Xue Qingluan's assessment of the situation was remarkably accurate.
On the fourth day after He Shenglai returned to the encampment, Luo Qianchou, the supreme commander of the Southwest's demon-suppression forces, arrived at the rear to select people for a major operation.
As a ranked prodigy and the youngest cultivator from the Northwest on this expedition, He Shenglai was, unsurprisingly, chosen.
He and Chen Huaien, an alchemy cultivator from the Yang Clan, were assigned to the same squad. The day after they joined, they were taken to a grotto-heaven within Southwestern Demon Suppression Pass for pre-battle drills.
Their instructor was Long Yuan, a Gold Ranking prodigy from Penglai Palace who now ranked among the top ten.
Under the original plan, they would spend half a month conducting realistic combat drills in the grotto-heaven. Only after learning to work with their squadmates would they formally join the fighting at the front.
But plans could never keep pace with change. Just seven days after they entered the grotto-heaven, an urgent deployment order arrived. Every cultivator squad inside received its own combat assignment.
When they left the grotto-heaven and saw vast demonic clouds rolling toward them, they understood at once: the Demonic Path side had launched its all-out assault!
With no time for further words, the borderland cultivators, He Shenglai among them, rushed to their assigned battlefields to defend the Southwest's line. There, they met the demonic cultivators head-on.
At the same time, the main battlefield at Demon Suppression Pass in the Central Region faced a ferocious counterattack from the Demonic Path side.
The Demonic Path had been suppressed by the righteous path for so many years that it ought to have been at a slight disadvantage in both the number and cultivation level of its fighters.
But if there was one thing the