Chapter 235: The Encirclement and Slaughter

The tactical core of Lang Jiao was to break the line at a single point; every assault squad composed of ten Level 2 Demon Beasts was like a sharp blade, charging onto the city walls from the weak points of the defense.

They charged into the ranks of the soldiers and became intermingled with them, causing the soldiers in other areas to fear for the safety of their comrades and refrain from using heavy firepower like Rockets or the Shenwu Great General Cannon, leaving them no choice but to engage the Demon Beasts in close-quarters combat.

The soldiers of Luolong County were all unafraid of sacrifice and dared to face the blood of the Stabbing Blade.

However, the massive disparity in individual strength made it extremely difficult for the soldiers to hold them back, and they soon suffered heavy casualties.

To break this situation, the only option was to pull away experts to wipe out the Level 2 Demon Beasts that had charged onto the city walls.

Liu Sheng, Shen Dahu, Kong Sanqiang, and Meng Yifan were each defending one side of the city wall; they were all Third Grade Experts with powerful strength, capable of suppressing the Demon Beasts' Level 2 assault squads.

But the city walls were very long, and they were only one person each, unable to attend to the entire wall; meanwhile, the Second-grade Experts of Luolong County were severely lacking compared to the Monster Army and simply could not block the Level 2 Demon Beast squads.

Precisely because of this, from the very beginning of this war, Meng Yifan and the others all felt flustered, forced to run constantly along the city walls to eliminate the Level 2 Demon Beast squads as they charged up.

Meng Yifan was responsible for defending the east wall; as he swung his Ghost Head Blade to finish off the Level 2 Demon Beasts charging up, his brows were tightly furrowed, feeling that something was very wrong.

There were plenty of ordinary Wild Beasts, as many as one could want, but Level 2 Demon Beasts were the backbone of the Monster Army.

They could lead large groups of Wild Beasts into battle; why would the commander of the Demon Race let these backbone forces come up to die? This did not conform to common sense.

"Puff!" A fist-sized, pitch-black pustule flew toward Meng Yifan, fast as lightning.

"The pustules thrown by a Second Grade Toad are only the size of a walnut, but this one is the size of a fist—could it be a pustule thrown by a Third Grade Toad leader?"

Meng Yifan was startled and hurriedly executed Lingbo Microsteps, dodging his body toward the left.

But to his surprise, this pitch-black pustule suddenly made a turn and continued to smash toward Meng Yifan.

"Damn it! What is this situation?" Meng Yifan was greatly shocked; he keenly discovered that this pustule not only contained a lot of viscous pus but also contained chaotic Yin Attribute energy. Such a pustule looked extraordinary at first glance and absolutely could not be taken head-on.

A Toad's pustule would explode the moment it touched something hard, spraying the corrosive pus inside everywhere; as long as one's body was stained with even a little, a large piece of flesh and skin would be corroded away.

The pus contained in a Third Grade Toad's pustule was even more corrosive; even a Third Grade Expert like Meng Yifan would be left with torn skin and mangled flesh, suffering heavy injuries if stained by it.

Meng Yifan surged his True Qi and tapped his toes, wanting to dodge again, but at this very moment, a humanoid mantis Demon Beast flew up from below the city wall.

This guy had a triangular head, huge compound eyes, stood 1.9 meters tall, had a pair of wings on its back for flight, stood upright on its hind legs, and its front four legs had all evolved into four emerald-green scythes; at the joints of its six legs grew foot-long spikes that glinted with a cold, chilling light.

"Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!" The mantis Demon Beast's four scythes swung simultaneously, each of these four scythes executing a different blade technique.

The first scythe's blade technique was gentle, the blade moving silently, like Spring Rain, moistening things without a sound.

The second scythe's blade technique was violent, the blade wind fierce, moving straight and open, like the scorching Summer Sun at noon, making people look on with awe.

The third scythe's blade technique was eerie and erratic, like the falling leaves dancing all over the sky in Autumn.

The fourth scythe's blade technique was cold and ruthless, every strike aimed at Meng Yifan's vital parts, just like the bone-chilling Winter Wind.

The Third Grade mantis Demon Beast, with four scythes, respectively executed the Spring Summer Autumn Winter Blade Array.

Each of these four blade techniques, individually, was a Yellow Grade High Tier blade technique; when all four were executed simultaneously and coordinated with each other, simultaneously interpreting the reincarnation and transformation of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, this was a complete set of Mysterious Grade Low Tier blade array.

It had to be said that mantis Demon Beasts were born blade masters; this was their racial talent, and to them, blades were just like human hands.

Humans used their hands to wear clothes and eat, while mantis-type Demon Beasts used their forelimb blade arms to hunt when they were still very weak.

Mantis-type Demon Beasts that could not use blade techniques simply could not survive, so every mantis-type Demon Beast, as long as it grew up, was a formidable blade wielder.

Meng Yifan was greatly alarmed; he sensed a strong murderous intent from the Spring Summer Autumn Winter Blade Array.

Even in a one-on-one fight, it would be difficult for Meng Yifan to finish off this Third Grade mantis Demon Beast, let alone the fist-sized pustule following him like a shadow behind it.

In front was a fist-sized pustule, and behind were four scythes; Meng Yifan instantly fell into a predicament of being attacked from both front and back, the situation extremely critical.

At the critical moment, Meng Yifan moved his toes, wanting to execute Lingbo Microsteps to shift horizontally to the left.

But suddenly, Lang Jiao appeared on the city wall, and the spiral horn on top of her head suddenly flashed with an earthy-yellow light, shrouding the area within twenty meters around them.

Meng Yifan felt as if he were trapped in a quagmire, his legs incomparably heavy, and even taking a single step became extremely difficult, making it impossible to dodge in time.

"Is this the Domain of a Fourth Grade Beast? What an eerie energy field?" Meng Yifan was startled; he was not only a Third Grade Martial Artist but also a Third-Grade Immortal Cultivator. He could originally sense the nine types of Spirit Power—metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, Thunder, yin, and yang—mixed in the heaven and earth around him.

But at this very moment, in this patch of heaven and earth, only earth-type heaven and earth Spirit Power remained, and this heaven and earth Spirit Power was completely controlled by Lang Jiao; she was the master of this small area.

Whether they were Martial Artists, Immortal Cultivators, or Demon Beasts, if they wanted to break through to the Fourth Grade, they needed the Martial Dao; before the Fourth Grade, they could also execute secret arts according to secret methods, but they only knew the "what" and not the "why."

But the Fourth Grade was different; they had already begun to comprehend the heaven and earth truths contained behind Immortal Arts, martial techniques, and demon arts.

From the original borrowing of heaven and earth power to the mastery of heaven and earth truths, this was a huge transformation and also the beginning of truly stepping onto the path of a powerhouse.

Meng Yifan had once finished off Abe Seimei in the Ancient Tomb, but Abe Seimei had reached the physical constitution of a Fourth Grade powerhouse through merging with a shikigami and could transform, barely exerting the combat power of a Fourth-Grade powerhouse.

But in essence, Abe Seimei was not a Fourth-Grade powerhouse; he had not truly mastered the heaven and earth truths and could only be considered a pseudo-Fourth-Grade powerhouse.