Chapter 989

Left thirty Venerable-rank Wu tribe warriors to guard the capital of Wu, Wu Tie mobilized all civil and military officials of Wuguo, personally led the main force of the Heavenly Martial Army, and rushed to the southern border.

The agile new warships, one after another, were like black killer sharks, forming neat triangular assault formations, slicing swiftly through the sky.

The war drums and bugle calls became a continuous thunderous rumble, wave after wave spreading outward between heaven and earth.

The vast army formation stretched for hundreds of thousands of miles, vast and mighty, gliding through the sky like dark clouds.

Besides the warships of various sizes, there were also metal fortresses made of great iron, specially built in ancient times to cooperate with the giant divine soldiers in battle. The smallest was one li square, the largest a full hundred li in length and width; these metal fortresses were pitch black all over, spewing long scarlet flames, lunging southward with the fleet in the sky.

Because the western demon kingdom was incorporated, Wuguo gained many strange and exotic war beasts and warbirds.

The commanders from the various great houses each rode iron-feathered eagles, heavenly pengs, deadly poisonous vultures, and even creatures like the four-not, black qilin, hanging-eye tiger, willow-leaf leopard, and other flying beasts, exhaling five-colored demonic clouds, majestic as they darted back and forth among the fleet.

Huge flocks of gigantic bird demons whose cultivation exceeded the Embryonic Storage realm, sorted by species, formed dense formations and followed the fleet in flight.

On the decks of the specially made huge transports, huge demon beasts transformed into burly giants, clad in various heavy armors, stood in neat rows, their fierce gazes scanning all around.

Great Iron

The five-element spirits, together with the underground world's ox tribe, werewolves, dragonfolk, serpentfolk and other powerful battle clans from the netherworld, stood on the decks in bright armor, high morale, loudly singing Wuguo's war song.

The human soldiers of the Heavenly Martial Army likewise stood spirited on the decks, under the leadership of their own commanders, raising their voices to echo back and forth with these foreign comrades, each trying to outshout the other in singing the war song.

The diminutive, weak-voiced dwarves, ratfolk and other weak clans stood beside the light cannons they were responsible for, or clutched their own rune firearms on the decks, heheheh, listening to the roars of their mighty comrades.

From time to time, these tiny fellows would hop about, clapping and cheering, loudly cheering on a unit whose voice was exceptionally high-pitched.

On the huge platform at the bow of the vast warship, Wu Tie stood with his hands behind his back, smiling as he beheld the boundless great fleet stretching in all directions.

Gongsun Bailma stood beside Wu Tie, his face deathly pale as he gazed at the mighty army formation all around.

Deadly Poisonous Vulture

Among the human realms on the Earth-character battlefield, any state with even slightly greater strength could at any time muster an army of this enormous scale.

He felt tremendous shock, even astonishment, at the composition of Wu Tie's Heavenly Martial Army.

Hanging-Eye Tiger

Willow-Leaf Leopard

Fetal Storage Realm

Five Elements Spirits

If it were merely Embryonic Storage realm demon birds and beasts, that would be fine, but the creatures that the commanders of Wuguo's great houses ride under them are clearly mighty beings of the Divine Realm. These proud, arrogant, ferocious demon tribes—how could they possibly submit to being driven by humans?

How did Wu Tie cause these complexes of vastly different habits, customs, cultures, even forming food-chain relationships among them, to harmoniously join Wuguo's Heavenly Martial Army? How did he make them, in such harmony, become comrades who could live and die together?

Gongsun Bailma blankly stared at a nearby warship where, beneath a dragonfolk standing over three zhang tall, a gray dwarf was brandishing a great hammer, hoarsely bellowing an ugly war song.

Dragonfolk, especially these black-scaled black dragonfolk, are undoubtedly the dominant ruling beings of the netherworld.

To these black dragonfolk, the gray dwarves are merely the lowest slaves, sometimes even their food for sustenance.

Gongsun Bailma knew what kind of living conditions the netherworld's peoples endured.

Before the black dragonfolk, what status could these gray dwarves possibly have?

Light Cannon

How could that black dragonfolk tolerate the gray dwarf jumping about beside him, waving his great hammer and shouting loudly, "with not a trace of reverence"?

Gongsun Bailma felt waves of splitting headache, unable to grasp the key point of all this.

Setting aside these complex clan relations, Gongsun Bailma blankly turned his gaze to the fleet's new warships—their speed was too fast, simply too fast.

Gongsun Bailma could be sent to the Earth-character Yi Five battlefield as a frontline supervising commander; without doubt he is one of that tiny elite of humanity who are the most experienced, knowledgeable, and capable.

Earth Character Yi Five Battlefield

The speed of these warships under Wu Tie's command is somewhat absurdly fast—several times faster than the swiftest standard warships of other human realms he has seen, by a margin of over ten times.

What further shocked Gongsun Bailma was that these small warships, 150 zhang in length, could be this fast—something he could accept.

Those transport ships, thousands of zhang long with bulging bellies like blue whales, actually have this speed?

Supreme Demon Kingdom

Thus it can be inferred that Wuguo's warships have not reached their top speed; they are merely maintaining formation at the speed of the transport ships, moving forward at a "slow speed".

These transport ships, these warships—setting them aside—those gigantic floating fortresses can easily keep up with the entire fleet!

Cavalry Corps

Frontline Army Supervisor

Those fortresses are all built by excavating relics from the primordial mythic era, obtaining part of the production lines and techniques, after deductive restoration, combining today's formations, runes, and forging methods into great weapons of destruction.

The floating fortresses Gongsun Bailong has seen are immensely powerful and extremely well-defended, but they are all bulky and clumsy, their flight speed so slow it's maddening—covering over a thousand li in an hour, which is already quite good speed.

Yet the fortresses under Wu Tie's command, regardless of size, can actually move at a speed of over ten thousand li per shichen, closely keeping pace with the fleet as it rushes forward?

Floating Fortress

Big Hammer

Western Demon Kingdom

According to this calculation, if the present speed of these floating fortresses is their limit, then the transport ships ought to be able to go several times faster, and the warships' speed should be dozens of times greater than now.

Two hours, flying several million Chinese miles?

Gongsun Bai Ma's muscles tensed all over, his pores unconsciously exuding large amounts of cold sweat; staring at Wu Tie's back, he couldn't utter a word for a long time.

After a long, long time, Gongsun Bai Ma finally spoke in a dry voice: "You all, have you found the remains of a complete primeval mythic era forging workshop?"

Wu Tie turned his head curiously to look at Gongsun Bai Ma: "Nüwa Island should have preserved complete knowledge of the primeval era, right? I see you constantly staring at Wuguo's warships and fortresses; do you really need to make such a fuss?"

Gongsun Bai Ma said nothing, just gave Wu Tie a cold stare.

Wu Tie spread his hands, shook his head with a smile: "It seems you still believe we, Wuguo, have committed heinous crimes? Hehe, today let me show you how these exalted ones of our Wuguo came to be."

The vast fleet spread out, covering the heavens like dark clouds, slowly advancing on the besieged camp of the eight great expeditionary commanders of the Supreme Demon Kingdom's demon army.

The sharp horn blares rose continuously, streaks of blood-colored demonic light shot up into the sky, then suddenly exploded, rapidly forming huge clusters of Blood Light visible clearly within tens of thousands of Chinese miles in every direction.

On the ground, countless demon cavalry rode to and fro; many small cavalry units quickly gathered, forming large cavalry legions.

In midair, a large number of thousand-zhang-long demon army warships began to converge toward one point; on the ground, thousand-zhang-tall demon puppets strode rumblingly, amid the demon army commanders' shouted orders, like moving mountains, they advanced toward Wu Tie's fleet.

From all directions, countless giant god-warriors simultaneously raised the spears in their hands, then in neat unison thrust forward fiercely.

Horde after horde were assaulting the defensive line formed by the giant god-warriors; the demon army soldiers, howling like madmen, wailed and fell, easily slain by the giant god-warriors.

From all directions, hordes of giant god-warriors began a counterattack, routing the demon army soldiers trying to break through; the scattered formations fled swiftly toward the main camp of the Eight Pacification Commanders.

Yin Wujiu and the other Eight Pacification Commanders each commanded demon army main-force elites numbering in the hundreds of millions; the other auxiliary troops, servants, laborers, miscellaneous workers, and other logistics units were even tens of times more numerous than the frontline elites.

The camps of the Eight Pacification Commanders were linked together, stretching over tens of thousands of li, a black expanse like a pustule spread across the fertile land.

Countless demon army soldiers were divided into assault units, attacking from all directions the solid defensive line formed by the giant god-warriors, hoping to carve out a path of survival.

But the giant god-warriors suddenly launched a counterstrike; these demon army assault units immediately collapsed. Outside the camp of the Eight Pacification Commanders, within a radius of hundreds of thousands of li, everywhere were demon army soldiers fleeing in disarray, black as a disturbed ant nest, packed together tightly.

Wu Tie's massive fleet dispersed in all directions.

Tens of thousands of earth sprites leapt down from the warships; following Wu Tie's order, their bodies suddenly expanded as they fell. Upon landing, their bodies began to draw strength from the earth; the earth sprites, originally ten to a hundred zhang tall, rapidly swelled to tens of thousands of zhang tall, becoming colossal rock giants.

These rock giants roared, their voices thunderous: "Where are the Eight Pacification Commanders of the Supreme Demon State? Surrender quickly, and I will spare your life!"

In the high heavens, the countless soldiers of Wu Tie's Heavenly Martial Army shouted in unison: "Where are the Eight Pacification Commanders of the Supreme Demon State? Surrender quickly, and I will spare your life!"

Old Geba, Old Wangzi, Old Jiuzi, Old Lengtou, and even the Bone Relic Venerable, together with dozens of venerable old monsters who had pledged allegiance to Wu Tie, all shot up into the sky, emitting a tsunami-like immense pressure that swept over the entire land.

Countless soldiers of the Supreme Demon State collapsed, trembling and unable to move as they lay prone on the ground.

Over a hundred venerable experts of the Wu tribe also let out a shout, simultaneously releasing their immense auras.

These Wu tribe youths leapt into the air, activating their bloodlines.

Gonggong, Zhurong, Kuafu, Xingtian, Xiangliu, Houtu… over a hundred Wu tribe youths, whose activated bloodlines of the ancient Wu gods numbered over twenty types.

Their bodies grew to tens of thousands of zhang tall, their whole bodies shimmering with light of water, fire, wind, and lightning; they reached out with both hands into the void, and vast torrents of heavenly-earth primordial energy transformed into vivid dragons and giant pythons of various colors that coiled around them, seemingly adding a hundredfold to their majesty and lethal aura.

Gongsun Bai Ma gritted his teeth and stared fixedly at Wu Tie: "You… just how many common folk have you slaughtered to achieve these… these… you, you, you are the people of the Long-Nurturing Clan, labeled as 'human traitors'?"

"The Long-Nurturing Clan? I've never heard of them." Wu Tie looked astonished at Gongsun Bai Ma: "What about them? They say that for the sake of humanity's future, humanity must have venerable experts, so they insist… on using sacrificial means to break through to the venerable level."

Gongsun Bai Ma shouted hoarsely: "The Long-Nurturing Clan has already been exterminated… you, Wuguo…"

Wu Tie said calmly: "We have not harmed any innocent civilians."

Gongsun Bai Ma sneered: "Then how did you break through to the venerable level?"

Wu Tie pointed at the boundless demon army soldiers of the Supreme Demon State below and said coldly: "Look at them—have you cultivated the Buddhist heavenly eye or the Daoist divine eye? Look at them, look at them, look at them—do they deserve to die?"

Gongsun Bai Ma stared blankly, then gritted his teeth and let out a cold snort; two lotus-seal Buddhist imprints appeared in his eyes, and two golden beams shot out, sweeping across the boundless demon warriors below.

Before his eyes, a sea of blood surged, and countless wronged spirits lingered.

Every demon warrior was bound by endless karmic grudges; even the least among them had slaughtered at least a thousand people.

Gongsun Bai Ma's body shuddered as he stepped back a step; the golden light in his two Buddha eyes flickered, his pupils seemed on the verge of cracking, the corners of his eyes split, and two streams of blood spurted out with a splash.

Buddhist techniques and demonic nefarious energy are inherently opposing forces.

Gongsun Bai Ma's cultivation was at most half a step into the venerable level, yet among the demon officers below, half-step venerable demons numbered in the tens of thousands at least.

Their demonic and resentful qi were as substantial as tangible, transforming into countless blood‑red blades that filled the void. Gongsun Bai Ma, without any defense, merely glanced that way, and his eyeballs nearly burst from the overwhelming demonic and nefarious qi.

"They… they are not human!" Gongsun Bai Ma shouted hoarsely: "They are demons, demons, demons!"

"Since they are not human, we can make use of them!" Wu Tie spread his hands, looking at Gongsun Bai Ma with clear eyes: "Of course, we must admit that, in terms of ethnic classification, they are human… but they are not human!"