Chapter 406: The Water and Fire Boys

"Charge!"

The sound of a suona horn rang out, *dudu—du—*

This was the signal for the charge; the sounds of gunfire and artillery never ceased for a moment.

However, the enemy was completely unaffected; instead, they pushed out one strange unicycle after another, spewing fire dragons that billowed with thick black smoke.

This fire dragon burned away people's skin and hair in an instant, and the poisonous smoke was so choking that they could not open their eyes; the uniforms and armor on their bodies were all set ablaze.

"Retreat! Retreat!"

Chen Gongming took the lead, breaking out from the raging inferno; with a broadsword, he channeled the blade Qi of a martial Human Immortal to slash apart a fire dragon cart.

That fire dragon cart relied on a pressure device, constantly using a bellows to pump in Qi so it could spray further; now that it exploded, it created a giant mushroom cloud some ten-odd *zhang* in radius, the flame shockwave sparing neither friend nor foe.

Even those enemy soldiers bound with yellow ribbons had limbs flying about in the chaos.

"Call the wind!"

Chen Gongming shouted, blowing the wind back; at the same time, he quickly scooped up two infantrymen burned by the fire, wanting to help extinguish it, but this fire oil would not go out once it touched something—pouring water or covering it with earth were both difficult.

They were actually burned alive right in front of Chen Gongming.

"Commander, go quickly, don't worry about us! They have magic methods, our bullets can't hit them; as long as you take Ganzhou City, our sacrifice will be worth it!"

Chen Gongming was a real man; even then, he found it hard to hold back his tears, then let out a long howl like a roaring bear, retreating with the army.

"Should we pursue?" The Ganzhou city defense general asked, unable to resist when he saw Chen Gongming leading his troops in retreat.

"Do not pursue a desperate foe!" the Ganzhou General-in-Chief said. "This Chen Gongming knows military strategy, and their morale is currently tragic and heroic; we must defeat them once, twice, and a third time to break this Qi and make them stray dogs. Otherwise, they have never lost before; this small defeat will surely be seen as a humiliation."

"Indeed."

At this moment, that Ye Zhenren said, "This man's momentum is like a flood, his blood energy is vigorous, and he follows the Dao of combat; his spells and Divine Abilities are merely auxiliary. In true close-quarters combat, none of us can get near him; we can only trap and kill him from a distance. If you go to pursue, you are merely throwing your lives away."

"For now, what you must do is refine more Flame Carts. Today, observing his wind arts gave me a reminder: among the eight hundred side-door methods of my Luofu Sect, there is a Windmill Method. One only needs to make windmills out of hard paper, write Talismans on them, and have the soldiers hold them; combined with the Flame Carts, they form a Daoist Soldier Grand Array—the Wind-Fire Array. If one thousand men come, one thousand will be burned to ash; if ten thousand come, ten thousand will be refined into charcoal!"

"It is just that this device has some drawbacks." That Talisman damages luck, and the Flame Cart damages one's descendants; side-door methods have great power, but the price is even greater.

"What are the drawbacks?"

"Wind is the mechanism of slander; those who operate these windmills are prone to having their wives commit adultery at home..."

"That's fine, just find bachelors, won't that do? If there are no wives or children at home, isn't there no fear of adultery?"

"It will cause evil wind to enter the lower body, rendering one impotent." "That's even less of a problem; a small price, not worth mentioning." The Prefect was indifferent, only saying, "Just don't let them know. This is a hidden shame; if you don't say it and I don't say it, how would they know it's a problem with this technique?"

Ye Zhenren saw this and was slightly speechless, thinking to himself, "If not for the pact my Luofu Sect made with the Ancestor Emperor of the Taining Dynasty back then, when he sat upon the throne, he also enfeoffed my Luofu..."

After Chen Gongming returned to camp, the burned soldiers all developed blisters, and some had already begun to fester; the screams were constant. Even though the minor flames had been forcibly extinguished, the Fire Poison had entered their bodies, which remained a major difficulty.

Among the military physicians, a portion were disciples of Bai Xian; they had not experienced the Fire Tribulation and lacked the ability to treat fire wounds, so they could only use local methods combined with new ones—first using antibiotics extracted from willow bark, then applying sesame oil, but this only treated the symptoms.

The military physician said, "Commander, this Fire Poison is not ordinary fire; it is Diesui Duhuo. That fire oil must have been petroleum refined through magic methods; the fire it burns with has magical properties and is the Stone Fire from the Outer Samadhi. Now we use ice blocks to suppress the Fire Poison, but it is only temporary. The soldiers' pain will increase with time; leaving scars is a small matter, I only fear the pain will accompany them for a lifetime."

"We need to find someone skilled in Fire Methods who can extract the Fire Poison to effect a permanent cure."

"The Ganzhou Prefect is winning over the small landlords, and I have countermeasures for that, but I did not expect him to have an expert guiding him in the city. I did not even detect it with my Thousand-Mile Mirror, which shows their Daoist Practice is far higher than mine; it must be like when we broke Jiujiang, there are high-level practitioners making trouble."

He immediately said, "Let me use the Thousand-Mile Court Projection technique to ask Master."

He immediately took a water basin, placed a mirror in it, burned a Talisman, and silently recited the name three times in his heart; instantly, an image appeared in the basin.

However, it was not Xu Jia, but Xu Jia's "Water-Fire" boys: the Water Boy Ao Jin and the Fire Boy, the small drought demon Sheng Ying.

They said, "Master is currently practicing Divine Abilities and has no free time. Whatever you have to say, just tell us, and after Master finishes practicing his Divine Abilities, I will tell him."

"Disciple is attacking Ganzhou, and there are evil people here practicing a fire array, burning many of my troops. I am not skilled in Divine Abilities or Daoism, and Jiang Qi and Shen Bao also lack this ability, so I wish to beg Master to grant a method to avoid fire."

"Playing with fire?" Sheng Ying said. "Then you've asked the right person. I have a skill called Fire Consumption; no matter what kind of fire it is, I can swallow it in one gulp."

"Can you do it? Aren't you a drought demon? Isn't your ability to absorb water? Sitting on the ground and absorbing water, drying up the groundwater and bringing plague—if Master hadn't sealed you, could you do it?" Ao Jin did not believe Sheng Ying. "You're not even as useful as me. I'll go there, wield my Water Virtue Dharma Power, and bring down a heavenly rain. Once the heavenly rain falls, no matter what wood fire, stone fire, or thunder fire it is, it will all be extinguished."

"I can't? Let me tell you, I am the fusion of two monsters. My soul is a Fire Essence from a candle, and my physical body is a drought demon. It is true that a drought demon absorbs water, but isn't it normal for a Fire Essence to consume and swallow fire? Besides, was it only you who contributed? At that steel factory, without me and Xun Taizi, could we have raised the furnace temperature and refined all things?"

"Then both boys should come together." Chen Gongming was treating a dead rat like a living one.

As for these two boys, the situation with Sheng Ying was unknown, but Ao Jin was the Great Saint of Raozhou, holding the Rao Pearl, governing the abundance of the land for hundreds of *li*, and in charge of the Xin River and Rao He; even Yuan Jiangjun and the One-Qi Immortal had to listen to him. Moreover, he had a father in the God Immortal Realm, the Great Dragon God of the South Sea.

"Fine, fine, fine! We will pack up a bit and come to help you immediately!"

The two boys hung up the projection technique and packed their respective treasures. Besides his own Rao Pearl, Ao Jin also brought some rain-making gear. Sheng Ying'er brought Xun Taizi along directly, and also had a crimson flame-light flag born from his mother's womb, which had been refined into a Magic Tool; with the wind aiding the fire's momentum, it would show even greater Divine Ability when the time came.

After the two boys packed up, they piloted a newly refined Green Steel Sword, trailing long exhaust, and headed south toward Ganzhou.

(End of chapter)