Chapter 616: 10,000 Swords
Translator: TYZ Editor: Lucas, TYZ
After the post-battle meeting ended, Shi Xueman crossed the windy bridge and walked towards Fish Bone.
The battle today was unusually thrilling.
The pride and arrogance brought by the previous victory had been crushed. The first thing Fatty did in the meeting was to apologize to everyone. Now that Fatty had thought about his risky action, he felt frightened. If it weren't for Sang Zhijun's solution to frost locust grass and the timely arrival of Venerable Volcano, the battle would have become a lot harder.
Today, the blood elementalists had taught all of them a good lesson.
Just when they thought the blood elementalists only relied on broadback batfishes, the blood elementalists used reality to show them that they were not the only ones with a trump card. The blood elementalists utilized a multi-pronged strategy. They used the broadback batfishes as a cover and prepared the frost locust grass behind it.
They had to admit that the frost locust grass was extremely effective in the battle today. It had put the elementalists' defensive line to a gruesome test. If Sang Zhijun's solution had not come as fast, or Venerable Volcano had arrived slightly later, the enemy forces would've been able to attack the God-subduing Peak directly.
The battle today reminded them that even though the God-subduing Peak was powerful, it wasn't invincible.
Fortunately, the enemy forces seemingly did not expect the frost locust grass to have such an outstanding result. Therefore, they were slow in providing reinforcements to their forces. If their experts and elite troops arrived earlier to provide reinforcements, the pressure on the elementalists would have increased sharply and the battle would have become more arduous.
Everyone was discussing the enemy's potential strategies and their own counter strategies for tomorrow.
The atmosphere of the meeting was very solemn. The situation that happened today had stricken fear into everyone.
The Beehive Heavy Cannons also revealed their weaknesses today. Once the enemy forces got too close to them, their effectiveness would decrease. The scenario on the first day where the enemy forces charged towards them in a packed formation would never happen again. Today, the enemy's offensive routes were obviously planned with careful deliberation. They attacked from several directions to spread out the heavy cannon fire and greatly reduce the might of the Beehive Heavy Cannons.
Fortunately, they were still able to ward off the enemy forces despite the risky situation.
The atmosphere of the entire encampment was tense, but everyone's morale wasn't really affected.
On the contrary, Shi Xueman was very composed. There was a huge number of rookies in the combat division. Even those veterans did not participate in many major battles before. No one, including herself, had much experience, and there were many things that they needed to figure out on their own.
Since ancient times, those renowned generals built up their reputations by winning battle after battle.
Shi Xueman could clearly sense that everyone, including herself, was improving. This made her very happy, and she felt hopeful. She strongly believed that the hardships of the war were temporary and that the ultimate victory would belong to them.
Her only worry was Ai Hui.
After the meeting ended, she went and looked for him straightaway.
Before she reached Ai Hui's tent, she saw Lou Lan instructing the Sword of Lightning's members to plunge numerous swords into the ground.
It looked like some kind of sword formation.
When she walked nearer, she could not help but ask curiously, "Lou Lan, what are you doing? How's Ai Hui?"
"Xueman, we are setting up a sword formation," Lou Lan replied swiftly, "Lou Lan wants to see if this sword formation can help Ai Hui or not."
Sword formation? Help Ai Hui?
Shi Xueman was stunned momentarily. She was feeling slightly puzzled, but she did not disturb Lou Lan. She merely stood on one side and silently watched them work. Lou Lan had superb medical skills, and he must've had his reasons for doing this.
Like Shi Xueman, the members of Sword of Lightning were feeling curious as well.
Lou Lan carefully carried Ai Hui out of the tent.
When Shi Xueman saw Ai Hui, she could not help but feel shocked. An intense, golden light was emitting from Ai Hui's body. He looked as thought he had a sun inside his body.
Such a domineering aura!
Deep down, Shi Xueman was feeling astonished. The golden glow gave off an extremely domineering aura that she had never seen before.
Shi Xueman could sense another completely different aura. In Ai Hui's earth palace, there seemed to be many razor-sharp swords swimming around. They exuded a freezing aura that resembled the cold vapor from a ten-thousand-year-old ice.
A shocking look appeared on faces of Sword of Lightning's members. All of them were swordsmen, so they clearly knew that this was sword aura. However, they had never seen such a concentrated sword aura.
They felt as if they were in the middle of a sea of swords. The tidal waves on the sea's surface did not seem scary, but deep within the sea, there were actually countless surging swords!
Hu Xuan stared blankly at Ai Hui.
He definitely knew how formidable Boss was. He was won over by Boss's attainments of "Lightning Master" and "Master Swordsman". However, he did not expect Boss's understanding towards swordsmanship to have reached such a terrifying level!
Was this... the so-called "sword consciousness" mentioned in those ancient books from the Cultivation Era?
There were many debates over the topic of sword consciousness. Some exaggerated its existence, some described it as god-like, and some merely felt it was a misinformation and that it did not exist all.
Gu Xuan did not know for sure whether or not was this the so-called sword consciousness. However, at this moment, he was completely enthralled by this aura. The cold and pure aura made him felt as though the tip of a sword was being pressed against his glabella. Every strand on his body could not help but stand on end, yet he was indulging in this feeling. For someone who was passionate about swordsmanship, such a pure and cold sword aura was like a superbly excellent wind that caused them to have difficulty extricating themselves from it.
Lou Lan carefully placed Ai Hui in the sword formation and his eyes began to flicker with a red glow.
The sword formation was a very simple [Big Dipper Sword Formation]. Unity Swords were used to set up this sword formation. Back in the day, Blind He forged a batch of Unity Swords, and these were the reserves. Even though Unity Swords were very costly to forge, they could use them to set up the formation as time was running out and it was too late for them to forge new swords.
The sword formation did not have any reactions.
Within the sword formation, Ai Hui did not have any reactions either. The golden light within his body was very stable and the spiralling sword aura was the same as before. There did not seem to be any changes.
One hour passed.
Lou Lan had not moved, but the red glow in his eyes continued to flicker rhythmically.
Shi Xueman sat down and looked blankly at Ai Hui with her chin resting on her hand. Her mind wandered off and one could not tell what she was thinking.
Among the members of Sword of Lightning, only Gu Xuan remained composed. The other members had worried looks on their faces.
Until now, there were no reactions.
Was it possible that this method did not work?
Suddenly, an extremely soft vibrato rang across the air.
Those who had sharp hearing jumped up. Shi Xueman stood up and stared at the sword formation. Similarly, the others were holding their breaths while staring at the sword formation.
The red glow in Lou Lan's eyes continued to flicker rhythmically.
The Unity Sword nearest to Ai Hui was trembling slightly. The extremely soft vibrato was produced by it!
It trembled so softly that one could not even see the motion. One might even mistaken it as a result of wind blowing it. The vibrato it produced was extremely soft as well. If it weren't for the fact that everyone was concentrating their attention very hard, they would not have heard it.
There wasn't a single trace of wind.
The Unity Swords began to tremble more and more violently, so much so that one could even see them trembling with naked eyes.
The second sword began to tremble as well.
Following which, the third, the fourth….
The buzz from the Unity Swords could be clearly heard now.
Gu Xuan widened his eyes in incredulity. He seemingly saw traces of fog-shaped aura seeping into Ai Hui's body.
Those were...
No one could tell him what those traces of fog-shaped aura were. At this point in time, everyone, including Shi Xueman, was entirely enthralled by the sword formation.
The buzz resembled the sound of a bee flapping its wings rapidly.
Every Unity Sword released a gentle glow. With the addition of the trembling motion, the Unity Swords formed streaks of blurry light. Gradually, the [Big Dipper Sword Formation] exuded a faint luster that engulfed Ai Hui.
From total silence, the area was gradually filled with sword chimes. All this time, the sword chimes produced a chilliness that struck fear into everyone's hearts.
The soaring sword chimes gathered into a deafening and resounding screech, resembling the cry of a crane.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
A cold and sharp sword gleam flashed across everyone's eyes and disappeared.
The glow and the sword chime disappeared. It was as if everything were back to normal and nothing had changed.
Pfff. A soft, shattering sound echoed through the air.
An Unity Sword suddenly shattered into a clump of fine powder and disappeared into the air like a wisp of smoke. Pfff, pfff, pfff. The rest of the Unity Swords shattered into fine powder and disappeared into the air as well.
Even the sword hilts were reduced to fine powder too.
Shi Xueman's gaze examined Ai Hui's body carefully. Following which, a tinge of joy appeared in her beautiful eyes. The golden light within his body remained the same; however, the surging sword aura around his body seemed to have intensified slightly.
The increase in its intensity was extremely small. Ordinary elementalists would not have detected it, but it couldn't escape Shi Xueman's sharp eyes.
The red glow in Lou Lan's eyes stopped flickering as he yelled cheerfully, "Lou Lan has found a solution!"
Lou Lan carefully carried Ai Hui back to his tent and then ran off like a gust of wind.
As Shi Xueman looked at Lou Lan's back view, her lips curled in a smile and a tinge of hope appeared in her eyes. The heavy rock on her heart had been lifted off. She clenched the Cirrus in her hand tightly and left.
She had to prepare for the battle tomorrow.
….
All the blacksmiths were told to stop what they were doing and gather. Due to Ai Hui's plunder along his way to the front line, the number of blacksmiths they had now was terrifyingly huge. If one looked at them from afar, they looked like a dense and packed dark mass.
Even though most of their levels were considered ordinary, their number still exceeded an alarming 5,000. Only Skyheart City had such an enormous number of blacksmiths, and this number was even inclusive of the Elder Guild's blacksmiths.
No one was willing to give Master-level blacksmiths to Ai Hui, and there was nothing he could do about it. However, Ai Hui wasn't picky at all. He did not care about the base level of the blacksmiths and swooped them all into his ranks.
Because of the huge number of blacksmiths that the Central Pine Faction possessed, they were able to speed up the forging process of the Beehive Heavy Cannons for the battle. And because of this robust level of forging process, they were able to churn out Beehive Heavy Cannons endlessly for the Pagoda Cannon Alliance to use for their daily training sessions.
The blacksmiths felt slightly puzzled. Everyone whispered to each other as they tried to find out what was going on.
Their everyday schedules were fully packed and this was the first time they were being gathered like this. If it weren't for the fact that the blacksmiths here received excellent treatment and benefits, they would have suspected that they were going to be sent to the battlefield.
After a while, Master He and Master Li arrived together.
With both master weaponsmiths here, every blacksmith immediately quieted down.
Master He's facial expression remained as usual. All along, his face was cold and indifferent.
However, the usually magnanimous Master Li looked very serious at this moment. He looked around and started talking with a stern voice.
"Everyone, stop what you are doing now, we have received an emergency task."
A slight commotion broke out, then someone yelled, "Do we have to stop making Beehive Heavy Cannons too?"
"That's right!" Li Houtang had a solemn look on his face and his tone was resolute and decisive. "All the current tasks will be pushed back and we will complete this emergency task first."
A cold shiver went down everyone's spines. From Master Li's tone, they knew that the task this time around was extremely important.
A glint flashed across Li Houtang's eyes as he instructed solemnly, "This time around, our task is to forge swords. From now onwards, everyone will begin to forge swords! The materials have already been prepared."
Forge swords?
Everyone was stunned as they scratched their heads puzzledly. Why did he need so many people to forge swords? Why did he need so many swords?
Li Houtang did not explain further and dropped a bomb on them.
"The target for the first batch of swords will be 10,000."
After a moment of silence, the blacksmiths broke out into a commotion!
The target for the first batch of swords was.... 10,000?