The sky was clear, with not a cloud in sight. Under the setting sun, which was gradually sinking into the mountains, Xu Mu and the Wine Immortal Daoist flew into the clouds. The sunset glow painted the sky as they freely admired the overlapping mountain scenery of the Ghost Night below.
"This isn't the direction of Immortal City," the Wine Immortal Daoist said, though the scenery was beautiful, he had no mind to appreciate it. His intuition told him something unexpected was about to happen, and the path Xu Mu had chosen was almost in the opposite direction of Immortal City.
"If I had your strength, I would of course choose to charge into the city without thinking, but I'm only at the third stage now," Xu Mu gazed at the darkening mountain range below, his eyes tinged with a hint of solemnity.
"Weren't you at the fourth stage before? Did you regress?" the Wine Immortal Daoist asked with surprise. He had been meaning to ask Xu Mu about this.
"I could be at the fourth stage, but at a great cost. You can understand it as some kind of secret art," Xu Mu replied, having already thought of an explanation.
"To have such a heaven-defying secret art is unfathomable. But what does this have to do with the direction we are flying?" the Wine Immortal Daoist's robes fluttered as he looked down in confusion. "This direction leads to the Black Water Domain, doesn't it?"
"Precisely," Xu Mu nodded, then continued, "I have some methods I need to set up here."
"Methods, you say?" The Wine Immortal Daoist raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Interesting. What you are so meticulously setting up, could this method kill a Domain Lord?"
"If executed perfectly, it could even attempt to kill Yaohuo," Xu Mu replied with great confidence upon hearing this.
The Wine Immortal Daoist fell silent. He had actually just asked casually, not expecting any substantial answer from Xu Mu. After all, despite being an unparalleled genius, Xu Mu was only at the third stage. How could he possibly kill a Domain Lord? Yet, Xu Mu had directly stated that he could *attempt* to kill Yaohuo, who was at the same level as the Daoist, both being at the half-step Human King realm. This implied that if the method was used, the Daoist himself could also be in danger of perishing.
"To be honest, if anyone else said that, I would have mocked them for a long time," the Wine Immortal Daoist took a sip of wine, his expression complex.
"It's only an attempt, the probability is very low. I don't have similar experience," Xu Mu sighed, shaking his head.
"That's what I thought. How could it be possible?" The Wine Immortal Daoist chuckled, realizing he had been overly alarmed; Xu Mu was merely contemplating.
"Yaohuo has a Dharma Form, making him difficult to kill, but those Domain Lords are different. If the plan goes smoothly, I have a ninety percent chance of success," Xu Mu added after his sigh.
The Wine Immortal Daoist's cheek twitched. He opened his mouth several times but ultimately said nothing, remaining silent for a long while.
An unknown amount of time passed. By the time the sun vanished below the mountains, leaving only the crimson twilight in the sky, Xu Mu finally stopped. At this point, the mountain range beneath them had disappeared, replaced by a vast, black-and-grey river. They flew above it for an indeterminate period.
"The air here has a fishy, pungent smell, and it's very sticky," the Wine Immortal Daoist frowned, descending with Xu Mu to the banks of the Black Water Domain. The ground here was muddy, the air damp and foul, as if something had rotted.
"It's normal. The Black Water Domain can be considered the dirtiest place in the Ghost Night Realm. Its source is a large landfill site, and it flows through heavily polluted and foul areas like the western mountain range, resulting in dozens of meters of silt accumulating at the bottom of the river year-round." Xu Mu struggled to find a relatively clean branch, broke it off, and shook it beneath him, seemingly calculating something.
"Great demons born in such a putrid place must be extraordinary. Although stronger than ordinary great demons, they still fall short compared to divine beasts," the Wine Immortal Daoist said calmly. He could sense many third-stage demons and wraiths nearby, far stronger than those he had encountered when descending the mountain. Their dark aura was so dense that it could rival descendants of divine beast bloodlines in the Desolate Ancient Battlefield, but still leagues away from creatures like the Qiongqi or that golden dragon.
"Indeed, that's why I dared to set up a killing array here. These great demons here won't attack me; I have a dragon scale," Xu Mu said. His calculations were almost complete. He held the 'Dui' character from the Primordial Eight Trigrams, manipulating the silt on both banks of the river to create a trench over a hundred meters long and tens of meters deep.
"'Dui' represents the marsh, which is fitting for this muddy riverbank. However, the position he's standing in is not 'Dui' but 'Li'," the Wine Immortal Daoist marveled in his heart. This wasn't the first time Xu Mu had defied the theoretical application of the Eight Trigrams. At the Celestial Tree Tomb, he had once stood in a different position and used the 'Gen' character technique, causing Morpheus's body to inexplicably create a passage for him.
"And this 'Xun' character technique he can use anytime, flying as fast as me..." The Wine Immortal Daoist frowned, utterly perplexed.
"Senior, please lend me a hand. All of this needs to be buried. It's fine if they get knocked around, but be careful not to ignite them," Xu Mu took out all ten thousand tons of TNT from his spatial ring, piling it into a small mountain.
"What is this thing? It doesn't look like a formation core," the Wine Immortal Daoist was stunned by the explosives in front of him. He had originally thought Xu Mu's method was a killing array derived from those unfathomable trigram techniques, but it didn't seem to be the case now.
"I don't know how to set up arrays. If you teach me in the future, I can learn," Xu Mu said as he moved and buried the explosives underground, evenly mixing in hundreds of plague cannonballs, making Charles's heart ache.
"This is the accumulation of my painstaking efforts over decades of supervision! You're going to use it all at once, can't you be a bit more economical!" Charles's voice was choked with tears. The environment here was limited, and while teaching the Gray-White Eyes high-tech knowledge, he also took the time to use simple materials to create many crude items, such as this TNT.
And quantitative change leads to qualitative change. Despite being simple, the combined power of so much TNT stacked together could rival any high-tech weapon from the post-modern era of Blue Star.
"This is a battle for life and death, so of course, we must go all out. Perhaps if even a kilogram is missing, it will be I who dies," Xu Mu's hands didn't stop. He quickly placed the bombs on both sides of the riverbank, and also, along the bottom of the silt trench, he snaked out a white fuse. He buried it about a meter deep in the silt and then made a mark on a nearby tree with his knife.
"Mission accomplished!" Xu Mu shook his hands. The earth on both banks instantly covered the explosives, burying them thickly.
"So, what exactly is this? That fuse looks somewhat like those used by the Divine Mechanism Camp's fire lances, but it also seems a bit different," the Wine Immortal Daoist said, still puzzled after he finished his work, much like he couldn't understand the white incandescent light emanating from Xu Mu's home.
"Fire lances, more or less. It's the same principle, just different power," Xu Mu explained.
"It's vastly different!" Charles roared in his mind. Comparing these weapons to the most primitive fire lances was an insult to him!
"Oh, alright, alright. Explaining so thoroughly when he can't understand is meaningless," Xu Mu looked at the gradually dimming clouds on the horizon, a frosty smile appearing on his face.
"The sunset is beautiful, a pity it's about to disappear," the Wine Immortal Daoist also turned to look at the sky and sighed. He had spent a long time in the Desolate Ancient Battlefield and the Western Mountains, and it had been a long time since he had seen such a sunset. This fading twilight also signified the beginning of something bloody.
Xu Mu narrowed his eyes, his voice hoarse yet gentle as he spoke:
"It doesn't matter."
"Another set of clouds will appear here soon."