Volcanic Age

Even including the fierce battle lines, everything around Zhou Xuchuan seemed shaken by the foundational technique of Mount Hua.

Some stood still, closing their eyes as though savoring the scent of plum blossoms. That was how shocking the sword dance he had just shown them was.

Amid the shock, the Blood Demon reacted.

"Zhou Xuchuan, Zhou Xuchuan! You're just as impressive as they say!"

The Blood Demon exclaimed in admiration, his voice brimming with excitement. The red light in his eyes gleamed with greed.

Good, good!

The Martial Alliance's plan had worked. The Blood Demon had shown interest without being on guard.

"Kekekekeke."

A wicked laugh escaped the Blood Demon's lips.

However, instead of being angry, the Blood Demon shook the Death Yin Staff excitedly.

"The Blood Demon…" Zhuge Xiuluan narrowed her eyes.

Zhuge Xiuluan had also been momentarily stunned by the sword dance Zhou Xuchuan displayed. But that moment quickly passed, and she regained her composure.

Since ancient times, a tactician, and more importantly, a strategist, had to remain calm. Even if a dragon were to appear before their eyes, they had to remain calm.

If a soldier panicked, they would die alone. However, if a commander panicked, everyone would die.

Flutter!

Zhuge Xiuluan raised the Martial Alliance flag, letting it flutter in the plum-scented breeze.

It wasn't to show off the Martial Alliance's symbol or to foster a sense of belonging or pride.

It was solely to let Zhuge Xiao, who was watching from behind, and the Exalted Sword Immortal, who was waiting, know that the Blood Demon had made his move.

The special task force members glanced at the flag and recalled Zhuge Xiuluan's instructions before the battle.

When the first flag rises above our heads, it means the Blood Demon is nearby. At that point, we must all join forces and hold him down.

It was difficult to convey orders or strategies on the battlefield without shouting. The problem with doing so, however, was that the enemy would hear the orders, too.

If one didn't discuss their orders in advance, it would end up causing problems.

"Everyone, you must be alert. This is just the beginning," Zhou Xuchuan said, recalling Zhuge Xiuluan's words.

"…"

Although the monk tried to focus again, Hong Gao still looked a little dazed.

"Hundred Paces Fist Monk…?"

"Oh, I apologize. Benefactor Zhou's martial arts were so great that… I lost myself for a moment."

"While I appreciate the compliment, let's save it for later."

"Of course."

Hong Gao seemed nervous and clutched his prayer beads.

Zhou Xuchuan sent the wounded members of the task force to the rear before advancing forward.

There were only about seventy of them remaining.

The special task force, made up entirely of elites, had already lost thirty members. This was expected, given they were at the forefront of the charge.

As the special forces began to move, the friendly and enemy forces that had been bewitched by the Twenty-four Sword Forms of the Plum Blossom came to their senses and continued fighting.

As they pressed on, the task force advanced another fifty paces. Blood pooled on the ground, and corpses piled up along the path they carved out.

After much suffering, they were finally able to reach the Blood Demon.

"Hehehe. Aren't you all the famed younger generation talents of the Righteous Faction? Just who would think you weren't from the great sects, with such extraordinary talents packed into those bodies? It's truly fortunate for such desirable bodies to appear right when I invaded the Central Plains."

The Blood Demon grinned, baring his teeth. The torn skin stretching from his right lip to his left cheek made his smile look even more sinister and vicious.

"Though I'm not thrilled about the Shaolin monks getting involved, since there are so many of you that are decent otherwise, I won't get too upset."

The monks of the Shaolin Temple weren't suitable to be used to create jiangshi.

It was even more so for higher-realm monks. Because of the power of their demon-purifying qi, it was too difficult to use the Jiangshi Art on them. Besides, even if he succeeded, they would be useless.

Blood Demon…

Zhou Xuchuan felt a chill run down his spine.

The Blood Demon was unlike any of the Ten Empyrean Overlords Zhou Xuchuan had encountered before. This time, the hostility was directed squarely at him, and he couldn't help but feel on edge.

When facing Nangong Weiwu, You Riwen, or the Evil Valley Master, Zhou Xuchuan had felt at ease—they had been allies, not enemies.

The Blood Demon was different.

Zhou Xuchuan was a little frightened, thinking that his head might fly off if he wasn't careful.

The Blood Demon is my enemy, and he's standing right in front of me?

This was something he wouldn't have even dared to dream about in his previous life.

He most likely would have been brutally murdered by the extreme demons before he would even be able to stand in front of the Blood Demon.

Moreover, with the heroes who dominated the era, too…

By his side were the Divine Fist, Tactician Phoenix, and Stamp Dragon. Around him, One Sword Seven Kills, Wudang's Second Absolute, and One Palm Purifying Demons were helping to prevent the enemy from approaching the special task force.

It was hard to believe that he was standing in a place that would go down in history, but such was reality. His heart pounded.

No, this isn't the time.

He lightly slapped his cheeks, grounding himself.

The enemy in front of him wasn't someone he could take his eyes off. While Zhou Xuchuan had reached the Completion Stage of the Harmony Realm, the gap between him and the Blood Demon was as deep and vast as a bottomless pit.

What is that?

The black coffin on the Blood Demon's back, large enough to fit a person, was concerning. There had been no mention of a coffin in his previous life.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

There was nothing like that in the records of the Great War of Good and Blood…

The Martial Alliance was the one to announce victory at the end of the Great War of Good and Blood.

The Blood Demon had been surrounded and killed by the heroes of the Righteous Faction and the Ten Empyrean Overlords at that time, just like now.

That was how the Blood Demon had met his end.

After losing their leader and suffering heavy losses during the Demonic Path War, the Blood Cult had retreated from the Central Plains in his previous life and gone into hiding.

Even after the Era of War and Chaos ended and peace came, they never showed up again, disappearing completely.

Hmm, the Great War of Good and Blood has happened more than twenty years earlier, so it's not strange for something I've never seen before to appear. Let's just be on guard.

Zhou Xuchuan's eyes darted around, staying alert as he processed the situation while remaining cautious of his surroundings.

"It's not too late even now. If you surrender now and hand over your body, I'll make your death painless."

"Gal!" Hong Gao replied as if the Blood Demon wasn't worth talking to.[1]

"Ugh!"

The weaker cultists clutched their heads and groaned in pain.

The monk's demon-purifying qi was imbued into his voice, so just shouting was enough to cause them damage.

Zhou Xuchuan's cold eyes locked on the Blood Demon. "I'll give you the same chance," he said flatly..

"You bastards are no different from that Demon Slaying Sword or whatever. Fine. I wasn't expecting much anyway."

The Blood Demon lifted the Death Yin Staff and tapped it against the ground. The corpses scattered around him began to rise as jiangshi.

"I'll leave the jiangshi to you," Zhou Xuchuan said to about half of the special task force. He planned to attack the Blood Demon with the other half.

Where is the First Demon Slaying Sword?

He assumed that Zhi Yunbo must have been turned into a living jiangshi, but he hadn't seen him once during the battle so far.

"Are you looking for him?" the Blood Demon asked, licking his lips as if disappointed. "He must have had strong convictions because his lingering will is stronger than I expected."

Zhi Yunbo didn't seem to have taken the title Demon Slayer lightly. It was amazing to see that he had even managed to resist becoming a jiangshi through sheer willpower.

"Surround him!"

Woosh!

Led by Zhou Xuchuan, eight members of the task force scattered in all directions, surrounding the Blood Demon in a circle.

"Surely, this isn't all you've got?" the Blood Demon asked, tilting his head.

Even with two talented members of the younger generation and a disciple of the Divine Monk among them, they were still like fireflies before the sun compared to the Ten Empyrean Overlords.

Even if all of them attacked together, it wouldn't be enough to take the Blood Demon down. That's why it seemed strange that there were only eight of them.

"No," came a voice from the rear. It was Zhuge Xiuluan.

Instead of a flag or fan, she threw a dagger. The eight daggers arced through the air, each following a precise trajectory before embedding themselves into the ground.

The daggers didn't land randomly or in a single spot. Each one landed exactly two steps in front of the eight task force members facing the Blood Demon.

"...?"

The Blood Demon tilted his head, confused.

"It looks like a bitch of the Zhuge Family who uses her brain, but what kind of trick could she be—hmm?"

The blood-red eyes of the Blood Demon trembled with agitation.

"Ha, while I haven't been out in the gangho for a while, I've still been keeping an eye on it… but I've never seen or heard of someone being able to use this kind of formation without any preparation."

For the first time, his expression, which had been relaxed until this point, finally turned serious.

"Just what sort of formation have you used?!"

It wasn't just a formation—it was a natural formation.

At first, he assumed they were setting up a basic formation, the best tactic for a weaker force to block a stronger one when a one-on-one fight wasn't an option.

Since their numbers had dropped to eight, he assumed that they were going to use the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams Formation.

It was an efficient formation that placed the target in the central palace. At the same time, eight of the strongest members were situated in the eight palaces around the center, launching an offensive toward the central palace.[2]

However, the moment the daggers plunged into the ground, he felt something strange. The landscape changed, and the eight martial artists suddenly became sixty-four.

Seeing that all the figures shared the same faces, it was clear it was an illusion. While there were slight differences, each figure resembled one of the eight task force members. Such a trick could only be achieved through a natural formation.

Natural formations worked by isolating their target, creating a unique boundary that shut out the outside world and projected illusions to confuse them. That was the true power of a natural formation.

In fact, being caught in the natural formation itself wasn't a problem. What shocked the Blood Demon wasn't being caught in the formation—it was the fact that they had activated such a natural formation without any preparation.

"Portable Natural Formations."

Zhou Xuchuan answered the Blood Demon's question on his behalf.

"This is the natural formation that the Tactician Phoenix came up with to supplement the weaknesses of the formation on the battlefield."

When he had visited the Zhuge Family to pick up Zhuge Shengji, he had a few words with Zhuge Xiuluan.

"Natural Formations require natural or artificial arrays to be set in advance before they can be used, right?"

"Yes?"

"In the case of the battlefield, because of many variables and how chaotic it is, natural formations can be damaged before they can be activated, right? Moreover, there are many cases where they're useless until the enemy is led to them."

"Just what are you getting at?"

"Well, I was just thinking, if we could create a natural formation that we could throw wherever we needed, we would be able to quickly deploy any formation we wanted, regardless of the variables."

Zhuge Xiuluan was the successor of Heavenly Strategist, the Martial Alliance's tactician.

While she was extremely intelligent, her greatest achievement happened later in life with the invention of the Portable Natural Formation.

According to Zhou Xuchuan's original timeline, after the Heavenly Strategist passed away, the Tactician Phoenix was given the Strategist position and left her mark on history.

During the Era of War and Chaos, natural formations had a low success rate. Concerned about their inefficiency, she eventually developed a new invention and put it to use on the battlefield.

Its effectiveness went without saying.

The utility of natural formations increased significantly. She reduced the failure rate, shortened the preparation time, and eliminated unnecessary effort.

Her achievement was so monumental that it redefined the entire methodology of natural formations. Even after peace was restored, her work continued to earn widespread praise and admiration.

I was worried that I meddled needlessly, but when I heard that the Portable Natural Formation was a success, I was ecstatic.

Although he had wanted to explain the principles or details of the formation to her, he didn't know much about it.

Despite reading about natural formations as a Mount Hua elder, he had no real expertise. He had been worried that he might have said something strange that led to her not being able to create the Portable Natural Formation.

This should be enough for us to hold out for at least fifteen minutes.

According to formation-breaking techniques, escaping a formation or natural formation required finding the gate of life or the door.

"Indeed," the Blood Demon muttered. "If this is how it works, breaking through will be annoying."

The sixty-four figures in the formation moved constantly, launching attacks from all sides. If one made a single wrong move, it would become even more difficult. Not even the Blood Demon, or even the Blood Demon's grandfather, would be able to escape.

Or at least, that was what they had thought.

"But do I really need to find the Eight Gates?"

The Blood Demon smiled darkly. A bloody haze began to rise from beneath his feet.

1. If you remember from earlier in the novel and also just my other murim novel, TUS, Gal 喝 means 'rebuke,' and is often shouted by Buddhist monks during purification in wuxia/murim. Sometimes, you'll see this as the literal character because some Shaolin arts literally form characters out of thin air. ☜

2. If you look at the bagua, it's the eight trigrams surrounding a central taiji symbol. Thus, the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams. ☜

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