Chapter 137: Besieged City

Dream Floating City in Nanxi County.

More than half of the gates of the Floating Dream Ward had collapsed. Dried brown bloodstains still remained on the bluestone pavement, half-concealed by broken pillar stones, alongside scattered, ash-gray corpses.

Hasty footsteps echoed through the empty, silent streets.

The clear, bright sunlight beat down unsparingly upon a disheveled, gaunt man with a panicked expression. His clothes were torn to shreds, and his back bore bloody claw marks that dug three inches deep into his flesh.

Fresh blood mixed with his sweat, forming a sticky, crimson paste.

"Hah..."

Even though he was utterly exhausted, his throat tasting heavily of metallic rust, he dared not stop. Not for a single step.

He was almost there.

The gaunt man’s matted sideburns were soaked with sweat, plastered against his temples, and perspiration blurred his vision. Far in the distance, he caught sight of the collapsed gates of the Floating Dream Ward.

He could still faintly make out the shattered relief sculptures of auspicious beasts beneath the gate pillars.

*Thud.*

A muffled sound echoed through the desolate street. A trace of despair flashed across the man's pale, strained face, and his running posture suddenly turned bizarre.

His limbs were folded backward like origami, and his body flew through the air, his head crashing heavily against the shattered auspicious beast relief on the gate pillar. With a sharp snap of his neck, his breath was instantly snuffed out.

Bright, scarlet blood slid from his fractured skull, accompanied by brain matter spilling out like soft tofu.

Strangely enough, that glaring red blood rapidly dried into brown stains. The newly deceased man's skin quickly turned ashen and pale, resembling a corpse that had been dead for ages.

*Tramp, tramp, tramp.*

A few more heavy footsteps echoed from the narrow, dark alleys and street corners. Men and women with sorrowful expressions, old and young alike, seized the moment to sprint toward the Floating Dream Ward.

*Thud.*

The same muffled sound as before echoed out, though this time, it carried several overlapping reverberations.

No miracles occurred. Their limbs were twisted and folded in that same bizarre fashion at the exact same moment, their bodies turning as fragile as paper, manipulated at will.

*Bang.*

Instead of being flung into the air, their bodies crashed heavily onto the ground, crushed ruthlessly into a mangled mass. Blood gushed from their facial orifices, drying up at a visible rate.

Yet, they eerie stood back up. Even with shattered spines and twisted limbs, they dragged their ruined, broken shells, forcing themselves to stagger toward the collapsed gates of the Floating Dream Ward.

A few more debris stones tumbled from the heavily ruined gate. The shattered relief sculptures beneath the pillars had long lost any resemblance to auspicious beasts, looking no different from ordinary marble.

A faint flash of lucid light swept past.

Only then did their corpses slowly collapse onto the bluestone ground, their gray, lifeless eyes frozen wide open, unable to close. Beneath the collapsed gates of the Floating Dream Ward, a considerable mountain of corpses had already formed.

Cui Dandan stood atop the roof of the Xie residence, a grave expression settling over her slightly pale face as she murmured, "Things are developing far more seriously than I anticipated."

"There seems to be an extraordinary monster in the city," Wu Yang said in a deep voice, gazing heavily toward the gates of the Floating Dream Ward.

His usually piercing, vibrant gaze had lost its luster, growing somewhat dim. His right hand gripped an iron staff, while his left held the broken remnants of the White Ape parent-child staff.

After all, Wu Yang's short staff could never match the fluid power of a long staff.

"And it has only been a single day..." Cui Dandan muttered, her hands clenching into powerless fists.

"How many days until Cui Ya can return?" Wu Yang asked in a low tone.

"The Wufeng Mountain's Fufeng Taoist Temple is a hundred miles away from Dream Floating City. Even if Cui Ya travels alone day and night, she would only just be arriving at Wufeng Mountain by now," Cui Dandan replied, lifting her gaze to the sky.

The day was cloudless, with the scorching sun blazing high above.

Yet Cui Dandan felt not a shred of warmth; instead, she felt an intense, biting chill.

Wu Yang followed her gaze toward the sky overhead. His focus was not the sun, but the occasional flash of lucid light cutting through midair.

"How much longer can this formation hold?" Wu Yang asked, his brow furrowed tightly.

Lowering her gaze to the crowded courtyard of the Xie residence, Cui Dandan said softly, "How long the formation holds depends on the reserve spirit stones left in the Xu and Cui residences. Logically speaking, a month should be more than enough."

"A month should be enough time for Cui Ya to make the trip back, and perhaps she can even bring back some reinforcements," Wu Yang said, his furrowed brow slowly relaxing.

"The Taoist priests of Fufeng Temple do not descend the mountain easily, unless the reward you offer is substantial enough," Cui Dandan shook her head and said. "With the slightly spiritual necklace I gave Cui Ya, coupled with the meager reputation of the Cui family, I cannot guarantee she will successfully secure the pills."

"Even so, if Cui Ya manages to secure the pills and return now, she won't even be able to get inside," Wu Yang said, letting out a heavy, stifled breath.

Cui Dandan sighed softly. "The most crucial problem is that Xie Xiushi left no food stores behind in this estate. How are we supposed to resolve the plight of the dozens of starving mouths we’ve taken in down below?"

Wu Yang glanced sideways at Cui Dandan. "Shall I go trouble Miss Cui to make another trip to the Cui residence?"

"Do you really take me for one of those strategists of the School of Diplomacy? The only reason I convinced the Cui and Xu families to activate the Floating Dream Formation of the Floating Dream Ward is that the layout of this ward naturally maximizes the formation's power. Coupled with the principle that when the lips are gone, the teeth grow cold—if they only guarded their own estates and let the demons break into the Floating Dream Ward, they would truly have no way out left. That way, if the Floating Dream Formation is breached, they would still have us as a buffer to set up another array elsewhere."

Cui Dandan gave a bitter, helpless laugh and shook her head. Then, the playful teasing vanished from her face. "However, rations are an issue not just for us; the Xu and Cui families are likely running short as well. The number of people they harbor is no less than those we've taken in."

"You don't have any food stores either?" Wu Yang sighed heavily.

"Who could have foreseen that Dream Floating City would degenerate to this state in mere days?" Cui Dandan murmured, a trace of confusion in her clear eyes.

Had she truly made the wrong choice?

Eliminating the mutated centipede demon of Fufeng Temple had not made Dream Floating City a better place. Instead, with that beast gone, its suppression lifted, countless malevolent demons hidden within the city had all crawled out into the open.

"If all else fails, let me go out and fight my way through—find that demon hiding God-knows-where and engage it in a fight to the death," Wu Yang said, grinding his staff against the roof tiles as he took a deep breath and looked at Cui Dandan.

The confusion in Cui Dandan's eyes dissipated. She looked at Wu Yang and shook her head. "That demon knows how to use human lives to wear down the formation's barrier light, and it stays hidden behind the scenes. That alone proves its intelligence is not low."

"So what if its intelligence isn't low? Combat relies on martial prowess, not brains."

Gazing out at the mountain of corpses piled beneath the gates of the Floating Dream Ward, Wu Yang harbored a pent-up, festering grievance in his heart that refused to dissipate, his voice dropping to a low rumble.