Chapter 405 – A Soldier or a General? (1/2)
What a crafty old bag of bones! Li Qingshan cursed inside. With that, he would have to defeat two powerful Daemon Generals consecutively if he wanted the position, while Dragonsnail could remain uninvolved. Bloodshadown and Strongboulder were clearly rivals, so their strength were probably equal. By then, perhaps Dragonsnail would end up being the one in charge.
“Alright, then that’s decided. Northmoon, when do you plan on going ahead with this?” Spider Queen Lolth curled her lips. When it came to conflict, she would always be brimming with interest.
“I will definitely come and see ma’am Spider Queen again in three days time and battle it out with these two ‘seniors’!” Li Qingshan clasped his hands. After an initial probing, he had basically confirmed that Spider Queen Lolth was towards the warlike end of the spectrum within the daemons. She would never hand him over due to some Treaty of Kings.
Of course, the person who had the final say over this was still the Dragon King of Ink Sea who reigned over the world of daemons in the Green province. However, basically everyone could tell that war was unavoidable. The probability of the Dragon King of Ink Sea killing one of his subordinates on the spot was so low that it was basically zero.
Strongboulder was excited, Bloodshadow’s gaze was vicious, and Li Qingshan’s lips were slightly curled. The gazes of the three Daemon Generals clashed before they all turned around and took their leave.
Leaving the chamber of the throne and returning to the region of the Spider Shadow clan, Li Qingshan gazed over the entire city from a terrace.
“Sir Northmoon, how much of a chance do you think you have?” Ye Mingzhu probed him.
“Fifty percent.” Li Qingshan was neither conceited, nor did he underestimate himself. He only showed off extraordinary confidence. “If you’re willing to assist me, perhaps that might increase by ten or twenty percent.”
“I’ll definitely leave you satisfied, sir Northmoon!” Ye Mingzhu lowered her head. His chances at success were already startlingly high.
“If my ambition can come true, then how difficult can your ambition be?”
“Uncle, that little brother of mine really is very troublesome! There’s nothing I can do this time.” In the commandery city of Ruyi, Gu Yanying clutched the Ink Dragon talisman and said helplessly.
After receiving the news from the Green Vine mountain, she was tempted to capture Li Qingshan immediately and choke him until he told her just what was going on. Was he really going to ignore her previous words?
The ink dragon coiled around a few times before spitting out a sentence, “Then let them fight!”
“Will the peace of several millennia finally be broken?”
“Limited to the Clear River prefecture, those whose cultivation is below two heavenly tribulations.”
“What! Why?” In Cobweb city, a similar small, black dragon danced and coiled about like a black wisp, passing on the Dragon King of Ink Sea’s order. The Spider Queen beamed at first before becoming furious. The war she had thirsted for all this time was finally about to begin, but she could not be directly involved.
“Learn to use your subordinates!” said the tiny dragon before dispersing completely.
At the same time, Fu Qingjin received orders from the Sword Collection palace. From this point on, he would be completely in charge of the Daemon Suppression alliance in the Clear River prefecture. He would be able to do whatever he wanted within the Clear River prefecture. As long as he did not venture too deeply underground and reached that place called Cobweb city, the Spider Queen would not touch him. But at the same time, he would not receive the assistance of any Golden Core cultivators either.
Both of them sighed as they experienced the same thought, Are you planning on turning the fifteen hundred kilometers of the Clear River prefecture into a chessboard?
The Clear River prefecture was like a miniature version of the Green province, where the complications between the three organisations were almost identical.
No one knew how alike the thoughts of those above ground were. Had they allowed this to happen as training for the war in the future? Or, was it to use the brutal reality of war to warn those who liked fighting? Or, perhaps this was just a game within their lengthy lives! A mere gamble!
Gu Yanying stowed the Ink Dragon talisman away. Is my job just to prevent others from interrupting this game? Most of them are easy to deal with, except that the old man from Pine Sough academy. He’s very stubborn. There’s only one person who can stop him.
The heavy gales of wind whistled through the air, making the pine trees sough and ripple.
Together with the wind came the misty rain, rolling over the soughing pine trees like fog. It drifted through the mountains before colliding with a large mountain and scattering over it. Lofty structures peppered the mountain, and the doors were labeled with three powerful and charming words. It was the renowned Pine Sough academy.
The sounds of studying rang out everywhere, piercing through the autumn rain and rising into the sky.
A streak of light descended from above, arriving outside a thatched hut on the back of the mountain. A dark-skinned scholar sheathed his sword; he was a Foundation Establishment cultivator who had already gone through a heavenly tribulation. The thatched hut before him was so simple that even regular people would have found it to be overly run-down.
However, the dark-skinned scholar became cautious. He tidied his clothes and gave a great bow. “Master.”
The wooden door opened, revealing the back of someone currently bent over a table, writing. His small, skinny body held up his large robes, which seemed especially big on him. Many bottles and containers were scattered around the ground behind him. They were actually for catching the rain that ran down the hut.
“Junior brother Jiang is dead.” The dark-skinned scholar was furious. He went off to help him the moment he received Jiang Shancheng’s distress signal, but he never thought it would turn out like this. Not only was he dead, but they had even lost an extremely important Soaring Dragon ship.
When the old man finished listening to everything, he just happened to have finished writing a word. With a sweep of his arm, the sword hanging on the wall flew into his hand. The sheathe was very old, but it was simple and uncomplicated, just like him.
He strode towards the door as his aura grew, lifting up his large robes, lifting up the simple room, and lifting up the Pine Sough academy, filling the entire world.
His wrinkled face was so solemn that it was almost rigid, and his wispy, white beard drifted about gently. In the eyes of regular people, he was just a small, skinny old man, but he gave off a bearing that no regular person could imagine. It was boundless and dauntless.
He was the head scholar of Pine Sough academy, Wen Zhengming.