Chapter 1629: Zhao Haiyang

Boom!

The third strike hammered down. The sickly, blue-robed man was in a state of frenzy. His losses were devastating, and even slaughtering everyone in the tower wouldn’t be enough to appease his rage.

But just then, a booming voice echoed from the horizon.

“Gui Qing, you truly think you’re something, don’t you? Let Zhao see what you’ve got!”

As the voice rang out, a towering aura erupted from the eastern sky. A vast expanse of golden light swept westward at incredible speed.

Gui Qing’s brow furrowed. He didn’t stop his attack, but his expression grew grave. He pointed both fingers, and his long blade grew instantly until it was hundreds of zhang long, a mountain of a blade that blotted out the sun. The blade pulsed with an eerie green light, turning the world below into a scene of shadowy, sickly green. Every cultivator under the light looked bizarre and unsettling.

The surging blade intent caused the very air to hum with a series of loud, vibrating roars. Everything under the green light appeared warped and distorted. As the light erupted from the blade’s edge, it brought with it the full weight of the heavens, crashing toward the Beacon Tower’s array.

Inside the array, Li Yan and the others also sensed the disturbance. As the massive blade descended, the earth below began to churn with sand and stone. Above them, violent gales erupted. As the blade cut through space, it left a trail of spatial cracks. From these cracks, spatial gales and asteroids of all sizes whistled out. Some of the asteroids were a hundred zhang wide—true flying mountains.

But as these asteroids touched the green light of the blade, they disintegrated like rotten wood, turning into clouds of dust.

Despite the distance, the array began to crack under the pressure, letting out a series of ominous snaps and pops. The formation flared with its most brilliant light. Li Yan and Mu Guyue were both bleeding from the corners of their mouths as the blade descended.

They were currently in a purely defensive stance and couldn’t fully redirect the force. They had to rely on the array to withstand the full fury of a mid-stage Void Refining expert. This was a direct contest of magical power. Although Li Yan’s reserves were vast, he and Mu Guyue combined were still far weaker than their opponent. At his current strength, Li Yan might be able to wound or even kill an initial-stage Void Refining expert with the right circumstances and surprise, but against a mid-stage expert, the gap was simply too large.

However, they knew the array was designed to withstand a single blow from a late-stage Void Refining expert. That gave them some confidence. But reaching that level of defense required at least three high-grade spirit stones or the combined effort of five Spirit Transformation experts. Li Yan and Mu Guyue had plenty of high-grade spirit stones, but they weren’t about to use them unless it was absolutely necessary.

As the green blade descended, a streak of golden light—resembling a golden dragon—shot forward from behind the tower.

Boom!

A world-shattering explosion followed. The earth outside the array erupted like a volcano. Huge fissures appeared in the ground, and the desert seemed to shatter. From the cracks, massive quantities of water geysered into the air. Driven by the immense pressure, the water, along with stones and clumps of earth, shot out like a hail of arrows, whistling as they pelted the surrounding area.

From the transformation of the blade to the explosion, everything happened in a heartbeat.

The Mocha Palace cultivators—Spirit Transformation, Nascent Soul, and Golden Core alike—turned pale. Unlike the Moji Dao Sect cultivators, they didn’t have an array to protect them. The spatial gales from above, though still distant, were not something the Golden Core cultivators could survive. Even a stray pebble or a piece of grass accelerated by the pressure could easily kill them.

But Gui Qing had already acted. As he brought his blade down, he swept his sleeve and pulled all his subordinates into his spirit-storing space.

Inside the array, Li Yan and his squad felt as though the world were turning upside down. Even with the array’s protection, the earth beneath them seemed to be waking up like a buried dragon about to take flight. The deafening explosion knocked the remaining Golden Core cultivators unconscious. The Nascent Soul cultivators coughed blood, some of which contained fragments of their organs. For a cultivator, such injuries were non-lethal as long as they had the right pills.

The moment Li Yan and Mu Guyue sensed the aftershocks entering the array, they unleashed two layers of protective barriers, shielding the rooms. Without them, the Golden Cores of the subordinates would have been crushed into powder. Both Li Yan and Mu Guyue possessed incredibly tough bodies and stable Nascent Souls, yet they both let more blood flow from their mouths, making their “injuries” look more severe than they were.

Outside the array, the green blade was pinned in the air by a “Dragon-Tongue Spear,” only thirty zhang above the outpost. The green and golden lights clashed, consuming each other until they both faded into the aftermath of the explosion. The spatial cracks closed rapidly under the natural laws of the world.

Gui Qing remained composed. He had known this would be the outcome the moment he revealed his presence. If these Beacon Towers were easy to seize, they would have fallen long ago. Both sides had experts monitoring the front lines. Over the years, towers had changed hands many times, but since this was Moji Dao Sect territory and a buffer zone, it hadn’t escalated into the kind of constant slaughter seen in the north.

The Mocha Palace’s goal was usually to disrupt the enemy’s lines, cause some losses, and force them to mobilize. Gui Qing’s gaze was as cold as a blade as he stared at the array below.

“Boy, do you dare to give me your name?” he asked, his figure already drifting westward. He knew that if they continued to fight at this level, more Void Refining experts would arrive, turning this into a major battle. His original goal had been a small victory—to seize the tower, break the overall defensive line, and cause chaos to the east. But he had been outplayed by a Spirit Transformation cultivator who was bold beyond belief. He had lost three men, with a fourth severely injured. He would remember Li Yan’s face.

“I am but a nobody,” Li Yan’s voice rang from the array. He wasn’t about to give his name; that was the kind of thing only an arrogant fool would do.

At that moment, the golden light solidified.

“Hahaha! Well said! A mere ‘nobody’ has driven the great Commander Gui Qing to such a state. Gui Qing, if I were you, I’d just go find a rope and hang myself. It’ll be less embarrassing when word of this gets out!”

The booming voice now belonged to a man standing above the tower. Far in the distance, Gui Qing’s eyes were filled with a murderous chill that seemed capable of freezing the world. He was determined to kill everyone in that tower, and he wasn’t the type of man to wait long for his revenge.

“Zhao Haiyang, you have nothing to be proud of. If you have the guts, try to outplay me yourself! Hmph!” Gui Qing’s voice drifted back from the horizon before his figure vanished completely.

Above the Beacon Tower, within the golden light, a burly man in a golden cloak stood watching the horizon with a cold smile. This sector was his responsibility today. He had been meditating when a signal flare appeared in his array. He had realized immediately that a Mocha Palace Void Refining expert had appeared at the Southern Fangs. He had teleported to a hidden location and flown the rest of the way alone. Since only Gui Qing and some low-level cultivators were here, there was no need to mobilize the army.

He knew that his presence alone would force Gui Qing to retreat. If it had been a trap, he would have just entered the Beacon Tower and taken control of the array while calling for reinforcements. He had been through this many times. He didn’t know the specifics of what had happened, but he knew Gui Qing well enough to know the man wouldn’t have used such power unless he was truly enraged.

Seeing Gui Qing retreat, Zhao Haiyang didn’t pursue. He looked down at the tower. If he remembered correctly, the garrison had just been rotated. How had these newcomers managed to provoke Gui Qing so much in just a few days? He suspected that Gui Qing had tried to use the rotation as an opportunity to seize the tower and that something had gone very wrong for him.

Inside the array, Li Yan quickly rescued the unconscious Golden Core cultivators, using his vast power to wake them. “Take your pills and heal!” he commanded. He then moved toward the battlements, with Mu Guyue following silently. The four Nascent Soul cultivators, despite their injuries, knew their own Void Refining general had arrived and went out to pay their respects.

Li Yan and the others reached the wall and looked up at the man in the golden cloak.

“His name is Zhao Haiyang. According to the jade slips, he’s a Vice-General of the Scout Battalion in the first rear defensive line,” Li Yan recalled. He had heard the exchange between the two experts. The sickly man was named Gui Qing.

Zhao Haiyang wasn’t wearing armor. He radiated a powerful aura. Li Yan remembered his name; he was one of the three Vice-Generals of the Scout Battalion and a mid-stage Void Refining expert.

“We pay our respects to the General!” Li Yan and the others bowed deeply, though they didn’t deactivate the array.

Zhao Haiyang looked down. When his gaze fell on Mu Guyue, a spark of interest flashed in his eyes. ‘What a stunning woman!’ He had seen many beautiful women, but Mu Guyue was exceptional. Even in armor, her incredible figure was obvious. He could sense the vitality and strength within her body, suggesting a muscle tone and elasticity that far surpassed the typical delicate, pale beauties. She was a woman who could truly “fight”—exactly his type.

He kept his expression neutral, noting that the array was still active. Zhao Haiyang nodded and pulled a green command token from his pocket, tossing it toward the array. The token hovered above the tower as he spoke.

“What happened here? Why was Gui Qing attacking this place with such fury?”