Watching the Blood Wars encircle them from the outer ring, White Banner and Wu Lian felt their scalps tingle. They swallowed hard and stiffly turned their heads to look at Lin Qian.
They had already witnessed firsthand how powerful these heavy-armored warriors with battle blades were. In one-on-one combat, their clansmen stood no chance.
Only a few talented individuals, like their captains who were slightly weaker than them, could fight these soldiers without falling into a disadvantage—and even then, only at the cost of severe injuries.
Initially, it had taken a great deal of effort to reduce the thousand Blood Wars to just four hundred. Even after the Formless Clan joined the fray, they had still lost over ten thousand of their own people, demonstrating just how terrifying the enemy's combat strength was.
Their weapons were sharp, their heavy armor impenetrable, and worst of all, the more they killed, the stronger they became.
While one thousand Blood Wars might have seemed like a small wave, a tough bone to chew through, that was only when compared to the thirty thousand troops from both the Swift Shadow Clan and the Formless Clan.
But when those monsters multiplied into thirty thousand, it became a nightmare.
The smile on the face of the human below faded as his golden eyes glinted with nothing but icy killing intent when he looked up at them.
"Kill!"
Lin Qian's chilling command echoed through the air. The thirty thousand Blood Wars immediately raised their battle blades, their roars shaking the entire fortress.
"Huaxia! Unbreakable!"
In the next instant, the bloodthirsty warriors, clad in heavy armor, charged toward the Swift Shadow Clan and Formless Clan, brandishing their blades.
If one thousand against ten thousand had already left the enemy battered and bloodied, struggling to cope...
What would thirty thousand against thirty thousand look like?
In Yuan Xiang's eyes, it was nothing short of a massacre.
The once well-coordinated partnership between the Swift Shadow Clan and the Formless Clan now seemed laughable in the face of overwhelming power.
Even the Formless Clan members who had taken over the resilient bodies of the Greenstone Clan found themselves helpless against the fully empowered Blood Wars, getting sliced apart as they tried to engage. The Blood Wars dominated the battlefield, working together seamlessly, as if they had eyes in the back of their heads.
Every time one Blood War knocked an enemy back, another would be ready to deliver the finishing blow.
The battlefield was filled with such precise and deadly coordination, making it seem as though the Blood Wars could see every detail of the chaotic battle. Even enemies they couldn't physically see were somehow met with a swift, deadly strike.
Suddenly, Yuan Xiang realized something and turned sharply to look at Lin Qian.
At that exact moment, Lin Qian also glanced at him, his golden eyes sparkling with a knowing smile.
"It's him!" Yuan Xiang thought, feeling a shiver of fear run through him. The realization that Lin Qian had turned his black eyes into golden ones confirmed Yuan Xiang's suspicion.
Lin Qian was overseeing the entire battlefield, guiding his forces with an unimaginable method.
This was the power of Emperor's Gaze.
It was a soul skill Lin Qian had recently mastered, enhanced by his powerful soul energy, combined with the command techniques he had learned from his past life's gaming experiences, and further refined with Zhuge Ming's tactical support.
In his previous life, virtual war games were controlled through a brainwave interface using virtual reality helmets. Players could direct entire armies with just a thought, perfectly synchronizing their tactics with their strategic vision.
Lin Qian's talent for analyzing entire battlefields while paying attention to every small detail allowed him to make precise adjustments in real-time.
This exceptional micromanagement skill had always been one of the reasons for his dominance in the game world, where strategy and skill could easily outshine wealth. Even the wealthiest players often found themselves outmatched by skilled strategists.
Now, with his powerful soul and the assistance of the Heavenly Engineering Division, Lin Qian's soul sense could cover the entire battlefield, allowing him to view the fight through the eyes of any of his soldiers.
With Emperor's Gaze active, the entire battlefield was within Lin Qian's grasp.
Using the micromanagement techniques from his past life, Lin Qian was able to minimize his losses while making his enemies pay the highest possible price.
As the fear of death spread through the Swift Shadow Clan and Formless Clan, they began to flee, trying to escape the fortress.
But they had forgotten about the four-sided barrier that had been erected earlier. Lin Qian wasn't in any hurry to send his Blood Wars after them, knowing they would soon crash into the invisible barrier, leaving them dazed and disoriented.
Only then would the Blood Wars step in to finish them off.
In this state, the Swift Shadow Clan and Formless Clan members were nothing more than lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
White Banner and Wu Lian screamed orders for their people to remain calm, urging them to gather together and focus their attacks on the barrier.
After all, how strong could a hastily erected formation be?
What they didn't know was that while the thousand Blood Wars had fought earlier, the nine Wind Runners who had left had been busy setting up the Four-Walled Prison Array with metal formation diagrams provided by the Heavenly Engineering Division. Testing the Blood Wars' bloodthirst ability was one goal, but another was to buy time for the array to be completed.
The success of the Four-Walled Prison Array was significant.
If White Banner and Wu Lian had alerted the rest of the Swift Shadow Clan and Formless Clan forces on the battlefield, the array would serve as a defense, giving Lin Qian more time to prepare.
But since they hadn't, the array now functioned as a prison, trapping them inside with no way to escape or communicate with the outside world.
In the end, they would be wiped out by Lin Qian, leaving him with plenty of time to prepare for an all-out war against the Swift Shadow Clan and Formless Clan in this small world.
A total war.
Yuan Xiang watched as the number of Swift Shadow Clan and Formless Clan members dwindled, unsure of what to say.
What had seemed like a hopeless situation had suddenly turned in their favor.
Yuan Xiang had been prepared for the worst: abandoning the Soul Martial Continent's human race entirely to save Lin Qian.
Or, at best, Lin Qian would have to endure the human trial path, leaving a mark on the world's heart to secure the stronghold's gate.
But Lin Qian had shown him a third option—one Yuan Xiang had never considered.
Killing.
Eradicating every last member of the Swift Shadow Clan and Formless Clan in this small world, fully securing it under his control.
"When facing enemies, either you extract every last ounce of value from them before killing them, or you eliminate them swiftly and cleanly," Lin Qian remarked as he watched the Swift Shadow Clan and Formless Clan members fall one by one, without a trace of pity in his golden eyes. "War is cruel. To ensure that my fellow humans never end up like this, I must wield the butcher's knife against these ambitious invaders."