Chapter 1767: Chapter 1766 - War of Obliteration

Lind’s claws cleaved yet another 5 Fiends into nothing. They burst into emerald flames as they were destroyed. Such astounding 1v5 results would normally be lauded as stunning, but after over a century, he felt only tired.

It is one thing to grasp the numbers of armies, supplies, and logistics but when the clash gets down to battle, it becomes a timeless nightmare.

Blood caked the soil, trees, or anything that could not escape in time. While he was hardly injured physically, his dantian and mind were running on fumes.

He was far from the only one. The initial success of his Divine Authority weapons had made it seem like the war was only going to be about reaching the bridge, destroying it, and wiping out the Fiends.

He too, had been too optimistic when it came to the average Fiend. He had forgotten the tenacious and attrition-like style they could employ to exhaust their enemies. Losses meant nothing to them but lost time.

Fiends were extremely long lived and thus their numbers could be depleted only to find new reserves waiting in the wings to replace them! Worse, he suspected the lower realm worlds were in far more danger from the Fiends as well!

The best way to advance was to cut loose and subsume whole lower realms to let a few advance. The Void Ocean was full of lights and impossible to count. If the Fiends had spent the last few epochs infesting as many as possible, their numbers were just as unending!

A decade ago, however, a long hidden threat finally surfaced. Fey had been attacked by the Bastard. He had been hiding on their doorstep for who knew how long!

Worse, he had not been killed, only wounded. Fey was one of the few he could rely on to kill Fiends with her own abilities without any enhancement from him.

She grew as concerned as he at the parting words. They were not infallible beings, a mistake would not be known until it was too late and the war demanded their full attention.

They were at a stalemate save in the east. Sun, the crazy warrior he always was, had somehow conjured an army of golden monkey spirits. He had only smirked, pale as a ghost, that the eastern shores were sealed once more.

That had been the one silver lining and the main factor in the stalemate. The Fiends were still having to push themselves hard to cross the Void Ocean. It was leaving them at 50 - 60% of their capacity and the defenses his army used were not allowing them to recover.

Sadly, that early elation of actually killing billions of Fiends gave way to the disturbing reality they had come to accept a century later. Whatever force they had seen before retreating from the Eastern Continent was but a small part of the total Fiend population.

Worse yet, Immortal Fiends now seemed able to contend with Divine Realm cultivators! The power difference had still held previously, yet now they seemed able to brush away defenses like they never existed!

Mystery energy was but a minor inconvenience to them! Lind suspected the original Bastard had done something to them but he had no time.

Time was the factor he needed to build, think, or even just evaluate their situation but he could not hold back. He was the single most effective being in the entire war.

The south shores had not fallen solely due to his personal efforts and his direct family. Another wave of ash gray Fiends surged through the breach in the barrier. They seemed to time it just enough to not allow him to recover at all.

The tactic was effective but it became predictable. His mane slashed outward and dark clouds appeared. The once impassive faces turned fearful and ran!

Lind had learned a few new tricks.

The liquid harmonic rain was like an acid to them. It latched on and was nearly impossible to remove. Unlike his flames, it was insidious. It was nearly impossible to remove and cutting off limbs did not save them.

It seemed to leech their dark blood and flow through the body to grow slowly inside them. Eventually, they would be melted from the inside out.

Nothing they used could stop it but Lind had to prepare in advance to trigger it as a trap. He collapsed to the ground as the same bane to Fiends soothed him. His foggy mind partially cleared up as his massive dragon body steamed.

[Dare I ask?] He sent a transmission via a jade communication stone. It was too risky to use only his mind. The small stone nearly blended with his scales but it lit up and reports were sent.

He sighed but then became grim. The lines had held but no more. Millions were injured or beyond the ability to continue.

Fighting was ongoing in the 3 larger breached areas of the barrier but no other issues were reported.

No sighting of the Bastard either.

[Beloved, you need to rest.] Qing’s voice suddenly intruded as he lay on the blood soaked clearing. His giant maw pulled back enough to smile.

[I am resting, I have not moved for some time.] A stern feeling of reprisal came but then she seemed to consider it was unwise to move just yet. His new application was effective but limited to while it was active.

He was in the best place to recover.

He looked up at the falling drops and wished he could do more with them. It was just too intensive in its requirements. Condensing Qi into any physical state was extremely taxing.

Making harmonic crystals the size of a palm was fairly easy. Even a large one, like the Law Crystals he had seen in his travels, was feasible in a relatively short time.

A massive, highly effective liquid, however, was far more difficult. He had made some improvements by using weavings to constantly condense it, yet they were inefficient compared to his direct actions.

It seemed like harmonic Qi needed a mind to really push it along the path. He wished he could have experimented more but even now, he could feel them. Their disturbing eyes locked on the breach, waiting to come storming in.

He felt good enough to float but stayed down. It was faster to recover as he considered the problem again.

Until about 45 years ago, he had been able to wipe out millions of Fiends with the trap. Now, they had been able to parse down the final moment to escape. If they could not, they just stopped and died where they stood.

It still caught a few thousand over the year but that was nothing. He needed a better delivery system. He needed a weapon or artifact that could condense the Qi and shoot it out in a manner he chose rather than random drops from the sky.

He had focused on the issue for almost 70 years but the storm could only last a few days before it petered out. Even then, they would wait.

He had been shocked when the tail end of one storm had been able to cull nearly a million more Fiends because they thought it was safe enough to come back through.

He had few resources to work with and the liquid form of his harmonic Qi was powerful enough to shatter most anything he could cobble together on the fly.

If he still had access to Dao or Mystery Grade materials, he might be able to test some ideas but those had been exhausted save a small reserve to safeguard the majority of the population.

There had been cause to celebrate the forethought when the armies arrayed against the Fiends lost a step. Starkly powerful and self destructive attacks had been launched at those moments to try and wipe out the Immortals and below cultivators deeper in the Southern Continent.

The defenses had flared and just barely fended them off. The fact the Fiends sacrificed themselves to do it showed their goal clearly.

It was a war where the only outcome was the obliteration of the other side. The horrifying part was how quick the Fiends were to do such actions. There was no hesitation or attempts to pawn off as had once been common.

Fiends wanted to live forever. It had once been a facet that could be abused to great victories for armies fighting them. Lind, himself, had gotten large advantages due to such infighting as he rose through the path of cultivation.

All of that was now gone. A unified Fiend front was far more difficult to fight than even he had expected.

Attempts to undermine or trigger the kind of betrayal they were used to had all ended in abysmal failure. The Fiends had even allowed it to set traps a century ago!

They had lost millions to them.

People were losing hope but could not stop fighting. The truth was, the temporary fear of death had been superseded by the ultimate fate awaiting them. They did not want to be refined inside a dantian!

It was just enough to keep them going, but a century on, even Lind was running out of ideas to keep them going.

Sun’s success had bought them a lot of time. There was no denying it, but the price had been steep. Sun was able to fight but he was in a constant state of exhaustion.

His dantian would not recover for thousands of years at the best of his estimation.

Lind had no such crazy attack to attempt, but even if he did, it would be the exact opening the Bastard was waiting for.

"A pity I could not have a sprinkler pop out with–" His voice froze as his massive head snapped up. It had been a random thought but it sparked an avalanche! Could he do it? Was it possible?!

More, could he pull it off in the few days he had left?

He moved quickly and sent out requests for any materials that could be afforded. His mind was moving faster than it had in decades and did not involve analyzing battles.

He hoped it would work. If it did, it would change the war!