Tome of Troubled Times-Chapter 779 (1): Their War

Slash!

A blood-colored saber light flashed, and several heads flew into the air.

Xue Canghai led the charge at the gate, his blood-soaked blade carving a path of carnage.

An army of a hundred thousand crashed against the encampment like a raging tide as arrows filled the sky. Even seasoned Han soldiers felt their nerves stretch taut under such overwhelming force. And even Xue Canghai, who had been itching for a fight for days, could not help but feel a tinge of unease.

There were simply too many of them.

Although they did have fortifications, this was a hastily erected encampment. No one could say for certain how much protection it could actually provide. All they could see before them was an unending sea of enemies, resulting in an overwhelming psychological pressure bearing down on them.

And to make matters worse, the enemy’s morale had not diminished in the slightest, only having grown more frenzied. Tngri’s divine shielding of their forces from the previous artillery fire had sent them into an ecstatic fervor, and it seemed as though they believed they were invincible.

For fuck’s sake, your god barely spared the effort to keep a handful of you alive! It was a half-assed attempt at best, and you lunatics are celebrating?! Fine, let’s see if your god can protect you from this!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Xue Canghai’s saber swept through multiple spears, slicing them cleanly in half. His follow-up strike split an enemy warrior from shoulder to waist. A momentary gap opened in front of him. No one dared to charge forward.

A scream erupted beside him.

One of the Blood God Cult followers had taken an arrow to the chest and collapsed.

“Fuck your ancestors!” Xue Canghai’s eyes turned bloodshot. When his blade found no more targets in reach, he climbed over the spiked barricade, trying to leap straight into the enemy ranks.

“Cult master, no!” His followers yanked him back with all their strength.

Whatever fear or hesitation he had felt moments ago was long gone, lost in the battle haze. Xue Canghai leveled his blade and roared, “Blood God Cult’s Xue Canghai is here! Who dares to throw their life away?!”

The warriors of the Grasslands in front of him recoiled, stunned into a brief moment of hesitation.

“You aren’t coming? Then I’ll come to you!” Xue Canghai’s muscles tensed as he swung his saber into empty air.

Blood erupted in a wild, chaotic storm.

Across the battlefield, dozens of enemy soldiers were suddenly engulfed in a bloody radiance, their bodies convulsing as blood surged violently from within.

Hell on Earth... Bloodied Mountain and Rivers!

Zhao Changhe had not seen the active or passive No Man’s Land or the fully unleashed Vicious Blood Art for a long time. Looking at it from afar now, he felt a bit nostalgic.

But Old Xue, you really should ease up a bit. You should know that this will burn you out fast. In a few moments, you’ll be staggering around like a drunken fool, and I’d rather not have to drag your ass off the battlefield again.

Instructor Sun was already tugging at Xue Canghai’s sleeve. “Cult master! Cult master, be careful! You’ll burn out!”

“What’s there to fear?!” Xue Canghai slapped his chest. A dull clang echoed—it was a storage box. “The Sacred Array Plate is with me! I can feed the whole army with endless blood qi! They have their god, and we have ours!”

And indeed, the members of the Blood God Cult could feel it. There was an endless surge of strength flowing through their veins. As long as they did not collapse from overexertion, this was the perfect battlefield. Here, they had an unending supply of enemies to slaughter and level up.

“Let go of me! Let me cut them down!” Xue Canghai struggled to break free.

“Roar!” A massive axe, wreathed in crackling lightning, came crashing down toward him.

Clang!

Xue Canghai forcefully parried the attack, causing both fighters to stagger momentarily.

The enemy’s general had finally arrived.

It was one of the protectors of the Divine Temple, the figure ranked third on the Ranking of Man—Huyinletai.

Previously, the Left Protector of the Divine Temple had been Yeletu, but he had since met his end in the capital. Now, the commander of this army was Right Protector Chishan, one of the last few surviving members of the Ranking of Earth from the Grasslands. Besides him, there was a formidable warrior, Huyinletai.

The days when the Divine Temple’s protectors rarely participated in worldly conflicts were long gone. Now, they fought in the thick of war, blades clashing and blood spilling.

Xue Canghai’s eyes burned red. “Good, good! I finally found an opponent worth fighting!”

Huyinletai gnashed his teeth in rage. You’re ranked way lower than me, so why do you look like you’ve found a weakling to bully? If anyone’s “finally found an opponent worth fighting” here, it’s me. Let’s not get that twisted, alright?

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The Blood God Saber clashed repeatedly against the other party’s axe. Someone had managed to pin down Xue Canghai, and the pressure on the surrounding Han troops immediately intensified.

The barricades had turned into a gruesome meat grinder, bodies from both sides constantly falling in the ceaseless slaughter. A haze of blood and death loomed over the battlefield.

Even Instructor Sun had been wounded, but he barely spared a glance at the spear wound beneath his ribs before electing to ignore it. Instead, he yanked a member of the cult out of harm’s way and swung his blade, chopping an enemy in half before they could land a killing blow.

“Motherfucker.” Instructor Sun lifted his gaze to the horizon. The enemy forces were an endless tide, stretching beyond sight. “These lunatics are a damn headache. Normally, after a few proper exchanges, most would’ve already lost their nerve and scattered...”

Little did he know, the northern barbarian warriors were just as shaken. They were gritting their teeth and forcing themselves to fight against these red-eyed fiends. The psychological strain of facing thousands of frenzied warriors was immense, and their hearts were actually hammering with terror. The only thing keeping them from breaking was the belief that their revered god was watching over them. Otherwise, they would have long since collapsed in fear.

When it came to martial conflicts in the jianghu, the members of the Blood God Cult were rather out of place; they could only unleash so much carnage before being hunted down by righteous forces. But on the battlefield, they were every general’s dream troops—unstoppable, fearless, not backing down even a single step. The northerners had every reason to be afraid.

As for whether their god was truly watching over them? No one had a definitive answer. In the end, flesh was still flesh, blades were still blades, and death was still death. Did it even matter?

Perhaps, in death, they would ascend to the realm of all tngri, where they would be rewarded with boundless wine, milk, and women? Who knew. Xue Canghai and his men had no knowledge of the enemy’s faith, nor did they care how deep it ran. Both sides were blindly cutting each other down as if they were mowing the tall grasses of the Grasslands.

The members of the Blood God Cult had a net advantage here. They were fully consumed by vicious blood, which meant that they were less smart but also entirely incapable of fear. But the other Han troops were not nearly as resolute. The newly recruited soldiers from Qinghe, Langya, and other regions had only been training for a month or two. Any expectation that they would fight to the death was pure fantasy.

As disorder began to spread through some defensive positions, Huangfu Qing’s younger brother and the deputy commander, Huangfu Shaozong, led a hundred men up the barren mountain behind them.

Despite his title as deputy commander, he had spent most of this campaign watching his sister “blindly command” with growing bewilderment. He was supposed to advise her, but under her oppressive authority, he had not dared utter a single word while Xue Canghai, at least, had the guts to speak his mind. But now, he finally understood.

When the abilities of those at the Profound Control Realm began to be involved in warfare, the very logic of battle changed.

With ease, dozens of cannons were stored away in storage boxes, carried up the barren mountain, and then leisurely retrieved and lined up in a neat row at the peak.

What was once considered cumbersome and immovable heavy artillery was no longer a logistical burden in this era.

The barrels were adjusted, aimed directly at the heart of the enemy forces.

Boom!

Artillery fire rained down upon the enemy lines, erupting in a storm of fire and shrapnel. Countless elites of the Grasslands, who had been nocking their arrows in the rear, were blasted into pulp.

For a brief moment, the battlefield fell silent. Even Tngri had not anticipated that these cannons could be relocated and fired again, much less that it would be done with such ease. Locked in combat, the enemy forces had no time to react or fortify their defenses. They could only watch in stunned horror as their formations were shattered, their ranks thrown into chaos.

“You...!” Tngri’s expression twisted into something monstrous. “You’re seeking death!”

Whoosh!

The soul fragment that had been dueling Lady Three for days suddenly vanished, returning to his main body.

He had assumed that splitting a weaker fragment of himself to interfere elsewhere would not significantly affect his overwhelming advantage over Zhao Changhe and his allies. However, the current situation left no room for divided attention. The soul fragment had to be recalled.

Coincidentally, Huangfu Yongxian’s forces had also become entangled in a dire struggle. The soul fragment’s interference with Black Tortoise had already served its purpose.

The pressure on Zhao Changhe and the others surged instantly.

Yuxu’s Taiji Diagram was ultimately not Yuxu himself. Previously, they had barely been holding their ground, but now that Tngri had fully unleashed his fury, their resistance began to crumble.

Boom!

A thunderstorm of unprecedented magnitude coalesced in the sky, the heavens shifting in response. The atmosphere tore apart as if the very firmament was being sundered.

Even witnessing such an apocalyptic display was enough to make Li Shentong’s heart tremble. He had no doubt that if the ensuing thunderbolt struck the earth, everything within a thousand-li radius would be reduced to ash—mountains, rivers, forests, and all life therein would be utterly annihilated.