Chapter 771: Li Zhiyi!

Lord Chen departed directly.

Leaving only Chen Yan standing in place.

At this moment, Chen Yan could be considered to have completely entered the game.

Yet in the eyes of Lord Chen, there was not even half a hope of breaking the game.

"You may cultivate, but you will never escape my sight; you cannot truly become powerful."

Above the sea of clouds, Lord Chen's figure flickered, and he narrowed his eyes.

He left Chen Yan behind perhaps harboring some fantasy, but his ultimate goal was to fish out the Lord of Will.

But after so many days had passed, the Lord of Will had never appeared.

This forced Lord Chen to conclude that the Lord of Will had perhaps already abandoned Chen Yan.

Or, the Lord of Will was unable to act for some reason.

Perhaps the second reason was more reasonable.

If the Lord of Will could act, why did the other party not intervene during his decisive battle with Lu Xunyang that day?

Lord Chen swept a glance downward; Chen Yan was walking calmly upon the earth.

His gaze was indifferent:

"I clearly gave you a chance to remove yourself from the current human world, yet you still insist on entering the game.

You have entered the game, but how will you break it?"

The current Chen Yan appeared to be without crisis, but in reality, he had already fallen into a desperate situation.

Lord Chen could not allow Chen Yan to leave him, nor could he allow Chen Yan to continue growing stronger.

But he did not know that from the moment Chen Yan launched a surprise attack on Ji Province, he had already entered the game.

…………

"A madman!"

"He is a madman!"

On Green Mountain, a Great Xia military guard with both arms severed and covered in blood was crawling with difficulty along the mountain path.

The forest was lush and verdant, but on the ground, a long trail of blood was dragged out by his blood-soaked body.

It was as if some immense terror was still chasing him, making him not dare to look back at all, only daring to crawl continuously, wanting to use everything he had to put distance between himself and that existence behind him.

Soon.

A rustling sound echoed through the forest.

Several figures appeared before this person.

They were precisely Li Zhiyi, Zhang Yu, and other military guards of the Disciplinary Battalion.

"It's Li Xin from the Vanguard Battalion; I remember him. How did he end up like this?"

A Disciplinary Battalion guard spoke, filled with shock.

The Vanguard Battalion was one of the strongest military camps within the Great Xia military guards, and Li Xin was even a Fifth-Rank.

A Fifth-Rank guard was a martial artist on the same level as the Disciplinary Battalion commander Zhang Yu, but in the Vanguard Battalion, Li Xin was merely a squad leader.

"It's gone..."

The guard named Li Xin saw Zhang Yu and the others, lifted his head, and blood and tears flowed down:

"Our Vanguard Battalion is gone..."

His voice trembled, a rattling sound came from his throat, and his knuckles clawed into the soil.

As his voice fell, the expressions of Zhang Yu and the others changed instantly, and their bodies were frozen in place.

Li Zhiyi was also filled with astonishment.

The original Vanguard General of the Vanguard Battalion was the currently renowned Blood Sword Shen Yiwei, and the current Vanguard General was also a Seventh-Rank Creation Realm.

Creation Realm!

It was a god among mortals.

"Was there an Eighth-Rank surprise attack?"

"They openly tore up the agreement!" Zhang Yu's Qi was somewhat chaotic.

But as his voice fell, the look in Li Xin's eyes became even more desperate:

"One person!"

Blood foam flowed out, and Li Xin spoke with difficulty:

"A person named Ji Tianhe; he has a blood-colored long saber, and he is like a madman, his whole body radiating terrifying blood light.

That blade is even more indestructible, as if everything can be severed by it."

Zhang Yu's fingertips trembled slightly:

"Ji Tianhe, I know him, and I have also seen him on the battlefield; he seemed to be only a Sixth-Rank.

When I saw him, he did not have the combat power to annihilate an entire military camp by himself."

The guard named Li Xin opened his mouth:

"I don't know either, I don't know either, but I saw with my own eyes that he killed my comrades..."

Zhang Yu's expression turned ugly.

Li Xin was already severely wounded; being able to crawl to this point meant that the Ji Tianhe the other party spoke of was not far from Green Mountain.

If the other party was truly as terrifying as Li Xin said, then their few hundred people in the Disciplinary Battalion had no path to survival.

Li Zhiyi's expression also turned ugly.

On the battlefield, luck played too large a part.

Unlucky guards would encounter opponents they could not possibly match.

"We're all going to die, we're all going to die..."

Li Xin said with a deathly pale complexion.

"Nonsense!" Zhang Yu, who had been calm and composed, suddenly erupted in fury:

"The main army is coming to support us soon, and you're scared like this by just one Sixth-Order?!"

He looked at Li Zhiyi and the others with burning eyes:

"Wait patiently for the main force to rescue us, all of you go back first."

Li Zhiyi and the others nodded, then walked toward the resting area.

Left in place were only Zhang Yu, Li Xin, and the Deputy Battalion Commander of the Punitive Battalion.

Once Li Zhiyi and the others had left, Zhang Yu's expression turned grim:

"Li Xin, tell me, has your Vanguard Battalion lost contact with the main force?"

Li Xin looked at Zhang Yu, opened his mouth, but said nothing.

But his bitter gaze had already made everything clear.

Seeing Li Xin like this, Zhang Yu's expression also turned grim.

"Yunmeng... has fallen..." the Deputy Battalion Commander said, his voice nearly hoarse.

The heart that had been hanging in his chest finally dropped at this moment.

All hope had completely collapsed.

How many days had it even been?

Yunmeng City had actually fallen just like that.

In another month, it was estimated that the entire Qinzhou would be overrun.

This time, the Five Clans were even more ferocious and harder to stop than before.

Even if Jizhou had been annihilated.

The Five Clans' own technological power far exceeded that of Great Xia.

Even if Chen Yan and Lu Xunyang had slain so many Eighth-Orders, the foundation the Five Clans had built over ten thousand years was not so easily shaken.

Jizhou, in the end, was merely a spear for the Five Clans.

If the spear breaks, there is still an endless arsenal of weapons.

Now, everyone understood.

In that battle against the Chen Master, the Xunyang Divine General must have been severely wounded.

Otherwise, why hadn't he appeared until now?

And the few hundred members of the Punitive Battalion left at Qingshan had only a dead end ahead of them.

"Should we tell everyone this news?" the Deputy Battalion Commander continued to ask.

Zhang Yu shook his head, and taking a deep breath, he said:

"A surprise attack tomorrow!"

The Deputy Battalion Commander's pupils shrank, and he looked at Zhang Yu in complete disbelief.

Yet he saw a light of despair emerge in Zhang Yu's eyes as he said:

"We in the Punitive Battalion are just a group of sinners; the main force doesn't care whether we live or die.

They have likely already concluded that we sinners have betrayed them.

They looked down on us to begin with!"

Zhang Yu clenched his fists:

"Tomorrow I will lead some of the old guys in a surprise attack, and you take the young ones in the battalion and slip away while you can.

The heavy burden is still on you!"

He patted the stunned Deputy Battalion Commander and said:

"Live on, find the main force, and tell them that not a single one of us in the Punitive Battalion was a traitor even unto death!

Let the young lads in the battalion live, give them a chance to become strong, and wait for the day they can avenge us old guys."

Zhang Yu clenched his fists.

Li Xin's arrival had extinguished his last shred of fantasy.

Without a surprise attack, there was only a dead end.

There was no need for that Ji Tianhe mentioned by Li Xin to even act; the entire Punitive Battalion would be wiped out at Qingshan.

Just then, the Deputy Battalion Commander was already streaming with tears:

"Brother, I'll go with you!"

"No!" Zhang Yu said decisively:

"If you die with me, who will lead those young lads away?

Your responsibility is greater than mine!"

The two of them talked, not avoiding Li Xin at all.

The once-despairing Li Xin looked at the two of them, opened his mouth, and smiled bitterly:

"I can't fight anymore, and even if I live, I'll be a cripple; strap a few explosive formation disks on me, and I'll go with you."

Zhang Yu and the Deputy Battalion Commander looked at each other, both seeing the bitterness in the other's eyes.

"If... if the Heavenly Divine General were still alive, why would we need to be like this?"

The Deputy Battalion Commander looked up at the firmament and murmured.

"That was simply a phantasm." Zhang Yu said blankly.

A phantasm.

From the moment Chen Yan appeared, the Great Xia military guards, who had lacked their backbone in Lu Xunyang, seemed to come back to life.

Before entering the Five Clans Dispute that day, Chen Yan had said it in front of everyone under heaven.

He would support Great Xia.

But Chen Yan had fallen.

"Let Li Zhiyi stay," the deputy battalion commander said, looking at Zhang Yu:

"With him here, he can raise the combat power of the Punitive Battalion by a level."

Li Zhiyi was a treasure.

The more they explored, the more they would discover that Li Zhiyi possessed an endless power of will.

It could even cover the entire Punitive Battalion.

It was also because of Li Zhiyi that the Punitive Battalion had not been completely wiped out until now.

However, after the deputy battalion commander said this, he knew he had spoken wrongly.

Just then, Zhang Yu glared at the deputy battalion commander and said:

"The reason I launched the surprise attack, wasn't it to preserve the seeds?"

A trace of resolution appeared in Zhang Yu's eyes:

"A person like Li Zhiyi should not stay in my Punitive Battalion; he must continue to live so that he can burst forth with even greater brilliance!

He carries so many of everyone's last letters on him; he must live on to deliver all these letters to the brothers' families!

He cannot die!"

Soon.

Zhang Yu and the other two returned to the main camp.

"Eat well and drink well today. This is Li Xin from the Vanguard Battalion; although he is heavily wounded, he has told us two paths leading to the main force. Tomorrow, I will pick some old guys to take one path.

The deputy battalion commander will take the remaining brothers on the other path.

You guys will have plenty to keep busy with!"

As Zhang Yu's voice fell, the Punitive Battalion, which had been full of dejection, instantly burst with vitality.

Many people cheered, and even Li Zhiyi showed a smile.

"Keep your voices down, don't attract anyone here!" Zhang Yu said.

The excited Punitive Battalion then quieted down.

It was also at this moment.

Boom!

Above the firmament, blood clouds suddenly erupted.

Everyone looked toward the high sky, about to gaze up.

Zhang Yu hurriedly shouted:

"Conceal!"

In an instant, everyone held their breath.

Zhang Yu took out an array disk, activated it with Qi and blood, and it instantly began to operate.

It was as if an invisible film protected the entire Vanguard Battalion.

If an ordinary person came here, they would not be able to discover the Vanguard Battalion's guards even if they were right before their eyes.

A concealment array disk was a must-have item for every military camp.

It could even block out investigations from the Creation Realm.

Of course, it would be depleted after one use; it was a life-saving treasure.

As for Eighth-Rank perception, it naturally could not be blocked, but the Grand Ancestral Uncle had used the Star Ruler as a means to prevent the participation of the Eighth-Rank.

Everyone lowered their heads, not looking toward the blood light in the high sky.

Yet a voice containing endless killing intent descended upon the earth.

"I, Ji Tianhe, will slaughter Great Xia!"

"Remember my name!"

That voice was like a blade quenched in ice scraping across rotten wood; it made the hair on the back of people's necks stand on end, as if they would be torn apart alive in the next second.

Killing intent.

Such intense killing intent!

At this moment, even Li Zhiyi's expression turned ugly.

He did not raise his head to gaze, only watching as scarlet light shot toward the earth at his feet.

Yet he felt as if a terrifying blood beast were staring at him, ready to devour him completely in the next moment.

Terrifying!

Ji Tianhe, the Sixth-Rank who wiped out the Vanguard Battalion!

He was only a Sixth-Rank, yet his pressure shocked Li Zhiyi.

At this moment, everyone's bodies trembled; some guards were even struck by that killing intent, their legs going weak, kneeling on the ground, not daring to look at all.

Blue veins bulged on Li Zhiyi's neck, his eyes wide.

He had seen Chen Yan that day, suppressing a continent with his own strength.

That day, he had made a great vow destined to surpass Chen Yan.

What he wanted was to surpass Chen Yan, not to tremble just from feeling the aura of a Sixth-Rank.

He gritted his teeth, his eyes bursting with bright light; at this moment, even though every particle in his body was resisting.

He slowly raised his head, gazing toward the blood clouds above the sky.

The blood clouds surged, as if countless shattered blood beads had condensed in the air, or as if a giant beast were stirring in the depths of the clouds, causing the entire firmament to be immersed in a gloom as thick as blood.

Terrifying, ferocious.

Yet Li Zhiyi stared fixedly, something boiling and roaring within his body.

"I, Li Zhiyi..."

He growled in a hoarse voice:

"How could I bow my head to others!"