271 The roar of war.

The first thing Guo Luo noticed when she set foot on the barren and faintly red dusty earth of God Piercer planet was the strange taste of the air, it was so metallic that it was like constantly having a thin layer of blood coating her tongue. She also found the Qi there to be excessively strange, it was chaotic and violent, like a wounded animal scurrying around and lashing out at anyone that got close to it. If she didn't divert a bit of her attention to calming it, the Qi might actually manage to leave tiny wounds on her veins. With the planet being like this, Guo Luo could somewhat believe why others would think that it might have gotten cursed over the years.

She could see the thousands of other people in her battalion shift slightly after they stepped onto the planet, their brows furrowing as they likely experienced the same sensation. She checked to make sure that Yao He and Yao Xun, Yoa Jun's parents, were still fine, but other than some discomfort the environment didn't seem to cause them too many problems. She had luckily forced Yao Xuelian to hide away within her God Gate, an environment like this would not be very good for a child that young.

Guo Luo swept her gaze across the surrounding area, her heartbeat quickening slightly. There were people and other strange races as far as the eye could see, some wearing armor while others only wore their normal clothing. There were so many races that she hadn't seen before, Demonic beasts with shapes that she hadn't once imagined to be possible, strange mixtures of beasts and man, or mixtures of beasts and beasts.

And standing in an orderly fashion far ahead of them were their enemies, the so-called World Tree clan. Guo Luo found them to be more human-looking than a vast majority of the other races present, their tall statures and thin heads were somewhat strange, especially their elongated features, but she felt like they would be easy to get used to given a bit of time. There were several squads of normal humans standing alongside the people from the World Tree clan, probably allies that they had called upon now that the war had arrived.

But right now, none of that mattered to Guo Luo. Those people would try to kill them because of the fact that they stood on this side of the battlefield, so Guo Luo would, in turn, kill them so that she could keep living. She could feel the ground beneath her vibrate as the squads to her right started to move, the arrays connecting those squads coming to life with the roar of Qi. Just like she guessed, the air above her squad lit up with a peach-colored light shortly after, the sign that they were to move out. This was a war, one for survival apparently, there was no need to exchange any words before the start of the battle.

The other people around her brought out the brown paper talismans they had been given and stuck them to their chests, the talismans emitting a faint light as they unleashed a hair-thin line of energy. The thin lines of energy weaved through the group, connecting everyone together in a single large array designed for war. There were however four people who weren't connected with the others by the array, Yun Yantian, Guo Luo, Yao He, and Yao Xun.

If there was one thing Guo Luo had learned on her travels with Yao Jun, it was to remain cautious and vigilant, it was to the point that they had even disguised themselves before they entered the Eagle Soul sect. The array might seem useful, allowing you to draw upon the power of everyone in the array to boost your own attack or defense. But the problem was that everyone could do this, so you could just suddenly end up losing a large portion of your own energy because someone wanted to launch an attack, thus ending up vulnerable to an attack.

Her squad started to move forward when the array activated, following the other squads that were already heading forward to engage the enemy. A sword made from a rainbow-colored crystal appeared in Guo Luo's grasp, her fingers tightening around the handle. Yun Yantian stretched out his arm, a double-edged longsword appearing in his grasp as his eyes took on a serious gleam. Even he was not so carefree that he would be careless in a battle like this.

The surging movements of the various squads swept Guo Luo and the others forward, ignoring their wishes to retreat to the back of the army. Guo Luo had already lost sight of Sasha, so she had likely been pushed forward by quite a distance already, becoming indistinguishable from the countless other soldiers. And then, with the rumbling of countless footsteps echoing in her ears, Guo Luo's squad made contact with the enemies.

A myriad of lights illuminated the sky as countless attacks were launched, the roar of battle drowning out even the screams of those first to fall victims to the attacks. Guo Luo felt a strange sensation moving through the ground beneath her, heading directly for Yao He and Yao Xun. Her sole pink right eye lit up with an enchanting light just as something that looked like a centipede made from bone burst through the ground and snapped at Yao Xun with its pincers.

The centipede stopped dead in its tracks as Guo Luo's gaze landed on it, its body twitching slightly before suddenly disintegrating into colorful dust that was blown away by the wind. Yao He, who had already bent his knees and was about to launch a counter-attack, nodded his head in gratitude, Guo Luo returning a simple nod before quickly turning her head and swinging out with her sword.

The edge of her blade made contact with a cloud of orange mist that carried the scent of sulfur. The cloud had already melted the skin of about 20 people in front her before it made its way to her, but when it made contact with the edge of her blade, the scalding cloud turned into harmless flower petals that drifted down around Guo Luo. She carried the Illusion God's Gate and had already acquired its supreme technique years before Yao Jun got his own, as long as she had enough energy, reality could be whatever she wished.

She moved her eye slightly to the side, glancing at Yun Yantian to make sure how he was doing. But the moment she moved her eye and saw his state, she realized she had done something pointless. Not only was Yun Yantian's cultivation higher than hers, but his God Gate was also born for combat, it thrived in a situation like this.

Yun Yantian carried a blade in each hand as he moved around, 13 blades forming a circle behind his back, attacking or defending the moment anything got close to him. His swords would break after only two or three hits, but new ones would simply appear out of thin air and take the place of the broken ones. A few small daggers would also appear around him occasionally, shooting around so fast that they turned into faint blurs before piercing into the throats of the more distant enemies. In the time it took Guo Luo to defend against the two attacks, Yun Yantian had already killed a little over 100 people. He was the future Sword God, and the battlefield was his home.

Guo Luo suddenly felt a shiver run down her spine, even Yun Yantian felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He didn't waste a second thinking about anything, he immediately dashed over to Guo Luo and Yao Jun's parents. Guo Luo and Yun Yantian took up position in front of the two of them, both swinging out with their swords at the same time and launching their attacks. The 13 blades behind Yun Yantian shot forward, rapidly spinning and tearing through space around them as they did. Guo Luo's attack was less eye-catching, a palm-sized sparrow flying forth from the edge of her blade, spreading a light golden mist around it as it flew.

For a second, Yao He and Yao Xun didn't understand what the two were doing, but then the sky above them was flooded with flames, the very air itself turning into fire. The fire descended like a meteor, crashing into not only Guo Luo's squad but also two other squads around them.

The heat of the flames swallowed thousands of people, the blazing roar swallowing even the screams of those currently burning. Once the fire faded, only a few spots in the area remained mostly untouched, over 15 000 soldiers reduced to less than 100 in a single move. And soaring on burning wings above them was the culprit, a female youth from the World Tree clan with blue hair and black eyes, a faint flame flickering in her pupils. Looking at the flying woman, Yun Yantian let out a strained chuckle.

"Fuck, we must have gotten some of Brother Jun's terrible luck, didn't expect them to send out the Earthly Deities the moment the battle started."