Chapter 457: The Aftermath of Martial Might: A Single Lance Breaks Through

"The Martial Guild is moving."

While the Hundred Craftsmen led by Lu Wanchun were still deliberating, the Martial Guild contingent next door began to move again.

Did they not know that ahead lay a dead zone where Strong Martial Artists were clashing, a place where no living thing could survive?

The various guild experts looked at one another in dismay; what madness had seized Yan Shan, to drag his subordinates to their deaths without a second thought?

"Bizhi, go send word and tell them to stop."

Lu Bizhi was stunned, wondering why they should bother kindly reminding the other side.

Lu Wanchun glared, "You fool, the Witch tribe's main army is right across from us; do you not understand the principle that if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold?"

The garrison's location was unknown, and once the three thousand of the Martial Guild were wiped out, the Hundred Craftsmen would be left to fight alone.

Lu Bizhi whipped his horse and cut through the crowd, rushing all the way into the camp of the Overlord Martial Hall.

A moment later, he met Yan Shan and explained his purpose.

"Understood, go back!"

Yan Shan paid no heed to Lu Bizhi, instead swinging his arm toward the front, "There is an opportunity now to witness the might of Strong Martial Artists with your own eyes; are you coming or not?"

Once the question landed, a roaring torrent erupted from the sea of people, "We're going! Only a fool wouldn't."

The fanatical, intense atmosphere of the martial artists startled Lu Bizhi into taking a few steps back; these madmen were simply unbelievable!

Zhou You was also in the crowd, watching Yan Shan's back, thinking to himself that he had been at the peak of the Dundun Witch realm for many years, constantly pushing against the threshold of the Strong Martial Artist realm.

Vajra Mountain had, after all, been in decline for many years; without a Strong Martial Artist predecessor to assist, the difficulty of breaking through on one's own was immense.

Precisely because of this, Yan Shan challenged powerful enemies everywhere, using the stones from other mountains to aid his cultivation.

Now, hearing of a battle between Strong Martial Artists, this rare opportunity to observe would allow him a glimpse into the operational methods of a higher level of power.

Asking himself, if he were in Yan Shan's position, he would not miss this opportunity either.

As the Martial Guild army moved forward, more information reached their ears, arriving in a continuous stream.

"The Witch tribe's Strong Martial Artists include Baxiang Shanshanluo, who conquered Zunyang City, the Slaughter-Ox Witch of the Battle of Caojiang Cheng, and others..."

"The Strong Martial Artists of Dayin Mountain and Wanxiu Mountain are currently battling them."

"The two sides have been fighting for five days, from the ruins of Su Cheng to the boundary marker of Gongliang City, pushing toward the direction of Fucheng."

The further they went, the more obvious the celestial phenomena became; the horizon was thick with dark clouds, flashing with lightning and rumbling with thunder.

From the direction of the edge of the ground, pillars of smoke rose up; judging by the distance, the diameter of these smoke pillars was at least a thousand meters.

The wind blowing from afar carried fine, small objects as sharp as razor blades.

They felt slightly numb upon landing on the skin, and if one were not careful, the skin would be sliced open, with fresh blood gushing out.

This was one of the traces left by the clash of Strong Martial Artists; the air had been compressed into a solid state and flattened, becoming as sharp as a blade.

"Ah!"

A martial artist clutched his eyes and fell backward.

The surrounding martial artists sighed and shook their heads; another one who had foolishly opened their eyes to look at the battlefield.

The closer they gathered to the battlefield, the more likely they were to encounter danger at any moment; they had to be cautious at all times and could not afford a single mistake.

Some martial artists were curious and dared to open their eyes to gaze into the distance; if they were not careful, they would be struck by the light of the energy explosions from the Strong Martial Artists, and their pupils would either be torn or burst, a blindness that could not be reversed.

Only Yan Shan and a few top-tier martial artists were qualified to look directly at it.

To ordinary martial artists, a Strong Martial Artist was like the sun in the sky—not to be looked at directly; to dare to do so carried the risk of being blinded.

"Trial Task (Seven-Star): Penetrate deep into the Strong Martial Artist battlefield, observe for one quarter of an hour, and retreat unscathed."

Seeing this, Zhou You hurriedly passed; he would not do a death-seeking task, and besides, the panel had no mechanism for forced acceptance. Unless he advanced to the Gaoji Witch realm and leveled up all his martial arts and secret techniques to the maximum, he shouldn't even think about it.

Swept up in the overwhelming momentum, an individual's power was pitifully weak, as humble as an ant.

Zhou You looked around; to the Strong Martial Artists, these three thousand members of the Martial Guild were merely three thousand chickens and dogs waiting to be slaughtered.

The team continued forward in the oppressive atmosphere.

Suddenly, a cry of alarm came from the front; footsteps stopped, and the formation recoiled in unison, like a wheat field blown by a great wind.

Presented before everyone was a famous high mountain, recorded in both maps and travelogues.

Many had traveled into the mountain and excavated it before, so they were no strangers to it.

However, this mountain no longer looked as it once did; a massive gap sat on the left mountainside, as if a ten-thousand-meter-tall beast had been famished and bitten off half the mountain body in one gulp.

The teetering appearance of the mountain looked for all the world like a hollowed-out tooth.

Zhou You felt a chill in his own teeth just looking at it! "A mark left by a Strong Martial Artist; heavens, this is the true, literal power to split mountains."

Book writers would exaggerate, and storytellers would boast; the power to split mountains, which was no longer fresh news, was now presented before everyone in the most intuitive way, and the shock it brought was enough to overturn their worldview.

If the mountain was like this, what about a body of flesh and blood?

Just as everyone was in shock and doubt, they suddenly heard a thunderclap occur several dozen miles away, the sound of thunder rolling through the cloud layers.

White light, red light, and blue light erupted at the same time, shining through the clouds and illuminating the world.

Its momentum was like ten thousand horses galloping; this was the Rushing Thunder.

This was the Rushing Thunder galloping across the heavens, arriving from afar in the blink of an eye, tearing through the clouds and stabbing diagonally toward the ground.

The destructive power bared its fangs while still high in the air, and as the altitude dropped, the threat it posed increased geometrically.

"We're done for!"

Some martial artists knew they could not escape and simply closed their eyes to wait for death, no longer running.

No matter how fast a person could run, could they be faster than lightning?

This bolt of Rushing Thunder was clearly a move unleashed by a Strong Martial Artist that had missed its target and, having lost its objective, was now affecting their side.

A disaster falling from the sky, involving the innocent—that was exactly what was happening before their eyes.

"Well come!"

Just as everyone was in a state of panic and unease, Yan Shan, the Overlord, unslung his Overlord Lance and leaped from his horse's back with great force; because he used too much strength, the fine steed let out a mournful cry, knelt on the ground with blood gushing from its mouth, nose, and ears, and was shaken to death.

He raised the Long Spear and pointed it toward the sky, "Come, come, watch my Changsu Cilei."

A Long Spear was raised, appearing exceptionally conspicuous amidst the slightly chaotic crowd, and it also attracted the thunder gathering in the sky above.

The thunder hung inverted in the sky, distributed like a field splashed with water, with every splash being a burst of lightning.

The bright Overlord Spear attracted the thunder, immediately pulling it into a massive funnel shape; countless bolts of lightning, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, wound and converged like flowing water above the Overlord Spear.

The moment the thunder made contact with the steel, it was like lovers reunited after years of separation, surprisingly possessing a hint of lingering affection.

Boom! The ground shook, and for a brief moment, the world lost its sound; the force of the thunder crashing down was well over a million tons.

Yan Shan's back was submerged in the boundless electric current, and the Overlord Spear was once pressed down until it bent.

The blinding, intense light that erupted made the warriors nearby shed tears involuntarily, their skin feeling a sharp, stinging pain as if pricked by needles.

Zhou You's hair could no longer be kept down, standing up root by root like a hedgehog; electric filaments could be seen jumping across the surface of his clothing's fabric, and among the forest of hair on his skin, tiny fragments of thunder finer than hair darted about.

Livestock such as horses and mules were even more terrified, their bowels and bladders releasing uncontrollably from the electric shocks, leaving the scene in utter chaos.

(End of this chapter)