Chapter 1054: Breakout
Huang Yanchen moved to the very back of the team, using her sacred sword to slay all the savage beasts that charged up from behind. Her swordsmanship was exceptionally sharp, fully showcasing the advantages of a sword cultivator. With each sword strike, a large swath of beasts fell.
In just a short quarter-hour, their team had already killed over a thousand formidable savage beasts. Everywhere they passed was littered with the corpses of these creatures. It was worth noting that the beasts able to reach the Azure Dragon Ruins Realm were at least at the fourth-rank beast level, each one extremely ferocious—there were no low-level beasts among them.
The human cultivators watching from afar saw that wherever the beast horde rushed to the edge of the dark region, they would immediately turn into corpses or vanish without a trace, an eerie sight.
"What... what's going on? How did a dark area appear?" some human cultivators questioned.
"It must be some major force trying to break out of Yingsha City amidst the chaos, to escape the beast encirclement," someone speculated.
Among the human cultivators present, only Wan Huayu likely knew that it was a team led by Gu Linfeng, the Divine Son of the Blood God Sect. She had been watching Gu Linfeng's every move and had personally witnessed them charging out of the city.
Initially, Wan Huayu thought Gu Linfeng was seeking his own death, but she never expected him to actually carve out a bloody path and reach the breach in the city wall.
Staring at the piles of beast carcasses on the ground, Wan Huayu felt a chill in her heart and muttered to herself, "It seems I've still underestimated Gu Linfeng. He must have other top-tier experts by his side."
The purple-robed elder and the Fire Golden Crow Beast King had already reached a fever pitch in their battle. In the end, because the purple-robed elder was too advanced in age and couldn't sustain a prolonged fight, his blood energy rapidly declined, and he gradually fell into a disadvantage.
"Boom! Boom!"
The Fire Golden Crow Beast King, full of vigor, grew increasingly ferocious in his attacks, forcing the purple-robed elder to retreat step by step. The elder's body slammed into a wall, leveling all the buildings on the right side of a street.
His face was deathly pale, a thread of blood hanging from the corner of his mouth, and his wrinkled hands trembled incessantly.
"If... if I were thirty years younger... I would surely defeat you..."
After saying this, the elder broke into a fit of coughs, more blood trickling from his lips. He was severely injured, with cracks in his five viscera and six bowels. It was already a great feat that he had held on this long.
The other main battlefields were also not looking good. The combat power of the beast kings was formidable, leaving a trail of corpses wherever they went.
Not far away, the alliance of the Blood God Sect, the Shangguan Clan, and the Cai Clan was locked in battle with the Golden Armor Beast King. Not only had they failed to suppress the beast king, but they had also suffered heavy casualties. Even the combined efforts of the three top experts—Hai Lingyin, Shangguan Yi, and Cai Jinglun—could only manage to hold the beast king at bay.
Wan Huayu led a group of experts from the Wan Clan, forming a combined attack formation, and finally managed to repel the Fire Golden Crow Beast King, rescuing the purple-robed elder.
The Fire Golden Crow Beast King's eyes held a hint of contempt. "What's the use of struggling? Only six of the twelve beast clans have breached Yingsha City, and they've already beaten you into a defensive stance. Once the other six clans break in, do you think you'll have any way out?"
Wan Huayu glanced toward the breach in the city wall and immediately gave an order, "Form a combined attack formation and follow behind that dark area. Break out of the city."
The purple-robed elder, enduring his injuries, reminded her, "Your Highness the Princess, why are we breaking through from the front? If we open the city-protecting grand formations on the other three sides, can't we escape more easily?"
Wan Huayu shook her head. "Only six of the twelve beast clans have charged into Yingsha City. The other six are surely stationed at the south, west, and east directions. Opening the city-protecting grand formations won't let us escape; instead, it will trap the human cultivators in the city between two fronts."
Everyone had different choices. Some wanted to seize this opportunity to break out of Yingsha City and enter the vast world of the Azure Dragon Ruins Realm. Others wanted to repel the savage beasts, hold the military base, and save their own lives.
Undoubtedly, the former was far more dangerous. If the breakout failed, it would mean total annihilation. But those who chose the latter, even if they repelled the beasts that had broken into Yingsha City, would still be trapped inside the military base.
The Wan Clan was a very powerful medieval aristocratic clan with significant influence in the Ministry of War. Many military saintly clan cultivators were also attached to the Wan Clan. Thus, Wan Huayu naturally had a wealth of experts under her command.
Most of them came from the military, battle-hardened, clad in armor. They formed a triangular battle formation and advanced, closely following behind Zhang Ruochen and his group.
Swarms of Fire Golden Crows dove down from the sky, but they couldn't breach the battle formation at all, suffering countless casualties instead.
"Kill!"
Wan Huayu stood at the forefront of the formation, wielding a war sword, cleaving all the charging beasts in two.
The Fire Golden Crow Beast King wanted to kill Wan Huayu. Between his hands, a crystal-clear ox-horn skull emerged, only the size of a fist but exceptionally smooth, like an artwork carved from divine jade. Yet the aura it emitted was terrifying, causing all living beings in Yingsha City to tremble.
"The aura of a Great Saint."
Wan Huayu suddenly looked up, fixing her gaze on the Fire Golden Crow Beast King. She immediately swung her war sword, pointing it toward him.
The power of the combined attack formation erupted, forming a massive war sword phantom that slashed upward, colliding with the ox-horn skull the beast king had unleashed.
With a thunderous roar, a powerful shockwave surged outward from the center of the formation, blasting all nearby beasts and human cultivators away. Some beasts and cultivators had their physical bodies directly burst apart, turning into bloody fragments of bone.
The Fire Golden Crow Beast King's cultivation was indeed formidable, and the ox-horn skull was a powerful war artifact, but it still couldn't withstand the attack of the combined formation. He sustained some injuries and retreated into the swarm of Fire Golden Crows.
Zhang Ruochen glanced back, a look of surprise on his face. "To be able to integrate all those cultivators into a battle formation in such a short time and even wound a beast king—that Princess Wan is quite skilled."
Without paying further attention to what was happening behind, Zhang Ruochen continued to lead the way, his palm constantly striking down, killing all the beasts blocking their path.
By now, they had already charged through the breach in the city wall and reached the desert outside. On the ground and in the sky outside the city, countless beasts still attacked them. Of course, once outside the city, the density of beasts decreased, and the pressure on Zhang Ruochen and Sun Dadi eased considerably.
Soon after, the cultivators of the Wan Clan also rushed out. A massive wave of beasts attacked them, further reducing the pressure on Zhang Ruochen's team. Their advance speed increased as they pushed deeper into the desert.
Inside Yingsha City, some of the top-tier great families and major sects, seeing that dark area and the Wan Clan's cultivators had broken through the encirclement, couldn't wait to charge toward the city's outskirts. They too wanted to enter the vast expanse of the Azure Dragon Ruins Realm to seek the opportunity to become top-tier experts.
Some families and sects were attacked by beast kings and were completely wiped out. Of course, a few powerful families and sects also broke through, reaching the outside of the city and beginning their all-out breakout.
"Don't let them escape!"
From the clouds, a deafening dragon roar sounded, shattering the eardrums of some cultivators. A patch of black clouds appeared in the sky, and lightning and thunder filled the heavens and earth.
On the ground, a yellow sandstorm kicked up, surging rapidly toward Yingsha City. Vaguely, one could see behind the sandstorm a vast black shadow of beasts charging forward, rumbling like thunder. (To be continued.)