Chapter 3342

Heishan did not hurry to withdraw his troops either. Instead, he reorganized the soldiers who had just surrendered on the spot.

Things went smoothly on Jiang Yuanhai’s side as well. In the end, they surrounded the remaining demon soldiers, after which Heishan led sixty thousand demon soldiers in a charge and persuaded them to surrender, capturing more than fifty thousand prisoners.

However, Heishan screened them and kept only a little over twenty thousand. The rest, whose strength was relatively weak, were killed outright and used as cultivation resources.

All the spoils on the battlefield could only be used by the demon soldiers, so they were all left to Heishan and the others to collect.

Only then did Ye Liuyun release Li Xinghai and the Li family’s disciples, allowing them to see the state of the battlefield.

“The demon army has been wiped out by us. Fewer than twenty thousand have escaped so far. Once we reorganize our forces, we’ll continue pursuing them.

“The Palm Seal Dynasty has also been destroyed by me. They held back when resisting the demons, sending other martial artists to their deaths while trying to flee with their resources. You don’t need a dynasty like that.”

“I will take all the planets the demons conquered before. I won’t touch the remaining planets, so there will be enough for those of you who are left. This galaxy is temporarily safe now. You can find a place to settle down and start over!”

Ye Liuyun explained everything that had happened to Li Xinghai and the others, then let them leave on their own.

Li Xinghai had never expected that the demon army they had regarded as invincible would now have its corpses strewn across the ground, with tens of thousands of soldiers surrendering.

When they saw the three-hundred-thousand-strong army under Ye Liuyun’s command, they were even more shocked.

“Every single soldier is actually at or above the ninth level of the Return-to-One Realm.” The Li family’s disciples were all astounded.

Some of the disciples even grew curious about the Fire Seal Galaxy. “What kind of galaxy is the Fire Seal Galaxy?”

Ye Liuyun casually told them, “The Fire Seal Galaxy is in even worse shape than yours now. It has fewer remaining planets than you do, and it was nearly wiped out by the demons!”

“What? Even soldiers this powerful couldn’t defeat the demons?” The disciples all found it unbelievable.

Ye Liuyun smiled helplessly. “No matter how strong martial artists and soldiers are, without a capable royal family to lead them, they’re still nothing more than a rabble!”

He did not explain any further and went straight to find Heishan to discuss how to exterminate the remaining demons.

After thanking Ye Liuyun and bidding him farewell, Li Xinghai prepared to lead the Li family’s disciples away.

Some of the disciples were unwilling to leave and wanted to continue following Ye Liuyun. They felt that with their strength, establishing a clan of their own would be far too difficult. It would be safer to follow Ye Liuyun.

Li Xinghai scolded them instead. “Stop fooling around. At your level, what are you staying behind for? To be a burden to him? Look around him—do you see anyone with a cultivation level as low as yours?”

“We can serve in the army! We could even pilot flying vessels or help carry some equipment!” some of the disciples argued.

Their ignorance made Li Xinghai so angry that his beard bristled. “At your level, which army do you think would want you?

“The gap between your cultivation levels and theirs is far too great. You aren’t even people from the same world. You may think you can swallow your pride and work as servants, but to them, your presence would be nothing but a burden. At a critical moment, they would even have to protect you.

“Without strength, no one would even want you as slaves or servants. Do you understand?”

Li Xinghai brought out a flying vessel, stuffed the disciples inside, and hurriedly took them away, afraid they would go bother Ye Liuyun.

When Ye Liuyun saw them leave aboard the flying vessel, he let out a sigh of relief. He had heard what the disciples said and had been worried that they would come begging him.

Those people’s strength was far too low. Even if he accepted them, he could only throw them into his spatial world; they would be of no use at all.

As for the army, Li Xinghai was absolutely right. They were too weak even to be needed as servants.

Heishan immediately took thirty thousand demon soldiers in pursuit of the remaining demons, with the Second Clone leading them. The Tiger-Headed Beast King, meanwhile, stayed behind temporarily to reorganize the army.

The fleeing demons deployed warships several times, but each one was blasted apart by the spirit-qi beasts condensed by the First Clone. They could neither escape nor find their enemy, and could only howl in rage.

Only when Heishan arrived with thirty thousand demon soldiers did they begin preparing to fight back. Their supreme commander had not yet recovered from his injuries, but he still insisted on fighting.

Before the two sides could even engage, Ye Liuyun’s two clones joined forces and shot the commander dead with their bows and arrows. The Second Clone then led the female soldiers in another charge, killing nearly half of the remaining demons before surrounding all of them.

They used powerful crossbows to hem the demons in. Heishan also led the demon soldiers in a charge. Seeing that the attackers were all their own people, the remaining demons simply stopped fighting, laid down their weapons, and surrendered.

Heishan retrieved the supreme commander’s Interspatial Ring and found it packed with resources. These were all spoils they had seized or obtained by killing others here. Now they all belonged to Ye Liuyun’s demon army.

“With these resources, all of us should be able to raise our cultivation to around the eighth or ninth level of the Return-to-One Realm!” Heishan said excitedly.

“Good. Once you’ve finished reorganizing the army, devote yourselves to cultivation as soon as possible. We won’t need you to fight for the time being!” The clone acknowledged him, then led the demon army back to reorganize it.

The demon army now numbered more than one hundred thousand, so Ye Liuyun brought out the puppets as well. Once the demons improved their strength, the puppets would be of little use to them, so they could be given to the Death Legion to supplement its high-end combat strength.

The Death Legion had been cultivating at an accelerated pace inside the Second Clone’s spatial world during this time, and the soldiers had all reached the fifth level of the Return-to-One Realm. The five commanders, including Yu Xiaofeng, had reached the sixth level of the Return-to-One Realm and were in urgent need of high-end combat strength.

He also had the artifact refiners help assemble a total of ten thousand puppets. Three thousand were at the ninth level of the Return-to-One Realm, while seven thousand were at the eighth level. All of them were outfitted with armor from the Creation Realm.

During this time, Ye Liuyun and several of his clones took the demonic beasts around to claim planets. Since he had helped the Palm Seal Galaxy eliminate the demon invasion, he was certainly going to claim some resources; otherwise, this battle would have been for nothing.

However, while they were claiming the planets, they encountered quite a few returning martial artists. No matter how Ye Liuyun explained the situation to them, he simply could not get through to them.

Some even tried to morally blackmail Ye Liuyun, saying that a good person should see things through to the end and that, after helping them, he should have left instead of taking their resources. Some even claimed that Ye Liuyun was no different from the demons and had come specifically for their resources.

In the end, Ye Liuyun could no longer be bothered to explain. Everything would be settled by strength: anyone who resisted was killed outright. After all, only a minority of the people had returned; most were still on other planets, so this small number would not have any real impact.

It was not only Ye Liuyun who found these local martial artists distasteful. Even the demonic beasts showed no mercy when attacking them.