"The Commander of the Terrorclaw Soul Engineer Legion has been beheaded!"
"Roar—"
Little White spun around, reverting from his human form to his true body. The massive ice bear, looking like a small mountain, let out a heaven-shaking roar. And on his back, Chen Junting sat cross-legged. In one hand, he held his sword; in the other, he held Liao Mengkai's severed head.
Fresh blood dripped down, yet it felt as if it were dripping onto everyone's hearts.
In less than three breaths, a Class-9 Soul Engineer was utterly dead. Even though he wasn't at his peak condition, he was still a Class-9 Soul Engineer, equivalent in power to a Super Douluo.
At this moment, the morale of the Tian Hun army skyrocketed!
In stark contrast, the morale of the Sun Moon army completely crumbled.
However, this was not the end.
Chen Junting formed a hand seal, and countless array runes were instantly sketched out. Drawing upon the ley lines buried deep underground, he activated the grand array!
Instantly, the mountains shook and the earth trembled as the ground cracked open layer by layer.
To avoid friendly fire, the ground fissures he manipulated were positioned exclusively where the Sun Moon army was concentrated. They cracked open, then snapped shut; cracked open, then snapped shut... After repeating this several times, a massive number of soldiers were utterly buried alive.
This caused the chaos within the Sun Moon army to escalate even further. As they scattered in all directions, they were like a swarm of headless flies.
Kong Deming looked out over the battlefield with an ashen expression, only to see a tide of routed soldiers. The Tian Hun army was sweeping along the fleeing troops, slaughtering their way toward him. Not to mention Ye Xuanji's relentless attacks, and the increasingly violent cramping in his abdomen, which made his defensive line even more precarious.
How could this be?!
How could this be!?
Kong Deming never imagined that the mighty army of their Sun Moon Empire would inexplicably be defeated by some kind of virus, allowing the Tian Hun Empire to pick up such a massive advantage. That's right; Kong Deming refused to admit that their defeat was due to the Tian Hun Empire. He only lamented the ever-changing nature of the battlefield.
The next second, a dazzling silver moon rose once more. In the blink of an eye, the silver moon revolved nine times, and streaks of silver radiance fell like shooting stars. Penetrating through the Silver Moon Divine Light Barrier, they slammed down onto the Star Sword Dragon.
"Army, retreat first! This old man will cover the rear!"
His white hair and silver beard flared out, displaying absolute madness. Kong Deming pressed his hands against the void and held up the sky, as if plucking the bright moon from the nine heavens. He violently swung his hands down, and endless moonlight illuminated the entire battlefield, triggering explosions that far surpassed a Class-9 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
At this very moment, as Kong Deming unleashed his divine might, he seemed to peer through the dense sea of people and caught sight of the rear of the Tian Hun army. It was a ten-headed giant snake, gently flicking its tongue. Although bizarre in appearance, it bore the distinct silhouette of a Jade Phosphor Serpent.
At this moment, Kong Deming suddenly remembered something. Before they had set out on this expedition, His Majesty, Xu Tianran, had reminded him: 'Within the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda, there is a Soul Master whose martial soul is the Jade Phosphor Serpent, and whose use of poison has reached the pinnacle of perfection. Once engaged in a group battle, they absolutely must watch out for this Soul Master. If possible, he is to be assassinated! Killed on the spot!'
"So that's how it is."
What a pity... Now that he finally saw it, it was too late to do anything about it.
...
The bloody battle lasted for nearly a full day. The area before Jialuo Pass was littered with the corpses and filth of the Sun Moon army. As far as the eye could see, the earth was left devastated and scarred.
The setting sun was like blood, casting a yellowish hue across the land. Not far away, a massive quantity of giant boulders blocked the road ahead, resembling a newly forged pass. This was the handiwork of Kong Deming and those Class-9 Soul Engineers.
Because as the battle dragged on to its final stages, Kong Deming and the others realized that if they didn't make a decisive choice, total annihilation would be their only outcome. After all, the condition of the Sun Moon army was simply too poor. By the end, the ordinary soldiers were like turtles in a jar, and even the soul engineer soldiers could barely muster any strength. They had no choice but to find a way to delay the advancing Tian Hun army.
Thus, Kong Deming and the Class-9 Soul Engineers blasted open a retreat route at the rear of the army. Once the soul engineer soldiers capable of retreating had fallen back, Kong Deming and the Class-9 Soul Engineers attacked and collapsed the mountain ranges on both sides, using the rubble to block the Tian Hun army's path. To even prevent Gu Tianchen from continuing his pursuit using spatial abilities, they had deployed soul tools that interfered with spatial power.
Kong Deming, along with four Class-9 Soul Engineers and eight Class-8 Soul Engineers, stayed behind to cover the retreat, holding off the Title Douluo-level experts. Only by doing this were the remaining routed soldiers of the Sun Moon Empire able to use flight soul tools to complete their evacuation. However, seven or eight out of ten of their army from this expedition had either been buried or slain before Jialuo Pass, or captured by the Tian Hun Empire.
The news of the Sun Moon army's defeat at Jialuo Pass rapidly spread throughout the three great empires of the Douluo Continent, becoming known to all. Upon hearing the news, the citizens of the three nations were instantly shaken! An indescribable joy filled their hearts, and morale surged significantly alongside the spread of this news.
"Did you hear? The Sun Moon Empire lost."
"I heard it ages ago. And the one leading their army this time was Kong Deming! Tsk tsk tsk—I didn't expect even him to be defeated."
"Kong Deming? Who's that?"
"He's just... ugh! It's no use explaining it to you anyway. Just know that he's an incredibly badass old fogey."
"Whoa—"
"..."
All sorts of news and rumors rapidly spread, further fueled by the high-ranking officials and major powers of the three great Douluo Empires. It even seeped into the Sun Moon Empire's ears. And the first to receive the news were the cities located in the northwest of the Tian Hun Empire that had been captured by the Sun Moon army.
At first, the soldiers and generals of the Sun Moon Empire maintained a dismissive attitude, believing this was merely a tactic by the Tian Hun Empire to use fake news to destabilize their military morale. But as time passed and the news grew more rampant, it began to cause panic within the Sun Moon army. Their morale was severely suppressed as a result.
It was also during this period that the Tian Hun Empire launched a fierce counteroffensive, with a speed that could only be described as lightning-fast. They divided their forces into four routes to reclaim their lost territories.
The first route: Led by the Tian Hun Empire's Marshal Li Shuai, accompanied by the experts of the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. They marched out from Jialuo Pass to continue pursuing Kong Deming and the elite Class-9 Soul Engineers.
The second route: The Tian Hun Empire dispatched a Soul Douluo-rank general, along with a Worship of the Tian Hun Empire and a surviving Elder of the Body Sect. They led an army of sixty thousand out of Tian Dou City, with their target being the coastal cities seized by the Sun Moon Empire.
The third route: Led by an Enshrined Elder stationed in Extreme North City, commanding an army of twenty thousand. They advanced from the north, exerting pressure toward the southwest.
As for the fourth route... It couldn't really be called an army, but rather a specialized squad. Primarily composed of Shrek Academy's garrison forces, supplemented by Soul Masters from various major powers, they formed a four-thousand-man strike team. Like a sharp dagger, they plunged directly into the belly or weak points of the Sun Moon army stationed in the northwest of the Tian Hun Empire, engaging in guerrilla warfare.
For a time, the four-pronged army formed by the Tian Hun Empire and its allied powers left the Sun Moon forces stranded within Tian Hun territory utterly unable to cope.
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