Chapter 286: Yundian Domain vs. Dajin Kingdom, First Battle Begins!

Perhaps, in these chaotic times, the Great Jin Empire was already formidable enough.

As a lineage of martial families, warriors—once dismissed as mere mortals by the cultivation sects—had carved out a vast and powerful nation in a world teeming with supreme entities, forcing the realm's cultivators to acknowledge their sovereignty and even establishing a symbiotic coexistence with alliances like the Wuwei Daoist League. In eras long past, this was a reality many warriors would never have dared to imagine!

The ancestors who achieved this feat alone deserved to be immortalized in the annals of history!

Yet, to the Upper Domain of Yundian, they remained entirely too callow.

It was the eternal truth: the lagging are destined to be beaten.

Natural fortresses meant nothing to these cultivators of the Yundian Domain. Tianlang Pass, once a precipitous stronghold where a single man could hold off ten thousand, now possessed surrounding sheer cliffs that seemed like child's play.

The fleet of flying vessels in the sky carried the aloof cultivators of the Upper Domain of Yundian, looking down from above. The arrows shot by the defending soldiers struck the spiritual barriers of the vessels, posing absolutely no threat to them.

Only the siege crossbows could slightly suppress the arrogance of the flying vessels in the sky, but all too soon, the brilliance of the bolts was obliterated by spells, vanishing like shooting stars in the night sky.

Upon the black cliffs, a commander clad in black armor raised his arms and roared, leading the remaining warriors in a desperate, screaming plunge from the precipices on either side onto the flying vessels, only to fall one by one in despair amidst the destructive spiritual light.

Woven from blood and fire, this was, from the very beginning, an unequal war!

Gongshu Kuo had dragged out a grand armchair and sat squarely upon it at the bow of the ship, lifting a cup of clear tea as if admiring the flames of battle at this moment, much like appreciating a burst of splendid fireworks beneath a prosperous age.

Behind him stood a row of several elders of the Gongshu family, judging by their auras, every single one of them was at least above the Divine Sea Realm!

"Yundian dogs! You will die a horrible death!" A torrent of cursing echoed as a middle-aged commander clad in black armor was dragged up from behind.

"Reporting to the Family Head, the defending general of Tianlang Pass has been captured by us." The speaker was a middle-aged cultivator whose cultivation was clearly also at the early stage of the Divine Sea Realm!

"Have you forgotten the covenant sworn with the late emperor back then?" The black-armored general roared in fury. "Launching a sneak attack, what kind of heroes are you? What right do you have to call yourselves an Upper Domain?"

Gongshu Kuo casually waved his left hand, and the middle-aged cultivator immediately struck the general with two vicious slaps to the face.

"Take him away." Gongshu Kuo calmly uncovered his teacup, taking a light sniff of the tea's aroma. "Utterly fragile. If this continues, I see no need to keep these prisoners alive either. Kill them all..."

Suddenly, a sharp sense of foreboding struck his heart. The spiritual barrier outside the vessel was abruptly breached, and Gongshu Kuo instinctively leaned his body aside!

Bang!

The teacup in his hand shattered violently!

The exploding tea splattered directly all over his head and face. Though the scalding liquid was not enough to injure Gongshu Kuo, his scalded, reddened face now looked like a pig's head being scalded with boiling water to remove its hair.

With a few tea leaves still clinging to his face, he looked as wretched as wretched could be!

Witnessing this scene, everyone around wanted to laugh, yet they could only force their faces red to hold it in.

"Who?! Who is it?!" Shamed, infuriated, and terrified, Gongshu Kuo bolted upright from his seat, glaring in all directions as if wanting to drag this hidden attacker out and slaughter them, yet he saw not a single soul.

The surrounding experts also peered about, but clearly, there was absolutely no one nearby!

Looking intently into the distance, it was only then that a tiny black dot materialized from the massive hull of the Great Jin Empire's armored vessel in the remote sky.

At that moment, someone finally cried out in alarm: "It's the Jin army!"

Su Tianji stood clad in a snow-white dress adorned with tassels, her waterfall-like black hair blowing wildly in the wind at the ship's bow. Her white boots rested on the vessel's edge as she cradled a silver-white, thick-barreled heavy sniper rifle.

Exhaling a faint, fragrant breath, she squinted through the scope at Gongshu Kuo, whose face was covered in exploded tea: "Oh dear, I must be getting old. My hand slipped!"

"A sunset-years edge-grazing marksman!" Beside her, Xue Daolv's face was filled with utter disdain.

...

"Kill! Kill them for me!" Gongshu Kuo wiped his face, never having been so humiliated in his entire life!

At Gongshu Kuo's command, a vast number of flying vessels accelerated to full speed, sailing directly toward the fleet of the Great Jin Empire!

"Intercept them!" Gongshu Kuo glared at the distant vessels, his face grim. "No matter what tricks you play, competing with my Gongshu family on flying vessels? An absolute pipe dream!"

Every single flying vessel of the Gongshu family was a super war artifact refined to the absolute limit!

Gongshu Kuo's face was icy: "Let you ignorant ants witness the might of the war artifacts my Gongshu family obtained in the Cultivation Domain!"

The Gongshu family had once obtained an ancient refining blueprint for armored war vessels in the Cultivation Domain, and it was precisely this blueprint that established the family, propelling them to the position of the third greatest family in the Upper Domain of Yundian.

In the days when the world was not yet this peaceful, the Gongshu family had used their fleet of armored vessels to directly obliterate a mid-sized cultivator power that had offended the Upper Domain of Yundian, a battle won with virtually zero losses!

The armored vessels of the Gongshu family were incredibly sophisticated; the refinement of the entire hull made it a perfect Dharma treasure, boasting not only immense defensive power but also the capability to unleash several terrifyingly potent large-scale spells!

Yet, even the Gongshu family did not possess many of these perfect armored vessels, numbering barely several dozen to this day. Deploying twenty this time already meant mobilizing more than half of the Gongshu family's military strength.

Upon the front rank of armored vessels, countless spiritual lights converged. Within the vessels, the spiritual energy of the cultivators and that of the spirit stones flowed together, instantaneously radiating an incomparably terrifying aura!

Simultaneously, wild winds howled around the Great Jin Empire's flying vessels, and the spiritual energy began to grow chaotic, as if a horrific storm were brewing!

Yet, just as the armored vessels of the Upper Domain of Yundian were gathering several dreadfully terrifying large-scale area spells, the Jin army, upon every single flying vessel in the front rank, hoisted out row after row of incredibly ordinary siege crossbows.

"A laughingstock!" Watching the Great Jin army still using such ancient siege crossbows, Gongshu Kuo burst into loud laughter. "Look at them! Look at these rustics, still using such inferior machinery!"

At that very moment, amid a succession of immense booms, over a dozen incredibly thick, heavy black bolts flew toward the armored vessels of the Yundian Domain like cannonballs!

One of them was even flying directly toward Gongshu Kuo's own armored vessel.

But Gongshu Kuo did not care in the slightest: "Increase the defense of the spiritual barrier at the bow! Raise it to the maximum!"

Following his command, the pale blue spiritual light in front nearly solidified into substance!

He sneered: "These country bumpkins, do they think they can deal with my Gongshu family's armored vessels with just a few siege crossbows? Can this sort of thing even break a spiritual barrier...?"

Boom!

An immensely thick, giant bolt crashed down right before his feet. Accompanied by Gongshu Kuo's utterly bewildered expression, splinters of the deck went flying!

Upon the massive black arrow, several peculiar characters engraved into it flared with a prominent light; it was the glow of runes: -50% Target Defense.

Immediately following, the entire arrow exploded violently! The sky shook and the earth trembled, igniting a cataclysmic blaze of fire!

Jun Yangzi stood at the bow of the ship, his robes fluttering wildly, his eyes reflecting a fierce grandeur: "Apologies, but our Dharma treasures require no casting process."

Amidst the powerful bombardment of the siege crossbows, more than half of the spells from the Yundian Domain's armored vessels were instantly interrupted!

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Postscript: Concerning the defense attribute in Diablo, it is mostly considered to be evasion, which is explained here.

Firstly, in virtual reality mode, it is impossible for players wearing heavy armor to have higher evasion than those in light armor, which is unreasonable. Therefore, in the system version's setting, defense remains defense.

Secondly, the defense in Diablo can actually be understood as the weapon failing to pierce the armor, resulting in a miss and no damage. This also explains why Diablo's defense attribute is similar to evasion.

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