Chapter Seven Hundred and Forty Eight – The Beginning of Expansion (1/2)

Chapter Seven Hundred and Forty Eight – The Beginning of Expansion

The re-appearance of Zhong De was akin to an earthquake for all of the Four Realms.

To the young people, this name was unfamiliar. But for those older, they all changed expression when they spoke of him. When people found the life history of this old general from the records, their hearts shook, they stopped breathing, and their lips tasted the thick tang of blood. The heart-shaking battle campaigns, even after fifty years of dust, still caused people’s hearts to beat frantically.

The first thing that Zhong De did after returning was to make a great cleansing of Xi Xuan. He killed so many of the upper ranks that it had never happened before in the history of the Four Realms.

Xi Xuan was dyed in blood, and the central region of Xi Xuan, the Central Plains, was soaked in blood.

Countless Xi Xuan battle generals heard of this, and hurriedly fled in the night.

The outside world learned later that in the span of a short moth, the commanders of thirty nine battalions had disappeared. And in the unprecedented cleansing process, the true number of people from Xi Xuan that were executed was thirty thousand, and not seven thousand as previously believed.

Under Zhong De’s iron fist, not even one rebellion occurred.

Soon, Zhong De whose hands were covered in blood once again showed the world his cruel and vicious style. He did not wait for the sect to finish reorganizing, did not care about the instability of the sect. He suddenly led the Abyss Prison Battalion to appear on the borders of Xi Xuan.

In a lightning fast campaign, he destroyed three factions.

This was a retaliation. The three factions destroyed were the three factions that had recently defeated Xi Xuan’s battalions.

This seemingly normal retaliatory action shocked the world again-

-because the cities were massacred!

Even though fighting had occurred for so many years, massacring everyone was rare, even in battles between the xiuzhe and yaomo.

The seventeen cities of the three jie became a desolate land.

Such cruel actions caused condemnation from the rest of the Four Realms. Crowds of people were furious. They called him cruel, blood-thirsty, savage, and emotionless, butcher and all sorts of other words to describe the old general. But no matter how they criticized, no battalion dared to advance on Xi Xuan. The people were filled with deep terror and fear of this inhuman battle general.

When enough blood had been split, there naturally would be peace.

These became famed words spoken by Zhong De.

All of Xi Xuan trembled. The factions surrounding Xi Xuan trembled.

No one dared to say that Xi Xuan was the second Xuan Kong Temple. Even people who hated Xi Xuan had to admit that Xi Xuan’s rise could not be stopped. Even if its rise was by struggling up from the mud and mired in blood.

Sweeping away its decline, Xi Xuan was at peace again.

However, after five years at rest, the major sects that had focused on their own development had now finished their preparations to fight again.

This time, Kun Lun moved first.

———

Kun Lun had begun to move.

Zuo Mo’s expression was grave. In front of him, everyone else was grave as well. They knew that one day, Kun Lun would become an enemy they had to face. The indescribable pressure of Kun Lun always was a stone weighing on their minds.

“Our present holdings are sixty nine jie,” Gongsun Cha said calmly. “After digesting Xuan Kong Temple, Kun Lun’s dominion is about one thousand and three hundred jie; Tian Huan holds one thousand and one hundred jie; Xi Xuan has not developed much and holds about eight hundred jie; the nine great dhynana sects hold about six hundred jie; Gu Liang Dao’s faction controls one hundred and forty two jie. These are the public numbers and the numbers of those jie controlled secretly are hard to calculate. Also, each faction have always been working to take the surround factions to strengthen themselves. If we face them now, we have no chance of victory. What is fortunate is that between us and Kun Kun there are the Nine Great Dhyana Sects, Tian Huan, and Xi Xuan. While Mo Cloud Sea is slightly remote, there are no strong enemies around, this is our advantage.

The jie map on the wall clearly showed Mo Cloud Sea’s boundaries. Of the entire Four realms, it was a tiny piece.

While everyone was familiar with these numbers, they still inhaled sharply. The enormity of Kun Lun and Tian Huan was suffocating.

He Ming stood up and then said, “In the past few years, our strength has grown quickly. Abundant resources in addition to our great production abilities, as well as our mature trade channels. Our wealth accumulation has been good. The front line battalions have all completely been refitted with the new [Mo Cloud System] shen equipment. It is one of the top battalion shen raiments on the market and the inventory we have is satisfactory.”

When he spoke of this, the battle generals present nodded and were full of confidence.

This was true. While Mo Cloud Sea was not large at present, but its equipment was among the best of the world. As shen power developed, talismans had gradually left the world’s stage to be replaced by shen equipment.

Shen equipment was the lesser version of shen devices. It was not as powerful as shen device raiments but it did not strain the user as much as shen device raiments did. Most importantly, it was not as expensive to create as shen device raiments.

Mo Cloud Sea’s [Mo Cloud System] shen equipment had always been one of the outstanding shen equipment on the market. Together with [Kun Lun System] and [Tian Huan System] it was ranked as the top tier and collectively were called the three great shen equipment. Even Xi Xuan’s [Xi Xuan System] and the nine great dhyana sect’s [Dhyana System] were on a lower level.

The level of the shen equipment required understanding of shen power, skill in forging, and rich resources.

In the short term, no one would be able to shake the status of the three great systems.

In reality, while Mo Cloud Sea’s territory was not large, there were rarely people who would think of them as a small local power. They produced top level shen equipment, had two top battle generals, they did not have a large territory but had abundant resources. No one dared to look down at them. Inside Mo Cloud Sea were strong beings that were full of confidence and didn’t know what fear was.