The central command camp of the Great Wall Prefecture Left Route Army.
The blizzard still raged across the sky, yet within this vast encampment stretching for dozens of miles, a sickening facade of prosperity remained intact.
A formation's light barrier kept the wind and snow outside. Spirit coal burned brightly inside the tents, and several scions of aristocratic clans had even gathered to savor high-grade spirit tea brought from the Prefectural City.
Inside the commander's tent at the center of the army.
Grand Elder Lu, Lu Feng, sat behind the command desk, toying with two smooth spirit-jade walnuts. Beside him, the heads of the Li Household and Wang Household kept him company, their faces wreathed in ingratiating smiles.
"Judging by the time, those eight hundred mud-legged peasants from Anping County should have plunged straight into the demon formation in Soul-Severing Valley by now, shouldn't they?" The Li Household head sipped his spirit tea, undisguised mockery in his voice.
Lu Feng sneered, squeezing the spirit-jade walnuts until they creaked. "Chu Bai thought demanding a hundred thousand armor-piercing arrows would let him withstand the demon tide. What an idiot's dream.
"Even I would have to go to considerable trouble to deal with that demon ape. Eight hundred heavily armored soldiers? They'll probably be crushed into iron cans littering the ground before half an hour is up."
"Once the demon tide has swallowed Anping County, eaten and drunk its fill, and lost its fighting edge, our clan armies will advance on every front and harvest the Spirit Stone Vein!" The Wang Household head stroked his beard and laughed, as though that mountain of Mid-Grade Spirit Stones were already inside his Storage Bag.
But in the next instant, the smiles froze on their faces.
Boom—rumble!!!
Without warning, a terrifying, earthquake-like tremor thundered up from