The war had been going on for over a month now and the current situation was not in Mei's favor.
The Jia armies marched straight into Mei's lands, attacking every settlement in their way. Be it a small village of a few dozen or a city of several million, nothing was left untouched.
As in every world, the main victims of wars were the innocent civilians. Although most had been evacuated to grade 1 cities, many were still left out there to fend for themselves.
There had been 3 large encounters between the armies of Jia and Mei.
The first encounter signaled the start of the war when the Jia and the Wu clan attacked the main stronghold located at the periphery of the two kingdoms. That was when the first Great General of Mei disappeared while his whereabouts were still unknown.
The second encounter took place a few weeks after when two Great Generals of Mei surprised one of the Jia, eradicating over 60% of his army.
The third took place two days ago.
For the first time in this war, an entire specialized regiment took to the battlefield. Under the direct command of Great General Ouki, the Spearheads launched an offensive attack on one of the main strongholds that had been taken over by the enemy forces.
This stronghold was being used as a forwarding station for troops, weapons, and supplies for the Jia and the Wu clans. Even with a Great General of the Wu clan to defend it, the stronghold was lost in a single night and the Wu general had to flee.
It seemed the Wu and Jia clan had also sent some youngsters from the newer generation. They hadn't partaken in any of the three big encounters but the word of their prowess was spreading fast.
It seemed several of them had clashed with the younger generation of the Mei kingdom, namely Guo Bao of the Flying Tigers and Dong Ning of the Spearheads.
Wu Chin and Wu Kang were of the Wu clan while Lu Qiu, Zhan An, and Cia Kang were from the Jia kingdom. The only person from the Royal Jia clan was Jia Tu.
Each of these individuals were considered to be geniuses by their respective kingdoms/clans and many people were keeping an eye on them.
****
Hao Xuan was supposed to meet First somewhere in the southwest. The distance between them was several thousand miles and the only thing to guide him was the tracking beacon he had gotten from the ring given by the old demon.
It pointed in a single direction which he followed without question.
And with Bai, the hazards of being in the wild were greatly reduced. He was agile enough to traverse entire mountains while also fast enough to not lag behind.
Hao Xuan came upon over 20 different parties making their way to Fortuna. Some only had twenty or so people, while a couple of them had over three thousand. He didn't interact with any of them, going around whenever they were in the way.
At night he made camp on the boundary of a new area. He chose a small cliff as his home for the night. The entire area in front of him was about 400 meters straight down, leading to what looked like a cliff. Just from an initial observation, he could see gigantic creatures moving around the marshland, going in and out of what seemed like shallow bodies of water but were obviously deceptive.
The one thing that shook him to the core was a demonic beast that looked like a humongous alligator. But it was moving on two feet like a Trex from those movies he had seen on earth.
It had feathers on its back and the tail that seemed to be a 100 meter long was covered with serrated edges. If he came upon that thing on his journey then running away was the only rational option.
But what was even more stupefying was what happened to it. It came out of a, what seemed like a small puddle, and made its way to a river not far from it. Only that it didn't make it to its intended destination.
On the riverbank was a small plant with blooming obsidian flowers. They were completely black in color, very much in contrast to the colorful surroundings.
When the creatures passed by, these flowers shot out like harpoons and ripped off pieces of its flesh. Then the ground beneath cracked open and a gaping maw swallowed the creature whole, before everything returned back to normal.
Even the bloodstains were absorbed by the soil unnaturally fast.
Hao Xuan stared at the scene wide-eyed. He looked down at the tracking beacon that was pointing straight towards the swampy hell and faltered.
'Even the flora is bloodthirsty in this place, what is First brother doing here?!'
He called First on the spirit band but there was no response. Dejectedly, he returned to the portable camp and took out the storage ring the old demon had given him. This had everything he needed to break through to the Spirit realm.
Closing his eyes he sent his consciousness inside and saw the contents. There were a few glowing rocks, several times bigger than normal spirit stones, a small book and a couple of other things.
He took out the book and examined it. There was nothing written on the cover. Opening it, he read the first line.
"The mysteries of cultivation."
The writing was relatively old and it was handwritten by someone.
The first page read, "It is not the number of palaces that measures an individuals power, but the complexities therein."
