Returning from the abyss

Chapter 1425 Going to Guanyuan

The title of "master of the Blood Transformation Array" alone is enough to intimidate most demons.

As the most enigmatic of the Ten Deadly Formations, the Blood Transformation Formation has almost no record of direct combat. This is not because the Blood Transformation Formation never engages in battle, but because once it does, no survivors are ever caught.

Because the Blood Transformation Array never cooperates with any other army, even other teams don't know how they fight.

On a few occasions that are recorded, a demon king escaped and returned from among the demons.

The bull-headed creature had never heard of the Blood Transformation Array's formidable reputation. In its eyes, all ten of the Ten Deadly Arrays were pretty much the same, and even if it couldn't defeat them, it could walk away with impunity. The Frost Array had no effect on it, so even if the formidable reputation of the Blood Transformation Array was invoked, it would still be unafraid.

"Another one? Looks like you're lucky." Bull Head sneered at Lu Ning. "But it doesn't matter how many come, you can't leave here..."

"I feel like I'm hearing some demon spouting nonsense again."

The sinister voice pierced through the icy mist, and the curse within it was even more chilling than the ice array. The bull-headed creature couldn't even finish its sentence. It felt that it could still force itself to open its mouth, but the consequences were unpredictable.

Qin You's troops did not rush to charge. Instead, they stepped closer step by step on the blood-red ground. The white cloths on his and his men's bodies began to emit a red glow, and a bloody smell even stronger than that in the battle-stricken mountain valley emanated from this army.

"Who is it this time?" Qin You asked, his bloodshot eyes wide open, looking more like a demon than any humanoid monster. Lu Ning had already removed the vision barrier from within the cold mist, allowing Qin You to easily see who was fighting.

"The Frost Array... the coordination isn't perfect, which is normal."

Qin You slowly came to a stop, but the cavalry behind him continued to advance on both sides. The sound of their horses landing disappeared as they entered the mountain pass, replaced by a splashing sound like water being struck. As the cavalrymen approached the demons locked in combat, they all raised their weapons.

The movement of raising the weapon was slow, but no one caught the attack in the instant it was slashed or thrust out.

A dozen or so demons let out a terrible scream. They had originally thought that they could take down a few more humans, but the enemy's attack was like a ghost, giving them no chance to fight back. Only their weapons left a deep wound on their bodies.

Then came excruciating pain. The demons were robust, and this intense pain, enough to knock a person unconscious, left them writhing on the ground, howling in agony, and instantly incapacitated. Lu Ning's men, naturally, wouldn't let this opportunity pass, drawing their cursed weapons to finish off the fallen demons. Qin You, seeing this, was about to stop them, but noticing the strangeness of the weapons, he allowed them to continue assassinating the fallen demons.

The demon was indeed killed.

"what?"

Qin You grinned, revealing a somewhat crazy smile.

The demons shrouded by the Law of Demons cannot be killed, but they have caused considerable trouble for the Guanyuan garrison. While the Law of Humanity has solved the problem of environmental adaptation, it cannot be used to directly kill demons, so in most cases on the battlefield, only attrition warfare can be waged.

Qin You's approach had always been to use intense pain to incapacitate demons, then capture them alive and slowly drain their blood to supply the Blood Transformation Array. But this was not a long-term solution. Demons could commit suicide or find opportunities to escape. Guan Yuan could control a dozen or so demons, but he couldn't control hundreds or thousands of demon prisoners. Suppressing them was also a drain on his resources, and Guan Yuan couldn't afford to do that.

Now that he had a way to kill demons, Qin You was immediately excited.

"With the Frost Array in control, I'll take care of these demons for you. Let me learn how to kill them."

“If you can learn it, I will definitely teach you everything I know,” Lu Ning replied.

"Great, I like people like you." Qin You picked up his great axe and spurred his horse forward toward the bull's head. The white cloth on his body had turned red and was even dripping blood. The horse's hooves left blood pits with each step. The man and his horse looked like ghosts crawling out of the underworld.

"Come, you slaves bound by blood."

In an instant, the wounded demons stopped in pain, their bodies were stained with a blood-red light, and they all gave up the fight and stepped to Qin You's side.

"Hmm?" The bull-headed man frowned slightly upon seeing this. He had fought against humans before and knew about various unorthodox methods, but he had never seen anything as sinister as the Blood Transformation Array. It was always the demon race that controlled the humans through their abilities. As for humans controlling the demon race, apart from the Demon Suppression Division using some methods to control the incomplete demon race, he had never heard of anyone being able to do so immediately.

"If you can't kill demons, then you can only use them for something else." Qin You swung his great axe. "And what does your blood taste like? I've killed demon kings before. Apart from lasting a little longer, your blood is no different from other demons' blood."

"You human..."

Enraged, Minotaur charged forward, brandishing his spear. Qin You offered no defense, and the demons beside him rushed to block him. The first three were sent flying by Minotaur's three spear thrusts, while the latter two had their skulls smashed by his double maces. Minotaur didn't care; he just wanted them to return to the frozen lake as soon as possible, rather than get in their way.

But taking down these few who were blocking his way was enough for Qin You to bring down his axe.

The general's movements were not very fast; in fact, Lu Ning could tell that he hadn't practiced any proper techniques. However, an adult male's attack speed shouldn't be this slow, so there must be some problems with this attack.

The battle-hardened bull could certainly sense it; it retreated, something almost unheard of in its life.

Still quiet, still only a slight, indistinct sound, the great axe fell to the ground silently. Yet a long, bloody gash had appeared on the bull's chest.

“We were at least three zhang apart.” Bull Head touched the blood seeping from his chest. “You managed to cut me with that. You’re really something.”

"The blood curse didn't work on you," Qin You said, looking at the minotaur with some disappointment. "As expected, your abilities are far superior to those of other demons." "The minotaur is resistant to most kinds of negative effects, and its hide is very tough; we can only kill it by brute force!"

"Sure, you can control the Frost Array too. Blood will entangle your weapon." Qin You pointed, and Lu Ning felt her body sink as the color of blood adhered to the ice-formed blade of her sword, making the blood-red ice sword gleam with a magnificent luster.

"This is……"

"Kill them all. Only the blood transfusion I personally oversee can avert some terrible consequences. The stuff on you isn't bad, but it won't last long."

Demon Blood Curse? Lu Ning was finally somewhat surprised. She knew that the rewards given by the distribution center must all come from the scene, which meant that the thing was related to the Blood Transformation Array? After using it, she knew very well how powerful it was.

Without further hesitation, she drew her sword and charged. Compared to Qin You, whose martial arts skills weren't particularly strong, Lu Ning's abilities were more than enough to handle the sudden increase in physical burden. She thrust her sword forward, and with a flick of the blade, ice revealed its blade's characteristics, instantly creating countless points of cold light. The bull-headed creature turned and swung its weapon, but it wasn't a martial arts practitioner either. Having previously overpowered Lu Ning with its strength and physique, it now discovered that the power emanating from Lu Ning's sword was no less than its own. As their weapons clashed, both felt a slight tremor in their hands.

"Hey, how's it going?" Qin You walked over unhurriedly. His soldiers had already cut wounds all over the demons. As blood flowed out, the demons frantically swarmed around him, each one covered in blood. They looked like they wouldn't live much longer, but their fighting spirit was high.

"How did you do that?" Lu Ning was also a little surprised. She didn't expect the Blood Transformation Array to have such a powerful effect in terms of support. As everyone knows, as long as the support can also support itself, the attack power is not much different.

Minotaur suddenly turned around and thrust his spear at Qin You. Qin You, however, laughed and swung his axe, seemingly trading blows for injury. The attack was quite sudden, and in an instant, Minotaur's steel spear pierced through Qin You's abdomen, while the axe also cleaved deeply into Minotaur's shoulder.

"Draw blood."

Qin You didn't care at all about the steel spear that had pierced his body. Instead, he gently turned the axe handle, and the strips of cloth wrapped around it immediately pierced into the wound as if they were alive, followed by a large amount of blood flowing out.

"You're going to die," Qin You grinned. "Let's see how long your blood can last. Most of the demons here are already dead."

Silence reigned, broken only by the sound of blood gushing out. The bull-headed creature finally realized it was trapped in a deadly predicament. Having previously killed the commander of the Golden Light Array with such ease, it felt the Ten Deadly Arrays were nothing special. The fragility displayed by Lu Ning's Ice Array, though troublesome, only reinforced this impression.

However, the Blood Transformation Array is completely different.

Just as Peng Zu was dragged to his death at Lingjiang, the Ten Deadly Formations can only unleash their full potential within the core deployment area. Here, the master of each of the four formations can exert power comparable to Ye Cong's deployment of the Demon-Subduing Hall at Lingjiang. The result of the bull-headed beast's momentary underestimation of its opponent was fatal. After calculating all this, it couldn't help but laugh loudly, then thrust its steel spear into the ground with one hand and sat cross-legged on the spot.

"Oh?"

Qin You waved his hand, and the frenzied demons pounced on it, tearing at the bull's head. However, after gnawing for a long time, the demons remained huddled together like a small mountain, showing no sign of dispersing.

"Is the demon king inside the Frost Array dead?" Qin You looked at his axe. No more blood was being released from the cloth strip. His "Blood Drain" would only stop when the opponent's life force was depleted, which meant that he had already killed him.
"No, we were too slow." Lu Ning chopped off the head of a demon with a single sword stroke and sighed.

When the bull-headed creature sat down, it used its ultimate technique, the "Indestructible Body." Once activated, it would be rooted to the ground, becoming impervious to all harm. Even attacks from the most powerful formations would not reach its critical threshold. The downside was that its senses would be completely obscured; over time, it would lose track of how much time had passed and when the effect should be dispelled.

However, the bullhead definitely knows when it can be deactivated. At worst, it can just stay here a little longer. No matter how powerful Lu Ning and Qin You's combination is, they can't stay here for long.

"Boring." Qin You clapped his hands, and all the demons lying there began to bleed profusely, instantly losing their strength and only able to struggle on the ground. Lu Ning ended their lives one by one with a sword, and not a single soul could escape from here.

Inside, only a huge, statue-like object remained, covered in blood and indistinct. The bull's head was completely still. Lu Ning and Qin You tried to break through its armor, but nothing they tried could. Even Lu Ning's attempt to use the power of life and death to exchange for some of its functions was useless; the thing couldn't determine that a stone had accepted anything from Lu Ning.

"Let's go. We really can't handle a coward like that." Qin You shook his head helplessly. "This thing isn't worth two leaders serving it here."

Lu Ning agreed, but still asked, "Is it alright that it saw some of the secrets of the Blood Transformation Array?"

"It's alright. I didn't intend to hide it anyway, but I didn't expect so many people to be afraid. What about you? If people find out how you can kill these demons, all the demons in the northern frontier will probably come back to hunt you down."

"What's there to be afraid of? Once I get to Guanyuan, I'll find a way to spread this method, and then we'll see who kills whom."

Qin You laughed: "Not bad, I like your personality."

"Lu Ning, take charge of the Frost Array." Lu Ning cupped her hands in greeting.

"Qin You, take charge of the Blood Transformation Array," Qin You replied in return.

Sitting in this position, and bearing the surname Qin, he is indeed related to Grand Tutor Qin. Qin You is Grand Tutor Qin's nephew, and being quite young, he was not trained in martial arts from a young age like most of the Qin family children due to his weak constitution. However, he is a natural genius in formations, and with the unique advantage of the Qin family, he had already seen many methods of arranging sacrificial offerings by the age of eleven or twelve, and he could easily modify various small sacrificial rituals himself.

Later, his father died in battle in the northern frontier, so he came directly to Qin You. By then, after recuperation, he had recovered, but he lacked a strong foundation. Grand Tutor Qin originally only wanted him to gain experience in the army, but a test revealed that he had an excellent affinity with the Blood Transformation Array. After the previous Blood Transformation Array master died in battle, Qin You made an exception and bypassed the two commanders to obtain the position of master of the Blood Transformation Array, and it was entirely based on his strength, so no one objected.

Lu Ning was quite used to his personality. Just like Qin Shu of Gouchen, the young people of the Qin family wore their hatred for demons on their sleeves, without any attempt to hide it. Therefore, when dealing with demons, no one cared what methods they used, and as it turned out, Qin You's unorthodox formation was indeed extremely effective against demons.

The two chatted all the way, and when they encountered some ignorant demon soldiers, one would surround and annihilate them, the other would strip them of their fighting ability, and the other would be responsible for killing them. The cooperation between them felt extremely comfortable.

Not long after, Lu Ning finally arrived at the foot of Guanyuan City.