Longzang

Chapter 1061 Everything is ready
Upon receiving news of Ji Jun's deployment, Wei Yuan was immediately invigorated. He urgently mobilized all the cultivators from Taichu Palace and began selecting qualified soldiers in the new city to form an army.

Another year passed, and the Xu family youths reproduced once more, giving birth to a total of 30,000 babies. They then devoured each other's primordial spirits, reducing the number to 5,000. According to Sun Yu's analysis, all 5,000 newborn babies possessed the potential to establish a Dao foundation.

Wei Yuan couldn't afford to nurture the infant for the time being. He was busy mobilizing troops and deploying them into battle formations. Centered on Guantun County, he divided the area into six war zones, appointing a commander to each zone. When the great battle began, each commander would receive overall orders and then be able to command independently based on the battlefield situation.

Since its establishment, Qingming has been embroiled in constant warfare. The cultivators of the Primordial Era have undergone trials and tribulations, and regardless of their specific roles, everyone is capable of leading troops.

The personnel for the six war zones were easily determined: Bao Yun, Ji Liuli, Xiao Yu, Cui Yu, Feng Tingyu, and Feng Chutang filled all the positions effortlessly. Even someone like Wang Hu, whose strength and intelligence were both exceptional, had to take a backseat, while Xu Henshui, Sun Yu, and Yu Zhizhuo could only be assigned to logistics.

Two of the twelve immortals from the Dharma Assembly back then couldn't even get into the position of commander-in-chief of the six war zones.

Hearing that a great battle was imminent, even the states of Zhao and Western Jin were in an uproar, with large numbers of merchant caravans pouring into Qingming. They represented various factions, expressing their desire to get involved and bringing generous gifts as a token of their welcome.

Wei Yuan accepted all gifts without hesitation and then increased the procurement of raw materials, taking as much as possible. However, the amount of raw materials that could be transported to Qingming was limited. In their anxiety, Wei Yuan gave them another suggestion, and so all the forces joined forces and exerted their influence in their respective courts, pushing the Western Jin and Zhao states to start the construction of a new road leading to Qingming.

The public sentiment was surging, but Wei Yuan remained calm. He knew very well that there was more than one immortal on the other side. Immortals like Liu Miao and Cang Wu were merely pawns, so this battle would certainly not allow him to pass easily.

At this time, the State of Ji had just begun to assemble its army, and it would take at least several months for the more than one million troops to gather and set off. Therefore, after careful consideration, Wei Yuan finally decided to place the boundary stone of Mirror Lake at the Red Sand Oasis.

The witch clans here have long been wiped out, and soon the Azure Nether Realm will cover this land, transforming it. With the Mirror Lake Boundary Stone erected here, the two realms will overlap. While the Azure Nether Realm's amplification will be limited, resulting in a significant disadvantage in terms of total coverage area, the combined effect of the two realms will greatly enhance the various divine wonders of this place.

The Red Sand Oasis was originally a place where the earth's veins converged, and the Youwu lineage built it into a base for worshipping their ancestral witches. High priests from within a radius of thousands of miles would gather here to offer sacrifices to the heavens. Over tens of thousands of years, the earth's veins here have become extraordinary, gradually becoming the center of the surrounding area.

If there had been a choice back then, Qingming should have stood at the Red Sand Oasis.

With the plan set, Wei Yuan returned to Qingming, brought Mirror Lake to the Red Sand Oasis, and erected the boundary stone in the center.

As the boundary stone of Mirror Lake was lowered, wisps of mist began to rise from the lakes throughout the red sand oasis, and the water became crystal clear. Standing by the lake, one could see right to the bottom, and in the distance, the lake reflected the sky.

After a while, the nearly one hundred lakes of varying sizes covered by the boundary were as clear as mirrors, with water mist filling the air and the lake reflections on them.

With a sweep of his divine sense, Wei Yuan saw that the entire oasis was dotted with clear lakes, their waters as smooth as mirrors, reflecting the clouds and mist. At this moment, the sky and lakes were one color, making it impossible to distinguish whether it was the stars falling into the lake or the reflections of the water rising into the sky.

The Red Sand Oasis is indeed a place where water and fire meet. If you add the Mirror Lake boundary stone, it becomes a mirage, where the scenery is hard to distinguish between reality and illusion.

Once the boundary stone stabilized, the boundary had overlapped with Qingming. After being processed by the Heavenly Crafts Hall, the Mirror Lake boundary stone had become another piece of Qingming stone, thus merging the boundary into one.

Several more cultivators from the Heavenly Mystery Hall arrived and set up an array around the boundary stone. At this place where water and fire meet, the Heavenly Mystery Array, relying on the Mirror Lake boundary stone, proved remarkably effective.

Large numbers of troops have been deployed to key locations, which are now surrounded by the red sand oasis, and construction of new cities has begun.

Once everything was ready, Wei Yuan cast down the newly acquired top-tier celestial fortune. The entire realm instantly became ethereal and unpredictable. Everyone inside looked up at the same time, but they didn't understand what was happening.

At this time, the Mirror Lake Boundary Stone has become the third node of destiny in Qingming. After the destiny from beyond the heavens was cast down, it immediately shielded the secrets of heaven, making everything related to Qingming and Wei Yuan difficult to predict.

However, Mirror Lake isn't completely unpredictable; rather, it can be calculated, but the results are somewhat ambiguous. Where exactly the calculated result falls short is a matter of fate.

Even with the abilities of Immortal Lord Yanshi, it would be difficult to break this arrangement without the help of the Taichu Palace's main mountain.

With Mirror Lake's abilities, coupled with Wei Yuan's own exceptional luck, enemies can easily fall into the trap without even realizing it; in short, they're just unlucky.

At this point, Wei Yuan could finally begin to deploy with confidence, bringing out all the stored, standby, and repaired floating airships. One-third were used for troop transport, and two-thirds for supply and equipment transport. A total of over a thousand airships set off one after another, delivering 500,000 heavily armed troops to the Ji Kingdom in one go.

Originally, the Ji Kingdom had fewer than 300,000 troops, with only 20,000 being its most elite mobile heavy infantry. Given the presence of immortals who could perceive the aura, it wasn't difficult for the enemy to discern their true strength. But now, with the heavenly secrets concealed, Wei Yuan was beginning to reveal his true colors.

Everything is ready.

Before long, it was the end of February. The army of Ji State had finally assembled and set off one after another, advancing in a coordinated attack. They finally arrived at Guantun County, set up camp opposite it, and established a continuous camp stretching for three hundred miles.

This war mobilized 1.5 million troops from both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, along with 20 million civilian laborers in the rear. Such a massive operation emptied the national treasury in one fell swoop.

On the eve of the great battle, Wei Yuan consulted the celestial oracle. This time, Wei Yuan didn't seek precise results, but only intended to get a general idea of ​​the battlefield situation. Therefore, he didn't choose a specific hexagram, but instead used the Yin-Yang method.

Wei Yuan placed a bronze basin in the hall, inside which was a sand table map of the Ji Kingdom. Then, he dipped his brush in spirit ink and splashed it into the water. The ink mist spread and enveloped the land of the Ji Kingdom. Then, Wei Yuan had a thought, and he saw several places of different sizes being outlined in the light mist.

The largest camp was located outside Guantun County, naturally the main camp of the Ji army. There were two other camps, one in the north and one in the south of the Ji state, both quite far from the capital and Guantun County.

Wei Yuan was completely baffled by the situation at these two locations. Judging from the divination results, each seemed to contain an army of about a million men. It seemed that these were Ji State's true backup plans.

However, the fact that he could even divine the hidden plans from such a distant place was far beyond Wei Yuan's expectations. He began to reflect on his own practice, wondering when he had become so proficient in the principles of Yin and Yang. Indeed, progress was constant, and the magnitude of it always exceeded his expectations.

Ji Jun spent three whole days building the camp. The area above the camp was shrouded in mist, and a large array was set up to prevent divine scanning and divination.

In the following days, Ji Jun began building various siege weapons. The construction progress made Wei Yuan drowsy, so he decided to do something to disrupt Ji Jun's rhythm.

The following day, as Ji Jun's routine grain transport convoy approached the camp, suddenly more than ten missiles rained down from the sky! General Faxiang, responsible for transporting the grain, was not skilled in archery and could only watch helplessly as the missiles landed, turning hundreds of grain carts to ashes. In a single attack, Ji Jun lost millions of kilograms of grain.

The next day, Wei Yuan repeated the same tactic, destroying three more grain transport teams of the Ji army, which caused the morale of the Ji army to waver, and they finally launched an attack on the city.

The following morning, hundreds of thousands of Ji soldiers emerged from their camps and lined up in front of the city. Subsequently, several huge ballistae were brought out from the camp and began firing continuously from three thousand feet away.

The crossbow bolts were not shot at the city walls, but into the sky, where they exploded one after another hundreds of feet above Guantun County, turning into storms of magical power that tore at Wei Yuan's disguise and the Heavenly Secrets Protective Array.

Ji Jun's attack was well-organized, and he deployed catapults and a strange cannon. This cannon had a short, thick barrel and a muzzle as large as a water vat, which he aimed at the city wall of Guantun County.

At the same time, more than a hundred tall chariots, each twenty feet high, were pushed out from Ji Jun's camp, propelled by more than ten Dao Foundation cultivators, in preparation for ascending the city.

The great battle has finally begun.

Thousands of giant crossbows exploded in the sky, the magical storm grew more and more ferocious, and the more than ten arrays that Wei Yuan had set up to shield the heavens were destroyed one after another. One after another, the pillars that blocked the sky caught fire and burned, and the Guantun County defense line finally revealed its true form.

As the illusion vanished, all the generals from the Ji Kingdom were stunned!
In their imagination, Guantun County, which Wei Yuan had managed for two years, must have been heavily fortified with high walls and deep moats.

But what lay before them now was only a solitary city gate; all the city walls had been demolished. Several miles away, one could see rows of strange, square-shaped buildings, forming a city without walls.

At the front, apart from the city gate, there were no other obvious raised defenses, only low, dark gray bunkers scattered everywhere, each with a row of holes, all close to the ground.

Yu Jinggao used his divine sense to scan the opposite position and saw that the ground was covered with long, winding trenches. Scattered in the trenches were a few soldiers, but there were more soldiers gathered in the bunkers, about a dozen of them.

With the troops so scattered, even if this high-level cultivator wanted to unleash a large-scale Dao spell, he couldn't find a suitable place. After weighing the options, he could only cover a few hundred people.

Just as this high-ranking cultivator was scanning the area with unbridled abandon, he suddenly caught sight of a ball of evil fire!
He let out a scream, feeling as if red-hot iron rods had been plunged into his eyes, instantly turning them red and swollen, and a faint fire ignited within his consciousness. He hurriedly withdrew his divine sense and swallowed three life-saving pills, barely managing to extinguish the projection of the evil fire.

He was horrified. If the projection was this powerful, almost setting his entire sea of ​​consciousness ablaze, what would real fire look like? The Duke no longer dared to be arrogant. He forced open his swollen eyes and looked ahead again with the simplest of vision.

A faint, malevolent sun rose in the center of the battleground. It wasn't particularly intense, but it emitted a wisp of true essence, allowing knowledgeable cultivators to discern its meaning. The Duke of Yujing, however, personally experienced that the true essence of the malevolent sun was no joke.

He just couldn't understand how such a strange thing could exist in the world.

After the illusory image of Xie Yang soared into the air, all the divine senses that had been sweeping across Wei Yuan's position disappeared, and no one dared to look around anymore.

The evil sun hovered in the air for several breaths before slowly disappearing.

All the generals of Ji Kingdom looked at Xiao Jingyuan without prior agreement. Xiao Jingyuan also frowned, deep in thought.

He had spent his entire military career, but he had never encountered such a defensive line before, and for a moment he was at a loss as to how to proceed. But one thing was certain: the hundreds of siege towers that had been built at great expense were now completely useless, and he didn't know where to aim the catapults and the newly arrived giant cannons.

(End of this chapter)