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"Your Majesty, given that the north is so important, should we now devote all our efforts to attack the north?"

In the Jiangnan Residence, Chen Qing, who had just returned, quickly called together everyone to discuss Jiangnan’s future deployment.

Now that the master had returned, no one had any reason not to return.

After all, everyone knew that the Divine Path System belonged to Chen Qing, and without him, no one could guarantee that what they currently possessed wouldn’t disappear.

This also meant that no one was qualified to rebel, except for Ao Zhen.

In the hall, all the important figures of Jiangnan had essentially gathered, including Xuu Hu of the War God Army, who had originally been stationed in the north!

The one asking the question was him. He had long wanted to take on the north. During the half year he guarded it, he always had to be vigilant against those disgusting giant serpents of the north, and he truly had had enough!

People around looked towards Chen Qing, curious if there was really a plan to take military action, especially since Chen Qing had summoned Xuu Hu immediately. Could it be?

However, on second thought, it didn’t seem like a bad idea.

Jiangnan’s military strength was now among the top in the Central Plains, and together with a force like Ao Zhen, it wasn’t impossible to take on those northern giant serpents.

Morally too, there wouldn’t be an issue.

The north had openly rebelled against the Imperial Court.

If Jiangnan sent troops to reclaim lost territories for the court, it would be entirely justified!

Chen Qing looked at Xuu Hu, who was as excited as if he had been injected with chicken blood, and his face twitched.

If they were able to fight, he would have mobilized troops the first thing upon his return. Why would he be so leisurely about it?

"We can’t beat them..." Chen Qing shook his head straightaway.

"Can’t... can’t beat them?" Xuu Hu’s excited expression froze at once, and others furrowed their brows.

Could Jiangnan’s strength really not match the north’s?

The War God Army, now lower than Fifth Rank, could mostly just handle logistics.

Anyone who could be stationed in the north was at least Fifth Rank, with squad leaders being at least Fourth Rank, and someone leading a troop of five hundred had to be at least a Third Rank Martial Husband.

This level of military strength could have swept through the Central Plains in the past!

That’s not even counting the recently rising Western Sea Army, nor the Yaksha generals released from the Dragon Palace every five days – there were over twenty of them now. Combined with Ao Zhen, what in the world could stand against them?

If with all that they still couldn’t win, were those underground snakes of the north really so formidable?

Shen San was the first to express his doubts: "At the beginning, the Duke of Wei alone managed to build an ice bridge in the Northern Sea.

That bridge stands to this day, unbroken by any giant serpent, allowing us to successfully take back hundreds of millions of northerners.

And before his death, the Duke of Wei killed what they called Mother Earth.

Now, the north should at most have some cunning ways of hiding underground with those giant snakes. Surely not invincible, right?"

"Yes, Your Majesty..." Second Elder Shen also spoke up: "Now, Jiangnan is no weaker than the Duke of Wei was. We have several individuals like him, while the north has lost Mother Earth. Logically, we should have the upper hand."

"It’s just that we’ve been lucky enough..." Chen Qing couldn’t help but give a bitter smile.

"Lucky?" Everyone was stunned, not quite understanding what Chen Qing meant.

"That so-called Mother Earth was nothing more than material for reviving the Celestial Serpent Palace. Its death just meant that a second Serpent Mother would soon be born among the Earth Serpents. For creatures like Earth Serpents, rapid cultivation is very quick. According to the intelligence I’ve just received, the north now has over a hundred Serpent Mothers. .."

"What??"

Upon hearing this, everyone became restless, and Xuu Hu looked at Chen Qing in disbelief. He had seen the Serpent Mother before. Its head was big enough to fill an entire county. A hundred of those things in the north?

Could the north even house them all?

Moreover, what could possibly sustain them?

"Your Majesty... Is this intelligence accurate?" Second Elder Shen asked, taking a deep breath.

The head of that Serpent Mother still remains in the Dragon Palace Academy for biological research. A hundred of those things in the north now? What kind of joke was that?

Just the thought of a hundred such colossal creatures sent shivers down his spine.

"The intelligence comes from Wang Shiyu of the Duke of Wei..."

"That bastard?" Shen Qi spoke up.

"You know about him?" Chen Qing was taken aback.

"Mhm, I’ve paid some attention... I always felt that his background was a bit... too coincidental. But since it was all so far away, I just kept an eye on it without delving too deeply."

"Uh..." Chen Qing held his head: "You were quite lucky then."

Lucky he hadn’t delved deeper, or Seventh Master Shen... might well have died long ago!

"Does this bastard have some sort of background?" Shen Qi immediately sensed that there was more to Chen Qing’s words.

"Descended from extraordinary origins..." Chen Qing shook his head, "In any case, the background is so powerful that you can’t even imagine."

"Unimaginable..." Shen Qi felt a chill in his heart. In this world, what the Shen Family could not imagine could only be from the distant ancient past...

Was it a chess piece arranged by an ancient power in advance?

The thought was somewhat terrifying. The reason why the Dragon Palace was divided up this time was, in the end, because they had never taken the Human Race seriously and did not think the Human Race posed any threat to them.

But clearly, not all ancient powers were as complacent as the Dragon Palace.

This ancient power in the north had actually set up their agents in the human world early on.

A powerful force combined with meticulous planning was truly frightening...

"A hundred Mother Earths... can be fought!

" Xuu Hu had a simple mind, only considering matters on the battlefield: "Those kinds of Mother Earths are indeed formidable, but because of their huge size, they’re actually inconvenient in many ways. If they all come out of their nest, they might even interfere with each other and won’t find terrain that allows them to utilize their size! "

"Exactly!" Weichi Feihong, standing beside him, agreed vehemently: "Their massive size can be infinitely lethal in open spaces, but if there are hundreds of them, they will be crowded no matter where they are, which is not conducive to leveraging their size and makes them easier to deal with. If they choose to fight separately, we can also defeat them one by one. There’s certainly a chance! "

Chen Qing rolled his eyes; how had Weichi become like Xuu Hu, turning into a battle maniac?

However, seeing the flame of battle in the other’s eyes, he instinctively understood: the War Gods were fanatical about war by nature, which was driven by their divine nature.

Moreover, since Weichi Feihong had been appointed as a War God by him, he was now in an awkward position.

With his reputation not yet established, not many War Gods were willing to join his ranks; he desperately needed a war to prove himself and expand his prestige!

"A hundred Mother Earths are not to be feared, but every ten Mother Earths can sacrifice itself to awaken a Void Python from the Celestial Serpent Palace, which is on par with the True Dragon Breed of the Dragon Palace. Its combat power is not much less than that of the Dragon King Breed..."

Now both Weichi and Xuu Hu furrowed their brows. Ten Dragon King Breeds?

That would be troublesome...

Up to now, Weichi Feihong had not been confident that he could truly defeat a Dragon King Breed head-on.

Although he had undergone Dragon Transformation, it had taken six months for his body to not fully adapt, and if he were to fight a real dragon now, he conservatively estimated that he had at most a twenty percent chance of winning.

Ten...

"That’s not even the key issue..." Chen Qing spoke softly: "If what’s awakened is a Serpent Mother, then a single flying Void Python can conceive and give birth to tens of thousands of offspring.

And these snake offspring would only need three months to grow into combat forces, with their strength.

.. not inferior to a Second Rank Martial Husband. .."

"Tens of thousands? Second Rank?" Everyone choked a bit!

Not right... If one could birth tens of thousands, what if all ten that were awakened were Serpent Mothers? Wouldn’t that mean a hundred thousand?

A hundred thousand Second Rank Warriors...

Hiss...

For a moment, everyone felt a chill all over. What was there left to fight for?

It was better to just wait for death!

"But... I’ve been guarding the north for so long and haven’t seen the thing that our lord mentioned..." Xuu Hu swallowed hard, not that he doubted Chen Qing, but... this claim... was it not a bit too preposterous?

If such monsters existed in this world, why hadn’t the north unified everything? What were they waiting for?

"You haven’t seen it because it hasn’t been executed yet.

.." Chen Qing smiled, "Ten Celestial Serpents not only require energy to be revived, but they also need a massive amount of flesh and blood when they are pregnant. The north right now simply can’t afford it.

Otherwise, even if they could successfully birth an army of Giant Serpents, what would they feed them with? "

"Oh..." With that remark, everyone suddenly breathed a sigh of relief.

It hadn’t even begun yet?

"Then all the more reason we should attack!" Xuu Hu stood up and said, "Otherwise, as the lord said, in at most half a year, we will have to face an army of a hundred thousand Second Rank forces!"

And... Ten creatures comparable to the True Dragon Breed!

"It’s not possible to just attack..." Chen Qing shook his head, "As soon as external forces approach, the internal powers of the north will unify, concentrating resources to directly summon the first Serpent Mother. And our military, even facing one Celestial Serpent, takes a great risk."

"And even if we win, it will be a pyrrhic victory. You all need to think clearly; it’s not just the north we have as an enemy. The Siao Family in Capital City, the Chen Family in the Southern Sea, including that guy from the Eastern Sea— which one of them doesn’t want to engulf Jiangnan?"

"This..." Xuu Hu and Weichi looked at each other and became anxious.

Some of the people immediately caught on to Chen Qing’s words: "Internally?"

"Does the lord mean that the territory where the Giant Serpent in the north is entrenched... is currently fractured internally?"

"That’s why Wang Shiyu came to me for cooperation," Chen Qing looked at the crowd, "This decision will determine the life and death of Jiangnan!"