“These rebels are becoming increasingly audacious.” Feng Aotian said angrily. He looked at Xuanji and said expressionlessly, “I originally planned to let the Grand Preceptor rest for a while before we talked, but the rebels are provoking us and won’t let the Grand Preceptor rest. Please, this time whether the rebels can know the power of the court depends on the Grand Preceptor.”
"Generals, rest assured, these are just a bunch of rebels. Watch how I deal with them." As he spoke, Xuanji's face was full of disdain. He was well prepared this time and there should be no problem. In addition, the rebels did not know he was coming and had not made any preparations in advance. He was sure he could catch the rebels off guard.
The Grand Preceptor's confident demeanor boosted the morale of the soldiers. A young general went out to muster the troops and spread the news of the Grand Preceptor's arrival, successfully inspiring their spirits.
On the battlefield, the morale of the imperial army soared, and they stood in neat formation, ready for battle.
The rebels looked like a disorganized mess, with their ranks crooked and their generals wearing all sorts of clothes.
The Imperial Advisor immediately felt that this battle was extremely frustrating. The well-trained imperial troops had actually lost to a bunch of rabble. It was truly humiliating.
Only about one-third of the rebels were regular soldiers, dressed in uniform black uniforms but without armor, and they looked very arrogant.
Beneath the central banner, a flamboyant man in red robes rode majestically on horseback. His hair was entirely red, his face as white as flour, and he had a gaping, blood-red mouth; he was clearly not a normal person.
Xuanji had never seen the Ghost King's true face. The last time the ghosts besieged the palace, the Ghost King he saw was just a wisp of black mist. Even then, the Ghost King was extremely powerful. Now that the physical body was here, Xuanji felt extremely disgusted by the Ghost King's alluring appearance.
In Xuanji's eyes, Tanxi was shrouded in black mist and possessed profound ghostly power. He felt that this person's strength had increased significantly since the last time, and he wondered how many lonely ghosts he had devoured.
In an instant, he had already thought of many strategies to deal with the enemy.
"Are you the Ghost King Tanxi?" Xuanji asked loudly.
Tanxi held a red folding fan in her hand and gently waved it, a frivolous and wicked smile on her face, an expression that showed great disrespect to the other person.
"I am Ghost King Tanxi, Grand Preceptor. How have you been?"
"The Ghost King is quite arrogant; I wonder if he'll even survive until this evening." Xuanji gripped his staff tightly, carefully observing Tanxi's subordinates. They were all vengeful ghosts possessing living people. Truly despicable!
"Hahaha... You defeated opponent still dare to be presumptuous in front of me? Let's not waste any more time and start fighting." Tanxi formed hand seals and silently chanted a spell. In an instant, the sky was shrouded in black mist, and large swaths of black mist rushed towards them.
"Grand Preceptor, this is just an appetizer. Are you satisfied?" Ghost King Tanxi knew the Grand Preceptor's background; he did have some real skills, but he wasn't powerful enough.
Xuanji raised his staff and struck the ground heavily. Immediately, a Heaven and Earth Limitless Formation was deployed, covering the area above and below with a yellow array, forming an extremely solid barrier that protected the imperial army.
The moment this formation appeared, even Ghost King Tanxi felt a strong killing intent.
Xuanji and his six disciples remained outside the formation to fight the enemy. The seven of them attacked together, silently chanting incantations and stepping in a special formation. Xuanji threw out a Heavenly Thunder Talisman, and the sky immediately became even more gloomy, with rumbling thunder giving people the feeling that a storm was coming.
The air was filled with the smells of rain and earth, and the flying sand and stones made it hard to open one's eyes.
Lightning flashed back and forth in the dark clouds, as if brewing a massive thunderbolt.
Even Ghost King Tanxi felt that he probably couldn't withstand this lightning strike.
Tanxi dared not underestimate it and immediately formed hand seals to perform a ritual. Even the ghost generals around him had taken out their magical artifacts to deal with the heavenly lightning.
"Boom!"
"Click"
Several bolts of lightning struck down in succession, scattering the black mist that had gathered around the rebel army's position. Those who hadn't arrived yet fled in droves, and the rebels were terrified, running for their lives. Tanxi's horse was also startled, its hooves rearing up high.
Fortunately, although the display looked impressive, it was nothing more than a scare tactic for Ghost King Tanxi.
"Grand Preceptor, is this all you've got? Do you have any more lightning-summoning talismans? Keep using them!" Ghost King Tanxi continued chanting the incantation. This time, the reinforcements that came were not black mist, but rather many skeleton-like people that surged out from underground.
The army of skeletons numbered in the tens of thousands, constantly emerging from the ground and relentlessly charging towards the imperial army's positions.
"Ghost soldiers!" The Grand Preceptor's expression changed slightly. He took the bag handed to him by his disciple, grabbed a handful of soybeans from it, and scattered them out.
He formed hand seals and chanted incantations. Instantly, the soybeans he scattered transformed into real people, who then sheathed their weapons and fearlessly charged towards the ghostly soldiers.
Seeing that there were too many ghost soldiers, Xuanji scattered a lot of soybeans.
"Scatter beans to create soldiers!" the soldiers cheered, full of confidence.
Looking at the situation on the battlefield, Feng Aotian was still not optimistic. The skeleton army was endless, but the soybean soldiers were not invincible. In a short while, many soybean soldiers had been beaten and revealed to their true forms.
The soldiers also began to worry.
Xuanji's apprentice handed over two more apricot-yellow triangular flags. Xuanji waved the flags and activated the great formation to suppress evil spirits and ghosts. Immediately, the fighting power of those ghost soldiers decreased significantly, and the army of skeletons no longer emerged from the ground.
Feng Aotian and his soldiers regained their confidence, and victorious smiles appeared on their faces.
Once the skeleton army was completely wiped out, the soybean army was also almost dead, and Tanxi was nowhere to be seen on the other side.
The morale of the imperial army was greatly boosted.
Back in the main tent, everyone's faces were filled with the joy of victory. Even Feng Aotian changed his opinion of the Imperial Advisor, feeling that the Imperial Advisor did have some real skills, and he felt that there was hope of defeating the rebels this time.
After exchanging a few pleasantries with everyone, Xuanji suggested to Feng Aotian: "Tanxi is cunning and ruthless. We need to set up some formations around our camp to prevent evil creatures from launching sneak attacks. I would appreciate it if General Wang could allocate some men to me and warn the soldiers not to leave the camp casually, lest they be injured by the formations."
Feng Aotian cooperated fully and immediately sent his most capable general with a hundred men to follow Xuanji.
Xuanji simply instructed these people to find stones and arrange them according to his directions and methods. However, this still took them more than two hours to complete.
By the time the defensive formation was set up, it was already dark.
Xuanji removed the stone from the array's core, and a flash of golden light appeared on the ground. It extinguished in just a few breaths, and an extremely fierce defensive array was formed.
As expected, in the middle of the night, continuous wails echoed around the camp. The ghosts that had broken into the formation were burned by the formation, rolled on the ground a few times, and then vanished into thin air.
Even the soldiers and generals possessed by vengeful ghosts were rolling around on the battlefield.
The ambush troops, who had been waiting for the rebels to walk right into their trap, nocked their arrows and shot the invading enemy to death.
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