Daqin Zhentiansi

Chapter 1143 The Arrowhead Opens the Way, Man and Blade Unite

Zhang Yuan gripped the Zhenyue Token, his gaze fixed on the surging line of demonic energy.

Those purplish-black lightning bolts, as if alive, twisted and weaved through the clouds, growing denser and faster.

From the distant horizon came a low, guttural roar, as if it came from the depths of the earth.

"Fight the last battle."

……

Just as dawn broke, the Wolf King arrived.

It's not a projection.

It is the entity itself.

The purplish-black demonic energy on the horizon parted to both sides as if it were alive.

A gigantic silver wolf, as large as a mountain, emerged from the demonic energy.

Its size was larger than any monster I had ever seen before.

Just standing there, it's like a moving silver mountain.

Its mane billowed in the wind, each hair gleaming with a cold, white metallic sheen, like countless sharp swords piercing its body.

Its eyes were pure gold, with pupils forming thin vertical lines, coldly surveying the entire camp.

What's most unsettling is the scene behind it.

After the demonic energy separated, a boundless ocean of demonic beasts was revealed.

Iron-skinned rhinoceros, iron-backed lizard, gray-maned wolf, purple-eyed ape...

There were even more unnamed monsters, layer upon layer, densely packed, stretching from one end of the horizon to the other.

The number of those magical beasts was impossible to count; it wasn't 300,000, it wasn't 500,000, it was at least over a million.

The giant silver wolf lowered its head.

Its gaze passed over the simple wooden fence of the camp.

They passed the hunters and soldiers who were arrayed in formation.

They passed over the 100,000 silent black armored figures and landed on the highest rock in the center of the camp.

Zhang Yuan was standing on that rock, gazing at it from afar.

The Wolf King spoke.

Its voice was so deep it sounded like the earth was trembling, and every word resonated in the air: "The spirits of Tianyuan... you should not have awakened them."

Zhang Yuan did not answer.

The Wolf King continued, "A million years ago, their masters couldn't stop us. A million years later, these hollow iron shells won't stop us either."

Zhang Yuan jumped off the rock and landed on the ground.

He did not draw his sword.

He turned around and glanced at the formation of 100,000 undead soldiers.

The silvery-gray light flickered slightly in his eyes, as if responding to him.

Then he spoke.

The voice wasn't loud, but every word carried clearly throughout the wasteland:

"Wedge formation, change formation."

"Three thousand vanguard troops, advance in a wedge formation. Target the central command node of the monster horde, breach it."

"Two thousand on each flank, flanking and encircling. Cut off the connection between the Ironhide Rhinoceros and the Graymane Wolf, and divide the battlefield."

"Two thousand troops will be stationed in the rear to hold the line. They will plug any gaps that appear on either side."

"Leave a passage in the middle."

Yan Qing paused for a moment when he uttered the last four words.

Leave a passage?

Who should it be left for?

Before he could figure it out, the undead army had already begun to move.

There were no bugles, no flags, and no commands.

The moment Zhang Yuan finished speaking, the black armors began to function as a single unit.

The front-line heavy shield soldiers contracted inwards, forming a sharp wedge shape.

The two flanks of swordsmen spread outwards, like a pair of iron pincers opening.

The pikemen in the rear lowered their spears, the tips gleaming coldly in the morning light.

The entire formation change was smooth and seamless, without a trace of chaos.

At the very center of that wedge formation, at the very tip of the wedge, a straight passage was cleared.

At the end of the passage stood Zhang Yuan.

Yan Qing finally understood. That passage was reserved for the predecessors to charge forward.

Zhang Yuan drew his Autumn Cold Blade.

The blade gleamed with a cold white light in the morning light.

He didn't say another word, turned around, and started walking forward along the passage.

The pace was neither too fast nor too slow.

But with each step he took, his aura grew stronger.

The first step is that his blood and qi begin to boil, and the air around him steams up distorted heat waves.

The second step was that the bones inside his body began to emit a low, resonant hum.

That's the resonance produced when the bones bear the force after being forged into weapons.

The third step was that pure, sharp sword intent surged from his body, tearing a hole in the low-hanging clouds.

A hundred thousand undead soldiers followed closely behind him, their black armor gleaming heavily in the morning light, like a black river flowing across the earth.

The golden pupils of the Wolf King contracted slightly.

It has lived for millions of years and has seen countless rivals.

But it has never seen anyone who could, before the charge, condense the spirit of an army into the sharpness of a sword.

That person is the blade of that knife.

The 100,000 dead behind him were the blade of that sword.

"kill--!"

The Wolf King let out a deafening roar.

The million demonic beasts surged forth like a gray tsunami, crashing down upon the black arrowhead.

At the moment the two torrents collided, heaven and earth fell silent.

Then came a loud, dull thud—

"boom--!"

The sound traveled for hundreds of miles, and even the watchtowers at the very edge of the Canglang Plain heard the loud noise.

On the first point of contact, the wedge formation of the undead army, like a wedge, plunged deep into the monster horde.

And the very tip of the wedge is Zhang Yuan.

The way he crashed into the monster horde didn't seem like a person charging into a beast tide.

It was like a meteorite crashing into the lake.

The first iron-skinned rhinoceros charged straight at him, its armored head bowed low, its horns pointed at his chest.

Zhang Yuan stretched out his left hand, spread his five fingers, and pressed it onto the skull of the iron-skinned rhinoceros.

"boom--!"

The iron-skinned rhinoceros, weighing over ten thousand pounds, was pinned down with one hand and slammed heavily to the ground. A clear palm print with five fingers inwards was imprinted on its skull; it was already dead.

Zhang Yuan continued walking forward.

The surrounding monsters surged up like a tide.

The three gray-maned wolves leaped up simultaneously, biting at his throat, arms, and ankles from three different directions.

Zhang Yuan didn't stop walking, nor did he even turn his head to look at them.

Just as they were about to bite, he flicked his left wrist, using his finger as a knife to draw a half-circle in the air.

An invisible blade of energy swept past.

The three-headed gray-maned wolf's body froze in mid-air, then broke into six pieces and fell to the ground.

They didn't even see how Zhang Yuan made his move.

Zhang Yuan continued walking forward, his pace not slowing down even slightly.

Behind him, the undead army surged in through the gap he had torn open, widening the rift further and further.

The heavy shield soldiers in the front row held off the pressure from the monsters on both sides, the spearmen in the middle row kept thrusting through the gaps, and the swordsmen on both flanks were slaying the monsters that tried to flank them.

The entire battlefront was like a precisely operating meat grinder, with each part advancing according to the rhythm Zhang Yuan had arranged in advance.

Yan Qing stood on the rock behind him, completely stunned.

He had seen fierce generals charge into battle.

He had witnessed strategists devising plans and making decisions.

But he had never seen anyone who, while charging to the front lines and tearing enemies apart with their bare hands, could also use their peripheral vision to control the entire battlefield.

Before even charging forward, he had already calculated every step of the entire battle: where to break through, where to divide and conquer, and where to encircle. (End of Chapter)