Chapter 167: The Might of the Murderous Army
Bang! Bang! Bang! …
Over a thousand divine lights, flashing with multicolored brilliance, rushed out of the white barrier membrane one after another and entered the vast expanse of the Western Wasteland.
These thousands of divine rays spread out in a fan shape, flying across hundreds of thousands of miles of territory near the boundary membrane, casting vast divine senses to search every single corner.
"Have you found the Divine Emperor?"
"No!" "No!" "No!"
"The Divine Emperor must be around here, let's keep looking!"
"Forget it. The Divine Emperor surely doesn't want to see us; otherwise, he would have appeared long ago."
"Makes sense! What should we do now, return to the Central Wasteland?"
"We had better leave quickly! The fierce beast army of the Western Wasteland is already approaching!"
"You guys go ahead! I want to search a bit longer."
"Forget it! It's not like the Divine Emperor is guaranteed to win. Aren't there still the four emperors?"
"Indeed! Perhaps the Dragon Emperor and the others will win instead! There's no need to risk our lives and place a heavy bet on the Divine Emperor."
…
After a flurry of noisy discussions, these thousands of divine lights turned around and headed back through the barrier membrane toward the Central Wasteland.
Only a few dozen divine lights remained unwilling to give up, continuing to search everywhere for the Divine Emperor. Yet they wandered blindly like headless flies, having no idea how to actually find him.
For this remaining score of divine lights, they were merely hoping for a stroke of supreme luck, praying that the Divine Emperor might show mercy and grant them an audience.
Boom, boom, boom...
Just as these dozens of divine lights were still searching about, thunderous roars suddenly echoed across the distant sky.
This was not true thunder, but the sound of hundreds of thousands of war beasts galloping across the clouds—a deafening roar of ten thousand beasts that surpassed actual thunder.
A baleful war cloud spanning hundreds of thousands of miles, resembling a massive sea of blood, slowly emerged on the horizon, moving rapidly toward the boundary membrane and exclaiming an aura of world-destroying ferocity.
"Not good! The fierce beast army is here! Let's get out of here!"
A terrified voice rang out. The divine lords among the remaining group stared with horrified eyes at the rolling tide of the beast army, their hearts gripped with mortal terror.
Even as they spoke, two-thirds of this small group turned back toward the Central Wasteland, leaving only ten divine lights determined to persist in their search for Nan Luo.
"Your Majesty, the Divine Emperor, if you are watching us, please reveal yourself as soon as possible!"
"We beseech Your Majesty, the Divine Emperor, to appear!"
"We beseech Your Majesty, the Divine Emperor, to appear!"
…
The divine lords within these ten remaining rays of light scanned the vast firmament, anxiety etched across their faces, and pleaded to the heavens.
In that very moment of hesitation, the hundreds of thousands of miles of baleful war clouds completely surrounded the ten streams of divine light.
Beneath the ominous clouds stood hundreds of thousands of blood-red cavalrymen. Astride ferocious, blood-sucking war beasts, they gazed coldly at the ten divine lights as if looking at ten men already condemned to death.
The blood-sucking beasts possessed crimson eyes, bodies like warhorses, and were carved all over with mysterious baleful runes. Clad in blood-red, terrifying battle armor, they could absorb blood to replenish their energy, making them one of the standard combat beasts of the fierce beast army.
A blood-thirsty fierce general urged his mount forward from the center of the army, stopping right before the ten divine lights. With a cold and bloodthirsty gaze, he roared loudly, "How audacious of you all to dare trespass into the forbidden grounds of the Western Wasteland!"
" Hear my command, warriors—kill them all without exception!"
"Kill!"
Hundreds of thousands of blood-red cavalrymen roared in unison, their battle cries piercing the firmament and shattering the drifting sea of blood-red clouds.
Boom, boom, boom...
The thunderous roars erupted once more. Hundreds of thousands of blood-red cavalrymen, brandishing blood-stained spears and urging their mounted beasts, charged from all directions toward the ten divine lights trapped in the center.
——
On a rocky cliff nestled within a mountain range in the Western Wasteland, the Divine Emperor Nan Luo and the Lion Emperor stood side by side, quietly watching the hundreds of thousands of fierce beasts besiege the remaining divine lords.
"Divine Emperor, if you don't step in to save them soon, they will all be killed."
The Lion Emperor watched as one of the divine lords was pierced through the torso by hundreds of murderous spears, then turned his head to speak calmly to Nan Luo.
Nan Luo nodded slightly, his expression serene as he replied, "Since the Lion Emperor has spoken, I shall step in and save them."
——
"Lord Wolf, I cannot hold on any longer. If you manage to see the Divine Emperor, I beg you to put in a good word for my Star Leopard clan." The Star Leopard Divine Lord was pale, his divine armor pierced by several large holes, and his aura was rapidly fading.
As he spoke, thousands of blood-red cavalrymen savagely thrust their spears toward him, intent on executing the Star Leopard Divine Lord on the spot.
Upon seeing this, the Howling Moon Wolf Lord exerted the last remnants of his divine power, fiercely blasting away the tens of thousands of cavalrymen before him. Brandishing the Howling Moon Treasure Wheel in his hand, he beat back the thousands of soldiers threatening the Star Leopard Divine Lord.
"Hold on! The Divine Emperor is about to appear. We must wait for him to manifest!" The Howling Moon Wolf Lord swung his treasured wheel, continuously cutting down the blood-red cavalrymen before him, feeling the magical artifact in his grasp grow heavier and heavier, until he could barely maintain his grip.
This army of fierce beasts was simply too formidable.
The combined might of ten divine lords should, by all rights, have been enough to utterly crush hundreds of thousands of troops or annihilate a mid-tier race.
Yet, before an army born and bred specifically for slaughter, the ten divine lords were instead being suppressed and steamrolled by hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen.
No wonder the other thousand-odd divine lords had turned tail and fled back to the Central Wasteland the moment the fierce beast army arrived.
If these hundreds of thousands of fierce beasts were already this terrifying...
Just what kind of world-destroying might must the billions-strong fierce beast army massed at the borders of the Western Wasteland possess?!
Of the ten divine lords surrounded by the massive cavalry force, those with slightly weaker cultivation had already been slain. Only three now remained, struggling bitterly and waiting for a miracle that might never come.
At that exact moment, a colossal purplish-golden palm suddenly manifested in the sky above the hundreds of thousands of blood-red cavalrymen, blanketing the heavens and earth and dyeing the entire landscape in a majestic purplish-gold hue.
The giant purplish-golden palm slowly descended upon the hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen, carrying an invincible momentum capable of suppressing all things.
Under the shroud of this colossal palm, the hundreds of thousands of blood-red cavalrymen were instantly locked in place as if frozen by an immobilization spell, unable to twitch even a muscle.
"What terrifying pressure! We can't even move."
Only the mind of the blood-thirsty fierce general remained active; the thoughts of all the other hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen had been completely sealed.
"Hahahaha..." "The Divine Emperor has descended!" "You're finished!"
Disregarding the countless wounds riddling their bodies, the Howling Moon Divine Lord, the Star Leopard Divine Lord, and the Fiery Divine Lord gazed at the surrounding troops with the joy of survivors, looking upon their enemies with burning hatred and roaring with laughter.
"So it was the Divine Emperor who descended! No wonder the power is so immense. No, I cannot die here. I must transmit the news of the Divine Emperor's arrival in the Western Wasteland back to the Great Snow Mountain and report it to His Majesty, the Fierce Emperor!"
Hearing the words of the divine lords, a surge of power welled up within the blood-thirsty fierce general, and he desperately attempted to resist the suppression of the purplish-golden palm.
"Roar! Grant me your strength, warriors!"
With crimson eyes, the fierce general forcefully broke through the crushing dominance of the purplish-golden palm, throwing his head back in a furious roar.
Bang! Bang! Bang! …
Under the roar of their commander, the bodies of the hundreds of thousands of blood-red cavalrymen suddenly exploded simultaneously, transforming into an endless torrent of blood energy that surged directly into the body of the fierce general.
"Roar!"
As the power of hundreds of thousands of cavalrymen poured into him, the ten-丈-tall body of the fierce general suddenly swelled to a hundred 丈 tall. Issuing a terrifying and baleful roar, he finally shattered the restraint of the purplish-golden palm and instantly transformed into a streak of red light, fleeing into the distance.
"Oh? How interesting!"
Standing upon the cliff, Nan Luo watched the blood-red commander transform into a streak of light and escape, choosing not to pursue or strike again.
A divine emperor possessed the dignity of a divine emperor; against weaklings resembling mere ants, a single strike sufficed, and he would never strike twice.