Chapter 3167: Chapter 3167
Cui Daoran’s method for picking troops left Ye Liuyun and Yu Xiaofeng more than satisfied—at least the ones chosen wouldn’t be weak.
What impressed them even more was that, in so short a time, he had come up with a selection scheme and hadn’t let himself be boxed in by Ye Liuyun’s head-count. The man was quick-witted and bold.
“This bandit’s rather interesting!” Yu Xiaofeng said, clearly optimistic about Cui Daoran.
“Mm, sharp mind and plenty of guts,” Ye Liuyun agreed. “Still a bit too much of a bandit air about him—needs more polishing.”
The remaining soldiers were handed over entirely to Xiao Heng and Li Zhaoyuan. They went through them one by one, reorganizing the strong into proper units for training; the weak were lumped into cannon-fodder squads for live practice.
Both men knew that quality beat quantity, and that a soldier’s killing intent and ruthlessness mattered just as much—otherwise they’d never adapt to Ye Liuyun’s style of fighting.
They themselves had been shocked by the savagery: a few hundred men daring to assault ten thousand. They’d never imagined such a thing.
Ye Liuyun’s men were clearly elites who could win despite being outnumbered. If the next battle was the same, any soldiers they trained who weren’t vicious enough would simply be slaughtered.
Better to be brutal in training than dead on the battlefield. So the two of them turned ruthless, drilling the troops mercilessly, unwilling to let Ye Liuyun think they were worse than a bandit.
Soon the soldiers were fighting and eliminating one another again.
Nearby feral beast wandered over to watch the spectacle, baffled as to why the humans had started beating each other senseless once more.
In the end, fewer than thirty thousand surrendered troops were whittled down to just over ten thousand before things finally quieted. Cui Daoran and Xiao Heng carted off the corpses and traded them to the demon army for large quantities of healing pills and other cultivation resources.
The beasts and soldiers slain in the previous battle were also rounded up: the beasts became meat reserves, the bodies handed to the demon legions.
Ye Liuyun left them to their own devices and returned with Yu Xiaofeng and the others to the spatial world to cultivate without wasting a moment.
Both Ye Liuyun and his clone had expended a great deal in the last fight, and his spatial power had revealed clear weaknesses. After restoring his divine essence, he would seek out Ninth-Order experts for more combat tempering.
His soul power also had plenty of room to grow; by rights it should already be able to scan the entire planet and its surroundings, so he needed more time to practice applying it.
The golden tigers he had subdued weren’t killed outright; he planned to use them as vanguards in future battles, making the most of every asset.
Pei Yong and Qin Peng were likewise drilling the Ninth-Order soldiers, sharpening their battle instincts and absolute obedience to orders. Ye Liuyun figured that training inside the spatial world until the next clash would be enough, and ordered everyone to prepare for the coming engagement.
Everyone knew the next fight would arrive soon and was pushing to raise their strength.
While Ye Liuyun cultivated frantically, the previously tranquil Ten-Thousand-Gods Alliance was invaded once more.
They faced only an advance force—thirty thousand men.
Yet Jing Yong’s three-thousand-man Black-Armored Guard was wiped out by a single enemy company of a thousand; Jing Yong himself perished.
Alliance experts turned out in full. Dian Qing, Zhou Ning, and other top fighters all died before barely repelling that thousand-man unit.
They immediately sent pleas for aid to every star system. From the Hunting-Wolf system, Kui Shan and Qiang Hui marched with five hundred thousand troops. They paid almost three hundred thousand casualties to annihilate those thirty thousand.
Most of the enemy soldiers were at the early Unity realm, with a number of mid-Unity elites; their commanders were nearly all mid-Unity as well—already stronger than the original Death Legion.
Mo Shaowen and Liu Yang helped capture prisoners and learned the invaders came from the Azure-Veil system. Another hundred thousand troops were already on the way, and rumor had it that Azure-Veil still had late-Unity cultivators.
The entire Ten-Thousand-Gods Alliance mobilized. Every star system under Ye Liuyun’s control sent experts streaming toward the Alliance.
Among them were many former Death Legion soldiers. Inside Ye Liuyun’s spatial world, some cultivators also used the teleportation array to rush to the front.
Ye Liuyun received the news but thought the experience would do them good. Since the Alliance hadn’t asked for his help, they must believe they could cope.
Liang Xue, Xuanyuan Ling, and the others gathered a bit more intelligence through the trading guilds, but knowing Ye Liuyun had his own battle looming—and seeing the Alliance hadn’t requested aid—they left him undisturbed.
Inside the Alliance itself, opinions were sharply split over whether to ask Ye Liuyun for help.
Elder Cang Jinsong and other senior councilors, along with powerhouses like Barlow, Li Yuanlang, and Mo Shaowen, all preferred not to disturb Ye Liuyun. They urged the Alliance to try resisting the invasion on its own first.
Lie Du, Xiao Mu’an, Liu Kui—those who practically worshipped Ye Liuyun—wanted to call him in the very first moment.
Many of the newer members and experts, however, assumed that since Ye Liuyun had been absent for so long, he might already have died in some distant battle. Even if he were alive, he might not be able to stop an army of this magnitude. And judging by the time, he probably couldn’t make it back in time anyway.
Ye Liuyun had always kept a low profile and never allowed others to publicize him. So, apart from the old-timers who had lived through the wars and the planets that had dealt with him personally, the names “Ye Liuyun” and “Death Legion” had grown unfamiliar to the younger generation; in some places they had nearly been forgotten.
Only Li Yuanlang, Cang Jinsong, and a handful of others knew that some of the reinforcements had come from Ye Liuyun’s spatial world, which meant he was definitely still alive.
After discussion, they decided to test their combined strength first; if that failed, they would then turn to Ye Liuyun. They all knew he possessed a teleportation black tower—coming back should be quick.
Even if he was temporarily tied up elsewhere and couldn’t return, losing a few planets to the enemy for a short while wouldn’t be catastrophic.
So Lingyuan, once of the Vanguard Regiment, began calling back the regiment’s disbanded soldiers. Among them were a handful of powerhouses who had reached the fourth level of Unity, though their numbers were tiny.
Liu Kui was reorganizing the army’s commanders and troops. Yet the strongest soldiers across the various star systems were still only at the Sovereign realm; they would have to rely on sheer numbers and superior equipment.
He secretly hoped that black-armored legion—faces masked, killing intent rolling off them in waves, eyes as cold as winter stars—would appear again. Even if Ye Liuyun himself didn’t come back, sending the Death Legion alone would be enough. But no one knew where they were fighting now.
Li Yuanlang, Mo Shaowen, and other former mentors and friends of Ye Liuyun were rallying martial cultivators to join the fight, but only those above the Unity realm. Anyone weaker would only be throwing their lives away and dragging the whole force down.
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