Chapter 2393: The Decisive Battle (I)
Translated by: Hypersheep325 Edited by: Michyrr
Free of past apprehensions, the Celestial God Organization had expanded at an unprecedented rate.
There were currently around two hundred thousand men in black, all of them possessing formidable strength that allowed them to exhibit the strength of a human army several times their size.
Eight thousand feet!
Six thousand feet!
Four thousand feet!
Furious roars could be heard as the distance between the two sides shrank. The human army remained motionless as if it was unperturbed, but the tension within the army continued to rise.
Whether it was Bahram, Wang Zhongsi, or We Tadra Khonglo, all of them stared without blinking, their muscles tense.
At the same time, the two million soldiers of the Celestial Army swept down on the human army from above.
As they charged, the rows of Celestial Army soldiers in the rear raised their golden halberds, ready for the second barrage.
The distance was closing! Two thousand feet! One thousand feet!
As everyone focused on the front line, in the center of the army, on a tall metal platform, the Formation Elder, Young Master Qingyang, Sword Dragon, and Li Siye stood together.
“Senior, it’s your turn now,” Young Master Qingyang said, turning to the Formation Elder.
No one had ever fought with the Celestial Army, but before this time, they had played out many scenarios and theorized countermeasures. Though they didn’t know how Heaven had managed to do it, it appeared like all these two million Celestial Army soldiers needed to do was float in the air and throw down their halberds to kill the entire human army, no matter how many soldiers they had.
One was in the sky while the other was on the surface. Human attacks would never be able to harm the Celestial Army. But they had taken into consideration this sort of passive position from the very start.
Eight hundred feet!!
Two hundred feet!
A lightning bolt shot across the skies, and in the light, the shadow cast by the dense Celestial Army covered the entirety of the vanguard.
“It’s about time. Begin!”
The Formation Elder sharply stared at the front, and when both sides were about one hundred feet from each other, he turned his palm over and lightly waved it at the ground. A moment later, a ball made of Stellar Energy, colored to match Yin and Yang and ringed by the Eight Trigrams, was pressed into the floor, disappearing into the formation eye.
Boom!
A moment later, when both sides were about eighty feet from each other, an invisible energy began to spread out from the rear of the army, approaching the front with astonishing speed.
Golden divine characters began to emerge, and before anyone could react, the vast Celestial Army above froze for a moment. Space distorted, a powerful pull erupted from the ground, and the countless soldiers of the Celestial Army plummeted to the earth like meteors.
That power that had held them up in the air had abruptly vanished.
“A spatial seal! How!?”
Grand Supreme and Radiance Supreme couldn’t help but pale.
A spatial seal wasn’t some extremely rare ability, and it was a rather common technique among Grotto Heaven realm experts. But no one had expected that Wang Chong was able to use this technique on such a large-scale human battle. If it was able to cover an army of nearly seven million soldiers, it had to be of utterly immense size.
It was clear that Wang Chong was far more prepared for this battle than they had expected.
Thump! Thump! Thump! With no time to respond, large numbers of Celestial Army soldiers crashed to the ground, many of them instantly crushed to a pulp and dying before they could even cry out.
At that moment, at least seventy thousand soldiers of the Celestial Army had crashed to the ground and died.
The Celestial Army that had been charging at the human army from above fell into disarray.
“Interesting! Did Master Guangcheng give you this power?”
Heaven’s voice rang out in Wang Chong’s ears.
His body was surrounded by blazing flames, like he was the sun itself. Even though he had suddenly lost seventy thousand soldiers of his Celestial Army, he seemed to not care.
Seventy thousand was a meager number compared to the overall number of two million. Once this epoch was past, he would have plenty of time to establish a new Celestial Army. Once the war was over, he could even pick from Wang Chong’s surviving soldiers, turning them into soldiers for his Celestial Army.
What truly drew his interest was the unimaginable amount of energy within that spatial sealing formation.
While spatial sealing formations were rare, they were no secret to Heaven. The true difficulty was maintaining such a large spatial sealing formation over an army of seven million. It was a vast amount of energy that should have normally been impossible to achieve.
This was because this formation would require several dozen times more power than the average spatial sealing formation.
“We recalled setting down a seal several hundred years ago that would seal Master Guangcheng’s Dragon Qi within the Central Plains, but it appears that you have destroyed it, yes?”
“All lands under heaven are the lands of the sovereign, and all people his subjects,” Wang Chong indifferently said. “There is no longer any Central Plains, or Turks, or Arabs. In this continent, there is only the Great Tang, and so there is naturally no need for those seals. Perhaps you can take the entire continent to be the Central Plains.”
Three years ago, when Master Guangcheng had entered his slumber, Wang Chong had decided that he couldn’t just sit around and do nothing about his situation, given that he knew what Heaven had done to him. Thus, while Wang Chong had his men constantly search for signs of the Celestial God Organization on the borders over the last three years, he had actually been searching for a solution.
And while it had taken a lot of effort, in the end, Wang Chong had managed to destroy that seal Heaven had left underground.
The earth energy under Master Guangcheng’s control spread out through the world, infiltrating the Turkic steppe and the western world. It was no longer possible for Heaven to seal him.
“I didn’t think that a moment of softheartedness would leave behind this sort of problem. If I had known, I would have killed him with one strike!”
Heaven slightly raised his head, saying these words seemingly for both himself and Wang Chong. But a moment later, Heaven regained his composure and smiled at Wang Chong.
“Wang Chong, you want to save that woman? Then follow me!”
Boom! Dust plumed into the air, and the earth trembled as Heaven tore through the fabric of space. Transforming into a brilliant sun, he disappeared into the depths of spacetime, accompanied by the rumbling of thunder.
“Hmph!”
Wang Chong coldly grunted and immediately stepped forward, vanishing into space.
But the departure of Wang Chong and Heaven did nothing to ease the tension on the battlefield. In fact, it only intensified.
“Kill them all!”
Savage bellows filled the air.
While Wang Chong and Heaven had been speaking, the men in black were still charging like wolves at the forward defense line.
The spatial sealing formation might have been able to hinder the Celestial Army in the sky, but it had no effect on the two hundred thousand men in black on the ground.
Each of the men in black was an extremely powerful martial artist. In terms of strength, even five or six human soldiers coming at one together might not be enough.
At a distance of about one hundred feet, the men in black jumped into the air and lunged.
The human defense line essentially did not exist to the agile men in black.
Bang!
But just when the men in black were about to break through the first defense line, boom! A giant red-black war halo swept over the battlefield.
Behind the first steel defense line, soldiers bursting with muscles strode forward.
As they appeared, large and heavy tower shields slammed to the ground, joining together in a defensive line to stop the men in black.
Energy circulated through their bodies and flowed into the heavy shields.
This Stellar Energy was rapidly transformed by the special formations in the shields, turning into Stellar Energy barriers that enclosed the infantry.
“Go!”
“Kill them all!”
With furious roars, the heavy infantrymen jumped into the air, smashing into the men in black and stopping them from advancing any farther.
The Xuanwu Army!
These infantrymen were none other than members of this top-class army.
After three years, the Xuanwu Army had gone through its own momentous transformations. Their armor and shields had been reinforced with special inscriptions and formations that could make how they used their Stellar Energy much more efficient, as well as allow them to create barriers around their bodies. This multiplied their defense and made them even stronger than before.
The ways of war had changed, and an ordinary defense line had no means of blocking Heaven and his army. The two-hundred-thousand-some soldiers of the Xuanwu Army had been moved to the first defense line so they could deal with a situation like this.
Boomboomboom!
As expected, as the Xuanwu Army attacked, the men in black were stopped in their tracks. Many of them turned their frenzied attacks on the Xuanwu Army soldiers, but no matter how sharp their swords or destructive their flames were, they were fended off all the same.
The Fire of Mara, the Fire of Ju Bi, the Fire of Lu Wu… these tyrannical flames could not be stopped with bare hands, but the giant shields served as excellent buffers.
The battle on the front line was fierce. As the Xuanwu Army battled with the men in black, in the rear, Su Hanshan watched with cold and sharp eyes.
“Release!”
As he swung his arm down, sharp ballista bolts howled through the air.