Chapter 616 – The Fortifications of The Sword Forest Stronghold
Translated by: Berrrybunz
Edited by: TN and DeAndreR
The arrival of Eldest Young Noble caused many to gasp.
The situation of the White Sands Continent was obvious to everybody, the Eldest Young Noble was here to seek help. Although no one knew what the Eldest Young Noble and Meng Nan talked about, but everyone could roughly guess. What did Meng Nan have? Money! Although Meng Nan had a few elites with him, but the few of them could not truly affect the situation, and the only thing that could concern the Eldest Young Noble was money, everyone needed money.
That astronomical bounty made everyone believe that Meng Nan was a rich tyrant, and not just some average rich tyrant.
~Did no one see how Xu Jin was flattering Meng Nan the whole day? If even the shopkeeper of Xu Ji Worldwide Commerce is already doing his best to curry favor, who would suspect his wealth?~
But everyone knew that after the matter, Meng Nan would completely infuriate He Ying, and there would be no space for them to reconcile.
Tang Tian sent Ling Xia and Eldest Young Noble out.
When he turned, he saw Han Sen’s worried look, and became curious: “What’s the meaning of your expression?”
Han Sen hesitated for a moment: “Master might not know, but He Ying and Lady Rou have been in cahoots for many years, Eldest Young Noble’s strength has been greatly reduced, and everyone is saying that Eldest Young Noble cannot last for long. Now, the aristocratic families inside the continent are all supporting He Ying.”
He had been hanging around in the White Sands City for many years, and had all sorts of information, and definitely knew about the power struggles between the parties.
Tang Tian: “Oh, so it’s like that.”
“Master is brilliant!” Han Sen immediately replied: “if not for Master Suo Bi always supporting Eldest Young Noble, he most likely would had….”
Tang Tian then refuted: “Do you think He Ying will let us go?”
Han Sen became silent, he had never seen He Ying before, but the news and information spread in the city of He Ying were countless. He Ying was narrow-minded, brutal and cruel etc, etc. Everyone knew of the conflicting views between Master and He Ying, so Han Sen immediately felt stupid suggesting such an idea.
“It’s not a problem, I am just attending a banquet.” Tang Tian said indifferently.
The Eldest Young Noble had invited Tang Tian to the banquet hosted by the Continent Lord. Due to the great influx of important guests from the continents around the White Sands Continent, the Continent Lord that had always been held up inside his manor finally decided to hold a large scale banquet.
To show their grandeur, the location of the banquet had been placed in the White Sands Gardens, which was the Continent Lord’s private garden.
Tang Tian did not care much about attending the banquet.
Tang Tian had other thoughts in mind, which was the positive progress on Richard’s investigation regarding the Thirteen Families. The Thirteen Families, other than one of them which was in the Western Region, there were seven families heading towards the Gold Continent, while the other five were in the White Sands Continent.
What Tang Tian could not understand was that the position of the Five Families in the White Sands Continent was extremely high. When they had just migrated to the White Sands Continent, coincidentally, the White Sands Continent was surrounded by pirates, and the Five Families risked their all to support the White Sands Continent to push back the pirates, earning rewards by the Continent lord of that time. At that time, the Five Families were already concealing their identities, although they had done great service, but they were not flamboyant about it, and instead, with their power, they cleared all traces of clues that led to them.
Tang Tian’s expenditure did not go to waste, Richard had indeed found a few precious clues. If the clues were to land in other people’s hands, it would most likely confuse them, but in the hands of Richard, who had profound knowledge on the field, it immediately roused his spirit and he quickly locked down the identities of the Five families.
After many years of concealing their strength and biding time, the five families were currently very powerful.
Tang Tian’s headache was how to establish communication with them. ~Would the Five Families know about the existence of Heaven’s Road? If they do not, how can I explain it to them? Will they believe me? Will that expose my identity?~
The continuous lines of questions made Tang Tian feel even more stressed.
What worried him the most was exposing himself. ~If Honorable Martial Continent knows that I came from Heaven’s Road, I am afraid they would do everything to capture us. We are still weak, and that would be extremely dangerous.~
~Would the Five Families have any plans towards Heaven’s Road?~
At the start, he only thought that they shared a common enemy, but he then realized that he was thinking too simply.
He shook his head, he would put down the complicated questions, and let Uncle Bing, or Crane, people with better brains to think about it. He continued to urge Richard not to disclose such information.
~I wonder how Uncle Bing and the rest are doing in the Shang Continent~, Tang Tian thought.
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Bu Zi Fei looked at the remaining 10 vanguard unit, his face was pale green. He did not underestimate his enemy, but he never thought that when he reached the battle, the enemies were much more terrifying than he thought.
They were just three men, but they had practically wiped out the entire vanguard unit. Long Nan himself had suffered severe injuries, and thus the morale of the vanguard unit immediately dropped to a low.
Long Nan’s strength was powerful and unique, and was just a step away from the realm of the Silver Saints, and was definitely a powerful general in the warzone, but with just one sword, he was injured.
If Bu Zi Fei did not see that something was amiss and anxiously reacted, Long Nan might not have survived, it was difficult to say.
But at the moment, the vanguard unit had suffered heavy losses. Around him, the faces of the soldiers were filled with fear. The vanguard unit was the 7th army’s most arrogant and despotic people, and were also their strongest, and was the elite team, with extremely good battle achievements.
But their opponents were just three people, and they were actually so easily killed.
Pale-faced, Long Nan’s heart was brimming with fear and shock, no one was clearer than him of the danger in the exchange earlier. The cold and strange mental attack, the swordsman with his enlightened laws, the spear auras that covered the sky like stars, all three of them were experts among experts, and were all stronger than him.
~For three such experts to appear together, and they were extremely tacit and compatible with each other, where exactly did they come from?~
He was filled with suspicion.
Bu Zi Fei took a deep breath, he regained his steadiness. He suddenly had a premonition that the battle would definitely not be easy. But that did not make him feel discouraged, but instead roused his fighting spirit. He did not have the backing of a family like Sun Jie. Born as a nobody, Bu Zi Fei knew that his current position was relying on his military achievements.
“Move out!”
The 7th Army flew into formation in the sky, like a regiment of dark clouds, they headed towards the Sword Forest Stronghold. Bu Zi Fei had done his homework, and had already found out the location of the opponent, although he did not understand why they built a stronghold in the middle of a barren land.
They advanced extremely carefully, scouts were sent out like rivers, continuously investigating their surroundings and situation.
The anticipated ambush did not happen, and everyone in the 7th Army heaved a sigh of relief.
But when they reached their destination and saw the majestic Sword Forest Stronghold, every single one of them all sucked in cold air.
The tall Sword Strongholds released dazzling light auras, like swords pointed straight to the sky, the densely packed sharp edges were filled with killing intent.
The entire 7th Army became extremely quiet.
Bu Zi Fei was lost for a moment, the scale of the stronghold in front of him was completely different from the reports. It was not a stronghold, it was a fortifications of strongholds, and the many light auras seemed to be resonating towards each other.
(TN: There are no true collective noun for strongholds, so I will stick to fortifications of strongholds)
Such a scale of fortifications of strongholds was definitely not something done in a day. Bu Zi Fei was so mad he wanted to behead the intelligence unit who gave him the report, it was a fortifications of strongholds, how could they have messed it up?
The war became the thing he hated the most, sieging. Although the 7th army was powerful, but sieging was not their forte. If it was one stronghold, he was not too worried, but for such a scale, his hands immediately turned numb.
“We will station here.”
Bu ZI Fei quickly made a decision, he had never seen such a layout of fortifications, and decided to investigate, whether or not the fortifications of strongholds was all, or were there other heaven defying things.
He could not retreat, but he had patience. The standard of his opponents were truly surprising.
Inside the Sword Forest Stronghold, Bing and the rest were watching the enemies.
“That’s the 7th Army.” The one who spoke was an elder chosen from the 36th Army by Bing, his face turned gloomy: “The main commander of the 7th Army is Bu Zi Fei, he is extremely cautious and strict, his standards are high, thus the 7th Army is a silver army, and extremely respected. Bu Zi Fei does not have much of a background, and relied on his services to be where he is today. In the past, this subordinate had heard of a saying, that if Bu Zi Fei was not tied down by his background, his personal strength would be one of the top three.”
Everyone nodded their heads in agreement, no one knew the depth of Bu Zi Fei’s strength, but from the looks of it, he truly was an elite.
Crane turned and asked Bing: “Are we not going to inform Crazy Tang?”
“If we did, will he be able to rush back?” Bing did not even look at Crane: “He also has important things at his side, although Precious Bright Village Regiment’s strength cannot compare to our enemy, but if they still can be wiped out by that army inside this stronghold, I will knock myself to death.”
Bing’s words were exaggerated, but no one thought it was big talk. He was a famous general himself, as long as he made a move, he would sweep everything before him. His standards were so high that even Tang Chou who was a proud person had to admit that Bing was extremely powerful.
Furthermore, they had the Sword Forest Stronghold.
The fortifications of Sword Forest Stronghold was formed by Sai Lei’s hard work, the mining of Black Gold, stability of star treasures, and the formation of the Treasure City. Even Bing himself would not be willing to pit himself against the Sword Forest Stronghold.
~My head will definitely bleed attacking this stronghold.~
And inside the Sword Forest Stronghold, they had sufficient manpower, so he was not worried about being surrounded. The training for the Precious Bright Village Regiment was personally handled by him, and their synchronization had finally reached a qualified standard in Bing’s eyes.
He did not have much hope for the Precious Bright Village Regiment, to use them to defend the city was enough.
He was thinking about a deeper problem, he had asked before, there were only eight silver armies in the Vast Star Continent, Sun Jie’s 8th Army was annihilated, and it was only a flesh wound for Vast Star Continent, but if Bu ZI Fei’s 7th Army were to be destroyed again, it would truly be a deep wound. For the most elite of armies to lose a quarter of their strength was not as simple as a flesh wound.
~At that time, the Vast Star Continent would most probably be unable to ignore us anymore, and would send even more firepower. The Sword Forest Stronghold can only win under marginal circumstances right now, and the expensive Black Gold has given us sufficient wealth, Tang Tian had bought two armies, Shi Sen had replenished his Underworld Continent’s Demonic Mounts, and at that time, our strength would soar in quality.~
~But between now and then, it will be the most important time for the Sword Forest Stronghold.~
~I have to think of a way to completely trap the 7th Army here.~
Bing rubbed his chin, as if he was in deep thoughts.