The earth trembled, and the newly built houses shook.

Behind a low earthen wall, several people were crouching on the top and staring at the endless horde of Shamans with ashen faces. Suddenly, a young man’s legs gave way, and he collapsed to the ground, unable to stand for a moment. Some of his companions immediately dragged him into a shack, and they vanished from sight just like that.

A Shaman general surveyed the lifeless city before him, considering. He then pointed a finger and caused three thousand fighters to turn and charge into the city. The rest of the forces continued to march toward the center of the realm.

On the central peak, Wei Yuan furrowed his brows. He was surprised by how little troops the Shamans were sending after his diversion.

Cui Yu approached Wei Yuan and reported quickly, “I’ve just gotten a report stating that Wei Jinshan’s army is less than three hundred li away from the Shamans. If they move swiftly, they can arrive in less than half a day—just in time to cut off the Shamans’ rear guard.”

“General Yue is a formidable commander!” Wei Yuan’s praise was entirely sincere. The fact that Yuen Jinshan had managed to advance fifteen hundred li in less than two days, all while recruiting and reorganizing his forces along the way, was enough to earn him the title of great general.

Cui Yu said, “General Yue was already quite famous back in the northern frontier. He’s fought several major battles over the past few years, though I never expected him to be transferred to Ningxi. According to news from home, his current force includes ten thousand veteran soldiers from the northern frontier—their combat strength is quite formidable.”

“Then we must hold our ground until he arrives,” Wei Yuan said slowly.

“General Yue is a man of integrity; he won’t do what you think he’s going to do,” Cui Yu replied, having guessed what Wei Yuan was thinking.

“Let’s hope so.” The realm lord soared into the sky and soon vanished toward the north.

In the northwestern city, the Shaman fighters were moving swiftly and silently through the streets. The city was no longer just a collection of shacks; many households had erected low walls about three chi high. Built of clay and stone, the walls might not be particularly sturdy, but it would certainly take some effort to knock down.

The countless low walls both slowed the Shamans’ advance and carved up the battlefield into many smaller sections.

A Shaman fighter pushed aside a shack and charged inside. The moment he entered, several figures leaped out of the darkness and plunged their knives into his body simultaneously!

The Shaman fighter roared, his blade sweeping through the air and cleaving two of them in half at the waist! A third figure was trembling in the corner of the hut, seemingly paralyzed by fear. The Shaman fighter silently walked over to him and raised his blade.

The figure crouching in the corner was holding a short iron rod. In the Shaman fighter’s eyes, not even the heavy spears of the Northern Liao were worth fearing, let alone this puny iron rod that wasn’t even longer than two chi. Though, he noticed that sparks were flying from its tip for reasons unknown.

The Shaman fighter raised his long saber over his head. Just as he was about to strike, a thunderous crack suddenly blasted against his ears, and he felt as though a massive hammer had struck him in the chest. The impact sent him flying backward and putting a large hole through the wall.

The Shaman fighter let out a scream and hurled his long saber, pinning the frail figure to the wall. He then looked down and saw a small hole in the iron armor on his chest. The wound wasn’t large, but it was exceptionally deep. The Shaman fighter was quite the ruthless one; he extended a finger that resembled a bird’s talon and stabbed it into the wound. Moments later, he dug out an iron pellet. Even now, he still hadn’t figured out how he’d been injured.

A tall Shaman squad leader happened to be walking through the area. After examining the fighter’s wounds, he summoned two other fighters to carry the injured fighter out of the city. This city was under the influence of the Pure Realm of Humanity, so the injury would quickly worsen if left untreated.

The squad leader entered the shack where the battle had taken place. He glanced around and soon noticed something amiss with the floor in one corner. He walked over to it and slashed at it with his saber, shattering it to pieces and revealing an underground passage.

He assessed the size of the passage and tossed aside his battleaxe and giant shield. Clutching only a dagger, he leaped straight down into the passage. His perception detected a space not far away from him, where several people were hiding.

The squad leader quickened his pace and, in the blink of an eye, burst into a room.

The room was dark to the point it was almost lightless. Several frail humans were hiding inside, and they were weaker than even the children of the Northern Liao he had seen before. For a moment, the squad leader was at a loss: had he been summoned all the way from the northern frontier, over ten thousand li away, just to face such weak enemies?

Darkness was no obstacle to the Shamans; even the faintest glimmer of light was enough for them to see their surroundings clearly. At the moment, a few sparks were flickering in the air. These creatures were so weak they could hardly be called opponents, and their only weapons were a few short sticks emitting sparks from one end.

Suddenly, several blinding flashes of light erupted before the squad leader’s eyes, followed by excruciating pain in multiple parts of his body—as if he had been stabbed by several chisels!

The sensation was akin to being struck by a Liao arrow, but the squad leader had been struck by so many arrows that he’d long since grown accustomed to such pain. With a mighty roar, he swung his blade and cut down everyone in the room. It was only then he slowly collapsed to the ground.

The Shaman fighters who had entered the city found more and more passages and streamed into the underground. Battles erupted in the deep, dark tunnels, punctuated by the occasional muffled sounds of gunfire.

Wei Yuan was still enduring.

In the brief time since the battle began, over one thousand of the three thousand city guards had already lost their lives. This included the one thousand troops transferred from Yong’an City.

On the other hand, the Shamans had suffered only a little over a hundred casualties.

This was a ten-to-one casualty ratio, even after every member of the garrison was equipped with a gun. If the battles had happened on an open terrain, and the defenders weren’t equipped with firearms, then the newly formed garrison would likely be wiped out before they could even kill fifty enemies.

The time isn’t right yet.

Wei Yuan forced himself to suppress his inner anxiety, striving to ignore the rapidly mounting casualties and the screams, pleas and accusations flooding his perception. He was doing his best to transform himself into a cold, calculating machine.

According to Xu Wenwu, there was an object called a machine in their world. It was most skilled at calculation and possessed no emotions whatsoever. As a result, the human race in that world had long been fantasizing about scenarios where the world was ruled by machines. At the time of the hearing, Wei Yuan had instinctively felt that the scenario seemed to be drawing near.

Right now, Wei Yuan was trying to become a machine and exclude all emotion from his decision-making—but he simply couldn’t. No matter what, his heart continued to ache as if it was being torn apart.

Finally, the Shaman’s main force had passed through the city. It was now making a beeline for the center of the realm of Qingming. At the same time, the three thousand fighters who had breached the city—with the exception of a few ground patrols—had all descended into the underground.

With a flick of his perception, Wei Yuan activated a small bell hidden deep within the city. The bell’s toll seemed to possess infinite penetrating power, carrying far and wide even in the underground.

In the darkness, countless humans suddenly grabbed their weapons and screamed at the top of their lungs, pouncing toward the Shaman soldiers. It was because they knew that, when the bell tolled for the third time, a miraculous power would temporarily possess their bodies. Having experienced their power before, they all felt that they could rip the Shamans apart with their bare hands!

An invisible force descended upon the city, and an indescribable storm suddenly erupted underground!

The Shamans’ commanding general had been leading the main force forward when all of a sudden, he turned around and looked at the city in astonishment. On the surface, nothing had changed at all. However, he could sense that something was unfolding underground—the aura of his elite fighters were vanishing in droves!

He was both shocked and furious, unable to comprehend what had happened.

The terrifying surge of energy lasted only a brief moment before fading away—less than ten breaths to be specific. Yet in that short span, over half of the aura of the Shaman fighters who had gone underground had vanished!

The commanding general hesitated for a moment before dispatching another five thousand troops into the city. The remaining forces continued to advance toward the center of the realm. No matter what schemes his opponent had concocted, his mission would be complete as long as the realm stone was destroyed.

At the edge of the realm, two Great Warlocks were standing in the air and gazing out at the battlefield.

When they sensed a sudden shift in the energies in the battlefield, the Great Warlock to the left exclaimed in anger, “It’s happening again! That power—the power that turns humans into beasts! We must reinforce the troops!”

The Great Warlock on the right stood motionless, though.

“What are you waiting for?”

The Great Warlock on the right finally turned his head and said coldly, “Haven’t you felt it, Phantom? Many of the human race’s refuse-to-dies are watching us. Who knows who would suddenly jump out the moment we make a move—oh, my apologies. I forgot that you’re a small-tribe Shaman who became a Great Warlock out of sheer luck. It’s only natural that you wouldn’t understand the complexities of a battlefield. For now, you only need to follow my commands. You don’t need to have your own ideas, and you certainly don’t need to offer suggestions.”

Phantom could only say, “As you wish.”

The reason Phantom was so agitated was because many of those who had stormed the city on both occasions were from her tribe—her tribe’s most elite fighters, in fact. In the past, they had been fighting in the north. While fighting in the north had brought them honor and wealth, here, they would only die to the enemies’ inexplicable means and gain nothing in return.

When the second batch of five thousand fighters had entered the underground, that strange, spine-chilling power descended once more. In an instant, half of those five thousand powerful auras disappeared into thin air.

Phantom screamed, “We can’t just keep sending in troops batch by batch like this! There are traps underground! We need to deploy more forces and launch a sustained assault until we’ve completely destroyed that city!”

This time, the Great Warlock didn’t even glance at her. He simply pointed toward the center of the realm and said, “The old fools’ attention are all focused there. Thus, we should set our sights there as well. This city is merely a tool our enemy is using to slow down our advance; what we need to do right now is to keep pressing forward and concentrating our main force on attacking the center of the realm. Once we take the center, he will realize how foolish it is to split his forces to garrison several cities. And if we can get the human elders to strike first, then we’ve already won half the battle.”

It was only after he was done explaining that he turned to Phantom and remarked, “You know, the only thing more annoying than a boring opponent is a friendly who knows nothing, yet loves to offer ‘advice’.”