Just seeing the slightest bit of the Hongchen Kingdom's border made Cao Yun emotional. It had been more than ten years now since he had been in the Hongchen Kingdom. Finally, he could see it. And soon, he would be back home. Just glancing at the familiar landscape brought many memories back. Cao Yun had only been fifteen when his family was slaughtered in front of him. He could still see the faces of his parents when they decided to sacrifice themselves to save the young members of the Cao family.
Cao Yun could still hear the words of his father.
"Leave with your sister. Protect her! Live! Your mother and I love you! Do not throw away your life. Live!"
Then, he could see his own blood as his great-grandfather's murderer slashed him apart and took his younger sister. At that moment, he had been convinced that he had failed his parents. He had failed his entire family and only vengeance remained. But his younger sister was alive. It had taken him five years to get to this truth, in the Imperial City, just before being sent into the Desolate Sepulcher.
Now Cao Yun was around thirty, almost thirty-one. Of all the cultivators of his family, he was obviously the youngest to reach the Spirit Warrior realm. His own father had been successful at forty-five after all. But he had also suffered through many trials and had been extremely lucky as well. Hopefully, his sister had not broken through yet, or her breakthrough wasn't stable enough for Emperor Weide to steal her Soul Embryo. The worst scenario Cao Yun could imagine would be to get back and discover that his sister had already been sacrificed so that traitor could reach the Sage realm. Besides, even an early Sage might not be enough to deal with the Empyrean Asura...
Cao Yun didn't let his emotions get the better of him. His spiritual senses were already spreading as far as possible. Since they were close to the border, he knew that there would be demons nearby, maybe even humans too. Those were the front lines after all.
Despite his stoicism, Hongyu could feel the tension within her brother's body. His fist had clenched some of her feathers without him realizing. Moreover, she was also emotional. As her cultivation was progressing, Hongyu was becoming smarter and smarter, her own consciousness was evolving. According to the texts Cao Yun had read about demonic beasts, after forming their nine cores, they could become Immortal Beasts. Immortal Beasts were as intelligent as humans, and they could even speak any tongue, just like human beings or demons. Even now, Hongyu was able to understand human speech, but she couldn't reply. Through her development though, she had been able to recall pieces of memory and sensations. She knew that Cao Yun had been there for her since she had hatched, but she was also aware that her own parents had been killed in this Hongchen Kingdom. She felt a powerful attraction to this land as well as a deep sorrow.
Those conflicting feelings were completely ignored for the sake of Cao Yun. She knew what he was looking for. Because she had never even been able to meet her own parents, she couldn't understand how it could feel to see them being murdered in front of one's eyes. Even though her parents and Cao Yun's, had died in a similar fashion, protecting their children, Hongyu had no memory or recollection of that. However, she could tell what she felt when she thought her brother had died in the Desolate Sepulcher. So she could tell what Cao Yun was feeling right now, hoping to save his sister. She would do everything she could to help him succeed.
-
Cao Yun had found no trace of humans. There were traces of fights and battles here and there, the entire landscape had changed. All over the place, one could see trenches, burned or destroyed trees, and sliced boulders. This was a place of chaos and destruction. Considering that the Silver Wolf Marshal and his Six Fangs Generals had been called back, it certainly meant that the situation had to be calmer than usual.
Among the chaos, Cao Yun was able to find a few demon camps. They were well hidden, concealed beneath several layers of array formations. Those array formations were of the highest possible grade. Clearly, this conflict had lasted a long time. Through Yu Xiangling's memories, Cao Yun could see her helping other array formation masters when they had been developing those in front of him right now. They were very sophisticated and unfamiliar to the Hongchen Kingdom. Apart from Sun Liao, Cao Yun wasn't sure anyone could see through them. Besides, they would be discovered while analyzing the array formations.
Anyway, Cao Yun could see through them easily since he quite literally had their entire plans. By putting them across the Bamboo Map of the area, it was fairly straightforward for Cao Yun to find each one of them. Even without his spiritual senses, he could have pointed them out. Unfortunately, he lacked some information. For example, he didn't know how important each camp was.
Hopefully, there was no late Accomplished Demon around here. Honestly, only a handful of demons had reached this level within the continent. Apart from the Silver Wolf Marshal and the Empyrean Asura, there shouldn't be a demon above the 7th-grade Accomplished Demon right now. The Six Fangs Generals weren't there, so Cao Yun was hoping that most demons around the area were early Accomplished Demons at most.
Right now, he wanted info, he didn't want to get dragged in another fight. So he found the closest camp and sent his spiritual senses through the array formations concealing it. With the plans in mind, it was incredibly easy to get in. Moreover, he was using his 'Ashen Feather Seal' to the extreme. After all, he needed it to stay hidden from Demon God Da Mo. Slowly, his soul spread into the camp. There were several hundred demons. But not a single one of them was even an Accomplished Demon.
Cao Yun explored the camp and looked for the high-ranking demons. After several minutes, he found their tents and went in. For the first time, he saw an Accomplished Demon, a mere 2nd-grade Accomplished Demon. Since she was alone, Cao Yun did not hesitate. No one was near her tent so he wasn't afraid of being discovered. His spiritual senses entered her sea of consciousness in an instant.
Before she could scream, her own mind was trapped within herself. She couldn't escape her sea of consciousness and everything had turned to blood with the giant image of Axiu Qian in front of her. Cao Yun did not even try to threaten her, or discuss with her. Immediately, he ripped apart her soul. This was war against his own kingdom, he would have no mercy for the soldiers engaged in it, unless it served his purposes. Mercy to his enemies would be cruelty against his allies. In an instant, her soul broke apart like a shattered mirror. All the pieces swirled around Axiu Qian and were devoured in his blood and bright red flames.
'Melting the Shattered Mirror'!
All of a sudden, all her memories were within Cao Yun. He could see all the meetings, all the strategies she had been privy to. Now, he knew exactly where the powerful Accomplished Demons were. Apparently, he had been rather lucky. She wasn't the weakest of the bunch, but she was still low in the hierarchy. In fact, she was high enough that her information was useful, but low enough that she was no threat at all. If he had faced a 7th-grade Accomplished Demon or even a 6th-grade Accomplished Demon, they might have been able to sound the alarm before he got in their sea of consciousness. She had barely been able to even feel it.
There were seals in her memories to prevent them from being extracted. But against Cao Yun, they were mere inconveniences. He took care of them all in seconds. After all, if he had been able to absorb Yu Xiangling's memories, no demon could hide their memories from him unless they erased them all completely before Cao Yun could attack.
Among those memories, Cao Yun could piece a few things together. The demons didn't have a full understanding of what was going on within the borders. However, many demons had been able to enter the Hongchen Kingdom and wreak havoc within. Thankfully, all their attempts to create portals for their forces to attack behind the front lines had failed. But it didn't mean they had stopped. Now and then, they launched assaults and a few demons were always able to get in. The war had spread farther than just the Subei Province or the Sunmen Province. Other demon forces also attacked from less protected provinces. But the main forces of the Empyrean Asura Theocracy were there.
Within the Hongchen Kingdom, demons had attacked small villages and cities here and there, trying to get deeper and deeper. Their goal was clearly the Imperial City. Apparently, even Demon God Da Mo didn't know about his own body being rebuilt under the Devil's Jail. Most likely, the array formations around the Hongchen Kingdom had made him blind to it.
Indeed, within her memories, Cao Yun saw what happened when the array formations defending the Hongchen Kingdom got triggered. Even late Accomplished Demons were almost killed. A shining light pierced the skies and stabbed a 7th-grade Accomplished Demon. He got his entire left side ripped apart and it had taken him three years to fully recover. On the other hand, Golden Blood Children simply couldn't walk forward. The farther they tried to get in, the heavier the pressure on them. Only Blood Children seemed to be unaffected by the defenses, unless they were sent in sufficient number to trigger it.
That being said, going through the tunnels underground diminished the effects of the defenses so much that even Accomplished Demons could get in. Consequently, the Hongchen Kingdom had formed large scale array formations to deal with them. For the demons, it was frightening because it felt as though the humans knew from where they were coming out of the tunnels. Obviously, Cao Yun knew that the Huang family had complete maps of those tunnels, so it wasn't too surprising. They knew them better than the demons.
Now and then, the humans also launched raids on the demons. Most of the war was thus fought around this border. But a few skirmishes and battles had spread deeper within the human territory and this troubled Cao Yun. He would need to get intel from the Hongchen Kingdom.
Unfortunately, he didn't see anything in her memories that would tell him if the people he knew were dead or alive...
What struck Cao Yun in the strategy of the demons was the use of slaves. Sometimes, they were used as mere cannon fodder to allow other demons to get deeper into the Hongchen Kingdom, but other times, they were used as blood sacrifices. Those poor slaves were either offered to the Heavenly Demon God, or used to weaken the array formations around the Hongchen Kingdom. Each time the array formations got triggered, it obviously required energy. So over time, it could be taken down by simply triggering it enough times. For seven years, the Empyrean Asura Theocracy had tried this method but the array formations had not been weakened enough. Although they had mostly stopped doing it, a few slaves were sacrificed to try and weaken a specific spot of the array formations before sending demons in. Apparently, it was efficient.
Apart from those demon slaves, Cao Yun also realized that they had taken a few human slaves as well. Most of them were either slaughtered as an offering to their Heavenly Demon God, or they were used as entertainment for the soldiers. In any case, those human slaves didn't last very long...
Currently, there were no living human slaves, but there were still many demon slaves. Most of those slaves had been sold by the Desolate Sepulcher. However, almost a quarter of those slaves were from the continent and had been enslaved by the Empyrean Asura Theocracy itself.
Cao Yun hesitated for a long time. As long as he didn't know what was actually going on within the Hongchen Kingdom, he couldn't take any military action. That being said, he could get ready. In this camp, he spread his spiritual senses as far as possible. His soul touched every single slave in the camp. Then, he found the Slavery Brand used to trap them. In each Slavery Brand, he added a few runes of his own. By now, he had become an expert when it came to unraveling the Slavery Brand. He had done so a lot, and the Empyrean Asura Theocracy had not altered those seals in the slightest.
At any moment now, Cao Yun could suddenly free all the slaves. This wouldn't cause too many problems for the demons as those slaves were less powerful than the army. Indeed, the strongest slaves were usually used even faster than any other slave. But any amount of chaos Cao Yun could create would be beneficial. Thus, he sowed the seed of said chaos, just in case.
The young man used the memories of his victim to travel to other camps and also to prepare every single demon slave.
In the end, he had found more than a million demons amassed near the border. Among them, he altered the Slavery Brand of around eighty thousand slaves. If around eight percent of the soldiers suddenly rebelled, it would surely create chaos. And if it happened just as humans charged, the demon forces might truly be vanquished, or at the very least, pushed back. Besides, there was also chaos far behind the front lines. If the army was dealt a heavy blow, it could help the rebels overthrow parts of the Empyrean Asura Theocracy. After all, this regime was weak and only stood because of the strength of Demon God Da Mo, as well as the fear he induced in others.
Once he was done, Cao Yun headed for the tunnels. He was going home.