translator: ahad
Proofreading: shaheer
Humanity’s Great Sage – Chapter 1035: The Great Battle Arrives
In the end, it was Feng Wujiang who overruled all objections and resolved to stand guard at the Jade Blood Holy Land.
It was not that they intended to live and die together with the Jade Blood Holy Land, but simply fleeing without even putting up a fight would truly damage the prestige of these old seniors from the Nine Provinces.
Moreover, even if the Blood Race truly had the ability to conquer the Jade Blood Holy Land, these people still had a great chance of breaking through the siege and escaping.
The arrival of the Same Breath, Linked Branches array disc alone had increased the overall strength of the Holy Land by thirty percent, not to mention his ability to command those sealed and suppressed Blood Race Dao Soldiers.
In recent days, Lu Ye had been busying himself with this and that, having little interaction with the outside. Yet these old seniors of the Nine Provinces had all been observing him in secret. Now that the real person stood before them, there were naturally many appraising gazes.
“Everyone, act according to the previous assignments,” Feng Wujiang ordered.
The old seniors did not waste words. One after another, they channeled their spiritual power and shot off in all directions.
Only Feng Wujiang, Meng Jie, and Yue Ji remained.
“Senior Brother, what am I to do?” Lu Ye asked.
Feng Wujiang said, “There are eleven outer islands forming the Holy Land’s defensive line. This defensive line cannot be broken, or the Holy Land will be lost. Junior Brother, I need you to remain on this island and coordinate with Seniors Meng Jie and Yue Ji. You must ensure this island does not fall.”
Lu Ye nodded. “No problem.” After a pause, he asked, “What are the odds of victory in this battle?”
Feng Wujiang smiled faintly. “It all depends on human effort. We’ll only know after we fight.”
He patted Lu Ye on the shoulder and shot into the sky, likely to make a final inspection.
Lu Ye watched him leave, then turned to Meng Jie and Yue Ji. “This battle will rely on you two seniors.”
Yue Ji pursed her lips in a smile. “Meng Jie and I are only two people, after all. In this battle, you will be the main force on defense. That’s why your eldest senior brother has placed you here. But there’s no need to be too nervous. If a truly formidable Blood Race appears, Meng Jie and I will step in to handle it.”
Although these two old seniors had cultivation of profound and unfathomable depth, their numbers were ultimately too few. Moreover, powerhouses like them, once they engaged in battle, would inevitably be targeted and tied down by the Blood Race’s own powerhouses. When that time came, the main force on defense would still be the Blood Race Dao Soldiers under Lu Ye’s command.
Over a hundred Divine Ocean Realm cultivators, capable of forming battle formations with one another at any moment—such a force could not be underestimated by anyone.
“The odds of victory in this battle are about sixty percent,” Yue Ji answered Lu Ye’s earlier question on behalf of Feng Wujiang. “But in war, there are always unexpected incidents and changes, so nothing is certain. We simply do our best.”
Now, the Holy Land’s odds of victory were only sixty percent. One could imagine how low the odds had been before Lu Ye’s arrival.
It was not that the old seniors were not formidable enough; it was simply that their numbers were too few.
Although the Jade Blood Holy Land had undergone decades of development and had an enormous mortal population base, the number of cultivators was ultimately not that great.
Take this minor island Lu Ye was to help defend, for example. The total human cultivators here were only around ten to twenty thousand.
The situation on the other islands was more or less the same.
The total number of human cultivators was around a hundred thousand or so, while the Blood Race army numbered in the millions.
Even if the defending side could take advantage of the terrain, it would be very difficult to close the enormous gap in numbers.
This was, from the start, a great battle with vastly unequal forces.
Yue Ji and Meng Jie were both conserving their energy and building their strength for the coming battle. Lu Ye instructed Dao Thirteen to keep a close watch on the Blood Race Dao Soldiers and, alone, made a tour of the island’s defensive fortifications.
It had to be said, the logistics provided by the Nine Provinces were very thorough. On every section of the city wall throughout the entire city, ferocious and massive siege weapons could be seen everywhere. Each weapon was supported by an array formation and manned by varying numbers of cultivators.
Moreover, Lu Ye keenly sensed that many arrays had been laid within the city, and among them was the Same Breath, Linked Branches Grand Array.
He had provided the Holy Land with a large number of Same Breath, Linked Branches array discs. Relying on these array discs, any array cultivator with a bit of skill could easily set up a Same Breath, Linked Branches Grand Array.
One could say that the city before them was now armed to the absolute limit.
Lu Ye felt a faint regret. If he had enough Fire Spirit Stones in hand, he could have provided the Holy Land with yet another lethal weapon suited for war.
But the Fire Spirit Stones he had previously stockpiled had all been used up, and the Blood Refining World itself produced no spirit stones whatsoever. The supplies provided by the Nine Provinces’ aid also did not include many Fire Spirit Stones.
Now, thinking about such things was useless. The Holy Land had already done all it could. Whether the coming battle ended in victory or defeat would be decided by fate.
Lu Ye also began conserving his energy.
At some unknown point, dark clouds began spreading across the horizon, surging toward them at an extremely rapid speed.
“They’re here,” Yue Ji’s soft voice sounded from beside him.
Lu Ye opened his eyes and looked. At the very edge of his field of vision, dark clouds blotted out the sky. Within the clouds, lightning flickered and thunder rumbled. Beneath the clouds, countless figures, so dense that no end could be seen, advanced either flying through the air or aboard spirit artifacts.
The Blood Race had little need for offensive spirit artifacts, and few Blood Race members even used them. Their Blood Techniques had an extremely corrosive effect on the spirit nature of artifacts.
But that did not mean the Blood Race lacked flying spirit artifacts.
The minor island Lu Ye was responsible for defending was situated to the north of the Holy Land. In other words, they faced the forces of the Blood Race’s northern battlefront—the very same led by that Starlight Moon Holy Venerable.
When hundreds of thousands of Blood Race had gathered beneath the Starlight Moon Holy Land back then, one could not fully feel the pressure. Now, with the great army bearing down upon them, the oppressive feeling was indescribable.
The Blood Race of the northern battlefront crossed the Divine Watch Sea, advancing steadily. Meanwhile, in the three other directions—east, south, and west—which Lu Ye could not see, great armies were also advancing and closing in.
There was no cover whatsoever on the great sea, and a march of such massive scale could not possibly be concealed anyway. The Blood Race needed no concealment.
Advancing so openly and imposingly, had the Jade Blood Holy Land not had a record of repelling the Blood Race several times before, many here would surely have already had their morale shattered.
But compared to the oppressive pressure brought by the Blood Race army, Lu Ye was more concerned with another matter.
An intangible, formless malevolence surged toward him from all directions, as if a pair of invisible eyes was spying on him, intending him harm.
The source power of the Soaring Dragon Boundary within him stirred restlessly.
This was a phenomenon he had never experienced before.
Lu Ye immediately understood: that intangible, imperceptible malevolence came from the will of this world!
The will of this world was indistinct and imperfect, nowhere near as intense and clear as that of the Nine Provinces. Lu Ye had not felt it before because the Nine Provinces’ Heavenly Secrets had taken measures to conceal him when sending him here. Furthermore, relative to the vastness of the entire Blood Refining World, a single Real Lake Realm cultivator like him was not worth the extra attention of this world’s will.
But the situation now was different. The Blood Race’s great army was bearing down, carrying the momentum of the entire Blood Refining World with it, which intangibly made this world’s will considerably clearer.
To the Blood Race, the Jade Blood Holy Land was a malignant tumor. The Blood Refining World was the Blood Race’s domain. This world’s will naturally stood on the side of the Blood Race.
But that was the extent of it.
Unlike the Nine Provinces’ Heavenly Secrets, which could directly intervene in the actions of cultivators, the Blood Refining World’s will had no such ability. It could only instinctively build momentum for the Blood Race army, exerting some psychological pressure on the humans.
Just like the dark clouds pressing down upon them with the arrival of the Blood Race army.
The reason the source power of the Soaring Dragon Boundary was stirring was, in truth, because the Soaring Dragon Boundary had been destroyed by the Blood Realm.
What exactly the relationship between the Blood Realm and the Blood Refining World was, Lu Ye did not know. But that Blood Race existed in both realms was a shared trait. Facing this world’s will, which seemed to have some connection to the world that had destroyed its own, the Soaring Dragon Boundary’s source power naturally reacted abnormally.
The Blood Race army pressed in.
On the eleven minor islands, the human forces stood ready in strict formation.
The distance between the two sides steadily shrank. From afar, the earth-shaking battle cries of the Blood Race army could be heard.
The dark clouds blotting out the sky also advanced swiftly along with the Blood Race army, until they completely covered the Jade Blood Holy Land and the surrounding archipelago.
Not a sliver of light remained in the sky. The entire world was plunged into a murky gloom, the atmosphere so oppressive it felt as though one were buried under a dozen heavy quilts.
Rumbling sounds rang out. Lines of light rapidly ignited one by one, piercing through the suffocating gloom and becoming the brightest radiance in all of heaven and earth.
It was the human cultivators manning the arrays atop the city walls activating the grand arrays.
In an instant, a profound and intricate grand array enveloped the entire city. Within the city, every human cultivator standing within it felt a jolt through their body, a wondrous sensation arising from deep within. They could clearly feel that they could pour their own strength into the grand array beneath their feet, allowing anyone within the city to borrow it, while also being able to draw upon the strength others had poured into it.
The Same Breath, Linked Branches Grand Array was the first to be activated.
Eleven minor islands, eleven Same Breath, Linked Branches Grand Arrays—like eleven lamps lighting up across the vast Divine Watch Sea.
A continuous hum rang out. Following closely after the Same Breath, Linked Branches Grand Array, the array formations on each segment of the city wall’s defensive fortifications were activated one after another.
Cracking and grinding sounds echoed.
Meng Jie and Yue Ji, standing to Lu Ye’s left and right, simultaneously turned their heads toward him. At a single glance, both old seniors’ eyes twitched.
Yue Ji could not believe her eyes. “What are you eating?”
Lu Ye held out the half-eaten Blood Crystal toward her. “Would Senior care for some?”
Even as widely experienced as Yue Ji was, she could not help but be deeply shaken. “You’re eating that… and you’re fine?”
“I have a good stomach and strong digestion,” Lu Ye smiled faintly. He swallowed the Blood Crystal in his mouth. His own spiritual power surged and poured unceasingly into the grand array beneath his feet, ready for others within the array to borrow.
Yue Ji shifted her gaze away somewhat stiffly.
She had no intention of persuading him otherwise. Though Lu Ye looked young, he was still a Real Lake Realm cultivator. What he could or could not eat was not something she needed to instruct him on.
“Monster,” Meng Jie, always a man of few words, could not help but remark.
After so many years in the Blood Refining World, he had never seen any human who could eat Blood Crystals.
Was this even human anymore?
He was beginning to wonder just what kind of monsters the current Nine Provinces was producing. Feng Wujiang, that went without saying—though his strength was inhumanly powerful, he was at least still within the bounds of normality. This junior brother of his, however, was clearly not normal.
Suddenly, a violent tremor resounded. Immediately after, a pillar of light exploded forth from atop the city wall. That pillar of light was straight as a sword, blasting directly into the oncoming Blood Race army.
Wherever it passed, Blood Race members were reduced to dust.
The great battle… had begun!
(End of Chapter)