Courage

Shen Shuibi quietly halted the frontline operations.

She achieved great success on the front lines. Her peak fifth-rank combat prowess was unmatched even in the Tang Kingdom. In the face of the ferocious rabbit, very few opponents of the same rank could defeat her.

Rabbits are not good at fighting, but unfortunately, they were given almost four hundred years before the war, which allowed them to slowly learn and improve their fighting skills.

Even if she dislikes it, even if she loathes fighting and killing, the rabbit knows what she should do. This is no longer the time when she can do whatever she wants without restraint in Mount Luofu.

As a mother, she has many responsibilities.

Especially... to share the burden with Li Qi.

More than four hundred years ago, she witnessed the world that Li Qi faced through the True Knowledge Dao Charm, and looking at her lovely daughter, a surge of courage rose in her heart.

Even if the hands that were once used only for grinding medicine and refining elixirs, turning pages and copying words are now stained with blood, it doesn't matter.

Everything originated from Mount Luofu and Human Path.

She had limited abilities and could not end Human Path, so she would do her best for everything she cherished. When the war ended and she washed her hands, she could still pick up her favorite books and tend to her beloved herbs.

Moreover, she felt somewhat relieved at this moment, because Li Qi had always wanted to assign her some tasks with a low risk factor and to fight against opponents who were obviously weaker than her.

But just now, Li Qi told her that he had a dangerous and important mission to entrust to her.

This mission must be very important and very dangerous, so among the people Li Qi has in charge of, only Shen Shuibi is qualified to carry out this mission.

This might involve a huge game of chess, and I might be the most important piece in it.

This made the rabbit very happy, because Li Qi had overcome a hurdle, and it believed that... Li Qi would finally be able to understand the meaning of 'courage', right?

On the Dao Path, forge ahead without hesitation, following the will of your heart and acting with courage.

Thinking of this made her happy.

As expected of my man, he's made rapid progress.

Just as the rabbit happily ran towards Li Qi was somewhat worried.

Just as Shen Shuibi had guessed, Li Qi had indeed devised a grand plan. If the plan succeeded, the vanguard battle might be able to break the current stalemate.

The key lies with those who Unreturning Disciples.

The Unreturning Disciples are a group of assassins, and assassins who are not valued by Human Path. They are very likely to do something big.

To be honest, the situation on the battlefield that Li Qi is currently controlling is not very good...

Human Path is too strong. Although their warriors are few in number, they are too elite. They have an ample supply of Law Treasure and logistical reserves. Moreover, their Military School tactics are unpredictable and their troops work together with one heart. Even though their numbers are far fewer than those of the Shaman Path, they have more victories than defeats.

Li Qi could only use his superior troop strength to launch localized encirclements and annihilations, which yielded some results, but inevitably resulted in more casualties.

Li Qi urgently needs to break the deadlock and truly leverage his superior military strength.

So far, his numerical advantage has not played any special role other than bringing enormous logistical pressure. The main battlefields are mostly world-class battles, and a world has only so many people and so much carrying capacity, which is well within the scope of Human Path coping.

However, troop strength can change from quantity to quality, and the effectiveness of a formation will increase rapidly as its scale increases.

We must leverage our numerical superiority, which means advancing in a concentrated manner.

However, the advance of the cluster must be carried out in a unified manner. If various legions and world groups want to merge together, they will inevitably encounter Human Path resistance, making it impossible for them to converge and leaving them only able to passively take the beating.

Unlike the terminals of the Nexus of All Realms, the 'alliance' of the Shaman Path cannot actually connect everyone. Only commanders like Li Qi can receive real-time intelligence reports. Of course, Li Qi is considered to be at a high level, capable of commanding multiple fifth-rank officers in war, making him a typical mid-level officer.

Even at the lower levels, the lowest requirement is that one must be Seventh Rank World Lord to join. It is precisely because of this that the Shaman Path is Human Path to the Human Way in terms of the ability to mobilize large armies and coordinate so many people in terms of 'mobility'.

Human Path possesses a significant advantage in troop quality and mobility, which suppresses Li Qi's numerical superiority. This prevents Li Qi from concentrating his superior forces despite having a large number of soldiers. Instead, it sometimes Human Path to concentrate its superior forces in certain areas to fight against a smaller enemy force.

Liu Junyi was very capable and adept at leveraging his strengths. In the early stages of the battle, Li Qi could hardly lift his head.

To escape this predicament of being overwhelmed by the quality and mobility of Human Path troops, it is necessary to force Human Path to return to their defensive positions.

If Human Path returns to defend, he will have the opportunity to gather a large number of fresh troops, abandon the defense of many worlds, forcefully advance, and force Human Path to fight a large-scale battle with him, suppressing the opponent's mobility advantage to the minimum.

Li Qi urgently needs someone to open up the situation for him and suppress the advantage of Human Path, which requires learning special operations techniques from Human Path.

Therefore, Li Qi had to find an opportunity to attack the lifeline of the Tang Kingdom.

So, what is the vital point that the Tang Kingdom must defend?

The answer is the city of Gansong itself.

The other War Fortress are insignificant; they are temporary structures built on-site after the world was dismantled and melted down into stars.

However, the real core base and production facility is the spikenard itself. With spikenard, as long as there are enough raw materials, these World-Class Giant Ships and War Fortress can be built wave after wave.

The reason why Gansong City can manufacture these things is also due to the 'Nexus of All Realms'. Through the power of the Nexus of All Realms, the Tang Kingdom can easily share the structure of many Law Treasure, and manufacture corresponding Law Treasure at any time and place according to their needs, and then assemble them to create the War Fortress or extraterrestrial flying ships they want.

All the cities of the Tang Kingdom are connected to the Nexus of All Realms. So many Law Treasure are produced on an assembly line, and there are so many armies, worlds, War Fortress, and even the communication between each soldier. In fact, it is the Nexus of All Realms that is coordinating all of this.

Such a vast battlefield, with hundreds of millions of worlds involved, countless soldiers and battlefields, and so much information—even Li Qi couldn't handle it, let alone Liu Junyi. He had to rely on the Nexus of All Realms to complete this level of information processing.

Attacking Gansong and destroying the base station of the Nexus of All Realms cut off Liu Junyi's control of the troops and the progress of the War Fortress construction in such a short time.

If successful, it would be fair to say that they've won half the battle. Building a new base station would take at least a month. A month may not seem like a long time, but Li Qi felt that it would be enough for him to push the base into the enemy's territory.

After all, their numerical superiority is a real and tangible advantage.

Even if we fail, it doesn't matter. Even if we fail, the Human Way army will definitely send a large number of experts back to defend and stop the attacks by the Unreturning Disciples. Li Qi will be able to seize the opportunity to advance.

Regardless of success or failure, it will open up new possibilities for Li Qi.

There is only one situation in which Li Qi might lose money.

That is, the Unreturning Disciples are simply too useless; they can't even cause the slightest trouble.

To be honest, that's quite possible.

Therefore, Li Qi had to find a reliable and capable person to ensure that the Unreturning Disciples could successfully cause trouble for Human Path.

After much deliberation, among the many fifth-rank officials, the only one he could truly trust and who was capable enough to complete this task was Shen Shuibi.

But... Li Qi didn't want to do that.

To be honest, even as the front lines crumbled day by day, Li Qi never had this thought. He even considered that even if the entire front collapsed, all the worlds under his command perished, and the Shaman Path lost the victory of the 'Vanguard Battle', he could accept it as long as Shen Shuibi was still alive.

Until he noticed a world where rare victories were emerging.

It is truly rare that they defeated the Human Way Iron Cavalry and protected their world when their forces were roughly equal.

To be honest, Li Qi was already prepared to give up on that world. He was completely numb to it and felt no emotion. In the past few months, he had given up on thousands of worlds.

But this time is different.

In that world, something unexpected happened to Li Qi. Faced with the invasion of Human Path, this world unleashed astonishing power. They united as one and, despite being completely outmatched, relied on a willpower that even Li Qi couldn't comprehend to defeat Human Path.

To be honest, Li Qi really couldn't understand it. In his mind, this world could never defeat Human Path.

Speaking of willpower, doesn't Human Path have it too? Human Path is also known for its willpower; they are the type who would rather die than regret it. They know exactly what they have to do, without hesitation or doubt.

To be honest, most of the world would never Human Path such a humanitarian awareness, such a firm will and grand goal that is implemented by the entire population.

Human Path, if not absolute, means that at least the vast majority of people are willing to work and fight for the common goal of the entire civilization.

With such a fighting spirit, most of the worlds under the jurisdiction of the Shaman Path were terrified by the resolute will of Human Path. They couldn't even imagine why these Human Path soldiers had such strong execution capabilities. They could fully exert their initiative, were not afraid of sacrifice, and were brave and skillful in battle.

Many worlds under the jurisdiction of the Shaman Path suspected that the Human Path Sect used puppets or hypnosis to make these soldiers fight. However, through observation of the Tang Kingdom soldiers, these doubts were dispelled.

They discovered that Tang Kingdom soldiers were also human beings; they could complain, curse, cry out in pain, and weep when their comrades died. They were living, breathing beings with their own feelings.

They have desires, they compete for credit, they compare their achievements, they show off their power, or they find time to slack off.

They cry, but after they cry, they continue to fight.

They get angry, but after they've calmed down, they'll sit down together and discuss tactics.

They would also laugh. During breaks from battle, many Shaman Path worlds observed that Human Path warriors liked to gather together and play games through the Nexus of All Realms. It was said that those games were very fun.

However, despite these emotional desires, they remained steadfast.

Human Path people know what this war is for and why they are fighting.

Human Path is extremely strict in its selection of 'people,' not in terms of race, but in terms of spirit. Each of them would be considered a hero or role model if taken to another realm.

This is because they deeply understand that everything they are fighting for is real, and they firmly believe that the 'way' they are striving for can lead to the end.

Therefore, Human Path soldiers, even in dire straits, will fight stronger and stronger, never yielding to any adversity and always maintaining high morale.

When one is sincere in the Way, one knows that death is not something to be avoided.

Such a terrifying army was something even Li Qi didn't know how to deal with, and could only try to suppress it with a large force.

With equal numbers of troops, no matter how well he commands, he can't defeat this Human Way army.

This iron army, which Li Qi couldn't find a way to deal with, was somehow defeated by a Seventh Rank World that Li Qi had always overlooked, with equal forces.

Admittedly, since it was only a Seventh Rank World, they were naturally facing a seventh-rank Human Way army. Therefore, the pressure they faced was not as great as Li Qi's. Although the seventh-rank Human Path soldiers were indeed very determined, their wisdom and strength were far inferior to those of the higher-ranking beings. There were still flaws that could be found. After all, no matter how strong one's will is, the world is objective, and people will always make mistakes and errors.

However, the abilities of that Seventh Rank World were not as strong as Li Qi's. No matter how you look at it, they actually did better and were more outstanding than Li Qi.

This made Li Qi very curious about how they did it, so he deliberately distracted himself and sent his will down to ask them how they did it, wanting to humbly learn the fighting style of this Seventh Rank World.

After the will descended, Li Qi looked at the devastation of the world and suddenly realized what was happening.

It turns out that there was a slight oversight in the work below.

Originally, these front-line worlds were specifically designed for use as battlefields. The civilians and species samples would be evacuated in advance, leaving only one world as a battlefield and supply location. In Li Qi's view, civilians and ordinary wild animals would only hinder the war.

However, Li Qi wouldn't personally take charge of everything. He would only make decisions, while the execution would be done by his subordinates. With hundreds of millions of worlds to be relocated, he couldn't possibly do it all by himself. And with so many battlefields, he couldn't possibly pay attention to every single battle. He could only pick out the important things to do.

When those below do the work, mistakes are bound to happen.

This time, however, the mistake was quite egregious.

The civilians of this world were not all evacuated.

There are two civilizations in this world: one is life on the surface, and the other is life underground.

Those on the surface were evacuated, but those underground remained outside. The evacuees did not notice that there was a civilization underground.

That's when Li Qi learned how they won.

It's very simple.

At first, like all the soldiers of the Shaman Path, the garrison in this world was completely overwhelmed by the Human Path iron army, to the point that Li Qi chose to abandon this world.

But--

When the garrison in this world was running out of supplies, they ate bloody food delivered by civilians who crossed the blockade.

The wounded could not be treated, so the civilians of this world housed them in their own homes, even though this led to the Human Path selective destruction of large amounts of ley lines in order to destroy the soldiers' convalescent sites.

After suffering heavy casualties, these soldiers also found something they were willing to fight for.

They are willing to shed blood for this goal.

Therefore, they became as steadfast as the Human Path guerrillas, or even more so.

Having witnessed all of this, Li Qi suddenly thought of 'courage'.