"Fifteen years to pacify the Flame Stone Starfield."
"Not bad."
Jiang Ding opened his eyes from cultivation and gazed into the endless starry sky. "Keep advancing. Use targeted teleportation arrays to move the troops. Divide the army into three columns—east, west, and north. Flower Vine will lead one, Fire Leopard Three another, while Blood River King, Boneflame Heavenly Lord, and the other ordinary Spirit Transformation cultivators will gather in the third. Continue suppressing the rebellion and expanding the army."
"Carry the will of the Immortal Sect into every corner of every small world."
"Settle accounts, completely, with every being who must answer for their deeds."
"Yes!"
Shan Jian and the other General Staff officers saluted in unison.
At the Great Sun Heavenly Lord's command, all twelve army groups of the Immortal Sect Horn Nether Domain Second Expeditionary Front moved out. They split into three forces, each numbering in the millions, and marched in every direction with imposing military might.
Time passed at its unhurried pace.
Whatever happened on the front lines, the Great Sun Celestial Pool never launched an attack of its own. It merely traveled through the starry sky as the armies advanced, always keeping its position at the center of them all.
Jiang Ding continued cultivating, accumulating the vast mana needed to advance from the middle to the late Spirit Transformation stage.
Meanwhile, reports kept arriving from the front.
In the third year, Flower Vine's eastern army reported that it had captured the Cloudflow Small World in the Azureflame Star Domain. The Giant Whale King of the Azure Cloud Giant Whale Clan, which ruled the world, had fled without a fight. Before the pacification army arrived, he had taken a handful of powerful clan members and close kin into the unknown reaches of the starry sky.
Flower