Chapter 932
The Hidden Red Thread
These people had completely lost any semblance of the dignity of "disciples of immortals." They were wrapped in tattered Taoist robes, some even tearing open mortal quilts to wrap themselves in. Each of them had a wolfish green gleam in their eyes, their lips were frozen purple, and they gripped flying swords or magical artifacts tightly in their hands, the veins on the back of their hands bulging.
"Senior Brother Yin Feng, Junior Brother Lie Huo, Junior Brother Hei Shui." Mo Ku turned his head and looked at the three inner sect elders standing at the front, his voice hoarse as if rubbing sandpaper, "Look carefully. This is the current fate of our Qingyun Sect!"
Yin Feng Zhenren leaned on his broken bone staff, his body trembling slightly from the cold and internal injuries. He didn't speak, but stared intently at Mo Ku with his eerie green eyes.
An elder with a full head of red hair and the most volatile temper stepped forward; he was none other than the peak master of Blazing Fire Peak. He spat a mouthful of bloody saliva into the snow: "Mo Ku! Stop spouting nonsense! If you hadn't insisted on provoking that Hongyun City, would we be in such a state that we can't even afford a bowl of hot soup?! My Blazing Fire Peak's alchemy furnace hasn't been lit for ten whole days!"
"Bullshit!" Mo Ku suddenly shrieked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "Did I cause this? It's those mortal ants who have gone too far! They cut off our spirit stones and our medicinal herbs! That old turtle sect leader is hiding in the Taiqing Hall in seclusion, saying he's waiting for reinforcements from the Southern Frontier! Waiting for what?! By the time the reinforcements arrive, we'll all starve to death on this snow mountain and turn into ice sculptures!"
Mo Ku stepped forward, grabbed Elder Liehuo by the collar, and stared at him with bloodshot eyes.
"Look at the disciples behind you! Listen to the rumbling in their stomachs! Without spirit stones to replenish their true essence, even those at the Foundation Establishment stage will gradually freeze to death on this snow-covered mountain with its protective array closed! You still want to endure it? What are you going to use to endure it!"
The elder of Blackwater Peak was a middle-aged man with a effeminate face. He stepped forward, pulled Mo Ku's hand away, and said coldly, "Senior Brother Mo, getting angry won't help. What exactly do you want by calling all of us here today, even those errand boys from the outer sect? Just say it."
"Go down the mountain."
Mo Ku uttered these two words, exhaling a puff of white air.
"Go down the mountain?" Yin Feng Zhenren sneered. "How? Have you forgotten the ten-mile-long cordon outside Hongyun City? Are you going to your death?"
"Are we going to wait here to die instead of throwing our lives away?" Mo Ku suddenly turned around and pointed south, towards Hongyun City. "Don't they have food? Aren't they using mid-grade spirit stones as city bricks? Haven't they absorbed all the resources of Dingzhou?"
Mo Ku spread his arms wide, like a mad instigator, and roared at the two thousand hungry disciples behind him.
"Disciples of the Qingyun Sect! Are you still going to be eating ice blocks in this snowdrift? The mortals down the mountain, those ants you trampled underfoot, are now eating hot roasted meat and drinking the strongest liquor! Their warehouses are overflowing with spirit stones and pills that should have belonged to you!"
Suppressed, heavy breathing began to rise from the crowd.
"They only have one city! They're just a bunch of mortals!" Mo Ku's voice echoed through the wind and snow, carrying a bewitching magic. "We have two thousand cultivators! We can bite that Black Stone City to pieces, even if we have to use our teeth! Charge in! Kill that guy surnamed Zheng! The spirit stones, pills, food, and women in the city are all yours! Whoever gets them, gets them!"
"Rob!"
A hungry outer disciple, his eyes glazed over, suddenly raised his flying sword and let out a hysterical howl.
That sound was like pouring a ladle of cold water into a pot of boiling oil.
"Rob! Kill your way down the mountain! Rob the food! Rob the spirit stones!"
"I'm not cultivating immortality anymore! I want to eat! I want to eat meat!"
"Raze Hongyun City to the ground!"
Driven by extreme hunger and despair, more than two thousand monks completely abandoned all reason and dignity, transforming into a pack of utter bandits and beasts. They brandished their weapons madly, emitting chilling howls.
Master Yin Feng looked at the disciples who had completely lost control, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath of the cold air.
"Junior Brother Mo, you're pushing the last bit of Qingyun Sect's strength into a fire pit."
"Senior Brother Yin Feng, if we're going to push, we'll all push together!" Mo Ku turned his head and stared intently at him. "If you don't go, once we take Hongyun City, you won't get a single grain of rice from it!"
Yin Feng Zhenren suddenly opened his eyes, a ghostly green light flashing in them. He gritted his teeth and slammed his broken bone staff heavily onto the snow.
"Let's go! Down the mountain!"
There were no flying boats, no dazzling escape lights.
Because the remaining true essence in their bodies was no longer sufficient to support long-distance sword flight. More than two thousand Qingyun Sect cultivators, like a group of refugees migrating through the snow, stumbled out of the Qingyun Mountains and rushed towards Hongyun City along the icy official road.
……
At the same time.
Hongyun City, South Wall.
The snow was still falling, but there wasn't a single snowdrift on the city walls.
Every ten steps, there was a huge iron brazier burning fiercely, burning smokeless coal mixed with the oil of fire-attribute monsters, and the rolling heat waves emanating from it warmed the bluestone slabs on the city wall.
Zhao Sanhuai, shirtless and wearing only a leather vest, was squatting beside a brazier, holding a large iron pot the size of a washbasin. Inside the pot simmered a large piece of marbled beef, the broth bubbling and releasing a rich aroma that wafted far and wide through the snow.
"Commander! Try this piece of meat and see if it's cooked through!" Zhao Sanhuai used the tip of his knife to pick up a piece of beef the size of a fist and handed it to Guo Tianyou next to him.
Guo Tianyou was wearing that dark red heavy bone armor, without even taking off his helmet. He lifted the visor of his helmet, took a bite of the scalding hot beef, his mouth watering from the heat, yet he chewed it with gusto.
"Damn, that feels good! In this freezing weather, all I need is a hot meal like this!" Guo Tianyou swallowed the meat, wiped the grease from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, then walked to the edge of the stack, grabbed a handful of snow, and casually wiped his hands.
He had just lowered his hand when he heard steady footsteps behind him.
Zheng Yi wore a grayish-blue cotton robe with a black fox fur cloak over it. This cloak, which Han Wuhen had bought from Dingzhou City at great expense, was impervious to water and fire, but on Zheng Yi, it gave off a cool and aloof feeling, like a schoolteacher wearing a straw raincoat.
Han Wuhen and Elder Liu followed closely behind Zheng Yi. Han Wuhen was carrying a delicate red clay stove with a pot of yellow wine warming on it.
"Sir!" Guo Tianyou and Zhao Sanhuai immediately stood up straight, and the surrounding soldiers also paid their respects in unison.
Zheng Yi waved his hand, walked to the front of the battlements, and looked through the swirling snow to the distant wilderness.
"Have any reports come back from the scouts?" Zheng Yi asked casually.
"Reporting to you, sir!" Iron One-Eyed emerged from the shadows of the city tower, his ghost mask pushed up to his head, his single eye gleaming with excitement. "Just received a message by carrier pigeon. The mad dog of Qingyun Mountain has come down the mountain!"
Upon hearing this, the soldiers on the city wall were not afraid at all. Instead, they let out a suppressed chuckle, and some of them even began to rub their hands together and re-examine the winch of the heavy crossbow.
"How many people came?" Zheng Yi's tone remained completely flat.
“They’re everywhere, like a locust plague. There must be at least two thousand of them!” Iron One-Eye grinned, revealing his yellowed teeth. “But sir, these immortals look pitiful. Few of them are flying in the sky; they’re all wading through the snow on their own two legs. Our scouts are hiding in snowdrifts, and they can even hear their stomachs rumbling.”
“They’re starving.” Zheng Yi nodded, turned to Guo Tianyou, and asked, “Tianyou, is the perimeter security line all set up?” “Don’t worry, sir!” Guo Tianyou patted his chest with his armor, making a muffled thud. “There are three thousand ‘ground fire mines’ buried underground along the ten-mile perimeter security line. They’re all made from discarded mid-grade spirit stone slag mixed with gunpowder and copper scraps. As long as they’re touched by a bit of true energy fluctuation, they’ll explode in large numbers. We’ll make sure they can’t even touch the base of our city walls!”
"Old Liu," Zheng Yi looked at Elder Liu, "how is the city's protective formation in operation?"
Elder Liu stroked his beard, looking somewhat pained but also incredibly confident, and said, "Sir, all 50,000 mid-grade spirit stones have been filled into the array's core. The underground water veins and earth fire veins have perfectly merged with the array. In Hongyun City now, let alone two thousand starving cultivators, even if ten Golden Core peak old monsters joined forces to bombard it for three days and three nights, they wouldn't be able to break through this defense!"
"Okay." Zheng Yi turned his head and looked again into the depths of the snowstorm.
"Fatty Han, pour the wine."
Han Wuhen quickly took the wine pot off the red clay stove and poured a cup of warm yellow wine into the white jade cup in front of Zheng Yi. The aroma of the wine instantly filled the air.
Zheng Yi picked up his wine glass, but instead of drinking, he held it horizontally in front of his chest.
"Brothers." Zheng Yi's voice, amplified by the surge of his true energy, clearly echoed throughout the entire southern city wall.
All the soldiers stopped what they were doing, straightened their backs, and stared with fervent eyes at the figure in the gray cotton robe.
“Three months ago, they were arrogant and looked down on us like ants. They thought they could decide where the wind blew and where the rain fell in Dingzhou.”
Zheng Yi's voice wasn't loud, but every word was like a knife, etched into everyone's heart.
“They cut off our roads, killed our caravans, and even tried to trap us in this city with subtle means.”
Zheng Yi tightened his grip on the wine glass, his knuckles turning white.
"But today, they crawled toward us in the snow like a pack of wild dogs, hungry. They wanted to steal our meat and drink our soup."
Zheng Yi suddenly turned around and splashed the yellow wine in his cup onto the black rock bricks at his feet.
"I, Zheng Yi, am making this clear today. Every brick, every tile, every grain of rice, every drop of soup in Hongyun City was earned by our brothers with their lives!"
A terrifying killing intent flashed in Zheng Yi's eyes, and his voice boomed like thunder in the wind and snow.
"Anyone who crosses the ten-mile warning line will be killed!"
"Those who fly in the sky, kill them!"
"Anyone who dares to look even once at my Hongyun City will be killed without mercy!!!"
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
On the city wall, tens of thousands of defenders roared in unison. The earth-shattering roar even drowned out the howling wind and shook a piece of the cloud above the city wall.
Guo Tianyou suddenly drew his sword and pointed it straight at the sky.
"Heavy Armor Battalion, listen up! Crossbows, nock! Fire arrows, load! Open your eyes wide! If anyone lets a single bastard escape today, I'll chop off his head and use it as a chamber pot!"
"Snap! Snap! Snap!"
The continuous clanging of mechanisms filled the air. Thousands of repeating heavy crossbows and dozens of massive eight-ox crossbows, like ancient beasts awakening, slowly raised their cold and deadly heads.
……
On the wasteland fifteen miles away from Hongyun City.
The snow was falling heavier and heavier, almost completely obscuring people's vision.
Mo Ku walked at the front of the group, his legs already numb from the cold in the snow. He gasped for breath, each breath feeling like a knife cutting into his lungs.
“Senior Brother Mo, we can’t go on like this.” Yin Feng Zhenren, leaning on his bone cane, limped along beside him. His lips had lost all color. “The disciples are too hungry to walk. If we don’t start a fire and rest soon, half of them will freeze to death before we even reach Hongyun City.”
"Rest my ass!" Mo Ku whirled around, his face contorted beyond recognition. "Stopping means death! Keep moving forward, and you'll find food when you get there! Look ahead!"
Mo Ku pointed to the huge, indistinct black shadow in the wind and snow.
"That's Hongyun City! Can you smell it? The aroma of meat! I can smell the aroma of meat!" Mo Ku sniffed like a madman.
Upon hearing the words "fragrant meat," the disciples who were already on the verge of their limits suddenly gleamed with a terrifying light, as if in a final burst of energy.
"Meat...there's meat to eat..."
"There's meat in town! Charge!"
It's unclear who started it, but suddenly, more than two thousand cultivators seemed to have been injected with adrenaline, and a strange, malevolent force arose from nowhere. They began to run wildly in the knee-deep snow.
Some disciples found the snow difficult to walk on, and even forcibly squeezed out the last bit of true energy in their bodies, summoning their flying swords and flying shakily close to the snow surface at low altitude.
Fifteen li.
Twelve miles.
Eleven miles.
The dark walls of Hongyun City became clearer and clearer in their view. They could even see the huge braziers burning on the walls and the soldiers standing on the city walls.
In their subconscious, mortal cities are nothing but paper. As long as they rush to the city walls, a few spells can easily blast open the gates, and then they can storm in and wreak havoc, stuffing steaming hot food into their stomachs.
"Charge! Blast the gate open!" Elder Liehuo roared, conjuring a small fireball in his hand.
A large number of cultivators, their eyes red, surged across a red line covered in snow, a line that was extremely well hidden.
A ten-mile-long cordon.
Inside the watchtower atop the city wall. (End of Chapter)