Chapter 450: Battle starts

Outside the Old Pouch, everything was conquered by darkness just like usual, the air was stagnant, and it felt like nothing more than a small vacuum pocket.

The space and the air itself had the same cold, and frozen feeling to it, like nothing, had changed, in fact, that wasn't totally true, the air had changed.

Right now, it seemed to be colder, and like it carried some malicious intent to it. The pressure was definitely stronger than the previous times.

There was no sound, not even leaves falling, everything seemed to be just too calm, and unmoving, it felt like time itself had stopped right then and there.

Even though it was a single moment, a single instant it felt like more than an hour or something had passed by.

But most of that feeling disappeared in the next instant, as slowly a small bubble of light started coming into existence.

At first, it was like a wall, and the next moment light spread, fighting all the remaining darkness and driving it away.

But the light wasn't the only one that spread through space though, as it was accompanied by numerous amount of whooshing sounds.

While most of the disciples were already used to this sudden change, there were new faces among them who even though were already warned of this, weren't able to adapt quickly.

But that was a grave mistake though as the next moment a lot of tree vines came in their direction, looking to decapitate them.

If they were all alone in there perhaps their life would have been forfeited right there and then, but that wasn't the case as they were an army.

Without losing time, their fellow disciples, their comrades came to their help by parring of those vines, while others jumped forwards and took care of them in a swift manner.

That was the sparkle that started the fire, as the next moment, everything seemed to explode not only inside the bubble but even outside, as the trees started attacking the light bubble with all they had.

Crackling sounds were heard all over the place, as the trees inside the bubble were being cut down like simple wood trees.

There didn't seem to be any kind of resistance as in not time almost all the trees inside the formation area were taken down without trouble.

This wipeout helped the situation inside the bubble calm down, as all the new faces surpassed their initial shock of the situation.

With that out of the way, they could finally return to their duties. The 3000-army got into formation, while the rest immediately set up the base.

Under the orders of Tianlong Hu Die, the base was set up in no time, and everyone was in their needed positions.

The base camp that Tianlong Yun had decided to set up was made up of 631 disciples, including Tianlong Hu Die, the 4 maids, and a few members of the Shadow Hall.

The real number of people that would set up the formation was only 500, separated into two groups of 250, while 100 would be guarding them.

The remaining 31 were people with higher abilities, and capabilities, which was as an emergency team for both fronts.

With the base set up, the 3000-army could finally get totally completed, as they immediately separated in their own teams and areas.

This time they were going to fight together, but at the same time would compete with each other. Tianlong Yun had mixed the teams together while keeping their form.

What he had done was that he had selected 15 members from each team to create the formation setting battalion with 1500 disciples, divided into two groups of 750.

Then he had selected 5 more members from each team in order to create a 500 disciples strong guarding army.

Like the rest of them, the left 1000 disciples were the attacking force, these guys had the duty to take down as many of those trees as they could.

Of course, in order to be relentless in their attacks even, these guys were divided into two groups, as they would interchange with each other when the first group was tired.

Each team would earn points from their front group and already had an additional 45 points for team, as they were also made aware of the pills and potions that could help them during the fight.

They were all given a few different bottles of pellets which had the effects written on them, together with their contribution points price.

They could take as many as they wanted from them, but they would have to return them at the end and pay for the ones that they had used.

Tianlong Yun could have given those for free, but that way they wouldn't appreciate the pills as they should, and could use them before they were truly needed.

For that reason, with the exception of a 'Heart Cleansing Pill' that everyone was allowed to take for free, the rest all had their price.

Without losing much time, Tianlong Yun immediately gave the sign for the operation to start, as they would firstly expand their radius.

The moment they heard the marching signal, the disciples immediately ran forwards, as the front started making a path through the trees, while the formation guys took positions forwards protected by the guards.

They didn't immediately spread in all directions, as that way they would thin out too much, and their casualties wouldn't be low either.

Instead of that, they were attacking in a hedge formation. At first, they would form a triangular formation, and attack in a point not far away from the base, as they would extend the formation to there.

The moment the formation was extended to there, they would continue spreading in one direction, with small steps.

They would set up a formation extension every 10 steps, as they were steadily clearing the way, and adding their contribution points.

Their opponents weren't only the weak trees, as there were a lot of bigger ones too, in fact in order to be clearer about them, Tianlong Yun decided to separate them on levels.

The weak ones were clearly level 1 trees, as the bigger ones were level 2, he didn't know if his next opponent was just a higher level 3 or something else but he wasn't far from discovering it.

It had been a while now since the moment he felt like something or someone was watching over the massacre happening in there.

Whatever it was it had a huge pressure building up, and it looked like even the disciples had started to feel it.

Still, there seemed to be something that was keeping that mysterious opponent from acting, and that was most probably his presence.

He didn't know why but the last time before he entered the Old Pouch he felt like he had been marked, and the moment he came out he would alert its marker.

For that reason, he had also gotten to the outside after the formation had been set up, as he was trying to check if the formation truly blocked that thing from tracking him.

If the formation had been too weak to do something like that, then most probably their battle was lost even before it started.

Their whole strategy was based on the hit and run tactics in order to deal with the mysterious enemy, especially when they knew nothing about it.

If they weren't safe inside the formation after their hit had failed, then all their plans and their whole strategy were nothing more than a big fluke.

Apparently, their luck was good though, and the barrier was able to protect them from its senses at least, as they would have to wait and see if it would be able to stop its attacks.

But now wasn't the time for the big fight to start, as they still had to take care of their expansion, the circle was only 30% developed.

At this moment the front line seemed to have gotten tired, and Tianlong Yun immediately gave the order for interchange, and in less than a minute every single one of them had changed places.

What seemed to be a dying battle once again returned to a full-fledged one as the new disciples were eager to prove themselves, and compete with their fellow disciples.

Each and every one of them was doing all they could in order to earn as many points and merits as they could.

This was a rare opportunity where every point and reward was doubled, so they wouldn't forgive themselves if they missed such an opportunity.

So even though the trees were increasing their intensity as they were just like zombies hunting after them, without any ability to strategize, and only defeat with numbers, their progress was still amazing.

When the second group was showing any signs of tiredness and weakness more than 62% of the area that Tianlong Yun wanted to expand had already been covered.

Satisfied with their progress Tianlong Yun immediately gave the order to change once again, as the first group that had already returned to top shape took the stage once again.

Just like the second group even they took their places quickly and started attacking forward like hungry wolves.

Everything in their path was crushed to pieces, and not even one 'herb root' was able to escape their grasp.

If they continued like this, they only needed two more shifts at most and they would be ready to fight the big guy.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly and perfectly for them, as their confidence and chances were increasing rapidly, but Tianlong Yun didn't seem happy in the least!