Volume 1, Chapter 480 – Consolidation

“Where is the City Defense Commandant? Why are five thousand Silver Sky Guards missing?”

Outside the city, in the military camp, a young man dressed in a blue-violet python robe stood tall atop the command platform. Below him stretched a vast sea of troops.

His gaze swept across the assembled soldiers, his eyes exceedingly sharp, like an eagle sizing up wolves.

“Reporting to Marquis Ningwu: Commandant Qiu led troops out of the city a few days ago to suppress bandit vagrants… and has yet to return.”

Yan Pan stepped out from the military formation, his head lowered.

Aside from him, no one in the army knew where those five thousand Silver Sky Guards had gone.

“Bandit vagrants? He dared move troops without first requesting a mobilization order from the Ministry of War? Who gave him that kind of nerve?”

Marquis Ningwu frowned slightly and was just about to continue when a shrill cry suddenly came from the distance. A crimson streak arced across the sky, shooting toward the drill ground in the camp.

A great hand reached out from the void and seized the crimson streak in one grasp. Marquis Ningwu drew back his hand, and a miniature arrow had already appeared in his palm.

[A fourth-rank City Defense Commandant, Qiu Huai, is dead. Five thousand Silver Sky Guards have been buried in the wilderness. The identity of the killer is unknown.]

In an instant, Marquis Ningwu’s face darkened slightly. His jaw tightened, and the miniature arrow crumbled into powder at once.

Over the past few days, countless officials of the Tianyun Dynasty had died sudden and inexplicable deaths, including not a few high-ranking frontier officials. Every clue pointed toward the bounty issued by the Great Meng Sacred Court.

He wasted no more time. Displaying his command tally, he raised a hand and gave the order.

“Take roll immediately and march for Huque Pass on the border!”

The fighting at the border was intense. He had come here in the first place to transfer troops, and there was simply no time to investigate certain matters.

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…

…

At the border of the Tianyun Dynasty.

An utterly inconspicuous spatial passage opened in midair.

Under the direction of the many Demon Kings, several hundred thousand demon beasts filed out in orderly fashion, making very little noise.

With the suppression of bloodline in place, even the lowest demon beasts were extremely obedient.

Qinglan stepped out of the spatial passage and swept her divine sense over the surrounding landscape. Comparing it with the map she had seen not long ago, she quickly identified her current location.

This place was now less than a million li from the boundary between the two dynasties.

It could be said that they had already entered the zone of conflict between the dynasties, where they might encounter the armies of either side at any time.

Against a dynasty’s army, the Lan Clan might not necessarily lose as they were now, but they would certainly suffer heavy casualties, and that was not what she wanted.

These five hundred thousand members of the Lan Clan had been willing to abandon their old homeland in the demon domain and cross the sea of stars to follow her here. That alone had made them her true clansmen.

Looking over the enormous beast horde below, Qinglan frowned slightly, sensing that this would be troublesome.

She had only just entered the Dao Union Realm. Even if she opened up a world, the gap between her and Shi Lan would still be as vast as heaven and earth. With a great world as her foundation, the degree of convenience was simply unimaginable.

The world Qinglan could open at present was, at most, the embryonic form of a small world. It would be difficult for it to sustain the Lan Clan, and in the entire clan, aside from her, the strongest was only in the Nascent Soul Realm.

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After pondering for a while, Qinglan pulled up the system panel from the depths of her mind.

[Host: Qinglan (Avatar)]

[Cultivation: early-stage Dao Union Realm (early seventh rank)]

[Aptitude: 9 (once in a thousand years)]

[Technique: Tiancang Xuanling Scripture (sixth layer)]

[Divine Abilities: Five Elements Heavenly Fiend Seal (nine stars), Soul-Devouring (eight stars), Nine Transformations of the Heaven Demon (nine stars, incomplete)]

[Strength Evaluation: Has entered the hall]

[Current Reputation Value: 7,651,283 (renowned across one domain)]

Her gaze lingered on the reputation value for quite some time, but in the end she did not press further. She was not entirely certain whether doing so would alert Shi Lan.

As Shi Lan’s avatar, no one understood better than she did just how terrifying Shi Lan truly was.

Shi Lan had always kept her distance from power she could not control.

The moment Shi Lan sensed anything unusual about her, regardless of whether it was good or bad, Shi Lan’s first reaction would absolutely be to erase her from this world completely, without the slightest hesitation.

At this moment, she could only hope that the head and official seal of that City Defense Commandant had some value, enough to win the Lan Clan a corner of land in the Great Meng Sacred Court where they could live and multiply.

Only by using that as a foundation could they seek future development.

At the very least, before Shi Lan arrived in the Shenwu Great World, Qinglan wanted to possess some power of her own to protect herself.

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…

…

The route of advance taken by five hundred thousand demonfolk was far too obvious, and the two dynasties were in the midst of war. Powerful experts crossed the void from time to time to patrol this region.

“Halt!”

After advancing toward the border for half a day, the Lan Clan was blocked by an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Within the vast military formation, most of the soldiers rode warhorses or other mounts, clad in dark armor from head to toe. Between the ranks, royal banners whipped wildly in the wind, and a fierce aura of slaughter rushed straight at them.

Qinglan stepped forward slowly, shielding the Lan Clan behind her. She raised a hand and took out Qiu Huai’s head along with his official seal, then tossed them through the air.

A commander wearing a faceplate stepped forward and caught the head and seal. After carefully verifying them, he passed the news to the rear of the formation.

Half a quarter of an hour later, the formation slowly shifted aside, opening a path that extended into the distance.

At the center of the road, more than ten wooden chests had been left behind, already open.

Inside the chests were neatly stacked white crystals, each one a yuanstone.

There were quite a few more than Qinglan had expected, around one hundred and thirty thousand. In addition to the yuanstones, one of the chests also contained a black passage token and a simplified map of the Great Meng borderlands.

The reaction of the Great Meng Sacred Court, and the speed and decisiveness with which it acted, were somewhat beyond Qinglan’s expectations. She had even been prepared to undergo questioning.

But passing through so easily lightened the burden on her mind considerably.

The Lan Clan set out once more. With a map to guide them, their speed increased noticeably.

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As they gradually drew nearer to the border, more and more bones littered the wilderness, belonging to all manner of living beings. They also encountered the armies of the Great Meng Sacred Court with increasing frequency.

Perhaps because the Lan Clan’s strength was too weak to pose any real threat to a dynasty, Qinglan met with no trouble under the protection of the passage token. Everything proceeded as smoothly as flowing water, and she stepped into the territory of the Great Meng Sacred Court.

…

…

Lingyang Realm, Vast Land of Shenzhou, Central Heaven Domain.

After dealing with the Lan Clan’s affairs, Shi Lan did not remain outside for long. She returned home and prepared to enter seclusion for a period of time.

Too many upheavals had happened recently. The injuries within her body had not yet healed, and it was truly not suitable for her to keep running about.

Although she had now stepped into the Heaven-Man Realm, Shi Lan felt not the slightest sense of satisfaction.

The Yuqing Creation Art did not require one to pass through the ninefold lightning tribulations of the Heaven-Man Realm, and could lead directly to the great perfection of that realm.

But the world-ending great tribulation of the Emperor level could never be avoided. In the end, it still had to be crossed.

On the day she stepped into the Heaven-Man Realm, had that immortal light not helped her, she would already have died beneath the heavenly tribulation.

The world-ending great tribulation would only be even more terrifying.

She would not place her hopes on that immortal light again. She could not count on something that had happened once happening a second time.

At her current rate of cultivation, it might still take some years before she could touch the Emperor level. During that time, the only thing Shi Lan could do was continuously temper her own foundation and raise her battle strength as much as possible.