Tribulation of Myriad Races

Chapter 2019: Human Mountain Pact (3)

With a bitter smile, Heavenly Measure said, “Fellow Daoist, why must you shatter this tiny bit of hope we have?”

“I guess you’re right.” Sacred Source Marquis said, “I only want to say that we should all temper our expectations. That’s very important due to the existence of the chaos lineage and the Torchbearers. We have received confirmation from those in the Dao Origin Land that the Torchbearers do exist.”

His tone turned solemn as he continued, “And they’re by no means weak. They were the ones who had attacked the dragon race and the Sealed Mountain. As for the attack on the nether race, it was done by the chaos race.

“But since the Torchbearers are based in the Lower Realm, we can’t do much to them for now. We have to focus on the chaos race first. This is why we are all gathered here today.”

He looked at Su Yu and said, “Fellow Daoist May, the rest are already aware of this, but I’ll repeat it for you. Each of the seven races here will be required to organize a vanguard force to penetrate the Chaos Mountain deeply. The so-called Chaos Mountain is actually a mountain range with countless mountains. Just the outer region alone housed hundreds of mountains. We believe there are also dozens of Daofuse ancient beasts residing in the outer region.”

No, more than that. Su Yu knew that there were more ancient beasts there. During his time in the Chaos Mountain, he had ranged about a thousand kilometers from the Dao Origin Hill during his search before reaching the Chaos Forest. He found seventy-seven mountains and twenty-two Daofuse beasts during his search. Three rivers and one forest were left unsearched, but he suspected that there were around twenty-six Daofuse beasts spread among them.

And the entire mountain range was over ten thousand kilometers wide. Just multiply the number of Daofuse beasts he discovered by five. It would be a terrifying number. But one side of the Dao Origin Hill was thicker in chaos power, so he suspected that the area with less chaos power would also have fewer beasts.

He could discount the number of his estimated Daofuse beast based on that. Even so, he could at least multiply the number of Daofuse beasts he found by three to get a relatively accurate number of the Daofuse beasts in the outer region.

There were at least seventy to eighty of them. And that was only the outer region. The Chaos Mountain was an extremely dangerous place.

Death Nether Marquis protested, “This is too dangerous. We have one issue to solve before doing that. Upon entering the Chaos Mountain, the ancient beasts will attack us. We need to solve this before taking such a big risk.”

Heavenly Measure chimed in, “Back then, North Pacifying Marquis of the human race resided there for a bit. Eventually, he was found. In that incident, the myriad races lost seven Daofuses. Any battle in the Chaos Mountain will attract the ancient beasts there. This is an issue we need to solve if we don’t want to end up removing all the ancient beasts before our battle with the chaos race.”

But the price for that wouldn’t be low. Sure, they could send their Venerables over to perform a sweep and remove the ancient beasts. But that would exhaust the Venerables and open them up for surprise attacks from unknown experts. Venerables may be strong, but they weren’t undefeatable.

Thus, the early phase of the war would only involve the weaker cultivators. They would be sent in to deal with the weaker enemies. However, the final result of the war would be decided when the stronger cultivators started participating in the later stages of the war.

Sacred Source Marquis said, “Those in the Dao Origin Land mentioned this as well. They are working on this issue. They have a way to grant us immunity to the influence of the Chaos Mountain. Through this method, the ancient beasts won’t attack us the moment we enter.”

“Are you sure?”

The others were pleasantly surprised to hear that. The ancient beasts were extremely troublesome. If this solution worked, they would be able to greatly reduce the casualties on their side.

Su Yu grumbled inwardly. He had yet to even promise them anything concrete. Why were they promising a solution to their people already? Had they decided to cooperate with him? Were they thinking of trading the humans they found with the formations?

Unfortunately, he did not have the formations yet. Even after removing all limbs of Great Xia King and Great Qin King, they could only produce eight sets of formations. One would be kept at their new base of operation, leaving them with only seven.

Then again, Venerable Nether had killed a few ancient beasts not long ago. Perhaps he could ask for the corpses from them to be produced into more formations.

Su Yu needed more of these formations as well.

Sacred Source Marquis said, “It’s true. But we need to keep this a secret for now. It is still in the works so there nothing is set in stone yet.”

He looked at Su Yu again and said, “Fellow Daoist May, including the dragon and phoenix races, nine races will lead the vanguard forces. Each race will be required to clear an area of around a thousand kilometers.”

Su Yu asked, “Are we operating separately? Shouldn’t we stick together?”

Separation would increase the risk for everyone.

Sacred Source Marquis nodded, “Yes, we need to split up. The Chaos Mountain is too big for us to search together. Those ancient beasts aren’t our targets. We need to target the chaos lineage. There is no need to fight everything we see in there. We only need to find the traces of the chaos lineage before focusing on one area.

“Even if we’re a thousand kilometers apart from each other, we can still reinforce each other promptly. But everyone needs to maintain the same pace to make that possible. If everyone searches at a different pace, the distance between us will inevitably increase. Thus, be careful and try to keep the same pace with everyone else. Remember, don’t risk entering the inner region.”

Su Yu said, “But I’m worried that the chaos lineage will take this chance to deal with us separately. Isn’t it too dangerous to split our forces like this? We’re only weakening ourselves.”

He couldn’t understand their choice. Why were they splitting their forces? Shouldn’t they be sticking together?

Sacred Source Marquis said, “Yes, it’s risky. But if there are too many of us at one place, the chaos lineage wouldn’t dare to emerge.”

“…”

Su Yu was rendered speechless. In short, the vanguard forces were bait.

Sacred Source Marquis said, “Therefore, everyone needs to be careful. Provide help the moment you notice anyone in danger. We are worried that the enemies will set up some traps for us if we keep all our experts together. We are also worried about the recent movements of the ancient beasts. They have been gathering in one place. Things are not looking good.

“All these beasts are territorial. By splitting up, the beasts will also split up instead of sticking together. We want to avoid a large-scale battle between Daofuses if possible.

“The ancient beasts are no big deal when there are only one or two of them at one place. They will only be a problem when there are twenty or thirty of them together. This is enough to kill even a Venerable.

“Even when we travel in groups of one pseudo king and five to six Daofuses, such a large number of ancient beasts is enough to wipe us out. Therefore, we need to split the ancient beasts as well.”

Su Yu asked, “Are we going to handle the recruitment ourselves?”

“Yes.”

Su Yu said, “But the iron devourer race does not have many friends…”

“Conscript them.” Sacred Source Marquis said, “The immortal, devil, and divine races will not be accepting those from the other races into our teams. Thus, the rest of the nine races will be recruiting from the oher races. Do your best.

“Of course, we won’t send you to your deaths if you really can’t recruit enough people. We will force some disobedient people into your teams. We won’t allow anyone to sit out of the joint-effort. The team with insufficient members will receive these people.

“Understand this. We’re not sending anyone to their death. Each team will need to have two pseudo kings and no fewer than ten Daofuses. This will grant you enough strength to handle even a Venerable.”

Su Yu thought about it and agreed that this was indeed a good arrangement. Such a lineup would be able to put up a fight against even a Venerable and survive until help arrived.

The different teams would only be a thousand kilometers from each other. Such a distance could be crossed in the blink of an eye by top experts as long as they could travel unobstructed. But there were too many mountains in the Chaos Mountain.

Su Yu asked, “In that case, won’t the teams at the two flanks be at a higher risk than the others? For them, only one group can arrive to help them in time. Let me be clear. The iron devourers won’t be taking the flanks. Why don’t we let the dragons and phoenixes have the flanks?”

“…”

Everyone gazed at him oddly. Just look at this iron devourer giving such a shrewd suggestion with such an innocent face. It was true that the two flanks were more dangerous. Any other team would be surrounded by two different teams that could provide assistance at a moment’s notice. However, the teams taking the flanks would only have one team to assist when they were in danger.

Sacred Source Marquis said, “In truth, the two flanks are safer. There aren’t that many ancient beasts there. I intend to have the iron devourers have one of the flanks. Are you sure about this, May? You will need to face more ancient beasts if you don’t take the flanks.”

That seemed quite reasonable as well. The two flanks would be safer as long as they did not encounter a planned ambush.

Su Yu said, “We can talk about this when the time comes. Is that our current priority? Assembling our teams from the various races?”

“Yes. For now, aim for voluntary recruitment. We will decide what to do based on their response.”

Fine. Su Yu started wondering if he should gather some experts in his team as well. He certainly didn’t want to be in the team targeted by Control King’s lineage. It was very likely that Control King’s lineage would try to ambush some of them.

Separate, the vanguard forces were simply too attractive a target to ignore. And this was exactly what the three major races wanted.

Sacred Source Marquis added, “By the way, when a vanguard team suffers excessive casualties…”

He looked at Su Yu, Heavenly Measure, and the others before adding, “The leader of the team will need to take responsibility for it. We can’t allow situations where only the leader survives while everyone dies to happen. If your result is incomparable to the price you pay, then you need to pay even more. Remember that.

“I’m not trying to make things hard for you by saying this. I only hope that we can do this with unity instead of scheming among ourselves. This is not an opportunity for you to send your enemies to their deaths in the Chaos Mountain by conscripting them to your teams.”

Clearly, the three major races had guessed what the other races might try to do during the operation. After all, the myriad races weren’t fully united. These races had been around for a long time. Thus, they knew each other well.

Su Yu and the others said nothing. For now, the chaos lineage would be their priority target. Not even Su Yu was interested in making use of this opportunity to get rid of some myriad race experts.

Sacred Source Marquis smiled and continued, “This is all for now. By the time you’re done with your preparations, the Venerables will probably be back. At the time, we might even get more experts for our teams. After all, the Venerables might discover even more experts in the various danger zones. Who knows? They might return with even more Venerables and pseudo kings.”

***

With the meeting over, everyone dispersed.

Heavenly Measure was walking beside Su Yu as he sent a voice transmission while smiling, “Fellow Daoist May, our teams should advance side by side. That way, we can keep an eye out for each other.”

Su Yu said, “Sure. I’ll forward this suggestion to Great Bamboo Marquis.”

Heavenly Measure smiled again and stopped talking.

But after a short silence, he spoke again, “According to Fellow Daoist Endless Passage, he has a friend called September. Do you know this person, Fellow Daoist May?”

“September?” Su Yu stared blankly, “I only know August. Who’s this September you’re talking about?”

Heavenly Measure gave Su Yu a long stare. Then, he smiled and nodded before walking away. Inwardly, Su Yu cursed. Sure enough, the fate race had taken Endless Passage away.

Damn that old fogey! Why was the old fart trying to test him?