Chapter Sixty-One: Witch Hunt

Uniform black and gray military attire. Towering, robust figures, eyes sharp and fierce, exuding a silent, murderous aura—a wave of iron-blooded might assailed from all sides. These were the formidable warriors of the world’s riverine civilizations, their indomitable spirits, long dormant, now awakened once more.

Though rifles and pistols hung at their sides, the silent fighters threading through the thin haze favored their fists or preferred weapons. They moved like wraiths in the mist—seemingly ambling, but in truth, swift as the wind, scattered like fish darting upstream.

They advanced in small squads of dozens, bound by some invisible force, all with a clear destination: the northernmost encampments where the grand army of the Qing Dynasty was stationed.

Within the pervasive mist, sporadic gunshots echoed—muffled and indistinct. In their wake came the irrepressible terror of human screams, but these were abruptly silenced, leaving only riderless warhorses, startled and wild, galloping aimlessly within the ghostly veil of fog, unable to escape its confines.

One chestnut warhorse trembled with panic. It was a creature of instinct, and its instincts screamed of danger. The horse felt as though it had blundered into a pride of lions and tigers, each beast radiating a predatory bloodlust that shredded its nerves. It was as if their fangs were already tearing at its throat, eager to drink its hot blood and stain the world crimson with rage.

Suddenly, the chestnut warhorse halted, finding itself at the riverbank, confronted by something beyond its comprehension—a thing that had never existed in its world. Five meters tall, massive and heavy, it resembled a terrifying upright ape: a metallic colossus emanating both a chill and a searing heat. Its eyes glowed with a strange, rippling light, illuminating the surging river as waves of water vapor billowed skyward under its intense gaze.

Then, a human voice rang out—rough and wild, coming from atop the metallic giant.

"Oh? This horse looks decent. Heh heh heh, suits me just fine!"

With a leap, Zhao Jian jumped down from the metal giant and plopped himself onto the warhorse.

Crack!

The chestnut warhorse made no sound. Its limbs snapped like sugar cane, entrails bursting forth in a grisly spray, eyes bulging and bursting with blood. Unable to withstand the terror of the Warlord’s immense weight and impact, it died an excruciating death on the spot.

“Well, now…”

Zhao Jian scratched his head awkwardly.

"You brute, you never use any finesse. How can any beast endure your torment?" said a refined, bespectacled middle-aged man nearby, holding an abacus in one hand and a ritual sword in the other. He was one of the Taoist acolytes assigned to the metal giant. Renowned for his mental arithmetic and ranking among the top ten in Daoist studies, Mo Qianchen had earned the Warlord’s respect by manipulating the giant to shape the battlefield and casting the Five-Mile Mist.

A joke made in jest, without a hint of malice.

Zhao Jian chuckled, rising from the bloody hide to stand guard beside the metal giant.

All twelve of Jinling’s metal giants had been deployed to Xuzhou—specifically, to Ten-Li Outpost, south of the city. The terrain was flat, the canal running through, an ideal ground for a show of force and a perfect hunting field for the warriors’ collective to cast their net.

The twelve metal giants arrayed themselves along two parallel rivers leading to Xuzhou. Under the Taoist acolytes’ direction, each giant, in moments, drew forth vast quantities of water vapor from the rivers, propelling it skyward with surges of spiritual energy. Under Lan Yi’s preset magnetic fields, these vapors were manipulated by Xiao Hongzhuan at the nodal points, using the “Azure Waves” technique to shape the mist as programmed by the Five-Mile Mist Daoist art.

The Five-Mile Mist, once improved by Lan Yi, was no longer limited to a mere five miles. Instead, it became a shroud of fog, structured by river water, four meters high, a kilometer wide, and stretching up to five kilometers long. Within this domain, all living things lost their sense of direction, sound was deadened, and to ordinary men, this wall of mist was indistinguishable from death itself.

Even a Daoist art with no direct killing power could alter the tides of war, and this was the true terror of Daoism. Hence, in many artificial divine realms, Daoist arts were strictly controlled by the rulers, while martial skills were actively promoted.

At this moment, Lan Yi hovered three thousand meters above the battlefield. In his colorless, silvery eyes, the chaos of enemy colors was being consumed by the mist, while the bright blue of the warriors circled like bloodthirsty wolves, tearing into the confusion below. The twelve metal giants advanced methodically with the front lines.

To the north lay the city of Xuzhou.

Warriors paired with metal giants—an invincible force on land in this age. There was no suspense about the outcome of the war; only how many captives would remain was uncertain. No matter their number, the Star Han of this artificial divine realm would never again possess the strength to resist unification. A new empire would soon rise on this planet, and its first act would be to purge its humiliation. If it wished to do so as swiftly as possible…

Lan Yi’s gaze turned eastward—not only east, but north, west, and south in turn. He imagined the curiosity and anxiety in all those directions; Star Han had become a black hole of intelligence to them. Even having withdrawn their forces, they remained wary of the rising empire, and more so of Lan Yi’s supernatural power to change dynasties at a whim.

Lan Yi’s very existence proved the reality of supernatural power in this world—a force that might one day be used to oppose him. Otherwise, on this planet, Lan Yi would be unstoppable.

So, in Dongyang, Nanyang, the Western Regions, and the Northern Borders, wherever the great powers held sway, a new wave of witch hunts and quests for the supernatural was launched, fueled by enormous rewards.

At this time, most of the main world’s spirit energy cultivators, sent to this world by the campaign space, had already chosen to complete their trial and return—except for Lan Yi and Xiao Hongzhuan. Yet a few remained: those secure enough, strong and ambitious enough, seeking to maximize the gains from their first artificial divine realm, or triggered by special missions.

Most of these survivors were far from Star Han—effectively at the ends of the earth in this era.

But one cultivator, by a cruel twist of fate, found himself very close to Star Han. Thanks to the tangle of fate, he had recently risen to fame in the Dongyang Shinto, living a comfortable life, his status second only to Abe no Seimei—until, suddenly, the Westerners arrived.