Revolt against the Heavens

Despite their best efforts, the tribesmen were having a tough time dealing with the waves of fighters. Indeed, they were appearing faster than they could deal with them. Thankfully, General Sha Lang Hu was able to lead his forces in a proper manner. Besides, they had several pills to help them recover their strength. On the other end, their enemies had often wasted some of their own strength trying to break out of the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' array formation.

Speaking of which, several elite soldiers had been trapped together and were combining all of their martial strength to break down the golden membrane around them. Just like Xin Zhe, they were focusing everything at a single point, in the hope of piercing through. Unfortunately for them, they were not successful at all. And like many others, they were just wasting their strength before the actual fight. Thus, they decided to stop altogether. In their minds, only Xin Zhe and City Lord Sihe would be able to break through this defense. Moreover, they were in no immediate danger. So, unlike the undisciplined mercenaries, they were patient. At some point, they would need to fight. Because they were fully aware of that, they decided to save their strength. Instead of trying to break free, they sat on the ground and began to meditate. Suddenly, without any order being given, a few dozens soldiers simply sat down.

In layers of the array formation where soldiers were mixed in with mercenaries, they gave the order to stop anything else and sit down. And in yet other layers, the soldiers gave the order to subdue the slaves. Because they didn't want to kill them, it wasn't too easy to deal with them, but the slaves were often outnumbered so they were taken down. Even after having their Slavery Brand removed, they were unable to resist when they were one against five. Keeping them alive would be a challenge though. The mercenaries wouldn't have any problem killing them of course, but the soldiers had to consider what their master would say about it. City Lord Sihe had spent a lot of resources. But his training didn't create warriors as good as Boss Gui's.

In the innermost layer, Xin Zhe was using her entire 'White Bone, Gold Blood'. 'Throne of Broken Bones'! From her spatial ring, thousands of bones appeared. Some were from demonic beasts but most of them were clearly from other demons. All of those bones were perfectly white with golden inscriptions on some of them. Those golden engraved ones seemed to act as generals relaying her orders to all the other bones. Among them, several sizes and shapes existed. But they were all working together as though they were forming Xin Zhe's private army.

While the disks she had thrown earlier were still spinning in an attempt to pierce through the golden membrane, Xin Zhe was trying something else. The ground under her feet turned into a literal grave. She was now walking on the dead bones of myriads of beings. Despite being in a place of death, she appeared perfectly pure. But her skin was as white as the bones below her feet. Slowly, she rose in the air as the bones floating in the air formed some kind of large halo behind her.

Suddenly, a part of that halo flew forward in the shape of a giant spear. It collided heavily with the disks she had already sent. Amidst the strident sound of the disks, another loud noise echoed throughout the entire 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' array formation. Everyone trapped in it heard it and they knew that Xin Zhe was trying to break out. This increased the morale of all her soldiers. At the same time, from the outside, the tribesmen all heard it and even saw the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' shake a little.

Up in the sky, Cao Yun was still on Hongyu's back using his spiritual senses as much as he could to deal with the Slavery Brands within the array formation. As soon as he sensed Xin Zhe's action, he focused on his compass. Apparently, this woman was more competent than he had hoped. Indeed, she had not been able to spot the weakest point of the array formation. But she had found one of the weak spots nonetheless. If she kept pressing on, the array formation wouldn't last too long. Thus, Cao Yun had several choices. He could literally get into the array formation to fight her, but he was almost certain to know how the fight would go.

If he had been a real Accomplished Demon, even a 1st-grade Accomplished Demon, he could have killed Xin Zhe fairly easily one-on-one. Unfortunately, he was no such thing, for now. Weighing all his options, the young human kept focusing on freeing as many slaves as he could. At the same time, he diverted a little bit of his spiritual senses to analyze Xin Zhe in details. He would try to absorb as much information as he could. Anything could be useful to him in actual combat. Besides, by the time she would break out of there, she would be much more tired than he was. Furthermore, she had been slightly injured in the earlier explosion. If he could keep her busy and far enough from the battle, they had a chance of winning.

Indeed, although it didn't go as smoothly as they had hoped, the tribesmen were still fighting valiantly. Moreover, they had not used their main card yet. Cao Yun had to make sure that the fight would remain as balanced as possible. And for that, he needed to free as many slaves as he could before Xin Zhe broke free. Unfortunately, the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' array formation had a weakness. As much as Cao Yun could break the layers one by one, if one layer was forcibly broken from within, it would weaken the entire array formation. Thus, it would become easier and easier to destroy it from within.

And finally, Xin Zhe destroyed the golden membrane in front of her. As soon as it collapsed, she found herself in a new layer. But this time, she was among some of her soldiers. There were also a few mercenaries and some slaves. Immediately, she made sure that their seals were still active. Then, she gave out orders to break down the golden membrane once more. Even if she had not been able to identify the weakest point, she had found a good strategy to break down each layer. So she would not try to improve it, she would simply apply it as efficiently as possible to get out as soon as she could.

This turned into an indirect fight between between Cao Yun and Xin Zhe. While he was choosing the layers to take care of, she was breaking them down. Cao Yun was trying to optimize the number of slaves he could free while breaking the layers as fast as he could. With each layer he broke, the array formation could grow stronger. But with each layer Xin Zhe was destroying, it was growing weaker. At first, Cao Yun was faster than Xin Zhe, but it soon became the opposite.

When Cao Yun realized that he was going to lose, he got ready for the second part of his plan. After all, he knew that he couldn't hold this array formation forever. Of course, he had hoped to keep it stable much longer than he actually had. But there was no point focusing on this right now. He had planned other contingencies. Once again, he didn't like being so weak. His understanding of array formations was very good and theoretically, he should have been able to set up a stronger 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin'. Unfortunately, he was still too weak for that. Even his mind cultivation was not good enough to take in all the details at once and control every single aspect of the setting up. What he could achieve in his sea of consciousness could not be easily translated in the real world yet.

When Cao Yun felt that Xin Zhe was about to break through the array formation, he took a heavy decision. At once, he broke every single layer of the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' except for the one she was still trapped in. Like that, she found that the golden membrane had turned much more resistant and her trick would not work as fast as it had until then. On the other hand, Cao Yun had freed all the remaining forces at the same time.

Of course, General Sha Lang Hu had always been aware that this was a possibility. Besides, Cao Yun had warned him beforehand. While the opening of the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' was a surprise for those inside, it was a given for General Sha Lang Hu. Thus, he was able to launch a surprise assault on the various forces who had been trapped within the array formation. Unlike them, he knew exactly where they were and how many they were. Cao Yun had observed them all and General Sha Lang Hu had been told everything as well. The first assault was thus very successful.

Many soldiers were killed. Those elite soldiers were indeed their main target. The mercenaries could be scared off, the slaves could be freed and didn't even want to fight to begin with. But those soldiers were working directly under City Lord Sihe. They would not defect, nor desert. So they were the primary targets to kill. And everyone knew it.

Now that they were free, the elite soldiers immediately stood up and took out their weapons. While the first assault caught them by surprise, they were able to get it together pretty quickly. Circulating their blood cultivation, they found each other in an instant. And without a moment's delay, they got in formation. From this moment, trying to pick them one by one was impossible. Besides, they were probably strong enough to even kill a 1st-grade Accomplished Demon in his prime. In fact, they might have been able to deal with Xin Zhe herself. Although being an Accomplished Demon was a huge advantage, it didn't mean invincibility.

The greatest advantage an Accomplished Demon had on a battlefield was the ability to fly. Indeed, it would allow them to fly away if things went very bad, what Golden Blood Children couldn't do.

As they were forming their battle formation, Cao Yun decided to help out as much as he could. From above, he took out his 'Tainted Heavenly Pillar'. Using both his 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars' and his 'Three Storms', Cao Yun made the entire Horn Constellation appear above him. The clouds above Hongyu were as dark as the night, yet the stars of the Horn Constellation were all shining within it. In fact, the Seven Piercing Stars were all present in the sky. And around the Neck Star, the Neck Constellation was also slowly congealing. Soon, it would be officially formed.

Within Cao Yun's sea of consciousness, the golden Insight Writings were vibrant. They were all dancing in the air, spiraling around each other, forming texts and hymns. In fact, the hymns of those characters began to dimly echo within Cao Yun's sea of consciousness. He was getting closer and closer to forming his Spear Intent. With his Spear Aura to its limit, Cao Yun's 'Tainted Heavenly Pillar' now looked like a real Azure Dragon. It wasn't the effect of his martial art, but of his own understanding of the Way of the Spear. Unlike his Qi Manifestation, it didn't rely on Qi at all. In fact, a mere mortal could theoretically produce such an effect if they had a deep enough understanding of their art. Of course, it was absolutely impossible in practice.

On the ground, everyone was stunned by what was happening above them. Since Spear Aura was unrelated to one's cultivation, Cao Yun had no problem showing off. In fact, many were convinced that such a Spear Aura bordering on the Spear Intent could only be achieved by an Accomplished Demon, simply because of the time required to reach a high understanding of one's martial art.

In the dark clouds, where the stars were shining as though it was a second sky, two bright sapphires appeared. They were extremely threatening as Cao Yun had imbued them with his 'Demon Weeping' and his Turbid Demons. At that moment, the young human was using almost everything. His main goal was to ascertain his position in the eyes of everyone below. At the same time, he was truly trying to help them. From what he could feel in the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin', he would only have one strike to help the tribesmen. After that, they would need to rely on themselves. Thankfully, no one below was an Accomplished Demon. Since Cao Yun could most likely kill any one of the elite soldiers, he could inflict a lot of damage even with their battle formation.

'Sea of Blood'!

All the elite soldiers felt a paralyzing fear seize their hearts. For an instant, they even stopped breathing. But everyone else on the battlefield had an awful fright as well. It was as though the sky had turned into an infinite abyss from which they were feeling a powerful blood thirst. Even though it wasn't directed at them, many were shaking. Obviously, for the soldiers who were targeted by this, the sensation was much worse.

'Azure Dragon Tears the East Sky'!

Using this moment to strike, Cao Yun used a move he had never worked on. In fact, a few minutes ago, he had no idea such a move was even possible. But from the golden hymns in his sea of consciousness, he had gotten some inspiration. By combining his two martial arts, he had reached this conclusion.

From the dark clouds, the figure of the Azure Dragon leapt toward the ground. Along with its massive body, the Azure Dragon was surrounded by the black cloud full of thunder. As it was coming down from the Heavens, the Azure Dragon was also bringing the stars down as well as a destructive wind. Suddenly, everything went crashing down on the soldiers just as Cao Yun's 'Tainted Heavenly Pillar' was striking in their direction.

At that moment, all the soldiers freed from the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' array formation had just enough time to brace for impact.