The Magus Era

A great-scale town was surrounded by four hills, on all four sides. This was the biggest stronghold of the humankind in this Evil Dragon Bay area, and was also the location of the base camp of the human army in this area.

On the over a thousand meters tall city wall, which was covered in thick metal plates, Si Wen Ming sat in between two battlements, with his head raised, and was looking at the brightly sparkling stars in the sky. Those incalculable stars had been moving along the track that hadn’t changed since the beginning of the world. Dense streams of visible star power looked like multicolored water streams, pouring down from the sky, lightening up the dark night.

Ji Hao stood next to Si Wen Ming, also looking at the stars in the sky.

As the magic formation pattern he borrowed from Yu Yu had covered the entire Evil Dragon Bay area, Ji Hao could now clearly sense the existence of every single stream of starlight. Even the slightest stream of starlight contained immeasurable mysteriousness; earth power, water power, fire power, wind power, lightning power, ice power... so many different types of power were contained in these star power streams. Those were all great, primitive, prehistoric and original natural powers.

Showering under these star power streams, Ji Hao accepted the sense of eternality given by the star powers, suddenly feeling his own existence to be so tiny.

The city wall that Ji Hao and Si Wen Ming were staying on was on the northern side of the town. From time to time, human warriors, whose bodies were all covered in blood, would rush staggering back, sitting directly down on the ground, leaning against the city wall, resting while gasping quickly for air.

The north side of the city was now shrouded by raging flames, that seemed to even surge to the sky. Qian Family’s main army was now less than five-hundred miles from here. More towns were broken one after another. Inside those towns, human condemned prisoner slave warriors had been fighting desperately against those elite warriors of the Qian Family.

The Qian Family was like a greedy beast, a powerful, violent evil dragon. To catch such a giant monster, one had to prepare enough baits, which had to be made from fresh blood. With these bloody baits, they would walk right into the trap, step by step.

Except for the few towns that Ji Hao had abandoned earlier, in those larger scale towns, which were broken later than the first five towns, different numbers of condemned prisoner slave warriors were arranged to perish together with the non-humankind warriors and slave warriors. All those condemned prisoner slave warriors were under the control of a special magic to make them never feel fear; they wouldn’t run or surrender, only fighting till they died.

Only after true, bloody and brutal battles, the Qian Family would actually believe that this wasn’t a trap.

Huaxu Lie and Lie Mountain Kang were standing quite far away from Ji Hao and Si Wen Ming. Their trusted deputy commanders had been rushing over from all directions every now and then, bringing the latest report from every battlefield, including if the Di Family had shown the sign of any unexpected moves, the current situation of all human army forces in the Evil Dragon Bay area, and if the other Yu Clan family stationed in surrounding area of the Evil Dragon Bay had any unusual moves. All information was gathering over timely.

Ji Hao headed down, turned his eyes away from stars in the sky, to the north side.

This town was the core of the magic sword formation that he borrowed from Yu Yu. Centered here, and within the area of radius three-hundred miles, Ji Hao could take the greatest control of the magic sword formation. If this distance went more than three-hundred miles, with Ji Hao’s current power, he was unable to manipulate the four violent, fierce swords to attack enemies more than three-hundred miles away.

They had paid such a big price and spent so many efforts, for the sole purpose, that was making the Qian Family’s army forces all gather here under this city wall, and letting Ji Hao activate the magic sword formation and exterminate them all at once.

It was highly possible that the Qian Family’s main army forces wouldn’t all gather in here; consequently, the magic sword formation wouldn’t be able to wipe them out all at once. Some elite forces would flee around, therefore, only by drawing them deeply into the Evil Dragon Bay, where human warriors were ready to ambush everywhere, would the human army have a chance to encircle them and make them all stay in Evil Dragon Bay, in perpetuity.

Also because some Magi Palace elders were not sure about the actual power of this magic sword formation, which was ‘borrowed from an old friend by Candle Dragon Gui’, Si Wen Ming and the other few high-level commanders of the human army had set a second, third, fourth, and even more ambushes around this town. All in all, the ultimate purpose of this whole thing was to make the Qian Family’s army forces stay here in this Evil Dragon Bay forever.

In order to achieve this goal of annihilating the enemies, only the number of condemned prisoner slaves, who had served as ‘blood baits’, had reached hundreds of thousands.

Apart from all this, in the fight that happened in each town, a small number of human warriors would fall. Within these couple of days, the number of fallen human warriors had reached tens of thousands.

While hearing the noise that came from the north side from time to time, Si Wen Ming abruptly said, “In the ancient time, when the human world was still ruled by the legendary three emperors, for the wars that happened between human clans, both sides at war would always inform each other regarding the time and location of the battle which was going to happen. They would choose an appropriate time, gather their armies, then decently and dignifiedly, start the war.”

Pausing shortly, Si Wen Ming continued, “Till the present days, in the years of wars between the humankind and non-humankind, unless the power loss went to a certain degree that our armies couldn’t possibly hold up, our human warriors would never step back for even half an inch. We would always fight until we died...Our humankind never played any tricks in wars.”

Si Wen Ming then grinned a bit weirdly, turned around, looked at Ji Hao with a serious face and said, “Not to even mention that, I have actually taken your suggestion. Cooperate with some big Yu Clan family, and with such a method, entrap another big Yu Clan family, even eliminating them. I am still surprised, even till now, how did I accept such a whimsical suggestion.”

Ji Hao stayed silent for a rather long while, then gave the rhetorical question also in a serious tone, “Uncle, do you think this is good?”

“Do I think this is good?” Si Wen Ming raised his head, looked at the sky, seemingly a little bit confused, “Like this...bait the trap with the lives of hundreds of thousands of condemned prisoner slaves...”

“Bait the trap with the lives of hundreds of thousands of condemned prisoner slaves, draw the enemies into the trap we designed before. Then, grasping the time, which is the most appropriate for us, and the location, that is the most beneficial to us, gather our greatest powers. We attain all the opportune, geographical and convenient conditions, and annihilate a formidable enemy.” Ji Hao looked at Si Wen Ming and said quickly, “Even though this is not matched with the traditional methods of fighting of our humankind, this is a treacherous, pragmatic way to fight a war, but...this is a progress.”

At least, in Ji Hao’s eyes, this was a progress.

Si Wen Ming remained silent for a while, then knitted his brows and asked, “So, in the Blood Cloud Mountain side, how should we wrap it up with the Di Family? Ah, I have actually agreed to cooperate with the Yu Clan.”

Pondering for a short span of time, Ji Hao said slowly, “Enemies of our enemy could become our friend. The Di Family is also our enemy, but, it doesn’t mean that we cannot temporarily borrow their powers. All in all, this is a fight over power and profits.”

Thousands of different thoughts flashed across Ji Hao’s mind at this moment. He the continued in a peaceful tone, “I believe, by now, elders of the Di Family have been trying to figure out a way to truly break the defensive line of the Blood Cloud Mountain. Therefore, now, we have to start thinking about how we should wipe the main army force of the Di Family in the Blood Cloud Mountain, after we take the Qian Family’s main army force out.”

Si Wen Ming stared at Ji Hao in shock and asked, “What about the agreement you made with the Di Family?”

Ji Hao looked back at him and responded seriously, “All agreements that have been reached will end up being broken. The Di Family is our enemy as well, and after we took out the main army force of the Qian Family with the power that was partially borrowed from them, why shouldn’t we take advantage of this opportunity and take them out too?”

Si Wen Ming stared at Ji Hao, seemed to be shocked so badly that even his hair stood on their ends, and said, “This thought of yours...is...terrifying! Ji Hao...these thoughts of yours...I have to admit that they’re right, but, these thoughts, they probably are not all good. This, indeed is a progress, but this is also a...”

Si Wen Ming couldn’t come up with an appropriate word to describe all that he felt. What Ji Hao had said made him feel unfamiliar, made him feel a deep, deep fear.

Nevertheless, from within this deep fear, Si Wen Ming had also sensed an intense lure!

Another wave of raging flame rose from the north. The Qian Family’s main army force had approached another step closer.