The Wei clan’s secret inheritance, the Thousand Mountains, was a profound art on par with those of the four major clans. The most awesome part was that the cultivator could borrow the enemy’s hand to temper his origin power in battle. The underlying mechanism was similar to Zhao Jundu’s refinement in fire.
In the battle just now, Wei Potian had managed to take on most of the six-armed creature’s attacks on his own. The other experts from the Wei clan would seek out opportunities to attack and add more injuries to its massive body.
These people from the Wei family had been working together with him for a long while. They might not be the strongest in overall fighting power, but they were proficient in focused attacks and knew the best timing to strike. Each of them could only use a couple of powerful moves, but that was enough.
Wei Potian was mostly on the defensive, wielding a pair of shields in an airtight defense. He was staggering under the constant blows of the six-armed creature but refused to collapse no matter what. His origin power gradually depleted as time went by, but the lone peak above his head only grew higher and clearer.
He hadn’t realized it at that moment, but he had already reached the “above myriad mountains” realm. This was something he should’ve achieved only after becoming a divine champion. None in the entire Wei clan had succeeded before.
The six-armed creature possessed boundless strength, but its attacks were a tad too crude and its weapons were only a bit better than stone-age instruments. Wei Potian loved such opponents.
The Thousand Mountains wasn’t without its risks since the defense wasn’t impenetrable. Wei Potian feared opponents like Eden who could abruptly attack a single point. Against such foes, he might be killed before he could even activate Thousand Mountains. Comparatively, the six-armed commander was an easier opponent.
While Wei Potian was lost in thought, one of his subordinates said, “Big bro, since you can advance just by getting beaten up, why would you need to wait for those six-armed creatures? Won’t you break through if we band together and beat you up every day?”
Wei Potian’s face turned green. He grabbed that thin man and shook him up. “Looks like you have other intentions! Tell me how you want to die, this daddy will help you!”
The person screamed, “Big Bro Potian, you’re mistaken! I have my reasons for thinking that way.”
Wei Potian paused briefly, shouting, “Speak, what reasons? If you can’t, I’ll beat you to death and help you breakthrough.”
That person replied hurriedly, “Your cultivation increased sharply after getting beaten up every day by Sis Yuying. Everyone knows this.”
Wei Potian’s face turned red. He snorted deeply, saying, “You guys aren’t Yuying! I let her beat me up, understand?”
Despite the stern words, Wei Potian released his grip on the fellow and tossed him to the ground.
“What are you all standing here for? Go and clean up the forest! We aren’t done killing the beasts.”
After driving his subordinates away, Wei Potian fell on his butt and leaned against the holy tree. Now that he was no longer tense, he felt his entire body aching, and every little movement caused him to grimace. Fortunately, there was no one around, so his glorious image wouldn’t be affected.
Thinking back to the battle just now, he patted the tree behind him, saying, “Looks like that monster really does worry about you. Next time, I’ll run around you and see what they’ll dare to do.”
Before long, a capable subordinate jogged over. “Big Bro, we’ve cleared out the forest. The brothers are shipping things back to the cars now. What do we do next?”
“Let me think about it…” Wei Potian felt a bit of a headache.
That person said, “Sire Zining’s orders were to scout for dark races in the area, but we took down a forest instead. Aren’t we going against his command?”
Wei Potian felt angry the moment he heard Song Zining’s name. “What do you know? If we don’t take it, are we supposed to leave this forest for the dark races? Give me the map.”
The obedient subordinate produced a map of the new world. Wei Potian observed the map repeatedly and discovered that something wasn’t quite right. He observed the map again after bending it at an angle, then slapped his thighs, saying, “No wonder we deviated from the route! So this is how we have to look at it. That bastard Song Zining is so evil, he actually didn’t tell us. Does this mean that this flat earth we’re seeing is actually curved? Mm, it’s possible…”
After some thought, Wei Potian said, “Tell our brothers to stop shipping the spoils. Hide our cars in the forest and put our scouts in position. Prepare an ambush!”
“Ambush? Who are we ambushing?”
“The dark races, of course. Who else? Do you think they can ignore this forest when they see it from a distance?”
The other person immediately understood.
Wei Potian pointed at the corpse of the six-armed creature. “We can’t just leave him here. Clean him up and prop him up in a seat at the center of the forest. We can’t cut down wood or we’ll leave traces. Use some rocks for the chair and make it look like he’s nodding off.”
A couple of experts arrived and carried the six-armed creature’s corpse away to set it up.
Wei Potian leaned against the tree, muttering, “Will I really be lucky enough to see those damned demonkin?”
His luck was indeed quite good.
A hazy black mist appeared outside of the forest before long. There was no telling how many people there were in the blurry scenery. This was a special characteristic of demonkin units, a mist that could conceal origin power and voice. The ability was visually striking, but most powerful creatures relied on origin power fluctuations to sense the surrounding world.
The squad set themselves up outside of the forest and made no movements. Two faintly discernible figures entered the woods and made straight for the heart of the forest. They were evidently experienced in this type of operation. Soon, the scenery before them opened up to reveal a six-armed creature sleeping on a stone chair.
The two demonkin were startled, but they seemed delighted after getting a clear look. “It seems to be asleep!”
“We’re quite lucky! We ought to take this accomplishment. You take the left and I’ll go right, we’ll attack together in one minute.”
The two marquises split up and moved into advantageous positions. Then, they attacked at the same time!
An arrow and a dagger stabbed deep into the six-armed creature’s body. However, the creature only fell backward—there was neither a scream nor a roar, not even the slightest normal reaction.
The two marquises were stunned. The one wielding a crossbow sensed someone grabbing his free hand! To his surprise, he smashed the assailant with his crossbow, but all he saw was a flash of yellow light. The other party blocked the attack with an arm. He shook his head like it was nothing, keeping one hand locked onto the marquis’ wrist like an iron vice.
The marquis felt as though he had struck a block of rubber. The target was so tenacious and slippery that not even half of the force went through. The crossbow wasn’t a melee weapon, either, so using it was beyond awkward.
He was hesitating whether or not to toss his priceless crossbow and fight hand-to-hand, but Wei Potian wasn’t going to give him an opportunity. He pounced forward like a raging wild beast and knocked the marquis to the ground. Soon afterward, the two powerful experts began trading blows—a punch for a punch—as though they were playing ping pong.
The other demonkin marquis wasn’t as fortunate. He sensed eight powerful origin power reactions around him at the moment of his attack. The demonkin immediately turned around, only to find all kinds of weapons and origin bullets hurtling toward him. The ambush was so accurate and ruthless that it shattered his demonic energy barrier and littered him with injuries.
The marquis was both shocked and furious, having suffered injuries right off the bat. He could even feel his demonic energy scattering around one of the wounds, likely due to some accursed material like the Refined Silver Bullet of Extreme Yang. As expected, eight human experts charged at him from all directions, drowning him in a barrage of attacks.
The outcome became evident in the blink of an eye. When the two parties separated, the demonkin was drenched in blood and could barely stand. All he could do was glare furiously at the group around him. He had noticed that these people were only strong in appearance—each of them only possessed a couple of powerful moves, beyond which they could do little to harm him. He could kill them all one by one if he could hold out for just a couple more minutes.
Unfortunately, the first round of attacks had injured him too badly, and he wasn’t going to last these couple of minutes. The marquis could feel demonic energy flowing out of his pores like evaporating water. He staggered toward the closest Wei clan warrior but was immediately stuck full of blades.
The demonkin fell to his knees, but just as his head hung down, a short blade flew out of his hand and pierced through the chest of a Wei clan expert.
Only after dragging someone down with him did this marquis collapse and die.
On the other side, Wei Potian had gained the complete advantage and was beating that marquis down. Demonkin made the best assassins and snipers, but melee brawls were simply not their forte. Utilizing combat techniques and domains, the demonkin might’ve been able to hold his own under normal circumstances. However, Wei Potian refused to let the demonkin turn the tables in this wrestling match.
With the leaders dead, the remaining forces didn’t last very long. They were quickly routed by the fierce attack from the Wei clan’s private army, leaving thousands of corpses as they fled the battlefield.
Wei Potian had first taken a forest and then wiped out the demonkin unit he had encountered. Having reaped all possible accomplishments, he returned to the forward base to reorganize.
At this point, the Empire had also taken down a forest with four holy trees. The Empire had sent Eunuch Liu and Zhao Xuanji, who attacked at the critical juncture and injured the six-armed general. That allowed for the successful takedown of the forest.
After the skirmish, Eunuch Liu left the new world in a hurry and returned to the palace. Zhao Jundu built yet another forward base with this four-holy-tree forest as the foundation, and the construction work was coming along quite well.
After returning to base, Wei Potian allowed his soldiers to rest and reorganize. Some of his men headed to the supply depot to withdraw resources while he himself made for the command center to check on the latest reports.
After reading the reports in half a day, Wei Potian looked rather unhappy. “This fellow seems to be somewhat capable.”
How was Song Zining merely capable? Every report contained news of victory—there were a couple of routes that had repelled the enemy on their own like Wei Potian, while others worked together to push back powerful enemy forces. Song Zining and Zhao Jundu had taken yet another forest with two holy trees, then laid an ambush for the arriving demonkin. The enemy’s main force was pushed back, and their duke-rank commander was heavily injured.
Piecing all the reports together, it would seem that the Imperial forces had worked in tandem and beaten the demonkin black and blue. Song Zining’s troop mobilization was well thought out, placing every route in a position of advantage. Even when there was no advantage, they would only need to hold out briefly before friendly troops would rush over in a pincer attack.
The demonkin were strong, but this pioneering force contained soldiers from just one continent. The Empire had basically thrown its entire support behind the Qin Continent since Transcendent had lost and the things on the Western Continent weren’t going too well. It was only natural that they held the advantage against the forces from just one out of four demonkin continents.
Certain about this outcome, Song Zining went all out from the get-go and didn’t give the demonkin any time to recuperate. He planned to magnify their results while they still held the advantage, lessening the pressure of the inevitable battle that was about to come.
