Chapter 2396: The Decisive Battle (IV)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
“How could this be!?”
All the human soldiers were stunned by the sight.
Each steel wall had been reinforced with numerous inscriptions and formations, and the walls themselves were extremely heavy. In past wars, rarely had soldiers been able to simply blast the walls aside. It wasn’t that it was impossible, but it also wasn’t easy. While these Celestial Army soldiers had not blasted away the walls with a single punch, the walls wouldn’t be able to endure many more.
Sure enough…
Bang!
A few seconds later, a heavy steel wall went flying through the air like a piece of paper, tumbling and crashing into the rear and sending ten-some soldiers flying away.
Elsewhere, three Celestial Army soldiers joined together, punching as a unit and sending another section of the steel wall flying.
Everyone was flabbergasted at this.
“Hold!”
In the rear, Su Hanshan called out, “Release!” The several hundred thousand ballista soldiers quickly went to work, ballista bolts howling through the air.
The steel defense lines were vital to the human army. If the defense line broke, the human army would suffer devastating losses in the following melee.
The ballista army was the death god of the battlefield!
In past battles, the ballistae were strong enough to make any foe tremble in fear, but not even Su Hanshan could guarantee their effectiveness against the Celestial Army soldiers and their defensive power that surpassed even heavy infantry. But there was also no doubt that the ballistae were the only way to effectively attack the Celestial Army at the moment.
Boomboomboom!
With great booms, the ballista bolts disappeared into the dense ranks of the Celestial Army, and screams broke out as figures were sent flying through the air like ragdolls.
With no time to react, a Celestial Army soldier had his abdomen pierced through by a ballista bolt, not even his golden armor able to take the blow. The immense strength penetrated through his body and skewered him together with a second Celestial Army soldier. They flew backward into the ranks, sowing chaos.
But the sight of a ballista bolt piercing through five to as many as eight heavily-armored soldiers as in the past did not take place.
After only two soldiers, the ballista bolt ran out of strength. Moreover, rather than penetrating through, the ballista bolt was held fast by the golden armor.
Clack! On the front line, a Celestial Army soldier suddenly got up, reached out with his hands, and pulled out the ballista bolt that had penetrated through him, inch by inch.
Clang! The soldier threw the ballista bolt to the side and stood back up. Though his face was pale and breathing ragged, blood still gushing out from the wound in his abdomen, he still seemed very far from death.
In the distance, both Su Hanshan and Bahram felt their hearts sink.
And this was far from the only shocking thing on the battlefield.
Clang! There was a metallic clatter. As the ballista army launched its attack, silver-white light erupted from the Celestial Army. Their ranks swiftly parted, and Celestial Army soldiers armed with giant silver shields appeared. These shields were covered in silver designs and powerful defensive formations.
Su Hanshan felt his heart sink to rock bottom upon seeing these shields.
The tough golden armor combined with these silver shields immediately turned the situation against them. But at this moment, Su Hanshan had no other options.
“Release!”
Su Hanshan gave the order, and the air roared as another volley of ballista bolts was fired.
But none of this could change the situation on the battlefield. As the Celestial Army soldiers raised their shields, they instantly broke through the first defense line, and the situation turned dire for the human army.
Moreover, on the other end, while the Shadow Dragon Division had already been sent out, they had clearly underestimated the power of the men in black. Although Zhao Fengchen’s Xuanwu Army was still putting up a stern resistance, at least half of the men in black had managed to use their nimble movement arts to get past the first defense line.
As the balance of battle was shifting, in the depths of spacetime, the battle between Wang Chong and Heaven had entered the next phase.
A few moments after entering the black vortex, Wang Chong entered the spacetime maze that Heaven had set up. Wang Chong had speculated on what he might see, but what greeted him was absolutely nothing, only gray and indistinct space.
“Whether or not you can find her will depend on your ability.”
Heaven’s voice gradually faded into the distance, and it soon dwindled into nothing.
Wang Chong slightly frowned. All that was in front of him was empty void. Even if Wang Chong chose a direction to advance, he might come away with nothing. But as a thought occurred to him, his brow unfurrowed.
Whatever sort of tricks Heaven was up to, he was looking down on him too much.
“Myriad Forms World!”
A moment later, the world in front of him began to shift. Empty void was divided into countless little boxes. Each box was a spacetime passage leading to an unknown location.
Looking at all these boxes, Wang Chong was unperturbed. He extended his right hand and lightly waved it in the direction of the void before him.
“Scan!”
The fabric of space trembled as an invisible energy spread out from Wang Chong and into the spatial passages. Very quickly, the world around him shifted once more.
The numerous boxes came alive, countless twisting and interconnected paths spreading out from them and into the void. All this was clearly replicated in Wang Chong’s Myriad Forms World. It felt like he was moving from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional.
Though countless martial artists were awed by the concept of spacetime, it could not keep any secrets from Wang Chong.
The Myriad Forms World had the powerful ability to scan everything in the universe. If it could scan a universe, a small spacetime maze naturally presented no problem.
This was the reason Wang Chong had so fearlessly entered Heaven’s spacetime maze.
“Found it!”
A few moments later, Wang Chong leapt into one of the spacetime passages.
After leaping through countless dimensions, several seconds later, Wang Chong emerged from the winding passage to a completely different scene.
While the last had been a world of emptiness, this was a twisted and distorted world.
Around him were countless passages to parallel dimensions, and also countless vortices. This time, even without using the Myriad Forms World, Wang Chong could easily sense the existences of these passages. They were all visible to the naked eye.
“A Spacetime Storm!” Wang Chong muttered to himself, his expression turning grave.
While this situation appeared simple enough for anyone at the Grotto Heaven realm to find the entry and exit and constantly leap through them to find a passage, Wang Chong sensed a hidden danger lurking beneath the calm.
Buzz!
As Wang Chong closed his eyes, the parallel dimensions disappeared, and in the depths of the complex spatial framework, Wang Chong sensed hidden spacetime storms.
In the parallel dimensions of spacetime, special spacetime storms would often be generated. These spacetime storms were made of countless parallel dimensions and possessed horrifying power. Anyone swept up into a spacetime storm would quickly be deprived of all spacetime energy.
In a spacetime storm, there was no order to speak of. Any abilities related to space became unusable. From a certain perspective, it could be called a spacetime forbidden zone. Most importantly, if swept up into a spacetime storm, one was liable to be transported to an unknown part of spacetime, even cast into the endless beyond of space. This was no different from eternal exile. It would no longer be possible to return to the human world.
Heaven had concealed these spacetime storms in the complex spatial framework. If Wang Chong had not comprehended the laws of the world, he would not have been able to discover them.
I didn’t think that his mastery of space had reached the spacetime storm level, Wang Chong said to himself.
It was impossible for so many spacetime storms to exist in the same region. Even if Heaven had been building atop a preexisting spatial framework, using these spatial passages for his spacetime maze reflected an incredible mastery of the laws of space.
But Wang Chong quickly came back to his senses.
Boom! Wang Chong stepped forward, but rather than entering any of these spatial passages, he simply opened his own, one that led straight into the depths of the maze.
In a flash, Wang Chong disappeared once more.
Many more complicated spaces appeared before Wang Chong. The spatial maze was not the collection of winding corridors that humans might have imagined, but a chain of rings. Each ring held a spacetime trap, and if one could not see through the spatial structure, each ring would serve as its own maze. It was enough to leave one’s opponent lost forever.
And various orderless spacetime shards, sharper than the finest weapons, densely packed every inch of these rings.
Even an expert at the half-step Divine Martial realm would be gravely threatened by these spacetime shards.
Shattered space, chaotic storms, vanishing corridors… Wang Chong advanced through all kinds of complicated spatial structures. He was getting farther and farther from his original location, but he continued to advance without hesitation.
Buzz!
After some time, Wang Chong shot out from the last spatial structure and arrived at the deepest part of the spacetime maze.
What he saw in the depths of the maze made his pupils constrict, his face pale.
Before Wang Chong were the lights of countless lanterns. No, these were not just lanterns, for these lights came from a city: the capital!