Longzang

Chapter 929 Today's Domineering Actions
Feng Chutang donned a set of black armor, which consisted of more than a dozen parts and three layers: a soft inner lining, a soft-lined armor, and a cotton-covered hard armor. Finally, after fastening the belt, all parts activated and instantly merged into one.

Feng Chutang then picked up a long-handled mace, inserted seven flying swords into his belt, and said, "I never thought that I, Feng, would one day wear this armor."

It must be said that, once Feng Chutang put on this black armor with silver patterns, he instantly transformed from a weak scholar into a fierce general capable of charging into battle.

He then opened the brocade pouch in front of him, carefully took out three dark red talismans, placed them in a hidden pocket under his gauntlets, and then stepped out of the tent, saying to his personal guards, "Let's go."

At the edge of the azure sky, Zhang Sheng had regrouped his troops, this time by two thousand, for a total of five thousand.

The men were the same, but their equipment had changed drastically. The soldiers carried heavy shields and were equipped with double-barreled axes. At the edge of the camp, two new armored vehicles were parked, and Yu Zhizhuo was carefully loading a batch of dark red shells into them.

Zhang Sheng was still dressed in a blue robe, with a row of identical flying swords laid out in front of him. One by one, the captains of the Dao Foundation were lining up to receive their flying swords, and in the blink of an eye, all two hundred flying swords had been taken away.

Zhang Sheng checked the time and said, "The time has come, let's set off!"

Feng Chutang, fully armored, looked at Zhang Sheng with considerable displeasure and said, "Why are you still dressed like this?"

Zhang Sheng said calmly, "As the commander-in-chief of the three armies, I do not need to charge into battle, so I can wear whatever I want."

Helpless, Feng Chutang went to the designated location to rendezvous with his troops. He was only slightly satisfied to find that he was in charge of a force of a thousand men.

As the Azure Nether army set off, Zhang Sheng summoned his generals to the central war chariot, spread out a map, and with a wave of his hand, declared in a resounding voice: "The sole objective of this battle is to crush Song and Cui head-on! No matter how many of them come, we have only five thousand, and we will push through their central army!"

The generals were instantly filled with excitement!

Outside the border between Song and Cui, a troop was marching swiftly. The soldiers were all showing signs of exhaustion, but the bugle calls urging them on continued incessantly. Many soldiers' eyes revealed discontent, but no one dared to complain aloud. Even before reaching the front lines, the army's morale was already showing signs of disarray.

Two figures descended from the sky, landing on the central army's carriage. Cui Chengxiao immediately entered the carriage and asked, "What are you doing? Why are you mobilizing the army without authorization? Look at the morale of this army; aren't we just asking for a defeat?"

The beautiful woman in palace attire raised her eyebrows and glared angrily at Cui Chengxiao, gritting her teeth as she said, "You still know how to come back?! It's just in time, I'm going to raze Qingming to the ground!"

Choi Sung-hyo's face darkened: "What a joke! Why would you suddenly start a war with Qingming out of the blue?"

The beautiful woman in palace attire exclaimed, "Qingming sent an envoy to humiliate Lian'er in front of everyone! Lian'er was so shocked that she almost had a relapse of her old illness. I can't swallow this insult!"

Choi Sung-hyo was taken aback and asked, "How were you humiliated?"

The beautiful woman in palace attire said, "You have uttered insults!"

Cui Chengxiao's expression immediately softened considerably, and he said, "I see, that's alright then. Where is the envoy?"

"I skinned them all alive, along with their entourage!"

Cui Chengxiao sighed and comforted him, "That's settled then, why are you still angry? Actually, it's enough to just execute the ringleaders. The followers are just ordinary soldiers, there's really no need to kill them. If you kill them all, it will make us look tyrannical."

"They provoked Lian'er's old illness to relapse, so they all deserve to die! Don't talk about punishing the ringleader, the real mastermind is still alive and well! The ringleader is the Lord of the Azure Netherworld!"

Cui Chengxiao advised, "This is really unnecessary. Perhaps it's just the envoy acting on his own initiative. Both of Qingming's former Realm Lords were disciples of Taichu Palace, so we should also proceed with caution."

The beautiful woman in palace attire flew into a rage and roared, "I don't care! So what if it's the Taichu Palace? I'm going to destroy Qingming! If you won't go, I'll go myself. I'll just die in Qingming, which will be exactly what you want! I think you just despise Lian'er and think she's a burden, isn't that right?! You don't care about your own child, what else do you want to do?"

Cui Chengxiao's face turned pale and then red, and he said, "You, what nonsense are you talking about!"

The woman in palace attire widened her eyes, her voice rising again: "I'm talking nonsense?! Lian'er isn't yours, how could she..."

The old man next to him quickly got up and quietly slipped out of the carriage.

What followed was beyond his comprehension. The beautiful woman in palace attire was the great-granddaughter of the Immortal Ancestor, but her husband was not Cui Chengxiao, but the Second Elder. Cui Chengxiao's own wife was the legitimate daughter of the Xu family, also a direct descendant of the Immortal Ancestor. Therefore, this complicated affair involved the Immortal Ancestor on both sides. The old man had finally climbed to the position of Yujing, and his wonderful life was just beginning, so he had no intention of getting involved at all.

He stepped out of the carriage and flew towards the city. A general from the rear guard hurriedly took to the air and asked, "Elder, aren't you going to stay with the army and oversee the situation?"

The old man stroked his beard and said, "I have other important matters to attend to in the city. The five elders here are sufficient."

Having said that, he ignored the general's attempts to persuade him to stay and resolutely flew towards the boundary city. Only after he had flown far away did the general spit out a curse and mutter "old fox" under his breath.

The old man's ears twitched, but he pretended not to hear and instead increased his speed. He was very clear-headed; Qingming was able to withstand and defeat the million-strong army of the Wu Clan, which was something his mere two hundred thousand men could not possibly defeat.

Although Qingming had many powerful cultivators at the Imperial Realm level back then, these cultivators have all left now. However, the pressure on the northern gate of Taichu Palace is not as great now, and it is not a problem to send one or two Imperial Realm cultivators over.

The old man had finally broken through to the Yujing realm, and now he had no desire to face the Qingming Army formation or engage in a life-or-death battle with Yujing.

Unbeknownst to him, a heavily armed troop lay in ambush not far from the city ahead. A powerful array of fortune was set up in the center of the camp, with a small spring at its core. Ji Liuli stared intently at the spring, continuously tossing various treasures into it. Finally, the spring rippled, and then suddenly a high jet of water shot out!
Ji Liuli was overjoyed and said, "A big fish has taken the bait! Send the signal and have the entire army change into their new gear!"

The soldiers immediately set up several cannons and fired a few specially made shells into the sky. The shells exploded silently and without light, but emitted a low, rumbling vibration that was inaudible to the human ear, and disappeared into the distance in an instant.

The tremors swept across the land, and several secret camps were activated, from which groups of warriors emerged, each wearing different colors of clothing.

As the old man flew, he suddenly felt a jolt in his heart, as if something bad was about to happen. But the feeling vanished in an instant, as if nothing had ever occurred.

He felt uneasy, but he was even more unwilling to turn back, so he gritted his teeth and continued flying forward.

After flying over a forest, they would enter the Wood Armor Realm a few dozen miles ahead. The old man's mood had just eased when his expression suddenly turned extremely grim.

At the edge of the boundary, tens of thousands of Song and Cui soldiers were stationed, but their formation was scattered, and they were all hiding among the rocks and trees, not daring to step out of the boundary. Opposite them was a group of five hundred people, carrying the banner of the Zhan Tian Gang.

In front of the Zhantian Gang's position, seven or eight hundred Song soldiers' corpses lay scattered about. The two armies were now facing each other across the boundary. The Zhantian Gang did not enter the boundary, and although the Song soldiers inside the boundary outnumbered their opponents by dozens of times, they dared not step out of the boundary.

"These are bandits?!" The old man's face grew increasingly grim. What kind of bandits were so well-equipped, fully armed? This armor was even better than that of the Song Dynasty's imperial guards.

In the center of the Zhan Tian Gang, a masked cultivator turned around, looked at the old man, and smiled, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.

The old man clearly sensed that the masked cultivator's cultivation level was only at the mid-stage of the Dharma Aspect realm, a far cry from his own. But for some reason, when facing this masked cultivator, he always felt as if he were being stared at by a ferocious beast, and a chill ran down his spine.

The old man steeled himself and said in a deep voice, "I am Elder Cui of the Song Dynasty, and He Zhiyou, a scholar of the Hanlin Academy of the Great Song Dynasty. Considering that you have gone astray and this is your first offense, I can be lenient with you! Now leave quickly, and I will not pursue the matter any further!"

The masked cultivator chuckled and said, "Elder He, please calm down and watch the show first."

Dozens of miles away, shouts of battle suddenly rang out from the still unfinished city. Several groups of bandits simultaneously charged into the territory, and gunfire erupted. These bandits were all armored, some moving like the wind, firing from a distance. As soon as Song and Cui's troops approached, they fled, continuing to fire after creating distance.

Some, relying on the advantage of cavalry, charged directly into the Song-Cui army's formation, fought their way through, then circled around at a distance before charging again at a weak point.

But the most ferocious were a band of black-clad, black-armored bandits. After entering the territory, they dismounted, formed a horizontal line, and advanced slowly, firing with ferocious firepower. They specifically targeted the areas where Song and Cui troops were most concentrated, attacking wherever there were the most men. And that wasn't all. Seeing the Song soldiers fleeing into the city lord's mansion and taking up positions against the walls, this bandit group even brought out several infantry cannons and began bombarding the mansion!

These bandit groups charged back and forth within the newly established territory. Each of the Song and Cui warriors had a faint green light emanating from their bodies, as if they were wearing invisible armor, but they still could not stop the ferocious bandits and were routed.

All of Song Cui's troops capable of fighting had been taken away by the beautiful woman in palace attire. Those remaining were either weaker second-line troops whose main task was building the city and cultivating the land, or a few elite troops who were on rotation resting and whose equipment was being maintained; they couldn't even wear full armor. Although there were still 70,000 to 80,000 people in the city, their fighting strength was predictably weak, and they were quickly routed by a few thousand bandits.

He Zhi felt a chill run through his body and didn't know what to do.

On another battlefield, Zhang Sheng had deployed five thousand heavily armored soldiers, forming a square formation to confront the fifty thousand Song and Cui troops on the opposite side.

Although the Qingming Army was small in number, Cui Chengxiao felt a chill run down his spine looking at the orderly and disciplined army opposite him. He stepped forward first and said loudly, "Lord Zhang, we were originally on good terms, but what is your intention in leading your army westward now?"

Zhang Sheng stood on the roof of a chariot behind the army formation, pretending not to hear, and focused on observing the enemy's morale.

Feng Chutang stood to the side and said, "I see that the other side is all bark and no bite; they may not dare to fire the first shot."

"Really? Then I'll take it." Zhang Sheng reached out and grabbed a large-caliber rifle, aiming it at the other side.

"Wait!" Feng Chutang was about to stop them when flames burst forth and thunder roared before her eyes!
The enormous bullet pierced through four rows of Song and Cui soldiers before embedding itself in the body of the fifth man.

The shot was too powerful and too fast; even Choi Sung-hyo couldn't stop it.

Zhang Sheng said slowly, "Not firing the first shot is the way of the king. But today I will act with the tyranny, so I must fire the first shot!"

Immediately, Zhang Sheng pointed his gun forward and shouted, "All troops, attack!"

With a shout, the Azure Nether army marched in perfect unison, pressing towards the Song-Cui army formation. The army moved like flowing lava, seemingly slow but actually swift, and utterly invincible!
(End of this chapter)