Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-636

This day was undoubtedly the longest day in Zhao Qing's life.

On this day, he witnessed one of those fiend assaults spoken of in the legends.

On this day, the old veteran who had been teaching him all this time was slain in battle.

On this day, he met a man who saved his life and changed his fate and the fate of countless others.

Standing in front of Zhao Qing, Tang Jie casually swatted a cat fiend to death as one might swat a mosquito.

He didn't notice the excited gaze of that young soldier who had just been saved, only gazed into the distance.

Flying fiends were howling and roaring as they devoured humans. A flaming bull bellowed and rammed into the protective formation, its immense strength rapidly draining the formation of energy while its flames coiled up like snakes and instantly turned several dozen soldiers into ash. A giant black bear stood on the walls, swinging its paws around with enough force to shake mountains, shattering the masonry around it. Countless fiend birds descended from the sky, lunging at their foes.

At the same time, cultivators put up a brave fight, and several of them drew Tang Jie's attention.

A white-clothed man wielding a sword flitted among the fiends, moving with incredible speed and almost always striking at the weak points of his enemies. He probably had some sort of Insight ability. And while his sword light seemed ethereal and weightless, it was brimming with sharp murderous intent.

A young woman holding a jade zither lightly strummed it, and countless musical notes struck the charging fiends, many of which died on the spot, unable to react.

A person wrapped in a black cloak waved what was clearly a soul-gathering banner, from which countless ghosts emerged, attacking the fiends as they wailed and wept. The surrounding people didn't react at all, clearly used to such things. Many forbidden arts had ceased to be forbidden in a bid to compete against the fiends, and ghost arts were clearly no taboo here.

There was also someone controlling several dozen puppets. Unlike the puppets Tang Jie had seen before, these were pieced together from biological parts and regular metal and stone. Some of them had fiend heads connected to puppet bodies, while others had fiend hearts beating within a puppet body. There were also puppets that were just red masses of some sticky substance that could take on various forms. When they saw fiends, they would lunge at them and wrap around them like a cloth, rapidly digesting them into pus. The bizarre variety of puppets left even Tang Jie amazed.

There was also a white-haired elder, who was probably the strongest among the cultivators present. He was at Soul Transformation, and he stood on the back of a yellow goat and held a white lotus in his hand. The white lotus spun in his hand, occasionally letting out rays of light that would melt any fiends it touched.

Finally, there were still some cultivators standing in the rear who had yet to move out. They were probably reserved for those three fiend kings in the distance.

The power of these three fiend kings was enough to put Dongjin Pass in a crisis. It was no wonder the fiends had been able to bully the humans so easily.

As he was in the middle of thinking, a foolish skylark fiend shot over to Tang Jie, thinking him to be a juicy piece of meat.

The sharp skylark beak rammed into Tang Jie's bare chest, but the bird felt like it had rammed into a mountain, its beak shattering on impact while still failing to punch any sort of hole in Tang Jie's body. On the contrary, the backlash sent it flying backward.

Tang Jie glanced at it in scorn and then proceeded to ignore it. He had just arrived and had no plans on immediately entering the battlefield. But that skylark wasn't going to just let things be. It let out a sharp cry. While the skylark fiend wasn't strong, it was well-liked among its fellow fiends, so its call had several other fiends immediately flying over.

"Savior, be careful!" the recruit called out from behind him.

Tang Jie didn't even turn his head, but a figure flew out from behind—Yiyi had moved to intercept the fiends. Meanwhile, Tang Jie stomped to death that skylark that had caused him all this trouble.

This was the equivalent of kicking a beehive, and a large number of fiends immediately converged on his location.

"Truly a tree wishes for quiet but the wind won't stop!" Tang Jie lightly grunted. "I suppose it's to be expected. I'm already on the battlefield, so how can I expect to remain uninvolved?"

Thus, Zhao Qing saw the man who had just saved him and who had been viewing the scenery suddenly move.

This movement was like that of a mountain abruptly shifting, leaving Zhao Qing dumbfounded.

Tang Jie raised a hand and grabbed at an approaching eagle fiend. That this eagle fiend was as quick as lightning seemed to be utterly irrelevant, so easily did Tang Jie grab it by the neck. And then, like he was strangling a hen, he snapped its neck.

He casually tossed the corpse of the eagle fiend to Zhao Qing's feet.

"Can you help me out?" Tang Jie gently asked.

Startled, Zhao Qing realized that Tang Jie was talking to him.

Countless fiends were attacking him, but he was only looking at Zhao Qing. As for those fiends, he casually thrust out his hand at them, upon which blood rained from the heavens.

Zhao Qing was so stunned by the sight that he forgot what Tang Jie had said.

Tang Jie reminded him, "Hey, I'm talking to you."

"Ah! Ah! Sa… Sir, what is your order?" Zhao Qing stammered.

Tang Jie waved his hand, and a pile of fiend corpses landed at Zhao Qing's feet. He then said, "Guard these corpses for me and make sure no one tries to steal my achievements. When I get back, I need to settle accounts with General Gu."

Zhao Qing stared for a few moments, and then he awoke from his stupor and pulled out his saber. "Sir, be at ease. This one will definitely protect Sir's spoils of war!"

"My thanks." Tang Jie casually threw over an item. "This is to protect you."

Zhao Qing hastily grabbed it and found that it was a jade pendant. The moment it landed in his hand, it released a faint yellow barrier around him. A small fiend flew over and rammed right into the barrier. Unable to get in, it could only turn to seek other targets. Zhao Qing was surprised and delighted. He hastily went over to the pile of fiends, swearing to guard this mighty expert's spoils with his life.

Meanwhile, Tang Jie assumed his actual form, becoming a giant, and strode into the fiends.

Since he had decided to take part in the battle, he would show no mercy. Seeing a group of fiends gather in the distance, he chuckled. He started with a small jog, and then he suddenly accelerated. Thus, one could see a giant atop the tall walls of Dongjin Pass, sprinting along and smashing aside all the fiends in its path. Yiyi followed along, her vines grabbing the fiends, killing them, and throwing them to Zhao Qing. In the blink of an eye, the pile of corpses next to Zhao Qing had grown into a small mountain.

The humans all loudly cheered at the sight, their morale soaring. Of course, the fiends were deeply enraged, one of the fiend generals even charging at Tang Jie and shouting, "Such rich blood energy! Your flesh must be delicious!"

This was a mantis fiend, and it attacked Tang Jie with twin sabers.

Tang Jie sneered. "But you don't seem to have any meat to eat at all."

He allowed the sabers to hack at his body, and the mantis thought that its blows had struck true. But just when it was about to celebrate, it felt an intense pain, and it found that its "unbreakable" mantis blades had failed to break Tang Jie's body, almost like it was trying to hack through steel. Rather than hurting its foe, it had ended up breaking its own arms, so it was no wonder it was in such intense pain. It backed away in alarm, but Tang Jie grabbed its arms and then tore them off with just a light tug. Tang Jie then threw a punch at the fiend's thorax and then reached inside, pulling out a red object: the fiend pellet.

The mantis didn't even have time to let out a bitter scream before it died. Tang Jie threw this fiend general's body next to Zhao Qing with all the rest.

"Keep an eye on it," he said.

Zhao Qing nodded.

Tang Jie moved off to continue the slaughter.

The death of a fiend general finally drew the attention of the upper echelons.

The purple-caped human general on the wall glanced at Tang Jie and asked, "Who is this? I am unfamiliar with his methods."

"Sir, this one has seen him before. His name is Tang Jie, and he was previously eliminating fiends within the country. He must have just arrived."

"Tang Jie…" The purple-caped general mulled over this name. "That one who massacred Hundred Battle City in a single day and left the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor so furious that he ordered the fiends to attack my Dongjin Pass for three days and three nights, almost breaking the Heavenly Dao Oath?"

"Precisely!"

The general narrowed his eyes.

While Tang Jie had been left quite happy after the slaughter of Hundred Battle City, Fengshan had ended up bearing much of the consequences for him. But war was war, and the humans of Fengshan got along with the fiends as fire did with water. Each human had the duty of exterminating the fiends, and nobody would criticize another for killing the enemy too ruthlessly because of the enemy's revenge.

Before Tang Jie, there had been Soul Transformation experts who had gone over and slaughtered many fiends, for which the fiends had crazily lashed back, but nobody had been accused of any crime for this.

Killing fiends was the greatest feat one could accomplish!

As for the enemy's reaction, that wasn't important, for they would never let the humans be, no matter how one treated them.

For this reason, the purple-caped general didn't blame Tang Jie for the aftermath. He just wondered why Tang Jie had waited until today to come. He had been waiting for the arrival of this powerful expert for several years.

Regardless, Tang Jie's arrival was a good thing, and the old general felt relieved.

At the same time, the three fiend kings also took note of Tang Jie.

The large-eared, broad-faced golden toad, the Heaven Swallowing King, narrowed his eyes and said, "Who is this? I've never seen such daring before, but I feel like I've heard about it somewhere before."

The Colossus King said, "I feel the same. What does Brother Venomheart think?"

The Venomheart King shook his head. "If my guess is correct, this person should be the butcher of my Hundred Battle City from four years ago, that human who killed the Violet Flame King, Tang Jie."

"He's Tang Jie?" The Heaven Swallowing King gasped. "The Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor has promised a Fiend Bloodstone as a reward for this human's head!"

The Colossus King laughed. "Wonderful, wonderful! I will take down this person and take him to the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor for the bloodstone!"

He jumped off his Skyshaker and transformed into a blue-furred mammoth that charged at Tang Jie.