Chapter 1446 — The Chipped Blade, the Broken Edge
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 5
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.