Chapter 2305: Chapter 2305 A Threeway Stalemate
Without delay, Ye Liuyun erased the commander’s prior Divine soul contract and implanted a Slaving Seal on him. Then, he conducted a soul search to access his memories.
"Controlling me won’t do you any good. The moment you erased my Divine soul contract, my deputy commander would sense it and won’t trust anything I say now," the commander informed Ye Liuyun with a grimace.
Ye Liuyun remained indifferent and smirked as he replied, "If I can destroy you, bringing him down will be just as easy."
The information he received from the memory search was very consistent with what they previously knew. This only deepened his disdain for the man.
Leading the charge was Hyan Mutong, an advanced ninth-level cultivator. Although Ye Liuyun thought the man lacked moral, he couldn’t dispute the man’s competence as a military commander.
Instead of executing him, Ye Liuyun decided to keep Hyan Mutong as the surrendered soldiers’ commander.
Among the original fifty thousand troops, twenty thousand had surrendered. They were compelled to sign allegiance contracts and had their armour, weapons, resources, and Interspatial Rings confiscated.
The unexpected influx of wealth kept Lan Xin occupied. After plundering two worlds before their arrival, the troops were laden with wealth. Ye Liuyun had amassed an enormous fortune from this war.
The corpses were handed over to the Devil Clan, Devil Beast and Beastmen.
For the sake of studying the materials and workmanship, Qiong Qi and Tong Xin were given the armour and weaponry.
The Devil Clan, which had intercepted the fifty thousand Sanctuary Knights, quickly withdrew from the area.
Since their troops were fairly equal in competency, Ye Liuyun did not instruct them to pursue. More than 3,000 people had died on both sides in their earlier confrontation.
Following the clearing of the battlefield, Ye Liuyun retreated with his army and established camp in a deserted city.
Hyan Mutong and his surrendered soldiers were then dispatched to scour the surrounding cities for resources and to clean up the remnants of the battlefield.
The Devil Beastman armies were also sent out to collect corpses, which would serve as their food reserves.
No one cleaned up after a battlefield in any of the cities he had visited previously. Because the Sanctuary Land warriors were too well-off to bother, the resources were ignored. But Ye Liuyun didn’t mind getting his hands dirty.
The remaining locals had been busy trailing them and made preparations to rescue the female captives. Hence, they had no time to tend to the battlefield as well.
Then, Ye Liuyun had Qiong Qi set up multiple layers of defensive formations around the city to prevent any ambush.
Ye Liuyun then had all his armies report their casualties.
The Blade Legion had only a few men injured, with almost no significant losses.
The Dark Legion, however, had suffered over three hundred deaths and another three hundred wounded. Most of the fallen soldiers were the ones Yuan Hao had later incorporated into the Dark Legion, whose coordination with the main army was still lacking.
The Beastman, relying heavily on their advanced equipment and serving as the main force in this assault, had only a few dozen casualties, which were negligible.
Man Feng had already lost over a thousand among his fifty thousand praetorians who joined the battle later.
The Devil Clan suffered the heaviest losses, with three thousand perished in one fell swoop.
There must be ongoing training and improvement for the Devil Clan. The Dark Legion and Man Feng’s praetorians also require more battle experience to hone their combatant level!
Without hesitation, Ye Liuyun had his clone withdraw the Devil Clan back into the Spatial World, leaving the Dark Legion and Man Feng’s praetorians to defend the city.
At the same time, he instructed Tong Xin and Qiong Qi to make more war chariots and puppet beasts for the two forces. Such equipment would prove invaluable in future large-scale battles.
Thanks to Ye Liuyun’s intervention, the conflict between the local soldiers and the Sanctuary Knight had temporarily come to a halt.
Both sides sent scouts to find out information about the origin of Ye Liuyun’s soldiers and their strengths.
However, the Conveyor Formation Qiong Qi set up blocked their access to the city.
Soon, the news of Zheng Huan rescuing over ten thousand female captives had spread far and wide. Zheng Huan and his men returned to the city and immediately reported their success to the elders.
The Sirius Realm was originally governed by the union of several cities.
When the Sanctuary Knight invaded, they united to resist the onslaught. However, their strategy of deploying troops in batches of fifty thousand or a hundred thousand backfired. The Sanctuary Knight managed to divide and conquer, surrounding and annihilating each contingent one after another.
Eventually, the city union exhausted their soldiers and began sending martial practitioners to the front lines. Yet, they continued to suffer defeat after defeat, never catching a break.
It wasn’t until they retreated to this final stronghold that the city union finally made a pact to pool their resources for a last stand.
With this newfound pact, they caught a breather and started rallying more martial practitioners to join their cause, gathering them within the allied cities.
Currently, the three main forces had come into a stalemate. With none of them willing to be the first to take action.
The Sanctuary Knight army hesitated, wary of Ye Liuyun’s formidable strength.
Ye Liuyun, on the other hand, was biding his time, waiting to see if the city union would seek an alliance with him.
He wasn’t going to act rashly and risk his forces without any guarantee of gratitude or support.
Meanwhile, Ye Liuyun took advantage of the pause to send his Devil Beastmen and the surrendered troops under Hyan Mutong to scavenge for resources. He aimed to stockpile as much food as possible for his Devil Clan.
As long as the martial practitioners’ virtuoso remained intact, their bodies wouldn’t decay easily. Especially for those who had reached the Immortal Realm, their corpses could remain preserved for years even after death.
Given that these were only battle remnants, Ye Liuyun hadn’t expected much from them.
Surprisingly, twenty days after the initial group of soldiers had cleared the field, they returned with a haul that had him speechless.
The sheer amount of Spirit Crystals they recovered was equal to over twenty mineral veins. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. The Devil Beastmen had gathered hundreds of thousands of corpses, providing an ample food supply for the Devil Beastmen. The resources they amassed far exceeded Ye Liuyun’s expectations.
After a moment of silence to absorb the fact, "You all continue to clean up the battlefield!" Ye Liuyun urged them to proceed with the task.
On top of that, Ye Liuyun tasked Man Feng’s fifty thousand troops to help clean up the battlefield as well.
"No wonder the Sanctuary Knights had their eyes on this place. It’s truly rich in resources!" Man Feng exclaimed in excitement.
"It’s not as much as you think! These resources came from hundreds of thousands of people. When averaged out, it’s not a lot!" Mo Tianheng reminded everyone.
"That’s right. We wouldn’t have accumulated so much if they hadn’t perished," Mo Tianheng said, and even Qiong Qi concurred.
Zhao Hu, somewhat impatient, asked Ye Liuyun, "When are we going to make our move? Will the Sanctuary Knights send reinforcements soon?"
"I hope they do! The previous fifty thousand troops are not enough for us. If they send in a hundred thousand, it would be just right!" Ye Liuyun laughed.
"As for the locals, we can’t attack them either. Otherwise, we’d become the invaders they despised. The martial practitioners are resilient. They didn’t even surrender. I still hope to win them over to be part of our troops."
"If they don’t ally with us, we’ll just wait until they’re wiped out by the Sanctuary Knights then! After all, neither side dares to provoke us. Taking this opportunity to gather more resources is even better, isn’t it?"
Ye Liuyun wasn’t in a hurry at all. Instead, he urged his soldiers to train and practice to improve their combatant strength.
