Beyond cultivation, the shifts within the war situation, too, often occurred in the blink of an eye.
Once that batch of sworn-brother clans, serving as a fresh force, had thoroughly integrated into Black Blood Stockade's defensive lines, the White Bone alliance's "break the whole into scattered parts" guerrilla tactics — the ones that had run Black Blood Stockade's mid-tier ranks ragged — were declared thoroughly bankrupt as well.
Like a colossal beast awakening from the weakness of blood loss, Black Blood Stockade began a slow, yet exceedingly resolute, counter-push along multiple fronts.
Those outer resource points and ore veins that had been nibbled away and encroached upon bit by bit in the early stages of the war by the alliance were now, one after another, being forcibly reclaimed by Black Blood Stockade.
Within the council hall, the lamps blazed bright.
Lin Cang sat upright in the broad seat of honor, gazing at the stack upon stack of the latest war reports being delivered to his desk without pause — reports still bearing the mud and bloody stench of the front lines.
That stone-hard, cold face of his, which had been drawn taut for a full two months and more, finally relaxed somewhat — a rare occurrence.
And amid this irresistible tide of counterattack, none rode higher than Lin Feng's independent mobile squad.
Their military merit was still soaring wildly at an exceedingly terrifying pace.
Their name hung high at the very top of the golden Military Merit Board, that string of glaring numbers so far ahead of second place that it left all others in the dust.
They had pulled out three enemy raiding squads in succession, intercepted a batch of top-grade supplies the alliance was smuggling through the dense forest, and had even assisted the frontal forces in reclaiming an exceedingly vital Primeval Stone ore vein.
This all-conquering, illustrious military prowess pushed the lower-ranking Gu Masters' esteem for Lin Feng to an unprecedented new height of fervor.
The saying "the Twin Prodigies of Black Blood" was no longer idle gossip among the folk in the rear, but had become an undeniable consensus among the Gu Masters on the front lines.
The A-grade genius Lin Xingyuan represented the clan's bright future, while Lin Feng represented the absolute stratagem capable of delivering them the hope of victory in the present!
But such extreme reputation — like oil poured onto raging flames, like brocade adorned with blossoms — also meant that this squad, hidden in the shadows, could no longer stay concealed at all.
That dazzling radiance had, in the end, stung the eyes of the mortal enemies lurking in the deepest darkness, and they had now utterly become a thorn in the enemy's eye, a splinter in the enemy's flesh.
...
White Bone alliance, the secret command post.
Before the great sandtable, the white-haired young lord Li Huang no longer possessed any of the high spirits of the war's early days.
His face was so gloomy it seemed water could be wrung from it, and grinding his teeth, he was reporting the latest decline on the front lines to Li Mang and the surrounding subordinate patriarchs.
The arrival of external aid had restored an exceedingly fearsome resilience to Black Blood Stockade's once-crumbling defensive lines.
The alliance's advances along every front were severely stalled, and at certain positions, signs of rout had even begun to appear.
Listening to these reports, the faces of the subordinate patriarchs could no longer find the slightest trace of their earlier ease, or of their arrogant dreams of carving up Black Blood Stockade.
In their place was a deep wariness and a shrinking back.
"Alliance Lord Li..."
At last, the patriarch of the smallest stockade, unable to bear the pressure, worked up his courage and, steeling himself, ventured an oblique probing question:
"This war... how much longer must it drag on? When we forged this alliance, it was to eat meat, after all. Now our brothers have nearly bled themselves dry, and this hard bone simply can't be gnawed through..."
The moment these words were out, the atmosphere within the command post instantly froze.
Everyone waited for Li Mang to make his stance known.
After all, they had allied for profit — not to serve as cannon fodder sent to fill others' pits with their lives.
If they could see no hope, this seemingly vast alliance would collapse at any moment.
Yet Li Mang, seated in the seat of honor, did not answer at once.
He slowly raised his head, and those eyes sunk deep in their sockets — like the ghostly fire of the netherworld — swept across the entire hall, fixed and slow.
Hsss—
An exceedingly cold, formless pressure, carrying the ultimate killing intent of the Rank 3 peak stage, instantly locked onto that patriarch who had just spoken, as though it were tangible!
That patriarch felt as though he had plunged into an icy cavern, his whole body trembling like a sieve. The half-complaint on the tip of his tongue was throttled off in his throat, and he dared not utter a single word more — he did not even have the courage to look Li Mang in the eye.
The command post fell silent as a cicada in the cold.
Having thoroughly cowed this rabble into submission, Li Mang finally rose slowly to his feet.
Tock.
That ghastly-white bone scepter struck an exceedingly muffled echo against the stone slab.
"The first venomous scheme — break the whole into scattered parts — was to sever their supplies and grind down their mid-tier ranks."
Li Mang's voice was hoarse, like the wailing of a night owl.
"That old wretch Lin Cang was willing to pay a bloody price to bring in external aid. This layer of the scheme — I'll grant that he broke it."
"But!"
Li Mang's withered fingers abruptly clenched tight around the scepter.
"War is forever a contest of who holds more trump cards — of whose killer moves are more venomous!"
He walked to the sandtable with faltering steps, yet with exceeding resolve, and declared in a rousing voice:
"The reason Black Blood Stockade can now rally its morale in this desperate strait — even mount a counter-push — is not at all Lin Cang's Rank 4 cultivation!"
A crazed, ghostly light flickered in the depths of Li Mang's eyes.
"What they rely on is that insubstantial merit written on that board — the fervor that bursts forth from those lowly ants once they've glimpsed the hope of victory! Morale is an exceedingly insubstantial thing, and an exceedingly fragile one. It must have a concrete idol to carry it."
"The next step — the decapitation operation!"
Li Mang abruptly yanked the bone scepter from where it stood planted in the sandtable, his killing intent taking on tangible form in that moment.
"I will pinch out their totem with my own hands! I will tear apart the prodigies and paragons they take such pride in, one by one, before their very eyes! I will utterly shatter their spiritual pillar, and make them understand that resistance leads only down the road to death!"
Deep in the night.
Along a rugged trail hidden in the depths of Black Wind Ridge.
Lin Ze, the young master of the Storage Hall, was riding on horseback, personally escorting a batch of secretly purchased precious Gu materials, advancing slowly through the darkness.
Having suffered grave injuries in the Grand Competition and lost his qualification to contend for the true inheritance, he was unwilling to sink into obscurity like this.
He had volunteered to the clan for this exceedingly dangerous smuggling mission, scheming that, at the critical juncture when wartime supplies were most in demand, he might open up an exceedingly secret covert channel, and thereby render extraordinary service, rise with the tide, and return once more into the sight of the clan's core of power.
Though Lin Ze's fighting will was feeble, he was no fool.
In this chaotic, war-torn period, he had most cautiously brought two Rank 2 initial stage elite guards from the Punishment Hall to protect him closely, and had moreover deployed several early-warning Gu worms fifty paces out along the caravan's route.
However, when the caravan reached a stretch of terrain that was exceedingly narrow and cramped — a dead corner— the sudden change erupted from the utterly silent stillness, without the slightest warning.
Those early-warning Gu worms scattered all around, on which Lin Ze had pinned such high hopes, were like dead things — not one of them emitted even the faintest sliver of a trembling chirp!
For the assassin in the shadows, for the sake of this decapitation, had employed exceedingly rare and expensive upper-stage shielding Gu worms, perfectly and flawlessly evading every last reconnaissance network!
This was a pure, silent, one-sided slaughter.
Pfft!
The throat of the Rank 2 guard walking at the very front was instantly run through by a withered, gaunt hand that had, most bizarrely, "grown" out from the thick trunk of a tree beside him!
Even his scream was throttled off within his crushed windpipe, warm blood spraying wildly out along that hand.
"Ene—"
The second guard, aghast, had just begun to activate the Gu worm within his aperture to sound the alarm.
Whoosh!
An enormous bone spike, glinting with a ghastly blue light beneath the moonlight, abruptly burst out from the mud beneath his feet. Carrying terrifying, all-crushing kinetic force, it ran clean through his chest on the spot, pinning his entire body fast against the rock wall beside him.
Two Rank 2 initial stage cultivators slain in an instant!
Lin Ze was struck with the utmost horror. Pampered and sheltered as he was, how could he ever have witnessed such phantom-like, chained slaughter?
Under extreme terror, he most decisively and frantically squeezed out his Primeval Essence.
The Golden Bell Gu resounded with a roar, and a layer of thick, pale-golden bell-shadow instantly enveloped him within.
But the next second, the assassin in the shadows finally revealed his form.
That terrifying Primeval Essence pressure, bearing down like the toppling of mountains and the overturning of seas, was, plain as day, the genuine article — the Rank 2 peak stage!
Faced with such a absolute crushing of realm and a long-premeditated killing trap, Lin Ze's Golden Bell light-shield — the one that had once driven countless Rank 1 Gu Masters to despair — held out for less than three breaths beneath that withered hand clad in a black gauntlet.
Crack—!
The Golden Bell shattered.
Before Lin Ze could so much as reach for the Sound Transmission Gu at his waist, that cold hand had already, with utmost brutality, crushed the crown of his skull.
The first victim of the decapitation plan was thus born — silently, without a trace — amid the wild, desolate mountain wilds of the dark night.