Chapter 498: At the Brink of Collapse

"Go!"

With a command.

From within the army of corpses, groups of head-sized corpse puppets suddenly flapped their wings and took flight. These were demonic wasps, their bodies riddled with potent venom. Their numbers reached over a thousand!

As they soared, they resembled a dark cloud, silently sweeping over the summit of Mount Jie.

Lei Zhenhai seemed to sense something, his expression changing. "Be careful, there are flying demonic beasts!"

But the warning came too late. The disciples, intently focused on fighting the beast tide, remained completely unaware.

One male disciple of the Myriad Sword Sect, holding a log aloft, suddenly let out a tragic cry. A huge, rotting demonic wasp had thrust a jet-black stinger from its rear deep into his neck. At the ninth Foundation Establishment layer, he only managed one scream before his entire body turned black. Immediately after, he fell straight down. The burning log in his hand also fell onto him, quickly igniting his body.

"Junior Brother Liu!" Liang Feiyan exclaimed. He rushed over, kicked aside the log, and extinguished the flames on the disciple's body. But when he picked him up, he saw blood flowing from all seven orifices, and the disciple was already dead.

"Junior Brother!!" Liang Feiyan cried out in grief.

Seeing the wasp that stung him about to escape, he swung his sword backhand and cut it to pieces. However, the ruptured wasp's blood plasma splattered towards his face!

Whoosh—

Jiang Fan arrived just in time. With a flick of his sleeve, he caught all the blood plasma.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—

His sleeve, however, was melted by the plasma, forming numerous holes.

"Senior Brother Liang, calm down," Jiang Fan said.

Liang Feiyan's pupils constricted. He cupped one hand in the other towards Jiang Fan and said, "Thank you, Junior Brother Jiang." There was a hint of a choke in his voice, and his eyes were also reddened.

This disciple before him was his direct junior brother, both under the Sect Master. He was a gentle and refined person. He had heard that his family had arranged a marriage for him with a dignified and gentle young lady. The wedding was scheduled for next spring. But he would never live to see that day.

"You beasts!" Liang Feiyan yelled, setting the body down. With reddened eyes, he angrily slashed at a demonic wasp that was attacking a female disciple of the Joyous Union Sect. "You didn't even give me a chance to save him! Why? Why?"

Jiang Fan looked deeply at Junior Brother Liu. He sighed silently in his heart. This was war. Junior Brother Liu was the first to fall, but he wouldn't be the last! A fire burned within him. He drew his Mourning Frost Sword with a backhand motion and slashed at an erratically flying demonic wasp nearby. The intense cold, while shattering it, also froze its entire body and blood plasma, preventing it from splattering onto the people around him.

Similar scenes were unfolding across the entire Mount Jie. The suddenly appearing venomous wasps completely disrupted their rhythm. People frantically slew the wasps, lacking sufficient manpower to suppress the army of corpses.

By the time Lei Zhenhai realized the gravity of the situation, it was already too late! The beast tide had crossed the final fifty zhang of ice. Massive bodies now appeared before them!

"Watch out!!!" Lei Zhenhai could only issue a deafening warning. But with venomous wasps above them and corpse puppets before them, they were caught completely off guard! This battle line was on the verge of collapsing!

Jiang Fan's expression changed drastically. Had the battle situation taken such a sudden turn for the worse? Once the battle line crumbled, their defeat would be swift and overwhelming! No! The beast tide could not be allowed to rush up. At least they needed time to regroup! Otherwise, all would be lost!

Watching as some corpse puppets stepped onto the last bit of slippery ice and began climbing the mountain, Jiang Fan's eyes lit up. Immediately after, a hint of concern appeared, but a moment later, he gritted his teeth and resolutely pulled out the Purple Sword.

"Go!"

He rubbed his hands together, and the Purple Sword spun rapidly as it flew out. But it wasn't to kill the corpse puppets; instead, it rapidly cut through the ice at the junction of the peak and the slope. In a flash, the several-hundred-zhang-wide slope was sliced open by the incredibly sharp Purple Sword, creating a long fissure.

Immediately after, Jiang Fan summoned the Five Magnetic Yuan Mountain, allowing it to grow against the wind into a small hill. Then, using his soul power, he lifted it ten zhang into the air. Finally, he smashed it down fiercely onto the ice surface!

Boom, boom, boom, boom—

The sound was no less than that of a hundred savage elephants colliding with Mount Jie. A massive tremor shook the snowy slope. The upper half of the ice, which had been severed, could no longer bear the weight. It catastrophically slid down from the cut, carrying with it the densely packed demonic beast corpses, which thundered down the several-hundred-zhang snowy slope like a torrent. It swept away everything in its path. Whether corpses or corpse puppets, all were engulfed by this icy torrent, swept down Mount Jie, and rapidly carried forward. It crushed five or six hundred puppet corpses along the way, finally stopping only when it reached the feet of the Demonic Priestess.

The biting cold, mixed with the stench of countless rotting corpses, assaulted them. The Demonic Priestess's face was filled with icy fury! Gazing at the chaotic battlefield and at the cleared snowy slope, the flames in her eyes uncontrollably surged outwards.

"Good, good, good!" she fumed. "So this is how you play, huh? Excellent command! This priestess will personally deal with you! Go!"

Boom, boom, boom—

The remaining five thousand corpse puppets, now unimpeded, charged towards Mount Jie. With the smooth ice surface gone, the rolling logs could no longer slide down freely; they would get stuck halfway. After sacrificing half of her corpse army, the Demonic Priestess could finally engage in direct combat with the human cultivators defending Mount Jie!

At this moment, the people had finally cleared out the demonic wasps. So far, only Liu Wanfeng of the Myriad Sword Sect had perished; the rest had sustained no major injuries. The few dozen who were wounded had accidentally been splattered by the wasps' blood plasma while slaying them. Fortunately, Wen Hongyao, who was skilled in medicine, was present and quickly treated their injuries. Apart from a few with severe injuries who couldn't recover immediately, the rest were able to continue fighting.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The situation just now had been truly perilous. If the ice surface hadn't suddenly collapsed and swept away the corpse army, they would have been caught between two fires. The consequences would have been unimaginable.

Lei Zhenhai stomped on the last demonic wasp, killing it. He turned his head and cast a deep glance at Jiang Fan in the distance. Others might not have known, but he saw it clearly. In that critical moment, it was Jiang Fan who cut off the ice surface, saving the battle. And he also clearly saw the items used: one was a mountain that could enlarge, and the other was the Purple Sword, which the Giant Sect had been searching for as the weapon that killed Tie Bubai!

Lei Zhenhai's gaze flickered. He calmly withdrew his gaze and looked towards the vast army of corpses surging from the foot of the mountain. They were now completely unobstructed, surging towards the mountain peak.

Lei Zhenhai took a deep breath and declared loudly: "The real hard fight is here! Elders and disciples of all sects! Hold your defensive lines! We fight to the death!"

After speaking, he was the first to attack. Ten lightning-struck logs were arranged before him, each one fully charged with lightning. The cultivation technique of the True Thunder Sect could not generate lightning on its own; instead, it had to borrow the power of heavenly lightning. The amount of external lightning power determined their strength. The ten lightning-struck logs were something he had specially brought.

"Annihilate!" Lei Zhenhai's gaze was sharp. He noticed, concealed by the firelight, a cold-faced young woman standing with her hands clasped behind her back on the back of a demonic beast. He immediately guessed her identity. "The Demonic Priestess!" Lei Zhenhai pointed a finger. The ten bolts of lightning converged into a single bolt as thick as an arm. It arrived instantly, striking towards the Demonic Priestess. Her expression changed, and her figure vanished like an illusion, disappearing from her spot in an instant.

Bang—

She narrowly dodged it. Where she had stood moments before, all the corpse puppets within a hundred-zhang radius had their death qi scattered, and fell to the ground, lifeless!

"Lightning path?" She clutched her aching right arm; although she had dodged in time, she had still been grazed by the lightning's aftershock. Her right arm was a bloody mess from the electric shock. "You're the commander, and also that bastard's master, aren't you?"

That bastard also specialized in the lightning path. He even dispersed the death qi of her Nine-Headed Giant Python! She heard that among the Nine Sects, only disciples of the True Thunder Sect specialized in the lightning path. The commander before her was, without a doubt, that bastard's master.

Lei Zhenhai slightly frowned. He was indeed the commander. But what was this about being "that bastard's master"?