Chapter 175: Starting a massacre.

As the days passed, Yao Jun experimented a bit with the mask he had been given, putting it on and altering his looks as he moved through the camp. Not even Reyner and the others were able to recognize him, so he felt confident that the mask was working properly. Three days were nothing, so in the blink of an eye, the beginning of the next battle had arrived, the atmosphere in the camp solemn and grim.

The squads that were heading into battle were the same 15 that fought on the first day, the 15 weakest squads. As they were heading towards the battlefield, Yao Jun noticed that there were quite a few soldiers who wore unsatisfied expressions, muttering angry curses. It was clear that they were rather angry at Diana for sending them into a battle where they would have to face not only the Final Fire clan but also the Spider Hive beast. To them, it was nothing more than a death sentence to head into such a battle without reinforcements.

Of course, as one of the people with the weakest cultivation, Yao Jun walked at the very back of his squad, protected by Reyner and the others. Peering into the distance, Yao Jun could spot the army belonging to the Final Fire clan. They were neatly lined up, their chests puffed out and their chins held high, their morale far higher than the morale of the World Tree clan.

Yao Jun was unable to spot anything that might be the Spider Hive beast, so it was likely hidden somewhere among their ranks, waiting to be unleashed. Once the two armies got close enough, they immediately activated their formations and launched their attacks. While the World Tree clan specialized in the laws of wood, there were a large number of their soldiers that trained in more than one law, allowing them to resist the flames of the Final Fire clan.

The moment the battle started, Yao Jun stealthily walked backward, distancing himself from the rest of the soldiers. Once he was out of sight, his entire body sank into the shadows and vanished. Once he was in the shadows, he took out the mask and put it on, his body growing a little larger and his features turning into those of the World Tree clan.

There was a limit to what the mask could do, so his body only grew by half a meter, but it was enough to make him look like a rather short World Tree clan person. While Yao Jun was putting on the mask, the voice of Ba-Shei rang out from within the God Gate.

“Will you allow me to join you into battle again, my lord?”

Ba-Shei's voice contained unmasked excitement and hunger, it was clear that the thought of getting to go wild in battle and feast to his heart's content truly thrilled him. But Yao Jun quickly squashed that excitement, shaking his head.

“Not this time.”

Yao Jun could hear Ba-Shei deflate, seemingly at a loss for words. Yao Jun had allowed him to go into battle last time, so why was he not allowed to go this time? Ba-Shei refused to believe that the Spider Hive beast was the reason, so he hurriedly asked.

“But...Why?”

Yao Jun's lips curled into a slight smile, his eyes gleaming somewhat. As he responded to Ba-Shei, he quickly made his way through the shadows and approached one of the enemy squads.

“I am going to go a bit wild this time, so I don't want to risk harming you on accident whenever I unleash a big attack. There will be things for you guys to do, just not out in the open.”

Yao Jun was going to go truly wild this time, holding nothing back, killing as many as he could. This would allow him to not only gather a large number of fiery crystals but also interspatial rings and rewards from Diana. He was also more likely to draw out the Spider Hive if he made a big showing, making it easier to capture it. Ba-Shei responded after a short moment of silence, accepting Yao Jun's reasoning.

“As you wish, my lord, show them your might.”

Yao Jun continued to move through the shadows, quickly reaching the weakest of the Final Fire clan squads. Since he was going to go wild, he was not going to hold anything back. His armor appeared and covered his body, providing another layer of protection for his identity. At the same time, lightning started to course through his body, his speed drastically increasing.

Now that he had started to use the laws, this enhancing technique of his had also grown stronger, his speed increasing even more as he got more accustomed to the laws of lightning. He made his way through the squad, activating all three channels of Crumbling The Nine Heavens once he reached the core of the formation. This was the weakest squad of the Final Fire clan, the captain only having reached the middle stage of the 4th Houtian Sky, the rest of the soldiers not even having reached that stage. The current Yao Jun was confident he could fight Yao Duan He or Wei Zhong Jun, with a decent chance of winning, these soldiers were basically ants to him.

Yao Jun swept the captain, who had yet to even notice him, and the surrounding soldiers with his calm gaze. These people all had friends and family that were waiting for them, but now they would never get the chance to return. Such was the nature of battle, to win, one had to be willing to rob their opponent of everything. If one did not do that, your opponent would rob you of everything instead.

Yao Jun stepped towards the captain, his sword appearing in his hand as he stepped out of the darkness and sent out a slash. The attack contained the laws of spatial collapse, so it left a thin black line in the air. The captain did not even get the chance to notice Yao Jun, his head quickly separated from his body. Yao Jun stored away the fiery crystal, the captain's head, and the interspatial ring, the squad's formation collapsing alongside the captain.

In the previous battle, Yao Jun would have dodged back into the darkness and moved onto a new squad, but now he had come to kill as many as he could. While the soldiers were in disarray because of the collapsed formation, Yao Jun raised his hand, the darkness beneath a few soldiers wriggling as it released a devouring force.

Every soldier within a few hundred meters was quickly sucked into the darkness, ground into nothing but pure energy. Had it not been for Yao Jun sending an order to the darkness, the soldiers interspatial rings and fiery crystals would also be disintegrated. But thanks to the order he had sent ahead of time, they were instead sent directly into his God Gate.

But the first soldiers were only the start of the terror, the devouring darkness quickly growing in size. With every soldier it devoured, it managed to absorb more energy, allowing it to grow and spread. That was the true terror of the disintegration that Yao Jun had discovered, its ability to grow endlessly as long as it was fueled. Without Yao Jun having to move more than sending out a single attack and raising his hand, the weakest squad of the Final Fire clan army had vanished, 8000 soldiers disintegrating.

Yao Jun's eyes were calm and cold as he looked at the now empty area around him, he had already closed off his heart to the suffering that the deaths of these soldiers would cause to those left behind, only like that could he continue to battle. He could see the people of the World Tree clan a bit in the distance, the soldiers looking at him with a mixture of horror and awe.

Yao Jun ignored their gazes and vanished into the darkness, moving towards the next squad. His plan was to take care of the weakest squads first, gathering up as many kills and resources as he could, only moving on to the stronger squads like Watkin's later on. Yao Jun's act of causing an entire squad to vanish had also been seen by the people of the Final Fire clan, their squads gathering closer together to defend each other.

But by doing so, they were only making Yao Jun's job even easier. The next squad he chose had a captain at the late stage of the 4th Houtian Sky, with about half the soldiers in the squad also having reached the 4th Houtian Sky. But to Yao Jun, there was practically no difference between this squad and the previous one. He quickly reached the captain, a single stroke of his sword taking her head and destroying the formation.

Yao Jun did not use the disintegrating darkness to deal with this squad, testing out a different attack. He raised his hand, the wind quickly turning ferocious as it surrounded the squad. This wind was not like the normal wind that Yao Jun used, as it did not have any attacking power, it was merely a strong wind, widespread and unconcentrated. But when the wind was at its strongest, Yao Jun raised his other hand, a blue flame gathering in his palm and spreading into the wind.

The blue flame spread into the wind, the wind fuelling the flame as it turned into an all-encompassing inferno. The people of the Final Fire clan specialized in fire, but the people of this squad were too weak to resist the blue flames that were a result of Yao Jun increasing the heat of his flames to the max. The roar of flames drowned out all the screams, the wind blowing away the smell of burnt flesh. After a few minutes, when everyone was dead, a gust of wind gathered up all the interspatial rings and fiery crystals, Yao Jun vanishing into the darkness.

–

While Yao Jun was fighting with all his might, Diana was observing the entire battle from the distance. She was floating in the air a good distance above the ground, sitting casually as her gaze kept moving between the battlefield and the camp where the rest of the Final Fire clan army was stationed. While she was sitting calmly, the rushing sound of someone moving through the air came from behind her, the voice of her two Legion Commanders ringing out shortly after.

“General, an unknown person has appeared in the midst of battle. How should we deal with him.”

Diana merely glanced at her two Legion Commanders, Emeric, and Isolde. Isolde was from the same clan as her and was actually older than her, even having served as the previous general of the army. Emeric, on the other hand, was someone she had met while roaming the universe, he wanted to court her, so he had followed her back to the clan to aid her during the war. She moved her gaze away from the two, waving her hand as she spoke in a nonchalant tone.

“Ignore him. He is part of the reinforcements that the clan is going to send, he has just arrived a bit earlier. There might be a few people poisoned after this battle, so prepare the antidotes.”

Not even Emeric and Isolde knew about Yao Jun and his powers. The only person within the entire army that knew anything about his power was Diana, as she had personally kept an eye on him whenever he moved out on his own. But despite personally keeping an eye on him, she still found herself shocked and surprised as he continued to bring out new elements he could control. Emeric and Isolde exchanged looks, but they knew that since Diana had not said anything else, asking was useless. They gave her a quick bow and then flew back to the camp.

“As you order.”

Diana continued to observe the battle, her eyes widening somewhat as almost a quarter of an enemy squad was suddenly frozen solid, their bodies shattering and turning to icy dust. Just from what she had seen during this short battle, she could tell that Yao Jun was able to use the laws of darkness, lightning, wind, ice, and fire. She had also seen him use the laws of space earlier, so it was clear that he was proficient in those as well. Facing someone who could not only control that many laws but even fight people that should be far stronger than him, Diana could not help but let out a slight chuckle.

“I must say, I never imagined I would find someone as weak as you fearsome. If you get to grow, you might perhaps become the person Leylan is hoping you will become.”

After Diana finished chuckling, her gaze moved past the battlefield, landing on the camp of the Final Fire clan. She could guess that the general was having a bit of a headache right now, having lost so many soldiers. They were weak soldiers, but they were still members of the Final Fire clan, if the general lost too many soldiers, he would be punished.

“Since you have decided to break the rules, you cannot blame me for doing the same, Radulf.”