Heaven City.
An imperial capital of humanity had turned into a miniature underworld, a ghost city in the mortal plane.
Countless ghosts went to and fro, but despite their numbers, there was no clamor.
Ghost cities were always this silent.
Silent as a grave.
But if one listened carefully, one could occasionally hear something else besides the gusting of the wind: cries for help, like the weeping of ghosts. These sounds came intermittently, arising all over the place before being scattered about by the wind. If one were very observant, one would find that they came from underground.
The weeping from below had no effect on the ghosts above.
The world had turned upside down, with humans below and ghosts above.
In this flipped world, threads of spiritual energy ran throughout the entire city, forming a giant formation net that gleamed with an eerie light.
The great hall of the palace was now occupied by ghosts, its hall packed with nearly a thousand high-tier Ghost Kings.
None of these Ghost Kings made a sound, just quietly standing there.
Upon the former emperor’s throne was another ghost.
This ghost occupying the throne could not actually sit on it, however, for the lower half of this ghost was a white cloud that spun like a tornado, letting out a whistle. The upper half was a wheel-shaped object which had a sea of twinkling black motes that seemed like blinking eyes.
This was Nether Emperor Zoros.
Zoros had no mouth, so he spoke by vibrating his lower half.
At this moment, his lower half formed a mouth, and as it opened and closed, a voice came out. “A delay has emerged in the establishment of the Nine Bends Yellow Springs Formation, with only nine of the twelve Nether Wheels complete. Ghost King River, what are your crimes?”
A Ghost King who had the form of a large hippo prostrated. “Ever since the inexplicable disappearance of the Heartless Ghost King and his companions, I have been lacking subordinates. Moreover, the humans launched a counterattack and occupied the Ghost Gold mountains and Flowing Sand mines. With the loss of the sources of these critical resources, we needed to obtain them from elsewhere, resulting in the delay.”
Zoros’s voice turned shrill. “Are you saying that this is all my fault?”
Ghost King River pressed his body against the floor and shouted, “This lowly one would not dare! We have already gathered the resources, and if this lowly one is given one– no, just half a day, the work will be complete.”
“No, you have four hours. I don’t care how you manage to do it, but if you can’t do it in four hours, Ghost King River will cease to exist.”
Ghost King River was aghast. “This is too short! Your Majesty, please give me a little more time!”
Zoros darkly said, “I also want to give you time, but those damned humans won’t let me.”
As he spoke, the ghost fog in the distance suddenly grew turbulent.
The ghosts were alarmed, shouting, “The humans are coming!”
Zoros screeched, “Get out of here and get to work already!”
“As you command!” Seeing that there was no room for negotiation, Ghost King River transformed into a gale and flew off.
Zoros continued, “The rest of you, prepare for battle!”
“Raaa!”
“Keee!”
“Hiss!”
Various strange sounds, both high-pitched and low-pitched, resounded through the hall, but despite their differences, they all conveyed the same meaning:
Fight!
Fight to the death!
Fight until blood flows through the streets!
Fight until the very end!
In the distance, a burst of light tore through the darkness, the sun shining through.
Light and darkness mixed together, vying for supremacy. Darkness converged on the hole to try and fill it back up, but it was quickly driven back out by the endless light.
Meanwhile, countless human cultivators poured in through the gap.
Under a curtain of darkness, bathed in the light.
They were led by Yuan Tianzhong, and behind him were Meng Qihong, Fairy Hong Luan, and Chang Xiran. Another party was being led by Tang Jie, and among his party were Wei Tianchong and Wang Posha. They led thousands of Celestial Heart cultivators and tens of thousands of Mortal Shedding cultivators, a vast army.
One could say that all of the top-class human cultivators of the Flame Yang Domain had been gathered here.
Tang Jie and Yuan Tianzhong were gambling everything to ruin the Nether Emperor’s plan and save the one million civilians.
Looking down below, Yuan Tianzhong roared, “Attack! Show no mercy and kill them all!”
“Kill!”
“Kill!”
“Kill!”
The cultivators bellowed in unison.
There was no time wasted on pre-battle conversations or provocations, only a single unified cry, and then a single unified assault.
Torrents of spiritual energy came down and merged into a great flood. There were ten thousand cultivators to a unit, their combined might creating a mighty tsunami.
This was the highest form of combination cultivator attacks, a power great enough to threaten even an Immortal. The tidal wave of energy instantly obliterated the surrounding darkness, leaving only that ever-rising tsunami that reached toward the heavens.
As the cultivators attacked, Nether Emperor Zoros whistled.
With this whistle, the Ghost Kings and ghost generals shrieked and began their own assault.
As the ghosts took action, the black fog came rolling back, pressing down on that mountain of spiritual energy, restoring the darkness. But a moment later, the wave of spiritual energy swelled once more, overcoming the black fog, and light and darkness resumed their struggle.
This back-and-forth did not go on for too long.
Combat formations were complicated affairs, and intelligence was needed to utilize them properly. This was why ghost ships were constantly searching for intelligent ghosts. Ghosts outnumbered humans, but few of them were intelligent. The humans also had the initiative while the ghosts had been a little slow to react, so their combination attack was ultimately inferior to that of the humans.
Thus, in this tug-of-war, the human cultivators undoubtedly had the upper hand.
A moment later, as the mountain of spiritual energy solidified, Yuan Tianzhong called out, “Fall!”
The spiritual energy mountain fell.
Sssst! Nether Emperor Zoros raised his “face” to the sky, and his lower body let out a high-pitched whine, the several dozen black eyes on the wheel all flashing as he shouted, “Back!”
All of the high-tier Ghost Kings in the palace scattered.
The spirit mountain crashed down, and though the combined might of the ghosts had weakened it by eighty percent, the remaining twenty percent was the equivalent of a full-power attack from an Earth Immortal.
With a great quaking, the entire palace was wiped away like a giant hand was sweeping across a sandbox, the buildings ceasing to exist.
The imperial palace had been lost, as had several high-tier Ghost Kings who failed to escape. The slow to react, the slow of speed, the arrogant, and the foolish were all pounded to oblivion by the spirit mountain.
With one strike, several dozen high-tier Ghost Kings had been slain, and the remaining energy continued onward, chasing after the several hundred fleeing Ghost Kings. Several dozen more of them died this way, many more were heavily injured, and countless weak ghosts were slain.
A moment later, another spirit mountain began to gather in the air.
Nether Emperor Zoros shrieked, “Counterattack!!!”
As he cried out, ghost eagles took to the skies. Meanwhile, the other ghosts continued their joint efforts to delay and suppress the enemy combination formation.
This was the normal form of large-scale cultivator wars, combination versus combination, each creating immensely lethal attacks of terrifying size.
The lack of intelligent ghosts and relative scarcity of high-level ghosts showed their disadvantage here. However, there were also plenty of mindless ghosts who could engage in suicidal charges.
While they couldn’t join in combination attacks, their vast numbers and fearlessness of death meant that they still posed a major threat to the humans.
In truth, the human cultivators only held the advantage in the first exchange.
As in all sneak attacks, the first exchange was always carried out with the maximum advantage. Once the enemy had been heavily wounded, it was time for another clash of strength, and in such a clash, the ghosts still had the upper hand.
The sea of ghosts charged at the human cultivators in the sky, and while their attacks weren’t too powerful, each one would wear away at the spirit mountain’s power. In addition, some of the stronger ghosts could use psychological attacks that could sever the link some cultivators had with the formation.
Unifying ten thousand people in a single formation was no easy task. This was a link between souls. Once it was severed, a cultivator couldn’t join back in unless everyone severed their connections and then reconnected.
But this was essentially impossible.
When it came to working together, things were more inefficient the more people there were. In a sudden situation, humans were far less efficient at working together than the ghosts, who were simply much more obedient.
This was why the ghosts were still able to come together and weaken the human surprise attack. It would have been impossible for humans to react that quickly. The human cultivators had the edge right now entirely because they had come prepared and made the first strike.
But for this reason, once the humans fell out of the formation, they would be unable to join back in.
There were many reasons for falling out of the formation. Some of them might have been influenced by the psychological arts of ghosts while others might just not have been strong enough, but that didn’t change the fact that they had fallen out of the formation.
Those that fell out of the formation could only fight on their own, and the combat formation itself grew weaker.
In the sky, countless ghosts yowled, doing everything they could to mentally influence the cultivators, and some of the fiercer ghosts lunged at the cultivators who had fallen out of the formation, entering combat with them.
Boom!
The second spirit mountain finally crashed down, and while it was somewhat weaker than before, it still flattened a region and all the ghosts within it that were not fortunate enough to escape.
A third spirit mountain began to form!