Chapter 452: Divine Snail Shield of Sun and Moon (III)
Chapter 452: Divine Snail Shield of Sun and Moon (III)
“We are leaving.” Making use of the light coming from the setting sun, Long Haochen pointed a direction, bringing his comrades there by flight. The group of seven people and four holy guards took the shape of eleven glows of lights, and as they flew at an altitude of two kilometers, the horizon rapidly disappeared from their sight.
At the time they took sixteen Slaughter Missions, Long Haochen made this choice in view of an extensive trip, planning on expending at least one year to complete these missions, without necessarily ending up completing them all.
And on this day, several months later, they didn’t only complete all the missions, but even managed to destroy a demon god pillar, and gained a lot treasures from the trip.
Of course, over these few months, the cost they paid was similarly high. Having paced back and forth a few times between life and death, Long Haochen and Cai’er narrowly died in the hands of demons, and the final result was Cai’er’s loss of memories.
These last few months felt like years to them, and everyone seemed to have matured a lot from the experiences they had during this time.
It was not for no reason that Long Haochen led his group north. By heading in this direction to leave the Andro Province, they could keep themselves away from the main demon forces. That was because the Central Demon Province was at the south. If the Demon God Emperor or another demon god were to sense the death of Andromalius or the destruction of his demon god pillar, they would be bound to send powerhouses from the south. For this reason, leaving from the south or the west could lead to a direct encounter with these powerhouses, among whom there could be very possibly extremely powerful enemies. Only by heading all the way north could they keep away from these enemies.
Before entering the Swamps of Gloom, Long Haochen took good care in choosing their path of retreat. First they would head north, before proceeding to the west after reaching the cold regions of the north. This time, their destination of retreat was the Exorcist Mountain Path. Wasn’t it right at the north of the Temple Alliance? Thus it couldn’t be considered so long a detour, yet the safest path.
Of course, they couldn’t keep traveling by flight for too long. First, it comes with a too huge consumption of spiritual energy, and then demons also have abilities of detection. Of course, at present they were in the most inner part of the demon territory, almost at the east coast of the continent. The surveillance of this area was a lot laxer, and in particular, no one would possibly be monitoring the area above the Swamps of Gloom.
Going by flight at full speed, Long Haochen’s comrades of the sixth step started to reach their limits after half an hour of flight. Fortunately, this time was enough for them to leave the range of the swamps.
By the time they set down, it was already deep into the night, but Long Haochen didn’t give his comrades a very long break. Only letting them the time to recover some spiritual energy, even making use of some of the pills prepared beforehand by Lin Xin. Then everyone immediately hastened on their journey, speeding towards north.
After landing back on the ground, Long Haochen called back the four holy guards, and had everyone disguise themselves back into Moon Demons, travelling day and night at rushed speed.
The defenses on the eastern territory were indeed lax. Han Yu summoned his Demonic Eye, and used the Scouting Technique with Eyes of Truth to scan their way, and everyone tried the utmost to avoid areas inhabited by demons, and like that, the trip went on smoothly.
They headed north for about five days, and as time passed, the temperature kept going down. The 64th commander grade Demon Hunt Squad was already close to the tip of the northern territory, and this time Long Haochen changed direction, and started to head west.
On the following trip of half a month, everything extraordinarily went smoothly, even if they encountered two relatively densely populated demon provinces in their path. To their great luck, they didn’t run into any inconvenience, and didn’t discover any large demon armies.
Nightfall. Everyone was seated across a bonfire, roasting provisions.
Long Haochen sat there, wrinkling his brows, seemingly preoccupied by some thoughts.
Sima Xian chuckled, “Boss, what’s up? Our way back is going so smoothly: what could you be worried about? According to the map, we will reach the frontier between the human and the demon territory approximately tomorrow at noon. As long as we pass the demon frontier, we will be able reach our destination, the Exorcist Mountain Pass.”
Long Haochen shook his head, and replied, “Don’t you all find that quite strange? On our way back, we certainly intently took a remote and round-about path, but isn’t it going excessively smoothly? The demon population is so astonishing, but we didn’t even run into a single demon army. This is really abnormal. In fact, we have already crossed many frontiers of provinces on our way.
And as we keep getting closer, we instead keep encountering more and more food transport. Although the demons are stationing large armies here, aren’t these numbers of rations too much?
Han Yu’s line of thinking being the closest of Long Haochen, he immediately reacted to his remark, “Captain, are you saying that the demons are very possibly plotting something of large scale against humans?”
Long Haochen nodded, “It is highly possible. Although I still don’t know how much rations they have brought here, such a high concentration of provision is rarely seen. The armies they are transferring this time must be really considerable, and may even surpass the ones we encountered at the time of our first trial in that same place.”
Sima Xian revealed an angry smile, “Isn’t this an ideal encounter? Since we happen to be encountering them, how about getting rid of some little demons? Speaking of it, War Missions are still in the end the best ones out there. With our abundant rear support, and friendly help in the battlefield, we can go all out in the battlefield without worries.”
Times could be said to have changed for the 64th commander grade Demon Hunt Squad, compared to their first excursion in Exorcist Mountain Pass. They were now a lot stronger. Sima Xian’s words raised the spirits of the whole group.
After continuous experience of death and life, trials of iron and blood, while maturing, their strength also increased. The battlefield was not only the best place to hone their skills and experience, but also a place where they would gain many rewards.
Long Haochen ordered, “Han Yu, from today on, you will have the Demonic Eye keep its Hawk’s Eye and Eyes of the Truth activated. And maintain your vigilance everyone. We will have some rest here this evening and tomorrow as well. After days’ of rushed travelling, everyone must be quite tired. Since the Exorcist’s Mountain Pass can possibly get attacked by the demons, we shall rest here until getting back to our peak state. I reckon that crossing the frontier won’t be easy.”
Indeed, they didn’t waste any time ever since leaving the Swamps of Gloom. Although everyone still had some energy left, after having travelled at full speed every day, the group was in the end very tired. In particular, the main point was that they were still in demon territory, and thus had to always remain on high alert, so everyone was somewhat tired.
After taking warm provisions, Long Haochen gave a gentle look to the nearby Cai’er, feeling at peace.
Over the past few days, Cai’er attitude towards him had gotten a lot better. At least she didn’t remain as vigilant as when she had just lost her memories. And gradually, she had also gotten more familiar with the others. What made Long Haochen most delighted was that her grasp over her abilities was gradually coming back, her control already being at least back to eighty percent of her original level. Her development seemed to continue smoothly. Long Haochen also believed that meeting her parents and relatives would help greatly in recovering her memories back.
Ever since his baptism by the Divine Snail of Sun and Moon, Long Haochen’s mind seemed a lot more stable. The negative feelings he had accumulated through so many years of self discipline ended up being cleansed thoroughly, his pure heart as a Scion of Light was completely back. This made not only his thinking all the more thorough, and his maturity reinforced but also affected his attitude, resolution and calm.
Cai’er seemed to be sensing Long Haochen gaze. Right after she raised her head at him, the two of them looked at each other. The corners of Cai’er’s mouth raised slightly, she revealed a moving smile.
Long Haochen was stupefied, suddenly realizing that Cai’er’s current predicament wasn’t bad either. Although she lost all her memories, it also released her from all the painful memories from her childhood. It was only that he didn’t know when he would be able to regain his past intimacy with her. How he wanted to hug her in his embrace!
After resting for one night and a whole day, everyone in the 64th commander grade Demon Hunt Squad felt in high spirits. Ever since the day they had arrived in demon territory, aside from the period of time they spent at the team section in the Jacques City, this was the first time they were able to get such peaceful rest.
The day was coming to an end, and night fell gradually. Long Haochen chose this timing to set out with his comrades again, heading for the frontier.
With the help of the Demonic Eye serving as their main scout, they advanced with utter care. Far ahead, the demon camps were already in their view. At the time everyone was close enough to survey the scene from above, they couldn’t help but shiver.
The faces of every one of them instantly looked unsightly.
Compared to the last time they saw it, these demon camps were at least three times greater scope. In fact, among demons, only middle and high ranked demons would be able to reside in camps, whereas lower ranked ones like Dual Bladed Demon would only be able to reside in the wilderness.
The camps near the Exorcist Mountain Pass were originally not small at all, but with its size shooting up by threefolds, the size of their army ought to exceed a million men. In fact, even if the demons were to bring their entire race to arms, an army gathering a million of them was an incomparably terrifying sight. These were incomparable numbers already.
And atop of that, the most shocking wasn’t these numbers. What shocked them the most was that when surveying the camp from afar, they could clearly see that eight glows of different colors were shooting up, faintly lighting up the area of the camps like rays shot at the sky.
Demon god pillars! These were actually eight of them, meaning that eight demon gods were keeping watch. And furthermore, the light spreading from two of them was really intense, making it clear that these ones weren’t ordinary, belonging to mighty demon gods of the top ten.
Just what are demons up to? Are they planning to launch a full scale attack? Everyone in Long Haochen’s group had these same thoughts.
At the sight of these seemingly endless camps, Long Haochen pondered. The others remained silent, and all were waiting for his verdict calmly. An army of a million demons, with eight demon gods overseeing it. Can one really describe it otherwise than overbearing?