Chapter 826

The war kept escalating, and with the Great Vehicle Stage cultivator from the Merchant Guild entering the fray, the battlefield situation changed for a time.

Half a year passed.

At the West Sand River Basin border, three thousand wolf demon cavalry marched in orderly steps. Unlike before, besides their traditional bone daggers, they also carried completely black tube‑shaped spirit rifles, the barrels etched with the monster tribe's royal court sun insignia.

"Load!"

At the silver‑back leader's command, all the wolf demons uniformly pulled back the bolts and loaded standard Spiritual Stones the size of a fingernail cap. This precision weapon from the West Sand River Basin is now being produced independently in the monster tribe's armory.

Immortal Maiden Xuanji stood on the observatory platform, her plain white Daoist robe snapping in the morning wind. The eight‑trigram compass in her hand spun wildly, showing abnormal energy fluctuations on the battlefield ahead.

"Something's off..." she calculated with her fingers, her brows knitting tighter, "Where did the monster tribe get so many spirit rifles and spirit cannons? West Sand River Basin..."

"Uncle Master! Emergency report from the front!" a disciple flew in on his sword, face ashen, "The first line of defense of the Heaven Punishment Palace has been breached; Senior Chixiaozi is gravely wounded! The monster tribe is using a new type of spirit cannon!"

Immortal Maiden Xuanji's compass cracked with a click. She knew all too well what that meant—three years ago, during the period of peace between humans and monsters, the West Sand caravan had sold only spirit rifles and spirit cannons to the monster tribe, but how could they possibly wound a cultivator at the peak of the Unity Dao stage?

And now the monster tribe can actually use a spirit cannon to wound Chixiaozi?!

"Issue the order to activate the Stars‑and‑Dipper Grand Formation; all disciples below Nascent Soul are to retreat to the earth‑vein shelters." She swiftly formed seals, and seventy‑two eight‑trigram mirrors flew from her sleeve, "I will personally go inspect these spirit cannons."

When Immortal Maiden Xuanji rushed to the outskirts of the Heaven Punishment Palace, the sight before her made her breath catch.

Thirty pitch‑black spirit cannons were arrayed in a wedge formation, each barrel over two zhang long, their bodies covered in dark‑red meridian‑like patterns—these were the monster tribe's improved Earth‑Splitting spirit energy heavy cannons. The crews were not ordinary monster soldiers but a hundred shape‑changed great monsters wearing cyan soft armor, moving with machine‑like precision and bearing the Azure Phoenix tribe's distinctive feather insignia on their chests.

"Qingxuan's personal guard..." Immortal Maiden Xuanji's pupils constricted. What shocked her even more was the special unit behind the cannon array: five hundred ape monsters forming a heavy machine‑gun emplacement, each gun mounted on a precision‑steel rotating base, with coolant channels flowing with a pale blue liquid.

"Fire!"

As the cyan‑armored monster commander waved his flag, the thirty spirit cannons roared in unison. At the moment the shells left the barrels, Immortal Maiden Xuanji saw clearly the West Sand River Basin's Great Hero City emblem engraved on the shells—exactly the batch that humans had exported and modified during the earlier peace agreement.

"Boom!"

The first volley sliced off half of the eastern peak of the Heaven Punishment Palace. The mountain‑guard formation shuddered violently, and the eight elders maintaining the formation's eyes all spat blood. Chixiaozi, forcing himself despite his grave wounds, turned his demon‑slaying sword into a hundred‑zhang rainbow slash aimed at the cannon array, but it was blocked by a suddenly rising azure light curtain.

"Qingxuan's Heavenly Net Feather Barrier!" Chixiaozi gritted his teeth, "Is she here again?"

In the high‑altitude clouds, Qingxuan gazed coldly down at the battlefield. A wisp of azure flame curled around her fingertips, yet she did not directly join the attack. At her side, a leader wearing a bronze mask was directing the various units to advance in concert via a sound‑transmission magical device.

"Second echelon, prepare Rain‑of‑Pearls." The masked leader's voice hoarse, "Aim those eight‑trigram mirrors."

On the ground, Immortal Maiden Xuanji had just raised the seventy‑two eight‑trigram mirrors into a defensive formation when she heard a dense humming unlike that of spirit cannons. Five hundred heavy machine guns fired simultaneously, creating a metal storm that instantly engulfed a radius of ten li. The mirror array was struck by tens of thousands of spirit bullets, the surfaces shattering one after another.

"Earth escape!" Immortal Maiden Xuanji hastily performed the earth‑escape seal, pulling her nearby disciples underground. The spot where they had stood was plowed into dozens of deep grooves by the bullets, and a slower‑reacting Golden Core disciple had his legs blasted into pulp, screaming as he fell into the trench.

Three zhang underground, Immortal Maiden Xuanji deployed the water‑mirror technique. The image showed the monster tribe's machine‑gun emplacement replacing a special magazine—clearly stamped with the words "Great Hero City" on the magazine, yet the production batch below bore a brand‑new monster tribe calendar marking.

"As I thought..." she gripped the compass, "They've cracked the West Sand River Basin's technology."

At noon, before the final line of defense of the Heaven Punishment Palace.

Chixiaozi leaned on his broken demon‑slaying sword, gazing at the barely over two hundred disciples remaining. Everyone bore wounds; the youngest, Qingxuzi, had his abdomen pierced by a spirit‑rifle bullet, the hastily wrapped bandage already soaked through with blood.

"The mountain‑guard formation can hold at most another half hour," an elder beside him panted, "Those spirit cannons are specifically bombarding the earth‑vein nexus..."

Chixiaozi gazed at the distant, incessantly flashing cannon fire and suddenly noticed a detail: between each volley, the cyan‑armored monster soldiers quickly recorded data and sent it rearward via transmission talismans, while the commander was not Qingxuan herself but the leader wearing the bronze mask.

"Immortal Maiden Xuanji." Chixiaozi suddenly sent a mental message to the Xuanji who had just emerged from underground, "Do you find that masked leader familiar?"

Immortal Maiden Xuanji stared intently, then her body shuddered. Although the other party had deliberately altered his voice, the bearing in his gestures...

Many years ago, this very person had led the development of spirit‑rifle and spirit‑cannon technology for the West Sand River Basin, then suddenly disappeared. Who would have thought he'd actually defected to the monster tribe!

"We must get this word out..." Immortal Maiden Xuanji was about to act when the sky suddenly rained azure fire. Qingxuan finally acted personally, her Heaven‑Burning Flame turning the mountain gate before the human encampment into a sea of fire.

Chixiaozi violently shoved Immortal Maiden Xuanji aside: "Take the truth and go!" Having said that, he directly shattered his natal sword core, the violent sword qi forming a shield that temporarily blocked the azure flame.

Immortal Maiden Xuanji gritted her teeth and crushed the escape talisman; at the very last moment before the spatial rift sealed, she saw Chixiaozi True Person transformed into a streak of light rushing toward the spirit‑cannon emplacement, followed by a terrifying explosion that lit up half the sky...

At the same time, the few Great Vehicle Stage cultivators taking part in the battle were also blocked by several monster tribe emperors who had rushed over, unable to come to their aid.

Elsewhere, atop a high mountain, Xiongfeiyu sat leisurely before a jade table, gently setting down his tea cup. The crystal sphere on the table displayed the scene of the Heaven Punishment Palace's fall, but his gaze fell on another corner, where Qingxuan's Azure Shadow Guard was secretly collecting the cultivators' essence blood from the battlefield.

"Still too hasty..." Xiongfeiyu chuckled lightly, his fingertip tracing the crystal sphere's surface. The image switched to the West Sand River Basin's underground factory, where thousands of monster tribe artisans were assembling new spirit cannons, and at the end of the assembly line loomed a giant barrel soaked in a pool of blood.

He turned to look at the messenger kneeling on the ground: "Tell Moheng, the second batch of Earth‑Splitting cannons is ready for delivery. Remember, the barrels must be engraved with the human‑style runic pattern."

The messenger hesitated: "City Lord, wouldn't this..."

A flicker of cold light crossed Xiongfeiyu's eyes: "The three‑tribe war is about to begin; someone has to shed enough blood first." He gazed toward the distant third monster tribe legion mustering there, where its newly equipped Meteor‑type rapid‑fire cannons gleamed coldly in the sunlight.

At the same time, the escaped Immortal Maiden Xuanji sat slumped in a nameless mountain cavern. She tremblingly unfolded her blood‑stained compass, condensing what she had seen and heard into a transmission talisman; just as its light was about to fly out, it was cleaved in two by a sword wielded by the suddenly appearing bronze‑masked man.

"Moheng!" Immortal Maiden Xuanji shouted furiously, "You're a human yet you aid the tyrant!"

The masked man slowly removed his mask, revealing the face that ought to have died in an "accident" many years prior: "Xuanji, you're mistaken. This war has never been about race..." The blade's edge ignited with an eerie azure light, "It's only about player and pawn."

Outside the cavern, the roar of the new spirit cannons once again shook heaven and earth. A crueler war had only just begun.