Chapter 1446 — The Chipped Blade, the Broken Edge

"Why must we memorize one another's faces? On the battlefield the situation changes in the blink of an eye. Would it not be easier to know a man by his voice, or by the clothes he wears?

" asked a young divine-ability user of Jingping. The scar-faced veteran saw that his face still held a boy's innocence, and laughed.

"It isn't for telling friend from foe during the battle.

It's for after. " He did not explain further.

But Shen Mu understood what he meant.

Comrades memorized one another's faces so that after the battle, when the field was cleared, the bodies could be found. The words were too horrifying to speak aloud, and so the old soldier left them unsaid.

The war in the Southern Wilderness was already desperate. Green recruits like them were supposed to train three to five months, to wear the rough edges off one another and grow familiar, before they were fit for battle. But the Heavenly Venerate of Fire's forces held the southern lands and pressed so hard that the Southern Wilderness ran short of soldiers, and many scholars of the great academies enlisted one after another.

The losses at the front were too heavy; these scholars had no time to be tempered before they were sent into the field. Compared with the Southern Heaven under the Heavenly Venerate of Fire, Jingping's divine-ability users and gods were still far too few; a single soldier was expected to do the work of ten.

Banners fluttered in the sky. One by one the soldiers rose and looked up at them. A moment before there had been the clatter of armor; now, apart from the crack of the great flags streaming in the wind, every sound had ceased.

After a moment, the first drumbeat sounded. Tower ship after tower ship rose into the air, the bronze beasts beneath their hulls spouting columns of flame, and flying chariots came racing along the ground; in an instant the noise was deafening. Those chariots hurtled a hundred zhang over the earth, their wheels slowly leaving the ground, and one after another they took to the air.

The divine-ability users aboard were in high spirits, each with sword pellets and blade orbs of every size laid before him. "Hold still for now. Those are not our infantry's colors," the scar-faced veteran said, a little alarmed.

His gaze stayed fixed on the great host in the sky.

The tens of thousands of tower ships and flying chariots moved slowly through the air; yet opposite them, the armies of Southern Heaven were already surging in like a tide. Southern Heaven's human divine-ability users and gods formed one host, and the demigod divine-ability users and gods another; the humans charged at the very front, the demigod army behind them. Those demigods were tall of body and monstrous of strength, born with all manner of strange manifestations.

At the front of the host came Southern Heaven's tower ships, more numerous and larger still, cast wholly of divine gold, their prows shaped into Vermilion Birds or nine-headed phoenixes. Those were the Heavenly Court's old-model vessels.

Southern Heaven's army had no flying chariots. When the two armies were still three hundred li apart, the Jingping host to the north opened fire first. One true-essence cannon after another gathered its energy aboard the tower ships, and beam after beam pierced the sky, tracing out gorgeous arcs of light that plunged the battlefield into sudden gloom!

The cannon light was so bright that the sun in the sky lost its brilliance, and everything else seemed to fall into darkness.

Behind them, ripples of unease ran through the infantry.

Suddenly the infantry drums sounded, and the vanguard ahead began to move. As the drumbeats grew denser, the divine-ability users of the vanguard broke into a run, ten paces to a beat, racing forward! The unrest quickly spread to the unit where Shen Mu and the others stood. The veteran raised his voice: "Nobody run off on his own, and don't crowd where the press is thickest!

Spread out as far as you can! And remember, don't stray too far from this squad of ours — thirty zhang, thirty zhang at the most!

" They began to run.

Ahead, tower ship after tower ship fell from the sky trailing fire, smashing into the ground and bursting into enormous balls of flame; then the roar and blast of the explosions surged, rolling out in every direction! The foremost warships and tower ships had already closed to point-blank range. Southern Heaven's great tower ships might not match Jingping in the range of their firepower, but they were cast of divine gold and paid for with bottomless wealth; ship after ship withstood the cannon barrage.

Though no small number were shot down, they pressed through the cannon light into their own firing range and opened fire at once! The Southern Wilderness was still a murky gloom. The vessels of both sides wheeled and raced through the air, weaving up and down and through one another. Jingping's tower ships had somewhat thinner hulls, lacking that bottomless wealth, and no small number of them were blasted down as well.

Then the flying chariots came darting and weaving out from behind the tower ships, racing into the battlefield, nimbly dodging the cannon light of the enemy's great ships as they charged the enemy camp.

Suddenly a vast divine sense burst forth: "Flying swords — scour the ground! " Shen Mu and the others, still running in the rear, looked up.

Millions upon millions of flying swords poured down from those chariots, the slanting sword light falling ahead like a torrential rain, scouring a hundred li of ground in an instant! God after god erupted from Southern Heaven's tower ships and hurled themselves at the chariots; Jingping's divinities leaped up to intercept them. From the sky the gods' divine abilities fell again and again, and wherever they landed, men and horses were flung down in heaps. Against gods, the divine-ability users were still far too weak, too insignificant; survival was a matter of luck alone.

The infantry of both sides ran on. They had not yet come to grips with one another, and yet the ground was already strewn with corpses. Beside Shen Mu a man suddenly tripped over a corpse on the field.

Shen Mu was about to stop, but saw that the man had already been swallowed by the flood of divine-ability users. "Mind the stray swords!

" the scar-faced veteran shouted.

A whine — a sword light shot out from ahead and flew past them; someone behind had no time to dodge, was run through, and his body flung high into the air. Whine, whine, whine — the sword lights gradually thickened. Ahead lay the battlefield itself.

Shen Mu's squad was still more or less whole — only the young scholar who had fallen behind was nowhere to be seen — and the nine of them fought their way forward, when all at once, in the blink of an eye, they crashed into a dense forest of flesh and blood. Enemies were everywhere! "Get fired up, kill your way forward!

" the veteran shouted.

One after another the divine-ability users roused their sword pellets; with a ringing clang the pellets split apart into swimming flying swords. The veteran bellowed, "Keep your distance from one another — the reach of your sword moves is fifteen zhang!

Don't go beyond that! " They charged forward.

Shen Mu had only a single blade in his hand, but his feet were swift beyond measure, coming and going like wind and lightning; his hand rose and the blade fell, simple and clean, and whether he was breaking an enemy formation or breaking an enemy divine ability, it was as easy as turning his palm.

The veteran saw him holding his blade in hand and could not help but start slightly.

"A master of one of the combat-technique schools. " He raised his voice: "Don't fear them.

Those Southern Heaven whelps' sword arts and divine abilities are no match for ours.