Chapter 383: Defection (2/2)
Wei Yuan, Liu Guang, Ma Xingjuan, and yin slaves were the last line of defense as Ju Shoufen had entrusted them to protect the non-combatants, such as worker orcs, harmless monks, and pet-like beasts.
The formation was ready.
Two kilometers
Everyone forgot to breathe, waiting for their enemies to get into their range.
One kilometer
The enemies got to the cannon's range, but no one started shooting yet. Everyone now emptied their minds.
800 meters
Ma Moxi waved his hand and ordered all cannons to get ready. No one could think anything now as they were eager to fight to the death.
Before Ma Moxi could swing his hand down and signal the cannons to fire, Sun Wentai's battleships suddenly pointed their broadside to the north, opening their windows and showing their metallic medieval artillery cannons. Yet, all weapons were embedded with essence cores.
BANG
BANG
BANG
Without warning, 20 of Sun Wentai's fleet open-fired at Yuan Shaoqing's main troops, where 50,000 cultivators had been gathering, sending 200 round glowing shells toward them.
The cultivators were taken by surprise and forgot to react. Some of them were smacked by the incoming round shells, but the cannonballs were not strong enough to kill them in one hit. Even 5th-stage cultivators, who had gotten hit by the cannon shells, were unharmed.
Yuan Shaoqing looked at the fleet and bellowed in rage, ”SUN WENTAI, STOP SHOOTING!! YOU'RE SHOOTING AT YOUR ALLIES!!”
Yuan Shaoqing still thought that Sun Wentai made a mistake.
However, what happened next confirmed Sun Wentai's intention.
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
The harmless glowing shells earlier detonated and scattered brown dust everywhere. The dust latched onto the unsuspected cultivator skins and entered their pores as if they were alive.
The scattered brown dust annoyed the cultivators. Again, nobody was physically harmed… yet.
As soon as the explosions subsided, many 5th-stage cultivators began screaming.
”S-Something is crawling under my skin!!”
”HEEEEELLLLLLP!!”
”NOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
”GET IT OUT!! GET IT OUT!!”
Random shout, dying scream, exclamation, and random noise muffled the voice of Yuan Shaoqing. The latter could only stare at his followers wringing in pain before they were slowly eaten from the inside by unknown creatures.
Several bold cultivators stabbed their arms and legs with their knives, digging out grain-sized brown antlions from their flesh. Some smart cultivators circulated their element Qi to kill the creatures.
However, inexperienced fighters tried to heal their internal wounds with their yang essence or yin essence.
The group of uneducated cultivators suddenly bloated like a balloon while small antlions flooded out of their orifices. Eyes, ears, mouth, nostrils, anus, and pee holes gushed out these little insects, which scattered and headed toward the next victims.
Then, those balloons of flesh exploded, releasing more insects into the sky.
Yuan Shaoqing and many nascent soul cultivators recognized these deadly insects right away as they had once appeared during the previous demon-human war.
”Qiongqi Spawns! The brown dust is eggs of Qiongqi Spawns!”
”Don't circulate your yang essence! It will eat your essence and multiply! Use your fire element Qi to drive them out!”
”It's that guardian beast's domain power! Be careful, that guardian beast is not a divine white tiger. It's a freaking man-eating Qiongqi!”
Even though they realized the origins of Sun Wentai's secret cannon shells, it was too late for weak cultivators to react or get rid of the small insects in their bodies. Over 2,000 cultivators from weak clans and no-name sects fell like flies.
Yan Liang immediately charged toward the surviving people, who had been struggling to remove the insects in their chests and heads. He bellowed and expanded his domain to repel the guardian beast's domain, which covered the entire battlefield and the battleships.
The invisible domain of the white tiger cub was pushed back. As soon as the Qi manipulation territory of the tiger couldn't reach the victims of the insects, the multiplication of the creatures came to a pause.
Everyone managed to catch their breath as they used their elemental Qi to kill the antlions inside their bodies with ease.
Still, the damage had been done. Some of them lost half of their livers, lungs, kidneys, or even intestines. Many unfortunate people had some of their brains eaten by the bugs, and they lost their ability to fly or even function as a human.
With just one salvo, Sun Wentai had shown Yuan Shaoqing and the land that Jiangdong White Tiger Sect was not a pushover!
…
The tiger cub had been observing the battle on top of the flying island in glee. He laughed and bragged to Gan Ning and Zhu Qiao, who had also been listening to his lecture at the moment.
”See that? I only used a bit of my power to decimate half of our enemies! Remember what they are? Those bugs are from the Forbidden Forest to the north. They usually live inside Man-Eating Corpse Flowers like parasites. But if you extract their eggs and mix them with a drop of yin or yang essence, they can instantly multiply from one to a thousand within one breath!”
Gan Ning snickered, ”Correction, a small portion of them have died, master. Also, those bugs are not created by you, so technically, they're not your power.”
The tiger spat and stood on two legs, pointing the front chubby paw at Gan Ning's face, ”It doesn't matter how many of them died! Also, I have been researching how to use them for 1,000 years, so they are a part of my power! Now, I've shown you how you can manipulate those bugs. Now, you two try to control the little mosquitos on your head before they suck your blood dry!”
”…”
Currently, two basketball-sized mosquitos were hovering over Zhu Qiao and Gan Ning's heads, threatening to stab them with the six sharp needle-mouths.
Zhu Qiao and Gan Ning's faces were pale as they were scared witless. They stared at the monstrous mosquitos as they attempted to communicate with these things, using their new bloodline power.