Dragon Canon

Behind the battle lines, Zhang Sheng, Ji Liuli, and Trueman Chu He were watching the battlefield from afar. The old Daoist was radiating an overwhelming aura and fully embodying the presence of an Avatar Trueman. However, he showed no intention of joining the fray just yet.

In the sky behind the northern frontier iron cavalry, a group of generals were also standing together, quiet and solemn. Below them lay another twenty thousand cavalry, yet they remained motionless.

At the center of the generals, Yue Jinshan was standing on nothing, eyes half-lidded as if he were asleep. He carried only a long saber at his waist.

The situation on the battlefield was perfectly clear. 10,000 heavy armor cavalrymen from the northern frontier, renowned under heaven for their numerous battle achievements, would be facing off against the realm of Qingming’s 30,000 light infantry, 1,000 archers, and 1,000 cavalry.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of military affairs should know that Qingming was bound to lose.

In the howling wind, Luo Bingtian slowly lowered his visor and pointed a finger forward. An icy voice rang in every cavalryman’s ears: “Leave no one alive!”

The vast tide of light gray immediately began to surge. The earth trembled and groaned beneath the iron hooves as ten thousand fully armored cavalrymen, all of whom had attained great completion in the Body-tempering stage, launched their charge.

The gray mountain ranges suddenly swelled, and the army aura crashed against the enemy’s like a raging tidal wave, instantly scattering the deep, dark smoke. The army’s aura was the most direct manifestation of both sides’ combat power. Judging from the outcome of the clash, although Qingming had greater numbers, their combat power was far weaker.

The red-clad archers immediately started shooting, unleashing wave after wave of arrows upon the northern frontier iron cavalry. However, the cavalrymen simply ducked low and accelerated their charge. When the heavy arrows passed through the army aura above the cavalry’s heads, they were weakened to the point where even if an arrow happened to strike a target, it would often be deflected by the heavy armor. As a result, a full volley only managed to dismount a dozen or so cavalrymen.

The captain of the archers grew frantic. He gave a loud shout, and every archer loosed twelve arrows in rapid succession as if their lives depended on it!

Behind the battle formation, hundreds of cultivators were sitting cross-legged around three incredibly long mystic arrays. One by one, steel cylinders were placed on the arrays, accelerated, and hurled toward the battlefield dozens of li away. The massive steel cylinders arrived at just the right moment, soaring over the battlefield just as the iron cavalry was about to reach the center!

Several streaks of spear beams and saber qi shot up from within the cavalry, striking the steel cylinders. One of them was instantly sliced to pieces, scattering a shower of grayish-white powder. However, the other two steel cylinders exploded mid-air the moment they made contact with the saber qi. Two earth-shattering booms instantly echoed above the charging cavalry, and two massive fireballs whooshed into existence. At the same time, countless deadly shards rained down like a storm, while gale-force winds sent hundreds of cavalrymen tumbling left, right, and center!

The attack came so suddenly that even the generals leading the charge were caught completely off guard. Before they could make sense of what had just happened, another three steel cylinders whistled toward them, forcing them to act. This time, a barrage of saber qi and saber beams rose up and shattered them while they were still hundreds of zhang away. But by then, chaos had already broken out among the charging cavalry, not to mention that half of the hundreds of cavalrymen who had fallen during the previous two explosions never got back up.

The steel cylinders kept flying in, forcing the generals leading the charge to intercept them with everything they got. Having witnessed their destructive power, they did not dare allow even a single one to explode. In fact, each steel cylinder contained two thousand catties of explosives made using Sun Yu’s new gunpowder and could severely injure even a late-stage Dao Foundation stage cultivator if they happened to be too close.

Despite the chaos, the vast majority of the iron cavalry were unaffected by the artillery bombardment. They continued their charge and closed the distance to within a hundred zhang in the blink of an eye.

At that moment, black flames ignited on every youngster’s body, and their army qi surged skyward in a sudden blaze, connecting heaven and earth! Empowered by Life is a Flash, their strength swelled, their thoughts accelerated to lightning speed, and their eyesight improved by severalfold—it was to the point where even the onrushing iron cavalry seemed slow.

But most importantly, the youngsters knew no fear.

Thunderous roars suddenly erupted, and a cloud of white smoke appeared from the Qingming formation, coalescing into a wall.

As if they had crashed into an invisible wall, the heads of foremost cavalrymen snapped backward as they fell from their horses. Some were even flung backward while a long, long fountain of blood spurted their backs. However, the remaining cavalrymen paid it no heed. Their eyes were fixed solely on the five-line battle formation just dozens of zhang away from them, so fragile it was comparable to an eggshell!

For the renowned iron cavalry of the northern frontier, a few dozen zhang of distance was just a matter of a few breaths.

The first row of youngsters immediately retreated to the rear of the formation after firing off a volley. Before they had even fully taken their positions, the second row had already fired their guns and retreated as well, followed by the third and fourth rows!

The youngsters moved with ghostly speed. By the time the fifth row had taken their new positions, the youngsters who had been in the first row were already beginning to take aim again. Meanwhile, those in the rear removed the oil-paper-wrapped short sticks from their waists, pushed them into their gun barrels, sucked them all the way back using their Dao energy, and finally took aim once more—the entire process had been so swift it was almost impossible to follow.

Finally, a cavalryman had reached the front of the formation. The tip of his spear was already pressing against a youngster’s chest!

However, the boy’s face remained perfectly serene. He was focused solely on aiming his gun. Just as the speartip pierced his body, he fired a shot that shattered the warhorse’s head[1].

The cavalryman was flung from his mount, the boy still impaled on his spear. Together, they soared over a dozen of zhang through the air before crashing to the ground, accidentally crushing two boys in the back row to death in the process. As he was encased in heavy steel armor, the cavalryman would skid another twenty zhang along the ground before finally coming to a halt.

The immense force of impact had mangled his body greatly, and blood was gushing profusely from his mouth and nose. For the first time, terror flashed in his eyes.

He could remember clearly how the two youths he had crushed had, a few seconds prior to their deaths, merely glanced at him out of the corner of their eyes before resuming loading their guns with unwavering focus. Their hands had not trembled or faltered even once up until the final moment of their lives. Were they fighting humans or ghosts?

The cavalryman died after that. He did not yet know that he would become the man with the most kills in this battle.

Amid the ceaseless roars, smoke spread rapidly across the battlefield, and cavalrymen fell in droves. The bodies of both men and horses, driven by inertia, kept skidding forward even after they hit the ground and dragged long trails behind themselves.

Luo Bingtian kicked away a dead horse pinning him down and stood up. Wherever he looked, there were only corpses and more corpses.

Eyes bloodshot, he let out a bestial howl, drew his long saber, and charged forward once more! Not a single one of those soldiers across from him had even reached the Dao Foundation stage. He intended to slaughter them all to the last person and avenge his fallen brothers!

A blinding light erupted from his saber, forming a terrifying saber aura that was ten zhang long. But just then, a soft, luminous saber light appeared and wrapped itself around his weapon.

Although the saber light seemed delicate in appearance, each one was as heavy as a mountain and seemed to come from everywhere. In the blink of an eye, Luo Bingtian found himself desperate struggling just to survive the onslaught. His rage was such that he was nearly driven mad, yet no matter what he tried or how much he pushed himself, he just could not gain the upper hand against his opponent—a bouncy girl wielding a comically huge saber.

By now, the battlefield had fallen silent, and the lingering smoke of battle was gradually blown away by the wind. Before the Qingming ranks, countless piles of human and horse corpses lay heaped together, resembling a scene from hell.

Ten thousand elite cavalrymen—both men and horses—utterly shattered just like that.

In the space of a few breaths, the fearless youths had emptied all five of their reserve ammunition and fired over 180,000 bullets[2].

Further back in the northern frontier army, Yue Jinshan suddenly gripped the hilt of his weapon. A pillar of killing intent shot straight up, dispersed the dark clouds overhead and allowed rays of sunlight to fall upon this bloodied battlefield!

Internally, Wei Yuan tensed. In the end, the scenario he feared most had happened: The casualties had been too much, and a humiliated and furious Yue Jinshan was going to come after him personally.

Wei Yuan raised his gun-spear[3] and spurred his horse, calmly riding out of the formation. At the same time, a faint glow that resembled twilight gathered at the spear tip.

No matter how powerful Yue Jinshan was, Wei Yuan doubted that he was a match for the plain-clothed swordsman, Xu Shiqi. Moreover, Qingming had accumulated a sizable amount of liquid power. Yue Jinshan might not be able to kill him in one strike, but he was definitely going to shave at least 200 years of the commander’s lifespan with this shot! Not only that, he would have to test his Avatar’s mettle against Zhang Sheng’s sword array. How much of it would be left when all was said and done?

Just then, a surge of energy tore through the air from the southwest and locked onto Yue Jinshan from hundreds of li away! At the same time, a sweet, soft voice rang in his ears. “Old Yue, bullying the young is a bit too much, don’t you think?”

The veins on the back of Yue Jinshan’s hand throbbed, but he slowly loosened his grip on his saber. After casting one last, lingering glance at the battlefield, he turned and walked away.

On the battlefield, almost 30,000 youngsters were still standing in orderly formation. Before them, the gray mountain ranges crumbled with a thunderous crash, and the army aura dissipated.

This was both a clash between two eras and two worlds.

The Xu Clan’s side courtyard, Willow Ash Town.

A human face surfaced from an old tree trunk and looked at the woman in red seated by the window. It put on an indescribably obsequious smile as it said, “Are you reading a novel, senior? Why don’t you let me recite it for you?”

1. Now that I think about it, these youngsters’ utter lack of reaction remind me strongly of the protagonist from the author’s previous work... actually, I’m almost 100% sure the protagonist is a descendant (or progenitor?) of these kids. I wonder if this is a prequel of sorts, or a sequel to that, or something that’s happening concurrently (since there is a multiverse going on) ...? ☜

2. I kinda wished it was made clearer that the Xu youngsters are using the new machine guns. Heck I’m the translator and I didn’t suspect a thing until I saw the oil-wrapped sticks. But anyway HOLY SHIT THAT WAS INSANE! ☜

3. Ugh, I’m wondering if I should translate most instances of gun/spear from now on to gun-spear... they’re basically the same thing at this point (not to mention in Chinese they share the exact same character). I mean a bayonet is basically a spear and a gun. ☜