Chapter 1894 - 1898: The First Piece Falls
On the great river, Teng Kai watched the forces from Gourd Island charging toward him and let out a roar that was both exhilarated and venomous!
Come, come, all of you come!
Kill kill kill!
He was going to dye the giant river red, he was going to bury all these people with Li Fei!
Along with the charging cultivators came one energy bomb after another; Teng Kai didn’t even look, his giant sword once again smashed toward those shells.
At once!
"Boom!"
Another explosion sounded.
But this time it wasn’t an Energy Bomb. After being shattered by Teng Kai, it didn’t turn into Energy Fragments, but instead burst forth in waves of white mist.
This made Teng Kai’s brows suddenly furrow; he instinctively felt something was wrong.
Especially when he was shrouded in the white mist—his sight blocked, and even his Divine Thought compressed to a feeble range of only a few meters around him—he felt waves of chill creeping in!
Teng Kai instinctively wanted to warn his army to dodge at once.
But very quickly he reacted: right now they were above the giant river; there was absolutely no cover at all, so how were they supposed to dodge?!
The only way to dodge was to enter the giant river and use the river water as cover!
But there was another problem: getting them into the river—was that itself the enemy’s scheme?!
After all, if they stayed in the air, even if they encountered that kind of Energy Bombardment again, they could rely on their own strength to evade and defend. Yet once they entered the river water, they were very likely to suffer a massive killing move similar to Ice Seal Thousand Miles.
Teng Kai’s mind whirled, anxiety showing on his face; he didn’t know whether he should lead everyone into the river.
And then, just at that moment.
"Boom!"
Another deafening blast came.
Teng Kai recognized it—this was the sound of bombardment from the Flying Boats behind them!
That made Teng Kai’s expression light up.
Looks like there are still some capable people in the fleet.
Right, what does it matter if the enemy blocks their sight? As long as the Flying Boats carried out carpet bombardment on the route ahead of their army, that would save them a whole lot of trouble!
However.
Just as Teng Kai relaxed a little, the sound of Energy Bombs detonating rang out!
"Boom!"
One thunderous blast gave Teng Kai a strange chill!
Because the sound of that Energy Bomb’s explosion actually came from behind them?!
How could that be?!
Those shots clearly came from the Flying Boats—so why were they firing on their own ranks?!
Yet before he could figure it out, countless bombardments rang out in rapid succession!
"Bang bang bang!"
"Boom boom boom!"
"Bang bang bang!"
"Boom boom boom!"
"Bang bang bang!"
"Boom boom boom!"
The gunfire and explosions merged into one continuous roar rolling across the river’s surface.
And accompanying those deafening sounds were the miserable wails from the army!
"What’s going on?!"
"What on earth is hap... ah!"
"Run! Climb, move! Our Flying Boats are firing at our own..."
"The enemy’s opened fire, take cover, quick!"
"Into the giant river, into the giant river!"
"..."
Listening to that chaotic clamor, Teng Kai couldn’t help but close his eyes; a bone-deep chill swept through his entire body.
At that moment he seemed to have lost even the ability to give orders!
Because as the white mist was driven apart and scattered by the shockwaves of the explosions, he saw clearly what the battlefield looked like now.
Butchery!
Too much butchery!
On both sides of the giant river, whether Flying Boats or Metallic Flying Boats, in a short span they’d all carried out carpet strikes against his army!
Broken limbs, Energy explosions, and those who entered the river—as he’d suspected—were hit by Ice Magic and turned into one frozen statue after another!
Vicious, too vicious!
What the hell are those bandits?!
This was simply too vicious!
Kill Li Fei, release white mist, let their own Flying Boats ravage their own army, turning this giant river into a cauldron of steel meat soup!
Watching that once high-spirited, mighty army of hundreds of thousands of cultivators vanish like this, an indescribable knot of suffocated rage churned in his chest.
It’s over, everything is over!
And so Teng Kai made his final decision—charge!
Teng Kai swung his giant sword, no longer caring what was happening behind him, no longer caring what the outcome would be this time; right now he only wanted to fulfill his duty as a General—charge!
...
Xin Lifeng stood at the riverbank watching Teng Kai’s charge and shook his head slightly. "Should I say ’a fine man’?"
Before the words had even faded, Teng Kai was completely swallowed up.
Then Xin Lifeng chuckled. "Then I’ll say it—what a fine man."
With that said, Xin Lifeng turned and left.
He was still very busy, with many matters to handle; he had no time to waste on these things, much less his feelings.
As his perspective kept rising higher, certain things gradually stopped leaving any trace in his heart.
Lord Lu was plotting out the whole chessboard, while he was plotting how to place every single piece properly for Lord Lu.
Lord Lu couldn’t possibly keep caring about how a single chess piece feels at every moment, and likewise, he couldn’t possibly constantly care about people who weren’t even qualified to be chess pieces.
For example, if someone jumped out right now, pointed at him, and with tears and snot streaming down their face demanded—why do you invade our island, what did we ever do to you?!
What do you think he would do? Or rather, what should he do?
Explain it to him carefully?
Heh, no—he’d kill him with one sword!
Now that these cultivator armies were finished, next would be those few at the Body Integration Realm, and even the remaining two at Crossing Tribulation.
Of course, he still didn’t have the ability to deal with those Crossing Tribulation cultivators; that still had to be handed over to Lord Lu.
...
"Lord Lu, I haven’t failed you!"
Xin Lifeng knelt on one knee before Lu Xiaobu and reported.
"Mm, well done. I gave you fifteen days, and you managed it in fourteen. Very good."
Lu Xiaobu released the mouse, nodded toward Xin Lifeng. "Have you found out the whereabouts of those two Crossing Tribulation cultivators?"
𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖
"I have. Are we to move against them?"
Xin Lifeng bowed as he spoke.
"Not for now. Bring me those few at the Fusion stage."
Lu Xiaobu gave his instructions.
"Yes! I understand what to do!"
Xin Lifeng immediately grasped it fully.
He understood that this was to make those at Fusion become slaves under Lord Lu’s command, just like them.
Once that happened, those Crossing Tribulation cultivators—who already paid very little attention to outside affairs—had a great chance of being deceived.
In fact, once Crossing Tribulation could be fooled, then the Mahayana on this island being deceived as well wouldn’t be impossible at all.
Though he only knew the surface of it and not the deeper reasons, he was sure that if he obeyed, he wouldn’t go wrong.
Xin Lifeng left, and Lu Xiaobu narrowed his eyes slightly as he glanced at the sky. "My first piece has been placed. Next, it’s time for this chessboard to start moving."