47 The hatred of the warriors
*squeak* *squeak* A small brown-furred rat, dirty from both soil and dark red blood, agonizes almost silently on top of a table since the small rodent doesn't move its body even a bit, as if even the slightest movement were an impossible task to be done amidst the agonizing pain.
In front of the rat, experiencing a painful and agonizing death on a cold table, stands a young man with a pair of blue eyes who, faced with what is happening before him, only exudes complete coldness and indifference as if the rat's death meant nothing to him or had nothing to do with him.
"Not even lived thirty seconds... I wonder what it would be like for a Rank 3 Gu Master." Chen Wei murmurs calmly while inspecting the body of the dead rat, paying close attention to its chest, which has a small cut made by Chen Wei.
"This was the effect of the Rank 1 version of this Gu... from all indications, it's single-use... and I don't imagine that will change at Rank 2." Chen Wei takes the heart out of the rat's chest and delicately evaluates it with surgical precision that could impress other Gu Masters who also do experiments.
"I imagine I don't even have a good way to deal with this..." In the midst of the rat's heart, there's a small Gu worm that appears as a parasite full of long tentacles that coiled and pierced the rat's heart, sucking almost all the blood passing through it to heart as food for the Gu, which now that the rat has died also has its lifespan counted.
"The Gu seems quite malnourished... probably because of the little and poor quality blood this rat has." He compares the Rank 1 Gu within the rat's heart to the one he has stored in his aperture, which is Rank 2, and compared to the rat's heart, it seems much larger and stronger in vitality.
"Well, in theory, if it has enough blood to drink, it should reach the top of Rank 1..." Chen Wei takes the Gu in his hands and squeezes it hard, causing the Gu to die in just a moment as if it were just a common insect, which is not surprising since the same could happen even with an Immortal Gu.
"You will soon realize the mistake of letting your blood fall into the hands of a Blood Path cultivator..." these words that come out of Chen Wei's mouth as he observes the Gu in his aperture are not without reason, as for the refinement of this Gu to be successful, it's necessary to use the target's blood in the refinement.
Besides, the Gu also needs to be inserted into the heart through a cut in the body, preferably in the chest where it would be easier for the Gu to find its way to the heart and do its job with dedication since for it, this is like a feast.
"This Gu has an effect that reminds me of the Woman's Heart Gu... since its refinement and nurturing occur together... hmm let's call it Heart Parasite." Chen Wei declares as he looks at the main Gu in his plan against Piercer of the Heavens.
Certainly, despite being the main Gu for him in his future plan, this is not the strongest Gu that Chen Wei has. Just recently, in the first two months of the new year, he advanced two of his Gu to Rank 3, these being the BloodDuke Armor Gu and BloodSlaughter Cut.
With the latter of these taking two attempts since unfortunately, he had a failure in the last phase, but fortunately, as it was his vital Gu, it wasn't destroyed, which would not being a problem for Chen Wei who has plenty of wealth and Blood Path Gu tend to be quite cheap for refinement so he could fail dozens of times without any problem with resource spending.
Other than that, he had no problems because as the refinement process of the BloodSlaughter Cut is extremely similar to that of the BloodDuke Armor with the only differences being that the blood used was from beasts recognized for their strong attacks and sharp fangs and like the Gu that were used as assistants in refining apart from the Blood Drop Gu were all different.
"Well, I still have three and a half months before having to enter the battlefield... hmm this would be a good time to expand my arsenal of gu and to try to refine another Rank 3 Gu if lucky." Chen Wei thinks as he starts his experiments again on the effects, qualities, and disadvantages of the Heart Parasite as well as trying to use his inspirations in the use of this Gu for possible new Gu.
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*Months later*
"Lord Elder, the frontline scouts have informed us about the He An clan's troop assembly for a possible major advance against our frontline." A Gu Master wearing a white combat robe enters a hall and announces as he bows respectfully before giving information path gu to the Elder to whom he came to report.
"Hmm... the He An clan is indeed at a higher level than others in terms of combat strength." Piercer of the Heavens says with a grim expression as he analyzes the information contained in the Gu handed to him.
"If only we had managed to take full advantage of the opportunity we had... but here we are again in a static war being slowly pressed by the enemy." He speaks with anger on his face as he uses an information path Gu to send orders to his subordinates to reinforce the defenses as well as to notify the clan's future needs for reinforcements if possible.
"And in the end, what did we achieve only great casualties for Pyrrhic victories that left us with a complicated frontline to defend?" the Gu Master who came to give the information path Gu to Piercer of the Heavens hears him speaking with great anger as he slams his hand on the table.
He himself has similar opinions to those of the Elder but would never dare to say them out loud like him, much less do so while cursing the incompetence of the clan, which could make a mere Rank 2 Gu Master like him be brought to court-martial for insubordination and betrayal to the clan if it reached the ears of his superiors.
*sigh* "Anyway... do you have information from the clan about the advances of the potential new elders?" He asks while trying to calm his spirits, which become irritated when he thinks about the deplorable state of the Feng Zhi and Xiong Mao clans in this war.
"Yes, Lord Elder! We've had some breakthroughs in small realms but no breakthroughs to Rank 3 except for the last two which are common knowledge in the clan." the Gu Master says directly and disciplined as expected of him before handing over to Piercer of the Heavens a Gu with more detailed information about who made advances and when, which is only available to elders and those responsible for distributing information on the frontline.
"Not a single new Rank 3 to help on the frontline... the He An clan has already had five entering the frontline, in fact, counting this one, it's six more than our other two clans combined... at this rate, we'll end up going to the abyss of destruction under the pressure of our enemies!" Piercer of the Heavens speaks with a worried expression on his face as he sees the future prospects of his clan seem increasingly worse.
His conclusion that the He An clan would have a new clan elder to enter the battlefield doesn't come from another source or is an bad assumption of his, it's just the logical conclusion that anyone fighting on the battlefield would reach after seeing the size of the offensive being prepared.
Since offensives of this scale at this point in the war need to be led by an elder of Rank 3 since logically, this type of offensive would focus on large enemy bases like the one he's in and all bases of this size are guarded by at least one Rank 3 elder who is ready for combat at any time.
And since at this point all the elders from all sides, even the recently advanced ones, have made themselves known and as the war is in a phase of static frontlines with all the Rank 3s of the three clans on the frontlines being in charge of a place of defense or attack, the fact that a new attack is being made without him receiving the information from an enemy elder leaving his post or from a wounded elder returning from rest the first alternative that came to his mind, of course, a new elder.
"Well, you can withdraw and g-" but before he could finish giving his order to the Gu Master responsible for passing on information, the door to the hall opens quickly as another Gu Master enters and bows quickly before him.
"Dear Elder, sorry to interrupt your meeting but new information from the frontline has arrived... the elder responsible for this attack is He An Chen Wei who has recently had his official advancement to elder." while still bowing before Piercer of the Heavens, he quickly hands over an information path Gu.
"Chen Wei... ah, Chen Ming's seems like your little brother wants to come after me... I'll love to make sure he finds you at the Door of Life and Death... but before that, I'll make him suffer a lot!" Piercer of the Heavens has a hateful expression and a cruel smile on his face as he declares these words amidst murmurs.
Although he achieved his revenge against Chen Ming after killing him, the price he paid was extremely high with him now having fallen to the initial stage of Rank 3 and with his talent also having fallen to now be that of a B grade and the worst part is that he couldn't fulfill his wish to get Chen Ming's dead body so he could put his head on a stake as he had promised himself.
But now that Chen Wei is coming to him, this seems like an opportunity sent from the heavens for him to achieve an even greater revenge and to get rid of the grievances and frustrations he has in his heart.
So without even losing a bit of time, he dismisses the two Gu Masters who brought the information to him while personally checking the preparations being made by his subordinates with the greatest excitement that only someone who wants to see the death of his enemy as he can have.
Fortunately for his will, not long after they had finished most of the defensive arrangements, he was alerted to Chen Wei's arrival.
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*Chen Wei's POV*
"Hmm... it seems they've already finished most of the preparations... what a pity." Chen Wei speaks calmly as he observes from a distance a large fortified base of the Feng Zhi clan.
He is now leading a large attack group that was assigned to him after he demonstrated his combat strength particularly to the elders and leader of the clan as well as presented the plan to kill Piercer of the Heavens in this attack.
"Well, leader, it would be strange if they didn't notice the movement of such a large army and didn't prepare." Huang Be, who is by his side acting as his right hand, gives his sincere opinion as always.
"Yes, but a man can dream, right?" Chen Wei speaks calmly without much formality since despite being an elder now, he is already a old teammate of Huang Be.
In fact, it's not only Huang Be who follows him on this attack but all the old members of his team are in the midst of the crowd of Gu Masters, except for Chen Ming and Zen Fu, who both died in the attack on Piercer of the Heavens.
"Well, let's get things started, shall we?" Chen Wei speaks with a calm tone that would make people even question if he knows he's going into battle.
But his next actions would prove that he knows very well what to do when he extends a hand from which small drops of blood fall before quickly transforming into a large spear made entirely of dark red blood.
He An Ma Fei, one of Chen Wei's subordinates since they were both in the clan academy, looks with admiration at the strength of an elder who was once one of his classmates.
But before he could continue admiring Chen Wei's strength, he throws the spear towards the enemy stronghold at a speed that is almost impossible to catch with the naked eye.
So in the time it takes for a person to blink, the spear thrown by Chen Wei is stuck to a wall of the stronghold and along with the spear, a Gu Master from the Feng Zhi clan who was impaled in his stomach.
"Argh... quickly Healers... help!!" The impaled Rank 2 Gu Master has a shocked expression in his eyes as he looks at the spear that broke through his defense as if it were as soft as butter but as a veteran of the frontlines, this is not the first time he has suffered such a serious injury, so at least he maintains the composure that a rookie could never achieve.
"Damn... quick you bas-!... argh.... arrg.... ahhhhh!!!" But soon in just a few moments, the Gu Master who maintained composure even though he was impaled begins to scream desperately as if he were undergoing great torture while he starts to unsuccessfully to try remove the spear from his stomach while tears flow from his eyes as if they were endless.
"Arghhh!!!.....ahhhhh..ah.....a.." In a few more moments, his screams that filled the stronghold ended as the lifeless body stopped moving, giving a frightening image mainly because of his veins that are all visible while they seem to be filled with a black blood that is now dripping from his eyes, nose, and mouth and from the wound in the Gu Master's stomach.
But far from all this happening, but also the person responsible for it, Chen Wei, doesn't give the slightest importance to the Gu Master who died but has his eyes focused on just one person who also has his eyes on Chen Wei. This person, of course, is Piercer of the Heavens, who learned of his attack because of the commotion he caused.
Thus, hundreds of meters away, two men who are widely recognized by everyone on Longhua Shan Mountain and who will decide the fate of this battle look at each other, both with the deepest hatred in their eyes.
