Volume Five: Ancient Legends - Chapter 57: The Lost Battlefield

Chen Chen descended from the ethereal Misty Sect. The sights on the Misty Sect—sometimes appearing and sometimes vanishing, gathering and scattering—gave him a deep sense of enlightenment.

After all, that was his final stronghold where he guarded his position, defending the village and the tribe.

The prelude to the ferocious beast siege was nearing its end, leaving the entire Grand Cultivation Country strewn with shattered steles and broken walls in the aftermath.

The first wave of the beast siege had possessed such scale and impact that the defenders appeared utterly fragile and vulnerable before the beasts.

The Misty Sect stood high atop the mountain range, blessed with natural shielding. Even during a beast siege, the beasts rarely breached the highest peak during the initial wave.

The second wave of the beast siege was imminent. At present, there were cultivators on the ethereal Misty Mountain, but their numbers were few.

Chen Chen and the others did not know when the second wave of the beast siege would strike, nor from which direction it would come.

Chen Chen was waiting—waiting for the people of the tribe to return. He believed that the people of the Breeze Tribe were still strong, possessing the courage and confidence to overcome their natural enemies and nature itself, to act as brave souls and return to the ethereal Misty Peak to welcome the new round of the beast siege.

Every fateful beast siege consisted of three waves of attacks.

The first wave of the beast siege was a large-scale purging of the residents within the tribes, leaving no room for living creatures to survive in its wake.

The second wave targeted the high ground where the major tribes were located—namely, the respective sects and strongholds defending the tribes, such as the Misty Sect.

The third wave involved the complete capture of the entire tribe, followed by a thorough sweep using scouts to report coordinates, thereby concluding the entire beast siege campaign.

The first wave of the beast siege had attacked the majority of the villages within every tribe. Whether it was the Breeze Tribe, the Jiuli Tribe, the Yandi Tribe, the Huangdi Tribe, or the villages of the Northern Dipper Tribe, all had suffered attacks. Most of the people living there had chosen to migrate, fleeing to territories possessing advanced high-tech civilizations to survive.

The Jiuli Tribe fell during this offensive, losing its former strength. True to some unfathomable destiny, it had already sunk into the yellow sands through the passage of time, ceasing to exist. The Demon Sect, the only surviving sect today, was their final stronghold, yet it was likely to be reduced to ruins in the second wave of the beast siege.

As for the Yandi Tribe, most of its human inhabitants had also chosen to migrate. The people of that tribe, much like their clansmen of years past, chose to submit to the Huangdi Tribe, migrating and converging toward it.

The people of the Jiuyou Underworld Tribe appeared somewhat enigmatic. The people there seemed to have suffered immensely, to the extent that even the beast siege was reluctant to attack this place. It seemed to embody the principle of excess being as bad as deficiency, refusing to inflict further punishment upon that realm.

The people of the Northern Dipper Tribe appeared rather miserable. It seemed that their sect was not favored by the orthodox Heavenly Dao, and even their mountain gates defending the city were in imminent danger. They would likely not last more than a few rounds in the second wave of the beast siege.

As for the imperial capital of the Grand Cultivation Country—the Huangdi Tribe—along with the adjacent Big Dipper Tribe and Southern Dipper Tribe, they served as the ultimate strongholds against this natural disaster. Given the national strength of the Grand Cultivation Country, defending those areas was more than sufficient.

The Huangdi Tribe had long gathered a multitude of talents and developed a wealth of advanced technology. Its city walls were built high, and the dwellings were constructed of reinforced concrete. It was the hardest nut to crack in this beast siege, and the least likely to be breached.

The second wave of the beast siege was currently gathering. According to past siege experience, this second wave of beasts would choose to attack the high ground of each tribe. The Huangdi Tribe, along with the adjacent Southern Dipper Tribe and Big Dipper Tribe, had not been breached during the first wave. Yet the remaining few tribes and their clans had been shattered and scattered by the attacks. Within a mere few days, a massive portion of their population had vanished. Chen Chen felt it was time to go to the tribal villages to search for survivors.

According to the experience of Chen Chen and the others, this was the time to check the villages and see if any hope of survival remained. The siege beasts, having captured a village and declared victory, would lie dormant, waiting for the right moment to advance toward the ethereal Misty Mountain.

At this moment, Chen Chen and his companions were rapidly evacuating the Misty Sect, returning to assemble within the tribe at the foot of the mountain to seize the final opportunity for survival.

As they did so, the ethereal mountain gradually faded away, leaving behind a rather inconspicuous mountain gate.

When Chen Chen and the others returned to the village within the settlement, some villagers happened to have fought their way back, declaring that they would live and die with the tribe. Coincidentally, the second wave of beasts was attacking the Misty Sect, which symbolized supreme centralized authority. Chen Chen and his companions fortuitously missed this direct clash, using the time to search for remaining survivors within the tribe and carry out rescue operations.

Fortunately, during the first wave of the beast siege, the villagers had hidden themselves quite well. Some had concealed themselves atop tall buildings with fully adequate safety measures, safely surviving the ordeal by a hair's breadth.

The second wave of the beast siege captured the Misty Sect. During that time, Chen Chen and his comrades had descended from the immortal sect to hunt beasts among the mountains. The hunters grew fewer and fewer, until Chen Chen alone emerged as the ultimate hunter, bestowing upon him the final resolution and destiny for the right to legally hunt beasts.

Chen Chen was the most legitimate candidate for hunting beasts, while the remaining teams had already scattered in all directions. Those sinking into the suffering and joy of the mortal world were merely scattered soldiers and wandering heroes.

That scene of devastation laid the foundation for the ultimate defeat of the entire Breeze Tribe. Lacking a human army capable of rivaling the massive beast siege forces, the immense disparity in combat strength between the two sides resulted in such a tragic outcome.

Throughout the entire Grand Cultivation Country, only the Huangdi Tribe, joining hands with the Big Dipper Tribe and the Southern Dipper Tribe—three tribes depending on one another—had formed a human legion of a certain scale, barely capable of rivaling the beast army.

Chen Chen and the others returned to the village, conserving their strength while employing guerrilla tactics to evade the beast army within the village.

As time passed, the second wave of the beast army officially attacked the ethereal Misty Sect, only to find that the Immortal Kings guarding the mountain were nowhere to be found. It was rumored that, foreseeing the descent of the beast army, the Huangdi Tribe had transferred a portion of its garrison forces to the capital to serve as commanding generals for this fateful battle.

The second wave of the beast siege assaulted the mountain gates of the Misty Sect. Among the numerous mountain gates, the Misty Mountain Gate, the Jiuli Mountain Gate, the Yandi Mountain Gate, and the Northern Dipper Mountain Gate fell in succession, leaving only three mountain gates and one retreating tribe lost to the past.

Marching to this point, each mountain gate retained its ultimate forces. The high ground of the tribes had become the lair of certain beasts.

Chen Chen and the others survived within the tribe, surrounded by countless shattered steles and broken walls. By this stage of the battle, boundary steles had appeared.

"Those who dare to cross and occupy the boundary shall be executed without mercy!"

From then on, boundary steles appeared in various parts of the Grand Cultivation Country. Powerful figures of the Breeze Continent, unwilling to see more tribes plunge into war and destruction, had planted boundary steles across the world to block the advance of the beast army and establish sustainable defensive fortifications.

By this point in the war, every tribe had been terrified to its core. In the distant capital, a massive army was stationed. More elites and leaders had gathered there, awaiting the final fateful battle.

For the time being, Chen Chen and his companions could only temporarily preserve their living strength, lingering on in the villages of the Breeze Tribe.

Only a single day had passed during the second wave of the beast siege before the Misty Sect on the immortal mountain fell, with very few human souls remaining upon it.

If everything was merely a play, that place might perish within the fiction. If everything was real, reality would surely resist the descent of false or true misfortune. Such a destiny was an inevitable trend, whether among the beast clan or the human clan.

If it were illusion, illusion was merely a process of attacking the present reality. Either the truly existing present wins the great battle, or the illusion shatters the defense lines and conquers the real world.

The absolute truth resided steadfastly within the true army, resisting the endless illusory onslaught with infinite truth, maintaining its own genuine nature, and journeying all the way toward a more distant horizon alongside the third cultivation star.

Marching to this point, Chen Chen and the others could only wage guerrilla warfare, making a desperate last stand within the Breeze Tribe.

After capturing the mountain gates, the beast army descended once more. Within a few short days, they had conquered the sects of several tribes. The onslaught was so fierce that it eventually forced the beasts to recede.

Yet the mountain villagers remaining behind in the tribe still felt incomparable terror. The surviving lives within the tribe once again fell into a dilemma.

According to the pattern of the third wave of the beast siege, this was ultimately the final sweep of points. With no other choice, Chen Chen and the others hid in their respective cellars to escape the ravages of war.

Next, the various tribes would face the third wave of the beast siege plundering the settlements. Chen Chen and the others had hidden themselves quite well; according to reliable intelligence they received, as long as the people in the tribe could hold out for three days, they could safely survive the prelude to the beast siege.

Chen Chen and his companions had prepared sufficient food and water resources, standing guard within the village cellar. The mountains outside were entirely covered in the tracks of passing beasts; Chen Chen had slain a few and kept them to survive the days.

Hiding in the cellar with them were a few others—fated companions with whom Chen Chen shared a roof under heaven during this era. The pressure of survival had brought them together, waiting in concealment for the final curtain to fall.

Days passed one by one. Concealed within the cellar, Chen Chen and the others listened quietly to the unusual movements outside, having nothing better to do. At times there were serpent slithers, and at times human voices.

Chen Chen and the others dared not lower their guard until three days had passed, whereupon they finally emerged from the cellar.

Looking at the utter mess inside the rooms, the countless beast corpses outside, and the desolate, hollow city left in the wake of survival, everything appeared profoundly forlorn.

The ferocious beast siege thus subsided. No one knew who had initiated this campaign, what purpose it served, or upon what premise it existed in the mortal world. They only knew that all of this existed within the void—a true war without the smell of gunpowder.

In the days to come, Chen Chen did not know how many more such lifetimes awaited him.

The bloody beast battlefield told him that life was simply like this, requiring such vigilant survival. The darkness and schemes in the mortal world were countless.

Chen Chen needed to accept such a life. Bloody lessons, along with the greater illusions and truths hidden within human existence, needed to be understood, taken lightly, and let go of—these were the most crucial factors for staying alive.

In future lives, such wars might still occur, somewhere in some realm or dimension.

Chen Chen was still a youth in his early twenties. Surviving in the mortal world meant he had to be able to accept the falsehoods and truths of life, and endure its ups and downs.

The Breeze Tribe would ultimately become his past and his memories. That lost battlefield, cold and ruthless, told him this was a mortal world that truly existed in reality yet was not entirely real.