Chapter 725

After sealing the demon's lair, Wu Tie lingered for another half month in the Ancient Arms Bureau of Wuguo.

A thousand-li-thick rock-layer seal—even the Divine Realm old ancestor of the Four Ferocious families could still break free; as for others, and those weak vassal tribes, they couldn't even think about it.

But the God Realm Elder broke the seal, the commotion was imaginable how huge, enough for Wu Tie's garrison troops to mobilize and prepare for war, dealing them another heavy blow.

In the Ancient Arms Bureau, Wu Tie mobilized the elites of the Mohist, Ou clan and other families skilled in metallurgy and forging; following the blueprints given by Da Tie, they frenziedly further modified and refitted the War Vessel.

In just half a month, the War Vessel was almost reborn; although many details were still not properly handled, its defense, firepower, and mobility had improved by an unknown amount compared to before.

Just looking at mobility, this gigantic warship over ten thousand zhang long could actually speed through the void at a pace fifty percent faster than the main flagship of the Three Kingdoms, a speed that left Mo Yun and the others almost dropping their jaws.

During the half-month stay, the first few days were fine, but in the last three or four days, emergency transfer orders kept coming from the north.

Each time, Wu Tie rebutted the orders by claiming he was temporarily unable to disengage from dealing with the subterranean demons of the demon lair.

But on the final day, Linghu Qingqing's emergency order to Wu Tie explicitly told him: abandon the demon lair, just come with full force to reinforce; if the subterranean demons cause damage to Wuguo, all losses will be compensated tenfold by the state treasury!

Wu Tie instantly realized that Linghu Qingqing could no longer hold out.

But Wu Tie also didn't know how Linghu Qingqing could collapse so quickly.

Seeing that Linghu Qingqing was truly panicking, Wu Tie had no excuse to delay further; thus he led six hundred God Realm Elders, accompanied by a large contingent of Five Elements Spirit elites, boarding the Four Spirit Warships and rushing north.

Another four hundred God Realm Elders were the elite disciples overseeing various clans; they led a large number of Embryo Storage Realm elite commanders, carrying millions of giant god soldiers, boarding the War Vessel at the head of a thousand new-style warships, and closely followed Wu Tie northward as reinforcements.

The Four Spirit Warships' speed far exceeded the ordinary; with a God Realm Elder stationed aboard, constantly accelerating using divine power, and with spatial gates along the way shuttling through the void, Wu Tie's vanguard force reached the rendezvous point specified in Linghu Qingqing's order in just seven short days.

Qingqiu Divine State, Lingzhou provincial capital.

The Four Spirit Warships were still over a thousand li from Lingzhou City when they burst out of a spatial gate; Wu Tie saw that the city's walls, hastily reinforced and heightened, had collapsed with a roar, standing a full three hundred zhang high.

Four Xuanming Elders, each nine hundred zhang tall and bodies like deep-blue profound ice, let out low roars; from the four directions they simultaneously shattered the walls with freezing qi, easily slaughtering the hundreds of thousands of Qingqiu elite troops stationed on the walls.

Inside Lingzhou City, countless streams of light shot up to the sky; one after another, military formations of a hundred thousand strong, brimming with killing intent, charged toward these four Xuanming Elders.

Heavenly blizzards howled down; amidst the pitch-black clouds, hailstones the size of human heads, emitting piercing whistles, smashed randomly onto the ground, piling up 'hualala' to a thickness of three to five zhang.

The hail was tremendous in force, the Cold Qi shocking; striking the soldiers, it directly shattered their armor and broke their bones and tendons.

The four Xuanming Elders exhaled freezing light and Cold Qi from their entire bodies; large groups of soldiers were frozen into ice sculptures, then accompanied by a piercing cracking sound, the ice sculptures exploded, countless ice blades and shards flying everywhere, battering nearby soldiers into fragments.

Wu Tie's Four Spirit Warships burst from the spatial gate, having flown only a little over a hundred li forward, the garrison inside Lingzhou City collapsed.

Seeing the chaotic banners swaying out from Lingzhou City, upon closer look were the Li, Zhao, Xiang clans and others—familiar top commanders of Qingqiu to Wu Tie—with at least thirty-odd clan banners flying in the wind, followed by masses of defeated troops streaming out of the city.

Wu Tie narrowed his eyes and listened closely; he clearly heard countless soldiers in the fleeing clan armies wailing to heaven and earth.

"We can't stop them, we can't stop them…… They are monsters, they are not human."

"Where is the clan chief? Where is the clan chief?"

"Big brother, big brother…… Who saw my big brother?"

"Run quick, run quick, from Shuozhou all the way to Lingzhou, we can't win, it's impossible to win."

A thick air of decadence permeated the skies over Lingzhou; the Qingqiu troops inside the city obviously had their morale completely shattered, now they were merely a scattered rabble, no longer the elite fighting force of former days.

The four Xuanming Elders also did not pursue; they simply went on a rampage inside the city.

Hordes of bare-chested, sweat-drenched snowplain natives rode various war beasts, brandishing long blades and great axes, shouting hoarsely, surging like a tide from the north; part of them charged toward Lingzhou City, but more rushed to slaughter villages and towns in all directions.

Wu Tie's eye corners twitched violently.

He looked toward the north of Lingzhou City; there, hundreds of big and small cities and countless villages and towns were shrouded in rolling black smoke, a towering killing intent and blood energy rising like beacon smoke straight into the sky.

With Wu Tie's eyesight, he instantly saw the gruesome scenes in those cities and towns.

All Qingqiu civilians, the men were all killed on the spot, their clothing stripped clean, and many corpses bore tooth marks from war beasts.

Those women, as long as they were under fifty and still fertile, regardless of size, were all strung together with long ropes into long lines, driven by the whips of hordes of fierce snowplain women, weeping to heaven and earth as they migrated northward to one crude encampment after another.

Herd after herd of livestock was driven by young snowplain boys, carrying various gold, silver, jewels, grain and clothing, even pots, bowls, buckets and other utensils, slowly making their way toward the northern encampment.

These fierce women and youths all wore beaming smiles, the look of having struck it rich and feeling satisfied.

Meanwhile, their husbands and male relatives gripped their weapons, brimming with killing intent, slaughtering more cities and more villages.

Wu Tie let out a great shout, transforming into a streak of flowing light that shot out; the Earth-Traversing Golden Light Technique was extraordinarily swift, and at Wu Tie's realm its escape speed was astonishingly fast.

In an instant he located a familiar Li clan elder under the Li clan's banner, Li Kuang.

"Li Kuang, what happened? From Shuozhou to the north all the way here, a normal march would take several months, how did we lose so quickly and end up here?"

Wu Tie shouted sternly: "Where is the Majesty? Where is Li Guang? Where are the others?"

Li Kuang's half shoulder was sealed by freezing ice, his old face frozen deathly pale; upon seeing Wu Tie, his eye sockets soured and tears instantly burst forth.

"The Grand Elder is gravely wounded, the Majesty is gravely wounded, the Grand Preceptor is gravely wounded…… King Wu, if you don't come again, we truly can't hold on."