The God Statue

Throughout the journey, Li Huowang had come to learn more about these people. They boasted endlessly, and he couldn’t tell how much of it was exaggeration.

But the Black-Red Zongzi was effective. By now, they were deep within the Great Li heartland, and still no one had stopped them—a far cry from the treatment he had received himself.

“Don’t worry. The people I found for you are all experts. As long as nothing unexpected happens, we’ll definitely smash the Fa Sect’s plans.” Xuanpin stood beside Li Huowang, both of them watching the scattered red dots on the spinning-light mirror.

“Hopefully.” At this point, discussing it further felt pointless to Li Huowang. What he needed to do now was finish this first, then worry about everything else.

“What about your side? When are you moving?” Li Huowang asked.

Though he was sitting at a tea stall, he was already very close to the Fa Sect’s ritual site. If not for the Black-Red Zongzi, he would have been discovered long ago.

“Look here.” Xuanpin’s finger pointed to a cluster of red dots on the spinning-light mirror, not far from Li Huowang’s position.

“Later, as soon as the front line engages and the battle line pushes this way, you can move in as well.”

Li Huowang’s finger swept over the red dots, and he immediately saw rows of Military-Path soldiers polishing their guns and adjusting their armor. Their expressions were very calm, like the stillness before a storm.

“Does the Military Path have a Siming?” Li Huowang asked.

This was a question he had wanted to ask for a long time but had never found the right moment.

“Naturally, yes.”

“Who?”

“The General. The Chancellor. The Head of the State.”

“Then in the White Jade Capital, they should be on our side, right?”

Xuanpin shook his head. “You ask too much. Get ready. Listen—the war drums have already started. Put your back into it. The whole world is counting on you.”

The rhythmic pounding of drums drifted over from the distance, but when Li Huowang looked up, he realized it was thunder rolling through the leaden clouds above.

He tipped the last of the tea and leaves into his mouth, stood up, and walked past Xuanpin’s body toward a path on the left.

The path led into the mountains. The further in he went, the more desolate it became, yet in these remote spots, quite a few people were hiding.

As Li Huowang walked, Xuanpin’s hired helpers flickered in and out of the tree shadows, gradually gathering around him.

Outer sentries and hidden posts along the way were quickly dealt with.

Now, the expressions on everyone’s faces grew heavier. The thunder from the sky pounded like a drumbeat on every heart.

When Li Huowang swept his finger over a battle flag on the spinning-light mirror, a wave of killing intent hit him so hard he could barely breathe.

“KILL! KILL! KILL!!” On the left flank of the battlefield, a massive Eight-Trigram Formation appeared. The Military-Path soldiers trapped at its center were each wrapped in a torrent of killing intent. Their eyes were red, their expressions bordering on madness.

They seemed to have lost all reason, yet every step and every turn followed the formation’s shifts. In motion, they were an array; at rest, a camp.

It was as if, in that moment, these hundreds of thousands of Military-Path soldiers had fused into a single entity—a monster with a skeleton of human bodies and blood of killing intent.

Compared to them, the Fa Sect worshippers seemed like a rabble. Though they stretched as far as the eye could see, they were chaotic and disorderly.

Just then, a yellow triangular Dragon General flag was slammed down heavily by You Zixiong.

“Heaven and Earth charge forward! Transform into the Tiger’s Wings! The Crouching Tiger prepares to strike! Unleash its full might! As Huaiyin once used it, the transformations are limitless! At the Gaixia meeting, the General’s gambit is unfathomable!”

“HYAH!”

With the roar of all the soldiers, the killing intent, now solidified into something tangible, surged upward and forcibly scattered Li Huowang’s view.

Snapping back to himself, Li Huowang saw the massive red dot on the spinning-light mirror and stopped watching that side. He had arrived at his own destination.

Li Huowang craned his neck, staring up at the enormous wooden wall before him. A city had been erected, isolated and alone in the middle of the mountains.

Though it was covered in red cloth, the green leaves still on the wood showed it had been cut down not long ago.

Another clap of thunder split the sky, and a torrential downpour poured straight down from the heavens.

Seeing some people within the city rushing toward the battle line, Li Huowang took a deep breath. Dozens of tentacles slowly emerged from his body.

“Go!” He pushed off the ground with both tentacles and feet, leaping straight over the giant wooden wall.

The wall seemed to turn into soft mud, letting him pass through with ease.

As soon as Li Huowang came out the other side, the space opened up before him. A colossal, mountain-like four-legged statue stood in the rain.

Its form was hidden beneath a massive bamboo hat, and from under that hat, countless red silk ribbons spilled out, spanning the city like bridges, draped high and low.

Ignoring the stares directed at him, Li Huowang grabbed the edge of one red silk bridge and slid down toward the altar below, which was shrouded in white incense smoke, right in front of the statue.

Whatever the Fa Sect was using to worship their god, he was going to destroy the entire ritual.

Fa Sect Wuchen began to close in on Li Huowang, trying to block his approach.

But this was where the people he had brought came in. No matter how many Fa Sect Wuchen tried to interfere, they were held back.

By the time Li Huowang finally broke free of their encirclement and reached the platform in front of the statue, a very strange man blocked his path.

The man wore a large square hat, but the curtain hanging from it was a bloody, indistinct mess.

At first, Li Huowang thought his face was rotten, but after looking more closely, he realized it was covered by a curtain made of stitched-together organs.

The man’s body, like the statue itself, had red silk strips protruding from his flesh curtains and sleeves.

When Li Huowang saw his feet, his pupils contracted. They weren’t human feet—they were a pair of chicken feet!

Facing the wary Li Huowang, the man didn’t spare him a second glance. He held an incense burner on an aloeswood tray, his hands raised in reverence.

His limbs twisted and moved as if in a dance, and the white smoke rising from the incense burner swirled with his movements.

At the end of each cycle of the dance, he would either lie down or kneel, lifting the incense burner high toward the giant statue before him.

The white smoke drifting from the burner rose slowly, eventually entering the statue’s bamboo hat, which was covered in red cloth strips.

In the midst of the pouring rain, the act was utterly bizarre.

Watching the man still so utterly absorbed in his purification of the incense, Li Huowang clenched his teeth.

This man was not from the Fa Sect, Li Huowang was certain! That man, this statue, this bizarre ritual—none of it had anything to do with the Fa Sect!

But no matter what this thing was, it was the enemy he had to fight.

Li Huowang suddenly looked up. With the neighing of a horse, Peng Longteng, wielding a massive halberd and riding her enormous warhorse, crashed down toward the man’s head like a small mountain.