After the cannon fire rang out, buildings and the earth shook violently—it felt like a massive earthquake had struck.
The common people throughout the city were filled with terror, their blood boiling within their bodies, their ears ringing from the deafening cannon blast!
Jun Changxiao had already been quite considerate of them by setting up the field artillery on the mountains outside the city. Otherwise, if he’d fired the cannons within the city, countless people would have been directly shocked into vomiting blood or knocked unconscious!
The commoners had low cultivation levels, so being unable to withstand the cannon sounds was perfectly normal.
However, the Miaohua Palace disciples standing on the city walls all possessed decent cultivation, yet under the cannon fire, they were still shocked pale!
Elder Changsun Fanghua and the others stood with mouths agape.
Though their cultivation was profound enough to resist the impact force brought by the sound, they were completely stunned by the scene outside the city!
There, one hundred thousand Zhenyang Commandery soldiers had originally been preparing to assault the city.
As a streak of flowing light dragged an arc downward, it not only produced a massive explosion but also raised a mushroom-shaped cloud!
What… what was happening!
Could it be that some powerful expert had just unleashed an extremely high-level martial technique?!
Whoosh! Whoosh!
In the explosion zone, fierce winds howled.
Violent, raging energy rippled outward in all directions like spreading waves.
The Italian cannon’s power was truly formidable!
But it made things hard for Xiao Zuiji. Even though he’d stuffed his ears with something beforehand, he was still shaken into spinning in place, eventually sitting down on the ground dizzy and disoriented.
This was still with his superior physical constitution—if it had been Su Xiaomo, she’d definitely be convulsing on the ground again.
……
The explosion’s aftershocks gradually dissipated.
Outside Qingyang City, a deep crater several hundred zhang across suddenly appeared!
“Hiss!”
Xie Guangkun drew in a sharp breath, his gaze filling with terror.
What shocked and frightened him wasn’t just the crater, but also the tens of thousands of soldiers lying outside it, their flesh mangled beyond recognition!
In the outer perimeter, there were still many more—some had perished from being caught in the aftershocks, others had narrowly survived but were all gravely injured without exception, lying on the ground in agonized moans and groans.
The most terrifying part was still inside the crater.
There were shattered armor fragments and scattered pieces of flesh!
Nearly ten thousand soldiers at the explosion’s epicenter had been directly blown to bits, leaving not even intact corpses!
“Thud!”
Bai Ruihu, who had just struggled to stand up, was so shocked he sat back down on the ground, his eyes flooding with overwhelming horror!
One hundred thousand soldiers nearly completely annihilated in a single massive explosion—the震撼ness and impact of this was simply too immense!
The soldiers of the White Tiger Legion who hadn’t gone into battle were so frightened their scalps exploded!
What exactly was that streak of flowing light that had just flown over, capable of producing such terrifying destructive power!
In that moment.
Throughout the entire White Tiger Legion, everyone was filled with terror!
The Wolf Cavalry and Tiegu Sect disciples had also brought them considerable shock, but it was nowhere near comparable to a single cannon shot—after all, the killing power was just too great!
“General Bai.”
Jun Changxiao on the tower said, “Are you satisfied?”
Having obliterated one hundred thousand troops and stripped them of their combat capability with a single cannon shot, Bai Ruihu wasn’t just very satisfied—he was satisfied to the point his scalp went numb!
He suppressed his terror, his voice trembling as he asked, “Was… was that a Wuwang-level or higher expert who just attacked!”
Changsun Fanghua and Leng Xingyue were also pondering this question, but ultimately rejected it, because when the flowing light came, they hadn’t detected any spiritual energy fluctuations.
This meant there was no powerful expert attacking nearby.
And judging from the flowing light just now, it seemed more like some kind of hidden weapon!
Jun Changxiao shrugged and said, “Your Zhenyang Commandery has spirit core-powered catapults, demon-explosive crossbows, and siege engines—naturally our Tiegu Sect also has ingeniously crafted battlefield weapons.”
Hearing this, Changsun Fanghua and Leng Xingyue could confirm that the flowing light was indeed a hidden weapon. To unleash such formidable power, could it have been forged from high-grade crystal cores?
The two women weren’t wrong in their guess.
The cannonball was indeed condensed from crystal cores.
However, pure crystal core energy alone couldn’t produce such devastating power—everything stemmed from the field artillery itself.
This magically modified Italian cannon could transform energy to produce even greater damage.
Bai Ruihu’s complexion turned extremely ugly.
So the Tiegu Sect had such a powerful trump card—no wonder they could remain so calm before his three hundred thousand troops!
What to do? What to do?
Bai Ruihu had been blasted by that single cannon shot into losing all will to fight.
To put it precisely, he’d become a complete coward.
One hundred thousand troops obliterated in an instant, blown to death and injury—even if you replaced him with a five-star general like Xue Rengui, they’d still be terrified!
“Of course.”
Jun Changxiao said, “That was just a greeting gift. The real battle has only just begun.”
“Swoosh!”
He leaped onto the tower’s rooftop, spreading both hands wide.
Buzz!
Buzz!
On both the left and right sides outside Qingyang City, flowing light barriers suddenly appeared.
“Formation arrays?”
Changsun Fanghua and Leng Xingyue exchanged glances.
Suddenly, they recalled how yesterday this fellow had wandered alone outside the city with his hands behind his back, occasionally using a tree branch to scribble randomly on the ground.
At the time, the two had wondered—was this guy bored out of his mind?
Looking at it now, he apparently hadn’t been doing something pointless, but rather… setting up formations!
“How is this possible!”
Changsun Fanghua said incredulously.
When formation masters set up arrays, they were invariably serious and meticulous. Yet this guy had just scribbled casually and could form an array?
He could.
Very easily, in fact.
Because what he’d set up was one of the Thirty-Two Qimen Formations.
“General Bai.”
Jun Changxiao raised his hand, a smile curving at the corner of his mouth as he said, “This Seat will let you witness today what’s called an elite army, what’s called a mighty army!”
“Clap!”
His palms pressed tightly together.
Swoosh!
Swoosh!
The isolation arrays standing on both sides of the city suddenly vanished, revealing in everyone’s field of vision soldiers wearing battle armor, radiating mighty momentum and cold gazes!
The number: a total of one hundred thousand!
Sect Leader Jun feared that directly scattering beans to create soldiers would cause enormous shock and bring unnecessary trouble upon himself, so he’d arranged the spirit beans inside the isolation arrays beforehand.
This way, no one would think the soldiers were transformed from beans—they’d only assume he’d set up an ambush outside the city in advance.
Xie Guangkun was dumbfounded, then his eyes filled with excitement.
So Sect Leader Jun had more than one contingency plan!
Changsun Fanghua and Leng Xingyue, however, furrowed their brows, thinking to themselves, “Though these soldiers have no martial aura, their strength must certainly be exceptional!”
Why did they think this?
Because they could tell from their momentum and their eyes!
The battle-hardened Bai Ruihu naturally realized this as well.
The enemy had weapons of war with extreme killing power, plus so many elite soldiers—this was extremely troublesome!
Retreat?
The thought had barely formed when Jun Changxiao, standing on the tower, manipulated the one hundred thousand spirit bean soldiers to advance with orderly steps.
Fifty thousand troops on each side gradually surrounded Bai Ruihu’s less than two hundred thousand soldiers.
“Sect Leader Jun—accomplished in both civil and military arts, bringing blessings to all people, for a thousand autumns and ten thousand generations, unifying the jianghu!” The spirit bean soldiers shouted in unison, their voices reverberating through the firmament, lingering without fading.
System: “……”
That the soldiers would shout such a slogan was definitely Jun Changxiao’s mental command!
Did he still have any shame?
“You understand nothing!”
Jun Changxiao said, “This is momentum!”
The System said, “That slogan belongs to Dongfang Bubai. Host should first cut off the extra bits down below, then he’ll meet the standard for ‘a thousand autumns and ten thousand generations, unifying the jianghu.'”