Witch Wind

Chapter 386 Feathers Fall Like Rain (Part 1)

Liuhua Mountain.

The mountains are majestic, with the main peak reaching over 20,000 feet high. On the pale green mountaintop, ancient, vigorous trees stretch out in a winding manner, with countless huge bird nests resembling dorayaki shapes built on them.

King Liuguang spread his wings and hovered in mid-air, looking furiously at the dozen or so four-armed demonic apes that were running around in the nearby mountains.

These four-armed demonic apes moved like the wind, like ghosts. The mountains thousands of feet high seemed to not exist to them. They flashed and disappeared among the mountains, and terrifying arrows with a dull thunderous roar were constantly shot out, killing the winged people patrolling in the air.

The rumbling sound of thunder echoed through the deep mountains and canyons, stretching endlessly.

All the elite guards of the Liuguang Prince's Mansion, along with the regular private army of the manor, have been mobilized, but they are unable to capture these four-armed demonic apes that are extremely agile.

Sometimes, taking advantage of their overwhelming numbers, they would form a massive army formation stretching for hundreds of miles, finally managing to cover a mountaintop. The four-armed demonic apes that had just been frantically drawing their bows and firing arrows on the mountaintop would then swing their horned axes and hack wildly, forcefully breaking out of the army formation.

Those winged cultivators, facing the frenzied violence of this four-armed demonic ape, were truly killed if they touched it, and injured if they were touched. Under the great axe, not a single winged person could withstand three consecutive axe blows.

King Liuguang was so angry that his eyes turned green, and he wished he could personally grab his weapon and fight these four-armed demon apes to the death.

However, he acted impulsively several times, but reason eventually prevailed over him.

Figures plummeted from the sky in droves. In just half an hour of fighting, over ten thousand of the elite troops of the Liuguang Prince's Palace had been slaughtered like vegetables. The Liuguang Prince was heartbroken, so heartbroken that he wished he could have all the families of these unfortunate fallen warriors executed—how much compensation money could that save?

"Useless! Useless! You can't even handle a bunch of ancient beasts that should have gone extinct long ago. I've been feeding you, I've been feeding you with real money, I've been feeding you well... It's not even as good as feeding a pack of dogs!" King Liuguang roared angrily, "If my children were here, would I have allowed these beasts to run rampant?"

The King of Liuguang was filled with resentment.

Not only was he furious at the incompetence of these guards, but he was even more furious at the emperor of his own dynasty—he shouldn't have listened to the slander of those military advisors from the Nine Provinces, talking about the basic national policy of 'strengthening the trunk and weakening the branches'.

Whenever a royal family in any region has an outstanding disciple who cultivates to the level of a Great Luo Golden Immortal, the imperial court will directly issue a summons to serve as an official in the court. If nothing unexpected happens, except for occasional family visits, these Great Luo Golden Immortals from royal families will never be able to return to their own royal family again.

The throne had nothing to do with them anymore.

In all three great Winged Human dynasties, this was the rule: in each royal palace, only the most mediocre, incompetent, and lowest-ranking prince could ascend the throne. And if this mediocre, incompetent prince were to suddenly have an epiphany and break through to the Great Luo realm, well, there's a good seat reserved for him in the court—go and become an official!
Over time, the highest combat strength of the royal palaces in various regions of the Holy Cloud Continent was no more than the peak of the Taiyi realm.

The current King of Liuguang is not even at the pinnacle of Taiyi.

His father, the previous King Liuguang, accidentally broke through to the Great Luo realm thirty years ago. He ran off to the Imperial Dynasty to take up his post as an official, leaving the throne to him, who had the lowest strength. For the past thirty years, the current King Liuguang has been extremely cautious, spending his days eating and drinking, indulging in a life of debauchery, and refusing to cultivate, for fear of breaking through his cultivation level!

Thirty years have passed, and his cultivation has not improved in the slightest.

Thirty years later, the current King of Liuguang still maintains the cultivation level of an early Golden Immortal.

On the contrary, the princes of the current King Liuguang, seeing their father acting like he was just going to live a life of leisure and waiting to die, knew that they would not be able to ascend the throne for a long time to come!
Enraged, these princes unleashed their evil magic, devouring the flesh and souls of countless beings within a mere thirty years, forcibly elevating their cultivation to the Great Luo realm before fleeing.

"Tsk, even if we could just sneak one away, that would be fine."

As Liu Guangwang was cursing under his breath, the three four-armed demonic apes had already noticed him—who could blame them when this guy's wings were so magnificent, his pair of wings were all silver and shiny, and there were even a few strands of golden feathers adorning them, clearly indicating that his bloodline concentration was extremely high and that he looked extremely noble.

Dozens of arrows, accompanied by a terrifying whooshing sound, hurtled straight toward King Liuguang.

King Liuguang shuddered in fright, and a large amount of water immediately gushed out from beneath his magnificent silk robe. With a 'bang bang bang', several jade feather-shaped talismans exploded in front of him, surging with colorful light and blocking the dense barrage of arrows.

A terrifying impact swept in, unleashing a surge of golden lightning and rapidly spinning multicolored light. Strands of bone-corroding, soul-consuming evil energy clashed violently with the golden lightning. These arrows scattered countless sparks and shattered with a 'crack'.

King Liuguang roared and cursed, the force of the arrow sending him flying back several miles before he crashed headfirst into the main peak of Liuhua Mountain. The impact left him weak all over, his head buzzing. He yelled furiously, "Haven't they arrived yet? Haven't the Imperial reinforcements arrived yet?"

In the distance, the rousing sound of bugles rang out.

From near and far, the private armies of several nearby royal fiefdoms, as well as the elite winged troops of the garrisons of large and small towns, all came to their aid.

However, among the king's private army, the strongest commander was only at the late Taiyi stage.

The garrison troops of those towns and prefectures were only guarding against rebellions by the Miao people of the Nine Provinces. The strongest garrison commanders were only at the peak of the Golden Immortal realm.

These sixteen four-armed demonic apes were all meticulously crafted by Xing Tianli, reaching the pinnacle of Taiyi realm. Their physical strength was approaching that of a single celestial being. Faced with an ever-growing army of winged people, as dense as a swarm of flies that had just exploded in a cesspool, arrows were no longer enough to repel them. The sixteen four-armed demonic apes simultaneously drew their great axes.

A chilling light crisscrossed the area, each streak tearing apart dozens of miles.

All the winged people along the way, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, were cleaved in two by a single axe blow. Countless limbs were torn apart, blood splattered, and a large number of torn wings disintegrated, with countless emerald green feathers falling haphazardly from the sky.

No one could withstand their axe blow.

The sixteen four-armed demonic apes roared madly, and gradually, wisps of bloody evil energy began to spread from their clear, childlike eyes—their original bloodline came from the Dragon-Devouring Demonic Ape, an absolute ferocious creature of heaven and earth!
His bloodline awakened, and a fierce aura filled his heart.

The four-armed demonic apes roared and charged, leaping and bounding like the wind as they frantically fought their way through the increasingly dense ranks of winged humans. They even grabbed winged humans who couldn't dodge in time, stuffing them into their mouths and chewing them up while they were still alive.

The Dragon-Eating Demon Ape was a real dragon, which they captured alive and stuffed into their mouths.

Not to mention the winged people, who are slender and resemble spicy strips, making them even easier to eat.

The sounds of teeth chewing, bone marrow slicing, and screams of agony were like a nightmare curse, terrifying the winged soldiers around them so much that their legs went weak, their wings could barely flap, and even the weapons in their hands clattered to the ground.

Suddenly, a shout rang out, and the private army of the neighboring noble family, which had come to their aid—nearly a million Winged soldiers—shouted in unison and turned to leave.

However, the commander of this private army, a royal bloodline of the late Taiyi stage, was grabbed by a four-armed demonic ape, torn in two, and stuffed into its mouth in front of everyone.

'Awoo... Roar!'
Even more terrifying things happened... After devouring this late-stage Taiyi royal bloodline, it's unclear what benefits this winged human's royal bloodline offers. This four-armed demonic ape, who had previously devoured over a hundred Golden Immortals, hundreds of Celestial Immortals, and three to five Taiyi-level beings, suddenly experienced a surge of energy.

Without any explanation, this four-armed demonic ape broke through on the spot, its aura soaring from the peak of Taiyi to the Great Luo realm in no time!
Where can I go to seek justice?

The more the Dragon-Devouring Demon Ape devours, the stronger it becomes, and the purer its ancestral bloodline becomes!
They are, in fact, evil forces in another sense, and the most primitive, direct, and unscrupulous kind of evil forces that enhance their power.

The four-armed demonic ape, having broken through in the face of battle, roared to the sky. Its body suddenly rose to a height of over a hundred feet. It dropped its great axe, frantically pounded its chest with its four arms, and opened its mouth to inhale deeply.

His mouth grew to the size of dozens of city gates, with fangs gleaming with a chilling light that instilled despair. A terrifying suction force surged from that enormous mouth, and within a radius of a hundred miles, all the winged people screamed involuntarily as their bodies rapidly collapsed and shrank, being swallowed whole by him.

Placed on the ground, a battlefield spanning hundreds of miles can always amass hundreds of thousands of troops.

However, among the winged people, their aerial military formation is a three-dimensional, multi-dimensional formation, with people everywhere—within this large sphere within a radius of a hundred miles, the number of winged cultivators is more than two or three million.

It swallowed a million soldiers in one gulp.

A surge of blood energy coursed across the grayish-blue fur of the four-armed demonic ape, accompanied by the gurgling sounds of its intestines. Large swaths of crimson demonic flames rose from its abdomen. The million winged beings rapidly dissolved, burned by the demonic ape, and were quickly refined into clusters of extremely pure essence blood and immortal souls.

'Quack!'
This four-armed demonic ape was very loyal. It used its Great Luo power to refine the two to three million winged people into pure essence in a short breath, and then spat out fifteen blood orbs, each about a hundred feet in diameter. The other fifteen four-armed demonic apes roared in unison, soaring into the sky and swallowing the blood orbs whole.

'Awooo... Roar!'

The fifteen four-armed demonic apes were enveloped in a surge of blood-red light and rising with murderous aura. Driven by the essence of these winged beings, their blood vessels, which were already at the peak of the Taiyi realm, surged suddenly, and they easily broke through the bottleneck between the Taiyi and Daluo realms.

Liu Guangwang nearly fainted.

Previously, just sixteen Taiyi Realm demonic apes had already caused him to suffer heavy losses, and his stronghold was on the verge of being lost.

Now, look at this: sixteen newly forged Great Luo Demon Apes...

"Your Majesty, save me!" Prince Liuguang screamed hoarsely, "For the sake of my aunt, who is your newly acquired concubine... Uncle, save me!"

Disregarding all decorum, King Liuguang cried out loudly, begging for mercy from the emperor of the dynasty, whose whereabouts were unknown, while desperately flapping his wings and fleeing in a sorry state into the distance.

They had only flown less than three miles.

A beam of axe light swept across, and Liu Guangwang was completely obliterated in the axe light. The main peak of Liuhua Mountain behind him was also cleaved in two by the axe, and collapsed downwards with a rumble.

Sixteen Great Luo Demon Apes stood in the void, frantically inhaling air in all directions.

The winged army that had been frantically besieging them earlier was unable to escape. Even from five or six hundred miles away, they were all sucked into the mouths of the Great Luo Demon Ape with strange screams and howls.

Even worse off was one commoner from the lineage of Prince Liuguang.

On the vast Liuhua Mountain, atop the towering peaks and above countless ancient trees, there are nests of one person everywhere. Within a radius of three thousand miles, from a height of a dozen feet to several thousand feet in the air, there are at least hundreds of millions of nests built by winged people.

Countless winged beings, whether adult men and women, children, or even eggs still hatching in their nests, all took to the air and disappeared into the gaping maws of the sixteen demonic apes.

The essence of countless winged beings' flesh and blood immediately propelled these demonic apes to a frenzied increase in cultivation.

Beneath their bluish-gray skin, streaks of crimson lines flashed rapidly, their power was increasing wildly, and their aura was surging upwards at an abnormal speed.

Sixteen streams of blood-red energy shot into the sky, like sixteen pillars of smoke, tearing open sixteen huge holes in the thick clouds.

High in the sky, bells and drums resounded, and evil light surged.

Square, pale green clouds, shimmering with a strange light, descended from the sky in neat rows. Within each cloud were three warships, each a hundred miles long. And within every one hundred and eight clouds was one warship, each three hundred miles long. Thus, these eighteen three-hundred-mile warships were paired with a main warship that was a thousand miles long.

On all the warships, countless Kyushu cultivators, clad in heavy armor, lean in build, with numb and dull eyes devoid of any spirit, stood in neat formation. They held longbows and heavy halberds, constantly emitting unified and imposing battle cries.

More than 100,000 giant ships descended directly from the sky.

These giant ships descended so fast that the friction between their hulls and the air created bursts of fire, making the sky for tens of thousands of miles around seem like a sea of ​​fire.

On either side of those giant ships, large groups of cultivators from the Nine Provinces simultaneously drew their longbows. Arrows, gleaming with cold light and enveloped by gusts of wind, plummeted straight down from the sky at extremely high initial speeds, heading straight for the sixteen hundred-zhang-tall demonic apes.

These cultivators simultaneously drew their bows thousands of miles above the ground, the arrows accelerating rapidly, thus increasing their destructive power a hundredfold.

Alas, it was useless.

The strongest cultivators from the Nine Provinces were only at the Earth Immortal level. The longbows they wielded were generally Qi Refining level magical artifacts. The very few longbows that could be called 'immortal artifacts' were only at the Human Immortal or Earth Immortal level.

Sixteen Great Luo Demon Apes hovered in the air, raising their heads and squinting at the giant ships, letting the arrows rain down on them.

The piercing shrieks were incessant as countless arrows shattered upon impact with them.

Arrow fragments rained down from the sky with a 'whoosh' sound, like a torrential downpour. In the short time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the arrow fragments piled up on the ground into a small mountain three hundred feet high, demonstrating just how many arrows these cultivators from the Nine Provinces had fired in such a short period of time.

Unfortunately, they couldn't even scratch a hair on these physically powerful demonic apes.

A demonic ape soared into the air, muttering in a low voice, following Xing Tianli's instructions: "The hatred of our clan's annihilation must be avenged today. You feathered beasts, come out and die... What are you letting a bunch of tasteless little insects ramble on about?"

When the Great Luo spoke, his voice resounded throughout the world.

Not only did the giant ships within tens of thousands of miles above hear it, but even the people of the imperial dynasty, tens of millions of miles away, heard the roar of this demonic ape.

High in the sky, the war drums and horns of the giant ships stopped in unison. A series of clear and melodious sounds quickly rang out, and the giant ships were suspended in the air. Large groups of winged cultivators with wings of pure gold or pure silver, or with gold and silver feathers inlaid in them, and whose auras were generally above the Golden Immortal level, rose into the air from the 100,000 giant ships like dark clouds.

Each giant ship is staffed by an average of one hundred winged cultivators, which seems to be the standard configuration for winged giant ships.

As a result, from the 100,000 giant ships, more than 10 million winged people poured out.

Moreover, they were all Golden Immortals, with over a hundred Great Luo Immortals mixed in among them.

Such immense pressure caused the sixteen demonic apes' blood to surge, and they roared to the sky, unleashing the ferocious intent within their bloodlines. They swung their great axes, ready to fight the winged beings to the death, when Xing Tianli's voice echoed in their minds.

These demonic apes roared and turned to run away.

They were already at the Great Luo realm, and even without using their supernatural abilities, their speed, achieved simply by leaping with their physical bodies, was several times faster than that of an ordinary Taiyi cultivator who could escape by spitting blood. In the blink of an eye, they had traveled from Liuhua Mountain back to Mogan Mountain, thousands of miles away.

They leaped and bounded into the heart of Moganshan, a region spanning thousands of miles.

Meanwhile, the vast army of winged people pursued them closely and arrived at Mogan Mountain.

Tens of millions of winged people quickly formed an array in the air. They moved in groups to the east and west, forming a strange magical array that resembled nine skulls encircling Mogan Mountain, completely surrounding it.

A winged man clad in golden armor, whose aura had clearly reached the pinnacle of the Great Luo realm, shouted sternly: "The Primordial Demonic Ape, which was extinct in the past, has suddenly reappeared this time. The Emperor has a bad feeling and is quite uneasy."

"This time, we must send troops to capture all these demonic apes alive, torture them severely, and find out the truth behind them."

"These are the natural enemies of our race. All soldiers must fight to the death and must not slacken their efforts... Those who make meritorious contributions will be richly rewarded; those who are afraid to fight will be killed without mercy!"

The general was giving a speech when a winged general, who also possessed the cultivation of a Great Luo Peak cultivator but had a somewhat frivolous and slick demeanor, lazily said, "Fighting to the death is of course; but what about all those... cough cough, lads... why not let them lead the charge?"

The general nearly vomited blood. He looked at the fellow and said with a wry smile, "Eighth Prince, the more the Innate Demonic Ape devours, the stronger it becomes... If we send those descendants of the Nine Provinces to the battlefield, are they going to subdue demons, or to nourish the Innate Demonic Ape?"

The Eighth Prince was stunned for a moment, then muttered, "No one told me about this... cough, maybe someone did, but I forgot. Oh well, let's attack. With our army here, we can easily kill these mere dozen or so demons."

The sound of horns soared into the sky, and dozens of Great Luo Winged Men, leading a large group of subordinates, charged downwards in formation.

(End of this chapter)