great-warnovel Chapter 303: The Enemy Chosen by the Lotus Lantern
Chapter 303: The Enemy Chosen by the Lotus Lantern
The silver-clad army opened up from both sides of the inner gate, with over nine hundred men lined up at the same intervals as the Dragon Guard assault team, their gun barrels piercing the light and pressing down on the stone steps in front of the gate.
Each soldier had a crystal layer embedded under their shoulder insignia, but their numbers were taken from the list of the dead. The engineering battalion, patrol team, and Jade Void Guards were all mixed in the same row.
The officer at the front wore an old-fashioned night watchman's armor with "001" etched on his chest. Silver thread along the seams of the armor bypassed the number and disappeared into the light trailing down from the Nine Lotus Lantern.
The replica uniforms were wrinkle-free, the tactical backpacks contained empty magazines, and even the sealing date on the first-aid kits was the day the soldier died.
They pieced together their career paths from the archives, with heavy armorers, crossbowmen, medics, and formation masters each occupying a separate column, and the entire team was copied into a battle plan.
"Number 001, Lin Weiguo, take over the defense of the Ten Thousand Beasts Cave."
It took out the Night's Watch coin from the inner armor, and the chipped edge, the wear marks from the string, and the underground archives were exactly the same.
The copper coin spun under the lamp, and the old patterns left by the Kunlun underground palace lit up, even the seal number that Lin Weiguo often used was engraved on the back.
"Hand over Nezha, and the Nine Lotus Lantern will be under the jurisdiction of the Moving Sanctuary. The divinity of China can also be inherited through replication."
Nezha planted his Fire-Tipped Spear into the stone steps, and his Universe Ring struck the spear shaft: "Hand over the person first when doing business. Your Holy Temple's procedures are dirty enough."
Zhao Leiguang pushed the two shields forward: "They dare to counterfeit copper coins, so we need to add anti-counterfeiting features to the cafeteria meal cards too."
"If Senior Lin hears this in the underground palace, chasing you for three miles would be considered polite." Wen Yue set up the World-Destroying Thunder Crossbow.
Lu Yan did not accept the copper coin. Instead, he kicked away the mud on the threshold with his combat boots, and the mud stuck to the drainage channel on the bottom of the armor.
"When the guards of the Beast Cave walk along the beast path, their shoes will leave behind rock mud, bone fragments, and miasma crystals."
"The soles of your boots are clean, and the factory wax is still on."
The fake Lin Weiguo put the copper coin back in his palm: "The file is sufficient to prove my identity."
"The archives can open the door, but they can't walk on the muddy road." Lu Yan raised the Void Plate.
The Void Disc peeled off seven layers of copy marks from the surface of the copper coin, with the bottom layer connected to a petal of lamplight on the Beast King's chest.
Copper coins can only be used with Lin Weiguo's authority; they cannot be used to access the snow line trodden by the night watchmen, the underground palaces they guarded, or the choices they left behind.
As the leader's right arm fell, the Silver Army formation split into seven groups, and the advance rhythm, firepower distribution, and cover positions were all executed according to the records of the first squad.
Two heavily armored replicas with shields pressed in front of the gate, while the crossbow on the left flank launched scatter grenades, and the Blood Explosion Array suppressed the gaps in firepower.
The medical staff behind them extended their shields, the array blocked the retreat route, and several spatial beacons were driven into the cracks in the stone steps.
The enemy's copy of Wen Yue's crossbow-drawing rhythm was exactly the same as Wen Yue's, even down to the angle of the elbow armor when changing arrows.
The staff that copied Lin Chuxue was lowered, and the blood explosion array pattern advanced along the crack in the stone, but the target was the thinnest part of Su Yunqing's shield.
They do not communicate; instructions flow within the crystal layers, and tactical actions are executed so quickly that even the gaps that allow one to catch one's breath are filled.
Qin Wuyi placed the main plate face down to the ground, and the thirty-six array plates emerged from the stone layers, bringing the area within a hundred meters of the gate into the Qiankun Demarcation Boundary.
"Define skill trajectory".
Qin Wuyi didn't change the trajectory; he simply pinned the starting and ending points of each attack back to their original positions, letting them collide with themselves.
The enemy grenades crossed the line, their trajectories dragged back to the three straight lines recorded before firing, and crashed into the shield behind the replica heavy armor one after another.
The two shields were squeezed together, and the Blood Explosion Array was locked back to its original position, pressing down on the Silver Army's own landing point.
Wen Yue took a half step back to the right, aiming the crossbow at the stone trough on the side wall: "Three to the left, two to the right, detonate."
Six grenades were buried between the broken bridge and the threshold. When the Silver Army charged, they stepped into the crossfire zone, and stone chips and fireballs covered the right flank of the column.
When Wen Yue planted bombs on the broken bridge, she deliberately left two empty slots, which the Silver Army's simulation model marked as the safest entry point.
A gap was cut into the right-line shield, and several armed Silver Army soldiers jumped into the drainage ditch next to the beast cage, their guns pointed upwards as they repeated the firing order.
"You took my trajectory, but not my landing point." Wen Yue switched to an armor-piercing arrow.
"Zhao Leiguang, right line," Lu Yan said.
Zhao Leiguang lowered his head to brace against the two shields, and charged wildly into the two cloned heavy armors. The four shields got stuck together, and pulse patterns rippled wildly along the ground.
Zhao Leiguang offset his two shields by half a foot, used the force of the opponent's forward charge to turn around, and pressed the edge of the replicated heavy shield into the crevice of the rock.
"If you want to learn how to hit someone, first learn how to turn properly."
The replica armored shield was lifted and pressed back, the edge of the shield hitting Zhao Leiguang's shoulder armor and pushing him into the pile of rubble.
Shen Xinglin inserted from the side and rear, disassembling his ever-changing lance into a locking bar, hooking the waist armor of the two replica front-row soldiers, and dragging them away from the healing shield.
"Old Shen, hold on tight, I still have two hanging here."
"The pendant is too heavy," Shen Xinglin replied.
Xiao Qianyu stepped over the beacon, and the Dragon King Halberd cut into the spatial node above the Silver Army's head. The three warp portals closed, and the clone assassin fell back to the original gun line.
After the three spatial nodes were cut off, the enemy's array lost its turning coordinates, and the blockade line trapped its own rear inside.
Lin Chuxue stuffed the Blood Explosion Magic Array into the gaps in the shield, causing the crystal threads inside the silver armor to curl into charred fragments, collapsing along with the shield.
Su Yunqing raised the Gift of Yaoguang forward, the shield securing the gaps in Zhao Leiguang and Shen Xinglin's armor, separating them from the crystalline liquid on the ground.
When the first Silver Army soldier fell, a petal of light lit up on the Beast King's chest, and the scattered silver dust rolled back along the path of light.
The flames pressed down on the body, and the cracks in the armor, the wear and tear on the gun, and the shoulder insignia were all restored to their original state.
The second and third place winners fell one after another, and the Nine Lotus Lantern lit up two more petals. Blood flowing from under the Beast King's sternum overflowed the base of the chains.
With each replacement of a substitute, a stroke of the military insignia on the Beast King's neck disappeared, and new bloodstains appeared around the copper nails.
The ferocious beast lay prostrate outside the cage, its three heads lowered, while the guardian brand on the back of its neck leaped several times toward the beast king.
Su Yunqing's diagnostic markings flashed a warning, and the Beast King's life curve continued to decline with each troop creation.
"Stop clearing the minions, Lantern is trading Beastmaster for minions."
The fake Lin Weiguo stepped through the silver dust, copper coins stuck to his breastplate: "The offerings are meant to power the new army."
Nezha's copper whistle was attached to the inside of his armor, and the old military order felt hot through the breastplate.
Nezha drew his Fire-Tipped Spear, and his Wind-Fire Wheels rolled down the stone steps, crushing several silver threads that rushed towards him.
"You've used military personnel's files as armor, and even learned to write your own eulogies."
Silver Army changed the muzzle, and the dense bullet trajectory chased the Beast King's right shoulder. Lu Yan pressed the Black Lotus Pure Land under the gun line, and the Silver Crystal recovery path was cut into several sections.
Nezha rode his Wind Fire Wheels over the beast cage, landed on the beast king's forearm, and climbed up to its shoulder using the copper nails and bone armor.
The Beast King did not raise its head; nine copper nails pierced through the joints of its forelimbs, and the Nine Lotus Lantern on its chest remained fastened to the center of its sternum.
The Hun Tian Ling (a magical ribbon) slipped between the nine lamp petals. Instead of pulling out the lamp, Nezha first removed the nine conveyor lines wrapped around the bottom of the petals.
The silver wires detached from the lamp base, the crystal layer inside the replica armor lost its supply, and the fallen fragments could never be pieced back together into a human form.
The fake Lin Weiguo raised the copper coin, trying to transfer the lamplight to himself, but Xiao Qianyu's halberd cut off the road sign at its feet first.
Its half-step was locked back in place, the copper coin fell into the black lotus pattern, and the 001 on the coin's surface split in two.
"You are not qualified to use Lin Weiguo's file, which is still in Kunlun, to impersonate him," Lu Yan said.
The black lotus pressed in along the seams of the armor, and the silver officer's outer shell shattered into pieces, leaving only blank permissions written in spiral code inside.
The remaining Silver Army, having lost their leader, still raised their guns according to the old orders, and Nezha's Hun Tian Ling had already tightened to the ninth knot.
"Return to the flag."
The nine conveyor lines were pulled from the lamp bases at the same time, and the silver light in the Beast Court retreated back into the cracks in the ground. The Nine Lotus Lanterns no longer replenished the bodies of the Replica Army.
The flame on the Beast King's chest turned towards Nezha, and each of the nine petals was engraved with a section of the Qian Yuan Mountain Fire Pattern, arranged to form the beast-taming incantation left by the Taiyi Zhenren.
Nine fire patterns connected end to end, forming an old decree: the nine beasts return to the flag, the military tally returns to fire, and the one holding the seal takes charge of the military.
The fiery patterns climbed along the Hun Tian Ling to Nezha's wrist armor, the old seal of Qian Yuan Mountain snapped into place with the lamp base, and the nine petals descended in sequence.
"It recognizes me." Nezha pressed down on a petal of the lamp.
Yang Jian stood beneath the Beast King's shoulder, his blade piercing the silver crystal beside the sternum: "If you acknowledge me, why haven't you left?"
The Void Disc removed the nine layers of military command anchors from under the lamp base, each one piercing through the Beast King's sternum and sinking deeper into the sealed cavity.
"The owner's permission for the light has been changed, but the authority to remove the light is still being held by the sealed entity." Lu Yan projected the data onto the main disk.
Qin Wuyi pressed down on the main plate, and regular impacts came from below the battle line. The Beast Court floor tiles bounced up half an inch with each impact.
"When the light leaves the sternum, the layer below will open."
As Nezha read the incantation to the end, four words were hidden deep within the petals: "The light penetrates to the bone."
The Beast King pulled its forepaw out from between the copper nails, its claws dragging across the waterlogged stone surface, leaving two deep marks.
It didn't touch Nezha, nor the Nine Lotus Lantern; it simply wrote two words in front of everyone.
Click me.
Zhao Leiguang raised his double shields and kicked away the fragments of the Silver Army in front of the Beast King: "This Beast King is quite economical with his words."
Wen Yue moved the crossbow muzzle below the sternum: "We need to find out where to aim first."
The Beast King lowered its massive head, its forehead pressed against the inscribed stone surface, and the flames of the Nine Lotus Lanterns all converged towards the inside of its sternum.
A second impact came from below the sternum, something inside the sealed cavity was holding the chains back, and the nine military command lines on the ley line map all deviated.
Nezha held the Fire-Tipped Spear horizontally in front of his chest, with the ends of the Hun Tian Ling wrapped around his wrist armor, and the lamplight fell onto the spearhead following the incantation.
Lu Yan retrieved the Black Lotus Pure Land beneath his feet, leaving all data pathways between the Beast King and the Sealed Chamber.
"Before clicking, find out the name of the person inside."