paranoianovel Chapter 117 Beacon Tower, Rise of Military Spirit
Chapter 117 Beacon Tower, Rise of Military Spirit
Chapter 117 Beacon Tower, Rise of Military Spirit (5K)
Upon exiting the south gate of the city of Despair, the wind and snow were even stronger than when we arrived.
The sky was no longer indistinguishable between day and night.
Low-hanging leaden clouds pressed down overhead, and shards of ice rustled against the gray wolf fur cloak.
Xu Hao tightened his goggles, draped his right arm in front of him, and gripped the Devouring Sea Blade in his left hand as he stumbled southward.
My physical strength is being overdrawn.
When he pulled out the dragon-suppressing nail, the residual wind from the dragon's overturning shattered his right arm. He was also injured in his internal organs by the airflow that lifted him up from the bottom of the valley. The energy of the blessed land painting scroll was reduced to only 30%.
The internal energy of the Tongqiao Realm, supporting the protective membrane on the body surface, is consumed twice as fast as usual.
He chewed on a piece of frozen bread and then chug it down with strong liquor.
The alcohol burned in my stomach, causing my blood to churn a few times, and I barely managed to warm my hands and feet back up.
Walk ten miles.
Xu Hao stopped.
It's not that I'm physically exhausted.
The problem is with the snow underfoot.
Three sets of footprints.
Extremely wide spacing, even stride length, and consistent stomping depth—the scout's gait is the result of rigorous training.
The pattern on the soles is not of the Daheng style; it is that of a barbarian's soft leather boots.
The three men followed for ten miles before leaving any trace. Either it was intentional, or the wind direction changed—barbarian hunters are best at following with the wind, and once the wind turns against them, their footprints can no longer be covered.
Xu Hao turned his head and scanned the surrounding terrain.
To the left is a rolling snow-covered hill, and to the right are several black pines that have been frozen to death, their crowns completely collapsed and their branches sticking out haphazardly in the snow.
Three hundred paces ahead, the terrain subsides, forming a shallow depression.
Standard ambush terrain.
If he were a hunter, he would drive the man into a shallow depression and surround him on three sides.
He didn't go into the shallow depression.
He took a step forward with a surging gait, his figure slicing diagonally towards the withered pine forest on the right.
The tip of the knife in his left hand dragged across the snow, leaving a long groove behind him.
Three breaths later, a short howl came from the direction of the shallow depression.
Snow Wolf.
Not just one.
It has three heads.
Three gray shadows darted out from either side of the shallow depression, each carrying a barbarian warrior on the back of a wolf.
Animal hide armor, bone spear, and gray wolf skulls draped over the shoulders—the same equipment as the hunting party they had encountered on the snowfield.
All three of them had something hanging from their waists.
White bone totem dominoes.
The people of the Bone-Eating Tent.
The lead rider was the most robust, with a blue wolf tattoo on his bare right arm, extending from his shoulder to the back of his hand.
What he was carrying was not a bone spear, but a completely black curved sword.
The blade was engraved with barbarian runes and emitted a dark red, blood-red light.
The blood and qi fluctuations at the peak of the Inner Strength Realm.
The latter two are weaker, at the early stage of the Inner Strength Realm.
Three against one.
The other side had obviously done their homework, knowing he was injured, and deliberately chose a configuration that was "good enough but not wasteful".
The lead barbarian rider reined in the snow wolf and shouted something in broken Daheng dialect.
"The Bone Shaman said to take your head and the turtle on your back back with you. Take them both, alive and dead."
Xu Hao stood among the withered pines, holding the Devouring Sea Blade horizontally in front of him with his left hand.
"Didn't your Bone Shaman tell you that three aren't enough?"
The barbarian rider's response was a loud shout.
All three riders launched their attacks simultaneously.
Snow wolves pounce three times faster than horses, traversing deep snow as if it were flat ground.
The leader charged straight in from the center, while the two flanks flanked him, simultaneously brandishing bone spears and scimitars.
A textbook example of a cavalry charge.
Unfortunately, the opponent was not an infantryman.
Xu Hao did not directly confront the charge.
He had long since retreated to the withered pines.
The dead trees were less than ten feet apart, and broken branches lying haphazardly blocked most of the path.
Snow wolves are large enough to be ferocious on open snowfields, but if they squeeze into the bushes, they become easy targets.
The lead rider also noticed this and shouted to rein in his horse.
late.
Xu Hao gripped the Devouring Sea Blade in reverse with his left hand and emerged from behind a withered pine tree.
The dark blue blade swept across the snow.
The left-wing rider reacted the slowest; he was trying to scare the wolf around a fallen pine trunk when the snow wolf's front paws touched the wood, and the blade flashed across the wolf's belly.
The snow wolf was cut in half at the waist.
The rider fell off the wolf's back, and before he could even regain his footing, the chilling aura of the Devouring Sea Blade had already seeped into his armor.
The crisp sound of the frozen skin cracking.
One.
The right-wing rider threw a bone spear.
The spearhead, coated with dark red blood and qi, pierced through the gaps in the trees and headed straight for Xu Hao's back.
Xu Hao turned to the side, the bone spear grazing his ribs as it flew past.
He pretended to retaliate against the right wing, but in reality continued to move closer to the leader.
Reality and illusion.
The right-wing rider, having lost his long weapon, instinctively drew his short sword from his waist in preparation for close combat.
Xu Hao feigned an opening and slipped past the right flank.
His target was the mid lane from start to finish.
The leader's scimitar came down.
A full-force strike from a mid-stage Inner Strength Realm cultivator, the blade wind ripped through the snow curtain.
Xu Hao used his crippled right arm to lift the Xuan Turtle and block.
The curved blade sliced into the backpack and struck the shrunken tortoise shell.
The black tortoise was unharmed, but the intense pain caused by the vibration exploded in his already fractured forearm.
The sound of bones breaking was exceptionally clear on the silent snowfield.
But Xu Hao's left hand had already shoved the Devouring Sea Blade under the leader's armpit.
The barbarian's animal hide armor protects against frontal slashes, with the thinnest part being the seam under the armpits.
The blade pierced his ribs, and dark blue energy surged straight into his heart.
The leader's eyes widened, and hot, steaming blood mist gushed from his mouth. The scimitar slipped from his hand.
two.
When the rider on the right wing saw the leader fall to the ground, he turned and ran.
The snow wolf's speed saved his life.
But Xu Hao took out a fragment of Blood Fiend Crystal from the Sumeru Warehouse, poured his Qi into it, and threw it out.
A burst of red light erupted.
The fragments landed three steps behind the snow wolf.
The explosive energy of blood and qi blasted a crater three zhang wide into the snow.
The rider and the snow wolf were thrown into the air by the blast wave and landed in a snowdrift twenty paces away.
Xu Hao walked over.
The rider was still breathing.
Half of his body was burned, but the barbarian warrior's physique withstood the fatal wound.
"How many more people did the Bone Witch send?" Xu Hao held a knife to his neck.
The barbarian rider grinned, revealing a mouthful of bloody teeth, and uttered a barbarian word.
Xu Hao understood.
It means "go to hell".
The knife fell.
Three.
Xu Hao knelt on one knee in the snow, his right arm completely useless.
It wasn't a fracture, it was shattered by the shock.
From the elbow to the wrist, the bone was broken into three pieces, and two strange bulges appeared under the skin.
He gritted his teeth, tore a leather strap off the leader, and tied it to his right arm across his chest to secure it.
The bone-setting powder is gone.
He could only rely on the Qi and blood of the Tongqiao Realm to forcibly suppress the injury and prevent the broken bones from piercing through the skin and flesh.
The black tortoise in his arms poked its head out and rubbed its little head against his chest.
The eerie blue light on the tortoise shell flickered, and a wisp of warm energy flowed over.
It's to help him heal his wounds.
Although this amount of energy was a drop in the ocean compared to the broken bones, it at least stopped the bleeding.
"I'll give you extra food later." Xu Hao patted the tortoise shell.
Stand up and continue walking south.
There are two and a half days left.
Xu Hao traveled for a day and a night.
They encountered two more groups of pursuers along the way.
One group consisted of four barbarian cavalrymen. He circled around to the flank and buried two of them alive with blood-fiend crystals, while the remaining two escaped.
Another group was even more troublesome—three molting ghosts.
It wasn't wearing human skin; its flesh was grayish-white, and it had barbed bone blades. It crawled swiftly through the snow.
They didn't chase after him; they were buried beforehand under the snow along his inevitable path.
The arrangement by the Bone Maiden.
She saw him running south from the city of Despair and scattered chess pieces along his return path beforehand.
The molting ghost is not difficult to kill.
The Extreme Cold Yin Sha of the Devouring Sea Blade is a natural counter to monsters like this that have no skin.
But after killing three, he had used up one-tenth of his internal energy.
The next evening, the black mountains of Iron Gate Pass appeared on the horizon.
Xu Hao hadn't slept for thirty hours.
Dark red blood seeped through the bandages on his right arm.
The remaining amount of protective energy is less than 40%.
Moonlight shone through the clouds onto the snow.
The uneven terrain, spanning a hundred feet in circumference, appeared ahead of the beacon tower.
Xu Hao stopped.
On the beacon tower walls, the dark red lights that should have belonged to the souls of the dead have all gone out.
Instead, a thick cloud of black mist lingered inside the fortress.
In the center of the black mist, a figure could be vaguely seen.
The smell of bone meal wafted in the wind.
The black-robed man who brushed past him on the path to the severed throat.
I didn't chase after him.
Instead, they arrived at the beacon tower before him.
The black mist above the beacon tower resembled an inverted pot, completely covering an area of hundreds of feet in radius.
Xu Hao didn't rush in.
He crouched behind a low slope thirty feet away, took the black tortoise out of his bosom, placed it on the snow, and covered it with a gray wolfskin cloak.
"Don't make a sound, don't shine any light, play dead no matter who comes."
The black tortoise wisely retracted all four limbs and its head into its shell.
Xu Hao turned to observe the beacon tower.
The city walls are still covered with countless broken arrows and wrecked spears.
The weathered bones at the base of the wall were shrouded in black mist, and rusted iron armor and tattered helmets could be vaguely seen in the pile of bones.
But the dark red light spots that originally belonged to the dead were all extinguished.
They haven't broken up.
It was suppressed.
The core of the black aura is located in the center of the fortress, which was originally the base of a beacon tower.
A figure sat cross-legged on the ruins of the beacon fire, his hands forming a mudra, chanting incantations.
The sound was faint, and it dissipated as soon as it was carried by the wind.
But Xu Hao could tell that it was the same tune that Bone Mother sang above the rift.
Barbarian bone magic.
This person is not the Bone Goddess herself, but one of her subordinates.
A person who specializes in doing dirty work.
Xu Hao closed his eyes to sense.
The black-robed man's qi and blood fluctuations were stable at the peak of the Inner Strength Realm, but his aura was extremely mixed—there was death energy, resentment energy, and the acrid smell of burning bone powder.
This complexity is not due to a deviation in cultivation; it is intentional.
The Bone Witch used himself as a medium to devour the resentful spirits and corrupt the military souls, tearing apart and wiping out all the fighting spirits of the dead souls in the Beacon Tower.
Once the spirit of the army is completely consumed, the "sacrifice of souls to nails" becomes empty talk.
There is no time.
Xu Hao took a deep breath, gripped the Sea Devouring Blade tightly in his left hand, and stood up from behind the low slope.
He didn't go through the main entrance.
The Qi of the Tongqiao Realm spread out along the snow surface, stealthily moving along the shadows at the base of the eastern city wall of Fengsui Fortress.
There is a collapsed gap at the base of the east wall, left by the barbarian attack years ago.
Buried in the pile of rubble was half of the Zhenbei Army's flag; the flagpole was broken, and the flag was frozen into a hard cloth.
Xu Hao climbed over the gap.
The soles of my boots stepped onto the gravel floor inside the fortress.
Nearly.
The black-robed man's chanting became clearer.
With each syllable that fell, the gravel beneath their feet would tremble.
The weathered remains on the ground trembled, and strands of white bone dust were drawn away, flowing with the black mist towards the ruins of the beacon tower.
Xu Hao saw the whole picture clearly.
The base of the beacon tower was converted into a simple altar by the man in black robes.
At each of the four corners was a beast bone engraved with barbarian runes, and black silk threads were tied between the beast bones, with a bone bead the size of a fist hanging in the center of the threads.
Something was churning inside the bone bead.
Clusters of dark red light.
Military spirit.
The souls of the Zhenbei Army soldiers who died in the battle of these beacon towers were pulled from the foundation by the man in black robes and stuffed into bone beads.
Still struggling.
The dark red light clashed against the bone bead wall, causing cracks to spread across the surface of the bone bead.
But with each impact, the black threads tighten by an inch, and the dark red light dims by a fraction.
If this drags on any longer, the spirit of the army will be completely shattered.
"You're overreaching."
Xu Hao emerged from the shadows.
The black-robed man stopped chanting.
He tilted his head. "I chased you for two days, but couldn't catch you." The man in black robes spoke, his words flowing much more fluently than the three riders. "In the end, you delivered yourself to my doorstep."
He stood up and turned around.
Half of his grayish-blue face was visible beneath the hood, with prominent cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and dense barbarian tattoos on his lips.
He opened his palm, and the bone beads flew up, hovering above his head.
"The Bone Witch said you have a turtle on you, that's true. If I kill you, it'll be mine, the military spirit within this bone bead," he said, making a hand seal.
The bone beads hummed.
The dark red light inside flickered violently a few times before being suppressed again.
"It would be great for feeding dragons."
Xu Hao didn't respond.
The Sea-Devouring Blade was raised.
A dark blue blade of light cleaved through the ruins of the castle, leaving a cold, sharp slash.
Hold the weapon in one hand, keep your footwork at its lowest point, and lean your body forward.
The broken bones in his right arm rubbed against his skin inside the bandages on his chest, causing his temples to throb with pain.
But the knife is steady.
The man in black robes formed a hand seal.
A grayish-white humanoid figure emerged from the cracks in the ground—not a molting demon, but a bone puppet.
Seven bone puppets emerged from under the rubble.
It was a twisted object with limbs pieced together entirely from animal and human bones. Its knuckles were as sharp as knives, and black runes were embedded in the joints. When it moved, it made a creaking sound as if its bones were grinding together.
Seven bone puppets lunged forward.
Xu Hao held a sword horizontally in his left hand.
The extreme cold of the Devouring Sea is far less effective against bone puppets than against molting ghosts.
These skeletons have no moisture and won't freeze.
The first one lunged forward, its ten bony fingers unfurling like a fan, aiming straight for the face.
Xu Hao sidestepped, his blade precisely severing the black runes on the bone puppet's cervical vertebrae.
Without the rune's power, the bone golem instantly fell apart, its parts clattering and crashing to the ground.
The second body circled around to the flank, and the third body emerged from the rubble beneath his feet, grabbing his calves.
Xu Hao kicked the third skull away, and with a backhand slash of his Devouring Sea Blade, he shattered the chest cavity of the second skull.
The movements were clean, but the speed was noticeably slower.
Fighting with one arm, the torque of each strike is incorrect.
The angle at which the knife was thrown was off by three points, and the finishing move was also half a beat too slow.
The claws of the fourth bone golem grazed his ribs, tearing a gash in his animal hide armor and exposing the flesh.
The warm blood dripped onto the frozen ground, sizzling and steaming.
The man in black robes stood on the altar watching the show, a lukewarm smile playing on his lips.
"A Grandmaster at the Qi Refining Realm, with one hand missing and less than half his life force. What are you trying to do with me? Surrender, and I can make your death quicker."
Xu Hao chopped the fifth bone puppet in half at the waist and took a breath.
He didn't look at the man in black.
What I was looking at was the bone bead floating above his head.
The dark red light inside the bone bead was still struggling.
The frequency of the impacts changed.
It was no longer a random, unpredictable collision, but a perfectly synchronized rhythm.
It looked like a group of people marching in unison.
Neat and heavy.
Boom, boom, boom.
It was exactly the same sound he heard when he first came to Fengsui Fort.
These military spirits were arrayed within the bone beads of the black-robed man.
They were stuffed into the enemy's tools and suppressed and devoured by barbarian evil magic.
Anyone else would have collapsed by now.
But these veterans of the Zhenbei Army refused to listen.
They were dead for ten years but were still lined up to guard the city; they were dug out and stuffed with bone beads but were still lined up.
This stubbornness is just like Guan Hai under Zhao Poyue's command.
"Try shouting it out to me twice."
Xu Hao smashed the sixth bone puppet and roared.
It wasn't the Lion's Roar technique powered by martial arts qi; it was just a pure human voice.
A hoarse, gruff shout.
There were no words, no tune.
It's like a person who crawled out of a pile of corpses greeting their fellow corpses in the pile.
The scroll painting of the blessed land in the sea of consciousness trembled.
He actively activated the remaining 30% of his energy, which transformed into an invisible wave that emanated from his body.
The resonance of a blessed land.
The "binding conditions" that appeared on the scroll clearly stated that the core of the resentment and evil spirits must be suppressed with blood and qi, and the fighting spirit of the dead souls must be incorporated.
He currently lacks the energy and blood to suppress it.
But he can choose not to suppress it.
To incorporate.
The core of the vengeful spirits doesn't need to be destroyed, and the fighting spirit of the dead doesn't need to be suppressed.
These veterans, who refused to give up even after death, never needed a new master.
They need a goal.
An enemy.
The enemy stood on the altar.
The ripples from the blessed land painting collided with the bone bead.
The cracks spread.
The man in black robes' expression changed drastically, and he formed hand seals in an attempt to reinforce the blockade.
It's too late.
The bone beads shattered.
One hundred and three dark red beams of light burst forth from the fragments.
Instead of scattering and drifting away, they were arranged neatly in mid-air.
Three horizontal and four vertical lines, staggered front and back.
Military formation.
A hundred-man army formation.
Each ray of dark red light coalesced into a blurry human figure.
The afterimage of armor, the phantom of a spear, and the dark red flames burning in the empty eye sockets beneath the helmet.
One hundred and three soldiers of the Zhenbei Army, who had died ten years ago, were re-formed on the altar of the foreign bone shaman.
No one gave the order.
No need.
They recognized the taste of the barbarians.
The black-robed man's tattoos, incantations, bone puppets, and runes—everything reminded these dead, still resentful veterans who had breached their beacon tower and who had made them wait ten years for reinforcements.
The spirit of the army has been stirred.
It's not drifting, it's charging forward.
Formation compression.
A hundred dark red afterimages converged into a torrent, carrying with them a lingering resentment that had persisted for ten years, and crushed towards the black-robed figure on the altar.
The man in black robes frantically formed hand seals.
Three layers of bone shields rose up in front of him, and black energy surged.
The first layer of bone shield held for half a breath before shattering.
The second layer of bone shield held for a moment before cracking.
The third layer of bone shield barely blocked the charge, but the black-robed man was pushed backward and flew off the altar, his back hitting the city wall and creating a human-shaped dent.
He struggled out of the crater, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, his eyes filled with terror.
"This is impossible—the vengeful spirits couldn't have formed an array on their own—what did you do?!"
Xu Hao walked to the ruins of the altar and placed the Sea-Devouring Blade on the ground.
"We didn't do anything, we just told them that the enemy was coming."
The scroll depicting the blessed land within the sea of consciousness fully unfolded. The text binding the conditions changed color, turning from blood red to dark gold.
[Beacon Tower (Fierce and Malevolent Military Soul) is being bound to the account —]
[Core of the Vengeful Spirit: Voluntary Submission.]
[Binding progress: 100%]
The dark red army slowly retreated into the fortress.
One hundred and three souls returned to their places and stood guard on the city wall once more.
Dark red lights lit up, one after another, arranged neatly.
Same as ten years ago.
The man in black robes glanced at the points of light on the city wall, then at Xu Hao.
Without saying a word, he smashed the stone wall behind him, jumped out of the fortress, and fled north, enveloped in black mist.
Xu Hao didn't chase after him.
He knelt on one knee on the ruins of the altar, placing the Sea-Devouring Blade horizontally on his lap.
The protective energy has been completely depleted.
The pain from the broken bones in my right arm surged up from under the bandages, and the wound on my ribs was still bleeding.
But the scroll depicting the blessed land in my mind lit up.
The newly bound spirit of the beacon tower resonated with the scroll, and a line of ancient seal script reappeared.
"Sacrificing one's soul to the nail can mend a gap."
A new notification line appeared below the text.
[Time required for the military spirit to solidify: six hours.]
Six hours, half a day.
He has two days left, there's still time.
Xu Hao exhaled a breath of foul air mixed with blood and looked up at the gray sky.
Just as he was about to close his eyes and circulate his energy to recover, a sudden jolt came from the depths of his consciousness.
On the Six-Nail Dragon-Suppressing Diagram, besides the pattern of the main nail he pulled out which was already broken, in the southwest direction, the pattern of another dragon-suppressing nail was rapidly collapsing.
Bone Girl found another one.
Pulling out one seal loosens the seal; pulling out three seals awakens the dragon.
There are two now.
The scroll painting of the blessed land rolls out the latest warning text, every stroke revealing anxiety.
[Countdown to the complete awakening of Chongyuan Dragon Lord updated - 18 hours.]
Three days were reduced to one day.