Chapter 857 - Pride, Fighting Intent, and an Alley
Translated by: Berrrybunz
Edited by: TN and DeAndreR
Even with the trembling ground, the whistling rose from the tide of bronze, Mu Zhi Xia's expression did not change.
He held onto his sword and stood as still as a statue without moving.
But when he saw Gemini Monarch's four swords that were held out in perpendicular to each other, forming 2 exact '十', Mu Zhi Xia's eyes constricted.
The two green and red '十' light imposed on each other.
All of the green and red light auras that had blossomed out of the mechanical puppets became attracted to it and flew into the '十'.
Zzzzi!
The hums of the blades could clearly be heard by everybody despite all the rumblings around.
In the next second, the green and red '十' appeared in front of Mu Zhi Xia.
Mu Zhi Xia's sword was already pointed straight ahead, the light in his eyes burst forward as he welcomed the green and red '十' with a thrust of his sword. The sea of energy that was flowing slowly seemed to have suddenly found a drainage point and fervently surged to his sword tip. The energy was constantly being compressed to its maximum.
The dot of light on the sword tip was growing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Its brightness continued to intensify, in the blink of the eye it had become as bright as the stun, unleashing a dazzling white light and causing the entire area to become blank white, including Mu Zhi Xia's face.
Mu Zhi Xia remained calm, but the aura unleashed by his body had suddenly exploded out like a sea creature surfacing from the water.
The light reflecting on his face dimmed a little, and as it dimmed, little grains of energy crystals appeared on his sword tip. These were energy crystals formed by the terrifying compression of energy into solids.
The snow white rhombus energy crystals released faint white lights that were warm without any tyrannical aura, giving off an indescribable comfort.
When the energy crystals appeared, all the energy in the formation became extremely lively.
The snow white energy crystals continued to grow according to the sword tip, making it look as though the sword was growing in length at a very slow speed.
A snow white light beam shot into the center of the green and red '十' at the speed of light.
The snow white crystallized sword was extremely warm, while the green and red '十' was dark and bone chilling.
Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl.
After an unknown period of time.
The dark and cold green and red '十' crumbled like a biscuit.
At the same time, the snow white crystallized sword body crumbled.
The green and red shattered aura flew out in all directions, clashing against the snow white shattered aura, creating a clear line of distinction between the two. A loud bang occurred all of a sudden, the green and red shattered aura were blown away, back towards the Southern Cross Army. The snow white shattered aura already flew back towards Mu Zhi Xia's army in the same manner.
The decisions of both armies were different.
Facing the incoming snow white aura, Mu Zhi Xia's army remained unmoved like statues. The white shattered aura seemed to collide into a steel wall as the impact caused the aura to split into two flows, sweeping to the sides of the formation.
Facing the green and red shattered aura, Southern Cross Army actually seized the chance to retreat backwards gracefully.
Mu Zhi Xia's army's performance was praiseworthy, but it was not surprising. Bu
t the Southern Cross Army's actions caused them to exclaim out in shock. It was difficult to imagine that the large and clumsy looking mechanical puppets were actually able to perform such graceful movements. Furthermore, it was not one or two sets, but the entire army.
Their previous assault was earth shattering and ferocious, while their sudden retreat was as graceful as butterflies, these two actions made them look as though they were two completely different armies. The blend of the strong contrast was enough to make others revere them.
When this entire mechanical army landed on the ground like leaves dropping on the ground without affecting the sand and dust, this intense contrast feeling reached its pinnacle.
Rumble!
The upper top halves of the mountains by the side continued to produce landslides, ultimately collapsing and causing countless of rocks and boulders to cascade down, leaving behind the bottom half of the mountains and neat incisions.
This became the highlight of the stand off.
Inside Gemini Monarch, Commander's initial sinister face had become calm, his deep gaze landing on the enemy's army, a faint smile appearing on his face, as though he was recalling a fond memory.
~Brat, this isn't the Green Red Cross Scythe finishing blow that you had learned.
~It's name is called, Dual Cross Slash!
The Commander regained his senses as he looked ahead, unconcealable admiration in his eyes.
~Mu Zhi Xia, truly worthy of your reputation!~
It was the first time that someone had successfully blocked the Dual Cross Slash in all of his memories. Although the Southern Cross Army that was standing behind him was completely different from the Southern Cross Army of the past. This brand new army was extremely small compared to the old Southern Cross Army in terms of size. Compared to the famous Southern Cross Army of the past that had many famed generals, this brand new army was extremely poor.
But with the full support from the Gold Continent, with the newer and stronger mechanical weapons, and the abundant and vast army system with the carefully selected elites, adding on his decade of dedication into them, it made this new Southern Cross Army equally unique.
It was not as large as the past, or had as many famed generals, its influence in a battle was completely negligible.
Numbering only 2000, this shrunken Southern Cross Army could not be considered as of standard.
But its might could not be overlooked.
~For Mu Zhi Xia to block my Dual Cross Slash so easily, he is undisputedly the strongest famed general.~ The Commander who was recalling the past had become excited.
There was nothing more exciting than to be able to meet a good match!
What he did not know was that the calm Mu Zhi Xia standing opposite him was overwhelmed with shock. His move might have looked extremely easy, but in truth it was an accomplished technique, [Honorable Martial Growing Sword]. It was not an Army killing technique, but in his hands, its might definitely surpassed an ordinary gold rank army killing technique.
Furthermore…..
He did not even need to lower his head to see that his sword already had an additional crack.
The standardized sword in his hand had followed him for many years, with many cracks which were formed from training, not one from a battle.
It was a first, the first time someone had left a crack on his sword.
He stared at the mechanical army in front of him, the mysterious army in front of him was stronger than what he had expected.
Yes, it was far stronger than what he had anticipated, ~Since when did the Gold Continent have such a powerful Army?~
He knew the strength of the Gold Continent's various armies at the back of his hand. Gold Continent was extremely far from the Honorable Martial Continent, and thus not the primary goal of Honorable Martial Continent, but the Honorable Martial Continent viewed preparation with extreme importance. Although their penetration into the Gold Continent could not be considered as strong, but they were able to sustain it.
But all the information sent from their intelligence never wrote anything about this particular army, as though they had appeared from thin air.
To be able to withstand the power of his army, such a fighting strength was definitely one that should not be overlooked. That only left one answer, the Gold Continent had intentionally hid the army.
~Who knew that the Gold Continent was actually hiding such a powerful trump card.~ Mu Zhi Xia quickly calmed himself, the Gold Continent's history was far richer than the Honorable Martial Continent's, and it was not strange for them to have some surprising and unexpected trump cards. Although he was an extremely proud and arrogant man, but it was not to the level that he considered himself as number one of the world.
~A difficult opponent to handle.~
Mu Zhi Xia also became excited, he was a low profile person, and the Honorable Martial Continent gave him an important mission, to garrison Wei Ye Guan Continent. He had always been cautious and conscientious while being meticulous at what he did. He handled difficult situations at ease, with his calm composition, many of the higher ups who knew of his plans all praised him greatly, but were saddened that his powerful fighting capabilities did not have any chance to be displayed.
He did not care much about that, and maintained his modesty and low profile in front of everybody, because he knew that he was stronger than them. The fighting intent in him was like a ferocious beast with no natural enemy or rival, thus giving him a harmless disguise, a wild beast in slumber.
Until today, when he finally met an enemy that gave him a sense of danger. The fighting intent that had always been slumbering was like a wild and ferocious beast that had struggled free from its chains, opening its blood red eyes.
The foreign sense of excitement spread through his body.
He no longer thought about who the enemy was, and did not care about their goal.
His only thought was the enjoy the battle!
No one knew that in the desolate and barren Savage Continent, an earth shaking battle was occuring.
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Other than Wei Ye Guan Continent being an important position on the borders of Savage Continent and Honorable Martial Continent, the other places were relatively dangerous.
An inconspicuous group was travelling quietly. They moved extremely slowly, each step they took requiring extreme care, as there were many spatial cracks and voids all around them, which intercrossed with each other, existing for unknown period of years. All of these spatial cracks were even more dangerous than the sharpest blade, as long as one accidentally touched it, they would not even feel any pain, but their bodies would be cut into pieces.
The faces of every person were one of care, even Ah Xin, who was usually very loud and talkative, did not dare relax. Rather than calling the ground beneath their feet as a path, it was more of a stone path.
The area that was covered with spatial cracks was hailed as the Black Death Region, where even wild beasts did not dare step into. Inside, one would constantly be attacked by the corrosion from the spatial cracks that had already undergone a myriad of changes. There were many crevices that required flight to bypass, where fortunately, everyone was strong enough to do so. But upon seeing the interweaving black lines beneath them, everyone's hair stood erected while they opened their eyes wide as they avoided the spatial cracks in the sky.
Out of all of them, the most dangerous were the hair thin spatial cracks which one could easily overlook if they were not careful.
Shang Bei took the lead, where he constantly reminded everyone to avoid the easily missed dangers.
The long period of tension made everyone rather tired, and even Tie Ji himself had a look of fatigue. They had been travelling in the dangerous region for a full two months. In truth, the distance was not far, but they had to be extremely careful with every step, and thus their speed had slowed to a turtle crawl. But no one had a look of annoyance, because they had personally seen their companions being ripped into shreds by the spatial cracks.
Even for Shang Bei who was an experienced guide, even with everyone at their 120%, they had lost 37 men. Luckily, everyone was tenacious and did not suffer too much of an impact, but they became even more careful.
Shang Bei felt extremely tired, the path that was not a path, was the Black Water Tribe's biggest secret.
It was a smuggling alley.