A dark and windy night. The wind howled relentlessly. The peak of Mount P had inexplicably risen a large chunk higher, and its altitude was still continuously climbing. The massive tomb buried deep underground was gradually revealing its true form.
Thud, thud, thud! The faint sound of beating drums echoed from within the tomb. It sounded like the horns of war signaling soldiers to charge for blood. "Getting this on camera means we can even save on movie special effects later."
Standing on one side of the tomb, Arata felt absolutely no fear. Instead, he stayed invisible and kept recording. As the underground tomb fully surfaced, the elevation of Mount P had inexplicably risen by a hundred meters. Under the dead of night, the towering tomb looked exactly like a ghost city.
Once the tomb stopped rising, the frequency of the drumbeats accelerated from a slow rhythm to a rapid, frantic pace. It was like an old folk song getting a DJ remix, the tempo moving absurdly fast.
"Hah!!" The collective battle cry of tens of millions of soldiers erupted. The deafening sound rolled from the peak of the mountain all the way down, flooding into the city.
The stubborn holdouts still hiding in City P felt their hearts drop. They huddled together, exchanging terrified glances. Their false hope and psychological defenses were completely shattered by that single, earth-shaking roar. What was meant to come could not be avoided.
It was too late to run now even if they wanted to. All they could do was press their palms together, kneel before their shrines, and pray they survived this disaster. Bang! The massive gates surrounding the tomb crashed heavily onto the ground, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
Arata shined his flashlight straight at the tomb's main entrance. A tall, imposing figure was the first to emerge. Clack, clack, clack. The crisp sound of hooves echoed out as the stone general Bai Qi, gripping a longsword and riding a stone horse, slowly rode out.
Close behind him followed the three stone generals of the Peach Garden. Once they reached a proper vantage point, the leading Bai Qi brought his horse to a halt. Standing at the high ground, he gazed out at the scattered lights of City P in the distance. He gripped his hilt, drew his sword against the sky, and roared, "Kill!!"
Immediately after, tens of millions of soldiers inside the tomb roared back in response, "Kill!!!!" The bloodcurdling shouts shook the entire mountain. The holdouts living closest to the mountain couldn't handle the pressure anymore and instantly bolted downstairs, only to find that their motorcycles had already been stolen.
Kill!!! The roars from the summit still hadn't stopped. Inside the tomb, rows upon rows of kneeling archers pulled back their bowstrings. Swoosh!!!! Ten thousand arrows fired at once. Hundreds of thousands of arrows blotted out the sky, raining down toward City P.
Clack, clack, clack! Stone Bai Qi took the lead, chasing the volley of arrows as he charged straight for City P. The Peach Garden trio followed closely behind. The thunderous stampede of a massive army echoed from within the tomb.
Cavalrymen gripping long spears roared as they surged out of the gates, followed immediately by infantrymen wielding broadswords. The sheer numbers were staggering. Arata waited for a full twenty minutes, and there were still soldiers pouring out of the tomb. He finally lost his patience because his phone battery had died and shut off.
Arata shifted into Freddy Krueger mode and dove right in, shattering the soldiers' charging formation. Standing right in front of the horde, he took a massive, deep breath. "Ahhh!!" An ultrasonic blast fired at point-blank range, instantly vaporizing every Terracotta Warrior in a hundred-meter path.
"Kill him!!!" A furious roar suddenly erupted from deep inside the tomb. Another massive wave of Terracotta Warriors rushed out, clearly treating Arata as their sworn enemy. "You wanna kill me? Be my guest."
Arata crouched low and aggressively lunged forward. His Iaijutsu slash instantly tore from the entrance straight into the depths of the tomb. Every single soldier in his path was cleanly bisected. In less than ten seconds, thousands of Terracotta Warriors were turned to ash.
"Got any stronger soldiers in there? If not, I'm coming to find your stone heart." Since the History Devil's stone heart was capable of speech, Arata just needed to keep it talking to pinpoint its location. If it wouldn't speak, he'd just have to play a game of hide-and-seek.
"Hahahaha!" "What the fuck are you laughing at?" "You think you can kill me? That's a fool's dream. Tens of millions of my soldiers have already charged into the city. Their slaughter will grant me eternal life." "Hahahaha! Have you ever heard of the Empty City Strategy?"
"What!!" "Before you even showed your face, I already had everyone in City P evacuate. Right now, those soldiers of yours won't find a single living soul down there." "Wrong. They will find one person. And she happens to be a fierce warrior capable of fighting ten thousand men on her own."
"Damn you!!! I have never met someone as utterly shameless as you. Destroying my heart, ruining my plans... today, you will die." Bang! Right as the voice dropped, a nine-foot-tall figure leaped from a high ledge and crashed onto the floor, stomping two deep craters into the solid ground.
The figure waved a hand, and a weapon plummeted from the ceiling, smashing directly toward Arata's head. Clang! Arata leaned to the side, dodging the aerial strike by a millimeter. The weapon slammed into the ground, burying itself deep. The shaft of the halberd was practically glued to his face.
Arata shined his flashlight at the figure, only to see a brilliant, golden body gleaming under the light. "A golden man!" Just as Arata spoke, the golden man reached out his hand, and the weapon embedded in the ground instantly flew into his grasp. The beam of light revealed it to be a golden Sky-Piercer Halberd.
"Golden Lu Bu!!" Arata slowly muttered those four words. "Insolent brat, prepare to die!" Golden Lu Bu stepped forward. The Sky-Piercer Halberd and Arata's bladed claws violently clashed against each other.
"Evolving a stone golem into a golden golem. Looks like you gave the majority of your power to this Golden Lu Bu." Arata planted a heavy kick squarely into Golden Lu Bu's chest. But the golden giant didn't even budge, while the recoil sent Arata leaning backward. "What a pity."
"A pity? You didn't actually think you could defeat me, did you?" "Let's test that theory." Arata dropped into a crouch, rapidly forming his Iaijutsu stance. In a flash, he vanished from the front and reappeared behind the giant. Golden Lu Bu was sliced cleanly in half at the waist.
"Gold is a soft metal. Compared to stone, the hardness just isn't there," Arata turned his head and mocked. But he quickly noticed that Golden Lu Bu's body didn't actually separate. The gap at his waist regenerated and fused back together in an instant.
"Even so, you still cannot kill me." Golden Lu Bu viciously swung his Sky-Piercer Halberd, sending countless golden darts flying toward Arata. Arata raised a hand, manipulating the wind to form a shield in front of him. With a flick of his wrist, the wind wall wrapped up all the golden darts and dropped them neatly at his feet.
There were over fifty of them. Arata picked one up and tossed it in his hand to gauge the weight. "This chunk alone is at least five pounds. Thanks for the cash. Please throw a few hundred million more of those at me." "Cut the nonsense." Golden Lu Bu swung his halberd and charged again.
Arata ducked under the strike and slipped behind him. This time, he went for a clean decapitation. But just like before, the head didn't hit the floor. The cut instantly mended itself. The viscosity of this body was basically on par with god-tier superglue.
"Let's try this one." Arata swapped tactics, blasting an ultrasonic wave directly into Lu Bu's chest. But this time, the golden body proved exceptionally durable. Seeing that his attacks were useless, and that Golden Lu Bu wasn't throwing any more gold bricks at him, Arata just dropped the fight entirely.
He sprinted deeper into the tomb, relentlessly searching for the History Devil's stone heart. Sparks and lightning trailed in his wake, leaving deep claw marks everywhere he passed. Golden Lu Bu chased furiously from behind, but even going all out, he couldn't keep up with Arata's wind-boosted speed.
"Halt!! Accept your death!" "Are you stupid or am I? You think saying that is actually going to make me stop?" Arata didn't pay him any attention whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the massive army of tens of millions had already flooded into City P. A resident hiding in his apartment looked out the window at the densely packed swarm of Terracotta Warriors below, regretting entirely why he hadn't fled when he had the chance. But now, even if someone gave him a pair of wings, he wouldn't be able to escape.
Bang! Right then, an arrow shattered his window and pierced clean through the center of the man's forehead. As the Terracotta Warriors continuously poured in, the entirety of City P was packed to the brim. The few residents who had clung to false hope were dragged out and chopped into pieces.
Down in the center of the streets, Quanxi was relentlessly harvesting the Terracotta Warriors. It was originally an incredibly easy task, right up until she found herself surrounded and bogged down by numerous stone generals, finally feeling the pressure. The stone generals weren't overwhelmingly strong, but their true threat lay in the fact that their stone bodies instantly pieced themselves back together the moment they were shattered.
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