The war between humans and Soul Beasts came to an end with a complete victory for Ming Zhao, the mastermind behind the scenes.
Without losing a single soldier, he had raised all fifty paper figures and fifty female ghosts under his command to the Soul Saint realm or above.
The six coffin bearers and six sedan-chair bearers among the paper figures and female ghosts had even reached the Soul Douluo realm. With Ming Zhao supplying them with ghost Qi, they could briefly unleash the combat power of Soul Douluo!
Twelve Soul Douluo and eighty-eight Soul Saints!
From this moment on, Ming Zhao would be a one-man army!
That was not all. He had also gained considerably from this feast. His cultivation, which had only just broken through to level eighty-three, had risen another two levels to reach level eighty-five. His Soul Rings had also become uniform in color. After absorbing a vast amount of Soul Beast origin, he had become a terrifying existence with eight red Soul Rings.
"Is this why Evil Soul Masters improve so quickly?" Ming Zhao closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the salty, fishy sea breeze. The bloody, cruel smile on his face gradually faded.
He... felt wonderful!
When he opened his eyes again, Ming Zhao turned his gaze to Zhang Lexuan and Li Ya behind him.
While the hundred ghosts were cleaning up the battlefield, the two women had gone into the sea to collect the Sea Soul Beast Soul Bones Lijing had left behind.
Ming Zhao had no need for these things and looked down on them, but Soul Bones were precious resources nonetheless. Even if he looked down on them, he would not leave them soaking in seawater and waste Heaven's gifts.
There were over twenty Soul Bones in all.
Most of them were Thousand-Year Soul Bones. Only five had reached the ten-thousand-year level, and of those five, only one was over fifty thousand years old.
There were plenty of them, but their quality was nothing special.
Carrying them as valuable assets would at least give their existence some meaning.
Besides the Soul Bones, the hundred ghosts had also plundered a wealth of resources from Dongyang City.
These included some Soul Tools that remained undamaged, as well as large quantities of rare metals stored in the city lord's manor and the warehouses of the city's major merchant associations, along with many costly treasures and cultivation resources.
The hundred ghosts had even collected nearly three million Gold Soul Coins in cash, enough to fill an entire Storage Soul Tool.
The tsunami had almost completely destroyed Dongyang City, but some inanimate objects were bound to survive the disaster.
No matter where the seawater had swept them, the hundred ghosts, searching every last corner for anything valuable, could find them and bring them before Ming Zhao.
As for the damaged Soul Tools, Ming Zhao had not taken a fancy to them. The Storage Soul Tools had limited space and could not possibly hold them all, and their value had also fallen greatly because of the damage, leaving them worth little.
Otherwise, he would actually have liked to take away the large-scale linked Soul Tool emplacement used to defend Dongyang City. Even damaged, that thing was still worth a fortune.
Unfortunately, it was too big to take away.
Apart from that, Ming Zhao had ordered the hundred ghosts to plunder every valuable item they could find. As an Evil Soul Master, he hated waste most of all. Aside from needles and thread, he took everything he could carry away.
"All right, children, the feast is over. It's time to leave!"
Ming Zhao raised an arm and shouted. The hundred ghosts gathered around him, becoming afterimages over the ruins before gradually vanishing from the spot.
Not long afterward.
Reinforcements from the Sun Moon Empire arrived at long last, but the battle had been over for some time, and everything had fallen quiet. All they saw were broken walls and shattered ruins, with mangled corpses and scattered bones everywhere.
Every member of the Evil Lord Soul Engineer Corps, which had come as reinforcements, wore a grim expression, their hearts filled with sorrow and pain over the deaths of their compatriots, as well as anger and resentment toward the Sea Soul Beasts.
The Evil Lord Soul Engineer Corps was the most mobile and fastest of the Sun Moon Empire's five Hand of National Protection Soul Engineer Corps. Yet even though they had hurried from Mingdu as fast as they could, they were still several steps too late.
The guilt of failing to avert the disaster silenced them all.
Facing the ruined Dongyang City, Commander Wang Yiheng bent at the waist, offering his apologies to the dead and his respects to the city's warriors, who had never retreated so much as half a step, even in death.
The other Soul Engineers of the Evil Lord Soul Engineer Corps, regardless of strength or rank, bowed deeply alongside their commander.
After straightening up, Wang Yiheng led the Soul Engineers of the Evil Lord Soul Engineer Corps through the ruins of Dongyang City. Sparing no effort and undeterred by the filth and mess, they gathered the remains of their fallen compatriots so they could be laid to rest.
Beneath the night sky.
A raised mound appeared outside the ruins of Dongyang City. Buried within were all the city's people whose remains could be found, even those reduced to scraps of flesh and broken bones.
Of the hundreds of thousands of people, fewer than a third could be found with their bodies intact.
The price of their arriving one step too late was so devastating.
Bonfires burned around the mound, their flickering light falling on the faces of the living and illuminating their sorrow and anger.
"Soldiers!"
Wang Yiheng's eyes were bloodshot as his furious roar shot straight into the heavens.
Three hundred and sixty-five Blazing Inferno Nets flew from him into the sky, forming a gigantic crimson mad bull that held its head high and roared silently.
"Hundreds of thousands of lives are buried here, all because we arrived one step too late! The sea is mysterious and vast. We cannot find the beasts that destroyed Dongyang City, and we cannot even avenge our compatriots!"
"But I, Wang Yiheng, swear upon my title of Mad Bull Douluo: if those beasts of the sea dare invade again, I will fight to the death to ensure none of them return, and offer their blood and lives to the hundreds of thousands of departed souls of Dongyang City!"
"Fight!!!" Nearly a thousand Soul Engineers raised their right fists high, blazing flames burning in their eyes!
Ming Zhao had succeeded in stirring up a war between the Sun Moon Empire and the Sea Soul Beasts of the Ice Sea.
Though he had never intended to do so.
After Lijing left, she had ordered the Sea Soul Beasts attacking other human villages, towns, and cities along the coast to withdraw into the sea and abandon their attacks.
But some Sea Soul Beasts, for various reasons, had failed to obey and continued stirring up storms along the coastline.
After burying the departed souls of Dongyang City, Wang Yiheng did not return to Mingdu. His orders had been to rescue Dongyang City and put an end to this large-scale Sea Soul Beast incursion.
Thus, over the following month, the Evil Lord Soul Engineer Corps became a Sea Soul Beast killing machine, patrolling back and forth along the coastline and killing any Sea Soul Beast they saw coming ashore without a word.
Their frenzied actions frightened the Sea Soul Beasts into fleeing the coastal waters and seeking refuge in the deep sea.
The Sea Princess had been furious over her daughter Lijing's injury, but when she heard that Lijing had actually summoned a tsunami and destroyed a human city, she too fell silent and did not go after the Evil Lord Soul Engineer Corps.
She was powerful, so powerful that she could find no equal in the Ice Sea.
But she was not powerful enough; she did not yet have the strength to declare war on the entire Sun Moon Empire.