The youth's eyes were fixed on the giant beast that was charging towards him, the ground shaking with its advance. His slender frame seemed even more frail and insignificant.
"Chun Ya! Fall back to another squad! You can't hold this position alone!"
Suddenly, a hoarse roar echoed. In front of the youth, a figure covered in blood and filth stood up. The man was missing a large part of his upper right torso. It was the vice-captain of the slender youth's squad.
As he roared at the youth, he had already lunged forward. The "Wind-Elephant Beast," startled by the suddenly rising figure, slowed its charge for a moment. In that brief pause, the vice-captain, like a whirlwind, kicked up a storm of blood and charged to the front of the "Wind-Elephant Beast." His remaining left hand was like an iron clamp.
With a "bang," he fiercely gripped the shaft of the long spear embedded in the "Wind-Elephant Beast's" eye.
"You son of a bitch! Die for me~~!"
With another loud roar, he unleashed all his strength, simultaneously ramming his body forward.
"Pfft!"
The long spear pierced straight through its brain. The "Wind-Elephant Beast's" momentum did not diminish, and its body, weighing several thousand jin, continued to charge forward with tremendous force. The squad's vice-captain could no longer resist.
"Swish!"
He was instantly impaled through the right chest by the long spear shaft. After spitting out a large mouthful of blood, his head dropped heavily...
The slender youth, jolted by the vice-captain's sharp cry, felt his body tremble. His lips were tightly shut, and tears instantly welled up in his eyes. But he did not hesitate. He spun around the giant rock and ran towards the side!
A hundred zhang away from them, in all directions, were other squads. The sounds of battle filled the sky. As long as someone was resisting, those Wind Beasts could not charge straight in.
Every area was a raging battle. No one noticed that the hundred-zhang area guarded by this squad had returned to a brief moment of calm...
"Juezi, Guihuai! Set up the 'Bone-Shattering Spikes'! Dammit, hurry, hurry, hurry!!"
A Gen held a whistle in his hand, urging them on repeatedly. He turned to look at the other three.
"Shanjia, you three, hurry up and move the 'Bone-Shattering Spikes' over! Juezi and the others are almost out! People are going to die! Hurry!!"
A Gen, with a white turban wrapped around his head, watched as waves of his clansmen charged down below, only to be cut down in droves. His voice was already hoarse from shouting. There was only one word in his mind: "Fast!" He had to be as fast as possible.
Their squad had been replaced so many times. Uncle Ya and Mao Yi from the old days had been gone for many years. Among the old-timers, only he and Juezi were left.
Their squad might seem safe guarding the high slope city wall, but in reality, they were the primary target of the Wind Beasts' attacks. Because the "Bone-Shattering Spikes" they fired were too powerful, they had become the main target for the "Wind-Goose Beasts."
Suddenly, A Gen's expression changed drastically.
"Defense!"
"De... fense!"
"Defense, defense!!"
In an instant, it wasn't just him shouting, but all the squad leaders on this stretch of the city wall were screaming at the top of their lungs.
As A Gen's shout left his mouth, Juezi, Guihuai, and the others simultaneously grabbed at the ground beside them. Several shields gleaming with an oily black light were raised above their heads.
A Gen also grabbed an Oily Black Shield at the same time. But when he glanced down and saw a batch of "Wind-Elephant Beast" reinforcements rushing from a distance, and the bloody melee on the slope below, a fierce glint flashed in his eyes. His clansmen were falling in droves, fighting a life-for-life battle with the massive Wind Beasts. After a bitter fight, they had just gained a slight upper hand.
But seeing the "Wind-Elephant Beast" reinforcements about to arrive, he knew what the outcome would be without even thinking. Those clansmen would be thrown into a desperate situation once again.
A Gen gritted his teeth and moved the Oily Black Shield in his hand slightly, to prevent the restrictions on it from canceling out the sound waves he was about to emit. With his other hand, he quickly put the whistle to his mouth. A sharp, urgent sound immediately blasted out!
They had no Spirit Roots, no magical power. Activating a Spirit Artifact required a specially refined whistle, which meant A Gen and the others couldn't use Spirit Artifacts as freely as cultivators.
As the whistle shrilled from A Gen's mouth, an invisible force spread out before him. The next moment, the four "Bone-Shattering Spikes" that had just been set up flashed with light and suddenly vanished from their original positions.
Almost simultaneously, another seven or eight whistle sounds rang out nearby. Thirty-odd "Bone-Shattering Spikes" similarly flashed and disappeared without a trace. These were the other squad leaders, like A Gen. They had also seen the crisis below and had immediately taken the same action.
After blowing their whistles, they all quickly moved their Oily Black Shields over their heads.
But just as A Gen had sounded the alarm earlier, two "clouds," one black and one gray, had rapidly converged on them from two directions above. In the blink of an eye, they collided above their heads.
Then, a rain of black fireballs fell from the sky. These black fireballs, upon touching the ground or rocks, let out a series of "hissing" sounds. The iron-hard rocks were corroded, leaving behind small, pitch-black holes from which rose wisps of black smoke with an extremely pungent smell.
When the black fireballs hit the city wall and the Oily Black Shields, rays of restrictive light continuously flashed, neutralizing the corrosion of the black fireballs.
"Ahhh..."
A series of tragic screams tore through the void near the city wall, coming from the mouths of more than a dozen Tianli Clan warriors. Black smoke rose from their bodies in one or several plumes. They writhed on the ground in agony, but lost their breath within a few moments.
These were either the ones who had just set up the "Bone-Shattering Spikes" and hadn't had time to retreat, or the squad leaders who had blown their whistles to activate the sound waves.
At the same time, a large number of the "Wind-Elephant Beast" reinforcements at the foot of the mountain also fell. They were pierced through by the "Bone-Shattering Spikes," pinned to the ground, screaming incessantly...
A Gen had just raised the Oily Black Shield to his shoulder when his other side was hit by three consecutive black fireballs. His body shook violently, and he let out an involuntary roar.
His body instantly charred and blackened at a visible rate. With his eyes wide with rage, he didn't writhe on the ground in pain. Instead, he reached out with a hand that looked like charcoal and tore the whistle from his chest. Then, with incomparable speed, he placed it under the Oily Black Shield. His voice trembling violently, he turned his head and shouted at Juezi, who was hiding under the shield.
"Want... want to... be... captain... take it!"
Then, with a smile of agony on his face, he seemed to see Uncle Ya, and Mao Yi who had fought with him for the captaincy. In an instant, his body was hit by more black fireballs. He collapsed with a crash, turning into a pile of charcoal...
"A... Gen!"
"Captain!"
The Tianli Clan warriors under the few Oily Black Shields looked on, their eyes about to split. Juezi, in particular, gripped the rock on the ground so tightly that his fingernails tore, and blood seeped out, yet he was oblivious...
In the sky, large swaths of black and gray clashed together, biting and pecking at each other. Feathers flew in chaos, and blood rained down.
The black birds were about a foot long, shaped like geese. Their black feathers were like iron, their claws like eagle talons, and their beaks like those of vultures. Their expressions were ferocious. These were the "Wind-Goose Beasts."
The gray birds of prey clashing with them were called "Gray-Cloud Eagles," flying demonic beasts refined by the Tianli Clan.
Those black fireballs were spat out by the "Wind-Goose Beasts" and could melt metal and crack stone. If not for the "Gray-Cloud Eagles" blocking them, the Tianli Clan warriors below, even with the defense of the Oily Black Shields with their protective restrictions, would have been submerged and wouldn't have lasted long. They would have been annihilated.
In the sky, A Yuan stood with six young men and women by his side. Behind them, another thirty-four Tianli Clan cultivators floated silently. They were responsible for commanding the "Gray-Cloud Eagles," precisely to intercept the "Wind-Goose Beasts."
At this moment, there were over three thousand "Wind-Goose Beasts" in front of them. Although seven or eight out of ten were the lowest-rank Wind Beasts that had not yet developed spiritual intelligence, each one of them could spit out "Black Flame" at least once per hour in a wave of attacks.
And the "Gray-Cloud Eagles" refined by the Tianli Clan, which had numbered over five thousand this morning, were now reduced to just over one thousand. Therefore, although the "Wind-Goose Beasts'" attack just now had been intercepted, a large amount of "Black Flame" still rained down, causing heavy damage to the mortal warrior defense line below. In A Gen's vicinity alone, more than ten people had died instantly.
A Yuan and the others, standing in the air, could see more clearly. Stretching along the city wall in both directions, many more warriors like A Gen had died under the "Black Flame."
At this moment, behind the large flock of "Wind-Goose Beasts," five even larger "Wind-Goose Beasts" were hovering in the air, occasionally flapping their wings. They exuded the powerful aura of Third-rank Wind Beasts. On either side of these five massive "Wind-Goose Beasts" were dozens of slightly smaller Second-rank "Wind-Goose Beasts."
"Let's see what you'll use to set up a defensive line for these mortals after the 'Gray-Cloud Eagles' are all gone today!"
Just then, a Third-rank "Wind-Goose Beast" suddenly spoke in human language. Its voice passed through the thousands of "Wind-Goose Beasts" and "Gray-Cloud Eagles" locked in a deadly struggle and clearly spread throughout the entire battlefield.
A Yuan's brow furrowed. The other party was clearly trying to demoralize them. However, it was also true that after more than ten years of continuous fighting, the "Gray-Cloud Eagles" that their clan had accumulated and refined over thousands of years were almost depleted.
'Such a desperate attack today... are they planning to go for a final, decisive battle?' A Yuan thought to himself.
Over ten years ago, the Tianli Clan only had to deal with one type of Wind Beast at a time. As long as they beat them back and inflicted enough pain, there would be a long period of rest. They would have time to re-forge weapons and refine demonic beasts. Now, however, they were consuming the Tianli Clan's reserves and heritage every single day.
"And how are you any better off? Otherwise, you would have just sent your First and Second-rank Wind Beasts. Why let those without spiritual intelligence come up here to die? You are cutting off your own future generations..." A Yuan also spoke faintly. His words seemed plain, but they were actually extremely malicious.
A Yuan didn't believe that all the "Wind-Goose Beasts" that had opened their spiritual intelligence were willing to let their own offspring charge at the forefront. These Wind Beasts definitely had their own hierarchy and power struggles within their clan. The weaker ones would be the first to see their bloodlines die out.
Sure enough, upon hearing this, before A Yuan could finish, the Third-rank "Wind-Goose Beast" shouted.
"Insolent brat, cease your nonsense! You're courting death!"
With this sharp cry, several massive "Wind-Goose Beasts," along with those Second-rank ones, swooped down from a higher altitude to attack.
"Kill!"
A Yuan also shouted, ascending once more to dodge the clashing "Gray-Cloud Eagle" battle groups below and charge towards the enemy. The Tianli Clan cultivators behind him also roared in unison.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
They then quickly followed.
They had long known what each battle meant. And today, the three Wind Beast clans had been fighting continuously from dawn until noon. Their squad, commanding the "Gray-Cloud Eagles," had been supporting the entire battlefield, meeting the "Wind-Goose Beasts" whether they split their forces or combined them.
And now, the "Wind-Goose Beasts" had gathered all their forces to attack one point. But for the Tianli Clan's side, this was probably A Yuan and his team's last battle alongside the "Gray-Cloud Eagles." Even if they didn't die in this battle, the next time the "Wind-Goose Beasts" attacked, they would have to meet them with their own bodies to protect the mortal warriors below from the threat from the sky.
And now, with the last of the "Gray-Cloud Eagles" to assist them, they could still fight a hearty battle against the opponent's Third-rank demonic beasts. So they had to take the opportunity to kill as many "Wind-Goose Beasts" as possible.
"A Ying, take care!"
Before flying out, A Yuan glanced into the distance. That was the main battlefield of the "Wind-Iron Beasts." The sound of explosions had also been incessant since morning...
At a higher altitude, ten thousand zhang from the ground, the three elders of the Fengli Clan were fighting against five Fourth-rank demonic beasts. At this moment, their bodies were already covered in blood.
The Fourth Elder's aura had even begun to weaken. He had used a secret art earlier, and its power had now faded. He felt he couldn't hold on much longer. Fortunately, the Second Elder was blocking in front of him, creating a two-on-three situation. But in reality, it was the Second Elder fighting one against three, with the Fourth Elder merely providing support.
On the other side, the Third Elder was a woman of about thirty, with a slender body, a stunningly beautiful melon-seed-shaped face, and a breathtaking figure. Fighting one against two, although blood was already seeping from her body, she was a dual dharma-body cultivator. Not only had she cultivated the Qiongqi Purgatory Art to the sixth level, but she was also proficient in strange witchcraft. This made the two "Wind-Iron Beasts" extremely cautious, always holding back their strength to guard against a sudden use of witchcraft from the Third Elder. This allowed her to hold her own against two opponents.
The Third Elder was also secretly observing, wanting to use her witchcraft to heavily injure one of them at a critical moment. But the opponent was always cautious, clearly waiting for someone on the Second and Fourth Elder's side to be killed before ganging up on her.
And tens of thousands of zhang away from these two battle groups, two old men, one in black and one in gray, had been facing each other from a distance.
The black-robed old man had deep-set eyes. When he looked at people, it was as if a ferocious beast was about to devour them. His skin was dark, and his aura was as cold as iron.
The gray-clothed old man had a head of white hair. His gray clothes were covered in intricate blue patterns. His face was wrinkled, and a pair of long, snow-white eyebrows hung by the sides of his face. He held a gleaming staff and stood in the void with a slightly stooped figure. He suddenly slid his thumb over the head of the monster carved on his staff.
"Old ghost Gong, don't you move recklessly, or you'll have to fight me!"
A sharp glint flashed in the black-robed old man's eyes, and a cold voice came from his mouth. Although they had come out late, they had already been in a standoff for about half an hour. Both of them were Late-stage Nascent Soul great cultivators. Once they fought, it would be the final, decisive battle that would determine the outcome of the entire war.