.....The humiliation was blatant, but Feng Kuangsheng couldn't utter a single word.
His fate was already sealed at this moment.
There was only one word left: death!!!!
Whether it was that female cultivator whose combat power far surpassed his own,
or Lu Ding, who in this state possessed combat power that defied logic, exaggerated to the point of absurdity—only at his peak could he have matched him—
neither was someone he could defeat in his current condition.
But he didn't want to die yet.
He wanted to live.
He was the One-Word Prince of Baoji Kingdom; he still had a bright future ahead.
He hadn't visited his mother's grave on her death anniversary this year—he didn't want to die yet!!!
He still had his sister.
His sister needed him.
The vast kingdom needed his assistance.
But...
As a Deification Ninth Level cultivator, as the One-Word Prince of Baoji Kingdom,
Feng Kuangsheng couldn't bring himself to beg for mercy.
His pride would never allow him to grovel before an enemy who had humiliated him!!!
Yet the will to survive and the weighing of pros and cons continued to interfere with his reason!
Lu Ding saw his silence.
He reached out.
Grabbed his neck.
Twisted his body.
And executed a shoulder throw!!!!
He smashed Feng Kuangsheng straight from the air, crashing him down to the ground.
"Are you fucking deaf!?"
Boom!!!!
A thunderous crash rang out.
The ground collapsed in concentric rings, flipping up slabs of rock and soil.
Pain surged through him, and Feng Kuangsheng could no longer suppress his rage. Even if he died, he would never beg for mercy from someone like Lu Ding!!!
They were on opposing sides!
They were enemies!!!
He, the One-Word Prince of Baoji Kingdom, would never beg an enemy for mercy: "I'll restore your..."
Before he could even shout the word "mother,"
Lu Ding arrived with [Celestial Shift].
A heavy kick.
His powerful heel directly pried open the gate of Feng Kuangsheng's crown of the skull.
Smack!!!!
His skull cracked and shattered into pieces.
A flick of the wrist, and [Way of the Jinche] carved him into a thousand pieces.
The One-Word Prince of Baoji Kingdom was dead!!!!!
Lu Ding coldly stared at the scattered remains on the ground.
"Ungrateful bastard. I gave you a chance to live a little longer, and you insisted on courting death!"
"Today I kill you; in a few days, I'll destroy your Baoji Kingdom!!!"
Too bad.
The dead Feng Kuangsheng wasn't a pure demonic spirit.
He couldn't be contained to exchange for a skill.
At this moment,
Yan Feifan's voice came through Lu Ding's earpiece: "Brother Lu, Company Commander Zhang has arrived with the border army."
Now that the main force had arrived, Lu Ding directly ordered: "Then launch the counterattack immediately—no rest. We'll talk again on Raise Phoenix Mountain. Order the entire army to advance, sweep up Raise Phoenix Mountain, and leave no one behind!"
The sooner he wrapped up everything here,
the sooner Lu Ding could return to developing his western region.
Once the evidence was submitted,
matters like declaring war on a nation would be left to the military!
After all, they were the professionals.
That's when Lu Ding and the western region could sit back and enjoy the rewards.
The flames of war blazed red through the night; the roar of battle shook the heavens!!!
The scene of army-scale combat was truly magnificent.
When the 749 Bureau engaged in large-scale warfare, they always led with a fusion of technology and mysticism—mass destruction weapons charging the front lines.
The military had annihilation cannons covering the rear, coordinated infantry and artillery, land-sea-air triphibious mystical armored tanks leading the charge, while the demon hordes of Raise Phoenix Mountain faced them with flesh and blood.
They were shattered into powder.
The earth shook and the heavens trembled.
Roaring artillery fire turned the long night bright as day with its blazing light.
Tracer rounds rained down like sheets of rain, four rounds per salvo. The sheer density of fire was so intense that not even a mosquito could fly through the artillery storm!!!
This was the terror of the Great Han.
Technology was always the best choice for raising the baseline.
Personal combat power might lead the charge,
but as long as the strong restrained the strong, and the weak exchanged fire, the Great Han's rapidly developing mystical technology would remain invincible!!!!
That night,
Raise Phoenix Mountain fell.
Demonic spirits were slaughtered or captured in droves.
Remnants of small demon factions had no choice but to retreat from Raise Phoenix Mountain.
The Celestial Armor Beetle clan, who had committed no wrongs on Overcast Mountain, were so terrified that they fled overnight.
They abandoned the land where their generations had lived.
Although Lu Ding hadn't purged them,
living so close to the Great Han, they more or less understood the principle that a gentleman does not stand beneath a crumbling wall.
Even if they weren't being purged now, who could say what the future held?
They weren't gentlemen, but they also didn't want to stand beneath a crumbling wall.
The vast exodus of demons looked back at their former homeland, Overcast Mountain and Raise Phoenix Mountain, with every three steps.
Under the roar of artillery fire,
they listened to the booming cannons as if the Great Han was issuing a declaration of war, making them tremble with fear.
The atmosphere of leaving their homeland was one of sorrow.
Songs of grief echoed through the dark, deep mountains.
The demons routed by Lu Ding sang these mournful songs as they withdrew from their ancestral lands on Raise Phoenix Mountain.
'Our Overcast Mountain is lost, leaving our sons with no home to return to.'
'Our Raise Phoenix Mountain is gone, leaving our ancestral lands without glory.'
'Han men, Han men, when will you stop pursuing us, driving us to where...'
'Mountain after mountain of green, inch by inch of artillery fire...'
'The burial grounds of our ancestors are now your new halls...'
Days of relentless purges, battles of irresistible force, and a style of rooting out everything had turned even the demons into literate folk.
And with that,
Overcast Mountain and Raise Phoenix Mountain were completely pacified and cleared.
At the Singing Phoenix Hall on Raise Phoenix Mountain,
the 749 Bureau and the border army pressed in with overwhelming force, sweeping and killing every inch of the way to the summit.
The red bird that had once carried Su Yun away in flight manifested as a human woman. Covered in wounds, she sat upon the throne, letting her gaze fall upon her former border army rivals below and Lu Ding's 749 Bureau. Her smile was bitter.
She didn't say a single word to Lu Ding or the others.
There was no pointless rambling.
She simply gazed into the distance toward Baoji Kingdom.
"Mr. Su, Her Majesty the Empress, see you in the next life..."
The great demon red bird sat upright on the throne, her eyes slowly dimming and losing their light as she took her own life.
Lu Ding's face instantly darkened.
"Coward, waste!!!!"
She actually killed herself!!
Fucking hell!!!
Lu Ding had never encountered an opponent like this.
He was absolutely livid!!!!
He consoled himself in his mind that whatever skill this bird demon dropped would definitely be bad—rotten, worthless!!!
With a personality like that, not daring to fight to the death, the skill she dropped had to be a turtle-hiding skill.
Even if it dropped, it would just take up space.
Better not to drop anything at all.
The border army general, clad in frost armor, stood beside Lu Ding.
He opened his mouth and said,
"Oh well..."
"How did she end up killing herself like this."
"Her mental fortitude was just too weak. Ah, what a shame, what a shame."
Putting everything else aside, just by that accent alone, Lu Ding had no doubt that this general was one of Elder Shui's men, a soldier under Elder Shui's command.
"General Ming, you've worked hard this time. I'm sorry to have troubled you to come all this way in person,"
Lu Ding said.
The man called General Ming
turned his gaze to Lu Ding, sizing him up, scrutinizing him, and then nodding with satisfaction, as if he were seeing a younger version of Elder Shui.
But Lu Ding seemed even more complex than Elder Shui.
This battle made him feel, in a daze, as if he had found himself back in the days when he charged into battle under Elder Shui's command.
He immediately smiled and said, "No need to stand on ceremony. We're all family."
"I hope we can have more collaborations like this in the future..."
Chapter 1064: Slaughtering Feng Kuangsheng, Turning Demons into Literate Folk!
7 min read