City-wide formations were intricate defensive and offensive arrays powered by a network of prepared resources and cultivators. Anchored by a central core and supported by secondary points, they could shield a city, empower its defenders, or launch devastating attacks. However, their strength relied on a steady flow of resources and the stability of these secondary points, usually manned by the city's loyal cultivators.
While absolutely powerful in their location, if sabotaged or drained before activation, the formation weakened or even became a problem for the local cultivators, especially considering that the latter thought of it as a resolution to all issues.
In some cases, a skilled enemy - with enough resources and a mix of understanding of the formation plus a superior mastery - could even hijack the formation, turning its power against its defenders by taking control of the core or destabilizing the secondary nodes. But such was an infrequent situation!
After all, what power wouldn't ask the best of the best to construct their base location protection formation, even if the price was outrageous?
______
Bai Qi had a bad premonition from the moment they were sent by Dongpo Ao's aura to the farthest point possible, and while he at first attributed it to the fact that their set destination was already occupied by an enemy superior to the allied forces surrounding him, even taking Su Bo's initial declaration of him and Dongpo Dayang as the reason for his bad premonition, the following events made him discard the idea.
After that, as he sensed Su Bo's superiority over the allied Warrior Kings, as well as more and more ripples in the Emperors' battlefield, he had supposed that the seventh - unexplained even during his past life as an Immortal - sense had been warning him about the danger to his current allies, the allied Warrior Emperors now gathered along Dongpo Ao. But even that logic, which he had assumed as truth, would be dispelled - not even a few breaths later!
----------------------------------------
*Glitter* *Whew*
The city-wide protective formation of the [Jade Inscription City] activated with no sound. Even as it covered the entire city in a greenish light, making Zhu Gao exhale, even sigh, as he felt that the activation was successful, even if he had no real power to do so - or had a way to do so - if not for Dongpo Ao's, the actual operator of every formation related to [Dongpo] clan commanding him to act and giving the corresponding authority.
Regretfully for him, or the others that depended on it, this activation was nothing of the one that he or Dongpo Ao expected, as in place of defending the acknowledged mortals, cultivators, guests, or even allies of the [Eastern Inscription City], it targeted all of them.
***
While having decreased energy because of the previous sabotage and a change in targets, the city-wide protective formation of the [Jade Inscription City] was now active. And even with its offensive moves restricted because of the same weakening effect caused by the [Demon Worshipping] region infiltration and sabotage, the rest of the methods activated to some six-tenths of their actual force, providing the actual enemies of the city with not only healing and protective methods, but even weakening the opponents, the people who were in league with the city or lived in it, to a degree.
Mortals in the entire city fell to the ground, not even having the strength to move. As for the low-level cultivators of the city guard, tasked to help the former evacuate from the dangerous areas, they could hardly move at all, almost as if they had regressed to a mortal level, all their cultivation attainments void!
The fewer elite city guards, which had attainments on the level of the Sage and Warrior Lord realms, felt their strength dropping as well, their previous intention of protecting others turning into a desperate struggle to protect even themselves. After all, the Warrior Emperors and Warrior Kings clashing in the city released dozens of methods, and each of the latter had at least some part of them departing the battlefield. If the elites could barely contain them before, after the formation activated, they couldn't even protect themselves now!
*Crack* *Boom* *Boom* *Crash* *Crash* *Splatter* *Splatter* *Shatter* *Shatter*
As elites failed to defend themselves fully, the weakened normal soldiers, cultivators, and mortals, as well as buildings, even the ones reinforced by runes or low-tier formations, were destroyed, crushed by rubble, killed, and smashed apart just by the clash of auras between the true experts!
***
As the mortals, average and even elite cultivators of the city were suppressed, they didn't panic as much as one could expect. The locals counted on Dongpo Ao, whose exit from seclusion was now an open fact, plus the several experts of the [Dongpo] clan. Some of the more connected or powerful people - the ones who knew about the allied Emperors and Kings - panicked even less, believing that while they kept themselves alive, everything would be resolved.
But regretfully, because of low cultivation or the fact that not even the highest connections in the city could provide them with information about the current state of the battle, their trust was severely misplaced, and many of them would die.
----------------------------------------
While neither Bai Qi nor the other cultivators on the Warrior Kings and Lords' side could be sure of what was happening on the Emperors' side, they still could understand. And so, were aware of what was happening now.
Even before the formation's activation, the renowned Warrior Kings. As well as Bai Qi felt that the situation was reaching a far from salvageable state. While any of the present Warrior Kings could battle, win, and even probably kill either of the [Soulrend Elders] Kings, except for Su Bo, who could match either of them with apparent ease, the cooperation of the four weaker enemies plus one that neither of them could say to be able to defeat in a straightforward clash, ended up creating a deadlock they couldn't break through no matter what they tried.
What was even worse - in this situation - was that not only did the four Warrior Kings have to protect the group of Warrior Lords and could neither act independently nor use their methods or treasures to escape, but that Su Bo had not even acted directly, restraining herself to fortifying the other [Soulrend Elders] auras and blocking counterattacks. Looming over the battlefield as a permanent danger to either of them, no matter that two of them could even, to a certain degree, resist this unexpected genius of the [Demon Worshipping Region]!
And now, with the formation active and hampering them while helping the enemies, neither of the four, not even the renowned combat genius Du Ten, even spending all of their strength, could dedicate even a single hair of qi or aura to resist Su Bo, who hadn't even acted since the formation activated, all of their efforts going to block the four, previously weaker, enemies!
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
***
With the formation active, Su Bo knew that the four puppets of the lord would be enough to create a situation where even a slight movement of hers changed everything.
Still, she retracted her aura entirely, planning to not only win the battle, which was easy - but to kill at least a couple of the Warrior Kings present. While her Lord's target was Bai Qi, the last command had her switch from openly attacking or capturing the latter, making her concentrate on killing at least one genius of the [Great Forest Region] while using the city's formation to overall weaken everyone present, getting, even to a degree in which she could affect such experts, deaths among the Warrior Emperors of the region!
Su Bo’s sharp eyes flickered over the battlefield, searching for some hint of [Voidblade], but as always - he had melted into the shadows. His abilities were unlike any she had ever seen. Wouldn't he cleave through flesh but tear through spirit, leaving lasting wounds on the very essence of the Lord's enemies. Coupling his attacking skill and the way he vanished from sight, not simply hidden, but as if he were never there at all, with even allies kept in doubt, Su Bo couldn't act before the latter act. After all, even if he was just a puppet of the Lord, this one had obtained both of the [Voidblade] inherited paths, a rare thing, even for a, somewhat, official subordinate!
----------------------------------------
Since the start, Bai Qi hadn't felt any luck with this arrangement of Dongpo Ao. While he bore through it, even holding some hope in his new allies as they battled the arrangements of the [Soulrend Elders], and even keeping himself calm when the enemy directly requested for him, the fact that the request was denied, nothing more than a small improvement to his overall impression of the fairly aggressively recruiting him powers, he still didn't activate any method to try and escape.
Even as the formation, which directly affected not only his new friends but also their Warrior King-level protectors and started suppressing everyone activated, Bai Qi still kept his calm.
___
Kui Mulang's demon form could create some disturbance. And as it wasn't someone present in this plane directly, after all, it was nothing more than a forceful appearance of a, now part of his own, soul that could act unrestrained of any formation or prepared battlefield, because of the full merge that Bai Qi had just a few weeks ago - it was now not on an Emperor level, but just on the same level as Bai Qi's current max soul!
While the merge and Bai Qi's cultivation method's unexpected methods had strengthened his soul, the negative effect of using it while he wasn't ready, especially during the events in [Seven Islands Plane], as well as the merge itself had accommodated a mortal soul as Wu Guang, one which Bai Qi was even forced to help survive, having previously discarded it, the level wasn't so high as one could expect from a mix of a surviving True Immortal and a True Demon soul.
In fact, with the limitation of his cultivation, Bai Qi could only graze the limit of a peak Warrior Lord. And while his newly-formed combined could reach higher, no matter his current cultivation, Kui Mulang's apparition also required demonic qi, which Bai Qi had long ago started to fuse into his own.
Making Kui Mulang's true apparition a real trump card, but one that, even when using all of the unfused demon qi, one able to kill dozens of basic Warrior Kings, face a few medium-tier ones, and have no real effect against the high-tier ones, especially an elite like Su Bo.
___
With Su Bo restraining herself as the formation kept active for breath over breath, Bai Qi, even while maintaining an open calm, started to feel worried. While he wasn't worried about himself, he had actually decided to help the ones that could help him in the future. And so, he paid close attention to everything going on, even if he wasn't worried for himself at all, after all, since the moment he had changed plans from gaining some renown to gaining enough to establish even a small power, Bai Qi had not slacked at any moment, even during the so-peaceful talks he had in the last weeks. As one to form a power, he had already considered assassinations and all else, thus, he had already prepared a few methods to survive even if all went south.
*
Regretfully, even as a reincarnated True Immortal, even if mixed with a nearly authentic demon and a normal human, after the experiences, issues, and even his cultivation method tribulations, Bai Qi's cognition was also affected. No matter how calm or prepared he was, he missed, even if it was a part of the latter's ability, the disappearance of [Voidblade]!
----------------------------------------
The current [Voidblade] could actually be considered a pitiful person.
As someone born in the already ostracized [Demon Worshipping Region], his luck wasn't good already. Still, the young Jian Zhongming had a pair of loving parents. Even if kicked out of their power and having nothing to carry but their surname, Jian Rong and Jian Ling held no animosity towards the [Jian Family] that kicked them out, and desired their child to have a different fate, even if he was born in the considered demonic region they were forced to relocate after the internal conflict.
However, as he grew up, the young and idealistic Jian Zhongming could not grasp the hope of his parents. The surrounding cultivators, most components of the region because of their ideas or methods, warped him completely.
While his parents faithfully instilled their blade prowess into their only son, giving him an advantage in training any bladed weapon, not only the saber that both of them cultivated but any weapon with a blade in truth, Zhongming's fate played him a strange play, as he had no talent for either of the bladed weapons. And as his talent for using the [Void] was revealed as he cultivated, a talent far from the direct manner that his saber-wielding parents used, he actually left the only people close to him to join the [Earth's Demon Sons], who while cultivating staffs and maces mainly, and preferring close combat over any other way, had just obtained a [Void] method!
Even so, his tenure with the practically preordained [Earth's Demon Sons] didn't last long. After clashing with the current heir-apparent of the [Demon Sons], Di Zhen, his future of death was set. No matter that even the woman who caused this discord spoke for him, and accepted Di Zhen as her man, Jian Zhongming was still chased out of the sect's grounds, and nearly was killed before he reached the so-called Despair-to-Hope Land of [Hundred Souls Mountain].
There, the Lord of the [Mountain] taught him personally, making him use a mix of what he had already learned and was talented at, the [Void], but also showed how to actually use his now-dead, killed by no one but himself as to join the [Earth's Demon Sons] against their wishes and commandments, blade path. While neither sabers, swords, cleavers, or any other bladed weapon tested by him suited him, as on the Lord's instructions, he found that if he combined his training in the blunt weapons used by the sect he joined, like the battle gloves he used now, with an edged part, akin to a small blade added to his already mastered gloves, he could create his own, unique weapon, in which he could use both his inherited aptitude and also the one was born with!
Using these teachings, as well as the inheritances he obtained even if he had, himself, killed the two experts that were his parents, combining them with an even more advanced path of the [Void] that the Lord shared with him, Jian Zhongming became the latest generation of the [Voidblade] title.
Even if the title was temporal, and he only held it for a few weeks by now, Jian Zhongming, for the first time, felt himself as a complete being. No matter if the Lord was using him to replace a previously deceased member of his group, or the King's leader, Su Bo, spoke to him no more than to share some orders, the Warrior Emperors below the Lord sparing him no more than a passing glance, Jian Zhongming felt excellent. He could serve and prove himself to the full, and now, his task was only to hide when the time was right, something that he did perfectly, and then reappear, as soon as the signal, the city's formation activation showed up.
He thought as he appeared right behind the most dangerous of the four Warrior Kings they were meant to ambush, his bladed gauntlets ripping both through protective measures and skin, before quickly disappearing, launching against the actual target of this operation, which no matter the instructions openly shared, the Lord had been clear to tell him to pursue while ignoring everything else!