Chapter 2238: Waiting Patiently

He Lingchuan was only two *zhang* away from General Hong. With his agility, he could pounce at any moment.

But had he truly judged the timing perfectly?

Remembering the vast amount of intelligence he had gathered on Mitian, He Lingchuan's mind raced.

If he made even one wrong move, General Hong and Dragoncoil City would face utter defeat!

Mitian's primordial spirit was now only twenty *zhang* from General Hong.

Xu Shichu, who had weathered countless storms in his life, now felt a clammy sweat gathering in his palms.

Only ten *zhang* remained.

He Lingchuan did not move.

The distance between Mitian and General Hong further shortened to five *zhang*.

General Hong's Sea of Consciousness bore Mitian's mark, making it impossible for her to resist the possession.

Knowing that fleeing to the ends of the earth would still not save her, she chose to fight on without looking back, shooting an arrow that killed the orderly beside Wu Xianxian.

Xu Shichu was frantic: "General!"

At the speed of Mitian's primordial spirit, it would arrive in a single breath.

No matter how fast He Lingchuan was, pouncing would still take time. If he didn't move now, it would be too late!

Why was General Tigerwing standing still? What was he still hesitating about?

Xu Shichu was consumed by anxiety, and in a moment of agitation, he instinctively pushed He Lingchuan.

Yet, He Lingchuan remained unmoving: "No rush."

The more critical the moment, the calmer he became.

But in truth, his fists were tightly clenched.

He Lingchuan was gambling, staking the fate of all Dragoncoil on his judgment of Mitian being correct.

"What..." Xu Shichu gasped in alarm. Before he could utter the rest of his thought, the massive orb of light struck General Hong.

In that instant, General Hong shone brighter than the midday sun.

Yet Xu Shichu's heart plunged into an icy abyss.

It was too late. It was over.

"General He!" He looked at He Lingchuan, utterly bewildered, but still clutching a sliver of hope.

General Tigerwing was known for his courage and resourcefulness; even the King praised him as highly reliable. Was there some hidden reason for his uncharacteristic stillness today?

He Lingchuan raised his hand and spoke just two words: "A trap."

A trap? What did he mean?

Xu Shichu was no ordinary man either. Seeing He Lingchuan's calm, composed, and confident demeanor, he immediately pulled back from his previous agitation.

Was General Tigerwing's judgment that this great orb of light was not Mitian's true form descending?

How could he tell?

Such a grand display, such a magnificent descent...

Xu Shichu suddenly furrowed his brow. Wait, such a grand display?

If the King and General Hong hadn't miscalculated, Mitian would have known they would resist the descent. Therefore, It would certainly have made preparations and taken precautions for this true descent.

Mitian was the God of War of the Demon Realm, and on the battlefield, it has always been said that there is no limit to deception.

He Lingchuan glanced at Xu Shichu, and seeing his pensive expression, knew that he, too, had suspicions.

However, at this moment, he had no time to concern himself with Dean Xu; his full attention was on General Hong.

After being struck by the large fiery orb, General Hong's movements stiffened, and the Thunder-Responding Spear she had raised slowly lowered.

Only then did He Lingchuan spur his horse, reaching her side in two strides:

"General?"

General Hong stirred, her helmet vanishing on its own, revealing a beautiful yet indifferent face.

He Lingchuan immediately bowed: "Esteemed Divine Lord! The battle here is under control; why have you descended?"

It was no longer Zhong Wugan controlling General Hong's actions, but Mitian.

Mitian's gaze swept over him, seeing his surprised expression, and then indicated the Golden-Horned Rhinoceros herd with the tip of the spear: "Why aren't you advancing?"

After Its primordial spirit descended, General Golden-Horn saw no anomaly here and let out another roar, urging his kin to speed up.

A large herd of rhinos thundered forward, making the ground tremble slightly.

He Lingchuan had collaborated with Mitian's divine avatars more than once before, and was accustomed to Its demeanor. Without further ado, he turned his horse and once again charged towards the Golden-Horned Rhinoceros herd.

From the perspective of the hilltop, two armies were in chaotic battle on the ground, and thick clouds pressed down on the lake. However, the point of Mitian's divine descent had punched a hole in the dense cloud mass. This hole was expanding at a visible rate, with lightning flashing and thunder rumbling at its edges, while its center remained dark and gloomy, giving it an ominous, torn appearance.

What was happening with the sky?

Besides the chaotic ground battle, the descent of the four gods, and Zhong Shengguang and He Lingchuan's impending god-slaying plan, why was even the celestial phenomenon adding to the chaos?

However, He Lingchuan no longer had the energy to concern himself with matters in the sky. He had to focus all his attention on the charging rhinoceros herd before him.

Everyone saw General Tigerwing's black armor emit a dazzling red light. Immediately after, he extended his long halberd, not to strike a person, but to plunge it into the ground.

For an instant, the light of origin energy seemed to coalesce, forming a blood-red, purplish-tinged serpent shadow on the halberd's shaft, which then propagated from the tip into the ground.

"Earth Dragon Moves Mountains, Rise!"

As the halberd struck the ground, his warhorse reared up, its neigh echoing, and stopped advancing.

But the surrounding warriors clearly saw something release from the spear tip into the ground, and then the terrain of the battlefield directly in front of General Tigerwing suddenly changed!

This area was originally a rare open space by the lake; otherwise, two or three thousand people wouldn't have been crammed here, hacking at each other. But at He Lingchuan's command, an "Earth Dragon Flips Over" suddenly unfolded!

The ground shifted: some areas frantically rose, others rapidly sank. Both friendly and enemy forces lost their footing and scrambled to get out of the way.

After only about a dozen breaths, the "Earth Dragon Flips Over" was complete. The bird demons circling high above let out surprised shrieks.

From their perspective, it looked as if a giant python lay coiled beneath the battlefield by the lake, its body forming the raised slopes.

It positioned itself perfectly between the Golden-Horned Rhinoceros herd and He Lingchuan and General Hong.

In other words, the previously flat ground between the two sides had transformed into three undulating, stacked slopes!

Everyone knew that the best terrain for large beasts to charge was flat ground. If they had to continuously go uphill, downhill, uphill again, downhill again... and if the slopes were steep, their speed would undoubtedly be affected, and their momentum and power would be shattered.

After climbing two slopes, the Golden-Horned Rhinoceros herd's speed had halved. Because their initial charge was too fast, two of their kin accidentally stumbled while going downhill and couldn't get up for a long time, much to their frustration.

Only then did He Lingchuan retrieve his halberd.

The wondrous applications of origin energy were boundless; he had only just begun to comprehend a fraction of it, and already saw its power in this trial.

This move was not a combat technique, but a divine ability. Mighty figures before the Middle Antiquity era used it to alter topography. In later generations, it often required many cultivators to combine their efforts and formations, taking a long time to prepare before completion.

He Lingchuan used his true power as a catalyst to activate this divine ability, then supplemented it with origin energy.

The moment he cast the spell, he could feel his origin energy being violently siphoned away, as if suddenly falling into a bottomless pit.

No wonder Nian Zanli's use of the Greenery Bottle in the past instantly drained the entire army's origin energy. Such large-scale divine abilities were extremely energy-intensive.

Fortunately, Dragoncoil Army's origin energy was abundant enough to withstand it.

But he was not entirely satisfied, because the "Earth Dragon Moves Mountains" he unleashed didn't quite match his expectations. The "earth dragon's" edges were blurred and irregular; rather than a giant python, it looked more like a half-coiled mosquito coil.