Daqin Zhentiansi

Chapter 1140 The People Guarding Tianyuan City Ten Thousand Years Ago

Hunting army camp.

The tremors on the ground grew increasingly violent.

Everyone in the camp ran out.

The remnants of the hunting party who had just been rescued, the wounded who were bandaging their wounds, and the craftsmen who were sharpening their weapons all stopped what they were doing and looked toward the north ridge.

Yan He stood at the entrance of the camp, his hand on the hilt of his knife, his knuckles turning white from gripping it so tightly.

He had been hunting for forty years and had never experienced such a shock.

It wasn't an earthquake, it wasn't a beast tide, it was footsteps.

Countless footsteps, perfectly synchronized, echoed from the depths of the earth, each one like the beating heart of the land.

The half-charred flagpole on the drill ground tilted at an increasingly steep angle.

It's moving right now, as if it's tilting towards something, as if it's welcoming something.

Then, the ridge split open.

It's not a collapse.

Right in the middle of the ridge, a crack runs from the top all the way to the foot of the mountain.

The cracks widened to both sides, and the shattered rocks did not roll down, but instead floated in mid-air, their edges gleaming with a silvery-gray light.

The first black armor stepped out from the crack.

His iron boots thudded as they struck the rocks on the ridge.

"Boom."

The sound wasn't loud, but it carried very far across the silent wasteland.

He stood at the edge of the crevice, two silver-gray lights burning in the eye sockets of his helmet, coldly surveying the wasteland ahead.

Then comes the second one.

The third one.

The tenth one.

The 100th.

One hundred thousand figures in jet-black armor emerged from the crack and silently arrayed themselves on the mountain ridge.

Their armor was adorned with silver-gray battle patterns, and their longswords and shields gleamed with a dark luster in the morning light.

They had no flags, no bugles, and no words.

But they stood there, like a black mountain range stretching across the Canglang Plain.

No one spoke in the camp.

Everyone looked up at the black figures on the ridge.

A young hunter dropped his knife without even noticing.

His mouth was open, his eyes were wide open, and he looked as if he had been frozen in place.

Beside him, an old soldier wanted to say something, but when he opened his mouth, he found that he couldn't say anything.

Yan He loosened his grip on the hilt of the knife.

He stared at the black armor on the ridge, at the battle patterns flowing across it, and remained silent for a long time.

Then he whispered, "He's back."

When Zhang Yuan emerged from the crack, the morning light shone directly on him.

He held the Zhenyue Token in his hand.

The light on the token had faded, but the fine lines were still faintly glowing, as if something was flowing deep within the token.

Behind him, an army of 100,000 undead stood silently in formation.

The silvery-gray light burned in their eye sockets, forming a continuous expanse, like ten thousand lamps suddenly lighting up a wasteland.

Tuoba Shan followed him out from the crack.

His left arm was wrapped in thick bandages, the cloth soaked with blood, but he stood very straight.

He looked at the 100,000-strong army arrayed along the ridge, then at Zhang Yuan standing at the very front. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but in the end only whispered, "Senior..."

Amu also crawled out, blood still seeping from the hole in his left arm where the demon wolf had bitten him. He leaned against the rock at the edge of the crevice, looking at the black armor, and suddenly smiled.

That smile contained weariness, relief, and something else that was hard to describe.

He said softly, "They really did bring it back."

Yan Qing was the last one to climb out.

Yan Laoshuan had to wrap the wound on his left leg with several more strips of cloth, and he walked with a limp, but he still insisted on walking on his own and refused to be helped.

He stood at the edge of the crevice, looking at the dense array of black armors lined up on the ridge, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly.

Old Yan, who was standing next to him, patted him on the shoulder and said, "Kid, stop spacing out. Let's go."

Yan Qing snapped out of her daze, nodded, and followed the group down the mountain.

When the 100,000-strong army marched down the mountain ridge, everyone in the camp watched them.

No one cheered, no one applauded.

The hunters, the remnants of the army, and the craftsmen simply stood there, watching the black armor pass by.

The armored figures marched in silence, their steps synchronized, and not a single person uttered a word.

They didn't have the aura of living people, only a deep, humming sound, as if coming from the depths of the earth, rising and falling with their steps.

Some people couldn't resist reaching out to touch the armor.

The moment his fingers touched the arm guard of a suit of armor, he felt a cold, hard sensation, as if he were touching a piece of ancient, cold iron.

The armored figure didn't turn back or stop; it continued forward.

But when that person withdrew their hand, they looked down at their fingertips.

A tiny speck of silvery-gray light clung to his fingertip, like a fine speck of dust. The light flickered twice on his fingertip, then went out.

The person's eyes suddenly reddened.

He himself didn't know why he wanted to cry.

Zhang Yuan walked down the slope and into the camp.

Zhang Yuan turned his head and looked at the silent, arrayed black army outside the camp.

The armor stood in the morning light, its silver-gray sheen shimmering, like a sleeping mountain range.

He spoke calmly: "The people who guarded Tianyuan City a million years ago."

Yan He remained silent for a long time.

He followed Zhang Yuan's gaze to the black military formation, something churning in his eyes. "Can they... still fight?"

"can."

Zhang Yuan's voice was calm, but the power contained in that one word was heavier than a thousand words.

He continued walking forward, and then the next sentence drifted into Yan He's ears on the wind: "They have been waiting down there for a million years, waiting for this moment."

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That afternoon.

The demonic energy at the entrance of the North Valley began to surge violently.

The scout scrambled back to camp, and the news he brought made everyone's expressions change drastically.

The monster horde at the entrance of the North Valley began a large-scale mobilization, no longer besieging the rocky reinforcements inside the valley.

Countless iron-skinned rhinoceroses, their thick hides protruding from the valley entrance, gray-maned demon wolves spread across the mountains and plains, purple-eyed demon apes climbed the high rock walls, and iron-backed lizards emerged from the cracks.

The monster horde is advancing towards the camp.

Yan He stood at the entrance of the camp, looking at the surging purplish-black demonic energy line on the distant horizon, his expression extremely solemn.

The demonic energy line was slowly advancing forward, not fast, but showing no signs of stopping.

Wherever the demonic energy passed, vegetation withered, the ground cracked, and even the air was filled with a pungent sulfur smell.

"How many?" Yan He asked.

The scout's voice trembled: "At least... 300,000. And it's still increasing."

Three hundred thousand. (End of Chapter)