The chaotic battle raged until heaven and earth seemed shrouded in darkness.
Only when the last demon monster fell and every enemy had been killed did Jiang Che feel the aching weakness throughout his body. Leaning on his sword, he gasped for breath and looked around. Devastation filled his vision.
Their own casualties were heavy indeed.
In this battle alone, more than twenty ordinary soldiers had died.
Four at the embryonic breath level had died as well.
Two of the three officers leading the squads had fallen. It was not that the Azure Mystic disciples had let sectarian prejudice keep them from helping those in danger; the officers themselves were simply somewhat weaker, all at early embryonic breath. Of the nine Azure Mystic disciples who had fought, two had reached full aperture, while the remaining seven were all at least at transforming force. The gap was considerable.
Even so, two Azure Mystic registered disciples had also died.
For such a terrible price, they had achieved considerable results.
Nearly a hundred monsters had been killed in total. The ordinary ones aside-they did not count for any merit-there were a full twenty-two at the embryonic breath level when they counted them!
Such a wide disparity in casualties actually reflected the difference in fighting strength.
Demon monsters had no real cultivation system. Their supposed transforming force and inner force levels were merely rough classifications based on the strength they displayed, following cultivators' cultivation realms. Twelve of the monsters they had destroyed were only at the inner force level. Under the blade of a full aperture cultivator like Hu Yan, they fell one per stroke. Jiang Che could handle three at once without much pressure.
In the actual fighting, everyone had held out desperately while waiting for Hu Yan and Zhao Bo, the other cultivator who had opened all his apertures, to kill the enemies one by one. Once their numbers dropped far enough, the entire battle turned around.
Their own casualties had, in fact, mostly occurred early in the battle, when the enemy numbers were at their highest.
Everyone could receive rewards based on the number of monsters eliminated.
After the melee ended, while the three squads rested and regrouped, some people led the soldiers in clearing the battlefield. First, they collected their comrades' bodies. Second, they finished off the monsters lying on the ground. Third, they cut ears or other identifying trophies from the embryonic breath monsters to claim merit afterward.
There was no need to worry about those trophies being misidentified. Even an ear that looked exactly like another could be recognized at a glance if it belonged to a demon monster at embryonic breath or above. Its aura and scent were different.
The three squads divided up the trophies. Jiang Che's squad received the largest share, mainly because they had Hu Yan.
Once they had cleared the battlefield and divided the merit, they re-formed their squads. Their next task remained the same as before: continue the sweep.
Although deaths and the wounds many carried had diminished all three squads' fighting strength, they were forbidden to return on their own until they heard the recall gong from their camp.
The three squads could only split up and continue their clearing work.
There was no knowing what the other two squads encountered, but Jiang Che's squad discovered, to their shock, that monsters had appeared again in places they had already cleared!
Chen Mou, the only surviving officer among the three squads, was not surprised. He explained the reason to Jiang Che and his two companions.
These demon monsters had not appeared out of thin air. Quite a few had scattered and fled during the earlier fighting, while others had come out from deeper within, occupying those hiding places again.
Zhang Erguo was dumbfounded. "Then doesn't that mean... we'll never finish?"
Chen Mou smiled bitterly. "Yes. Otherwise, how could we have suffered so many casualties over these six days and still failed to clear the area beside the ruined temple, with fewer than a hundred houses in all?"
Hearing this, not only Zhang Erguo but even Jiang Che and Hu Yan could not help feeling discouraged.
No matter how low morale sank, military orders stood like mountains. The fighting they were ordered to do could not stop.
Still, they dragged their feet somewhat and became less proactive. For instance, after clearing a house, the soldiers moved very slowly as they checked inside for remaining enemies. Things they could have confirmed with a glance became an excuse to dawdle, poking here and prodding there. Spending half an hour or three-quarters of an hour on it was perfectly normal.
Previously, Jiang Che and his two companions would have urged them along when they dawdled. Now, they tacitly allowed it.
Clearing these ordinary places posed little danger to the three of them, but the ordinary soldiers could easily suffer casualties.
Twenty men had set out, and only twelve were still alive. They had already fought the big battle. For these little matters now, they might as well open one eye and close the other.
It was not simply softhearted mercy. The three of them did not want to push themselves that hard either.
And so they dragged things out until evening approached. When the gong calling them back finally sounded from the rear, everyone who heard it felt as though a lifetime had passed, as though they had survived a catastrophe.
Covered in blood and grime, they dragged their exhausted bodies back to camp.
There were no words of concern, no comfort. Once they handed over the trophies representing their achievements and the battle merit had been credited to each person, everyone dispersed.
Jiang Che and his companions did not need to worry about how the soldiers were settled. The three of them were exhausted themselves.
The camp's logistics staff had prepared food. After eating, they returned to their tent.
No distinction was made between men and women; the three of them had been assigned the same tent.
There were no facilities for washing either, only a damp cloth with which they wiped their faces and necks a little before rinsing their mouths. Only Senior Sister Hu Yan was somewhat more particular. She activated a cleansing talisman, keeping herself clean and dispelling the smell inside the tent as well.
The three lay down fully dressed, with Jiang Che on the far left.
He closed his eyes, seemingly already resting, but in truth his mind had sunk into that pure white consciousness space.
After exhausting himself like this today, he really had no inclination to tackle a dungeon.
Nor had he come here for a dungeon.
The day's clearing operations, together with the great battle that afternoon, had earned Jiang Che a considerable amount of transmigration energy.
To make the calculations easier, he used the energy required for one transmigration into Willow Source's Old Dream as his baseline, setting it at ten points.
By that measure, an early embryonic breath cultivator could give him a little over three points of transmigration energy, while a mid embryonic breath cultivator could give him around eight.
The demon monsters gave much less. One equivalent to early embryonic breath yielded about one point, while one equivalent to mid embryonic breath yielded three.
Counting the demon monsters killed today and the cultivators on their own side, he had gained a full sixty-eight points!
Adding the twenty points left over from before, he now had eighty-eight in total.
In one fell swoop, he had nearly returned to the amount he had started with.
As far as his original intentions went, this income was precisely what he had come to Ailin for.
He had achieved his goal.
And it did indeed lift his spirits.
But... thinking of the intensity of today's fighting, Jiang Che could not help feeling worried.
It had certainly been a close call rather than a disaster, and he had not even been injured, but honestly, that was thanks to Hu Yan-and to genuinely good luck.
At the level of intensity they had faced today, lasting a full three months in Ailin...
It would be far too difficult.
He could only hope the days ahead would not grow even more dangerous.
His awareness returned to reality. Jiang Che slowly exhaled, pressed down all his tangled thoughts, and stopped dwelling on them, settling down to sleep.
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