Chapter 57 The Demon Tribe Retreats

Beneath the setting sun, resembling the heavy, muffled breathing of a colossal beast, the earth trembled.

Gazing at the blood-drenched, powerful figure standing triumphantly atop Jiang Chen’s motionless body, the countless human warriors upon the Jiayuguan Great Wall erupted into earth-shattering cheers after a prolonged moment of stunned silence!

"Jiang Chen is dead! Jiang Chen is dead, hahaha!!"

"King Wu of Lin has killed Jiang Chen!!"

The moment they sensed Jiang Chen’s life force extinguish, the remaining seven demon kings froze in disbelief.

They could not fathom how Jiang Chen had died in such a manner, perishing almost without a shred of resistance.

With his hair disheveled and a dazed look in his eyes, Lin Zhengyang was equally clueless as to what had transpired. He only knew that as they fought, Jiang Chen had gradually ceased to move. Staring at his own fists, which were stained with demonic blood, he found it hard to believe that he had beaten Jiang Chen to death with his bare hands amidst the encirclement of seven demon kings.

Could it be that I, Lin Zhengyang, have grown this immensely powerful?

Without time to ponder, hearing the thunderous cheers rolling from the Jiayuguan Great Wall, Lin Zhengyang steadied his stance, reached out to grab Jiang Chen's head, and exerted a sudden surge of strength, ripping it clean off and holding it high into the air.

"Jiang Chen is dead!" Lin Zhengyang shouted in a deep voice.

Jiang Chen's bloodied head deeply pierced the eyes of countless demons.

Our king is dead... truly dead......

Even the remaining seven demon kings began to waver in their fighting spirit.

"What do we do now?" Hu Zhang looked toward the other demon kings, his voice trembling slightly. "Big Brother Jiang Chen is dead. Should we continue the attack?"

"Continue the attack? How? Even if we succeed, what good would it do?" Hong He cast a resentful glare at Jiang Chen’s corpse. "He promised to share the Primordial Demon Blood with us if we took Jiayuguan. Now that he is dead, the rest of you can carry on if you wish—this king is withdrawing!"

"Hong He! Taking Jiayuguan benefits us too. At the very least, there is a massive bounty of human flesh. There are tens of millions of humans behind Jiayuguan; they would all become our spoils."

"Spare me. This king only agreed to follow Jiang Chen to take Jiayuguan because Jiang Chen wanted those flesh offerings—I do not. Are you truly so naive as to think the Human Royal Court will sit back and do nothing?" Hong He sneered. "I only want the Primordial Demon Blood. Human flesh is nothing but trouble. Just because Jiang Chen had an appetite for trouble doesn't mean I do."

Though Hong He’s words sounded selfish, they were rooted in brutal reality.

The demon kings knew all too well that the human race could not be overthrown overnight. If the Human Royal Court intervened, victory was far from guaranteed.

The sole reason all these demon kings had gathered this time was because Jiang Chen had dangled the Primordial Demon Blood as a stake.

They had all been willing to trail behind Jiang Chen to lend momentum, especially since the current horde of monsters consisted primarily of Jiang Chen's subordinates, while not a single soldier of their own had been committed.

Now that Jiang Chen had fallen in battle, the collapse of the demonic horde was merely a matter of time. If they stubbornly insisted on pressing the attack, they would have to summon their own demonic armies.

Yet, that would take time. The demon kings were far from foolish; they could deduce that the Human Royal Court must already be mobilizing its forces.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, by the time they summoned their own demonic legions, the reinforcements from the Human Royal Court would have arrived—no, perhaps even the main force of the Human Royal Court!

When that time came, with the main forces of the Human Royal Court deployed, would the main armies of the eight human nations remain indifferent?

Were they truly prepared to wage a large-scale racial war against humankind?

Was Jiayuguan truly worth such a price?

"Fight if you wish, this king is leaving!" Hong He violently flapped its remaining wing and departed, filled with burning resentment. It now loathed Jiang Chen to the core; had Jiang Chen not insisted on assaulting Jiayuguan, its wing would never have been severed by Xiao Chen, nor would it have suffered such severe injuries.

Seeing Hong He leave, Hu Zhang hesitated for a moment, cast a wary glance at Lin Zhengyang, and likewise departed.

Jiang Chen’s inexplicable death had struck a profound sense of threat into the hearts of the remaining demon kings.

One by one, the rest of the demon kings quietly retreated as well.

To this, Lin Zhengyang made no move to stop them—nor did he have the strength left to do so.

Seeing all the demon kings withdraw, Lin Zhengyang felt the adrenaline fade, leaving him to collapse weakly into a semi-crouched position on the ground.

"What on earth happened..." Lin Zhengyang muttered, staring down at Jiang Chen's severed head in his hands with a deep frown.

"The demon kings have retreated! They’re all running away!!"

The demonic army instantly collapsed, stripped of its ferocious momentum. They turned and fled in a panic, wishing they possessed a pair of wings to carry them all the way back to the Thirty Thousand Great Mountains.

Seizing the momentum, the human warriors atop the Jiayuguan Great Wall launched a pursuit, slaying as many fleeing enemies as they could.

Led by Xiao Ruoyu, the Northern-Resisting Iron Cavalry charged voluntarily out of Jiayuguan, hunting down the fleeing demons all the way to the foot of the Thirty Thousand Great Mountains.

Along the path, the tally of slaughtered demons multiplied exponentially.

When the sounds of battle finally faded, leaving only the drifting haze of smoke hanging in the air, countless demonic carcasses lay strewn across the landscape. Bathed in the setting sun, the vast plain was stained a glaring, bloody red.

......

"We won!?" When Xia Changsheng received the initial military report, he remained in an almost dazed state.

"We won?" When the Royal Court received the news, Human King Xiao Wanli trembled all over. "So fast? We actually won against all eight frontline demon kings? Since when has the Great Xia Kingdom grown this powerful?"

Xia Changsheng and Human King Xiao Wanli set out simultaneously, rushing toward Jiayuguan to witness the details of the battle with their own eyes.

.....

The battlefield clearing operations had begun. When Lin Yin stepped out of the Great Wall's mechanized fortress, the two generals following closely behind him wore expressions of sheer bewilderment.

"How on earth did he figure out that method?"

"No idea. I don't even know how he understood the Great Wall's internal mechanisms."

"Maybe Elder Jiang told him. After all, he is Elder Jiang's only student."

"But just like that, Jiang Chen died? He was directly shocked into stillness by the electromagnetic waves!"

The bloody stench of the battlefield mingled with the scent of disinfectant, drifting gently on the breeze to ruffle Lin Yin's hair. He gazed out at the clearing operations beyond the pass and finally let out a soft sigh of relief.

"It's over." Lin Yin reached into his blood-soaked pocket, pulled out a letter from home drenched in demonic blood, and carefully examined the recipient's address and the sender's name. Just as a Great Wall warrior happened to pass by, Lin Yin stopped him to inquire about the soldier's unit.

"Third Legion, Seventh Platoon?" The warrior shook his head. "Most likely dead. That platoon was part of the vanguard; they were ordered to charge the moment the battle began. Not a single one of them made it back alive."

Hearing this news, Lin Yin lowered his head in silence for a long while, quietly tucking the blood-stained letter back into his pocket. The familiar weight of the loss plunged his mood into gloom; he could vividly imagine a woman clutching this letter and weeping uncontrollably. It felt almost as if he could hear soft sobs—was it just an auditory hallucination......

He raised his head, only to realize that not far away, a warrior was indeed embracing a corpse and weeping bitterly.

"Brother, didn't we promise to go back home together? Why the hell are you breaking your promise now..."

Unable to bear the sight, Lin Yin quietly patted the grieving warrior's shoulder as he passed, though the man continued to mourn in deep sorrow.

War was always like this..... Lin Yin looked up toward the setting sun, murmuring: That is precisely why one must grow strong enough to make war shrink away in fear......