The Evil Dao forces were much more crafty than imagined. They would frequently use fake arrays and fake blood red arrays to confuse the Azure Water Sect"s scouts. For the past month, all four Supreme Elders of the Azure Water Sect were all at least duped once.
But the good news was, apart from the Azure Water Region, the Evil Dao forces were also wreaking havoc in the Heaven Fiend Region and Violent Saber Region.
As such, the Azure Water Sect would only have to take care of their own region and that would do. They didn"t have to worry about the other sects taking the chance to strike at them, and they wouldn"t have to be concerned about the Heaven Fiend Sect"s coercion.
Of course, the situation might be like this, but the upper echelons of the Azure Water Sect all had a huge headache when so many Evil Dao pract.i.tioners were causing chaos in the Azure Water Region.
It would have been better if the Evil Dao forces were to go directly to war with the Azure Water Sect. The crucial point was that the Evil Dao forces were hard to track. As of now, they were only able to eliminate a few of the smaller Evil Dao forces and nothing else. Instead, the casualties of the Azure Water Region had already reached more than five million and it was still drastically increasing.
"Casualty count of more than five million?"
In Azure Water Sect, Li Fuchen had this awful expression.
Cloud Mist City"s population was just slightly more than 200,000 but the territory had just barely reached the one million mark. The Evil Dao forces had already slaughtered more than five million individuals, which was relative to five Cloud Mist City pieces of territory.
"d.a.m.n Evil Dao forces."
The Li Clan might have already migrated to the Azure Water Sect and he didn"t have to worry about them, but Li Fuchen wasn"t the kind of person that would ignore such situations. He could imagine how many children and kind-hearted people were among those five million casualties. These people had been working diligently for their lives but were all reaped like rice straws and slaughtered in huge groups. Li Fuchen"s heart was filled with anguish and killing intent.
Azure Water Grand Hall…
Ouyang Wentian had a fatigued expression. Five million casualties… It was probably going to reach six million by now!
How many more lives could the Azure Water Region afford to lose?
"It is time for the disciples of the Azure Water Sect to go out and temper themselves." Ouyang Wentian thought to himself.
He originally didn"t want the disciples to venture out of the sect, as he could imagine how many disciples would die under the hands of the Evil Dao pract.i.tioner. But now that they were lacking in manpower, and he wasn"t going to send out all the disciples. He was merely going to send out 30% of the inner sect disciples and a portion of the direct disciples.
On the other hand, it was a great opportunity for the disciples to hone themselves in this chaos brought by the Evil Dao forces.
Some of those disciples with ordinary talent might be able to find a breakthrough in this tribulation.
"Grand Elder, I want to go on the battlefield."
On this day, Li Fuchen came to the Direct Disciple Grand Hall and spoke to Zhao Wujin.
Zhao Wujin knitted his brows. "Fuchen, you are different from others. The others need to go temper themselves, but you don"t need anymore. What you need to do is to peacefully cultivate and progress into the Heaven Realm."
Not only Zhao Wujin, but the other upper echelons of the Azure Water Sect also didn"t wish for Li Fuchen venture out.
Li Fuchen"s current cultivation was too low and even if he had the ability to exceed levels in battle, he would only be able to go against lower leveled Heaven Realm martial artists. He wouldn"t have too great an impact on the situation and it would be much more effective after he had progressed to the Heaven Realm.
Li Fuchen responded, "Grand Elder, tempering and honing are effective for everyone. Cultivation isn"t merely about cultivating the qi, it is also about cultivating the heart. I cannot stand idly by and watch as the Evil Dao forces wreak havoc while I cultivate in peace. This doesn"t conform to my sword dao."
"This?" Zhao Wujin was a little hesitant.
Li Fuchen made sense in his reasoning and Zhao Wujin knew that elite prodigies always had their own views and once they decided on something, not even ten bulls could hold them back.
"I will go report to the Sect Patriarch. Wait here for me."
Zhao Wujin was unable to make this decision by himself.
Azure Water Grand Hall…
Ouyang Wentian frowned and said, "He wants to venture out?"
"Yes." Zhao Wujin nodded.
After taking a deep breath, Ouyang Wentian said, "Then let him go! Arrange for two middle level Heaven Realm inner sect elders to protect him."
The Azure Water Sect was having a tough time with manpower and it was already at their limits to send two middle level Heaven Realm martial artists to protect Li Fuchen.
"Understood." Zhao Wujin let out a breath of relief.
With the protection of two middle leveled Heaven Realm martial artists, as long as there weren"t any huge incidents, Li Fuchen would be safe.
The place that Li Fuchen rushed for was naturally the Cloud Mist City"s territories. That was the place where he had lived for a large part of his life and he had a deep affection for that place.
In the skies above, Li Fuchen and two Heaven Realm inner sect elders were seated cross-legged on the Giant Sickle Terror Bird.
These two middle leveled Heaven Realm inner sect elders were called Qin Ming and Xu Chang.
Qin Ming said, "The Azure Water Region is split up into four major areas and forty minor areas. Every major area is overseen by a Supreme Elder and every minor area is overseen by over a dozen Heaven Realm martial artists. Cloud Mist City is in the third major area"s seventh minor sector. If I remember it correctly, the one overseeing the place is Elder Mao Qiuhai."
"Yes, it is Elder Mao Qiuhai." Xu Chang nodded.
Elder Mao Qiuhai was one of the top-ranked inner sect elders of the Azure Water Sect and was at the 9th level of the Heaven Realm.
"Did they discover any Evil Dao forces in the seventh minor area?" Li Fuchen asked.
The seventh minor area had a total of 15 cities and Cloud Mist City was one of them.
"None have been discovered for now." Xu Chang replied.
Li Fuchen nodded. It was best if they weren"t discovered yet. It was hard for Li Fuchen to imagine the scene of citizens of Cloud Mist City, all were slaughtered in a single night.
At the pace of the Giant Sickle Terror Bird, the trio arrived at Golden Cloud City in a few days.
Golden Cloud City was the largest city in the third major area"s seventh minor sector, which had naturally become the temporary base of command.
In the grand hall of the city lord"s residence…
Mao Qiuhai had personally came to welcome Li Fuchen.
Li Fuchen wasn"t just any ordinary direct disciple. In terms of status, Mao Qiuhai might not even be superior to Li Fuchen.
After meeting with Mao Qiuhai, Li Fuchen didn"t stop over in the Golden Cloud City and immediately rushed for Cloud Mist City. For the next period of time, he intended to oversee Cloud Mist City. Of course, if he was needed in other places, he would also go over.
Golden Cloud City and Cloud Mist City were in the same minor area and it took less than one hour for Li Fuchen and the two elders to arrive.
The current Cloud Mist City wasn"t the Cloud Mist City of before.
The former four major clans of the Cloud Mist City had already moved out and they were replaced by the former second-rate clans of the city.
They were the He Clan, Si Clan, and the Sun Clan.
Back at Cloud Mist City"s genius compet.i.tion, He Ping had placed fourth, while Si Fei and Sun Di had a commendable placing as well. These three individuals came from the three current He, Si, and Sun Clans.
But if the Zhu Clan didn"t just vanish, they would probably be one of the major clans in Cloud Mist City as well. It was a pity as to why Zhu Hongxiu and the Zhu Clan would vanish without a trace, as though they had never existed. This was a doubt that had been in Li Fuchen"s mind and he would occasionally recall about it.
Li Fuchen didn"t appear with great fanfare and had casually rented a courtyard to stay instead.
It was natural that Qin Ming and Xu Chang were staying together with him.
During the day, the trio wouldn"t step out of the courtyard and would only ride the Giant Sickle Terror Bird in the night to patrol the surroundings of Cloud Mist City, with the occasional patrol toward the other nearby cities.
According to the information, the Evil Dao forces were very crafty and would frequently put up fake arrays to wear out the Azure Water Sect"s members.
For an entire week, Li Fuchen and the elders didn"t discover anything strange and it seemed as though this area was very safe.
"I must not be careless." Li Fuchen thought to himself.
On this night, Li Fuchen and the elders continued their patrol.
On the back of the Giant Sickle Terror Bird, Qin Ming took out three flasks of wine from his belongings and was going to hand it over to Li Fuchen and Xu Chang.
"There is a commotion." Li Fuchen didn"t receive the wine and ordered the Giant Sickle Terror Bird to descend.
In the western suburbs of the Cloud Mist City, a group of black-robed individuals were busy with something.
"Evil Dao pract.i.tioners?"
Qin Ming and Xu Chang"s eyes lit up. They had been out for several days and had yet to kill any Evil Dao pract.i.tioners. Their hands were already itching for a fight.
"Let"s observe first." The Giant Sickle Terror Bird maintained an alt.i.tude of 1000 meters as Li Fuchen said.
It was late into the night, but Qin Ming and Xu Chang were Heaven Realm martial artists who had incredible eyesight. Night surveillance was a basic ability that they had. However, Li Fuchen was even more incredible than the two of them, as his insane awareness had heightened all his senses to astounding levels.
Below them, there were at least more than a hundred black-robed men. They would bury some materials in the ground from time to time and gradually an array was starting to take form.
Li Fuchen squinted his eyes and saw that these materials were all oozing with sinister and wicked qi presences. They were obviously materials that were used for setting up evil arrays.
What Li Fuchen didn"t know, was that concurrently, there was a group of black-robed individuals setting up an array in Native Peace City as well, which was 1000 miles away from Cloud Mist City. But these people were already discovered by a scout that was sent out by Elder Mao Qiuhai.
"It doesn"t matter if it is real or fake. I have to send the message to Elder Mao first."
Hidden in the dark, the scout crushed a message token.
The message tokens were separated into mother and child tokens. There was only one mother token which was with Mao Qiuhai, while there were several child tokens. When a child token was crushed, the mother token would be able to sense it.
In the city lord residence of the Golden Cloud City, Mao Qiuhai took out his mother token.
The mother token was engraved with directions on the front, which were: East, West, South, North, Southeast, Northeast, Southwest, and Northwest, a total of eight directions. Right now, the southwest direction was lit up with a red spot, and after flickering for a few times, it dimmed.
"Southwest direction. It is Native Peace City!" Mao Qiuhai"s eyes flashed with a severe light.
Native Peace City had a population of over 300,000. He was certainly not going to allow any casualties within his jurisdiction.
Just as Mao Qiuhai was preparing to lead people, the mother token shook again. This time it was the southeast direction that had a red spot.
"Southeast direction. It is Cloud Mist City." Mao Qiuhai"s brows were knitted very tightly.
For two cities to have a commotion at the same time… It was obvious that this was the scheme of the Evil Dao forces.
Soon enough, Mao Qiuhai had a decision.
Cloud Mist City only had a population of 200,000 and wasn"t as important as Native Peace City. He decided to split up the troops. He was going to lead his group to Native Peace City, while another high leveled Heaven Realm inner sect elder would lead another group of men to Cloud Mist City.
Although the military strength would be dispersed, it was better than abandoning a location.
Of course, just in case… Mao Qiuhai took out a special token and crushed it.
Supreme Elder Liang who was overseeing the third major area felt a vibration from a token in his belongings.
"It is the seventh minor area?"
Supreme Elder Liang stood up and with a flash, he departed at a breakneck speed. His speed was several folds faster than the Giant Sickle Terror Bird and it wasn"t exaggerating to say that he was as fast as lightning.
In the western suburbs of the Cloud Mist City, Li Fuchen had determined that they were truly setting up an evil array. It wasn"t a fake and was a real sinister array, as his awareness could sense the fluctuation from the array, which contained shocking malevolence which made his heart palpitate.
It was why Li Fuchen didn"t hesitate and crushed his token.
Just one hour after Li Fuchen crushed the token, the array had been completed. The qi presence of the array had been completely hidden, but with Li Fuchen"s astounding awareness, he was still able to feel the existence of the array.
"A huge group of people is coming over." Qin Ming spoke with a voice that had a little anxiety.
"Fly higher."
Li Fuchen ordered the Giant Sickle Terror Bird to fly up to a higher alt.i.tude.
He wasn"t so silly enough to go against the Evil Dao forces with just the three of them.
With a flap of its wings, the Giant Sickle Terror Bird ascended up an alt.i.tude of 5000 meters before stopping.