CHAPTER 171: CHAPTER 169: UNIVERSE DIAGRAM (ALSO KNOWN AS BAGUA)_1

Soon, outside Cangshui City, an overwhelming tide of Evil Qi surged!

After Wang Shou led his thirty-six legions to the city’s outskirts, he wasted no words and launched an immediate attack. Like thirty-six great dragons, they roared between heaven and earth.

Atop the city walls, over a thousand guards stood with deathly pale faces, their legs trembling so uncontrollably they had to lean against the ramparts just to remain upright. Although the thirty-six legions under Wang Shou were not the most elite troops of the Light God Divine Court, they were still fearsome soldiers, seasoned by countless battles. The sheer pressure of their morale was far more than the defenders of Cangshui City could bear.

Inside the city, chaos had erupted. Ordinary civilians fled in panic, all scrambling towards the western city gate.

The only person in the entire city who remained composed was Zhuge Liang himself.

He had a Taishi Chair brought to the top of the city tower. Seated upon it, he calmly and unhurriedly waved his feathered fan as he observed the enemy forces below. It was as if he weren’t facing ferocious enemies, but rather watching an amusing play in a theater.

"I wonder if the Vice Chancellor has a plan. The lives and property of everyone in this city are in his hands!" the City Lord muttered to himself, pacing anxiously in a watchtower, his fists tightly clenched. Worry filled his eyes.

Strange, why hasn’t the Qin Empire dispatched any troops for defense? Amidst the charge, Wang Shou sensed something was amiss. Even if the Qin Empire was short on soldiers, surely they wouldn’t abandon the city entirely! There are only two possibilities. The first is an ambush! The second is that the Qin Empire has forsaken the Eastern Border to concentrate all its forces against the Southern Territory. Once the southern conflict is resolved, they’ll redeploy troops to reclaim the Eastern Border.

Practically speaking, Wang Shou leaned towards the second possibility. He didn’t believe that the Qin Empire still possessed any experts or armies capable of ambushing his thirty-six legions, especially with a Supreme Martial Artist among them.

"Charge!" Wang Shou commanded. Taking a deep look at Zhuge Liang, he resumed the assault.

The army moved swiftly. In the blink of an eye, they reached the city, a mere five hundred meters from the walls.

Despair overcame many of Cangshui City’s soldiers. They threw down their weapons and fled, all thoughts of military regulations and discipline forgotten. Nothing was more important than survival.

Zhuge Liang’s expression also grew somewhat grave, and the rhythm of his fanning slowed considerably.

When Wang Shou and his army were merely a hundred meters from Cangshui City, Zhuge Liang’s serene aura turned sharp. His feathered fan radiated a golden light as he waved it decisively.

Instantly, a fierce wind swept across the sky, whipping up dust and sand from the ground, shrouding the world in a dim haze and obscuring everyone’s vision.

"Danger! Everyone, defend yourselves!" Wang Shou yelled, a sense of foreboding washing over him. He hastily ordered his troops to take defensive positions, but no sooner had the words left his mouth than he felt he had lost contact with his army, as if he were suddenly in a separate, alien world.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

Before he could comprehend the situation, a relentless barrage of whistling sounds filled the air. Countless sand arrows shot forth from the hazy world, carrying an aura of infinite sharpness that pierced even the Void.

A Formation! Such a powerful Formation! Wang Shou swiftly drew his battle sword, shattering the incoming sand arrows. Then, with a single slash, he rent the world of sand.

The stars seemed to shift and spin. Just as he thought he had broken the Formation, he found himself in a world of sword qi. Countless celestial blades hung suspended in the air, then rained down like a torrential downpour.

"Damn it! What kind of Formation is this?" Wang Shou cursed loudly, rapidly swinging his battle sword to create a protective barrier of sword light around himself, deflecting the heavenly blades.

Wang Shou, the strongest among them, could withstand the Formation’s attacks. But the ordinary soldiers met a grim fate; struck by the sudden onslaught of sand arrows, they fell into pools of their own blood, dying senselessly. Some of the more powerful Martial Artists, after exerting immense effort to break free from one formation-world, found themselves trapped in another. The cycle repeated endlessly.

High above, outside the Formation, a golden seal of the Eight Trigrams Array pulsed with a dazzling light. It rotated constantly, shifting through myriad transformations, each unfathomably profound.

The Universe Eight Trigrams Formation!

This was the very Formation that had made Zhuge Liang famous. It harnessed the power of formations to simulate the cosmos itself, possessing twenty-four distinct transformations. Only a master of formations could hope to unravel it.

"Rotate!" With a wave of his hand, Zhuge Liang sent a beam of golden light from his feathered fan, striking the Formation. The Universe Eight Trigrams Formation began to shift once more, altering its configuration.

A thick stench of blood wafted from the churning sands, leaving the soldiers of Cangshui City utterly aghast.

"Break! Break! Break!" Wang Shou and the experts from the thirty-six legions frantically attacked, shattering over a dozen layered formation-worlds one after another. They all knew that only by shattering every single one of these illusory worlds could they truly break this encompassing Formation.

Wang Shou roared, "Be annihilated by me!" His eyes blazed with a blood-red light as he tore the world before him in two, finding himself in a realm of utter darkness, devoid of any light, as if he had stepped into the land of Voidness.

"Illusion Array!" Zhuge Liang’s hands formed a series of seals, and the Universe Eight Trigrams Formation spun rapidly.

Including Wang Shou, everyone’s vision was engulfed in an expanse of white, and their hearing failed them. They could see nothing and hear nothing, as if utterly abandoned by the world.

"Kill!" Zhuge Liang commanded towards a certain point in the Void, his face somewhat pale, yet his eyes unfathomably deep.

BOOM!

Tens of thousands of Qin soldiers materialized, weapons in hand. They strode into the Formation, completely unaffected, becoming like invisible phantoms hunting the soldiers of the Light God Divine Court. Rivers of blood flowed in their wake.

These were merely ordinary city guards from the Eastern Border garrison! Yet, upon entering the Formation, they transformed into ruthless executioners. Their slaughter was so intense it seemed to darken the heavens and extinguish the light of the sun and moon.

Wang Shou roared, "AAARGH!" A blood-red light flickered behind him. After narrowly evading several fatal attacks, he utterly demolished everything before him, successfully breaking free from the Formation’s constraints.

Standing on the blood-soaked ground, he saw his surrounding soldiers collapsing as if merely asleep, only for their blood to then gush out violently.

No enemy in sight!

This scene made even the experienced Wang Shou’s hair stand on end and a chill run down his spine.

It must be that person on the city tower who is orchestrating this! If I can just kill him, the Formation will collapse on its own!

Wang Shou, naturally, wouldn’t just sit by and await death. His body shot upwards, breaking out of the immediate illusion. The moment he flew out of the sandstorm zone, he saw the golden Universe Eight Trigrams Formation looming above.

The golden radiance emanated an incredibly high temperature. The instant Wang Shou emerged, he felt a searing heat, as if his entire body was being scorched and his very soul was igniting.

"Break!" His eyes narrowed. The blood-red light shimmered behind him as he infused his battle sword with Spiritual Energy. Then, with a force seemingly capable of sundering the heavens, he cleaved the Universe Eight Trigrams Formation in two.

The Formation Seal shattered, and the grand Formation began to dissipate.

The scene outside the city walls materialized before everyone’s eyes: corpses littered the ground, and blood flowed so thickly it nearly formed rivers.

Tens of thousands of Qin soldiers stood upon the earth, drenched in blood, a palpable Evil Qi rolling off them. Before them stood the surviving thousands of soldiers from the Light God Divine Court, their faces ashen, their expressions masks of utter terror.

Zhuge Liang remarked with a hint of regret, "A pity. Without an army to power it, the weaknesses of the Universe Eight Trigrams Formation are all too easily exposed."

Had this Formation been deployed by an army, there would have been sufficient power to protect its core. Then, naturally, destroying its Formation Seal would have been impossible.