Chapter 3368

Facing the demon army surging in from all directions, Ye Liuyun once again deployed all his firepower war chariots and powerful crossbows.

The formation masters were also busy reinforcing the formations, and the entire camp was filled with activity.

Ye Liuyun, along with the demonic beasts and the black-armored elite soldiers, remained on strict guard throughout the camp against attacks by powerful experts and assaults on their souls.

As the defending side, they had the advantage of fortifications. With the formations and firepower war chariots as well, the soldiers had no reason to panic; everything proceeded in an orderly manner.

In particular, of the 150,000 soldiers in the Death Legion, only 50,000 had been deployed to surround the camp and meet the enemy. The remaining 100,000 were resting and standing by.

The demon army coordinated powerful crossbows with shields: a row of shield soldiers in front and a row of crossbowmen behind them. They waited until anyone approached before firing, combining close- and long-range attacks with the firepower war chariots to hold the defensive line firmly. They did not even need to use the puppets.

All the puppets had been kept in reserve, waiting to repel the demon army’s largest force head-on.

The pressure was greatest at the front of Ye Liuyun’s camp. As soon as the demon commander-in-chief arrived, he sent out a ten-thousand-man unit and ordered the demon soldiers to launch a frenzied assault on Ye Liuyun’s defensive line.

Ye Liuyun had no choice but to remain here with the demonic beasts, occasionally sending some of them forward to help defend. The Demon Lion’s Wind-and-Thunder Fan proved extremely effective. Whenever the demon soldiers approached, a few waves of the fan were enough to blow them back.

The power of the wind blades and lightning meant that even with their shields raised, the demon soldiers could not gain much protection.

The flames of the Vermilion Bird and Qiong Qi, the lightning of Thunderclap, and the poisonous smoke of the Nine-Headed Demon Dragon could all kill demon soldiers or intercept their attacks.

Combined with the formations’ defenses and attacks, a huge stretch of demon corpses soon lay outside the front of the camp.

The Demon-Sealing Stele was also more obedient this time and did not immediately smash the more powerful demons. Ye Liuyun had spoken with it beforehand, telling it that if it went after the powerful ones first, he would be unable to coordinate with it.

It would not be able to absorb much power on its own in such a short time. It would be better off cooperating with the army’s defenses at the front, where it could absorb much more. Thus, it kept circling around the military camp, especially the front, smashing some of the soldiers who broke through.

Seeing that the demon soldiers were constantly charging this way and continuously supplying it with energy to absorb, it did not hurry into the demon army either.

Ye Liuyun also took the opportunity to release his soul source. He captured the souls of quite a few Ninth Realm demon soldiers and stored them in the Soul-Sealing Pearl. Some demon soldiers at the peak of the Ninth Realm possessed particularly powerful souls. After discovering that he had released his soul, they launched soul attacks against him as well.

But the flames and lightning carried by his soul source trapped them all, and they too were dragged into the Soul-Sealing Pearl. Although the souls of these demon soldiers were not soul sources and appeared far weaker than his soul, they were still not weak when compared with martial cultivators of the same realm.

Ye Liuyun did not disdain them. He felt that small gains could accumulate into something substantial, and estimated that after this battle, there would be enough to raise the soul power of all the women by quite a bit.

The black-armored soldiers in the other directions never took the initiative to attack, focusing solely on defense. Whenever a powerful soul or a demon broke through, they joined forces to attack, dragging those souls into the Soul-Sealing Pearl and helping Ye Liuyun stockpile them.

Thus, although the demon army launched a fierce assault for an hour and left behind countless corpses, it had advanced very little.

They concentrated all their shields and, while charging forward, used them to build a shield wall.

However, that shield wall was frequently blasted apart and could not remain standing. Moreover, the demon soldiers leading the charge also needed shields, so their supply of shields soon ran out.

The demon soldiers charging up from behind then had to rush forward empty-handed, pick up shields from the battlefield, and continue their assault.

But the demons soon discovered that their shield wall was useless, while the thick layers of corpses could serve as shields.

The corpses could not only block the crossbow bolts; several thick layers of them could even withstand the bombardment of the firepower war chariots.

And they did not need to deliberately pile them up. The normal charge naturally created layer after layer of corpse walls at the front. These thick corpse walls also impeded the formations’ attacks.

They therefore had people clear away the corpses from behind while hiding behind the corpse walls and inching forward bit by bit. Even when the firepower war chariots blasted a hole in a corpse wall, they would immediately seal it with the bodies of demon soldiers.

After two hours, the demon army had suffered heavy casualties, but it had indeed used this method to advance a considerable distance.

Just as the demons smugly believed that this method was working, all the firepower war chariots rose into the air and began bombarding them from above. The demons hiding behind the corpse walls immediately suffered devastating casualties.

When the firepower war chariots were designed, they were already capable of traveling through the starry sky. They simply had no need to move under normal circumstances, so to conserve energy, they rarely moved on their own. Even when they moved forward or backward on the battlefield, the demons assumed that someone was merely controlling them.

Thus, the demons overlooked this possibility and assumed that the firepower war chariots could only bombard targets from where they stood.

For a time, screams rang out incessantly throughout the demon army. Most of the soldiers retreated, trying to escape the firepower war chariots’ range. Some who could not get away charged forward instead, only to be killed by crossbow bolts.

The occasional soldiers who managed to approach with their shields raised were jointly blasted to death by the black-armored soldiers, who refused to let them near the defensive line.

As a result, the demon army temporarily retreated to rest.

The firepower war chariots on Ye Liuyun’s side also landed, and the soldiers responsible for defense immediately took the opportunity to rotate positions. Ye Liuyun also sent out puppets carrying large numbers of storage rings to collect the corpses of the demon soldiers.

Looking at the thick layers of corpses piled up before him, Ye Liuyun estimated that the demon army had already lost three to four hundred thousand soldiers in these two hours.

However, many of their formations had also been completely destroyed. Only the formation closest to the camp was still able to play some role.

But before the puppets had cleared away many of the demon corpses, the entire demon army charged forward once more.

"It seems the commander-in-chief of this demon army is determined to wipe us out!"

Ye Liuyun remarked with a laugh, then led the demonic beasts out to meet the enemy again.

"Hold on for another hour. Jiang Yuanhai, Xiao Heng, and the others should be making their move by then!" Yu Xiaofeng also informed the various legions responsible for the defense.

The commanders of several demon legions, including Heishan, Heiyan, and Shaying, also led their demon legions out at that moment. They replaced the soldiers led by the Tiger-Headed Beast King so those soldiers could rest, taking their place on the front lines.

However, they did not deploy the more than 100,000 demon soldiers they had recently subjugated. The reorganization and training of those soldiers had not yet been completed, and their combat strength was still insufficient.

When the commander of the demon army saw that the ancient demons on the opposite side had also appeared, he knew they probably would not be able to hold out for long and were preparing for close combat. He therefore continued urging the various armies to launch relentless attacks.