Chapter 382

Wu Tie sat beneath the altar, gasping heavily.

He could not unleash his full strength, all his divine abilities, all his mana, but fortunately on the altar he obtained the Nine Revolutions Mystic Technique and a mana infusion, allowing him to base his cultivation on the Nine Revolutions Mystic Technique and attain a half-step Embryo Treasury Realm.

This was enough for him to perform quite well on the battlefield; his combat power surpassed that of an ordinary commander who had cultivated the Nine Revolutions Primal Technique and advanced to the Embryo Treasury Realm by a margin.

But it was still not enough.

The vast majority of his power was sealed deep within the tiniest particles of his body, including the Reincarnation Pagoda and the Tree of Harvest; Wu Tie's current cultivation in the Nine Revolutions Mystic Technique determines the actual power he possesses in his physique.

Consequently, more than half of his bones were shattered, his five viscera and six bowels suffered violent shocks, his soul was somewhat muddled, and every part of his body wracked with excruciating pain. The wound medicine he had just taken was taking effect rapidly, the strange heat rising from the ground nourished his body and continually healed it, yet the intense pain remained hard to dispel.

Near the city gate, heavenly thunder and earthly fire and various other anomalies continually appeared; commanders of the three sides who wielded high-level divine abilities such as Heaven-Earth Correspondence shouted as they fought in a tangled mass, and from time to time a Divine Martial Army commander, limp and exhausted, was carried back and tossed like a log beneath the altar to recuperate.

Moreover, some Divine Martial Army commanders missing arms or legs were thrown beside Wu Tie, and the ordinary soldiers serving as medics pried open their mouths and continuously poured various life-saving medicines into them.

Every half a double hour, the teleportation array will charge up energy and teleport once, each time bringing no more than a thousand reinforcements.

The entire vanguard of the Divine Martial Army, and even all of the Divine Martial Army's resources, are urgently gathering here.

Immortal weapons, immortal pills, various war supplies…… As reinforcements keep arriving, orders from the Divine Martial Army high command, and even from the high command of the Great Jin Divine Nation, keep coming——The Nine‑Refined Spirit Soldiers can be treated as expendable consumables, allowed to self‑destruct on the battlefield at will without needing to be recorded.

It is precisely by relying on this frantic consumption that the few Divine Martial Army soldiers inside the city can hold out against the frenzied assault of the Jaguar Cavalry and the Slaughter Spirit Army.

A wave of enemies rushes forward; first a wave of Nine‑Refined Spirit Soldiers flies out and self‑destructs with a boom, disrupting the enemy formation, then comes a frenzied melee.

Wu Tie watched helplessly as Jiang Hu, the venerable commander of the Right Battalion of the vanguard, a Jiang Hu who had reached the absolute pinnacle of the Fetal Storage realm, had already gone through three sets of his immortal weapon armor. Given Jiang Hu's background, the quality of his immortal weapon gear was absolutely top‑notch, yet in this short battle he was repeatedly smashed to pieces.

From outside the city came the countless shouts and curses of soldiers.

Hordes of Jaguar Cavalry and Slaughter Spirit Army soldiers surrounded the city walls.

Except for a single gate twenty zhang wide on the south side, there were no gates in the other three directions; the soldiers were doing everything they could to construct various siege engines to breach the walls from those three sides.

As previously mentioned, the Three Kingdoms battlefield possesses extremely strange heavenly and earthly laws.

War barges can rise only ten zhang into the air, cultivators can fly only twenty zhang high, yet the walls of this battle fort stand a hundred zhang tall.

However, the Jaguar Cavalry and Slaughter Spirit Army soldiers besieging the city number in the hundreds of millions; they have already felled all the giant trees in the surrounding forests and are frantically building various huge siege engines.

During the construction of the siege engines, some soldiers eager for merit shouted and charged toward the walls, hoping to scale them using human ladders.

On the walls stood large‑caliber light cannons one after another, and countless heavy bed‑crossbows howled as they let out angry roars.

The light cannons swept the ground, the bed‑crossbows blanketed it, and large numbers of soldiers fell beneath the walls; their blood was quickly absorbed by the earth, and then flames the color of congealing blood shot up from the ground, burning the bodies of the fallen soldiers into green smoke.

Therefore, no matter how many enemies the Divine Martial Army inside the fort killed, the battlefield remained clean.

Without the sight of corpses piled like mountains, the Jaguar Cavalry and Slaughter Spirit Army outside had no idea how many comrades had fallen; facing their commanders' ever‑increasing rewards, they grew even more hysterical in their assaults on the walls.

Hum!

The teleportation array lit up again, and a great throng of heavily armored figures with powerful auras emerged from it.

These people…… Wu Tie's gaze swept over the emblems on their chests.

They were not Divine Martial Army, but commanders of the Divine Might Army, which is equal in fame to the Divine Martial Army.

The Divine Might Army, which Huo Xiong knows, is an exploration‑type main field army corps.

The Hall of Suppressing Demons and the Hall of Repelling Demons specialize in dealing with the Fuxi Divine Nation beneath the Great Rift Valley; in every respect, the Fuxi Divine Nation is one tier weaker than the Great Jin Divine Nation, a long‑suppressed weak position, so the troops of the Hall of Suppressing Demons and the Hall of Repelling Demons are inferior in combat strength to the Divine Martial Army.

The Divine Martial Army is stationed year‑round on the Three Kingdoms battlefield, facing the regular armies of Great Wei and Great Wu; their strengths are comparable, so day‑to‑day they merely harass each other, occasionally carrying out destructive tactical offensives during planting and harvest seasons, sometimes attacking a few enemy cities—all routine operations—so in terms of combat intensity, it is actually bearable.

On the Three Kingdoms battlefield, every Divine Martial Army soldier faces a predictable, routine enemy; the Three Kingdoms armies are like three precisely engineered war machines, each day employing the exact same method to clash.

The Divine Might Army's operational objectives lie beyond the borders of the Great Jin Divine Nation; their mission is to expand the frontier, to open new territories for the Great Jin, to establish new settlements, to seek out new resource‑rich blessed lands, and so on.

They never know who they will encounter the next day, never know what race, temperament, or fighting style the next day's enemy will have, nor do they know whether they will storm a wall, explore an abyss, or delve into deep underground tunnels to reach an unknowable subterranean world.

Thus the commanders and soldiers of the Divine Might Army possess the richest combat experience and the most comprehensive combat methods; they can fight in any weather and terrain, and can face any mighty or strange enemy and adopt the most effective tactics.

Let us use the words of the high command of the Great Jin Divine Nation to explain the different roles of these armies.

The Suppressing Demons Army and the Repelling Demons Army can be seen as hunters; they are tasked with exterminating beasts like wolves, tigers, and leopards that occasionally emerge to harass the Fuxi Divine Nation belonging to the Great Jin Divine Nation…… In the minds of the Great Jin Divine Nation's high command, the Fuxi Divine Nation is merely a pack that constantly thinks of sneaking onto their land to grab a bite and flee, posing little threat.

The Divine Martial Army is the family's household guards, responsible for defending the estate, dealing with neighboring hostile forces of comparable strength that covet our territory.

And the Divine Might Army is truly the sharp blade of the Great Jin Divine State, belonging to the most elite special forces, the strongest main field army corps. They not only have the strongest individual combat ability, but also the organization of the Divine Might Army is the largest.

Just speaking of their five armies in the front, back, left, right, and center, each army organized according to the number of the Heavenly Stems into ten major camp headquarters; each major camp headquarters under it organized according to the number of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches into sixty camp headquarters; under those sixty camp headquarters, they further organized according to the number of the Heavenly Gang and Earthly Sha into one hundred eight star camp headquarters.

Generals as numerous as clouds, soldiers as numerous as rain; their provisions, gear, armor and weapons far surpass those of the Demon-Suppressing Army, the Demon-Repelling Army, and the Divine Martial Army; this is the Divine Might Army.

Nearly a thousand Divine Might Army officers emerged from the teleportation array; they wasted no time, directly joining the offense and defense at the city gate.

It was obvious that the sudden appearance of this elite contingent of Divine Might Army officers caught the outside Swift Leopard Cavalry and Soul-Slaying Army off guard; Wu Tie even saw that, under the leadership of this new force, the Divine Martial Army in the fortress even launched a counterattack.

They abruptly charged out of the city gate, launched an outward strike of about twenty-odd li, beheading several thousand gathered Swift Leopard Cavalry elite officers, and returned to the fortress with almost no losses.

Because of their sudden attack, the outside Swift Leopard Cavalry seemed as if struck on the forehead by a heavy hammer, dazed for half a day.

The Soul-Slaying Army also seemed confused about what had happened; the offensive at the city gate suddenly stopped, and after just under an hour, the shaking killing cries resumed outside.

With this just-under-an-hour buffer, the wounded Divine Martial Army officers inside had already more or less recovered; they quickly returned to the battlefield, and the fortress's defense situation immediately stabilized.

Soon, after just a short while, another batch of Divine Might Army officers came over via the teleportation array.

This time, they even carried super-large-capacity spatial treasures, bringing some ultra-heavy equipment light cannons into the fortress.

This time, the light cannons they brought totaled only twelve, with three able to be installed on each city wall side.

These twelve ultra-heavy light cannons have the volume of a small hill, their barrels reach several tens of zhang in length, and each shot's power is astonishingly strong.

A cultivator who has mastered one heavenly earth great dao, for example the fire great dao, and whose cultivation method can be called supreme, if he has trained to the extreme of the womb storage realm, his full-power strike's power is calculated as 1.

Then a cultivator who has mastered two heavenly earth great dao, which are mutually complementary, such as the wind and fire great dao, and whose cultivation method is likewise supreme, and who bases his training on this to reach the extreme of the womb storage realm, such a cultivator who has mastered two great dao, his full-power strike's power is roughly calculated as 5.

These twelve ultra-heavy light cannons, each blast's power is roughly around 100.

This is equivalent to a cultivator who has thoroughly studied the pre-heaven and post-heaven five elements great dao, with sufficient cultivation method rank, the great dao principles can be called perfect, and the pre-heaven and post-heaven five elements great dao have reached perfect mutual generation; by cultivating to the extreme of the womb storage realm, his full-power strike's damage is roughly 100.

Basically, the cultivation level of someone like Sima De, the front army commander-in-chief of the Divine Martial Army, if he does not use immortal weapons and purely uses divine ability secret techniques, his eruptive attack power is about 100 up and down.

This is equivalent to having twelve Sima Des standing on the city wall, continuously attacking the outside Swift Leopard Cavalry and Soul-Slaying Army.

Wu Tie exerted much effort, helping to install the twelve ultra-heavy light cannons occupying an area of a hundred zhang radius on the city wall. Not long after, the twelve light cannons began to continuously spew thick light pillars outward at a frequency of once every twenty breaths.

Mushroom clouds rose continuously outside the city.

The war galley of the Jaguar Riders and Slaughter Spirit Army, one after another, exploded into countless fragments in the mushroom cloud.

Countless Jaguar Riders and Slaughter Spirit Army soldiers vanished in the blinding light, not even leaving a scream.

Thud, thud, thud...

The muffled booming sounds kept coming from outside the city.

The commanders of the Divine Might Army controlled these super-heavy cannons, thoroughly wiping out the dense enemy troops outside the city, piece by piece.

Outside the city gate, the Jaguar Riders and Slaughter Spirit Army gathered nearly all officers of commandant rank and above, bearing countless immortal and spirit soldiers, coalescing into a vast expanse of rosy mist, howling as they charged toward the city gate.

They endured the bombardment of the light cannons and the barrage of countless bed-mounted crossbows, fearlessly charging forward.

Silhouettes faded one by one, lives vanished one by one.

Wu Tie stood on the city wall, feeling a chill all over his body.

In this battle for the blood flag, what could be worth these guys fighting so desperately for?

In Wu Tie's view, whether it was dragon-tooth sorghum rice, or some black storm pearl, or some beauty's tongue—having these things was certainly nice, but without them, did that really mean living worse?

Why must so many living lives be sacrificed?

Row after row of Jaguar Riders and Slaughter Spirit Army war galley formed dense arrays, likewise spewing the main cannon's light pillars, fearlessly ramming into the fortress walls.

Outside the small fortress five li in length and width, countless flames, countless smoke, countless howls shook heaven and earth.

Not only Wu Tie, but the elite of the Divine Might Army on the city wall were also shaken to trembling by the overwhelming killing intent, everyone's faces turned deathly pale, yet everyone attacked the enemy frenziedly with all their might.

Either the enemy dies, or we die…

"The reward for the second level is coming right up." Jiang Ping puffed over to Wu Tie's side, laughing breathlessly, though his smile was uglier than crying: "Hey, the reward for the first level is that as long as someone enters the fortress, ascends the altar, and inscribes a soul seal on the city guard token, they'll get it."

"But the second level..." Jiang Ping shook his head with feeling: "Just now I heard the news—this second level's commander will only appear after the soldiers who have died on this battlefield reach ten million."

"Ten million dead soldiers?" Wu Tie stared wide-eyed at Jiang Ping in shock.

"Ten million dead soldiers—whether from Great Jin, Great Wei, or Great Wu—ten million!" Jiang Ping's face also twitched violently several times as he pointed to the huge blood-colored war flag atop the straight blood-colored light pillar rising above the castle.

"Without ten million battle souls and essence blood, how could this war flag be condensed into substance?"

Wu Tie suddenly sidestepped, dodging an arrow shot from outside the city with immense force, he stared fixedly at Jiang Ping and said in a low voice: "Ten million soldiers, will the blood flag be condensed into substance?"

"Hmm, otherwise, what is a contention battle? Without a substantive blood flag, how can we contend?"

Jiang Ping slashed open a spear violently hurled in from outside the city with one sword, then heaved a heavy breath: "I don't want to become one of those ten million... so, be careful..."

Jiang Ping bumped Wu Tie with his shoulder, pushing him back two steps, just in time to avoid the light pillar from a small light cannon.