In the few remaining array eyes at the core of Black Blood Stockade, the very air seemed to be burning.
The dozens of Gu Masters responsible for maintaining the Mountain Protection Grand Array had long since reached the edge of total exhaustion.
In order to resist the bombardment outside, the crippled array was forcibly siphoning power between its nodes at an almost frenzied rate.
Several Gu worms serving as the core foundations of the array could no longer bear the load.
"Hold! All of you, hold for me!"
An old Clan Elder with white hair and beard glared wide-eyed, great mouthfuls of blood spilling from the corners of his mouth, yet he still clutched the Primeval Stones before him and squeezed out the last trace of Primeval Essence with everything he had.
Beside him, a young Gu Master's body convulsed violently, and the array Gu cupped in both his hands suddenly went rigid.
In the next moment.
Crack.
A crisp shattering sound rang out. Countless fissures split open across the Gu worm's surface, and it turned into a pile of dead ash on the spot.
Immediately after, the chain reaction erupted!
One array eye burst!
Two array eyes collapsed!
"HMMMM——!!!"
That enormous light curtain covering the skies above Black Blood Stockade, which had barely held for several days, began flickering violently across a vast expanse.
An utterly hideous, massive crack abruptly exploded open from the southwest, then spread like a spiderweb at visible speed, racing madly across the skies above the entire stockade.
Only this time, there were no other array eyes left to patch it.
Countless clansmen rushing about inside the stockade had not even had time to grasp what was happening.
"KABOOOM——!!!"
Amid an earth-shaking roar, the light curtain overhead that had protected them for days shattered completely!
Countless fine motes of light drifted down from the sky like heavy snow, dissolving into nothingness in midair.
Outside the array, the densely packed White Bone Alliance army fell silent for the briefest of instants.
Then—
"It's broken! The array is broken!"
"Charge in! Leave no one alive!"
Battle cries like a surging sea rose to the heavens, shaking the mountain ranges themselves.
No barrier remained to separate the two sides.
The killing intent and greed accumulated over several days burst the dam entirely in this moment!
"Run! Run for the rear mountain!"
Screams of utter terror exploded throughout the stockade.
Having lost the array's shelter, the ordinary clansmen — the old, the weak, the women and children — fled desperately toward the rear mountain, crying out like a herd of panicked beasts.
Some gripped their children's arms tightly, some carried aged parents on their backs, and others hauled along wounded men soaked in blood, all stumbling and sprinting through the congested streets.
Yet within this despairing tide of people retreating to the rear, another current of people was moving the opposite way.
Black Blood Stockade Gu Masters, long since caked in blood and filth, eyes gone red, gripped their weapons and pushed silently through the crowds, striding step by step toward the stockade gates, the alleys, and the frontmost lines on the slopes.
Children's cries brushed past their shoulders.
The wailing of the elderly was flung behind them.
Everyone was running.
Only the directions were utterly different.
At the very front of the ruined main street, Lin Cang stood atop the rubble like an iron tower, Lin Zhen standing at his side, drenched in blood.
And behind them, every Gu Master in Black Blood Stockade still able to stand had already gathered.
Lin Feng was among them. That white robe of his, always spotless, had long since been thoroughly stained through with blood and mud.
His broken left arm was crudely splinted with wooden boards and bound tightly against his chest with cloth strips, yet his right hand still gripped his longsword.
The bearing, reputation, and scheming he had once cared for most had been utterly swept away in this moment.
Not far off, Lin Yan stood with a head of scorched, messy red hair, his bare torso wrapped in blood-soaked bandages.
He grinned wide, flames churning over both fists, cursing out the White Bone Stockade scum at the top of his lungs as he took the frontmost position.
On the other side, Lin Wuxie crouched silently atop a section of broken wall, his gaze as savage as a wild beast poised to pounce.
And at a street corner to the rear, a pale-faced Lin Xue was leading the surviving Medicine Hall Gu Masters in distributing the last batch of healing medicines.
In the past, these people had fought each other to the death over resources, each finding the others intolerable.
But today, all of that had lost its meaning.
Black Blood Stockade truly was about to fall.
Lin Cang slowly turned around, his gaze sweeping over these familiar, young faces covered in blood and grime.
He gave no more impassioned speeches, merely raising both fists, his voice hoarse yet carrying across the entire field like rolling, muffled thunder:
"Behind you lies the century-old foundation of our Black Blood Stockade, and your parents, wives, and children."
"Today, we have nowhere left to retreat."
"There is only fighting to the death!"
"FIGHT TO THE DEATH!!!"
Amid the earth-shaking roar, the White Bone Alliance army, a black tide, had already smashed clean through the ruins of the stockade gate and crashed viciously into Black Blood Stockade's last line of defense!
The brutal street fighting reached white heat within the first second of contact.
Lin Yan was the first to charge forward with a mad howl, both fists becoming two violent meteors of fire, caving in the breastbones of the two foremost White Bone Stockade Gu Masters by sheer force.
The front street held for less than a quarter hour before it was declared lost. Black Blood Stockade's Gu Masters retreated over the corpses of their comrades to the second street, then immediately surged back with roars under Lin Zhen's lead.
Lin Feng's sword light flashed frantically through the crowds, every swing raising a spray of blood; and whenever a gap appeared in the line and someone fell, Lin Wuxie would slam in viciously from the flank like a rabid dog, holding the enemy back with his flesh and iron fists.
The houses on both sides of the streets collapsed one after another under the bombardment of Gu worms.
Corpses piled higher and higher, blood gathering into streams along the seams of the bluestone slabs.
Some whose apertures had been completely drained of Primeval Essence snatched broken iron sabers off the ground and continued the close-quarters brawl; some whose Gu worms had already been destroyed still threw themselves forward with bloodshot eyes, clamping their teeth down on their enemies' throats.
The whole of Black Blood Stockade had utterly become one enormous millstone of flesh and blood.
BOOM——!
Lin Cang threw out an iron fist, Golden Primeval Essence roaring forth, blasting more than ten White Bone Alliance elites ahead of him, bone shields and all, into a sky full of shredded meat.
The might of a Rank 4 expert was unleashed to its utmost in this moment — the instant he struck, he could clear an entire swath of ground.
But the problem was that no matter how fast he killed, there was in the end only one of him.
Rank 4 cultivation could decide the outcome of a local engagement, but it could not save a stockade already leaking from all four sides and broken wide open.
Just as the entire front stockade had gone utterly berserk with slaughter.
Tock. Tock. Tock.
The dull sound of the Bone Spine Scepter striking the ground drifted slowly from the rear, cutting through the chaotic battlefield.
Li Mang had finally entered the field.
Leaning on that ghastly pale Bone Spine Scepter, he walked step by step into Black Blood Stockade over a ground strewn with severed limbs.
"LI MANG!!!"
Lin Cang locked onto him almost the instant he appeared, eyes flooded with blood as he charged straight over with towering killing intent!
The two were instantly embroiled in battle once more.
But this time, Li Mang refused to tangle with Lin Cang in place for long.
While using Bone Path methods and the Bone Spine Scepter to block Lin Cang's violent iron fists, he kept retreating with the utmost insidiousness, deeper and deeper into Black Blood Stockade's interior.
Especially when his peripheral vision caught sight of great numbers of utterly defenseless ordinary Black Blood Stockade clansmen flooding toward the rear mountain in tears, a cruel, cold smile immediately surfaced on Li Mang's withered old face.
He had found Lin Cang's greatest weakness.
BOOM!
Li Mang deliberately exposed an opening, using the force of Lin Cang's punch to shoot backward toward the rear mountain. At the same time, he raised a hand and sent a spread of ghastly pale bone spears blasting viciously toward the crowded mass of refugees at the foot of the mountain!
Lin Cang's eyes nearly split from their sockets. He could only give chase relentlessly, forcibly driving the Gold Sever Leaf Gu to intercept those bone spears in midair.
Wasn't Lin Cang trying to protect these clansmen?
Then this old man would go precisely where the people were thickest!
The two traded blows the entire way, the violent aftershocks of Rank 4 power punching straight through several city blocks along the route, until at last, one ahead and one behind, they forced their battle up onto the rear mountain!
On the slopes of the rear mountain, those ordinary clansmen who had only just taken shelter in crude tents, still shaken to the core, suddenly saw two figures exuding world-ending auras come slaughtering their way up. Every face went paper-white in an instant.
KABOOM!
The air blast from just a single exchange sent dozens of tents on the hillside flying straight into the air, countless shards of stone spraying in all directions like cannon fire.
The crowd let out despairing wails, fleeing frantically toward both sides of the slope.
Li Mang stood atop a boulder, breathing in great gulps, his complexion even more ghastly than before, the hand gripping the Bone Spine Scepter trembling faintly, the golden luster along the shaft already flickering unsteadily.
But as he looked down at the devastated hillside below, he still let out a hoarse sneer:
"Lin Cang, how much longer can you hold?"
"The array is gone, and the stockade will soon be gone too. You're one Rank 4 — just how many people do you think you can protect?"
Lin Cang stood opposite him, his body likewise covered in wounds all over, blood dripping ceaselessly from his iron-gray fists.
Faced with Li Mang's mockery, he wasted not a single word, the killing intent in his eyes nearly condensing into substance:
"Killing you means fewer people die."
The instant the words fell, Lin Cang struck!
He turned utterly savage, no longer caring about his surroundings, the Primeval Essence within him burning without reservation. His entire body became a meteor of black iron, crashing down overhead with the violent momentum of mutual destruction!
Li Mang's expression changed. Gritting his teeth, he forcibly squeezed out what power remained within the Bone Spine Scepter once more, ghastly pale radiance surging as he met the blow head-on!
BOOM——!
The first collision cracked open half the slope of the rear mountain, countless trees torn up by the roots!
BANG——!
The second collision shattered the cliff face, enormous boulders crashing down with a rumble as the crowd fled for their lives, wailing and scrambling on hands and knees.
Blood spilled from the corner of Li Mang's mouth, yet his mouth kept goading Lin Cang; and Lin Cang's gaze grew colder and colder, his fists heavier and heavier.
Finally, at the midslope, the two drove every ounce of strength in their bodies to the absolute limit and slammed viciously head-on into each other once again!
KABOOOOM——!!!
The terrifying might of this single strike utterly exceeded the limit that the rear mountain's body could bear.
Accompanied by a muffled roar like the heavens collapsing and the earth splitting apart, an enormous fissure of unfathomable depth spread madly downward, starting from the peak of the rear mountain!
Towering trees toppled in swathes, thick layers of soil churning violently.
Two torrents of power at the Rank 4 level poured down into the depths of the earth along the fissure, triggering an even more terrifying upheaval inside the mountain's body.
In the next moment.
Under the horrified, despairing gazes of countless people, great masses of mountain rock collapsed along with the winding roads, and the entire rear mountain slope caved in with a thunderous crash!