Returning from the abyss

Chapter 1428 All Things Are Impermanent
Battle brings terrifying destruction.

With the amplification from the dual-formation array and the enhancement from the Demon Blood Curse, Lu Ning finally possessed the ability to fight a demon king of the Yin Commander's caliber head-on. However, having the ability to fight did not necessarily guarantee an easy victory, a fact Lu Ning deeply understood.

The forces were evenly matched; with each collision, the cold vortex and the icy ice would splatter deadly ice shards. Their explosive speed could pierce through any non-metallic armor, not even the bodies of demons. As the sword light and the shadows of yin and yang clashed and pierced each other, it was the surrounding soldiers who were first injured.

It is obvious that the Impermanent Ones do not care about the life or death of those demons.

Lu Ning's sword clashed violently with the black and white umbrella. The umbrella, made of an unknown material, had been stabbed several times by Lu Ning without leaving a scratch, and its surface remained completely undamaged. Wu Chang's face, painted like an actor's mask on a stage, remained expressionless, only increasing the force of his blows.

Cold vortices rapidly formed around Wuchang, swirling and flying towards Lu Ning. Each vortex was different, exhibiting cutting, blunting, pushing, and penetrating effects. Lu Ning had no time to discern the characteristics of these cold vortices; she could only destroy them one by one. Fortunately, for Lu Ning in her current state, the energy required to destroy the cold vortices was almost negligible.

Wu Chang was also very surprised by Lu Ning's performance.

Fengdu retains the demon race's tradition of venerating power. To be able to fight a demon king, no matter how many tricks one possesses, is to have reached that level. Throughout history, there have been only about a hundred humans who have achieved this. The Great Wei Dynasty has had some, but Lu Ning is too young.

After another struggle between Wuchang and Lu Ning, they each took two steps back. At this moment, Wuchang closed the umbrella again, then pulled hard on the handle, which instantly grew into two longer sections, forming a shape resembling a long spear.

Seeing this, Lu Ning also gathered more ice shards and attached them to the sword, extending the sword in her hand into an ice spear.

She dared not be so arrogant in facing a superior opponent with a weapon of lesser strength. Since the gun was the undisputed king of the battlefield, she had to respond with the same weapon.

"State your name, human, you deserve to be remembered," Wuchang said.

“Lu Ning of the Huailing Lu Clan”.

As soon as the last word faded, the two spears clashed.

Wu Chang's spear technique is unpredictable and his coiling killing intent is like a snake emerging from its hole. Lu Ning's spear technique, on the other hand, is more focused on directness. Yan Rong, who loves playing with long weapons, has used a long spear in front of her many times. Lu Ning's spear technique is mostly derived from observing Yan Rong.

The spears clashed, their materials, both umbrella-like and ice-like, as flexible as real white waxwood. Lu Ning used her waist to deflect Wu Chang's spear, then instantly thrust it forward. Wu Chang twisted his body, his spear swirling downwards, forcing Lu Ning to retract her attack and dodge. Then, almost simultaneously, both used the momentum to swing their spears, one guiding a vortex of cold air, the other sprouting an ice blade from its tip, both striking at each other with a domineering swing!
This time, because they used the same move, neither Lu Ning nor Wu Chang managed to dodge, and their weapons struck each other precisely at the waist. Wu Chang instantly felt as if his body had been hit by a stone cannon, and he tumbled and flew away, while Lu Ning only staggered a few steps without falling.

Because much of the cold mist was dispersed, the fight was witnessed by many people and demons, and most of the demons were stunned for a moment.

The Demon King actually lost to a human in a pure head-on confrontation?

This is a scenario that most demons cannot imagine.

Wuchang slowly got up, its waist now covered with terrifying icy thorns that penetrated its flesh and blood, devouring its life force. In contrast, Lu Ning was only covered by a layer of frost from the explosion of the cold vortex.

"Bull's head".

It certainly recognized its old friend's abilities. Lu Ning hadn't been able to completely replicate the bull's defensive capabilities, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to move at all. But even with a degraded version, its attack just now hadn't been able to penetrate it.

In a life-or-death struggle, falling into this trap almost guarantees total defeat. After regaining her footing, Lu Ning charged forward again without pause, her ice spear once more creating a fierce wind that formed a pure white blade of energy resembling the Grim Reaper's scythe.

"O storm..."

All the swirling cold vortices around them instantly exploded. A gust of icy wind was caught in Wuchang's palm, which it lifted with the tip of its umbrella. The gale formed a sharp cone, and with Wuchang's stride, it instantly clashed with Lu Ning. This time, it wasn't a contest of brute force, but rather a test of the strength of their respective abilities. Wuchang could already feel its body going numb, but the arrogance of the Demon King wouldn't allow it to fall like this.

Lu Ningfu sensed something was off about Wuchang's strength the moment they made contact; she instantly understood that Wuchang was in a desperate, life-or-death situation. She immediately withdrew her strength, causing the spear to snap at the tip, and retreated backward with a single step. The gust of wind shattered the ice spear, but Wuchang's speed also slowed down. The shadow of the Yin-Yang Umbrella began to appear within its storm, and the storm could no longer conceal its colors.

A head-on clash? Lu Ning knew very well that winning by trickery was already her limit. In a battle, even the most insidious tactics were always the right thing to do—a lesson learned from Yan Rong.

The icy thorns spread around Wuchang's waist, finally halting its momentum. The two were only a battle apart, but Wuchang could no longer advance an inch. In its final moments, it used the remaining force to throw the umbrella gun in its hand, but Lu Ning had anticipated this and dodged it.

She had witnessed too many desperate struggles. As Wuchang's movements slowed and the mist gathered again, she became more acutely aware of all of Wuchang's actions and naturally wouldn't fall for this move.

"I still lost a move." Wuchang's upper body broke off at the waist and fell to the ground. The icy thorns had already devoured most of its body. The target captured by the Absolute Array never lets go, and Wuchang no longer had the strength to use the killing array to save itself.

Lu Ning drew her sword and approached, decisively stabbing Wuchang in the head. Runes flashed, and Wuchang's body twitched for a moment before losing its life.

There was a demon king... or rather, a Yin general. Lu Ning even felt that she still had some strength left; the bull's blood was still burning within her curse. She turned her head, raised her sword, and pointed it at the remaining demon army.

Qin You shouted at the opportune moment: "Kill!"

The soldiers responded immediately. Their morale soared after the demon king was slain. Instead, the demons began to cower in fear, and many instinctively fled. Even some demon generals could not be restrained.

The four demon kings who went out did not return, and the soldiers of the Frost Array and Blood Transformation Array routed this army. In the end, the demon army failed to rally its morale like the human army; the direct killing of the demon kings had a powerful deterrent effect on them.

The offensive led by Lu Ning naturally followed the same method: scatter the enemy and then immediately retreat. This way, even if the four demon kings returned, it would be of little use.

"The next one?" Qin You asked Lu Ning directly as they were leaving.

"I see you. Follow me."

Lu Ning's demonic eyes were one of the fastest reconnaissance methods on the battlefield. She immediately led her men to retreat towards the next battlefield. This team made full use of their ability to move like the wind, repeatedly shuttling across the battlefield, sniping the demon army's support troops, and cutting off the path of the siege equipment teams. With the powerful auxiliary ability of the Blood Transformation Array, Lu Ning could even maintain a state of high energy. She could recklessly activate the Demon Blood Curse and directly challenge the demon king who was the leader of the demon army. With the combat power of Wuchang, even ordinary demon kings would be stunned by Lu Ning's all-out attack style from the start, and few of them would be able to fight back.

Two days later, Lu Ning and Qin You finally stopped, as the war had shifted from troop formation charges to a widespread, open-field battle. This was the demon army's strategy; having discovered that organized troop formations were ineffective against humans, they immediately changed tactics. The demons were reduced to small groups, and all of them carried special drugs; if faced with an insurmountable situation, they would immediately ingest the drugs and self-destruct.

After encountering this enemy twice in a row, Lu Ning and Qin You also realized the change in the demon army's strategy.

The methods to slay demons belonging to the Laws of the Frozen Lake have been widely used on the battlefield, and the demons must respond accordingly. They have leveraged their complete fearlessness, and this life-or-death fighting style is indeed a viable approach.

"It seems Huang Kui has returned to oversee the war?" Qin You discussed the situation with Lu Ning during a break. Even at this stage, Grand Tutor Qin still hadn't issued any new orders; the plan was to continue intercepting and killing the demon army as before. Xu Fu seemed to be being handled by someone else, so they didn't need to worry about him.

“I think Xu Fu himself could use this kind of transformation. He learned a lot from the human race, so it’s not like he couldn’t come up with such a method. Moreover, this fighting style is very much in line with the habits of the demon race.” Lu Ning analyzed while quickly eating dry rations. “Right now, we haven’t even controlled them yet, and they’ve already self-destructed. Because of this, we’ve suffered a lot of losses in these two battles.”

"I need to think of a way to improve the sealing effect of the Blood Transformation Array." Qin You stroked his chin, deep in thought. He had always relied on attrition to defeat demons, but because demons were always arrogant, now that they weren't going to engage in a war of attrition, this method had to be changed—the Blood Transformation Array was ultimately not a strong form of control.

Lu Ning let him think it over, and she also needed to rest for a while. She looked up and saw a faint red streak flashing across the sky. It was Lin Xiyin's Jinghong still patrolling the battlefield. Ning Ke would follow Jinghong's guidance to support any places where powerful combat forces appeared, which made her feel even more at ease.

She took a sip of water and swallowed the dry food in her mouth. In that instant, her heart suddenly pounded violently. This peculiar feeling immediately made Lu Ning tense up, and she rolled over and stood up.

Everyone looked up at her, and then, two heads fell one after the other onto the wasteland in the middle of them.

The head of Tianmengxing, and the other is a junior member of the Blood Transformation Array, whose strength is not weak either.

A chilling mist instantly rose from the blood-red carpet, enveloping the entire area with Lu Ning's senses. However, within these senses, only a weak aura was detected. Lu Ning focused her gaze and suddenly felt a chill creep up her spine. She removed her sword and tossed it to Qin You, then took another sword from Xuan Yangzi beside her.

"What?" Although Qin You knew that a formidable enemy was approaching, he did not understand why Lu Ning had thrown the sword to him so directly.

“It’s no use. The demons that came did not submit to the laws of the Ice Lake.” Lu Ning narrowed her eyes, looking at the figure walking slowly towards her. The sudden burst of crimson in the night of Xingyin; the strange person addressed as “fellow Daoist” in the Siming Prefecture restaurant—these two memories overlapped with the current figure, and Lu Ning already knew who it was.

"The command of two supreme formations is here... How solemn!"

The newcomer stopped, a long sword in his hand, its blade touching the ground. As his clothes fluttered, his powerful internal energy blocked all the mist from his body by an inch.

"When I killed the master of the Frost Array that day, I witnessed the power of the array. Back then, I couldn't force my way through and behead him with just one sword. However, things are different now. Over the years, I've been racking my brains for a way to break the array, which has been a great source of interest for me. But I never expected to encounter two masters of the array today, which makes things a bit more difficult."

Li Ji's voice was leisurely, completely devoid of the urgency of the battlefield.

"When we parted ways in Siming Prefecture, I longed not to see you again, but that was all because of this war. There are very few seekers of the Dao in the world; for every person who dies, one less person attains the Dao. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. Fellow Daoist, we have finally met again here."

Lu Ning raised her sword, mentally reviewing all the items she carried, considering how to proceed with the fight.

When I came, did you feel a sudden urge to come?

Li Jiyi slowly raised his sword, pushed his left palm forward, and flipped his right wrist, placing the sword behind his back. His body arched slightly. Lu Ning instantly felt as if her face was being cut by a sharp blade, and driven by instinct, she lunged to the side.

"what……"

There was no wind or mist, only a wisp of blue clothing flitted by, without alerting anyone.

Of the people who were near Lu Ning just now, apart from Qin You who dodged quickly enough, everyone else collapsed with blood spurting from their bodies, mostly fatal wounds to their heads, necks, and hearts.

In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen people died.

Lu Ning saw clearly that Li Ji had directly broken through the fog with some kind of mysterious "qi," and her movements even caused a certain distortion in space. This was not a move from ordinary martial arts. Coupled with the super-intuitive feeling she had, she immediately realized that this was some kind of effect of the "Daoist technique" that Li Ji had mentioned.

"General."

Xuan Yangzi suddenly struggled to raise his hand and slapped a pool of blood onto the ground.

His shallow magic could not harm Li Ji in the slightest, but Li Ji still paid him some attention.

"Using... technique... her..."

Blood gushed from the corner of his mouth. Xuan Yangzi stared intently at Li Ji until his lips twitched slightly, and he stopped moving.

"He pursued it his whole life, yet he never found the way to master it? That's a pity." Li Ji glanced at Xuan Yangzi, then looked up at Lu Ning. "You didn't attack just now because you weren't confident? Then, let me do it."

Purple light surged around Lu Ning. She silently recited the cultivation method, gathering the true essence she had cultivated from the two volumes of cultivation techniques she had obtained into her hands and feet. Her demonic eyes also directly increased to the highest level of vision.

"Lu Ning, what do you want to do!" Qin You suddenly roared, and then an ice wall blocked him out.

The Demon Subduing Hall, in a miniature form, unfolds around Lu Ning and Li Ji.