Black-Red.
The fields beyond the eastern ridge of the River Capital were covered in a color that seemed red yet black, black yet red.
A single color that seemed like two.
It was a scene created by countless people emitting the same type of True Qi.
However.
If one were to stand on the ridge and look down at the fields, the first thing to catch their eye would not be the blackish-red, but a single flag that cut through it and soared high.
A white staff.
Blackish-red cloth.
A single character embroidered in the center of the cloth.
Blood.
In this Jianghu, it was rare for a character on a flag to be just a simple character.
It was often a mark that summarized what its followers did, and this single character was precisely such a mark.
The group of those who refused to belong to any of the Orthodox, Unorthodox, or Demonic factions, and had followed only their own creed in a corner of Nirvanic Extinction Mountain, was the Dark Rakshasa Way, and the one character that condensed everything about that group was Blood.
However, this flag was not an ordinary flag of the Dark Rakshasa Way, but the flag of the Left Guardian.
Blood Rakshasa.
In the center of the shadow cast by the flag, which flew stiffly unfurled, stood a person.
The kasaya he wore was blood-red, and on his exposed head, not a single strand of hair existed.
A kind of stillness in motion, possessed only by those who carry killing intent without being swayed by it, was firmly established on his bald head.
"Junior Brother, did you feel it too?"
The Blood Rakshasa spoke to his side, his gaze fixed on the foot of the ridge.
A couple of steps away from him stood another person wearing the same blood-red kasaya.
It was one of the Upper Four Rakshasas, the Scent Rakshasa.
He shifted his gaze to the same spot.
"Yes, Senior Brother. It pierced deep into this Junior Brother's Dantian."
"Is it a miscellaneous Immortal, or another one of the descended beings?"
"...What do you mean, Senior Brother?"
"It is nothing. Pay it no mind."
The Blood Rakshasa's eyes swept over the eastern foot of the ridge once more.
"As expected, the money-grubbers of the Formation Tower were behind this."
"Yes. One path along the eastern ridge… two paths… Perhaps, it seems to be three paths of the Formation Dao."
"It is True Qi that calls mountains, calls thunder, and calls illusions. However, it seems they didn't have much time."
"Yes, Senior Brother. It seems so."
The Scent Rakshasa replied briefly.
At that, the Blood Rakshasa's hand slowly rolled one of the human bone prayer beads around his neck.
"Scent, listen."
"Yes, Senior Brother."
"You, pursue the owner of that energy from before."
"Yes, Senior Brother. I receive your command."
"Vajra. Mandala."
"Yes, Senior Brother."
Two people who had been sitting formally in the middle of the procession stood up at the same time.
"You two, stand at the head of the main force and break the formation."
One was a giant twice the size of the Blood Rakshasa.
A thick chain of human bones ran from his shoulder to the middle of his back, and on each shoulder rested a black Vajra.
He was the Vajra Rakshasa of the Upper Four Rakshasas.
The other was a woman of a similar build to the Blood Rakshasa, but with a length of cloth draped over her back.
On a black background, a five-colored mandala pattern filled the entire surface.
As she stood up, she casually rolled a string of human bone prayer beads in one hand.
She was the Mandala Rakshasa of the Upper Four Rakshasas.
The two answered at the same time.
"Yes, Senior Brother. We receive your command."
"Then, advance."
As the Blood Rakshasa's short command fell, the Scent Rakshasa disappeared to the east of the field path, while the Vajra Rakshasa and Mandala Rakshasa moved to the front.
Wuuuuuuh—.
The procession of the two-thousand-strong main force began to move, following the two.
The marching formation realigned on the blackish-red fields.
"Since this is the place where the Honored One himself became enraged."
The Blood Rakshasa himself also began to walk.
"Erase everything. Whether it be Vast Heaven, the Formation Tower, or the new enemy…"
The Blood Rakshasa's mouth added another word towards the great force that was instantly surging like blackish-red waves.
"…whether it be the Hero's Sect."
"Waaaaaaaah!"
● ● ●
On the eastern slope of the ridge.
Another line of a Formation Style was carved into the earth.
It was the mark left after Dongmun Mutoe's finger drew a line in the dirt and infused a thread of Qi into it.
Beside him, Yan Bilyeong was holding a one-ja long Formation Eye Stone with both hands.
"Mutoe, are we really going to be able to set all of this up?"
Yan Bilyeong asked, hugging the stone she was holding closer to herself.
"We're short one Mountain Formation, short two strands of an Illusion Formation, and the Lightning Formation…. Ah, it seems this one is impossible due to the terrain, isn't it?"
Dongmun Mutoe muttered, squatting on the dirt ground and tapping his fingers.
"Hey."
Despite Yan Bilyeong's call, his fingertips were still carving another line of the Formation Style into the earth.
"Hey, you bastard!"
No reply.
"…Ha. That hopeless bastard. When it comes to the Formation Dao, tsk."
Shaking her head like that, Yan Bilyeong, who was about to carve another formation, suddenly lifted her head.
Kugugugugugugu—.
"Waaaaaaaah!"
It was because the members of the Dark Rakshasa Way had begun their full-scale advance from the fields beyond the ridge.
"Hey, hey!"
"…"
Thwack.
In the end, Yan Bilyeong's foot landed squarely on the back of Dongmun Mutoe's head.
Only then did Dongmun Mutoe look at her and shout.
"What are you doing! You bitch!"
"Bitch or not, you bastard. Look over there."
At Yan Bilyeong's words, Dongmun Mutoe finally saw the movement of the Dark Rakshasa Way.
"Huh? They're already coming?"
"Already my ass. Hey, we've been here for more than half a day."
"…Have we?"
"Anyway, so what are we going to do now?"
"What do you mean, what are we going to do?"
Dongmun Mutoe tossed out the words and immediately started moving his hands again.
"We have to hurry up, finish what we were doing, and bounce."
"…Can't we just bounce?"
"Just a little more, and it should be roughly functional."
"Alright, I get it. You stubborn mule."
While another line of the Formation Style was laid by Dongmun Mutoe's hand, Yan Bilyeong also slammed the stone she was holding into its final position.
After the two moved busily at a speed incomparable to before, the Formation Dao they were laying was somewhat complete.
"Done. Let's get up."
The place where the two stood up was the top of the ridge.
After brushing the dirt from her knees, Yan Bilyeong shifted her gaze to the fields beyond the ridge.
"Hah."
The blackish-red procession had already reached the foot of the ridge.
Among them, two people at the head of the procession were a few steps ahead of the main force, and their appearances were unusual.
One was a giant monk, the other a giant bhikkhuni with a length of cloth on her back.
"Ugh, those must be the Upper Four Rakshasas, right?"
"Yeah. They look like it. They look damn strong."
While the two were having a short conversation, the head of the main force finally set foot on the slope of the ridge.
At that moment, the earth around the lower part of the ridge rippled as if an earthquake had occurred.
The Mountain Formation had been activated.
At the same time, the steps of the main Dark Rakshasa force's procession all became heavy.
The ground cracked open, tearing at the ground beneath their feet, and the marching formation was momentarily disrupted.
"Huh? They're in. They're in."
"Oh, it actually works?"
As Dongmun Mutoe's eyes singled out another line among the Formation Eye Stones, another cloud of dust rose over the fields and the lower ridge.
It was the Illusion Formation.
The vision of a part of the main force would be distorted by the dust for a while, and their direction of advance would be disrupted….
Huh?!
The Formation Dao that the two had worked so hard to lay had activated, but that was all.
Kuuuuuung—!
Of the two Upper Rakshasas, the giant one shifted the two Vajras from his shoulders to his palms and slammed them onto the ground, while the other swirled the mandala cloth on her back with her fingertip.
The source of the roar was the shockwave that erupted from beneath the giant's feet.
The two Vajras struck the dirt ground simultaneously, and two shockwaves starting from those two points spread out in a fan shape along the foot of the ridge.
Heavy Mountain Bewilderment Illusion Formation.
That formation, named by pairing the Mountain and Illusion Formations, took the shockwave.
But the earth that the Mountain Formation was pressing down on was violently shaken by the shockwave.
Starting with the nearest Formation Eye Stone, it shot up about a hand's breadth from its spot before slamming back down.
Then the next Formation Eye Stone.
And the next.
Dozens of Formation Eye Stones embedded in the ridge slope successively jolted from their places along the concentric circles of the shockwave, and the Formation Styles carved into the earth lost their light moment by moment.
At that, the heavy steps of the main force became lighter in succession.
"…"
Dongmun Mutoe's tapping fingers came to a stop.
Meanwhile, the mandala cloth fully unfurled from the fingertips of the female Upper Rakshasa.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue—as the five-colored patterns danced and shifted places on the cloth as if alive, the dust cloud created by the Illusion Formation began to get swept up and sucked into those colors.
The vision of the main force, which had been blocked by the dust cloud, returned in sequence, and the entire procession's feet once again found their direction towards the summit.
"Uh…. Hey, this. It's all breaking?"
Not long after the Heavy Mountain Bewilderment Illusion Formation had activated, it was already losing its form.
"Hey, we're screwed. Let's run."
Dongmun Mutoe hurriedly stood up from the dirt ground.
And Yan Bilyeong had actually been carefully examining the rear slope of the ridge for a while now.
"We can go down the rear slope. Since the enemies are coming up from the front, the rear is empty…."
But those words couldn't even be fully spoken.
It was because on the rear slope of the ridge, where the two were about to slide down, a group had already taken their position.
A blood-red kasaya.
Another one.
While the front of the main force was halted dealing with the formation, a scout party had bypassed the ridge and filled the rear slope.
At a glance, there seemed to be over a hundred people.
Moreover, every single one of them was a powerful, elite Rakshasa monk, each seemingly at the level of a first-rate master.
"…Ah, seriously."
Yan Bilyeong's hand gripped the hilt of her sword tighter.
Dongmun Mutoe shook his head once and stopped in his tracks.
"We're fucked, damn it."
At the front of the main force, below the foot of the ridge.
The Vajra Rakshasa's two Vajras were raised once again above his rock-like head.
Since one side of the formation was broken by the first impact, he intended to completely crush the other side with the next one.
If possible, he planned to shatter the Trigram Masters who set up the Formation Dao as well.
Gooooooh-.
The two Vajras, filled with aura, simultaneously slammed straight down onto the dirt of the field, and the shockwave that started from those two points surged up the slope of the ridge like a wave.
Kwarurururu, Kwadeudeuk—!
Beside him, another length of the mandala cloth wrapped around the Mandala Rakshasa's fingertips.
As the five-colored patterns swirled and changed places on her finger, a green streak from among those colors shot out like a giant living finger and streaked up the slope of the ridge.
Chjujujujujuju, Kwajajak—!
The impact of the Vajras was to finish crushing the formation, and the Poisonous Hue of the Mandala Hue-Grasping Finger Art was intended to finish gathering the scattered dust and cover the ridge with poison at the same time.
The location both attacks were heading towards, naturally, overlapped exactly with where Dongmun Mutoe and Yan Bilyeong were standing.
And that wasn't all.
On the rear slope of the ridge, behind the two.
Thirty elite Rakshasa monks in blood-red kasayas were suddenly flying towards them like a blackish-red storm.
Papat-papat-papatpat—!
Each of the thirty held a curved saber in their hands, and they all kicked off the crest of the ridge, shooting towards the two.
"Ah, seriously!"
Just as Yan Bilyeong urgently drew her sword to swing it.
Dongmun Mutoe's fingers were poised, about to lift from the dirt.
Exactly at the same time.
The earth beneath the two cracked from the impact as the Vajra Rakshasa's aura soared up.
The Mandala's Poisonous Hue was closing in right before their noses.
Thirty curved sabers were being swung from a step behind the two.
In that very instant, just as all those attacks were about to reach the two in the blink of an eye.
Kwadeudeuk—!
A blood-red kasaya was split in two.
Ttaeng-geong—.
A curved saber, just like its owner, fell to the ground in two pieces, and its owner also split left and right and fell separately.
Another person next to him.
And another person next to that one.
Just like that, thirty Rakshasa monks in blood-red kasayas fell to the ground simultaneously.
Thirty people became thirty pairs, thirty curved sabers became thirty pairs, and the kasayas they wore also drastically increased to sixty pieces.
"…!"
Something else was happening beneath Dongmun Mutoe's and Yan Bilyeong's feet.
The aura that had shot up like a thunderbolt through the earth, cracked by the impact, died out just an inch from the tips of their feet, and the Mandala's Poisonous Hue evaporated on the spot, scattering into the air without a trace.
Chreureureureureung—.
A streak of a Sword's Cry belatedly flashed near the severed aura and Poisonous Hue.
Hwiryurururururu—.
With that, a fierce whirlwind raged over the ridge.
Two lines of dust were instantly drawn from the crest of the ridge to right behind the two people.
Just like that, one step behind the two.
A man wearing a robe with the large character for 'Enemy' embroidered on the back had appeared, as if he had been there from the beginning.
In his right hand was a jet-black sword.
Its tip was pointed towards the ground, dripping with warm, fresh blood.
Two or three steps behind that person was a peerless beauty with a cold face, dressed in the martial robes of Vast Heaven.
Chwaak, the man who flicked the blood off his sword in one go, Dong Bongsu, walked out past Dongmun Mutoe and Yan Bilyeong.
Then he lightly ruffled both their heads and stood at the edge of the slope, looking down.
"Quite a lot of guest bastards have flocked here, haven't they?"
Siiik—.
Tuk, he smiled as he dropped the head he was holding in his other hand, letting it roll down the ridge.
"So I even prepared a gift."
Degu-rururururu—.
The head soon reached the bottom of the slope, and only after it stopped was the identity of the 'gift' revealed.
The Scent Rakshasa.
"You'd better like it."
It was the severed head of the head of the Upper Four Rakshasas, who had left just a short while ago after receiving the Blood Rakshasa's order.
"Because if you don't, I'll give you more gifts. A lot, a whole lot more."