章 38: Invasion
*Things like sexism and racism are purely for worldbuilding and to make it more realistic. Thank you for your understanding.* *"In the House - In a Heartbeat" by John Murphy is highly recommended to listen to while reading.*
Jiesheng City.
A young woman walked arm in arm with her husband as they wandered the streets of the market district under the heat of the summer sun. The air was dry and warm, with people taking the opportunity to bask in the perfect weather.
Children had water fights with goofy smiles on their faces while young couples lay down on the grass together and closed their eyes as the sun shone down on their faces.
Walking arm in arm with her husband, the young woman felt all her worries fade away in the warmth of the sun. She closed her eyes and let her husband lead her through the streets as she held his arm affectionately, his robes so soft she wanted to nuzzle her head into them.
"Darling, why don't we go and lie down on the grass? Look, over there." The young woman tugged on her husband's arm as she tried to pull his tall frame in the direction she wanted.
"Haha, feeling tired?" The familiar soothing voice of her husband resounded from beside her. Hearing his words, she only smiled bashfully as she comically tried to pull him over to the grass so they could lie in each other's arms.
And when they finally reached the grass, the young woman let herself fall backwards, only for her husband to catch her and lay her down gently. She lay down, facing upwards as her husband lay on his side next to her and only looked down at her beautiful face.
Even with her eyes closed, she could feel his gaze. Without even opening her eyes, she tossed and turned while complaining. "Baby~! Just lie with me!" Her voice that was like the incessant whining of a child only warmed the heart of her husband, causing a gentle smile to form upon his face.
And without replying, her husband lay flat on the ground with his hands behind his head as if he was stargazing. He rested his eyes as he felt his wife continue to toss and turn, probably because he wasn't holding her.
The wide patch of grass in the centre of the city had many trees in full blossom. The grass was covered in pink petals that seemed to act as a mattress for the many couples resting upon them.
Lying back, the grass felt relaxingly cold on the bottom side of his body as the sun heated the top side. The grass was not itchy nor dry and felt perfect as he lay there silently, his wife continuing to toss and turn while gently whining for him to hug her back.
And finally, she decided to take matters into her own hands. Clambering on top of her husband, she lay her head on his broad chest as her legs entwined with his and shuffled comfortably. A humming laugh came from her as she smiled.
This was truly blissful.
However, the light from the sun was suddenly taken away; blocked by something. The continuous warmth they lay within was cut off and the eyes of the husband opened to look at what had happened.
He expected to see clouds or maybe a flock of birds flying over, intercepting their sun for a while before they could bask in it once again.
But when he opened his eyes and stared into the sky, the husband's eyes widened as his chest tightened and the air was stolen from his lungs.
Looking into the sky, he saw countless figures suddenly appear over the city. There were hundreds of thousands of them, looking down upon the city with terrifyingly cold eyes that made his mind wander and cause his breathing to speed up.
The warm day suddenly became as cold as winter as other people within the city looked up as an uncomfortable silence overcame the entire place.
People couldn't even find the words to question what was happening as their eyes just flared with anxiety, looking up at the figures staring down at them. In those eyes, they couldn't see gazes that recognized fellow humans, only targets.
"Darling, what's happened. I can't feel the sun anymore." The voice of the wife who was still using her husband's chest as a pillow echoed in his ears. He couldn't find the words to explain to her what he was seeing, so he just gently pushed her body off of his.
And when her eyes questioningly looked around, she saw him. And so did everybody else.
Amidst the countless blue-armoured figures stood upon the very sky itself, a hooded figure emerged. Shining blue eyes that could be seen like two bright gems in the night were all that could be seen in the darkness underneath the hood of the robes.
Like a god amongst his countless angels, the hooded figure had a dominating presence as he stood amidst his warriors. His eyes were the coldest of them all as they looked down to not see life, people, cities, love, laughter nor joy; only objects.
The robes of the figure were only gently fluttering in the slow summer winds. People looked to the shining eyes of the hooded figure with confusion and helplessness, like mortals asking their gods for answers after a millennium of suffering.
But all that answered was a cold blue. An emotionless icy blue that embodied the cruelty of the winter. The lives it took away as everything seemed to become slower within the wintry blue, life ceasing to move and hearts ceasing to beat.
And as if that answer from the hooded figure was only the beginning, the arms within the thick robes spread wide and encompassed the world as the mortals could only watch in despair.
And like that, a shadow was cast upon the earth. A shadow that cast all the faces of fear and despair into absolute darkness as though the light had abandoned them. Judgment had come, and their only companions were pain, darkness and regret.
Tears silently fell from the eyes of the young woman as she heard screams of indignance and cries echo all around her. However, that all faded into the background as she turned to look into the eyes of her husband.
The wide eyes in disbelief and terror, refusing to comprehend the situation greeted her own as she seemed to fall into a state of fear and confusion. The tears from her eyes fell onto his face as she whispered three words.
"I love you..."
And just like that, a huge meteor of ice fell upon the city with cataclysmic might, fire and flame trailing behind. It fell upon the city and made contact with a huge defensive formation that collapsed like paper underneath the small planet falling down to the city.
And the silence of the city was replaced by a thunderous and deep scrape of the meteor upon the world itself as it fell. The roar of it gradually got louder and louder in the ears of the puny humans as the sound came from all around them.
The wife tightly shut her eyes, however, tears squeezed through the cracks and onto her husband's face who was just staring at the blue planet falling on top of them.
He wanted to tell his wife that he loved her too, however, it was too late.
The meteor enlarged within his vision until it was all he could see. It was encased in flames as the heat built up was enough to incinerate him alone.
In his final moments, he just stared at those shining blue eyes. He stared at them until the massive meteor crushed him and half of the entire city.
...
Qing Fang smiled ruthlessly as he saw this scene.
The same hooded Stage 6 that brought them to Doushan had appeared once again and displayed his heavenly might unto the earth. His blue eyes shone down upon the lowly mortals and cultivators as they shuddered under his might.
And once the all-encompassing meteor that acted as a god of death smashed the formation that Stage 5s could never hope to breach as well as half of the city, the hooded figure disappeared into thin air; likely leaving to destroy the defensive formation of another city.
However, once he did, hundreds of thousands of cultivators and hundreds of Stage 5s started to slowly fall from the sky like shooting stars.
Qing Fang followed his commander and rushed toward the rubble that made up half of the city, eager to extinguish all remaining life in the other half. Running along the ground with the other generals by his side and their men behind them, the cultivators into the sky fell upon the city like bombs.
Deafening drums reverberated across the land as shrouds of dust appeared as many cultivators smashed into the ground of the city, disappearing from Qing Fang's view as they did so.
"The mission is completed and the invasion has begun. It's been a pleasure working with you, gentlemen." Ahead of Qing Fang, his commander said these words before shooting off into the city with terrifying speed, leaving dreadful screams in his wake.
Hearing these words, Qing Fang promptly nodded to his fellow generals before looking to the soldiers he had led and nodding to them also. After that, a vicious expression appeared on his face as he licked his lips and kicked the ground with amazing power and shooting forwards.
...
Qing Fang arrived in the remains of the city to see a massacre.
Hundreds of Stage 5s ran amok and caused untold destruction as lives were crushed to dust in their hands. Dust filled the air and clouded Qing Fang's vision as the sounds of buildings collapsing sounded in his ears constantly amid desperate wails.
Qing Fang ran into the cloud of dust, only for a torrent of fire to assault him only seconds after he entered. Water manifesting beneath his feet, Qing Fang shot thirty meters into the air and manifested tens of spears to fire downwards into the cloud of dust where the attack originated from.
Falling through the dust and down to where his attack landed, Qing Fang's feet settled down onto numerous bodies with fist-sized holes in them. Their mouths were open as blood trickled from them and their fingers twitched in death.
Qing Fang's eyes looked down upon the ten Huoyan cultivators that he had killed with a single attack before a wide grin wore itself upon his face. 'War is truly invigorating...'
Moving his feet once more, Qing Fang left this area and ran deeper into the huge tornado of dust that spiralled hundreds of meters into the sky above Jiesheng City, or what remained of it.
Running forwards and stepping onto hundreds of bodies that riddled the floor after the destruction of the main army, Qing Fang peered into the dust and tried to locate any Huoyan cultivators.
He could see hundreds of his brethren charge into the dust like a tidal wave alongside him, ruthlessly killing any shell shocked Huoyan cultivators they came across with fire, ice, poison and fists.
Travelling a few hundred meters per second, Qing Fang came across a mortal father blindly running into the dust with a small child in his arms. Wasting no time, Qing Fang only charged into them like a train and ran through their bodies, turning them into mists of blood and body parts.
The head of the small child rolled along the ground but was crushed moments later by the foot of another Qing cultivator charging behind Qing Fang.
It was at this moment that Qing Fang noticed the bodies littering the ground to also contain an increasing number of Qing cultivators. He was charging through the centre of the tornado of dust and was reaching the middle of the city at this stage. He hoped to reach the half of the city that was still intact.
However, his eyes narrowed as he noticed large groups of blue-armoured warriors lying dismembered and disfigured on the ground, their armour turned into scrap that twisted and turned like abstract art.
Right after he noticed this, a powerful fist burst through the dust and aimed to smash his head into pieces!
With no time to dodge or manifest any law fragments, Qing Fang quickly covered his head with his arms and prepared for the huge impact he was about to face. As the powerful fist crashed into his arms crossed in front of his head and shielding it, Qing Fang's body was smashed into the air.
Both of the bones in his two arms instantly broke as the gauntlets he wore upon them were bent into shrapnel that embedded into his flesh. Qing Fang's body unnaturally flipped in the air as the impact had smashed his upper body.
After flying through the air for a few seconds, his body crashed into the ground and tumbled for a few dozen meters before Qing Fang twisted his body to kneel upright and slide to a halt along the floor. He stared into the cloud of dust where the fist had sent him flying, his eyes trying to see his enemy.
Standing up and walking slowly forwards back into the deadly dust tornado filled with enemies, the arms of Qing Fang began to heal. Twisting back into place and expelling the shrapnel from the skin, the bones cracked and creaked as they moulded back together again. The red muscle exposed to the air was hidden by white skin crawling to cover it.
All the while, a gruesome smile that exposed his teeth was on the face of Qing Fang. His eyes were wide and constantly looking around to find the foe that had sent him flying.
And when he heard a sickening crunch followed by a dull thud a hundred meters in front of him, Qing Fang immediately parted the clouds of dust with a huge tsunami of water aimed in that direction.
The bodies along the floor were swept up by the tsunami and dyed it a thick red as they floated around within the waves that formed it. The dust had no choice but to flee and the water rushed at unnatural speeds and with abnormal power, ploughing toward where Qing Fang thought his foe was.
Even with his Stage 3 eyes, he couldn't see through the dense dust saturating the air.
Other cultivators rushing within the tornado and deeper into the city avoided the wave if it was headed towards them. On battlefields like these, area attacks caused the most friendly damage. Some Stage 2s within the tornado had no choice but to stop in their tracks as they had no way to get around the huge wave.
Tens of cultivators who the attack was not even aimed at had their bodies crushed into rags of flesh under the powerful tsunami until it found its target.
A red-robed figure looked toward the huge wave that filled his entire vision. Moments ago, he could hear it rampaging toward him through the dust but only now could he see it. Tearing through the curtain of dust, the massive tsunami dyed red with blood dwarfed him.
However, before it smacked into his body that was as small as an ant in comparison, the red-robed figure conjured a massive throe of fire to directly clash with it. The red fire smashed against the red tsunami and fought to stop its seemingly unstoppable advance.
Huge clouds of red steam suddenly burst forth as the sea of fire evaporated the tsunami at a terrifying speed while incinerating any cultivators in the immediate surroundings, their flesh melting off of their faces and their armour melting into liquid.
The eyes of the red-robed figure were extremely cold as they imagined the cultivator on the other side of the tsunami, the cultivator who he would kill next.
However, just as the flames started to overwhelm the tsunami and vaporize it at an insane rate, Qing Fang flashed and appeared beside the cultivator. His tall body, disfigured armour and murderous eyes illuminated with the red of the fire.
As a powerful sweep of Qing Fang's right leg with his metal boot menacingly shining aimed to break the spine of the red-robed figure into two, the eyes of the figure slowly turned to the side and locked onto Qing Fang.
Following this, the red-robed Huoyan cultivator thrust both of his elbows behind him while breaking the sound barrier. After which, the elbows of the Huoyan cultivator directly clashed with the leg of Qing Fang aimed at his back and hit it away while trying to throw Qing Fang off balance as well.
However, Qing Fang only used the momentum of his leg being pushed away to hop into the air and sweep his left leg toward the abdomen of the Huoyan cultivator. A battle like this was so high speed that using law fragments was useless to either party.
Seeing the leg of Qing Fang threaten to make his organs shoot out of his mouth and nose, the Huoyan cultivator only opened his fists and aimed to grab the leg. His elbows were back behind him but his fists were still around his chest area.
And as the leg of Qing Fang violently hit the Huoyan cultivator with the strength to topple a building, he tried to catch it with his hands. However, the power of the leg was too powerful and sent his body flying backwards with immense force.
The sharp serrations on the boot of Qing Fang's leg had sliced the Huoyan cultivator's hands into dozens of pieces when he tried to catch Qing Fang's leg. Qing Fang had also felt the ribcage of the Huoyan cultivator break into hundreds of pieces as his internal organs were badly damaged.
Leaving no time for the Huoyan cultivator to recover, Qing Fang chased after the vacuum his flying body had left in the tornado of dust.
Seeing his opponent trying to stand up using his destroyed hands and coughing up his organs in the distance, Qing Fang's eyes shone with a sharp glint as he increased his speed tremendously. Spears of water appeared in his hands as he took a throwing position as he charged.
The Huoyan cultivator noticed Qing Fang fast approaching and turned his head to stare at him with bloodshot eyes and a face dyed red in his own blood. Anger of a massive scale could be seen in those eyes that would turn completely red if they got any more bloodshot.
Qing Fang saw this and threw one of the two spears of water he held with a thunderous boom that shot right towards the Huoyan cultivator's chest, the part of the body that would take the longest to move out of the way.
A ruthless smile appeared on the face of the Huoyan cultivator as condensed flames manifested around his body.
However, it was at this moment.
In the eyes of Qing Fang, the air before him seemed to distort and ripple for thousands of meters. And he saw the head of the Huoyan cultivator burst like a watermelon as his own body was thrown back violently when an unimaginably loud ring assaulted his ears.
Luckily, Qing Fang wasn't within the range of that attack otherwise he would have died. However, his sight was blurry and he was temporarily completely deaf as he could only hear loud ringing.
The dust tornado was instantly dispelled with this attack and Qing Fang could now see more than ten meters around him. And what he saw shocked him.
Hundreds of Huoyan cultivators' heads suddenly burst around where Qing Fang's opponent had stood. It was a merciless sight as the bodies just fell limp in unison without their heads.
Trying to focus his blurry eyes, Qing Fang saw a white-robed Qing cultivator floating high above the epicentre of that huge attack right now.
'A Sound path cultivator..?' Qing Fang thought as his head ached with the incessant ringing. 'This battle is already over, there is no fun to be had here.' Qing Fang determined. The Stage 5 Sound path cultivator that had just killed his opponent was already unleashing another devastating attack toward a large group of Huoyan cultivators, bursting their heads like droplets of water hitting leaves.
The dozen Huoyan Stage 5s that resided in Jiesheng City had been completely wiped out just moments ago, causing this place to no longer be a battle but an execution waiting to happen.
It was also because of this that Qing Fang looked toward the sky, waiting for a Qing Stage 6 to descend and take them where reinforcements are needed.
And in the next ten seconds, a Stage 6 appeared above Jiesheng before a terrifying sound like thunder signalled his arrival. This Stage 6 was not the familiar hooded figure that Qing Fang had seen around, but a short male figure no more than five feet tall wearing a golden faceless mask.
A pair of shining green eyes beneath the mask shone within the sky and looked down upon Jiesheng City. And any Qing cultivator who returned his gaze for more than three seconds slowly rose into the air.
After staying for no more than a minute above Jiesheng, the golden masked Stage 6 took all of the Qing cultivators who wished to go to a different battlefield and disappeared with a deafening sound of thunder, showing that he had pierced the atmosphere of Doushan Planet.
Qing Fang kept his eyes on the short figure of the Stage 6 so as to not get disorientated while they travelled to another battlefield.
Three minutes later, Qing Fang suddenly saw an absolutely massive city suddenly appear beneath him with millions of cultivators fighting to the death in a scene of blood and carnage.
Looking closely at the gigantic city with skies of ash and thunder overhead, Qing Fang's eyes widened as he realised he had been taken to the single largest battlefield of the entire invasion.
The capitol of Ronghua Planet, Tou City, where the head of the Huoyan Clan resided.
*3,718/3,000 words*
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