Unsealing Emptiness

Chapter 490: War.

"You are a Beastkin as well, you dumbfuck!" cursed the Elder from the Wilderness.

The Beastkin opposite to them looked at Rai with burning eyes. His shamelessness only fueled their anger.

Behind the three Sages, Ozul observed the torrent of emotions swirling around him with discomfort.

He couldn’t help but scrutinize Rai’s back.

’In one sentence, he has managed to not only light a fire in his people’s hearts but also anger his enemies...’ Though he wasn’t sure if the latter was even good for them or not.

"Fear!" "Fear!" ...

The hundreds of cultivators kept chanting as the ground shook beneath their feet. Their combined Spiritual Essence was suffocating enough to scare all beasts in the region.

Against them, the Beastkin all started roaring as well.

"Have you gone mad, servant of Ember?!" cursed one of the Elders, still unable to comprehend that they were the first ones to launch an attack.

"This is the will of the Lord of Shadows! How dare you belittle his will?!" Rai shouted in return. He smirked at the confused faces of the Elders before continuing, "Either submit to his will or accept death!"

"Death!"

"Death!"

And so the slogan shifted from ’fear’ to ’death’ among the soldiers.

"This is exactly what I wanted," he mumbled under his breath as he envisioned this scene daily.

"Do you really think you have any chances of winning?!" growled the Elder, his aura spiked.

The sheer number of cultivators was clearly in favor of Rai, but the fact that there were 5 Elders facing the three of them was something that could easily turn the tables.

"If you are so confident, why bother talking?" Rai taunted and turned toward his army, "These shallow Beastkin refuse to accept the grace of the Lord of Shadows! Cleanse them from this depraved life!"

And with that, he charged straight ahead, followed by Salar and Remal behind him. They directly engaged with four of the Elders.

Meanwhile, Ozul and a few other peak Transcendents were assigned to divert the attention of at least one Sage from the Beastkin. They collectively attacked the Sage Elder from all sides.

The rest of the cultivators followed in their footsteps and both armies collided with each other like thunder hitting the ground!

Rai, Salar, and Remal had to coordinate their attack to keep at least 4 Sages occupied, otherwise, they would annihilate their army in a matter of minutes.

"Did I really have to do this?" Ozul asked himself in contemplation as he thinned multiple blades at the woman with deer antlers.

"What right do you puny bugs have to attack me!" shouted the Elder, as she blocked yet another attack from the peak Transcendents.

Except for Ozul, the rest of them were all soldiers from the Lord of Shadows. Unlike the other cultivators, they all fought as if their lives were not worth living.

As if realizing this peculiarity, the Elder only seemed to address Ozul among all her attacks, "Haa... To think I would be reduced to such a state!"

The opportunity to absorb a Sage was lucrative, but he knew that even with many peak Transcendents, they could, at best, only delay the inevitable.

Behind them, the Beastkin all showed their animalistic traits as they fought with their lives on the line.

"Is this what a war is?" Zier murmured to himself, watching people 100 times weaker than him pass by him, running straight ahead.

Their eyes reddened with fury not of their own but of their leaders. These people stood to gain nothing but death from this war.

This was the first time he had seen so many people at each other’s throats.

Soon, blood started splashing everywhere. Even as a Transcendent, he could not dodge the rain of this red liquid that carried an unbearable stench with it.

"Haa!"..."Khaa-"..."Urgh!"..."Die-!"..."Khrgh!"...

The army sent by the Lord of Shadows continued to pour in on the Beastkin from all sides.

With each cultivator killed or left incapacitated, they moved past them and focused on their next victim.

From afar, Ember noticed this peculiarity with interest.

’They were trained for war,’ she smirked, watching her army evidently overpower the Beastkins.

It did not make sense that the Lord of Shadows just had such an army of cultivators lying around to spare for others.

’How long has he been preparing for war?’ She began to think that it was not really the Son of God who had started this war.

The only losing side was the battle between the Sages.

Watching their people getting butchered left and right, the 5 Elders started getting anxious and did not dare be lax. Like cornered beasts, they became ferocious, trying to strangle everything blocking their path.

If not for Salar and Remal, who took it upon themselves to bear the greater brunt of the attacks, Rai would have already bled to death.

Despite the knowledge that he was one of the weakest Sages, he fought without a care in the world. The wild smile never left his face, even as the smudges of blood were beginning to soak his clothes.

"You will regret ever starting this brawl!" The Elder clenched his fists, appearing behind him, and kicked him right in the back.

Not being able to anticipate the attack, Rai could only manage to block it to avoid a fatal hit. Still, he was fast enough to grab onto the Elder’s leg with his sharp claws, leaving behind scratch wounds deep enough to bleed!

As he spat out the blood rushing up his throat, he couldn’t help but smile, "Isn’t this fun, you old foggy?"

"Sick bastard," mumbled the Elder, circulating his Spiritual Essence to heal his leg quickly.

No matter how much they tried, Rai and the other two Sages showed an unreasonable amount of persistence while stalling them. If it continued on like that, it wouldn’t matter as all of their Beastkin would be dead by the time they finished.

He silently sent a voice transmission to his fellow Elders, "When are the reinforcements coming?!"

Turning around, he gazed in a certain direction, directly meeting the eyes of Leader Hakuja, who he expected to step in any moment now that things had turned out like this.

Even with a clear disadvantage, the Beastkin were not ordered for a retreat since it would shift the battlefield to their homes instead.

"They should have been here by now!" replied another Elder, trying to land a fatal blow on Salar, who dodged relentlessly.

"Have those vile humans betrayed us?"

They were waiting for the reinforcements from the Immortal Sect as it would have immediately turned the tables. With the three Sages quickly dealt with, the Elders could have dealt with the superior number of soldiers.

The conversation went on along with the struggle as tens of Transcendents, and hundreds of Origin cultivators fought to bite each other to death. The terrain kept changing according to the whims of these cultivators.

The two Empyreans from both sides kept a silent watch over the battlefield.

As long as Hakuja did not step in, the growing toll on the Beastkin’s side would be too significant to recover from easily.

But the same could also be said about Ember’s army. Even if the tides of the battle were in her favor, she could still not afford too many casualties among these soldiers.

Unlike the already established forces of the Wilderness and the Immortal Sect, she might never be able to replace these soldiers unless the Lord of Shadows helped her again. She figured even he wouldn’t be kind enough to throw away such trained cultivators so generously all the time.

’A little more should be enough...’ She thought, calculating how much damage to the Beastkin was just enough to shake the foundation of Wilderness.

. . .

On the other side of the continent, the Immortal Sect faced an even bigger threat than an army of cultivators.

The Celestial Phoenix had suddenly left her nest and appeared near the Sect. Without any warning, she started burning down the place.

Feeling the aura of the Phoenix, the Sect Leader didn’t dare laze around and quickly appeared to confront her.

"What is the meaning of this?!" enraged, the strongest Empyrean of this Realm shouted with an anger that shook the earth beneath him.

Instead of giving him an answer, however, the Phoenix flapped her wings, generating a torrent of black flames speeding toward Kai.

"Are you so arrogant to believe only you have the right to initiate an attack?" The Phoenix tilted her head, watching Kai struggle against her abyssal flames.

"How long do you think this c-can continue?" Kai managed to dissipate the flames, but wisps of it slithered around like a homeless snake, and charred huge chunks of earth below.

However, the Phoenix was not going to wait until help arrived for Kai.

With every flap of her wings, a sea of flames began to slither and hiss at everything alive and dead.

Kai struggled to contain the destruction, but even his strongest defensive techniques could only protect himself.