Chapter 384: The War Begins

Zhang Nuo had broken through from here back then; thinking of that terrifying scene, he still felt a lingering fear. Had he not been swayed by his state of mind, he would not have wanted to take such a huge risk!

Slowly releasing his Divine Sense, Zhang Nuo probed toward the front. After a moment, his brows furrowed slightly; within several hundred miles ahead, he could not see a single Taixu Palace disciple!

"How strange?"

Zhang Nuo hovered quietly in mid-air, yet a solemn expression appeared on his face. Only a few days ago, this place had been tightly blockaded, but in just over a month, it had turned into what he saw before him, as if no cultivators had ever been stationed here!

Carefully flying forward for another distance, he still saw no sign of cultivators. A bad thought emerged in Zhang Nuo's heart! Could it be that Taixu Palace had already made a move on Yulong Immortal Mountain?

As soon as this thought appeared, Zhang Nuo shivered violently. According to his estimation, Taixu Palace should have needed more time before acting, so why were they in such a hurry? Could it be that they had found new helpers?

Unable to fathom the reason, Zhang Nuo gathered his courage and moved forward. After flying out nearly a thousand miles, he suddenly stopped his figure, his expression changed slightly, and he immediately landed on the ground!

This was because, not far ahead, he had discovered a small gathering place for cultivators. Several strands of Spirit Power fluctuations were constantly coming from there; it looked like the number of people gathered should be around fifty.

Concealing the aura on his body, Zhang Nuo carefully approached the area. Before long, a campsite appeared in his line of sight. Sweeping his Divine Sense over the camp, he discovered that several different types of Restrictions had been set up around it! Not daring to rush forward rashly, Zhang Nuo observed secretly just like that.

Before long, he discovered that the cultivators entering and exiting this camp were mostly injured, from which it was not hard to deduce that this place must have been built specifically for recuperation!

Looking at the attire of these people, most were Taixu Palace disciples, though occasionally figures in different clothing appeared! However, their overall cultivation was not high, with the highest being at the Golden Core Late Stage.

"Since they are all wounded! Then I, Zhang, will send you on your way!"

Thinking of this, Zhang Nuo's killing intent surged. He no longer hid his aura, shot up into the sky, and landed above the camp like a giant bird!

"Who is it!"

The cultivators responsible for patrolling the camp suddenly felt an immense Spiritual Pressure. Looking up, they saw tens of millions of silver ruler shadows pouring down from mid-air, breaking through the Restrictions shrouding the camp like raindrops!

The rumbling sounds were incessant. In the blink of an eye, the interior of the camp was in an uproar; screams rose one after another. Since it was a place for recuperation, even if there were Golden Core Late Stage cultivators, they could not withstand the attack of Zhang Nuo's 'Measuring Heaven Ruler' for a moment!

"Someone is launching a sneak attack! Everyone run!"

In the chaos, a cultivator shouted loudly! Zhang Nuo narrowed his eyes slightly, watching the cultivators below scurrying like rats, and could not help but sneer in his heart!

"Want to leave! All of you leave your lives behind!"

Mercy toward the enemy is cruelty to oneself. Zhang Nuo would absolutely not spare the lives of these Taixu Palace disciples, even if everyone here was wounded!

While in his escape light, Zhang Nuo flashed and landed directly inside the camp. With a light lift of his ten fingers, streaks of Sword Qi shot out!

Trails of blood splattered after the Sword Qi flashed by. This place had simply become a hell on earth. Those low-level cultivators could not fend off Zhang Nuo's attacks at all. As his footsteps moved, Taixu Palace disciples would fall all around him!

Even those Golden Core Stage cultivators did not escape the disaster! As if entering an uninhabited land, Zhang Nuo fired off Sword Qi frequently. In the blink of an eye, there were no living souls left in this camp!

Looking at the corpses on the ground and the blood flowing like a river, Zhang Nuo just sighed lightly. He raised his right hand high, a bloodstain split open in his palm, and the 'Pure Underworld Divine Tree' grew out.

The emerald branches, like long snakes, stretched out toward the surroundings, rolling all the corpses of the Golden Core Stage cultivators into them!

After finishing all this, Zhang Nuo retracted the Divine Tree. With his Divine Sense fully expanded, he scanned the entire camp again. Confirming there were no survivors, he suddenly flipped his palm, and a mass of Silver Flame roared out!

With a single wave of his hand toward everything in front of him, the large expanse of silver flames incinerated the place. Blood was the favorite thing of the 'Red Glow Fire'; whether it was the cultivators' corpses or the buildings in the camp, everything instantly turned to ash and was blown away by the breeze, leaving nothing behind! It was as if there had never been a camp here at all!

Nodding with satisfaction, Zhang Nuo just wanted to set off and fly toward Yulong Immortal Mountain, but on second thought, it was impossible for there to be only one such recuperation camp. He believed that with Taixu Palace's vast influence, there would be at least a dozen or so!

Dismissing the idea of returning to Yulong Immortal Mountain immediately, Zhang Nuo decided to do one thing: destroy all these recuperation camps in the rear of Taixu Palace!

The cultivators in the camps were already wounded, making them easier to kill, which invisibly reduced some pressure on the Giant Spirit Pavilion!

After making up his mind, Zhang Nuo searched along the perimeter of Yulong Immortal Mountain. Sure enough, every certain distance, there would be a recuperation camp! As long as he saw one, he would immediately strike ruthlessly!

In just over ten days, Zhang Nuo destroyed six recuperation camps in one go! At the same time, in front of Yulong Immortal Mountain, inside a massive War Boat, Wei Shang sat on the main seat with an angry face. Beside him were Wu Jian and Gui Yibu!

"Recently, camps in the rear have been disappearing mysteriously one after another! It must be the work of the Giant Spirit Pavilion!"

Those wounded cultivators, some of whom even had cultivation reaching the Golden Core Late Stage, had fallen just like that, which was no small loss for Taixu Palace!

"It seems this must be the work of a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator!"

Gui Yibu's face was gloomy; among the cultivators who fell in those camps, there were quite a few from the Tiangui Sect!

"We all miscalculated! We originally thought the people from the Giant Spirit Pavilion wouldn't notice such small places! Sigh!"

Wu Jian sighed heavily. In the destroyed camps, not even a single clue was left behind, and the person who attacked clearly had no intention of leaving any survivors!

"The number of Nascent Soul Stage cultivators in the Giant Spirit Pavilion is limited. The only ones we have fought are Yang Huzi and Zhou Huizheng, yet Zhang Nuo is nowhere to be seen. Could it be that he is the one doing all this?"

Gui Yibu had once seen Zhang Nuo kill Ji Gui with his own eyes and had long hated Zhang Nuo to the bone. Now that he had joined forces with Taixu Palace, it was to use others' hands to eliminate Zhang Nuo, but after several rounds of major battles, he hadn't even seen a shadow of Zhang Nuo!

"Hmph! That brat back then, he arrogantly passed through our territory! I thought he had fled!"

Wu Jian let out a heavy cold snort. Zhang Nuo's actions back then had truly made him lose all face; a Nascent Soul Early-stage cultivator had actually ignored their existence! He had charged right through their stronghold and escaped!

"Fellow Daoist Wu, I think this matter is extraordinary. How about this: Fellow Daoist Gui and I will keep an eye on Yulong Immortal Mountain, and I will trouble you to make a trip, hiding in one of the camps to see who exactly is doing this!"

Wei Shang lowered his head and pondered for a long time. If he didn't have important matters at hand, he would really like to meet that person! If the other party really was Zhang Nuo, he would take the opportunity to strike and avenge his son!

"Very well! This old man hopes that person is Zhang Nuo! Hehe, for everything he did to my Heaven Sword Sect back then, I want him to pay it back double!"

Even now, Wu Jian's daughter, Wu Junyan, had still not walked out of the shadow of that day; every time she closed her eyes, she saw scenes of blood flowing like rivers and severed limbs covering the ground!

Just as the decision was made on the Taixu Palace side, news of this reached inside Yulong Immortal Mountain! Zhou Huizheng, with a bitter face, showed a look of confusion! Who would easily provoke a behemoth like Taixu Palace?

"It's the Fourth! It must be him!"

Yang Huzi was full of excitement. For these past days, he had been blocked and beaten by the cultivators of the three major sects and had been extremely depressed. Now that he heard this heart-stirring news, he was naturally so happy he couldn't stop clapping his hands!

"Elder Liu, what do you think?"

Zhou Huizheng still found it hard to believe. Zhang Nuo had been gone for such a long time without a single word; it was very likely he had fled. Would he really come back?

Liu Qingshan touched his nose, lowered his head, and pondered for a while before saying:

"Pavilion Master, I think there is an eighty percent chance it is Zhang Nuo! Although this person hasn't been in our Pavilion for long, judging from various events, he is not an ungrateful person. Furthermore, we haven't harmed him like Nanxuan Laozu did, so he has no reason to just leave!"

"Elder Liu is right. And according to the disciples who gathered the information, there were no survivors in those destroyed camps, and even the buildings disappeared into thin air. This point is very consistent with the Fourth's style of doing things!"

Yang Huzi kept rubbing his hands, also agreeing with Liu Qingshan's view!

"If it really is Zhang Nuo who has returned, we might still have a chance of winning this battle!"

A sharp glint flashed in his eyes. Zhou Huizheng had seen Zhang Nuo's supernatural powers with his own eyes; as long as they could kill one of the Leaders of the three major sects, their morale would surely plummet! Especially Wei Laogui of Taixu Palace; this person had formed a deep blood feud with the Giant Spirit Pavilion, and it looked like it would be a fight to the death!

Zhang Nuo hovered quietly in mid-air at a certain location, his gaze fixed like a torch on a camp below. For over a month, this was the twelfth camp he had seen!

Such a large number of camps made Zhang Nuo extremely astonished. How many cultivators had Taixu Palace absorbed from the outside world? What power made these people willing to sell their lives for them?

Blinking his eyes a few times, he had no time to think about these questions now; he had better eliminate this camp first! At once, he lifted his palm slightly and slowly unfolded 'Autumn Water Home'!

Under the infusion of Spirit Power, several gusts of wild wind swept toward the encampment below! The moment these gusts reached the encampment, a thunderous shout erupted from within!

"Haha! Kid, I've finally run into you!"

Hearing the pressure in the voice, Zhang Nuo frowned deeply; it was clear that this encampment was different from the ones he had encountered before, as there was a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator inside!