Volume 1, Chapter 136 – Promotion

Shi Lan and the others quickly followed the golden light up onto the flying ship’s deck.

The moment she stepped onto the deck, Shi Lan’s gaze was drawn to a high platform more than ten zhang tall, towering like a city wall.

The platform was bluish gray from top to bottom, with dozens of Demon-Suppressing Army banners planted in a row upon it. Black backgrounds and golden characters snapped and fluttered in the wind.

Below the platform stood four square formations of troops, all silent. Each formation held around a thousand people. The vast majority were men, while the number of women was fewer than five hundred.

A young man in black armor stood with his hands clasped behind his back on top of the platform. At his side stood a jade panel like a public notice board, and on the panel many faint points of light were slowly moving.

The young man’s expression was calm. He was tall and slender, his features handsome like carved jade. At his waist hung a pale-golden Demon-Suppressing Order. When he saw Shi Lan and the others step onto the deck, he simply waved a hand, signaling them to stand to the side.

Seeing this young man, Shi Lan could not help being startled. Back in Twin Moon City, the one who had arrived along with that Cloudsky Treasure Ship had been this very young man, with many people from the Sacred Martial Immortal Sect following behind him at the time.

The Cloudsky Treasure Ship had left an extremely deep impression on Shi Lan, so she also remembered this black-armored officer whose identity clearly was not simple.

Beside her, Wu Lingkong spotted the young man and murmured in low surprise,

“So it is him, he…”

Halfway through her words, she realized where she was and fell silent.

Shi Lan instinctively wanted to ask who this person was, but when she thought of how sharp martial artists’ hearing was, she felt it was not appropriate to talk here and forced herself to put the idea aside for now.

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Not long after Shi Lan and the others came up onto the deck, several hundred more people arrived in succession, and among them nearly half were women.

By the time the sun was hanging high at its zenith, people gradually stopped coming.

In what felt like no time, half an hour past noon had gone by. The young man on the platform raised his hand and placed it on the jade panel at his side. A few breaths later, he withdrew his hand, looked toward the four formations, and said calmly, “Enter the ship.”

The four formations did not hesitate in the slightest and silently entered the ship’s hold. The deck emptied in an instant.

Not long after those Demon-Suppressing Army troops entered the hold, the flying ship let out a dull boom and began to move westward, in the exact direction from which Shi Lan and the others had come.

A layer of light appeared around the flying ship, blocking the howling astral wind outside. The people on the deck were not affected in the slightest.

Shi Lan quickly estimated the speed of the flying ship and was somewhat surprised to find that it was far faster than an Earth Fiend Realm martial artist riding a weapon through the air.

The young man on the platform took a step forward and, in the flick of a finger, crossed several hundred zhang to arrive before the assembled crowd.

“Anyone with the rank of Centurion or above, step forward.”

The young man swept his gaze across the group as he spoke.

Shi Lan and Wu Lingkong dismounted from their flood-dragon horses and quickly walked to the front of the formation.

Among the several hundred people, there were only seven officers at the rank of Centurion or above, and all of them were Centurions. There was not a single Thousand-man Commander.

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Of the seven, besides Shi Lan and Wu Lingkong, there was another tall woman of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old whose cultivation was at the eighth stage of the Innate Realm. The remaining four were men, their cultivation ranging from the seventh to the ninth stage of the Innate Realm.

The young man’s gaze swept over the seven, then finally settled on Shi Lan. He raised his hand and said, “Take out your Demon-Suppressing Orders.”

Shi Lan froze for a moment, then took the Demon-Suppressing Order from her robe.

The man drew Shi Lan’s Demon-Suppressing Order into his hand and frowned slightly. “You joined the Demon-Suppressing Army after the demonic beasts invaded?”

“Yes.”

“So be it. These are extraordinary times, so we must do extraordinary things. You have already stepped into the Earth Fiend Realm, but your battle merits are insufficient. This general will make an exception and promote you to Thousand-man Commander. You can make up the battle merits later.”

He did not dwell on the matter. He took the Demon-Suppressing Order from his own waist and pressed it together with Shi Lan’s. The green Demon-Suppressing Order quickly changed from green to black, looking as if it had been carved from obsidian.

The altered Demon-Suppressing Order floated back into Shi Lan’s palm.

As she tightened her grip around it, Shi Lan felt a stir in her heart. After Huangfu Yun’s death and her own step into the Innate Realm, her Demon-Suppressing Order had lost its connection to its superior.

Now that sense of subordination was reestablished. Her Demon-Suppressing Order once more had a superior, placing her under the command of this black-armored general before her.

After taking another look at Shi Lan, the man suddenly frowned again. “Have I seen you somewhere before?”

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Before Shi Lan could answer, he shook his head. “Perhaps I’m remembering wrong.”

With that, he ordered the others to bring out their Demon-Suppressing Orders as well and began rearranging the assignments.

When he learned that Shi Lan had not belonged to the women’s battalion when she joined the Demon-Suppressing Army, he immediately removed her from the women’s unit.

In the Demon-Suppressing Army, the women formed a separate battalion. Aside from the difference in gender, their methods of combat were also very different from the men’s, and that was one of the reasons.

Shi Lan knew nothing about the women’s battalion’s way of fighting, so placing her in command of them would clearly have been inappropriate.

Half an hour later, several hundred more presences appeared on Shi Lan’s Demon-Suppressing Order. The four Centurions and several hundred Demon-Suppressing Army soldiers, including Wang Ning, had all been placed under her command.

Shi Lan felt considerable pressure from this. She did not know how to arrange troops, and she knew nothing at all about commanding on the battlefield. With these hundreds of people under her, she had undoubtedly been given a heavy burden.

She had tried to use her ignorance of battle formations as a reason to refuse, but the man cut her off with a single sentence.

“Arranging troops is this general’s job. Once you are on the battlefield, you need only obey my orders and charge forward. You do not need to command.”

Wu Lingkong and the other women soldiers were assigned to the command of a Thousand-man Commander in the women’s battalion on this flying ship.

“You may enter the ship’s hold and rest for a while. I will inform you about further military matters later.”

Once everything was arranged, the man returned to the platform, placed his hand on the jade panel, and closed his eyes, as if sensing something.

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The group filed slowly into the hold.

The space inside the hold was extremely large and divided into three levels, each over thirty zhang high.

Two of the levels were filled with quiet rooms for cultivation or rest. After a rough calculation of the area, Shi Lan realized this flying ship could accommodate at least more than two hundred thousand people.

The quiet rooms varied in size. Only officers at the rank of Centurion and above could occupy one alone, while ordinary soldiers had to share, with four to six people in a room.

Upon entering the hold, Shi Lan waved away the several hundred soldiers who had been following behind her and told them to rest on their own.

Now that she was a Thousand-man Commander, the quiet room she was assigned measured two zhang in length, width, and height.

The furnishings inside were very simple. There was no bed, only a wooden couch with a cushion on it. Other than that, there was nothing else.

After briefing her new superior, that Thousand-man Commander of the women’s battalion, on the basic situation, Wu Lingkong came to Shi Lan’s quiet room.

“Boom… crack…”

Once she had firmly shut the quiet room door, Wu Lingkong flopped down on the wooden couch and let out a long sigh. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had that feeling of not even being able to speak freely.”