Light.
That beam of light was like a spear thrown by a god.
It swept across the forest.
A tribesman wearing a ghost mask suddenly saw smoke rising from his beast-hide clothing.
Before he could react—
Poof!
A flame burst out from his back.
The white powder on his body became perfect fuel.
“AAAAHHH!!”
A scream tore through the night sky.
The light beam did not stop.
It moved to the next target.
Poof!
A second human torch ignited.
A third.
A fourth.
The so-called “ghosts” in the forest instantly became the most visible targets in the night.
They screamed and rolled on the ground, trying to extinguish the fire clinging to their bodies like a parasite.
But it was useless.
At that moment—
A voice came from the massive steel beast on the sea.
Amplified through a strange bronze loudspeaker, it overwhelmed all screams.
It was Ying Ziye’s voice.
Childlike, yet clearly heard by everyone.
“Uncle Meng.”
“Stop hesitating.”
Meng Tian on the battlefield snapped back to his senses.
The voice from the sea paused briefly.
Then continued again.
“Physically transcend them.”
Meng Tian looked toward the direction of the giant ship.
The scar on his face twisted into a ferocious grin.
“Hahah… HAHAHAHA!”
He did not immediately order a charge.
The Qin elite soldiers around him were already furious and eager, waiting for his command.
Instead, Meng Tian turned around and roared toward the reserve forces behind him.
“Did you hear the Ninth Prince’s divine decree?!”
“What are you waiting for!”
“Bring out the South-Namo Gatling Bodhisattva!!”
“Yes!!”
The soldiers roared in unison.
They pushed forward ten strange war machines, each tightly wrapped in black cloth, to the front lines.
Meng Tian stepped forward.
With a whoosh, he ripped off the cloth covering one of them.
Its true form was revealed.
It was a monster forged from steel and hardwood.
At its front was not a bow arm, but six rotating bolt-magazines arranged like a honeycomb.
At the rear was a massive metal crank requiring two men to operate.
Its pitch-black firing ports looked like the eyes of death.
The surviving tribesmen stared blankly at this unknown object.
Even Xu Fu atop the mountain shrine could not understand what it was.
He only felt impending doom, his body turning cold.
“Rotary crossbow units, prepare!”
Meng Tian drew his saber, pointing it at the illuminated forest.
“Target—the bright area ahead!”
“Give me—”
He roared with all his strength.
“FIRE!!”
The order was given.
The Qin soldiers beside the ten crossbow machines immediately began frantically turning the cranks.
Clack-clack-clack-clack—
The harsh sound of machinery filled the air.
VMMMM—
The air trembled.
And then—
The storm descended.
Not water.
Arrows.
Black arrows carrying the howl of death.
In an instant, thousands of crossbow bolts formed a steel cloud.
They tore through the air with piercing screams.
Covering every inch of land illuminated by the beam of light.
In the forest—
A “demon” who had just extinguished the flames on his body looked up.
What he saw was a sky full of enlarging black iron spikes.
He did not even have time to make a sound.
Puff-puff-puff-puff-puff!
His body was pierced by at least twenty bolts in an instant.
He was sent flying backward like a torn blood-filled sack.
And this was only the beginning.
The “ghosts” in the front row vanished the moment they came into contact with the arrow rain.
Not fell.
They were directly blasted into a rain of blood, flesh, and shattered pieces scattering across the air.
The “ghosts” behind them went completely insane.
They threw away their masks and screamed while fleeing backward.
But how could their legs outrun flying arrows?
One tribesman had both legs pierced by three arrows at once and collapsed to the ground.
Before he could even scream—
More arrows rained down, pinning him firmly to the earth as his body twitched uncontrollably.
Another tried to climb a tree.
He had just grabbed the trunk when the arrow storm arrived.
He, along with the tree he was hugging, was turned into a porcupine of arrows.
So-called “invulnerable bodies.”
So-called “demonic forms.”
Before this metal storm of overwhelming force, they were as fragile as paper.
This was not a battle.
This was clearing.
An industrial-era crushing of a primitive tribe.
Less than the time it takes an incense stick to burn.
The arrow rain stopped.
The sound of cranking mechanisms also ceased.
The forest fell into deathly silence.
The blinding beam of light was still there.
Under the beam, there was not a single living thing standing.
The ground was covered in a thick layer of remains—
severed limbs, broken arms, shattered organs, and unrecognizable chunks of flesh pierced with arrows.
Rivers of crimson blood flowed across the land, dyeing the entire ground red.
The air was filled only with a nauseating stench of blood.
……
On the mountain peak, at the Temple of the Heavenly King.
Clack.
The broken crystal tube in Xu Fu’s hand fell to the ground.
Through the crack in the door, he had witnessed the massacre with his own eyes.
He saw his final trump card—the three thousand “undying demon ghosts”—
turned into a field of minced flesh in just a few breaths.
That was not human power.
That was the hand of gods and demons.
“No… impossible…”
His lips trembled, his face pale as paper.
“This script is wrong… wrong…”
His legs gave way.
Thud.
He collapsed to the ground.
A warm liquid rapidly spread down his legs.
A foul stench filled the luxurious hall.
He had urinated himself.
……
At the edge of the forest.
The tribesmen who had luckily not entered the arrow kill-zone stared blankly at that hellish battlefield.
Then they looked at the black giant ship offshore, still intact, still radiating its “sun-like” light.
Fear.
An extreme, overwhelming fear shattered all their understanding.
Thud!
One tribesman dropped his stone axe.
He fell to his knees facing the giant ship and began frantically kowtowing.
One, two, ten, a hundred…
All surviving tribesmen knelt down.
They smashed their foreheads until they bled, emitting incomprehensible cries filled with reverence and desperation.
In their eyes—
The eight-year-old child standing at the bow of the ship, the one who could summon the sun and unleash iron rain…
was the true…
God.
……
On the deck of the Zulong Hao.
Ying Ziye put away the bronze loudspeaker and picked up a piece of osmanthus cake.
Beside him, Ying Zheng stood with hands behind his back, gazing at the completely cleared battlefield.
After a long moment, he finally spoke.
His voice carried a rare trace of emotion.
“Ziye.”
“If such weapons had existed ten years earlier…”
He turned to look at his son.
“Would I have needed ten years to conquer the Six Kingdoms?”
Ying Ziye swallowed the cake and grinned.
“Father, from now on, there will only be more of these good things.”
At that moment—
A voice only he could hear echoed in his mind.
【Detection: Host has used absolute technological superiority to completely shatter superstition-based schemes, greatly enhancing the prestige of Great Qin!】
【Great Qin national fortune surges!】
【Critical fortune reward: Legendary item—Basic Geological Survey Map (entire Wa Island region, automatically marked major silver and copper deposits)!】
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