Aspiring to the Immortal Path -
Chapter 1183: Major Victory
Boom!
A massive shockwave swept out from the point of their clash, and Tang Jie gave out a light grunt and jumped off the mountain. The surface of the mountain slightly cracked, but it quickly repaired itself.
At the same time, Libido grunted as well, and the inky clouds roiled as he retreated.
Unexpectedly, neither had had the upper hand.
Only Tang Jie knew that he was actually a little weaker, because he had the Sovereign Blade to make up the difference, and Libido had been forced to allocate some of his strength to counter it. Starting from Soul Transformation, Tang Jie had always challenged enemies above his level, and in the same way, he had essentially been unrivaled among his peers.
This was the first time he had been disadvantaged against an opponent of the same level.
The shock to his mind was immense.
Of course, he had only recently ascended to True Immortal, and he was only at the lowest level of True Immortal. But the main reason was still that the Primordial Fog Domain was a land of the strong. There were far too many devils who had strength above their level.
Libido had become one of the 99 Archdemon Lords while still a True Immortal, and he had ten-some Lesser Demon Lords under his command, many of them with the same level of cultivation. Only absolute strength could have let him achieve all this.
He had never imagined that there would be someone among the humans who could be on the same cultivation level as him and still be able to challenge him!
The Stellar Chiliocosm might have had many outstanding humans, but why did he have to run into one of them?
Libido was in a foul mood.
Libido was no martial maniac. He preferred weak enemies over strong ones. Of course, someone like that mad demon, War Devil Massacre, would have a different perspective. It was only strong opponents that drew his interest, not those flourishing worlds rich in resources.
What rotten luck! He should have the War Devil take this target!
Libido retreated with this thought.
Although their clash had been brief, it had been enough for Tang Jie and Libido to recognize their opponent’s strength and realize that this was not an easy foe to deal with.
While the clash at the very highest level had simply been to test the waters, the battle at the middle and lower levels was one of annihilation, a massacre.
Even though Libido had torn open the Starsnatch Net, giving the demons an opening to escape, it was limited only to the high-level devils. The rest of the demon army, including the Shadow Nagas, had to endure the rage of the sandstorm.
The escape route was beyond their abilities.
This was a complete massacre.
Few demons that entered the target zone could escape the Five Elements Reversal Formation. When they died, their corpses were offered up, part of their energy being siphoned to continue powering the formation while part of their energy went to strengthen Tang Jie and Yun Tianlan.
Even though Libido had personally intervened, Tang Jie’s interference made the effect minimal, and in the end, he had been forced to use a precious Violet Demon Pearl to save the demons.
Thus, there was no doubt about the battle’s outcome.
The sandstorm persisted for another hour, only disappearing after the last unfortunate high-level devil had succumbed.
The battlefield quieted down, falling into absolute silence.
The corpses were gone, the art relics refined, and even the soil had been returned to normal by the formation. It was hard to tell that a battle had even taken place here.
Only the white fog that had expanded all the way to the vicinity of the demon fortress told them that a major battle had taken place, and it was the humans who had won.
As the winner, the humans had also paid a large price.
Around four thousand cultivators had died, including twenty-some Violet Palace cultivators. The majority of them had died when the soil at the front line had been converted by demonic energy, allowing the demon army to engage in close combat. Moreover, even after the Eight Ocean Mountains had activated and the tables had turned, some of the crazier demons saw that the sandstorm didn’t touch the humans’ positions, so they tried with all their might to break through the lines.
The human lines had been under the heaviest pressure at that moment, the front line buckling under the desperate assault of the demons, but thankfully, the humans saw the hope of victory and the lines were deep enough that they just barely managed to hold. This last gasp had also exceeded Tang Jie’s expectations, so much so that he was thankful that Xiao Biehan and the others had objected. If he had waited until all of the demon army had been deployed, the humans would have been at their limit, at which point the final charge of the demons might really have penetrated through their ranks.
While the demons would have suffered greater losses, the humans’ losses would also have been much more devastating.
Compared to the humans, the demons had suffered many more losses.
None of the Immortal Platform devils had been slain, but they had been greatly drained and would not be combat-ready for a time. But more than a hundred Violet Palace devils had died.
To be honest, while they had lost more than the humans, it was something that they could accept, given that they had more than 1800 high-level devils.
But further down the ranks, the losses were astounding.
Six hundred thousand of the 1.2 million Demonhorns had been lost, and the surviving half had only been spared because it hadn’t been deployed. Even if they were considered cannon fodder, they couldn’t afford to use them all at once. Besides, too many low-level demons would fight for space with the high-level demons, making it more difficult for the high-level demons to get into battle.
The same was true for the 1 million Red Bats and eight hundred thousand Ironbones. Half of them had died, and the other half hadn’t been deployed and so had been spared.
More of the Silver Pyros had been deployed. They were stronger and could combine their powers to kill Violet Palace cultivators, serving as a support to the main force. Four hundred thousand out of five hundred thousand had been deployed, and none of those had returned.
The worst of all was the Shadow Nagas.
These were considered the reapers of the battlefield, and the Demon Lords had deployed them all, throwing three hundred thousand Shadow Nagas into battle.
But they didn’t all die.
Their tough bodies and formidable powers meant that some of them had been able to fend for themselves in the Five Elements sandstorm. Some of the Shadow Nagas had been in the rear and been able to escape in time, and others had been protected by high-level devils. As a result, fifty thousand of the three hundred thousand Shadow Nagas had survived.
The Violet Djinns were somewhat better off. They were stronger than Shadow Nagas, though of course, their defensive abilities and toughness were a little worse. However, their ability to turn themselves into whirlwinds and their late entry into the battle meant that they were able to preserve the majority of their numbers.
Only half of the one hundred thousand Violet Djinns had entered the target zone, and because they were still somewhat far from the front line, they had been able to promptly retreat, so only ten thousand had died.
As for the most powerful Blood Demon army, none of them died because none of them had been deployed.
This battle was thus a massacre, a glorious moment in human history. In a direct battle against a far more numerous foe, they had won.
At the same time, it was a clash of the civilized and the savage.
A strong and wild army had clashed against a tactically crafty and well-defended foe, and in the end, civilization had won.
But this was not the final result.
There was no shortage of examples of wars that began with momentary victories and ended in tragic defeat.
There was no denying the reality that the demons were still stronger than the humans.
Moreover, the Eight Ocean Mountains that Tang Jie had relied on had been exposed. Now that the demons knew of its existence, they would be bound to take it into account in their plans. In addition, the activation of so many formations had consumed a great deal of resources, and the humans could fight such a battle only a few times. If they hadn’t killed enough demons to show that it was worth it, the resources spent alone would have made the humans feel like they were the ones who had lost.
This was why Tang Jie couldn’t bring himself to be happy over this victory.
His greatest trump card had been exposed, and Demon Lord Libido was far stronger than he had expected. These two facts had cast a shadow over humanity’s victory. His greatest regret was that he had failed to achieve the objective he had set for himself: destroying at least two of the most powerful demon armies and two thirds of the lower-level demons. The Demon Lords had been too conceited, which was why half of the low-level demons had survived, and only one of the three main demon armies had been destroyed. This was well below Tang Jie’s expectations.
Whether one won or lost in a battle wasn’t determined by comparing casualties, but by whether or not one had achieved one’s strategic objectives.
For Tang Jie, failing to achieve the expected goals meant that problems he would have to deal with later would be even worse. Thus, Tang Jie didn’t consider this a victory.
At best, it was a decent exchange, certainly not some rich harvest.
The others didn’t know what he was thinking, so many people started to hold celebration feasts. The camps were lit up with bonfires while Immortals feasted above.
Not far from Skybrink Ridge was a small mountain that extended like a steel pole into the sky. Near its summit was a small cave, hidden in the shadow of a ridge, making it difficult to detect.
Tang Jie sat alone in this small cave, gazing into the distance. From here, he could see Heavenweave Ridge and that black fortress made of Jailstone.
As he silently stared, a delicate hand suddenly appeared outside the cave.
The hand rapped at the air, and there was a “knock-knock” sound.
Xu Miaoran appeared with a smile. “Is anyone there?”
“No one’s home,” Tang Jie answered.
Xu Miaoran snorted and flitted into the cave. “If no one’s home, I’m coming in anyway.”
She sat herself on Tang Jie’s lap, wrapping an arm around his neck. “Everyone is looking for you out there, wanting to congratulate the great Godhead on your immaculate plan and great victory. Don’t you want to go out and celebrate with them?”
Tang Jie bitterly smiled. “You’re teasing me, and don’t call me Godhead. I don’t have a single Dao Art, so that title doesn’t suit me. Immortal Sovereign suits me fine. This battle might have been a victory, but the foundation of the demons is untouched. I’m just thinking about what to do next.”
“I know that you’re thinking about our strategy against the enemy, but don’t shoulder the burden all on your own.”
Tang Jie bitterly smiled. “I wouldn’t be able to relax if I left it to anyone else.”
“But if you spend all your time thinking, don’t you think that you’re going against your original intent? As cultivators, we want to do what we want. Too much pondering and thinking will only make us unhappy. In the last few years, you spent less time on scheming and focused entirely on cultivation, but with the demons attacking, you’ve once more gone back to plotting. I worry that excessive planning will cause you to neglect yourself.”
Tang Jie looked at his wife in surprise.
Xu Miaoran cared about him the most, so she naturally understood him, and saw what he could not.
Xu Miaoran’s reminder finally made Tang Jie realize that he had fallen into obsession. He realized that this was partially because of the pressure from the demon invasion, but also because he had advanced too quickly because of the Eight Ocean Mountains. Tang Jie had taken a large stride in cultivation thanks to this formation, and even if he hadn’t reached the middle level of True Immortal, he had still essentially gained five hundred years of cultivation.
While he had several hundred years of accumulation and foundation beforehand, Xu Miaoran’s reminder had made him realize that his mental state was still slightly unstable and had become obsessed with personal gains and losses. He smiled and said, “My wife is right as always. This world doesn’t have only me. I should learn when to let go and trust in others. As for right now, I should relax a little and do what I want.”
“What does Husband want?”
Gazing at Xu Miaoran’s beautiful face, Tang Jie smiled. “Naturally, it’s what my wife wants.”
He gave her a deep kiss, and a scene of romance and passion played out within the cave.
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