Chapter 17: Operation (2)
Late afternoon was the perfect time for their operation. Any later and the students would no longer be around and they would have to spread their forces chasing after the students. Night was near so escape would also be easier after their operation.
The man did not have any issue with the plan. He was only worried about something else. He couldn't resist saying, "Apart from Wu Wenhai and Xia Bing, I'm worried that Liu Wenyan would materialize his willpower in desperation. If that happens, things will get troublesome."
"You're right. We need to be ready for that as well." The woman agreed. "But we have three Skysoar cultivators while they only have two. Both their Skysoar cultivators are at the second-stage. Even if Liu Wenyan really managed to materialize his willpower, he would still need time to strengthen his body. Prior to that, only his willpower would be at the Skysoar Realm while his body would still be stuck at the Great Strength Realm. You should be able to handle someone like that."
"But..."
The woman's eyes turned cold as she interrupted the man, "He's already over seventy in age. His physical body has waned. He won't be much of a threat even after willpower materialization. Are you afraid of someone like that?"
"No." The man hurriedly explained, "I'm only worried that we won't have anyone to handle the Martial Dragon Guards while I'm busy with Liu Wenyan. They're all Infinite Strength cultivators. Our people are also at the same cultivation level, but the moment the Martial Dragon Guards activate their war formation, only Skysoar cultivators can handle them."
"There is only a low chance of that scenario happening. Liu Wenyan has been stuck for so many years. Do you really think he can really break through suddenly?" Despite her dismissal, the woman still offered an alternative, "We'll have the hallmaster deal with the Martial Dragon Guards and Xia Bing. He can handle all of them together since Xia Bing is only a second-stage Skysoar cultivator. You'll focus on quickly killing Liu Wenyan before helping the hallmaster with the Martial Dragon Guards."
"Alright." The man was relieved. That plan should work. A fourth-stage Skysoar cultivator should be able to handle the Martial Dragon Guards.
In any case, he was also a second-stage Skysoar cultivator, so there was really no need for him to be so worried. The woman was also stronger than him. She was a tier-1 hallmaster of the Myriad Race Cult, a hallmaster for their Nanyuan branch. She was a peak third-stage Skysoar cultivator.
Nanyuan was only a small city, after all, so it was actually quite surprising that the Myriad Race Cult had stationed two Skysoar cultivators here. Even the city only had the mayor and the Martial Dragon Guards’ squad leader as their sole Skysoar cultivators in Nanyuan.
Most of Great Xia's forces were stuck at the front line and only a small portion of their forces were left back home. Meanwhile, the Myriad Race Cult could focus all their strength within the Human Realm since they didn't need to operate on the battlefield.
"Long live the true god."
The woman muttered. The man hurriedly muttered the same. His eyes were filled with longing at the thought of the divine race.
Eternal life.
If he could contribute enough to earn a qualification to enter the Divine Realm and use the legendary Divine Transformation Pool, he would be able to transform from a human to a divine. They would then gain eternal life. Unlimited lifespan.
The man's eyes lit up with excitement. The higher ups had offered a rather large number of contribution points for this mission. He only needed to perform a few hundreds more missions like this and he would gain the qualification to visit the Divine Realm.
"Fifty years...I need to earn the qualification to enter the Divine Realm in fifty years. Otherwise, I'll die from old age..."
The man did not want to betray humanity, but the prospect of eternal life was too tempting. He still remembered his teacher, a mighty ninth-stage Skysoar cultivator, who had died of old age on his bed. Fear had been planted in his mind after witnessing that scene.
For humans, even a Skysoar cultivator would only have a lifespan of around 150 years. He was already over sixty in age. His body had yet to wane, but he had only been able to advance from the first-stage to the second-stage during the past ten years. How long would he take to reach the ninth-stage? Could he even reach that level before the end of his life? He did not see that happening. He could only place his hopes on the divine race to obtain eternal life.
"I made the right choice. Humanity won't be a match for the myriad races. Without any suppression in the Human Realm, the human race will not be able to withstand the onslaught of the myriad races. It is only a matter of time before we're defeated. Yes, I’ve definitely made the right choice!"
The man convinced himself with a firm expression. As he thought of the divine race again, reverence covered his face. For the divine race, they could easily gain a lifespan of over a thousand years after reaching the Skysoar Realm. That would give him enough time to keep making progress in his cultivation, a progress that would eventually lead him to eternal life.
…
Year 350 of the Anping Calendar, 18th of April.
This was the day before Su Yu and the others were slated to depart from Nanyuan. Tomorrow morning, they would all gather before departing under the escort of the city guards and the experts from the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy.
Morning.
The moment Su Yu opened his eyes, he jumped. Someone was standing beside his bed.
"You're awake?"
An absurd question came from Liu Wenyan's mouth. Su Yu calmed himself, rather speechless at how this old man was scaring people so early in the morning.
"Instructor, you're awake."
"At my age, you'll wake up early as well." Liu Wenyan smiled. "Wake up and grab breakfast. Come with me to the school after breakfast. But today, you won't be staying with me..."
"Huh?" Su Yu's eyes flickered as he asked, "Instructor, is today..."
"If the Myriad Race Cult is going to try something, when do you think they will make their move? The people from the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy would arrive before this evening. At that time, the cult will no longer have the chance to do anything."
Su Yu was alarmed. His instructor was right. If he was someone from the cult, he would either make a move today or after the students departed and there were fewer city guards around. Thus, the cult might show up today.
"It is too dangerous for you to stay with me." Liu Wenyan had the same smile on his face. "Those fellows are afraid that I'll materialize my willpower. If they make a move, I'll be one of their priority targets. Therefore, don't stay with me today. Avoid the other experts as well. Stay with the teachers in the Great Strength Realm. There will be people in charge of protecting you guys."
"Instructor..." Su Yu hurriedly climbed out of his bed and said, "Are they really daring enough to move against Nanyuan Secondary School?"
"Of course. In the Myriad Race Cult, some are afraid of death, some are greedy, some are crazy, and some are brainwashed. But even cowardly rats like them would not hesitate to draw their blade to accomplish their target."
Liu Wenyan sighed. "These people are very odd. They might be cowardly, but they can also be braver than us at times. They will piss their pants in fear if we send them to the Allheaven Battlefield to face the divines and the devils, but when they have to face their fellow humans, they will turn fearless. Maybe for them, there is nothing scary about their fellow humans. Instead, the other races are the truly terrifying ones. They won't hesitate when it comes to fighting other humans."
Su Yu frowned. Liu Wenyan was right. The Myriad Race Cult's behavior was rather odd. They would lose all courage if they were sent to fight at the Allheaven Battlefield. They did not have the courage to face the other races. But in terms of creating trouble within the Human Realm, they would turn courageous and crazy. Even the daily execution had not been able to scare them.
"So are they merely local bullies?" asked Su Yu after giving it some thought.
Liu Wenyan smiled, "Not really. We no longer consider them as humans, so they're no longer locals. But I agree with your sentiment. That is how they are. They're weak against outsiders and cruel against insiders. These kinds of people aren't rare at all. We can see many examples of such people in the history books.
"In fact, these people don't only exist among humans. They exist in all races. After choosing to betray their people, they will become crueler to their own people just to prove that they made the correct choice. Even humans have followers among the other races that have betrayed their own races."
Liu Wenyan looked at Su Yu and smiled. "Humans are also strong enough to attract some traitors from the other races. Those are the people who had lost the confidence in their own race and decided to pledge their allegiances to us. When that happens, they will suddenly become incomparably cruel toward their own people."
Su Yu wasn't able to understand the mindset of such people, but he was well-read enough to know about the existence of such people. He did not ask more questions and left the room to brush his teeth.
Shortly after, Su Yu was at the dining table for his breakfast. While eating, he asked, "Instructor, are they really going to make their move today? There are so many students at school. Should we have the students take today off instead?"
"That's not an option. Staying on the defensive forever won't work. If we have the students take the day off, the cult will be alerted and they won't show up."
"But..." Su Yu was worried. If the cult really attacked, would the students get hurt? After all, there were a lot of students at school.
"We have our preparations in place. There will be people protecting you guys," said Liu Wenyan. "Don't think that we're being cold-blooded by using you guys as bait. If we can't be decisive when required, we will only suffer even more losses."
"Remember this, Su Yu. If one day you become a commander at the battlefield, you will have to start making hard choices. For example, you have control over an army of one thousand and another army of ten thousand. If you choose to sacrifice the army of one thousand, you'll be able to eliminate an enemy army of ten thousand with your second army. What would your choice be?"
"I..." Su Yu hesitated. After a long while, he said, "I don't know."
"Deep inside, you know the answer. You just couldn't bring yourself to say it. You're a smart person. You know the right choice. You understand how important it is to eliminate an army of ten thousand from the Allheaven Battlefield. That is significant enough to even alter the course of a war."
Liu Wenyan's voice turned soft. "That is the kind of choices the experts and sages need to make. A sacrifice of one thousand to eliminate ten thousand enemies will ensure that fewer of our people will die in the future. After all, that army of ten thousand could very well cause more casualties in the future if left unchecked. Do you think this is cruel?"
Su Yu nodded. He had never thought of all that before. Thus, he was hit by a heavy dose of reality by Liu Wenyan's sudden question. The entire thing sounded too cruel and heartless.
"Su Yu, this is war!" Liu Wenyan looked straight into his eyes. "Remember, this is war! A war where billions of human lives are on the line. We must make the necessary choices. Maybe you can say that the thousand soldiers do not deserve to die.
"Of course you're right. They're our comrades. But...this is war! Just like the choice we're making today. We know that the Myriad Race Cult might attack the school today. Even so, we still need to make the correct choice.
"Things have been chaotic outside the city over the past two days. Several villages and hamlets were attacked and many were killed. At present, hundreds of civilians have died. We don't have the manpower to deal with them. The forces of the city have been spread very thin. This can't continue. We need to gather the cult members up and eliminate them all so that peace will return. Therefore...we need to make a choice.
"Do we let our students take some risk or do we keep waiting for the cult to slaughter more people? In my eyes, our students are naturally more valuable. Nevertheless, the people being slaughtered outside the city are also humans. Su Yu, you students are all soldiers in training. Therefore, we decided to let you guys take the risk. That is the path all of you will walk in the future."
Su Yu nodded solemnly. "I understand. I was only worried earlier. Like you said, we're all soldiers. We might be weak now, but the moment we stepped into this school, we're already soldiers. The city made the right choice."
"It's good that you understand. If you really can't understand, just stop thinking about it. One day when you're at a high enough level, if a situation comes up where you can sacrifice the entire Nanyuan City to eliminate ten or a hundred times the number of enemies, I hope you will make the choice to do so. Even if you have to gain some infamy from it, do not hesitate."
Su Yu ate in silence. After finishing the breakfast, he finally looked up and said, "Instructor, so it all comes down to us being too weak. If we're strong enough to crush all opposition, there will be no need for such choices. Am I right?"
Liu Wenyan laughed with a gratified look on his face.
"Well said. You're right. Alas...we're not strong enough."
"We will be strong enough. I believe that day will come. Humans have been growing, and the number of experts on our side has also been increasing."
Liu Wenyan nodded in agreement. Su Yu wasn't wrong. The two stopped conversing and left for the school together.
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