Chapter 3177: Chapter 3177
“That’s more like it. If you don’t even dare to kill the men I hand you, you’re nothing but trash!”
Ye Liuyun smiled and sent every armored soldier on his side charging forward. The Guiyi Ninth-Heaven soldiers he had captured, however, stayed put.
On Jiang Yunfei’s side, everyone was guessing what Ye Liuyun was up to, so they stayed on full alert. The Guiyi Ninth-Heaven experts under Jiang Yunfei also stayed close to their lord, afraid to act.
Once his time power had recovered, Ye Liuyun struck again—snatching another hundred-plus of the strongest soldiers from Jiang Yunfei’s ranks.
Jiang Yunfei finally lost his cool; he knew that if this went on, every expert at his side would be taken sooner or later. He gathered a handful of elites and guards, released a Void-grade flying shuttle, and fled ahead of the rest.
“What a coward—he runs faster than a rabbit!”
Ye Liuyun cursed inwardly, then ordered every remaining Guiyi Ninth-Heaven expert to charge the last enemy commander.
With Jiang Yunfei gone, the enemy soldiers instantly knew the battle was lost; morale collapsed. Even bound by contracts, they dared not throw their lives away when the elite soldiers slammed into them.
Ye Liuyun used his time power to kill the supreme commander and several key officers first; after that, the rest had no will to resist.
The remaining Guiyi Ninth-Heaven soldiers surrendered first. Then Jiang Yunfei’s entire army followed suit—even the prisoners-of-war from earlier joined the surrender.
Ye Liuyun hadn’t expected Jiang Yunfei’s army to fold so easily.
With so many captives, he couldn’t be bothered to sort them out himself. He released Xiao Heng’s and Cui Daoran’s teams and told them to subdue the prisoners first.
As for the Guiyi Ninth-Heaven elite soldiers, he freed them on the spot, had them hand over their resources, then cherry-picked troops. Together with the four hundred he already had, he formed a five-thousand-man crack unit. Artificers and alchemists were summoned to prepare gear and pills.
Almost every one of these five thousand elites was a late-stage Guiyi Ninth-Heaven powerhouse. Storing them all in his spatial world would have drained his source power badly.
But that didn’t trouble Ye Liuyun. From the rejected Ninth-Heaven soldiers he selected twenty whose spatial worlds were large enough and whose source power was strong enough, then had each of them carry a portion of the five thousand elites—let them bear the burden.
After everything was arranged, Ye Liuyun finally took out his sound-transmission jade and checked what Jiang Yuntian had sent.
The early messages were all explanations, pleas to stop, offers of compensation. At the end, Jiang Yuntian tried to bargain: release the soldiers and he’d pay ransom.
Ye Liuyun didn’t bother replying.
“Let him keep guessing.”
He chuckled, then released the demonic beasts, Tang Xinyao’s squad, and the women from his spatial world, letting them spar with the surrendered soldiers as they pleased.
Xiao Heng and Cui Daoran were thrilled by the sheer number of captives. They first confiscated every prisoner’s resources, then began selection.
Cui Daoran first picked a thousand solid Ninth-Heaven soldiers, then had two of the rejected ones challenge each candidate—only those who could withstand both attacks were accepted.
He ended up with five hundred new troops, replacing his original Seventh- and Eighth-Heaven soldiers. Even if these weren’t the absolute strongest Ninth-Heavens, they were far stronger than what he’d had.
Xiao Heng and Li Zhaoyuan first reorganized all the soldiers, then drilled the mid-to-late Guiyi troops. Anyone washed out during training was tossed to Cui Daoran for further tempering.
Soldiers of other realms were simply re-formed into practice squads, pitted against the freshly trained troops in overwhelming numbers.
By the end of the drills, the low-realm soldiers had been ground down to nothing, leaving Xiao Heng with fewer than fifty thousand men—but those fifty thousand now radiated killing intent and battle awareness.
The Devil Vine seized the chance to gorge on corpses, stockpiling energy.
Throughout the soldiers’ training, Ye Liuyun focused solely on his own cultivation.
Jiang Yuntian still refused to give up, reaching Ye Liuyun several times through Jiang Yunmo.
When Jiang Yunmo first learned Ye Liuyun had conned Jiang Yuntian out of fifty thousand soldiers, she was stunned. “You really pulled it off! I’ve never seen anyone fleece Jiang Yuntian that badly.”
Ye Liuyun replied calmly, “If he hadn’t tried to screw me over first, I’d never have been able to screw him back.”
“Then what are you going to do with his troops? Jiang Yuntian’s offer looked pretty decent,” Jiang Yunmo asked.
Ye Liuyun chuckled. “Those fifty thousand soldiers? Part of them will fill the gaps in my own ranks, part of them died in battle, and the rest I’m keeping as sparring partners for my men
Even their corpses aren’t going back—every last one is training material and rations for my demon army.”
Jiang Yunmo thought for a moment and pressed, “You’re not planning to raise an army and crown yourself king, are you? How much strength do you actually have? Enough resources?”
Ye Liuyun didn’t care whether she was fishing for intel; he had no intention of revealing his true power
He simply shot back, “Resources are definitely short. Since you’re asking, do you have a good way to get more?”
Jiang Yunmo laid out her idea. “With that many troops under you, the dynasty will see you as a thorn in its side. Let me register your forces under the dynasty’s banner in my name. You can keep leading them to conquer star systems and gather resources—nothing changes.”
Ye Liuyun knew she wanted to claim the army first, then slowly strip him of command while sending him to fight the dynasty’s battles for her.
He sneered inwardly. Does this woman think I can’t survive without the Fire-Seal Dynasty? I have my own troops; I can hit whoever I want. Why should I bleed for her kingdom?
Still, he asked aloud, “What’s in it for me if the dynasty swallows my army?”
Jiang Yunmo coaxed, “Once I command a large force, I can petition the dynasty to grant us the Duqiao Star System as our base. We’ll expand from there and recruit more soldiers—effectively giving you a home territory
Plus, the dynasty will supply gear, pills, and some resources. It’s not a fortune, but it’s better than nothing.”
Ye Liuyun weighed it; he wouldn’t lose out. As for Jiang Yunmo’s scheme to grow her own power, he didn’t care.
“Will the dynasty demand I hand over command and tie me down with restrictions?” he pressed.
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