Chapter 13: The Cleaning Begin!
After a short journey, the flying ship came to a stop above a military barrack in the perimeter of the beast mountain range.
A group of guards wearing the trademark uniform of the Daemon Guard gathered in front of the ship to welcome Jeffrey.
The ship's door opened, showing Jeffrey's figure. His respectful face when in front of Lord Gray vanished, replaced by a cold, indifferent face of a superior.
"Welcome Commander," a middle-aged man walked to the front of the group of guards and bowed to Jeffrey.
""Welcome Commander!"" The rest of the men behind him followed suit.
"Hmm, assign a guard to show them their accommodation." Jeffrey waved his hand, accepting the greeting, and gave an order. After that, he left.
"Lucas, show these newbies their lodging. The rest of you, disperse!" The middle-aged man shouted a command and hurriedly followed Jeffrey.
""Yes, vice commander!"" The guards left in an orderly manner, leaving behind a young guard with a buzz cut.
"Welcome friends! You must be the test taker huh." Lucas look at Zaka's group pityingly, "Follow me"
The group quickly followed Lucas.
"Hey! What are you doing? Let's move!" one of the people from the group yelled at Zaka who stood rooted on the spot.
"Ah! My apologies." Zaka hurriedly kept up to the group, lowering his head with a thoughtful face.
"The Daemon Guard had formed a temporary army to cooperate with the Empire army during the cleansing of the demonic beasts," While walking, Lucas explained about the base to the group, "after the annual cleansing is over the temporary army will be disbanded,"
The base was vast with numerous tents were erected in an orderly manner. Zaka could sense that the whole base was enveloped with gigantic concealing, defensive, and even attacking formation. Not even the combined siege of multiple immortals could breach the base!
Between tents, there was a spacious road, enough for a two carriage to move side by side. A group of patrols consisted of soldiers from the empire mixed with Daemon Guards occasionally seen walking on the road.
The base was like a high-precision machine with each of the soldiers was doing their tasks well. Lucas's group stood out like a sore thumb. Some of the soldiers watching the group curiously before returning to their tasks.
How could they not curious? All of the member of the group except Lucas was a divine sea realm cultivator, while all of the soldiers here was at least a golden core realm!
After introducing various things about the base and the cleansing operation, Lucas and the group arrived at their accommodation.
After arranging the group's accommodation, Lucas stood in front of the exit, hesitating to say something.
Then, Lucas made up his mind and said to the group, "Actually, this cleansing operation is a heavenly opportunity to obtain many merit points.
But, the lowest cultivation level in this operation should be at the early golden core realm. All I can say is that try to prioritize your survival.
It's not too late to withdraw now. I can convey your wish to the vice commander immediately. Your test fee, however, would not be refunded.
And you have to stay inside the base until the cleaning was done, to prevent any leak of information to the demonic beast faction." Lucas advised kindly.
The group had been suspicious of this fact during the trip here. All of the soldiers they saw were at the minimum level of the golden core realm.
Lucas's words just confirmed their suspicion. Not one of them, however, wanted to withdraw from the test. They were already aware of the difficulty of the test.
Most of them here was a wandering cultivator. Their only hope of advancing further on their immortal path was through the resources provided by the Daemon Guard.
They wouldn't regret it if they died at the test because the path of a cultivator was like a boat sailing against a wave. The moment they stopped advancing, they will be forced back or even being overturned by the wave!
Looking at the determined eyes of the test taker, Lucas shook his head and sighed. As a cultivator himself, he knew what was in the mind of this group.
After Lucas left, everyone returned to their lodging, preparing themselves for the test.
Inside Zaka's residence, Zaki was rolling on the bed, bored, while Zaka was setting many concealing and bewildering formations all over the place. These formations could even confuse an immortal, as long as they didn't examine the formation thoroughly.
Zaka had inserted truth within the deception, and deception within the truth. If an outsider tried to peek into the room, they would find multiple formations that could confuse even a nascent core cultivator.
And when they could bypass the first layer they would see Zaka and Zaki who were cultivating atop the bed. But in fact, those vision was just a deeper illusion!
Zaka made them believe that they had found the truth, while in fact, they were not!
After setting up the formation, along with isolating and defensive formation, Zaka sighed in relief. Thinking back about the terrifying truth he had found, Zaka shuddered in fear. Right, fear!
All along, Lord Gray hadn't left at all and instead had hidden inside Jeffrey's flying ship! If not for the system, he wouldn't realize it at all.
At the flying ship, Lord Gray had swept his immortal sense to Zaka and that made the system to classify him as an enemy. As a result, Zaka could sense Lord Gray's existence from the [Justice Map].
He also had just realized this advantage today. This additional function of the map was not explained in the interface.
The frustration of just knowing this amazing function was now being taken out on Zaki. As a result, Zaki spilled all he knows about the [Justice Map].
Everyone who made a move against him would be classified as an enemy and could be tracked through the map. Not only that, anyone who had the slightest bit of hostility to him was also automatically marked as an enemy.
The maximum range of the map was ten kilometers. Outside this range, he couldn't sense the enemy through the map, but the map would still list them as an enemy. The moment they came back to the range of the map, Zaka could sense them again.
The level of hostility of the enemy could be seen from the color of the circle representing them. Yellow meant the enemy had made a move at him but didn't possess hostility, just like Lord Gray before. Light red meant slight hostility, and dark red meant arch enemy.
Before, at the flying ship, Zaka couldn't sense the immortal sense scanning from Lord Gray at all. But the system, Zaki, had warned him.
He could see that Lord Gray was located less than a hundred meters from him. That's inside the flying ship. Along the way, Lord Gray had used his immortal sense again multiple times.
Only when Zaka and the group arrived at the camp that Lord Gray left.
'Zaki enlarge the map!' Zaka said mentally.
'Got it, boss!'
Zaka glanced at the large, glowing yellow circle on the map. The circle was located at a large tent one kilometers from him.
The area of the base was also clearly shown. However, only the tent and area that had been introduced by Lucas had the explanation and a name on it.
'Why did he put tight surveillance on me? No, Us.' Zaka pondered this question deeply, 'If it was related to the cleaning operation… He might be looking for a spy, or prevent the leak of information.
That was possible seeing that Lucas had said that those who wanted to withdraw from the test must remain inside the camp until the operation had been done.
Whatever... this encounter with Lord Gray also meant that my disguise could fool even an immortal.' Zaka grinned.
The cultivation level he showed to the outside was indeed his true level of cultivation, but it was only in the qi refiner cultivation. His divine power from his fiend-body cultivation and his soul level was hidden.
Otherwise, if Lord Gray saw a divine sea cultivator with a soul power of nascent core, he would be alerted!
Zaka never ceased cultivating his soul using his two supreme visualization techniques two hours each day. The higher the level of his soul, the more he could utilize his power.
A person with the same soul level as his cultivation level could at most let out 90% of his power. He, however, could let out 100% of his power or even possibly 120%!
Zaka stopped his thinking and closed his eyes, starting his daily cultivation routine.
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The next day…
The golden crow had just woken up from its slumber, letting out a little light that shone down upon the mist. The trees stood tall among the mist, hiding the darkness and violence within.
Near the forest, there was a vast meadow with small animals doing their daily activities within. No one would know that behind this seemingly tranquil meadow, lie a massive military base.
Inside one of the tents, the badge on the chest of a black robed cultivator wearing a plain mask flickered with a red light. The cultivator, Zaka, instantly opened his eyes.
A piece of information was currently being transmitted from the badge into Zaka's mind.
'Boss, I have checked it, there is neither traps nor spirit poison, it is safe, do you want me to transmit the information?' Zaki said mentally.
Zaki had intercepted the transmission and checked any possible hidden traps inside. Who knows? There were a lot of ways to harm others through spiritual transmission and spirit poison was one of them.
The attacker put some sort of infective spiritual wave that will resonate with the receiver's sea of consciousness and ultimately destroyed the soul. Zaka had found this type of attack along with others from the record of the five-element school.
Zaka had told Zaki to intercept and check any information transmission from any source, including the test taker badge.
The call from the Daemon Guard's headquarter when he was in the Blazing City, however, didn't contain any sort of information, just a signal to gather at the headquarter.
The information this time was 'TO SOLDIERS AND GUARDS, HEAD TO THE CENTRAL FIELD NOW!'
Not long after, everyone had gathered on the field. Row upon row of endless soldiers, covered with bloodthirsty aura, stood on a wide field. There were black-uniformed Daemon Guards and silver armored empire soldiers.
And at the very back, a group wearing a variety of robes and clothes stood out like a sore thumb. This was Zaka's group of test-takers.
Every one of them, empire soldiers, guards, and Zaka's group, stood silently, looking at two figures floating in front of the army.
One of them was a white-haired old man wearing a black uniform. The other was also an old man, but he had a blazing red color for both his beard and hair.
The red-haired old man wore a blue colored uniform with the emblem of the Marcus Empire on his chest.
The black-clothed old man solemnly gazed at the forest, waiting for something.
After a few moments, the old man seemed to receive some news and commanded, "The poison had successfully administered, everyone, form battle formation!"
The command was heard inside every soldiers' mind.
Some of the soldiers and guards floated in the air formed a 3-dimensional formation. Each armor of the empire army who formed the 3D formation glowed with bronze light. The combined light formed an image of a fifty meters tall giant with bronze skin.
The Daemon Guards who also formed the 3D formation glowing with black light, forming the apparition of fifty meters tall shadow wolves.
The black-clothed old man made eye contact with the red-haired old man. Having a tacit understanding, they commanded in unison, "Attack!"
All the soldiers silently flew into the forest. The battle formation soldiers flew in the front, while the rest of the army followed behind them.
The cleaning had begun!
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