Zu Liming had crushed his way through the region, unifying the surrounding small states one by one.
But even though he had casually dealt with those who surrendered and arbitrarily sentenced people from the surrounding small states, the number of people still fell far short of a million.
Especially in ancient times, when the population was already sparse. It was not like the Central Plains, where numbers could easily reach hundreds of thousands or even millions. For the surrounding small states, having tens of thousands or a few hundred thousand people was already considered a very large population.
Moreover, Zu Liming could not simply massacre everyone from the states that surrendered. If he did that, the other states would definitely fight his army to the death.
Therefore, he could only target soldiers who had fought against him, as well as surrendered nobles, officials, and certain criminals.
Since the number of people did not reach a million, his path to unification remained far away, and he still had to wage war against the surrounding states.
It was at this time that some states saw through Khmer's ambitions. To protect themselves and prevent their destruction, they spent vast sums to hire supernaturals, hoping to assassinate Zu Liming directly and thereby reduce the war.
Thus, the conflict escalated from battles between ordinary people to war between supernaturals.
Zu Liming had not cared much about battles between ordinary people. After all, their losses had little to do with him; it was merely the deaths of a few people. But things became far more troublesome when supernaturals were involved.
Supernaturals were not lone individuals whom one could simply kill and be done with. Some had families, or sects behind them. Once they were killed, the people behind them would emerge.
Some supernaturals hired by those