Chapter 722: Pei Ziqi's Frenzy
Hui Yue and the other experts all flew to the very front of the army. When they arrived, they hovered in the air as they looked at the demons that were rushing towards them. There were at least a million demons in this army that was charging at them. However, Hui Yue knew that the army behind him was also around a million strong.
There were experts of varying strength; some were Primordial Immortals while others were Immortals of Creation. Most of all mercenaries from throughout the world were present to defend the Gate of Retribution and even more kept pouring out of the city gates.
It was a great sight to behold. More than two million Gods were gathered together in two groups, facing each other and ready to collide with great force.
Hui Yue flipped his hand, and the Sword of Icy Tempest appeared. Although he had the Celestial Sword in his possession, he was not going to use it unless he was facing tremendous danger. If others knew that it was such a treasure, it would truly prove to be a curse rather than a blessing.
In the demon army, a handful of experts also took to the skies. These experts numbered around twenty, a few more than the supreme experts on the city's side, but at the same time as they rose up, Hui Yue made a gesture with his hand, and Cai Jie, Pei Ziqi, and Wei flew up from the ground. They joined Hui Yue and the others in the air.
Now they were even. Both sides had nineteen supreme experts, all of whom were glaring at one another. Had Hui Yue and his friends not been here, then the city would be in great peril even before the battle started due to their lack of expert cultivators.
These experts were all equally strong, and they could face off against one another, but if Hui Yue and his friends hadn’t been present, then the demons would have ganged up upon the city's supreme experts and taken them down one at a time. Fortunately, this was no longer an option.
The experts from the city looked at Hui Yue and his friends with gratitude as they knew that their fate had just changed from certain death to having a very good chance of surviving.
"Attack!" the demons were now so close that they could start launching their attacks against each other, and everyone rushed forward not caring about tactics. Battle on this scale was quite primitive and straightforward.
The moment the two armies clashed, the scent of blood instantly filled the air. Limbs and body-parts flew everywhere as the air was thick with Ancestral Worldpower.
The dao was everywhere. One could sense all the major and minor daos of the universe present, and even the heavenly dao of death and life descended upon the battlefield.
The first person to call out was Pei Ziqi. A massive battle axe appeared in her hands, and it chopped down with an inhuman strength aided by the dao of wind and dao of darkness.
The poor God in front of her was cleaved in two, and everyone was filled with great shock. A supreme demon had just been chopped in half so easily! This just showed how monstrous Pei Ziqi really was!
To be fair, the expert she had cleaved in two was not fully prepared for such a devastating blow. He had underestimated the power of her battle axe and the strength behind it, but now he was shaking, and his soul was trying to flee. However moments after a windblade cut through his soul and it slowly dissipated into thin air, heading for the yellow spring.
Although some of the surrounding Gods were greatly shocked to see the sudden death of a supreme expert, not even half of the experts had time to witness the sight. They had been too busy with their own fights. They were giving it their all to stay alive and slaughter as many enemies as possible, but the supreme experts noticed, and Hui Yue smiled wryly. It was typical Pei Ziqi to show off her brutish strength with such a move.
"I will leave the rest to you guys," she said as she gave a thumbs up to the rest of the supreme experts on the city’s side, and then she dove straight into the most crowded group of demons, swinging her axe with a ferocity that was unmatched on the entire battlefield. A manic laughter escaped her lips as all that one could see was blood spraying everywhere.
The demons started throwing themselves at Pei Ziqi in an attempt to overwhelm her, but soon whirlwinds appeared to her right and left, tearing the demons apart as they appeared at her sides and back while those in the front were chopped into bits by her axe.
Hui Yue snorted at the demons that threw themselves at her, knowing that they were just begging to be slaughtered, and after a bit of time, they too understood that this was the case and tried to escape instead.
Unfortunately, there was simply nowhere to escape to. Everywhere they went was filled with demons, and although they tried to push them aside, it was impossible to get out of Pei Ziqi’s way. Despite their struggles, they all fell victim to Pei Ziqi's axe as she and her three whirlwinds scoured through the battlefield leaving behind a bloody trail of destroyed bodies and dissipating souls.
Hui Yue had no more time to look at Pei Ziqi and her fights. Instead, he looked at the opponent he was up against. Seeing this demon, he knew that the demons no longer looked down upon human and beast cultivators; instead, they were clearly defensive against them.
Sighing, Hui Yue shook his head and started to reach out for the daos that he commanded. The dao of wind was the first to react, followed by the dao of darkness. After these came the dao of earth and finally the dao of fire followed.
All the daos twirled around him, and every attack he made with his sword caused the daos to descend upon his opponent in their raw and untamed form.
The daos increased his strength. Hui Yue had long since understood the secrets of the dao of darkness. He knew that it was not just literally the shadows or the places without light, but also the darkness that lurked within one's mind, and these demons were all greatly motivated by a dark desire. This made it easy for Hui Yue to use the dao of darkness together with his soulforce to penetrate the opponent's soul and cause serious injury to him.
Seeing that the demon had only been severely injured and not killed, Hui Yue raised an eyebrow in surprise. He had intended to kill him and used a great amount of soulforce to form a needle that was wrapped in darkness to penetrate his enemy's mind, but now he knew that he had not succeeded.
"Impressive," he mumbled, but the demon did not have time to feel grateful for the praise. Blood was running in small streams from his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. His strength had been more than halved, and Hui Yue lifted the Sword of the Icy Tempest and chopped off the head of the demon. Then he used another needle formed with soulforce to pierce the escaping soul.
The fight had taken only a few moments, and it had been easy for Hui Yue to win due to the combination of the dao of darkness and soulforce.
When he looked at the other supreme experts, what he saw was completely different strengths. He realized that the demon he had fought was the weakest amongst them all.
"Well if the demons planned on ganging up on these experts, who is to say that we cannot gang up on them instead?" Hui Yue mumbled to himself and searched the air for Old Man Ling.
Many were fighting on the ground, but quite a few of them had taken to the skies. Many experts were visible all around, but after searching for a minute or two, Hui Yue located Old Man Ling. He noticed that he was fighting against a demon who knew at least four major daos.
Hui Yue's face turned serious as he shot towards these two experts. He flipped the sword in his hand and shot a swordblade towards the demon, hitting him square in the back. Although he made a clean hit, the demon was not even scratched, and this caused Hui Yue to frown.
This was clearly the strongest of all the demons. He was nothing like the others, and the one who was constantly being suppressed was Old Man Ling.
When he saw the swordblade shine and hit the demon, he secretly rejoiced, but just like Hui Yue, he was surprised to see that the demon came out unscratched.
Still, Hui Yue did not give up. He instantly made another soulforce needle and wrapped it with the dao of darkness after which he aimed it straight at the demon in front of him.
The needle shot out with a speed faster than light, but because it had to penetrate through several layers of defense, it was forced to slow down and was losing its power by the second.
When it finally reached the demon, it only had a third of its power left and was no longer as fast as before. Now it could be seen with the naked eye, but the demon seemed disdainful towards it and continued to attack Old Man Ling. The demon simply did not place Hui Yue in his eyes; he wasn't a worthy opponent.
This, however, proved to be a fatal mistake. Although it had only a third of its strength left, when the needle came into contact with the demon's soul, he felt a shiver run through him. He felt how the darkness that had always resided in his heart started to grow and threaten to take over his entire being.
He was now forced to stop his offense and focus on defending as he used his inner energy to suppress the darkness within him.
But Hui Yue and Old Man Ling would not give him an easy time. Both of them continued to bombard him with attacks. The Sword of the Icy Tempest slashed out time and time again, and finally, his mountain-like defense shattered causing the sword strikes to cause actual wounds to appear all over the demon’s body.
The demon finally managed to get the surging darkness under control, and he let out an agonizing scream. This shrill and powerful scream reverberated throughout the entire battlefield and caused the ground to tremble as he waved his hand and two big maces appeared, one in each of hand.
"Be proud that you have pushed me this far!" he yelled as he threw himself at Old Man Ling with a facial expression filled with disgrace and slight traces of fear and ferociousness.
He felt disgraced because two humans had managed to wound him. He felt fear because he feared for what would have happened if he had been hit by the full brunt of the darkness and soulforce attack from before, and ferociousness because he wished to kill these two humans and ensure that no one ever knew of the disgrace he had experienced in this backwater world.
Hui Yue continued to attack launching sword strike after sword strike which came into contact with the demon's flesh and caused him to be mutilated. His back was full of sword wounds, some were burnt by the dao of fire, some were ripped open by windblades, and yet some had small earth spikes sticking out from the dao of earth, but even so, he did not stop his onslaught on Old Man Ling. The more wounds he took, the more ferocious he became.
"Old Man Ling can't last much longer," Hui Yue sighed, as he looked at the two of them. Although Old Man Ling was on the losing side, the one who was most injured was without a doubt the demon. This demon was at death’s door and would die at any moment now, but if just one of his swinging maces reached Old Man Ling, then he would become just a bloody pulp. Hui Yue could not allow for that to happen. He flipped his hand, and the Sword of the Icy Tempest vanished and was replaced by the Celestial Sword.