Chapter 1882: The Power of the Ifrit! (I)
Translated by: Hypersheep325
Edited by: Michyrr
Bang!
A burning ball of lava howled through the air. Watched by countless eyes, the terrifying horned monster with golden eyes strode forward and entered the battlefield.
It moved at an incredible pace, each step covering several hundred feet, and everywhere it went, it left flames and lava.
And this Ifrit was constantly absorbing energy from the air, and its body was getting larger and larger.
“Damn! Wh-what a frightening thing!”
Let alone the Tang, even Adnan, who was famed for his madness, felt like there was a dagger at his back and became uneasy. After all, the monster was headed in his direction.
Abu Muslim was also shaken, casting aside Gao Xianzhi and moving to the side in order to avoid this monster.
Neigh!
These trained warhorses had sharper senses than humans, and the Arabs were on the verge of losing their formation as their mounts whinnied in fright. Strange shrieks came from the skies. The giant birds and the other birds had already sensed danger, and before the monster of flames could get close, they had already scattered.
“King of Foreign Lands!”
An anxious shout cut through the howling winds and churning dust. Wang Zhongsi, Zhangchou Jianqiong, An Sishun, and Gao Xianzhi all looked up at the sky and began to retreat.
Even Abusi and his twenty thousand Tongluo Cavalry couldn’t help but look away from their battle on the steppe with the enemy army and glance at the Ifrit.
And their opponents seemed to not be in the mood to use this opportunity to strike against Wang Zhongsi and the others.
The appearance of the World-Destroying Ifrit had completely altered the battlefield. An energy of pure destruction and brutality swept over the world, causing people to instinctively tremble in fear, even its ‘allies’.
On the Great Tang side, the five other major leaders all turned to Wang Chong.
All of them felt an intense danger on the wind. The Arabs had summoned their ultimate trump card, and this monster was undoubtedly even more savage than it appeared. The situation was dire for the Great Tang.
Everyone was waiting for Wang Chong’s decision.
Wang Chong’s face slowly turned grave.
“Giant ballistae, change directions!
“Ballistae, consecutive fire!
“Front line, withdraw!
“Craftsman team, repair the steel walls!”
Wang Chong did not spend too much time ruminating in silence, and he began to issue a string of orders.
There was no retreat for the Great Tang!
Behind them was an unobstructed road leading all the way to Longxi and the capital!
If they could not hold Arabia back at the northwest, then without the steel walls and fighting on flat land, infantry were no match for cavalry. Giving up here meant that the millions of Arab soldiers wouldn’t even need the Behemoths and the Ifrit to sweep over the six hundred thousand Tang soldiers.
Bang!
Gears creaked and groaned as the ballistae and giant ballistae turned around. Ten-some giant ballista bolts and three to four thousand ballista bolts formed a probing salvo that hurtled toward the now hundred-some-meter-tall Ifrit.
In this chaotic battlefield, the Ifrit’s massive body served as the best target for the ballistae!
Plush! Plush! Plush! Lava splattered as the giant ballista and regular ballista bolts sunk into the Ifrit’s body.
On the vast battleground, Wang Chong, Wang Zhongsi, Gao Xianzhi, and countless others stared at that massive being made of fire, but then a frightening development occurred.
Those three-thousand-some sharp ballista bolts seemed to evaporate into steam, not even causing a ripple on the surface of the Ifrit’s body. As for the ten-some giant ballista bolts that could kill Behemoths, three of them shot out of the Ifrit’s back, but otherwise, they seemed to have no effect.
It seemed that the Ifrit did not have a physical body, and so physical attacks could not injure it!
Hiss!
Su Hanshan gasped, his face paling. Zhangchou Jianqiong, Gao Xianzhi, and An Sishun scowled.
The ballistae and giant ballistae were the Great Tang’s most powerful tools, weapons that instilled fear in the hearts of the Arabs.
But these two were entirely ineffective, meaning that the Great Tang had lost its best weapons!
Even more frightening was that if the Ifrit had no physical body, it meant that many other methods were also useless against it.
Everyone suddenly understood why Khatabah had left this monster for the very end to serve as the ultimate trump card.
Everyone felt a deep chill in their hearts.
Roooar!
As the first probing attack concluded, the soldiers at the front line began to retreat, with some soldiers remaining to hold the rear. At this moment, a furious roar brimming with a desire to destroy resounded through the world, and the earth shuddered.
In the center of the Arab army, the terrifying Ifrit raised its head, opened its maw, and spewed out frightening crimson flames into the sky.
“Not good! Hurry and retreat!”
Wang Chong’s eyes widened as he sensed an immense danger, and he immediately pressed his body against his horse and charged toward the front line.
But while Wang Chong had reacted quickly, he was still too slow.
Despite the increased vigilance and various speculations about the Ifrit’s power, they were all vastly underestimating its might.
Bang!
The scorching flame arced through the sky like a giant bridge and then rapidly plunged into the retreating Tang army.
Rumble! The earth shuddered under the astonishing might of the Ifrit’s attack.
A pool of lava rapidly expanded in the middle of the Tang army, and hundreds of armored Tang soldiers were instantly engulfed without even having time to scream.
The retreating Tang army was cut in two.
The lava rapidly expanded into a raging torrent that continued to sweep over the surrounding Tang soldiers.
“Aaaah!”
Screams tore through the air as thousands of soldiers failed to escape in time and were swallowed up by the lava, their bodies igniting into flames and burning to ash.
The lava was simply moving too quickly, and the battlefield was too densely packed for there to be enough time and space to run.
“Run!”
The eyes of the Tang generals went red.
The situation had changed too abruptly. In just a few short moments, at least three thousand Tang soldiers had been lost to the high-temperature flames, and the losses were continuing to climb.
But what was most frightening of all was this…
Roooar!
The World-Destroying Ifrit continued to spew out lava, and at the last moment, everyone could only stare in shock as the Ifrit opened its massive maw and ‘spewed’ its entire body, transforming into a stream of lava flying toward the middle of the Tang army.
“Not good!”
Wang Zhongsi and the others immediately sensed something and rushed toward the area.
Roooar!
A moment later, as everyone stared in disbelief, in the center of the Tang army, a massive claw emerged from that torrent of lava and reached toward the sky.
With a massive boom, the terrifying form of the Ifrit rose up in the middle of the Tang army.
Through this method of rapid movement, it had cut off the retreat of the Tang army.
Boom! The savage Ifrit raised an arm made of lava and flames and swiped. On the ground, several hundred cavalry from the southwest in the middle of retreating instantly vanished amidst the flames, their screams still echoing through the air.
Meanwhile, those steel walls that had been reinforced through countless inscriptions and formations rapidly melted under the monstrous heat radiating from the Ifrit.
Fwoosh! The Ifrit opened its mouth and spewed out another gout of lava, instantly vaporizing several hundred Tang soldiers. In fact, just by moving around, without the application of any special ability, the Ifrit caused the losses of the Tang army to skyrocket.
In front of this world-destroying creature that had destroyed an entire civilization, the strength of mortal armies was insignificant.
For the Ifrit, even the most elite of soldiers were still puny ants.
Thwishthwishthwish!
At this crucial moment, the master archer unit under Chen Burang loosed a volley of arrows that whistled through the air toward the Ifrit’s golden eyes.
The Ifrit’s entire body was covered in flames, so attacking it would be completely ineffective. Chen Burang determined that its two eyes were its only possible weakness.
But Chen Burang had overestimated himself and his master archers while underestimating the Ifrit’s strength.
The intense flames around the Ifrit’s body constantly revolved around it at high speeds. When that volley of arrows was still two to three hundred feet away, they were melted into slag by the extreme heat.
Upon seeing this, Chen Burang felt his heart freeze, but this was only the beginning. Sensing the attacks from the master archers, the Ifrit turned around and swung a massive fist. A gout of dark flame turned into a stream of lava that immediately hurtled toward Chen Burang and his master archers.
The faces of Chen Burang and his master archers instantly turned ghastly white.
A casual punch from the Ifrit had a temperature in the tens of thousands of degrees, perhaps even a hundred thousand degrees. This high temperature could even burn away space, let alone their fleshly bodies.
This one strike was certain to kill them all.
Bang!
Just when Chen Burang and the master archers were all about to die, a slender figure appeared in the sky.
The stream of lava was pulled upon by an invisible force, swerving in a massive arc and crashing down elsewhere.