Chapter 1102: The Calamity for Immortality
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Fang Ning continued to look down and saw that priests who were holding steel knives showed up. There were probably about several hundreds of them.
The scene was literally as if the priests laid down their duster and picked up a butcher’s knife.
Fang Ning sighed and still did not intervene.
The priests that were holding knives were divided into small teams. They gradually cleared up the bandits or rebels that were ransacking the palace.
It was similar to what was seen before. Even though their magical energy was gone, they still had the powerful body they had refined. It was as if they had their own steel armor.
Some brave rebels still had the audacity to pick up weapons and fought them. However, without breaking a single sweat during the fight, all of them collapsed to the floor.
There were two kinds of weapons that were strictly prohibited in ancient times. One was a crossbow, the other one was armor. It was because having armor and having no armor is an entirely different level of fighting strength.
If there was armor, it could block out most damages and they would be able to concentrate fully on outputting. It had always been one of the elite standards. If there was no armor, it was just like being cannon fodder.
That was why these rebels were completely not in their league. Once the bravest among them were slaughtered, the rest could only put down the spoils of war and flee in disarray like a scoundrel.
From above, one could see the general direction these escapers were heading towards, which were several of the exits of the palace.
Most of them were obviously unable to outrun the priests with steel knives, and some of them had even gotten themselves lost within the palace. It was as if they were literally walking to their dead end.
The priests with steel knives were also apparently venting their frustration. Even when some people had lost their ability to run or were begging on their knees for mercy, they were still slaughtered.
Just as Fang Ning could not stand by idly anymore and was ready to intervene, the situation had changed and it was the kind of change that made him feel stunned.
It could be seen that at the palace exits, the few numbers of rebels that were running towards it were pursued relentlessly by the priests.
Obviously, these priests despised the rebels and just wanted to kill them to the very last one.
As the rebels picked up their pace and ran towards the green forest outside the palace, it was as if they were scorned. They abruptly halted one after another, then ran towards two sides.
Fang Ning was able to see clearly from the sky that within the shadows of the green forest, a large army was waiting for an ambush. It could be the imperial household’s army the priest mentioned earlier.
However, the priests with steel knives who were pursuing them obviously could not see this from their point of view. Not forgetting the fact that they had lost their magic and were unable to sense a crisis in advance.
They were following the rebels and ran towards the vicinity of the green forest and only then they discovered that something was wrong and halted. Right after that, they suffered their first blow.
“Bang! Bang!”
Bursts of smoke rose up from the woods and bullets sprayed out like water and shot towards the priests with steel knives.
“What the f*ck, they’re using firearms?” Fang Ning took a good look and immediately felt flabbergasted. “Had someone crossed over to the Upper Realm? Just because spells are not working, they started to use firearms and gunpowder?”
“Insufficient information, unable to determine.” The System No. 2 answered anyway it was obviously not a conscious bickering partner like Sir System.
If Sir System were there he would have said something like, “Aren’t you that someone that’d crossed over?”
Fang Ning had no intention to argue with System No. 2, after all, it was still a machine with intelligence.
He was just thinking about what kind of changes would this brought upon to the Upper Realm.
The invention of firearms gave a major change in the human world. By using firearms, barbarians were slowly eradicated. The so-called civilized people began to rule more lands and seized more resources. Thus, they were able to accumulate all the required resources and grains for the Industrial Revolution.
The appearance of firearms meant that steel armors were completely ineffective. This also meant that the gap between elite soldiers and ordinary soldiers were reduced greatly. The modern soldiers were basically the expendable assembly line workers.
Until the emergence of tanks as well as armored vehicles, armors could then reappear on the battlefield again, but in another form.
As for now, it seemed that way as well.
The strong bodies that the priests were refining for a hundred years were also unable to withstand a single blow from the firearm!
The few teams of priests, about thirty to forty of them mostly fell to the ground in their own rivers of blood.
Only small numbers of them were still standing and had merely fallen back a couple of steps after getting hit by bullets. They then stared down at their chests in disbelieve.
Afterward, they held their heads up to look at the firearm squadron. They did not charge ahead, rather they turned around and escaped the scene.
“That’s strange if merely just ten of them charged into those firearm teams they’d be able to kill them all. Why’d they run away?” System No. 2 asked suddenly.
“Er, if Sir System was here it wouldn’t have asked this question.” Fang Ning felt speechless. “They’re still human beings after all, not machinery. Just by relying on their strong physiques and superior crushing strength, they’re brave enough to fight on the battlefield. Yet right now, seeing their comrades being shot down, who’d still be willing to fight against the odds? Besides, they don’t know the true power of the firearms yet.”
“Oh, that’s why. They’re afraid of the unknown.” System No. 2 somewhat understood.
“Yes, that’s why.” Fang Ning comprehended completely. It was normal for the priests to fall apart at the sight, if not, then that would have been surprising.
After all, these priests had been cultivating for hundreds of years and not for the purpose of becoming a cannon fodder on the battlefield. In addition, they had no constraints in martial law as well as a supervising squadron. Hence under such circumstances, it was normal for them to run backward and flee at both sides.
At this moment, once they had repelled against the first batch of priests, Fang Ning heard cheers coming from within the jungle.
“Ah, it does work, the Celestial Nation’s are amazing. Passing over these types of Skyfire artifact, it’s really able to kill off those demon priests!”
The soldiers below were obviously over-excited and caused a hubbub for a short while.
However, it was followed by bursts of screams and the ruckus completely died down.
Almost immediately afterward, orders were given and one after another the firearm squadron began to head towards the Taoist palace.
Thus, the scene just now repeated itself, only this time the ones that were massacred were the priests with steel knives.
The ones massacred were, of course, those that saw firearms for the first time or those who did not believe the words of the priests that managed to escape a while ago.
As for the others that believed them, and those that learned their lessons all ran off as if they were flying. They climbed over walls speedily and escaped from the palace.
“If only these guys had stronger willpower and gather around about twenty to thirty people, then rely on bows and arrows, wait no, just their strong bodies as well as relying on bricks, they’d be able to break apart this newly formed firearm squadron. Unfortunately, they’re not trained like the army, so they weren’t able to do this.” Fang Ning sighed.
He was able to naturally look at both sides’ merits and drawbacks clearly as he was overlooking down from a higher place.
In actual fact, the priests still had a chance to turn the tides on the battlefield even at the very last moment. After all, the firearms’ shooting speed was predictable.
They obviously panicked when they found out that their impenetrable strong bodies were ruthlessly destroyed by firearms. Even the leaders took the lead in escaping, thus after losing their organization strength everything else was irreversible.
Strategically speaking, without a doubt the priests running away were not incorrect. It was due to the fact that even if they had won this round, the imperial household’s army could continue to dispatch more firearm squadrons to kill them.
“But why’d the imperial household’s army want to eradicate these priests?” Fang Ning felt bewildered. “Could it be because they’d suffered some sort of oppression before and now awakened a sense of resistance?”
“Oh, it could be because of the Immortality Pills,” System No. 2 answered immediately.
Fang Ning looked closer and saw that the soldiers had been sent out to enter places similar to an Alchemy Lab. He then understood what was happening.
It was not about resisting oppression or venting out grievances, the rebels just now could probably have this nature in them. Yet, these imperial household’s army that used them as bait had no such intention at all.
They were doing this for the imperial household’s influential officials’ immortality. They were here to fight over the priests’ last batch of immortality herb.
Under the circumstances that vitalities are currently dissipating, these sorts of conflicting views would be impossible to reconcile. It was no wonder that war was inevitable.
The priests had lost their powers and were unable to cultivate pills. Furthermore, they stored a batch of pills in their household. Was that not a reason for the envy of others?
The imperial household’s army was, of course, unable to exterminate them completely. They would probably leave out a couple of priests, but most of them would be killed so that they would not have to compete for the last remaining cultivation resources.
“Heh, fortunately, I didn’t intervene, neither sides were actually fighting for righteousness…” Fang Ning said as he shook his head.
