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"Has the reinforcement from Azland arrived yet?"

Inside the fortifications of Tiannan, a Southern Wilderness general stood nine feet tall, disregarding his own injuries.

He didn’t even bother with bandaging, and as soon as the offensive maneuver was paused, he immediately went to the rear intelligence department to anxiously inquire about this matter.

"They’re already on the way..." The envoy from Azland said, dripping with cold sweat, as after finishing his words, he found that the generals from other nations around him all had looks that said they wanted to flay him alive!

It wasn’t entirely their fault, though. Who could have foreseen that the offensive from Jiangnan would be so swift?

This expedition to the Central Plains was an alliance of seven nations.

Ever since Wutu Country began building Ghost Temples extensively, displaying their power, other nations were also lured into emulation, with the leading powers of the Southern Barbarians now having at least hundreds of Ghost Temples constructed in their capitals.

But no matter how quickly they acted, there simply wasn’t enough time.

Before this, the Southern Barbarian States had thought that after worshipping the Ghost Temples, those generals blessed by the Evil Spirits would be able to sweep through the world with just a thousand troops, they were even rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of teaching the Flying Dragon Army, which had oppressed them for many years, a lesson.

However, they didn’t expect the Flying Dragon Army to pull back directly, which made them even more confident in the inevitability of their invasion of the Central Plains.

In fact, at the outset, it was so. The allied forces of the seven nations, with just their vanguard, had caused the Central Plains’ defending army to fall apart completely.

The noble families of the Southeast, whether lineage families or Sorcerer Families, were unable to withstand a single blow, with a good number of the troops taking pleasure in capturing the daughters of lineage families and insulting them at will.

When they heard that Jiangnan was about to strike, even the officers at the front initially didn’t take it seriously.

The power of the Evil Spirits was inconceivable; with just several thousand in the vanguard, each possessed the strength of a Third Rank Warrior.

With such military power, who else in the entire world could stand against them?

Not to mention the few leading the vanguard, those who received the personal blessings of the Evil Spirits, their power had reached incredible levels. Even if it were the famous Duke of Qin, Lumings, to come, they had the confidence to defeat him.

But in just five days!!

The front lines almost completely collapsed, and the five Southeastern cities they had occupied fell within a single day, and not a single one of the elite vanguard managed to return alive.

That’s when they realized that the troops from Jiangnan were not to be underestimated...

But by the time they realized it, it was already too late.

Ghost Temples take time to enhance soldiers.

According to the current progress, it takes a sacrifice of twenty boys and twenty virgins to bless a single soldier.

Ignoring the resistance and negative impacts of gathering these, just amassing a sufficient amount made it so that even if you could enhance a soldier, it would still require at least ten days, and the scale was limited. ..

A Ghost Temple could support at most one blessing per day; that is, all the Ghost Temples in the entire Southern Wilderness put together could produce only a few hundred such enhanced soldiers in ten days.

With a sudden shortage of troops, it was simply impossible to conjure up so many people in a short time!

The military strength of Jiangnan far exceeded their expectations. With a large number of elite troops dead or injured at the frontline, only the remaining soldiers were barely enough to hold Tiannan Pass. If Jiangnan sent more troops, it would only be a matter of time before Tiannan Pass fell!

Meng Yan, a senior general of Wutu Gu, who had not closed his eyes for two consecutive days, asked anxiously, "How much longer exactly, can you give us an accurate time?

The current situation at Tiannan Pass is precarious, it could be breached at any moment, we must use the sacrifices ahead of schedule to please the Evil Spirits and augment our power to boost morale.

But once we do that ahead of time, you all know the consequences! "

Upon hearing this, the eyes of several generals grew even more fierce, and the envoy from Azland was drenched in even more sweat.

Making sacrifices ahead of time would allow a second blessing from the Evil Spirits on the soldiers, granting them a tremendous temporary boost in strength.

However, this would have side effects: their bodies would be overdrawn, and they would fall into a state where they couldn’t fight any longer.

It seemed that using this method was the only way to boost the recently depleted morale and fend off wave after wave of Jiangnan’s attacks.

But if they did that and couldn’t achieve a major victory, they would face a period of weakness afterward, needing adequate reinforcements to fill the gap in their defenses...

"I... I... I’ve already written multiple letters urging action, His Majesty, he... always says that preparations are being expedited, I... I also..."

"What kind of expediting preparations?" A general next to him grabbed the envoy by the collar. "Of all the allied armies, only your Azland hasn’t sent troops. Not a single one of your soldiers has died. What do you need to expedite? Why not just send people directly?"

"Please, General, stay your hand... stay your hand!" The envoy was so frightened he could barely catch his breath.

"You had better come up with a result today... or else..." Meng Yan of Wutu Gu also said with an icy tone, "We’ll use your people from Azland as the sacrifices!"

It seemed that no one noticed, in an inconspicuous corner of the hall, a tiny human eye was observing all of this!

------------------------------

"The opportunity has arrived..."

Below Tiannan Pass, three miles away at the military camp, Shen Qi withdrew his Technique and announced to everyone.

Tian Heng’s gaze instantly shifted towards Chen Qing. As a veteran with extensive military experience, he immediately recognized the chance for victory.

The key to victory in this siege wasn’t with his own side, but rather in the internal conflicts of the enemy.

At this moment, Tian Heng found himself admiring Chen Qing.

The latter had said three days ago that the enemy was a coalition force.

The advantage of a coalition is the sharing of resources, allowing for costs to be spread out.

However, the downside is that once the war turns unfavorable, or if there are selfish motives within the coalition, it could easily crumble from within.

And just as Chen Qing had predicted, there indeed were problems within the enemy’s ranks!

Chen Qing, watching the scenes transmitted by Shen Qi’s Thousand Eyes Technique, nodded slightly. He had anticipated the enemy’s lack of troops long ago.

When the duel in Capital City took place, Wutu Country had just risen to power.

Even if other countries followed suit, the construction time for the Ghost Temple would have been insufficient, resulting in a very limited output of troop strength.

Chen Qing of course knew that constructing a so-called Ghost Temple wasn’t as simple as building a couple of statues and establishing a temple to yield such miraculous effects.

It required precise locations, aligning with the energy prepared in the Path of Yin and Yang, and opening the channel with the resentment of a massive number of sacrificial victims, thus forming a stable bridge between the two realms. This process was far from simple.

High-end Ghost Temples even had strict requirements for building materials, as inferior materials were prone to corrosion by the vast energy from the Path of Yin and Yang.

Even if the cheapest materials and a large number of victims were used for a rushed troop surge, Chen Qing conservatively estimated that the Southern Barbarians would be fast to produce 30,000 high-strength soldiers in a short time.

And now, it seemed he was right, hence his urgency in taking Tiannan Pass grew stronger.

The current insufficiency in troop surge speed was due to a lack of Ghost Temples, and the need to covertly procure sacrificial victims, not yet able to conduct mass sacrifices.

Once Ghost Temple forces scale up and troop surge speed increases, without a strategic pass to defend, Chen Qing would not dare claim the land in Southeast, much less construct a Mountain God system there.

You must be kidding, an Imperial Mandate Spirit requires a vast amount of faith.

Typically, a Mountain God takes about two years to just break even on the investment.

Given the urgency of the situation, should a large number of Mountain Gods be destroyed and their progress slowed, even the fundamental stronghold in Jiangnan might collapse.

"That Azland, it has ulterior motives!" Tian Heng immediately surmised.

Chen Qing nodded. He had learned quite a bit about the situation among the Southern Barbarian States recently through Tian Heng.

Among the seven major nations of the Southern Wilderness, Azland was the weakest, with an unfavorable geographical location and a majority of its land being poor and remote, with low agricultural capability.

Perhaps initially, it wasn’t that Azland was unwilling to come to the Central Plains first, but due to its weakness, better opportunities were seized by other nations, and the people of Azland were assigned to logistics and such.

But nobody expected Jiangnan to collapse the Southern Wilderness front line within five days.

Now short on troops, the coalition forces began to recall Azland from the rear.

However, with many elite soldiers dead at the front and being stuck at Tiannan Pass with no way forward or back, how could Azland not have its own thoughts?

When it was time to feast, I was excluded, and now that trouble arises, I am remembered?

If it were Chen Qing himself, he would definitely create some difficulties on purpose too.

"Your Majesty, do you know the effects of the sacrificial victims they speak of?" Tian Heng asked curiously.

"They can significantly boost soldiers’ strength for a short time, but there will be a considerable weakness period afterward."

As the designer, Chen Qing naturally knew what was going on.

Those Evil Spirits that inhabited the human body had to proceed slowly.

If they gave too much power at once and the body wasn’t successfully transformed, it would cause a tremendous strain.

It was a last-ditch effort typically used in life-or-death battles.

Just as that guy Meng Yan said, once the reinforcements are cut off, the soldiers’ burst of energy would be followed by a vacuum period, which could very likely lead to the loss of Tiannan Pass.

"I see..." Tian Heng drew a breath. "I know how to take Tiannan Pass now!"