Chapter 251: Composure

The young You Ji General is Gu Qing Shan!

The cultivators calmed down as soon as they knew that.

You Ji General Gu Qing Shan is a direct disciple of Bai Hua Saint.

He has the military rank, he has the status, he already proved his wits through the last campaign, and now he’s willingly taking responsibility for this matter if necessary.

Everyone looked over and waited for his next orders.

Gu Qing Shan’s tone suddenly became sharp and shouted: “All guard cultivators, get out of line, if anyone dares to wither with the troop’s morale, do not report to me. Execute them on the spot!”

As soon as he said so, over a dozen guard cultivators stepped forward.

These cultivators aren’t simply just strong, they are also merciless, specifically chosen to enforce military laws.

The rest of the cultivators also neatly lined up as they saw that.

Gu Qing Shan continued: “Relay my orders, all airships form a quick-march formation, retreat towards Southwest, your destination is a military camp 2000 miles from here”

One Rejuvenation realm cultivator couldn’t help but spoke up: “I don’t feel that this ———-“

Gu Qing Shan coldly cut him off: “This is no longer an ordinary situation, those that disobey military orders will be executed!”

The guard cultivators curtly went up and surrounded the Rejuvenation realm cultivator.

He instantly shut up.

Gu Qing Shan continued: “All formation users will remain for now to protect the rear; deserters will be executed!”

Hearing the word “executed” so many times in a row spoken with such killing intent, everyone was able to feel the authority of the military law.

Gu Qing Shan shouted: “Move!”

All the cultivators immediately went into action.

Airships were deployed one after another as the cultivators followed their previously arranged teams, quickly but orderly flew away.

Gu Qing Shan then looked over at his two fellow You Ji Generals and said: “The three of us are the only You Ji Generals here, we’ll be responsible for holding the rear, it’ll be more convenient to observe the situation”

The two cultivators exchanged looks, then looked outside.

The devastating rain of fire that carried a world-ending air was slowly but surely moving towards the direction of the military camp.

Under the rain of fire, the innumerable endless tsunami of demons was approaching, screeching and screaming all the way.

The screams were from demons that wasn’t fast enough and got vaporized by the rain of fire that caught up.

Of the two Generals, the Ascended realm cultivator glanced over at the sea of fire, quickly identified a few terrifying Ascended realm demons.

He couldn’t help but took a step back and quickly said: “Both you and I are You Ji Generals, you have no authority to order me around”

“I’m the one that gave the order for retreat, so I have jurisdiction over anything that happens during the retreat, this is a military order!” Gu Qing Shan curtly responded.

The Ascended realm cultivator suddenly emitted spirit pressure, wanting to suppress Gu Qing Shan.

With his cultivation, simply his spirit pressure is enough to make sure Gu Qing Shan can’t even move.

“You dare?” Gu Qing Shan squinted his eyes and said in a low voice.

The Ascended spirit pressure rescinded.

In the sky, the cultivators were retreating in an orderly fashion, everyone was still looking straight at them.

Not to mention, the Saint definitely has methods to find out the whole truth.

“Tch! You and I are the same rank; you have no authority to stop my actions. I will explain the situation to the Ding Yuan General myself later” the Ascended realm coldly said.

He deployed his airship and rose up to the sky.

He was fast enough that the guard cultivators couldn’t stop him in time.

Gu Qing Shan then looked over at the Rejuvenation realm cultivator.

“I’ll help you with holding the rear” the Rejuvenation realm cultivator answered.

“Your name?”

“Chen Qiao”

“And that other person just now?”

“Wang Lie, his personality is just like that, no need to take it to heart”

“I won’t care about a dead person, General Chen, please make sure the formation users are operating all available formations”

“…Roger!”

The young man in front of him is clearly only a Foundation Establishment peak, but the Rejuvenation realm cultivator still couldn’t help but feel a chill, quickly received his orders and left.

Layers upon layers of formations were lightning up outside the outpost.

The colors of the 5-Elements rose from the formations, painting the sky with a glorious spectacle of light.

Gu Qing Shan silently counted.

36 attack formations, 72 defensive formations, it checks out with the theorized perfect amount of formations.

As a Grandmaster formation user, Gong Sun Zhi was able to make sure everything was as well-prepared as possible.

The formation users here are also people directly under Gong Sun Zhi’s command, so they don’t really want to abandon the outpost just like that. At this time, they were all doing everything they can, wanting to show off the power of the formations in front of Gu Qing Shan.

The fact of the matter is, to set up and maintain such a system of formation requires an astronomical amount of spirit stones and manpower, enough to bankrupt even a mid-ranged sect.

To arbitrarily give up and abandon such a military outpost isn’t something any single person is willing to take responsibility for.

Normally, this isn’t something even the commanding officer of the outpost would be willing to decide by themselves.

Yet Gu Qing Shan ordered them to retreat without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Gu Qing Shan stood on the high walls of the outpost, observing the incoming rain of fire and tsunami of demons.

At a time like this, no one would be paying attention to some dirt on the ground behind a random building.

But, at such a place, a sword silently unburied itself.

As soon as it appeared, the sword looked for a place to hide and hid away silently without anyone noticing.

From where it was, it happened to be able to see the scene of Gu Qing Shan commanding the army.

It silently stayed there and observed him.

Gu Qing Shan was also observing the army while standing on top of the walls.

Suddenly.

The sky above the demons, a black shadow was quickly descending, heading towards the outpost.

As he saw it clearly, Gu Qing Shan’s face changed.

It was an airship, painted with a large character “Xi”.

The airship was damaged quite badly, wobbling while flying, almost got caught up by the rain of fire a few times.

A few dozen demons saw it, screeched as they flew up and started attacking the airship.

“Formation flags!”

Seeing the situation deteriorating, Gu Qing Shan shouted.

36 black flags, 72 purple flags came flying in front of Gu Qing Shan.

The black flags represent the attack formations, while the purple ones represent the defensive formations.

On the base of each flag, symbols were carved to signify the formation’s Element.

These are formation flags specifically made for this outpost, controlled with inner sight.

Gu Qing Shan quickly controlled them.

A total of 108 flags started to hover in front of Gu Qing Shan.

Gu Qing Shan stood against the wind, picked out 16 black flags with his inner sight and ordered: “16 black flags, you guys protect the airship”

Immediately, the cultivators at the 16 attack formations received the order and made their hand seals.

All 16 formations slowly started to move.

A few seconds later, columns of light shot out from the outpost, hitting all the demons around the airship, either killing them, injuring them, or knocking them into the rain of fire behind.

Gu Qing Shan then picked out 27 purple flags and ordered: “Use the long-ranged spirit barriers”

As he finished speaking, a few dozens more lights came out of the outpost and enveloped Ning Yue Xi’s airship.

With the protection of the outpost, the airship was barely able to stabilize and staggered its way into the outpost.

Gu Qing Shan picked the rest of the purple flags and shouted: “All defensive formations, open up to receive!”

In a second, all the defensive formations lit up and formed a gate.

The airship quickly went through the gate, passed by where Gu Qing Shan stood and crash landed onto the outpost’s ground, kicking up dust and sand.

“General Chen, settle their rescue!” Gu Qing Shan kept staring at the demons outside the outpost and didn’t turn back.

“Roger!” Chen Qiao brought a few cultivators over.

At this time, the wave of demons in front were just about to arrive at the outpost.

Gu Qing Shan picked out all 36 black flags and ordered: “At the direction of my inner sight, combine into one, attack with your full power!”

All 36 formations started to move at the same time, enough to send a tremor across the entire outpost.

A second later, all the lights from 36 formations merged into a giant pillar of light.

The pillar followed Gu Qing Shan’s inner sight and struck the ground a few miles in front of the outpost.

“Not enough, again!” Gu Qing Shan ordered again.

Another giant pillar of light rose from the outpost, roared as it flew through the air and hit the earth.

“Again!”

Boom!

“Again!”

Boom!

Observing it for a bit, Gu Qing Shan finally jumped down from the outpost wall and headed towards Ning Yue Xi’s airship.

On the ground a few miles in front of the outpost, a large crevice about 100 feet thick was formed.

The crevice completely blocked off the demon’s path, almost none of them could pass at all, aside from a few high-levelled demons that could fly.

The ones that couldn’t stop in time all fell down, while more of them decided to run to either sides of the crevice, running for their lives.

With this violent method, the tsunami of demons got split in two, both sides avoiding the outpost.

But the world-ending rain of fire wasn’t the least bit concerned, only continued to head straight for the outpost.

The airship has been broken open inside the camp.

Ning Yue Xi pulled an unconscious Gong Sun Zhi out, looking at Gu Qing Shan worriedly.

“You’re the one controlling the formations?”

“Yes”

“Where are the other cultivators?”

“I had them all retreat”

“Retreat where?”

“Leng Tian Xing’s camp”

“That’s good, that’s very good” Ning Yue Xi breathed out from relief, then shouted: “Change airships! Abandon the outpost!”

As a Ding Yuan General, her orders are very quickly followed.

Even the formation user group couldn’t say anything to that now.

Because the supreme commander of the camp is now unconscious, there was no other way to overturn this situation.

“How is General Gong Sun?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

“I don’t know either, while we were investigating a ruin, he suddenly fell unconscious” Ning Yue Xi answered.

“Why did this happen? What was he doing at the time?”

“He picked up a formation plate and was attempting to refine it”

“What!?”

Gu Qing Shan glanced over at Gong Sun Zhi to see that he was in quite a deep coma, there’s no way to wake him up for the time being.

“It looks like his soul vessel was wounded, we better get him to the rear for treatment”

He then deployed an airship, had Chen Qiao carry Gong Sun Zhi on the ship together with Ning Yue Xi.

“What about you?” Ning Yue Xi stared at him and asked.

Just as Gu Qing Shan was about to jump onto the airship, he saw something at the corner of his eye.

At a certain corner of a random building, a damaged sword was sitting there silently.

Gu Qing Shan also doesn’t know why he suddenly noticed such a thing.

His thoughts moved around a bit, remembering the first mission of the Thaumaturgy Quest.

[Quest objective: Show off your skills and talents in Shen Wu world, up until you pick up a weapon]

Pick up a weapon…

Gu Qing Shan quickly decided and said to Ning Yue Xi: “You retreat first; I’ll hold the rear”

“Alright, stay safe, we’ll meet up later” Ning Yue Xi isn’t the kind of person that will decline a meal when she’s hungry, so she quickly piloted the airship and flew away.

The other cultivators also quickly retreated.

The entire outpost quickly became deserted.

Gu Qing Shan walked towards the damaged sword.

This is quite a unique-looking sword, an antique from the looks of it.

Carefully observing the sword, Gu Qing Shan could tell both the shape and pattern on the hilt of the sword was very different from the ones in the current era.

One side of the sword was completely flat, as if it was cut away, only half the sword was left while the other half was nowhere to be seen. (TN: imagine Shinobu Kochou’s sword)

Gu Qing Shan picked up the sword.

[Ting]!

The System sound chimed.

[The user has picked up a weapon]

[Quest completed]