"Charge through!"
"What the hell—why are there still so many dogs?!"
Shouts, screams, howls, curses, and barking merged into one deafening cacophony that shook heaven and earth.
Less than the time it took to finish a cup of tea since the general assault began, the hilltop was already a river of blood, strewn with corpses.
Bai Ningbing hid in the shadows, exerting every ounce of her power to command the dog packs. With the Earth Spirit's assistance, she gradually managed to stabilize the situation.
Electric dogs, Chrysanthemum Akitas, and other ordinary canine beasts had already suffered near-total casualties. When the Gu Masters charged halfway, they slammed into the Five Sacred Mountain Dog Formation and were battered and bloodied.
Chongtai, Qinghua, Yansong, Hengguang, and Xingheng—five powerful dog breeds, even stronger than the rest, formed a circular formation that was remarkably reliable. Like a great dam, they held back the tide of surging Gu Masters.
At this stage of the charge, whether Righteous Path or Demonic Path, all suffered devastating losses.
"Hold on, brother!" Meng Tu gripped Jiao Huang's arm. The latter had sustained serious wounds and was bleeding profusely.
Jiao Huang leaned on Meng Tu's support to keep up with the main force as they pushed forward.
At this moment, retreat was impossible. Pausing to regroup was even more unthinkable—the moment one fell behind the main body, the dog packs would sweep in and swallow the lone individual whole.
"Brother, we've taken a massive loss this time. We'd originally taken a job from the Merchant family to take Fang Yuan's head. Who could have imagined we'd stumble into an Immortal's Treasury like this? Ah, blinded by greed, and now we've landed ourselves in this dead end." Jiao Huang let out a mournful sigh.
Both of these men were cultivators at the peak of the Third Transformation, members of a notorious assassination duo in the Demonic Path. They had successfully assassinated the Fourth Transformation Gu Master Xiao Fulu.
Having set their sights on joining the Merchant family, they had planned to target Fang Yuan covertly. They'd tailed him for a stretch but never found a suitable opportunity.
After barging into the blessed land and stumbling upon the Immortal's Treasury, they'd followed the crowd in—only to nearly lose their lives.
In this chaotic melee, only Fifth Transformation powerhouses could move freely and with composure. Peak Fourth Transformation cultivators had to fight tooth and nail. High-stage Fourth Transformation cultivators needed to travel in groups.
Those at the First or Second Transformations who joined the charge suffered the heaviest casualties. Even Third Transformation Gu Masters had to rely on sheer luck to survive.
And yet, despite all this, the Gu Masters kept charging forward. The illusory promise of an Immortal's Treasury had ignited the most fanatical fire in their hearts.
They charged in a frenzy, each one fantasizing that once they claimed the treasury, they would soar to the skies and become masters among men.
Only a handful, in their final moments, saw their vision clear and felt a pang of regret.
But it was already too late.
"These people have all gone mad, lured by the Immortal's Treasury until they've forgotten life and death." Tie Ruonan slowed her charge and glanced around—the battlefield was a horrifying sight!
Four Elders of the Tie family stood guard around Tie Ruonan, protecting her safety.
"In this old man's view, I'm afraid Mo Wutian had a hand in this as well," the leader of the four Tie Elders murmured suddenly.
"You mean—" Tie Ruonan's gaze sharpened.
In the distance, Mo Wutian strode proudly through the crowd, laughing wildly. His purple, heavy-pupiled eyes flashed with blinding brilliance.
He was a Soul Path Gu Master, secretly deploying Gu Insects to exert influence, driving the crowd into even greater fervor and self-forgetfulness.
"People of the Demonic Path deserve nothing but death!" Tie Ruonan let out a cold snort, the killing intent within her boiling over.
"Young Miss, Mo Wutian is a Fifth Transformation powerhouse after all—fighting him head-on would be unwise. There are matters of greater and lesser urgency, and he is not our objective on this trip," one of the Tie family's Four Elders counseled.
Tie Ruonan pressed her lips together tightly, nodded with heavy resolve, her gaze as hard as iron. "You're right. Right now, the most important target is the Young Beast King—Fang Yuan!"
"Hahaha, so this person pulling the strings behind the scenes is nothing more than this." Mo Wutian laughed without cease. The battlefield winds howled, whipping his black hair into a wild dance as his demonic aura raged.
Having Righteous and Demonic Gu Masters charge together was progressing even better than he had anticipated.
Bai Ningbing was a novice after all. Previously, Fang Yuan had set up the formation, and she had responded according to his instructions. Now, with the situation growing increasingly complex and multiple fronts erupting at once, she was overwhelmed. Naturally, someone of Mo Wutian's caliber saw right through her.
Mo Wutian's purple eyes flickered with dark light as he charged forward. Meanwhile, he multitasked with ease—occasionally commanding Gu Insects to crush sections of the dog packs, at times influencing people's minds to foster an atmosphere of frenzy, and continuously deploying Gu Insects to scout.
Slave Path Gu Masters had always excelled in offensive power, capable of single-handedly confronting forces many times their own.
But the Great Dao of nature operated in cycles of balance. The Slave Path carried its own glaring weaknesses: beyond its enormous resource consumption, individual combat prowess was feeble, making the commander vulnerable to decapitation strikes.
Mo Wutian had been searching for Bai Ningbing's location the entire time. The moment he cut down Bai Ningbing, the dog formation would collapse, and the majority of the pack would scatter without a fight.
"Found you!" Mo Wutian's gaze suddenly locked onto a point, having spotted Bai Ningbing's hiding place.
"Heh heh heh, surrender your life." He let out a long laugh, swept his wide sleeve, and his figure dissolved into a mass of purple demonic fog.
The fog moved at terrifying speed, threading through the battlefield. In just a few breaths, it closed to within a thousand paces of Bai Ningbing.
"Not good!" Bai Ningbing noticed the movement, and her heart sank.
Mo Wutian was a Fifth Transformation Gu Master. She was merely at the Fourth Transformation—not a match for him under normal circumstances, let alone now when she bore the additional burden of commanding the dog packs.
"But fortunately, I have my own trump card!" Bai Ningbing was alarmed but not panicked. With a thought, she commanded, "Go bite him, Ba Huang."
A dog emperor as enormous as a small mountain heard the order and leapt, covering more than thirty paces in a single bound before crashing down in front of Mo Wutian.
Woof!
Ba Huang unleashed a tremendous roar, like a bolt of thunder on a clear day, silencing the entire battlefield. Then the dog packs erupted with renewed fury, their morale soaring, and the casualties among the Gu Masters spiked dramatically.
What a dog emperor!