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"My lord, let’s go this way..."

Xu Hu led Chen Qing past a place where soldiers’ corpses were still being collected.

This area, due to the techniques of the dying dragon, was perennially shrouded in snow and wind.

If the dead were not removed promptly, they would be completely buried by the blizzard, making retrieval much more troublesome.

The bodies would likely become frozen chunks of meat.

"It’s alright, I’ll take a look..." Chen Qing passed by those collecting the corpses, each hurriedly saluting. Chen Qing saluted back one by one, and looking at the ground covered with corpses, he said, "These days, have the losses been great?"

"Not small..." Xu Hu said with a wry smile, "To be ready to support Lady Ziyue at any time, Beihai City is our only stronghold. Ever since the Path of Yin and Yang turned into a place of the underworld, the attacks by the giant serpents have never stopped. In these ten days alone, we’ve lost more soldiers than in the past half year. .."

Chen Qing frowned upon hearing this.

Shen Qi also frowned and said, "Why not directly station ourselves in Northern Wolf City?"

Northern Wolf City has a pact—supposedly, the giant serpents won’t attack there...

"There are two reasons..." Xu Hu sighed, "The first is that Lady Ziyue does not allow us to station troops there.

The situation there is quite special. Although it is now our territory, it became so because the Imperial Family sought refuge with us.

But in reality, several powerful clans there have the capability to rebel at any moment.

If we were to station troops there, and then face clan rebellion, combined with the loss of our stronghold in Beihai City, we would truly be trapped in a pot. "

"The Imperial Family sought refuge with us?" Chen Qing suddenly understood.

So that was it...

Shen Dao Liu can enfeoff a piece of land because of the legitimacy of that land.

Originally, when he was appointed Magistrate of Lyuzhou, he had the legitimacy to rule Lyuzhou.

Thus, he could use the techniques of Shen Dao Liu to establish power there, and the underworld could be enfeoffed directly as well.

So it was not necessary to occupy a place to claim it as your own. This time was the same—the Imperial Family pledged allegiance, and Northern Yan Country became a vassal state, which naturally was also considered Shen Dao Liu’s land, and therefore Zi Yue was able to open an underworld there!

But what he was curious about was how Zi Yue managed to do it?

Could it be that Ali seduced the Emperor?

He was aware of one rule—despite Ali now being Transcendent, according to the rules, a region’s ruler is endowed with the advantage of royal destiny.

Ali couldn’t even modify the other party’s memories, let alone make them obey.

There was only one way to subdue them, and that was to take them down physically.

Chen Qing didn’t believe Zi Yue could convince Ali to seduce someone physically at the present time.

That was somewhat strange...

"What is the second reason?" Shen Qi continued to ask.

"The second reason is that we dare not probe lightly.

.." Xu Hu said in a low voice, "The Northern Wasteland has temporarily obtained the privilege of not being invaded by giant serpents, but that doesn’t mean this privilege will last forever.

With the special geography of Northern Wolf Country, if we go there, might that cause those giant serpents to reconsider and choose to attack Northern Wolf Country? "

Shen Qi nodded, "So it’s commonplace..."

Xu Hu continued, "To this day, we haven’t found a method to defend against these burrowing giant serpents. In Northern Wolf City, our forces are entirely composed of the Warrior Army, with logistics relying on that unbreakable ice path, which is barely secure, although at a great cost."

Chen Qing immediately understood the other party’s point.

Beihai City, though occupied, had not relocated any civilians there.

Everyone who came were capable fighters from the Warrior Army.

If attacked, they all had the capability to retaliate.

At worst, it would just be a war of attrition—you kill a few of my Warrior Army, I’ll also take down one of your giant serpents.

In the long run, you might not find it worth the cost.

But an attack on Northern Wolf Country would be different. There were many ordinary civilians there. If those civilians were attacked by giant serpents, Northern Wolf Country might as well be ruined, and the passage that he hoped to open in the future might also be jeopardized.

No wonder Xu Hu chose to hold the fort here.

This place could both deter the forces of the Celestial Serpent Palace from getting too unruly and prevent them from going too wild, maintaining a delicate balance.

But the cost was not small, whether it was the consumption of the Warrior Army or logistics, both were tremendous. Now that Jiangnan had deep reserves, it could barely hold on, but after all, this was not a long-term solution.

"My lord..." Xu Hu knocked on his head, "Does your lordship have any method to deal with these burrowing snakes? Frankly speaking, these creatures are somewhat too shameless."

Chen Qing sighed. If it weren’t for these shameless creatures, how could the Celestial Serpent Palace have such an advantage before? Just because they were born in large numbers?

"We can’t solve it on the front lines, but... there is still a chance."

"A chance?" Xu Hu eagerly asked, "What opportunity is my lord speaking of?"

These days, he was utterly worn out by these burrowing serpents.

In reality, with the current combat strength of the War God Army, a few soldiers could handle one ordinary giant serpent bursting out, but these creatures appeared without warning.

This almost forced Xu Hu to resort to a one-to-one night guard approach.

For every soldier that slept, there had to be a wakeful soldier standing guard beside them to ensure the sleeping soldier’s safety to the greatest extent. Even so, occasional sneak attacks were successful.

Soldiers were constantly on edge, and in this freezing place, over time, no soldier could endure it.

But there’s not enough time, and a higher survival rate only comes with experience gained by spending time here. Sending the veterans to rest and bringing in new soldiers will only result in greater casualties.

For a moment, Xu Hu truly had no solution.

"If only we could control a few of Mother Earth."

"Control Mother Earth?" Xu Hu was taken aback.

"Hmm..." Chen Qing nodded, "Snakes do not rely on vision to navigate underground; they use a form of heat perception. If there is a creature with equally powerful heat perception stationed here, it could detect the Giant Serpent’s intrusion from afar."

Subterranean battles only had an advantage in the second version.

By the third version, the powerful demons all have extremely exaggerated divine senses.

Not to mention coming from underground, even if you burrowed through the core, they’d see you clearly.

But in the current version, the only ones that could sense the Giant Serpent from such a distance were other Giant Serpents. ..

This is very troublesome since creatures like Mother Earth are hard to tame.

Unless...

Chen Qing thought of a possibility, but he still hesitated...

"That would require a certain opportunity; it’s currently not something we can achieve," Chen Qing stated bluntly.

Hearing this, Xu Hu nodded, "No problem, my lord needn’t worry.

The soldiers are getting more accustomed to it.

Over time, the casualties will reduce. The logistics section has specially prepared jerked meats and dried vegetables, which are very convenient to transport.

The pressure isn’t too great, so holding out for a year or two shouldn’t be a problem! "

A year or two...

Chen Qing looked around with a wry smile. This might result in the death of a million people...

He couldn’t afford such a loss. It was imperative to come up with a plan.

"By the way, what more do you know about the situation in Northern Wolf City?"

"Not much..." Xu Hu said softly, "That place is quite complicated. Senior Zi Yue once personally came and briefed me about some of the situation. For fear of the correspondence being intercepted en route, there has been no exchange of letters during this period."

"What did she say?" asked Chen Qing eagerly.

"Ten days ago..." Xu Hu lowered his head, recalling, "That day Senior Zi Yue came back suddenly and handed over some information to me, claiming that Northern Wolf Country would fall very soon, and that I must prepare to resist the Celestial Serpent’s forces."

"At the time, I was very surprised because Lady Zi Yue had no troops of her own. I also had some intelligence on that side which suggested that the major families were competing fiercely. So how could Northern Wolf Country suddenly become our territory?"

"But Lady Zi Yue didn’t elaborate much. She just mentioned that the Imperial Family of Northern Wolf Country would surrender to us and declare allegiance openly. Once they did, we could directly establish the Path of Yin and Yang there, enfeoffing other deities."

"When I heard this, I found it unbelievable at first, but Lady Zi Yue is unlikely to lie about such a matter.

So I mobilized forces and strengthened our defenses.

And indeed, just as Lady Zi Yue said, the day after she left, Northern Wolf Country declared its allegiance to us, and as predicted, Northern Wolf City suffered several days of intense attacks! "

"What about the Path of Yin and Yang?" Unable to obtain useful information, Chen Qing turned to the next question, "Northern Wolf Country could instantly establish the Path of Yin and Yang because they joined us, but it’s not the same with Beihai City. That position is quite dangerous. I remember Wei Gongcheng saying they didn’t send any Yin soldiers to attack Beihai’s Path of Yin and Yang, so how was it captured? "

Previously, Beihai City had not been within Chen Qing’s scope of conquest. The reason was simple: the Path of Yin and Yang included the sea areas.

If warfare were initiated, Beihai’s lengthy Path of Yin and Yang would have to be fully opened, which was exceedingly dangerous.

With the current shortage of Yin soldiers, Chen Qing hadn’t planned to expand further until he had a significant force.

Yet this time, Xu Hu had decisively conquered Beihai City. What was the reason behind this?

Given that the guilds were now aware of the Divine Dao system, they would have definitely observed how he had captured the Southeast. If he started an external invasion again, they would surely find a way to collaborate with the forces inside the Path of Yin and Yang.

The same was true for Beihai. If Xu Hu started to attack Beihai City, he would join forces with others, gathering a large number of Giant Serpents to tie down his forces and prevent an easy conquest of the city.

If they could hold out for more than three days, given the current foundation of the Path of Yin and Yang, they wouldn’t be able to withstand it against the lengthy northwestern sea defenses and would have to retreat.

However, according to Wei Gongcheng, Lady Zi Yue had asked them to hold out for just one day, and the defense turned out to be quieter than expected.

Throughout the process, not a single Evil Ghost was detected, and when the boundary of the Path of Yin and Yang opened, not one Evil Ghost approached the extensive Beihai region.

Xu Hu indeed had a tough three days before capturing Beihai City, but there was no activity from the Path of Yin and Yang during those three days.

This was something Shen Family and Wei Gongcheng still couldn’t understand to this day.

Chen Qing couldn’t understand it either.

"That..." Xu Hu scratched his head, "The specific reason is not clear to me, but it seems... to have something to do with that Nezha you raised."

"Nezha, huh?" Chen Qing fell into deep thought. So it was Ghost Doll?

But even if Ghost Doll had transcended, he couldn’t have had such a significant impact, could he? Zi Yue... what exactly did she do?