Chapter 259: Chapter 258: Gao Yuan City Battlefield
In his haste to leave, Jiang Qiu didn’t have time to say goodbye to Ice Lotus. He couldn’t risk bringing her along, either. After all, they were heading to Gao Yuan City—the front lines of the war—and it wouldn’t be wise for someone with Ice Lotus’s distinct Demon Race features to be seen there.
So, he temporarily entrusted Ice Lotus’s care to An Ling, who was responsible for maintaining discipline among the academy’s Spear System students and wouldn’t be deploying with the reinforcement team.
Several hours later, the Hundred Machines Giant Kite had flown hundreds of miles, arriving in the airspace over Gao Yuan City. Outside the window, thick black clouds drifted through the sky, making the massive vessel feel like a small fish tossing about in a sea of ink.
RUMBLE—
The roar of thunder surged from all directions, rising and falling without end.
"Junior Brother Jiang, we’ll be landing at the Tianjiao Base in Gao Yuan City’s Inner City. Stick close to me, and don’t go off on your own."
Zhao Qian’s expression was grim, his tone serious.
From the looks of things, the war in Gao Yuan City was raging. The sky was completely blanketed in dark clouds, and torrential rain lashed certain districts—all clear signs of powerful Spirit Charm disturbances.
And while Jiang Qiu possessed the power of the Peeping Dao Realm and was officially registered as a General Level asset, granting him a high degree of autonomy, that information was just a line in a file. Most people didn’t know about it.
As it stood, Jiang Qiu didn’t have much actual command authority in Gao Yuan City. He would be facing numerous Demon Generals from the Kunlun Demon Clan, and the pressure was immense. If anything happened to him, it would be a major loss for the entire Northwest Province.
The only reason Zhai Song had approved Jiang Qiu’s deployment was to give him crucial combat experience and a chance to utilize his personal strength. Plus, with a Dao Entry Realm Vice Dean on the team for protection, a certain level of safety was assured.
If Jiang Qiu were to act alone, without a Dao Entry Realm expert for protection, and ran into a Demon Marshal, the situation would become incredibly dangerous.
"Understood."
Jiang Qiu nodded, his gaze still fixed on the scene outside the window.
Looking down from their high altitude, he could vaguely make out figures the size of sesame seeds—Demon Race and Martial Artists—locked in combat in some of the outer districts. It was as if two types of sesame seeds had been mixed together, and every so often, a collision would produce a splatter of gore like watermelon pulp.
The Vast Thunder Spirit Charm erupted in serpents of lightning; the Gale Spirit Charm ripped tiles from high-rises to form a vortex; the Fiery Flame Spirit Charm ignited an unquenchable wall of fire; and where the Vast Water Spirit Charm resounded, torrential rains washed away streets and buildings...
A cataclysmic war raged wantonly below. Even from this high vantage point, he could clearly see the brilliant aftershocks from the clashes between Secret Techniques and Spirit Charms. The scale was undeniably immense.
Clearly, numerous Dharma Realm Martial Artists and Ancestral Great Demons had met on the streets of the Outer City and were now slaughtering one another.
K-CHUNK—
A door on the Hundred Machines Giant Kite suddenly slid open, unleashing a suction force like the pull of an abyssal hand. A Peeping Dao Realm director, leading a hundred Dharma Realm Martial Artists, leaped out to provide reinforcements below.
CLANK—
The hatch sealed shut, and the Hundred Machines Giant Kite continued on its course.
The massive airship was incredibly fast. In the blink of an eye, the dazzling, firework-like battles were left far behind. But the battlefield itself changed even faster; in a single glance, hundreds of new Dharma Aspects would erupt, suppressing the Demon Race.
This pattern repeated. Whenever they passed over a battle between the Demon Race and Martial Artists in Gao Yuan City, more Martial Artists would deploy from the Hundred Machines Giant Kite. The number sent down depended on the scale of the fight below.
Generally, however, the closer they got to the Inner City, the larger the battle zones grew and the more terrifying the demons became. There was even a Great Tiger with a body hundreds of meters tall!
Seeing this, Jiang Qiu’s heart sank. His mind flashed to Outer City Ninth Middle School. ’That high school was already so poorly resourced. Could it possibly withstand an attack from such a terrifying demon?’
’This war erupted so suddenly. Were the teachers and students of Ninth Middle School evacuated to the Inner City in time?’
Based on the scale of the demon presence he’d seen so far, any given battlefield hosted a cluster of at least a hundred Ancestral Great Demons. A contingent of that size would be led by at least one Demon General.
There were very few instances of small, stealthy squads; the Kunlun Demon Clan simply crushed everything with their overwhelming numbers and physical superiority!
A force of that size could challenge a base defended by a Grandmaster, let alone an Outer City high school whose strongest protector was only at the Dharma Realm.
"Brother Zhao, will our flight path take us past Outer City Ninth Middle School?"
Hearing Jiang Qiu’s earnest question, Zhao Qian frowned slightly. "Not necessarily. Our flight path isn’t fixed. We have to avoid the aerial Thunderstorms, so we might need to detour."
"At the next battlefield, I want to go down and help."
Jiang Qiu’s voice was low and heavy, each word carrying immense weight.
Zhao Qian took a deep breath and went to find the Vice Dean leading the group to discuss the matter. Normally, having a Peeping Dao Realm expert volunteer to lead a support team would be a good thing, but Jiang Qiu was too valuable to risk.
It would be best to wait for a situation so dire that the Vice Dean himself had to intervene; only then would it be safe enough for Jiang Qiu to join the fray. Otherwise, he would have to wait until they reached their destination.
But a situation requiring the Vice Dean would most likely involve a Demon Marshal. A battle of that caliber could reshape the very landscape, and a single mistake could lead to massive collateral damage.
While Zhao Qian was arguing with the Vice Dean, the instructors and alumni monitoring the battlefield suddenly widened their eyes and gasped, "The Mountain King Demon Marshal!"
"This area is almost at the Inner City walls! How did he lead his troops this far?!"
"This is bad! A Grandmaster is severely injured! The situation is critical!"
Jiang Qiu focused his gaze. Amidst several square kilometers of ruins, a two-headed Great Demon resembling a red-skinned lizard stood upright in the center, its head towering over giant pagodas. Before it, an old man—no bigger than a sesame seed from this distance—had summoned a ferocious Tiger Dharma Aspect to battle it. Within the range of their two Realms, waves of Spirit Charm crashed like a tsunami, swallowing the surrounding ruins and grinding them to dust.
From the looks of it, the Grandmaster was on the verge of collapse. On the outskirts of the vast ruins, the Kunlun Demon Clan swarmed like a plague of locusts, devouring the Martial Artist army, which looked like a patch of floating duckweed about to be submerged.
This battlefield formed a massive dividing line. Behind the Martial Artist army were hordes of ordinary people, being escorted by Martial Arts Teams toward an accessible area to board armored vehicles.
A flood of people surged forward, a dense mass of ordinary citizens squeezed together, rushing toward an undamaged stretch of road in the distance and scrambling over one another to reach the armored vehicles.
It was highly likely that the entire active population of this Outer City district had been cornered in this one area. If the Grandmaster could hold his ground, a large portion of these people might have a chance to make it to the Inner City.
But now, not only was the Grandmaster about to fall, but large numbers of Kunlun demons had broken through the defensive line, tearing a bloody path through the dense crowd of civilians.
The formation broke in terror. Countless people scattered and fled. Some even tried to hide in nearby buildings, only to be easily torn open by the demons. To them, reinforced concrete was no more durable than paper.
But then, Jiang Qiu’s pupils contracted violently. The Chuyuan spear materialized in his grip. He had spotted a familiar school uniform, and a familiar, bespectacled middle-aged man...
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