Chapter 263 - 224: War Between Two Nations, the Secret Realm Opens

Chapter 263: Chapter 224: War Between Two Nations, the Secret Realm Opens

The Yin Country was rotten to the core.

That was Gu Jie’s assessment.

Along his journey, he had witnessed far too many tragedies.

A woman, so gaunt she was nothing but skin and bones, unable to produce a drop of milk, could only feed her infant with her own blood. A skeletal-looking couple who had resorted to swapping their children to eat them. A child by the roadside, their belly bloated from eating dirt, collapsed and unmoving...

Gu Jie had grown up on Shanli Island. He had seen many dead, and he had endured the pain of his parents’ passing. Those calamities had not broken him. He had walked out of hell itself, so he believed nothing he experienced could ever stir his emotions again.

But this scene before him truly shattered his worldview.

’So, there’s a place even more hellish than the Shanli Island of the past.’

He had thought he was here to conquer, but it turned out he was truly here to liberate them.

「Spirit Valley Pass.」

Once he was past this point, Gu Jie would have officially broken through the Yin Country’s main line of defense.

The country’s reaction speed was far too slow. He had been fighting his way here for nearly half a month, yet it seemed they were only now becoming aware of his presence.

Even so, they still hadn’t managed to organize a force to intercept him.

The efficiency of the state machinery was appallingly low. He seriously doubted they could even pay their soldiers.

Behind Gu Jie, fifty elite combatants stood in formation. Further back were over a thousand local experts he had recruited along the way. One had to be at least D-rank Seventh Rank to remain; otherwise, they couldn’t possibly keep up with the army’s marching speed.

The gates of the city ahead were sealed shut. Above, the defending general wore a grim expression.

By the time he received the news, Gu Jie and his forces were already less than twenty li from the city.

He had almost no time to prepare. He couldn’t have imagined that all the cities before this one had fallen, allowing the enemy to fight their way right to his doorstep.

More than eight hundred meters from the fortress walls, the army halted. Gu Jie signaled for a disciple beside him to call out.

"Hear me, defenders of the city! We are the army of the Saint King Council, here by the Supreme One’s command to liberate this backward, barren, and corrupt land! Surrender, and none shall lack for food or clothing. All will have shelter from the cold and sun..."

After a moment, the disciple had clearly conveyed their message in the local tongue. To demonstrate their power, he then activated a Spatial Ring on the spot, pulling out two small mountains of grain.

The grain was even a local variety. Gu Jie had been worried the locals might be afraid to eat unfamiliar food, so he had specifically contacted logistics to have it materialized using their latest printing technology. The energy cost was more than ten times the value of the grain itself—an extravagant display of wealth. However, for the current Origin Star, this was a drop in the bucket of a drop in the bucket. They could just write it off as a technical study to gather usage data.

In a year plagued by disaster and severe government corruption, such a sight was unheard of. Even at the peak of the country’s golden age, no faction could simply conjure a mountain of grain out of thin air.

Furthermore, none of the three nations in the Two Realms Basin had mastered that kind of Space Technology.

Instantly, the morale of the defending soldiers began to waver.

Seeing this, the defending general, Zou Hui, immediately bellowed, "That’s just a sorcerer’s illusion! Qingrui Prefecture just suffered a great drought. Where would they get so much grain?"

"Whether it’s an illusion or not, you’ll know if you send one person over to take some, won’t you?"

The disciple below seemed to have heard Zou Hui’s words. He immediately channeled his vital energy, projecting his voice over the entire city.

"General, why don’t we go take a look? If it’s real grain, we could even just seize it..."

A soldier’s resolve had already crumbled.

SCHLICK!

A head tumbled to the ground. Zou Hui raised his saber and declared, "Anyone who dares to disrupt the army’s morale will be executed without mercy!"

Zou Hui was starting to panic. He knew better than anyone that the grain was almost certainly real.

His eyesight was better than anyone else’s, but for that very reason, he couldn’t possibly let anyone go to inspect it. He wasn’t confident he could defeat Gu Jie and his men, and the result of a confrontation would be the fall of the city. For now, he could only use ruthless measures to buy time while he sent a message to his superiors and awaited orders.

’I must defend this city. It is my duty!’

After that display, no one dared to speak out of turn. However, a subtle change had come over his subordinates’ eyes as they glanced intermittently at the mountains of grain below.

Seeing that the situation wasn’t progressing, Gu Jie made an immediate decision: it was time to storm the city.

They hadn’t brought any modern weaponry. Zhang Ji had only permitted them to wear combat armor with its basic defensive functions unlocked. Things like Energy Cannons were strictly forbidden. In other words, they could basically only fight with melee weapons.

Fortunately, even their melee weapons were top-tier by local standards, having reached the (Fine) grade.

"Wait for me to open the gates!" Gu Jie said.

The next moment, he leaped from his horse. A blast of flowing wind erupted from beneath his feet as he soared through the air, bounding several times in succession as he shot straight for the city gate.

This was a technique he had only recently developed, one he called the [Sky Soaring Step].

Zou Hui’s expression changed drastically. He reacted instantly, drawing his bow and firing at Gu Jie.

He drew the bow to a full moon, and an arrow shot forth, streaking toward Gu Jie, who was six to seven hundred meters away.

This bow was made from the sinew of a mutant giant python; only Zou Hui had the strength to draw it. A regular archer using a standard-issue longbow from the court could shoot two hundred meters at most.

The arrow’s speed was truly extraordinary. In a near instant, it had arrived. Gu Jie swept his hand out, and a long blade extended from his armor. Wreathed in the Wind Element, it sliced the arrow in two.

It probably wouldn’t have broken through his defenses even if it had hit him directly, what with his combat armor and his own Body Refinement.

Still, it would have been undignified.

Zou Hui was dumbfounded, but Gu Jie was already closing in fast.