Chapter 167 - Breaking Out

Perhaps it was the brisk decisiveness bred into soldiers, but the instant Xu Yuan finished speaking, General Wang barked toward the door.

“Men!”

CREAK! The old wooden door was pushed open almost at once. The adjutant standing guard outside strode into the hall, dropped to one knee, and cupped his fist. “General Wang, your orders?”

General Wang rose to his feet and began issuing brief commands as he moved. “Take men to the City Defense Office immediately and inspect the condition of every grand array in the city. Also inform He Xinchuan to have the Second Battalion ready to leave the city at any moment and receive Li Shengwu.”

A trace of astonishment flashed through the adjutant’s eyes. He did not know what had happened, but he accepted the order at once. “Yes, sir!”

“Go.”

The moment the words fell, the adjutant wasted no time. He circulated the army’s movement art and shot off outside.

General Wang reached the doorway, then paused. He looked back at Xu Yuan inside the room. “Young Master Zhou, I must excuse myself for now.”

“Please do as you must, General Wang. Senior Sister and I will return to the inn first. If there truly is a problem with the city defense array, General Wang may send someone to inform me.”

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The night gradually deepened.

Two hours later, under the lead of the deputy general he had met earlier, Xu Yuan climbed atop the walls of Sageridge.

Compared with the towering two hundred foot walls of Stillwater, Sageridge’s walls could only be called a little mound of dirt.

It was only a little over 34 feet high. The hard blue stone still bore the scars of old battles, pitted and gouged all over. In some places, exposed array patterns could even be seen beneath the surface.

Xu Yuan followed silently at the deputy general’s side. He could see that the burly middle-aged man’s face had darkened so much it looked ready to drip water.

It seemed something had gone wrong.

Shrouded by the illusory mist array, there was no moonlight in the sky. On the town wall, only the flickering glow of bonfires pushed back the dark.

After they had walked in silence for some distance, Xu Yuan lightly circulated his cultivation art and saw, at the far end of the wall, several generals in military dress. General Wang was among them.

When the officers standing on the wall saw Xu Yuan arrive, they gave him a measuring look, then silently departed one after another. Only General Wang came forward to meet him.

Once he stopped in front of Xu Yuan, General Wang went straight to the point as always. “Young Master Zhou, I will confirm this with you one more time. You truly have no direct evidence proving that the Myriad Manifestations Sect intends to massacre this town?”

Hearing this, Xu Yuan gently shook his head. “For something like this, the Myriad Manifestations Sect would never leave direct evidence behind. General Wang, surely you understand that much.”

General Wang fell silent for a moment, then let out a long sigh. “That is indeed true.”

Xu Yuan turned his eyes toward the outside of the town. From this side of the wall, one could clearly see the Sageridge border army arrayed in formation outside the town, slaughtering the waves of demonic beasts being funneled out of the illusory mist grand array.

“General Wang, how is the situation now?”

General Wang pondered for a moment, his eyes also fixed on the military formation below. “There are more than twice as many demonic beasts inside the illusory mist grand array as in previous years.”

“No, I meant the communication crystal.” Xu Yuan asked the question he cared about most.

If the communication crystal was still functioning, then he could call in help.

But faced with this question, General Wang only remained silent.

Seeing that, Xu Yuan sighed.

Judging by the man’s reaction, the communication crystal had most likely failed.

In other words, Sageridge had now been completely cut off from all contact with the outside world. It had become a true isolated city.

Still, Xu Yuan felt that if it were only the communication crystal failing, General Wang would not be wearing that expression. “Has something gone wrong with the town defense array as well?”

“Yes.” General Wang’s voice was low. He looked at the array patterns on the city wall and sighed helplessly. “Someone tampered with the spiritual energy reservoir of the town-protecting grand array. Right now, the entire array is only charged to about twenty percent.”

“What about the illusory mist grand array?”

“There is a problem with the control array patterns. We can no longer operate the grand array.”

Xu Yuan frowned. After a brief silence, he asked in a low voice, “When Xu Xinyao engraved the array, wasn’t your Sageridge border army supposed to have first priority in controlling it?”

Although the materials used to construct the array had been provided by the Myriad Manifestations Sect, when it came to something that concerned the lives of an entire city’s people, Xu Yuan did not think his fourth sister would be stupid enough to hand such a fundamental matter over to the sect.

General Wang was silent for a moment before replying. “According to the array blueprints Miss Xu gave us, our Sageridge border army was indeed meant to have first priority in controlling the array.”

“So the blueprints were secretly altered?” Xu Yuan narrowed his eyes. “Xu Xinyao shouldn’t have made such a low-level mistake.”

BANG! General Wang slammed his fist into the battlement, his hand clenched tight. “They must have tampered with it after Miss Xu left!”

“After she left?” Xu Yuan raised an eyebrow.

There was a trace of helplessness in General Wang’s voice. “Miss Xu’s third brother met with trouble. The illusory mist grand array had not yet been completed, but Miss Xu had no choice but to leave early. Most likely, during the final stretch before completion, those Myriad Manifestations Sect array masters secretly altered the array diagram she left behind.”

Xu Yuan sighed. “Even if she hadn’t left, the result would have been the same. As long as the Myriad Manifestations Sect had not given up on creating ghost fog, it was only a question of whether this happened sooner or later.”

As he spoke, Xu Yuan changed tack and asked bluntly, “So, General Wang, what exactly did you call me here for?”

General Wang rubbed his hands together. His booming voice had grown somewhat hesitant. “May I ask whether Young Master Zhou and your Senior Sister might be willing to lend Sageridge a hand? We will pay compensation.”

Xu Yuan was not surprised by General Wang’s request.

Sageridge was now an isolated town with no aid coming. In the current situation, having a third rank Grandmaster help hold the line would be no different from charcoal delivered in a snowstorm.

But Xu Yuan did not agree right away. He looked at the Sageridge border troops fighting bloody battles outside the city and asked in a low voice, “General Wang, are you planning to defend the town?”

That question seemed to stump General Wang. He looked at Xu Yuan and, after a slight hesitation, said, “The breach in the illusory mist grand array is widening bit by bit. Right now, a thousand demonic beasts are being funneled out every hour. At this rate, perhaps tomorrow or the day after, the number being diverted out of it each hour will exceed three thousand. The army formation won’t be able to kill them all. We can only rely on the town walls and the grand array to defend.”

Xu Yuan gently shook his head and asked, “General Wang, do you think you can hold? Or rather, do you think the Myriad Manifestations Sect will let you hold Sageridge?”

General Wang fell silent.

Xu Yuan sighed and said quietly, “General Wang, do you know what the Sageridge border army’s only advantage over the Myriad Manifestations Sect is right now?”

After a moment of silence, General Wang ventured, “The town defense array?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what?”

“The information gap.”

“The Myriad Manifestations Sect still does not know that you already know about their plan to create ghost fog in Sageridge.”

As he spoke, Xu Yuan saw the confusion in the burly middle-aged man’s eyes and gave a faint smile.

“General Wang, an information gap is very important. If the Myriad Manifestations Sect knew about this, they absolutely would not keep boiling the frog in warm water like they are now. They would simply dump every demonic beast inside the illusory mist grand array into the town all at once.”

He raised a hand and pointed at the army formation outside the town. “Imagine it. Tens of thousands of demonic beasts trapped inside the grand array all charging out of the mist in one wave. Could your ten thousand Sageridge border troops hold against that?”

General Wang’s fists clenched slightly. He looked at the young man before him, drew a deep breath, and said, “You mean we have to break out?”

Xu Yuan did not speak, but his silence was essentially an answer. Holding the town was impossible. When the enemy had planned everything in advance and you were the one caught unaware, there was no telling how many backup plans the Myriad Manifestations Sect had left in reserve. The first wave of demonic beasts might only be one part of it.

The Myriad Manifestations Sect still could blow up the town walls, incite chaos within the town, or send high-level cultivators sneaking inside to sow disorder. All of it was possible.

However, breaking out meant abandoning the four hundred thousand civilians and refugees in and around Sageridge.

Silence spread across the town wall, carried by the cold wind.