the Justice Palace didn’t care as much about Xu Qing as those from the Swordsage Palace, they had still heard about him. That was especially true considering that, before the start of the war, Palace Lord Kong had been named as the temporary governor, and Xu Qing had always been at his side.

That said, none of them were as shocked by what had just happened as Yao Yunhui was. And as some people remembered that she and Xu Qing had had their differences, many of them secretly looked over at Yao Yunhui.

Yao Yunhui didn’t say anything. Waves of shock pulsed through her as she thought back to past events. Everything was still vivid in her mind, and it all led to very mixed emotions. After a long moment passed, she managed to regain her composure. Looking around at her Justice Palace subordinates, she said, “Back into position! Guard the portal!”

Because of her status, her cultivation base, and her recent experience, Yao Yunhui seemed a bit more dignified than before.

The surrounding cultivators immediately voiced affirmation of her orders and stopped focusing on thoughts about the amazing event which had just occurred. With fresh reinforcements heading to the front lines, they now had some hope.

The fire of hope set Rainfield Prefecture ablaze. And it soon spread to Tidefall Prefecture and the western front.

***

On the western front, the humans and the Holytides had just gone through thirteen straight days of combat, and had only just agreed to a temporary ceasefire to rest and recuperate.

From a distance, it was possible to see that some 5,000 kilometers away from the Heaventide Mountains was a massive ravine. That ravine formed a clear division between sets of territory.

On the other side of the ravine were the Heaventide Mountains, which had once formed the third line of defense holdout in Tidefall Prefecture. Beyond the mountains were the Heaven Eye Abysm and the Ninelands Plains. Previously, you had to pass those three areas to get to Holytide lands.

But things were different now. From high above, the Heaventide Mountains looked like a dragon that had surrendered and was gasping for breath. Many areas in the mountains were in complete ruins. Some peaks had crumbled, and black smoke drifted about everywhere. The wreckage of magical devices was visible everywhere. They were the vestiges of war.

Previously, those mountains had been one of the major lines of defense against the Holytide army. But as the Sea-Sealing County taboo treasures began to crumble… the Holytides broke through.

The human forces had been forced to fall back 5,000 kilometers to where the taboo treasure net was reestablished, and a fourth line of defense was maintained.

As of now, the Heaventide Mountains had no humans in them. Most of the individuals present were heavily armored Holytide cultivators. They were several million strong. What was more, beyond the mountain range it was possible to see a vast area filled with countless army tents. There weren’t just Holytides present. There were also members of countless species that the Holytides had enslaved.

Over the course of the last half-month, the Holytides had begun a host of engineering projects in the mountains. As of now, there were over a million towers rising up from the mountains. Black lightning bolts danced between them, creating a huge net of electricity. Then the lightning rose up, but didn’t go all the way up into the sky. As deafening thunderclaps rang out, it caused the black clouds to form a very clear barrier that made it seem like there were countless enormous objects taking shape within them.

Each of those huge objects was a full 3,000 meters, roughly diamond-shaped, and had a red eye in the middle of it. There were no less than a hundred thousand of them. They existed within the boundless clouds in the sky and were arrayed in the direction of the front lines of battle. They pulsed with terrifying auras, as well as the drone of howling animals. Wherever that sound passed, the air twisted and rippled, making it sound almost like the chanting of a god. They were magical devices of war that the Nightshades had given to the Holytides. The sounds they emitted could shatter the soul, and cause pressure to weigh down that could crush the flesh. In fact, the magical techniques they released could devastate just about anything.

But most dangerous were the grim reapers they scattered about. Those reapers were strange, invisible entities that the senses couldn’t perceive. They came and went on the battlefield like ambassadors of death with huge sickles that they used to inflict grievous and deadly wounds on humans.

They didn’t just attack individual enemies, though. They also perpetrated invasions by releasing mutagen, just like the kind in forbidden regions and grounds. It was a severe corruption method specifically targeting humans. Humans who got too close to the reapers would only be able to launch a few attacks before their bodies started withering rapidly. Then their mutation blotches would go out of control, causing them to mutate into mindless beasts. That was just one of the tactics employed by the Holytides.

Above the battlefield, the dome of heaven was dark and gloomy, and weighed down oppressively. There were also black snowflakes that fell.

The black snow was another Holytide tactic. Although it looked like snow, if you examined the snowflakes closely, you would see that each flake had very tiny hands and feet, as well as faces. They fell everywhere. Individually, they could form magical techniques, or they could clump together to become divine abilities. As they spread, the humans who breathed them would be corrupted with an extremely dangerous poison. The snowflakes could also be used by Holytide cultivators to make weapons. There was almost nothing that could defend against them.

Inside the clouds were the diamond-shaped magical devices. Beneath the clouds was the endless black snow. But that wasn’t even close to everything at play.

The Holytides had caused the ground itself to come alive.

The endless mud and corpses turned into enormous severed arms that crawled forward. The deep furrows left by the arms would quickly fill with black snow. The severed arms dragged black chains behind them that stretched up into the sky and into the clouds.

There, in the clouds, they converged in a massive black vortex. That vortex resembled a sun. As it slowly rotated, the chains from the ground merged into its depths. And as the severed arms slowly pulled the clanking chains, it seemed like they were gradually dragging some terrifying entity out into the open. An extremely noxious smell drifted out from the vortex, which became even more black clouds that made the black snowfall thicker.

As the armies from Emperor-Receiving Prefecture and Injustice Prefecture neared the front lines, they received official permission to get close. What they saw of the Holytide front lines was as described above.

Xu Qing led the army, and what he saw caused his heart to pound. The other most noticeable part of the battlefield were the endless corpses.

Mountains of corpses. Seas of blood. Forests of bones.

Xu Qing had killed a lot of enemies in his life. But not even he had seen anything as shocking as this battlefield.

There were just too many corpses. Too many. Few were in one piece. And the seemingly endless flesh and blood created a most vile of stenches. War was like a millstone of heaven and earth. When it began to roll, all living beings would be caught up by it and crushed.

Xu Qing had thought of the Three-Spirits Dao-Suppressing Mountain as being a hell on earth. But compared to this, that was nothing.

This was worse than a hell on earth.

Next to Xu Qing was the Captain and everyone else, and all of them could only look around wordlessly.

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