Location: The Valley of Fallen Kings (Border of Iron Blood Sect)
The sun rose over the valley. It was a beautiful morning, marred by the sight of three thousand cultivators marching in formation.
The Alliance Army was colorful. The Azure Sword disciples wore blue, riding flying swords. The White Tiger disciples wore yellow armor, chanting war cries. The Mystic Valley disciples wore purple, surrounded by clouds of poisonous fog.
They looked majestic. Traditional. Powerful.
Opposite them, the Iron Blood Sect's territory looked... dead.
There were no walls. No formations of glowing light. Instead, the earth had been dug up. Three lines of jagged trenches cut across the valley floor. Barbed wire—nasty, rusted, spirit-iron wire—was strung between posts.
"Look at them," Jian Chen laughed from his floating carriage. "Digging holes like rats. They have abandoned the dignity of cultivation!"
"Charge!" The White Tiger Leader roared. "First wave! Body Hardeners! Crush their lines!"
Five hundred White Tiger disciples stepped forward. They slammed their chests. Their skin turned a metallic grey (Iron Skin Technique). They charged, screaming, convinced that mortal weapons could not hurt them.
In the Trenches
Lin Fan stood in the command bunker. He watched the charge through a periscope.
"Distance?" he asked.
"800 meters, Boss," Su Mei replied. She was wearing a headset, commanding the firing line.
"Wait," Lin Fan ordered. "Let them bunch up."
The White Tiger disciples hit the first obstacle: The Landmines.
CLICK.
The front runner stepped on a pressure plate.
BOOM!
A directional mine exploded upward. It wasn't filled with gunpowder; it was filled with shrapnel and unstable Fire Crystals.
The disciple's Iron Skin held... for a microsecond. Then the sheer kinetic force shattered his legs. He fell, screaming.
Then the next mine went off. And the next.
"Keep moving!" The White Tiger Elders shouted from the back. "It's just trickery! Their skin can take it!"
The disciples stumbled through the smoke, reaching the 400-meter mark.
"Now," Lin Fan said.
"OPEN FIRE!" Su Mei screamed.
The trench line erupted.
Two hundred Type-2 Assault Muskets fired in unison.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
It sounded like canvas ripping. The air was filled with glowing red tracers (Qi Bullets).
The White Tiger disciples raised their arms to block.
PING-PING-CRACK-SPLAT.
The first few bullets bounced off. But the Type-2 fired 600 rounds per minute. One bullet didn't kill them. Ten bullets cracked their skin. Fifty bullets turned them into meat.
The front row of the charge simply evaporated. They were cut down like wheat. The "Iron Skin" failed against the volume of fire.
"What..." Jian Chen watched from the hill, his mouth open. "Where is the Qi buildup? Where is the chant?"
"They aren't chanting!" The Mystic Matriarch screamed. "They are just pulling triggers!"
The charge faltered. The surviving disciples tried to retreat, but they were caught in the barbed wire.
"Deploy the Heavy Weapons," Lin Fan ordered.
From the second trench line, a tarp was pulled back.
Revealing the MK-1 Spirit Railgun.
It was manned by Fatty Wu (who was terrified but aiming). It hummed with a high-pitched whine as the Spirit Stone capacitors charged.
"Target the leader's carriage," Lin Fan said.
Fatty Wu pulled the lever.
THOOM.
There was no fire. Just a blue streak of light that moved at Mach 5.
The projectile—a slug of synthesized Thunder Steel—crossed the valley in a blink.
It missed Jian Chen by inches. It hit the White Tiger Leader standing next to him.
There was no body left. The White Tiger Leader—a Foundation Establishment Peak master—was simply deleted. The kinetic energy vaporized his upper torso and continued behind him, carving a trench into the mountain behind the army.
Silence.
The three thousand cultivators stopped. They looked at the red mist that used to be a Sect Leader. They looked at the smoking barrel in the trench.
Lin Fan picked up a megaphone.
"Round 1 goes to the House," Lin Fan announced, his voice echoing over the bloody valley. "Anyone who wants to surrender, drop your sword and crawl to the wire. Anyone who wants to die... take a step forward."
Jian Chen was trembling. Fear. For the first time in a century, he felt absolute, primal fear.
"Summon..." Jian Chen whispered, his voice cracking. "Summon the Beast Tide. Unleash the Monsters. If we can't get close... let the animals do it."
From the rear of the Alliance army, cages were opened. Massive, mutated Spirit Beasts—Wolf-Tigers, Armored Rhinos, Venomous Snakes—roared.
Lin Fan watched the beasts pour out.
"Biological warfare," Lin Fan adjusted his glasses. "Su Mei, reload. Switch to Incendiary Rounds. It's going to be a barbecue."