Chapter 7: The Eclipse of the Black Iron Army

The bottom of the mountain was an ocean of black iron. Fifty thousand elite soldiers of the Black Iron Empire stood in perfect, silent phalanxes, their obsidian armor absorbing the faint starlight. The empire was known across Saint Sophia as the "Mage-Slayer Legion." Their armor was forged from a rare anti-magic ore that could nullify low-to-mid tier spells upon contact. To the traditional magi of the continent, this army was an unstoppable, walking graveyard. At the vanguard of the legion rode General Valerius. He sat atop a six-legged, armored Shadow-Stalker Beast, his massive, twin-handed greatsword resting against his shoulder. A dense, pitch-black aura of Abyssal Dou Qi crackled around him like static electricity, marking him as a peak-tier Sky Knight—one of the legendary powerhouses of the empire. Valerius looked up at the quiet, darkened spires of the Holy Crown Guild, a cruel, mocking smile playing on his scarred face. "General," a scout reported, kneeling beside his mount. "Our scouts confirm that the Holy Crown Guild's defensive barrier was completely shattered hours ago. The central plaza is in ruins. It seems a stray Ancient Red Dragon attacked them, leaving the guild entirely defenseless." "Hahaha! Heaven is assisting my Empire!" Valerius bellowed, his voice amplified by his dark Dou Qi, echoing through the canyon. "The Holy Crown Guild has hoarded the magical resources of this region for centuries. Tonight, while they are crippled and bleeding, we shall wipe them from the map and seize their vaults! Soldiers, advance! Leave no one alive!" BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The heavy war drums of the empire thundered, and the fifty-thousand-strong legion began their march up the mountain path like a slow, crushing wave of black ink. At the first defensive line, the Holy Crown Guild’s elite vanguard knights were already trembling. They had barely survived the dragon's attack, and now, facing the ultimate military superpower of the continent, despair gripped their hearts once more. "We can't hold them..." a knight captain muttered, his hand shaking on his hilt. "Our magic won't pierce their anti-magic armor, and General Valerius can kill us all with a single swing..." "Who said you need to hold them?" A calm, casual voice drifted down from the upper staircase. The knight captain snapped his head back. Walking down the stone steps, with his hands casually tucked into his pockets, was Jiang Chen. His tattered maintenance uniform was still faintly stained with dragon blood, but his posture was so relaxed it looked as though he were taking a midnight stroll in a royal garden. "My Lord!" The knight captain instantly dropped to his knees, his face filled with a mixture of awe and terror. The marching Black Iron soldiers at the front of the line stopped. Valerius nudged his six-legged beast forward, squinting through the gloom at the solitary youth standing on the stairs. When he sensed absolutely no mana or Dou Qi radiating from Jiang Chen's body, the general burst into a fits of harsh laughter. "What is this? Has the Holy Crown Guild run out of mages so completely that they send a pathetic, magicless slave to negotiate?" Valerius sneered, pointing his massive greatsword at Jiang Chen’s face. "Boy! Kneel and tell me where the guild's core treasury is, and I might grant you the mercy of becoming a miner in our imperial labor camps!" Jiang Chen didn't look at the greatsword. He looked past Valerius, scanning the massive army of fifty thousand men, and then looked up at the starry night sky. "Fifty thousand ant-soldiers, one peak-stage physical martial artist... and a decent amount of anti-magic metal," Jiang Chen murmured to himself, evaluating the force with the practiced eye of a ten-millennia immortal. "The quantity is impressive, but the quality is still profoundly disappointing." "You dare insult the Imperial Legion?!" Valerius’s smile instantly vanished, replaced by an expression of murderous rage. He channeled his Abyssal Dou Qi, and a ten-meter-long blade of pitch-black energy erupted from his greatsword, slicing through the air and leaving a burning trail of dark fire on the stone ground. "Die, arrogant brat!" Valerius leaped from his mount, his massive body descending like a falling meteor. His greatsword swung down with enough kinetic and Dou Qi force to split a small mountain hill in half, targeting Jiang Chen’s head. The knight captain behind Jiang Chen screamed in terror, closing his eyes. Jiang Chen merely sighed softly. He extended his right hand, his index and middle fingers coming together to form a classic Imperial Sword Seal. He didn't use a physical sword. With his breakthrough to the Stage Three Golden Core, his body was the ultimate vessel, and the entire world’s ambient elements were his blade. "Sword Qi, arise," Jiang Chen commanded softly. HUMMMMMM—! The space around the entire mountain pinnacle suddenly froze. The wild atmospheric energy didn't just vibrate; it completely weaponized. Thousands of translucent, violet blades of pure, compressed True Yuan generated out of thin air, hovering in the sky like a massive, celestial grid. Before Valerius’s greatsword could even come within five meters of Jiang Chen, the young man flicked his two fingers upward. BANG! A single, microscopic strand of violet Sword Qi shot forward. The moment it collided with Valerius’s mountain-splitting Abyssal Dou Qi, the dark energy shattered like brittle glass. The legendary anti-magic armor covering the general’s chest didn't even delay the attack for a millisecond—it was instantly pierced through, leaving a perfectly round, cauterized hole right through his heart. "What... what kind of magic..." Valerius’s eyes widened in supreme shock. He fell to the ground, his greatsword clattering away as his life force rapidly drained into the stones. He couldn't understand. His armor was supposed to be immune to all magic. How had it been bypassed so effortlessly? "This isn't magic," Jiang Chen said, looking down at the dying general with cold indifference. "This is Daoist Law." Seeing their invincible peak-tier Sky Knight general killed in a single, casual gesture by a boy, the fifty thousand soldiers of the Black Iron Legion froze, their collective breath catching in their throats. The perfect, iron-clad discipline of the empire instantly shattered into sheer, unadulterated panic. "The General is dead!""Retreat! It's a demon! Run!" The vanguard began to scramble backward, trampling each other in their haste to escape the mountain. "Since you've already marched all this way, why bother leaving?" Jiang Chen said, his voice echoing across the entire valley. He raised his hand toward the sky, his fingers slowly closing into a fist. The thousands of hovering violet True Yuan swords in the heavens began to spin, creating a massive, glowing vortex that blotted out the stars. "Form the Myriad Swords Return to Origin Formation. Fall." With a downward motion of his fist, the sky wept swords.