Chapter 373: Chapter 373: A Dire Situation
Under the imposing command of the Earth Spirit Realm experts, the three level-one Martial Spirits had no choice but to go back and prepare for a full-scale assault on the County City.
After the three of them left,
The leader of the Earth Spirit Realm experts couldn’t help but laugh aloud. "Have us step in personally, and make the real Small Spirit Realm cultivators fight alongside them?"
"Hahaha, that’s hilarious! A bunch of trash that really thinks they’re powerful experts of the Martial Spirit Realm."
The other four Earth Spirit Realm experts and the two hundred-plus Small Spirit Realm cultivators around them all burst into laughter as well.
All of them had been born with Tier Three Martial Souls and held high status within the Martial Soul Hall, which gave them an immense sense of superiority over those with Tier Two Martial Souls.
So, naturally, they banded together, looking down on those who had forcibly elevated their realm to become level-one Martial Spirits.
Besides, there was a secret known only to the five Earth Spirit Realm experts.
Using that potion to gain the strength of a level-one Martial Spirit was not only incredibly risky, but it also came with a price.
The price was their very lifespan!
Members of the Martial Soul Hall, free from the constraints of a physical body, had lifespans three to four times longer than human Martial Artists of the same rank.
However, once they consumed the potion, even if they succeeded in becoming a level-one Martial Spirit, their remaining lifespan would be almost completely depleted. They would have three or four years left to live, at most.
This surge in power was obtained by sacrificing their own life force.
However, the ninth-level Martial Artists who took the potion were completely unaware of this. Even the genuine Small Spirit Realm cultivators didn’t know; only beings at the Earth Spirit Realm and higher were privy to this secret.
They had no potential for future growth and only a few years left to live.
That was why, in the eyes of the five Earth Spirit Realm experts, these forcibly created level-one Martial Spirits were nothing more than cannon fodder. Utter trash!
And this trash wanted them to personally intervene? They wanted the Small Spirit Realm cultivators—who, like the five of them, possessed Tier Three Martial Souls—to join the assault and face such immense danger? How laughable!
After more than three hours of brutal fighting, over four thousand of the forcibly enhanced level-one Martial Spirits were still left.
Most of them were from the thirty thousand-plus ninth-level Martial Artists who had fled the abandoned town, while the rest had been stationed around the County City and had gradually converged.
Through extensive use, the Martial Soul Hall had gradually figured out the intricacies of administering the potion, slightly increasing the success rate.
Following the orders of the five Earth Spirit Realm experts, the remaining four thousand-plus level-one Martial Spirits split into four groups and launched a simultaneous, ferocious assault on the County City!
More than a thousand level-one Martial Spirits charged each of the city walls!
In a war between ordinary people, this would be laughable. A mere thousand men charging a twenty-meter-high wall built from Black Profound Stone would be a suicide mission.
A hundred defenders on the walls could probably hold them off with ease.
But when both sides consisted of Martial Spirits, it was an entirely different matter.
A battle involving over a thousand Martial Spirit Level combatants—even if they were all merely at the Small Spirit Realm—was on an almost unimaginable scale.
The Great Xia Dragon Guards on the walls had likely never experienced a battle of this magnitude.
A twenty-meter-high wall was an impassable barrier for ordinary people, but for a Martial Spirit Level cultivator, a powerful leap and a few light taps against its surface were all it took to vault to the top.
In an instant, over a thousand Small Spirits swarmed onto the city walls!
The pressure instantly skyrocketed!
A battle between Martial Spirit Level combatants was a completely different concept from ordinary warfare.
In a common brawl, a single stroke of a blade could decide life or death. But when Martial Spirit Realm experts fought, unless one side had an overwhelming advantage in power, a prolonged struggle was needed to determine a winner.
The battlefield on the walls was instantly fragmented.
During the previous fight, the four-to-five-meter-wide ramparts had barely been able to contain the combatants. But with the addition of another thousand level-one Martial Spirits, the intense battle caused most of the fighters to spill over the edge and into the County City below.
A vast area near the wall was instantly transformed into a battlefield.
Soul Techniques howled through the air as Primordial Power surged uncontrollably.
The ground in a huge section of the city shattered, buildings collapsed, and the area was left a ruined, crater-pocked mess.
Fortunately, all the residents near the walls had been evacuated deeper into the city long before the battle started, so there hadn’t been any major civilian casualties yet.
But as the fighting intensified, the battlefront in some places crept further into the city. Inevitably, the shockwaves from the conflict began to affect some civilians and low-level Martial Artists.
There was nothing the Great Xia Dragon Guards could do about it.
After all, with only two hundred-odd members, the Great Xia Dragon Guards couldn’t possibly contain over a thousand of the Martial Soul Hall’s level-one Martial Spirits on the walls alone.
Facing the tide of Martial Spirits from the Martial Soul Hall, Chu Qingyun no longer held back. In addition to his Tier Four Martial Soul and Profound Celestial Divine Pattern, he unleashed a half-meter-long beam of Thunder Light Sword Qi and began a frenzied slaughter!
On average, each Great Xia Dragon Guard was now facing an assault from four or five members of the Martial Soul Hall.
Besides, the level-one Martial Spirits from the Martial Soul Hall were no fools. They all understood the principle of bullying the weak and fearing the strong.
The level-three Martial Spirits among the Great Xia Dragon Guards were exceptionally powerful. Even when besieged by a dozen or more level-one Martial Spirits, they remained completely unfazed and could counterattack with ease. Consequently, none of the Martial Soul Hall members dared to pick a fight with them.
The level-two Great Xia Dragon Guards could also handle these trashy level-one Martial Spirits with relative ease, so they weren’t the main targets either.
The primary targets for the Martial Soul Hall’s forces were the level-one Martial Spirits of the Great Xia Dragon Guards.
Thus, the reality of the situation was that the level-one Great Xia Dragon Guards often found themselves besieged by eight, nine, or even more than a dozen of the Martial Soul Hall’s Martial Spirits at once.
Meanwhile, the level-two and level-three Great Xia Dragon Guards faced no concerted attacks from the Martial Soul Hall.
Under these conditions, the level-one Great Xia Dragon Guards began taking heavy casualties. With every passing moment, another one of them would fall, overwhelmed by their attackers.
Although the level-two and level-three Great Xia Dragon Guards did their best to provide aid, their impact was limited in the chaos of the battle.
As a result, on the eastern, western, and northern walls, the Great Xia Dragon Guards’ level-one Martial Spirits suffered catastrophic losses. Emboldened, even larger groups of Martial Soul Hall members began to team up and attack the level-two Martial Spirits.
The walls were completely overrun, and the situation had become exceptionally dire!
Only on the South Wall, where Chu Qingyun was rapidly annihilating the enemy, did the defenders hold firm. While killing the enemy, his ten vines could also pluck members of the Great Xia Dragon Guard from the brink of death, pulling them out of encirclements. Thanks to him, many lives were saved, and the situation there remained relatively stable.
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