Chapter 253 Prologue to a Great Battle   BornToBe

“How is this possible?”

Tu Fang’s expression changed greatly. The other Elders were all completely shocked. The Corrupt disciples numbered no less than twenty thousand.

In all the previous battles between the Righteous and Corrupt paths, the Righteous path had always been many times the number of the Corrupt path. But this time, the Corrupt path had four to five times more people than the Righteous path.

“Hahahaha, I really like that expression of yours Tu Fang! Now you should know what my words meant before, right?” Gui Yan laughed sinisterly.

At this time, Tu Fang didn’t even pay attention to Gui Yan’s ridicule. It was no wonder why the Corrupt path would initiate this battle so suddenly.

He had no idea what method the Corrupt path had used, but they had suddenly gathered so many disciples. Raising this many disciples was definitely a huge burden for the Corrupt path.

So they were planning on borrowing the power of the Righteous path to wash out a portion of these disciples. They really were planning on using the Righteous path’s disciples as whetstones for them!

“Elder Tu Fang, what should we do? If we continue like this, then won’t all our disciples be completely exterminated?” All the Elders were worried.

Each sect’s disciples were like their own children. No one was willing to have their children be killed like this.

“There’s nothing we can do. Now that it’s reached this point, we can’t retreat. If we were to take action, the Corrupt path’s experts would go block us. We can only watch.”

Tu Fang forcibly calmed himself. Looking at Long Chen’s face, he felt a glimmer of hope.

That was because Long Chen’s expression had remained calm the entire time. He hadn’t revealed the slightest bit of panic.

It was like Long Chen was a steady boulder. Even in the face of countless powerful enemies, his Dao-heart wouldn’t waver the slightest.

The Corrupt disciples stopped once they were five miles from the Righteous disciples. They icily stared at them like tigers looking at their prey.

“Run!”

No one knew who was first, but a dozen people from the Righteous disciples suddenly turned on their heels and fled.

Tu Fang’s face immediately darkened. All the Elders were stunned. Those people were the Bloodnet Sect’s disciples.

Following the Bloodnet Sect’s disciples fleeing, hundreds of others began to follow them. In the face of that many Corrupt disciples, their courage was completely broken. Fleeing was their instinct.

“A bunch of bastards!” Tu Fang raged, raising his hand, about to kill all the disciples who were running.

“Let them go.”

Suddenly, Long Chen’s calm voice rang out.

His voice was backed with his spiritual qi, so it rang out clearly for dozens of miles.

Tu Fang stiffened slightly, and slowly lowered his hand. He also knew that killing his own people at this time wasn’t a good idea. He would just be ridiculed by their opponents.

But now that they had fled, everyone else’s confidence would also be shaken. That was a huge blow to their morale. Even Tu Fang was trapped in an impossible situation.

“If you feel afraid, if you feel terrified, you can all leave. This is a battle of the brave. The weak do not even have the qualifications to participate.” Long Chen’s voice once more rang out.

His voice was filled with calm without the slightest nervousness or panic. There was not even any anger.

Those disciples who had been filled with terror calmed down a great deal just from listening to it. They suddenly saw that none of the disciples from the Xuantian Monastery looked the slightest bit afraid. In fact, only anticipation and an overflowing battle intent coming from them.

Those disciples who had been fleeing paused, turning to look at Long Chen.

“Cultivation is a path of no retreat. If you want to continue forward, then you have to be able to face the threat of death. If you don’t dare face death, how will you break through your shackles and advance to higher realms?

“I can guarantee that all of you who run today will have their realm freeze. What happened today will become a heart-devil, and you’ll never be able to advance further.

“But if you run, you’ll at least be able to live. You can enjoy your remaining years.

“As for those of us who stay, we’ll very likely die here. But if we manage to survive today, we will definitely become top experts in the future.

“So those who want to become experts, stay. Those who want to live, you should quickly leave. In a bit, it will no longer be possible for you to leave,” said Long Chen.

Hearing Long Chen’s words, over half of those who had fled clenched their teeth and return.

“Fuck, I’m going to be a hero, not a coward!”

“What’s so hard about this? Even if I die, I’ll be reborn as a real man in a couple years.”

“I’ll go all-out against these bastards from the Corrupt path! Even if I die, I’ll definitely bring a couple of them down with me, letting my old man feel proud of me!”

Although their words were only just to pump themselves up, it had to be said that these people were all brave men. They were all infected by the heroism of the Xuantian Monastery’s disciples.

Of over five thousand people, half of them had fled. Now a portion of them returned.

Now they had nearly four thousand Righteous disciples. As for the thousand disciples who had fled, no one stopped them, and they all disappeared from their view.

Long Chen smiled slightly. He held no hate or resentment towards those disciples who had fled. No one had the right to decide another person’s life or death.

Those people who had fled might be selfish and cowardly, but it wasn’t necessarily just who they were.

The majority of the disciples present were all ‘geniuses’. The way their families and sects had raised them had brought about this conclusion.

As for the other disciples of the monastery, none of them looked upon the ones who fled with any anger or disdain. There was only sympathy and pride.

If they hadn’t met Long Chen and he hadn’t taught them the true meaning behind protecting the ones important them, allowing them to become true warriors, then it would have been all too possible for them to be one of them as well.

“Congratulations to all of you. If you can survive today, you’ll definitely be able to become true experts.

“All disciples follow behind the backs of the Xuantian Monastery’s disciples. With the weapons in your hands, kill as many as you want. Kill a path towards that weirdo who looks thirty percent inhuman and seventy percent like a ghost!

“Simply do your best to slash your weapon over and over and over again. If you eventually find that there’s no one beside you anymore, then you can stop, because at that time, you’ll already be dead.” Long Chen smiled slightly.

“Hahahaha…”

Gu Yang and them laughed, leading the other disciples to laugh with them. That tense atmosphere was lightened a great deal.

With just a couple words, Long Chen was able to turn many of those cowards who had fled into brave warriors. He really was a marvel. No matter how difficult the problem, he could accomplish it so easily.

“Not bad. That really was a wonderful show. We’ll definitely properly appreciate the scene of you trying to stop our blades. Just thinking about it makes me impatient, jiejiejie…” Gui Yan’s crow-like voice rang out.

The experts of both sides were situated on top of two mountains, while between them was the battlefield for their disciples. Those three locations formed a triangle that were less than a hundred miles from each other.

“Jie your sister. I’ve never seen a fellow as contorted as you. I really wonder which tomb exploded for someone like you to escape. We’re all born from dads and moms, but I guess your mom and dad were too careless. Just how did they manage to produce someone like you?”

Long Chen then came to a sudden comprehension. “Ah, could it be that after your mom gave birth to you, she was too careless and ended up throwing the baby away, instead raising the placenta into you?”

The people behind Long Chen couldn’t hold back their laughter from that. Tang Wan-er’s whole face was contorted. As a reserved woman, she should have been acting as if she didn’t understand, but she wasn’t able to stop herself.

The Xuantian Monastery’s disciples could glare death in the face without batting an eye. They didn’t have any misgivings, and they all laughed to their content.

In the distance, Tu Fang and them watched blankly. In Tu Fang’s eyes, Long Chen was supposed to be a solemn leader. How did he suddenly erupt with a bunch of curses now?

The Corrupt disciples were all stupefied. Old demon Gui Yan was someone they had to call master Gui Yan. He was a powerful figure amongst the Corrupt path of this region.

If anyone dared be even slightly rude to him, even if it was one of their own Elders, he would tear out their muscles and flay their bodies. His viciousness was extremely well-known.

Such a respected figure had now been jeered at by a member of the Righteous path’s junior generation.

“Damn brat, I’ll specially flay your body and refine your soul! Kill them all for me! But leave that brat alive.” Gui Yan’s roar was like thunder in everyone’s ears.

The Corrupt disciples bellowed and all took out their weapons, charging at them.

“Divine archers, take your marks!”

Following Long Chen’s shout, the monastery’s disciples all took out a longbow. They nocked them all with arrows.

“Forty-five degrees! Close your eyes and shoot!”

The arrows rained down upon the Corrupt disciples. Other than the monastery’s disciples, the other Righteous disciples were all flabbergasted.

“Divine archers? They’re not even shooting directly at them?”

Even Tu Fang was dumbfounded. Arrows didn’t possess any killing power against Corrupt disciples, and they weren’t even shooting directly at them head-on.

BOOM!

Just as people were completely puzzled by Long Chen’s actions, explosions echoed throughout and smoke filled the air.

“AH! Contemptible bastards, there’s poison in the smoke!”

Countless screams rang out. Many disciples consumed antitoxin pills, but they were horrified to see that their effects were far from ideal.

Just as a rain of arrows was falling from the sky, another set of arrows came flying at them. But this time they were sent flying directly at them.

Howls of anguish rang out and flesh flew through the air. The Elders who were watching the battle were all dumbfounded. This was not at all how they had expected it to go down.

“Spread out! Quickly spread out from the range of the poison!” Gui Yan roared angrily. But he didn’t know just how much pain the ones who were enveloped by the poison smoke were in. The majority of them all died before managing to run out of the smoke.

There were a portion who were luckier. They only died after running out of the smoke. Before the two sides even met, a huge number of Corrupt disciples were already killed.

The ground was littered with corpses that numbered in the thousands. This time, Long Chen had brought out all his poison balls.

And this result was actually because the Corrupt disciples were lucky. At the beginning, they had been in a line formation in order to intimidate the Righteous disciples.

When they had charged forward, they had been spread out in that line. In order to keep the toxicity high, the arrows had all been shot at one spot, allowing the other areas to get off completely fine.

If they had charged at them in a more clumped out manner, Long Chen would have been able to exterminate at least half their number with just this one move.

“Kill, kill them all!” roared Gui Yan sinisterly.

Those Corrupt disciples that had been outside the range of the poison gas charged forward.

But before they could arrive, a snow-white figure appeared in front of Long Chen.