Chapter 106: Massacre

As time passed, the last Nascent Soul cultivator sent by the Sand Empire to attack them was also intercepted and killed within the killing formation. All the Sand Empire soldiers who had entered the formation were shredded into clouds of blood by the fierce radiance. By then, aside from Chen Mu and the other forces of Great Xia, no one else remained within the formation.

The Sand Empire soldiers who had not entered the killing formation were thrown into chaos. They had no idea what was happening inside and could do nothing but wait anxiously outside.

After clearing everything within the formation, Chen Mu, the demon beasts, and Xiahou Longchen emerged. Chen Mu signaled to Li Huai that he could withdraw the formation, then called out loudly to the bewildered Sand Empire soldiers:

“The Sand Empire forces that entered the formation just now have already been wiped out by us. Whether you wish to continue attacking or lay down your weapons and surrender is entirely up to you. Either way, your empire’s scheme to invade Great Xia has already been ruined. If you choose to attack, you will merely be throwing your lives away for nothing. So choose carefully. Will you fight Great Xia to the death, or surrender and wait for the Sand Empire to ransom you back?”

The Sand Empire soldiers naturally refused to believe Chen Mu at first. After all, eleven Nascent Soul cultivators were not people who could simply be killed at will. The soldiers began cursing Chen Mu furiously.

Chen Mu regarded them coldly.

“Very well. Then I can only exterminate every one of you.”

Leading the demon beasts, Chen Mu began harvesting the lives of the Sand Empire soldiers. Relying on his formidable physical body, he charged through their ranks like a force of nature. Wherever he passed, severed limbs and corpses littered the ground.

Seeing Chen Mu begin slaughtering them without another word, the Sand Empire soldiers attacked him fearlessly.

The demon beasts also rampaged through the Sand Empire forces. A casual strike from any one of them claimed the lives of countless men. This one-sided massacre left both Great Xia and the Sand Empire chilled to the bone.

The people of Great Xia felt fortunate that they had reconciled with Chen Mu. Otherwise, the butcher’s blade would surely have fallen upon Great Xia in the future.

Though the Sand Empire soldiers were terrified, they continued attacking without fear of death. They believed that their Nascent Soul cultivators had merely been trapped. Once those powerful figures broke free, they would be able to reverse the course of the battle.

Thus, they had to exert themselves fully and kill every last one of these damned people from Great Xia. Their beautiful homeland lay just beyond this battle, and they could not give up.

Watching the Sand Empire soldiers charge at him without regard for life or exhaustion, Chen Mu frowned. These people possessed a sick, fanatical conviction. They were throwing away their lives blindly in the hope of weakening the enemy enough to rescue their trapped supreme experts.

From beginning to end, they refused to believe that their Nascent Soul cultivators had already fallen. Eleven Nascent Soul cultivators represented an extraordinarily powerful force. In their eyes, such strength was invincible. No matter what Chen Mu said, they would never believe him.

They also held another kind of obsession: they believed that sacrificing themselves would open the way to a better homeland. To them, that was an honor. They firmly believed their sacrifices would be worthwhile. As long as they destroyed the enemy before them, they would be able to live good lives.

Whether they died in battle or eventually enjoyed peaceful lives, they simply did not want to continue fighting and killing one another endlessly over resources in the Sand Empire.

In the Sand Empire, people of their lowly status were nothing. Only the Nascent Soul cultivators who stood at the top possessed control over all resources.

Those at the Core Formation realm could at least follow behind Nascent Soul cultivators and survive under their protection. But low-level cultivators without any background could obtain cultivation resources only by fighting and seizing them from other low-level cultivators. Otherwise, it was extremely difficult for them to acquire resources from anywhere else.

Everything was for survival.

The barrenness of the Sand Empire was beyond Great Xia’s imagination. Its living conditions were unimaginably harsh.

By then, Li Huai had withdrawn the killing formation, and the scene within it gradually became visible to everyone.

When the formation vanished, the Sand Empire soldiers assumed that their eleven leaders had finally broken through. They cheered wildly, but before long their joy turned to confusion and helplessness.

There was no one inside the formation.

Only a mound of mangled flesh and shattered corpses remained.

The stench of blood spread through the air, making everyone’s faces pale. The deaths had been far too gruesome. Most of the victims had not even left behind complete corpses. Many had been shredded into blood mist by the fierce radiance, while others had left behind only scraps of flesh or mutilated limbs. The entire formation was filled with scenes too horrific to describe—a living hell on earth.

As they resisted Chen Mu and the others’ slaughter, the Sand Empire soldiers searched desperately for their Nascent Soul cultivators. Yet those powerful figures were nowhere to be found.

They were unwilling to believe that the mighty and invincible Nascent Soul cultivators had all been annihilated by Great Xia. How could something so dreamlike possibly have happened?

Yet reality kept crashing against their understanding. Great Xia had relied on a formation of unknown origin to annihilate the Sand Empire’s supreme forces. Eleven Nascent Soul cultivators had perished. After suffering such a devastating blow, the Sand Empire would surely decline beyond recovery.

The Sand Empire had finally followed in the footsteps of Great Xia and the Bright Moon Empire. After Chen Mu dealt it this ruinous blow, it had become the weakest of the three nations.

Previously, the Sand Empire could claim that it had escaped Chen Mu’s devastation. Now that Chen Mu had intervened in the war between Great Xia and the Sand Empire, the latter had suffered catastrophic losses.

Chen Mu was practically a disaster in human form. Wherever he went, calamity followed. There had never been many Nascent Soul cultivators on the Yuan Yao Continent to begin with. After Chen Mu’s devastating campaign, the surviving Nascent Soul cultivators of the entire continent could now be counted on two hands. The continent’s overall supreme strength had fallen to an unprecedented low.

Only after realizing that the eleven crucial Nascent Soul cultivators had died did the Sand Empire soldiers understand that Chen Mu had not been lying. Once the backbone of an army was gone, the war was already lost.

They immediately dropped their weapons and cried out that they wished to surrender.

But Chen Mu ignored them.

He had already given them the chance to surrender, and they had not treasured it. Now they had come running to shout about surrender? They wanted to fight whenever they pleased and surrender whenever they pleased. Did they take Chen Mu for a fool they could summon and dismiss at will?

The more Chen Mu killed, the fiercer he became. His overwhelming killing intent sent chills through everyone who witnessed it. When the Sand Empire forces saw that he had ignored their declaration of surrender, they finally panicked.

With such an overwhelming disparity in strength, how could they possibly continue fighting? Even a joke had to have its limits.

The Sand Empire army began fleeing in every direction. So long as they could preserve their lives, they were willing to trample over the corpses of their comrades to survive.

Live.

Live.

Live!

Every one of them thought the same way. Back in the Sand Empire, they had struggled desperately to stay alive. Then they had learned that conquering Great Xia would allow them to live better lives, so they had come to invade it.

In their eyes, this was a gamble. If they won and survived, they could enjoy peaceful lives in their later years. If they lost, they would die.

But now they finally understood that this was a battle they could not win—a battle with a zero percent chance of victory. Because of Chen Mu and his companions, all their Nascent Soul cultivators had been annihilated. The result was so far beyond reality that they were finally overcome by fear.

They did not fear death itself, but they could not accept dying without meaning. They could not accept dying like insignificant ants.

Chen Mu ordered Chi Huo and Yuan Shan to surround and exterminate the fleeing forces. Not a single member of the Sand Empire was to be spared.

It was a one-sided massacre. The enemy could not injure Chen Mu and the demon beasts in the slightest, while even their casual charges left countless soldiers dead or wounded. Only beings with bodies as powerful as theirs could achieve such a feat.

Before long, the remaining forces of the Sand Empire had been completely wiped out by Chen Mu and his companions. Not one had been left alive.

The soldiers of Great Xia watched with trembling legs. Chen Mu and the demon beasts had been far too savage and merciless. They had slaughtered their way through the battlefield until heaven and earth seemed to darken. No wonder Chen Mu was known as a little devil. His ruthless and decisive nature had been forced upon him by the Bilu Dao Sect.

After disposing of the enemies, Chen Mu coldly returned to the Great Xia border with the demon beasts. Everyone gave him a wide berth, terrified that they might offend him and provoke him into attacking.

Even Xiahou Longchen was shaken by the slaughter, which had seemed like hell descending upon the mortal world. Chen Mu truly was ruthless and merciless, like disaster itself.

He was deeply relieved that the imperial family had reconciled with Chen Mu. If they had not previously given Chen Mu an explanation that satisfied him, then perhaps the imperial family—or perhaps all of Great Xia—would one day have ended up in the same state.

Xiahou Longchen was certain that when Chen Mu killed, he did not regard his victims as human beings. Otherwise, how could he have slaughtered so many people while maintaining such an indifferent expression?

Ever since Stargazing Valley had been destroyed, Chen Mu had sworn to exterminate every enemy. Anyone who obstructed him would be erased. He hated his own weakness. If he had eliminated the enemies standing before him, Stargazing Valley would never have been destroyed—that was what he had told himself.

From that moment onward, Chen Mu’s thinking had become extremely extreme. To protect the people around him, exterminating his enemies was necessary.

If someone was given the chance to surrender or submit, that was fine. But if they continued to display hostility, then that threat had to be eliminated. No second chance would be given, because such a person could no longer be trusted.

That was why Chen Mu had ignored the Sand Empire army when they surrendered afterward. He had given them an opportunity, and they had disregarded it. To put his mind at ease, every enemy had to die. Only the dead posed no threat.

During those days, the people of Great Xia had learned that the Sand Empire was preparing to invade their country, and they had been filled with unease and worry.

When news arrived from the front that Great Xia had won a resounding victory, the people wept tears of joy. Life had already been difficult enough in recent days; if war had been added to their burdens, they truly would have had no way to live.

When they heard that Chen Mu had been primarily responsible for defending Great Xia, their view of him began to change. Many people started regarding Chen Mu as the hero who had protected the empire.

Only the soldiers who had experienced that battle knew the truth: Chen Mu was a genuine little devil, a merciless demon who could slaughter countless people without even blinking or changing expression.