Clan Rise: Starting as a Grandfather Chapter 1747 - 1063: The Chaotic War of Attrition (2)

"You might be able to block three or five of them, but can you block a dozen? Anyway, just be more careful when the time comes—no one knows how many Third-order Ghost Soldiers the Unpredictable Ghost Sect has hidden away!" Que Lingyu reminded him.

White Cloud True Monarch nodded. "I understand."

...

The war between the Unpredictable Ghost Sect and the Wanhua Demon Court very quickly entered a white-hot stage, but their war did not take the form of two armies arrayed against each other, nor did it require sieging and capturing cities.

Their fighting was mostly ambushes and encounter battles.

The Unpredictable Ghost Sect dispatched batches of Ghost Soldiers and Blood Puppets to raid the Demon Clan’s tribal lands, while the Demon Clan dispersed and attacked the White Bone Pillars the Unpredictable Ghost Sect had erected in the mountains.

The two sides would either raid each other or bump into each other in the forests, then have a field engagement on the spot.

On top of that, neither side had a systematic command structure, which turned the northern region of the Wanhua Mountain Range into a battlefield and made this war look chaotic and disorderly.

The Demon Clan held the terrain advantage; they were more familiar with the forests and better at fighting within them.

The Unpredictable Ghost Sect had numbers on their side. Although the reactions of their Ghost Soldiers and Blood Puppets were somewhat sluggish, they made up for it with strong individual power and utter fearlessness of death.

So as the fighting went on, the war turned into a guerrilla campaign by the Demon Clan. The demons weren’t fools; they wouldn’t fight to the bitter end against a bunch of puppets. They preferred to use the terrain advantage to continuously wear down the Ghost Soldiers and Puppets of the Unpredictable Ghost Sect.

And right now the Unpredictable Ghost Sect wasn’t ready for a decisive battle with the Wanhua Demon Court either. They still needed to erect more White Bone Pillars, construct Evil Blood Killing Arrays, build Blood Pools, and refine more Yin Soldier Blood Puppets.

Thus, as they fought, the war became a long, chaotic war of attrition.

In the first phase, the two sides fought dozens of battles in just a few days. In the second phase, both sides shifted to constant raids and hunts, a big fight every three days, a small one every two.

Clashes were extremely frequent, but none of them were very large in scale.

Today I slaughter a few hundred demon beasts and Mutant Beasts of yours; tomorrow I ambush a few hundred Ghost Soldiers and Blood Puppets of yours.

In another couple of days, I set a trap to lure you in; a few days after that, I send Ghost Soldiers and Blood Puppets to launch a surprise attack on one of your Demon Clan tribes.

One day, two days, three days; one month, two months, three months.

In the blink of an eye, the winter snow had melted, and tender green buds sprouted from the branches.

The war between the two sides had fully become a war of attrition.

On this day.

In the Life Realm Immortal Palace, everyone gathered in the Longevity Hall; the spacious great hall was packed.

Yang Zhenshan and Yu Qingyi sat high in the main seats, Yun Xiao and the Green Bull Demon King sat to either side. Below, on the left, sat the Foundation Establishment Immortal Cultivators and Second-Order demon beasts led by Xuanzhen and Hong Fuxiu; on the right were the Martial Artists headed by Ding Qiu, Yang Mingcheng, and the other leaders.

At present, the Life Realm Immortal Palace had twenty-four Foundation Establishment Cultivators, six Second-Order demon beasts, and also the Ghost General Red Soul.

Don’t even mention comparing them to the Unpredictable Ghost Sect—compared to the Sky Cloud Sword Sect, the Life Realm Immortal Palace still fell far, far short.

However, compared to Hidden Sword Mountain and Cangyu Mountain, the strength of the Life Realm Immortal Palace already far surpassed theirs.

As for Martial Artists, besides the two Divine Soul Realm Martial Artists Ding Qiu and Yu Qingyi, the Spirit Source Land had over a thousand Golden Body Realm Martial Artists.

But the ones attending this conference were only the management of the Spirit Source Land, that is, the higher-ups of the five cities and twelve floors and several heads of the Yang family.

The reason Yang Zhenshan had called everyone together for a meeting was that he had been spurred by the Unpredictable Ghost Sect and the Wanhua Demon Court.

Demon beasts and Mutant Beasts, Yin Soldier Blood Puppets—the forces both sides had thrown into the war were terrifyingly powerful, enough to give Yang Zhenshan quite a scare.

Tens of thousands of Ghost Soldiers and demon beasts equivalent to Foundation Establishment Cultivators—just thinking about it was frightening.

And compared to that, the little bit of strength the Life Realm Immortal Palace possessed was really not worth mentioning.

Of course, this couldn’t be blamed on the Life Realm Immortal Palace being too weak; it was simply that the foundation of the Life Realm Immortal Palace was too shallow.

Given a few thousand years, the Life Realm Immortal Palace might very well be able to field tens of thousands of Foundation Establishment Cultivators.

But the Spirit Source Land had only been developing for just over a hundred years. In such a short time, the fact that Yang Zhenshan had accumulated this much was already very difficult.

Yang Zhenshan sat high in the main seat, looking down at the people below, and said softly, "I imagine everyone has already gotten a grasp of the situation in the Wanhua Mountain Range. The main reason I’ve called everyone here today is to discuss how we should deal with the increasingly chaotic situation going forward!"

His voice wasn’t loud, but it spread through the entire hall and into everyone’s ears.

Beside him, Yun Xiao sat calmly with his eyes closed, resting. He had always refrained from interfering in the internal affairs of the Life Realm Immortal Palace—not because he hadn’t integrated into it, but because he devoted his time and energy entirely to cultivation.

He had no choice but to step forward regarding matters on the Sky Cloud Sword Sect’s side, but he felt no need to do so for the Life Realm Immortal Palace.

In fact, over these years Yun Xiao had completely integrated into the Life Realm Immortal Palace. He had recruited six reasonably talented Disciples within the palace, which could be considered establishing his own Dao lineage there.

By contrast, he hadn’t taken any Disciples in the Sky Cloud Sword Sect, nor had he returned to his old Xuanqing Sect to recruit any.

On the other side, the Green Bull Demon King wore a face full of boredom. He was even less interested in such matters; if Yang Zhenshan hadn’t forcibly dragged him here, he absolutely wouldn’t have attended this kind of conference.

To help the Green Bull Demon King integrate into the Life Realm Immortal Palace, Yang Zhenshan had gone to great lengths. Not only had he provided the Green Bull Demon King with living conditions, he had also captured quite a few bovine Mutant Beasts for him, including no small number of cows.

The Gray-horned Green Ox clan had already been wiped out. Since there were temporarily no Gray-horned Green Oxes to be found in the Spirit Source Land, they had found some other Mutant Beast cattle herds instead.

Unfortunately, there were no bovine demon beasts in the Yunxiao Mountain Range; otherwise the Spirit Source Land would at least have invited a few Demon King Level cows for the Green Bull Demon King.

Although reproduction was rather difficult at the Demon King level, Yang Zhenshan felt that as long as there were enough cows, there was still a chance for the Green Bull Demon King to leave offspring.

Unlike Human Clan Immortal Cultivators, while reproduction was difficult for Demon Kings, it was still much easier than for Golden Core Cultivators. Golden Core Cultivators were almost incapable of having children, whereas Demon Kings still had some possibility.

As he always said, as long as there were enough cows, and as long as the Green Bull Demon King could "battle" the cows for a few hundred rounds, perhaps in the future the Spirit Source Land would gain a new Qing Niu demon clan.

The people below began talking among themselves after hearing Yang Zhenshan’s words.

During this period, they had all learned about the situation in the Wanhua Mountain Range and knew that the war between the Unpredictable Ghost Sect and the Wanhua Demon Court had entered a white-hot stage.

At the same time, they had also learned that war had broken out between the Hengshan Sect and the South Sea Demon Court.

Faced with this current upheaval in the situation, they all faintly felt some unease.

Right now they could live peacefully in the Life Realm Immortal Palace because they had Yang Zhenshan’s protection. If anything happened to Yang Zhenshan, they would find it very difficult to hold the Life Realm Immortal Palace.

Unless Yang Zhenshan severed the connection between the Life Realm Immortal Palace and the real world, letting the palace completely detach from the main world and become a secluded paradise, isolated from the world.

But that was clearly impossible.

Because the Spirit Source Land was only a Grotto Heaven, and the Immortal Palace was only a Spiritual Treasure.

The two combined formed the Life Realm Immortal Palace, but they did not constitute a complete world.

Once detached from the main world, it could be sustained for a short while, but over time, as the Life Realm Immortal Palace lacked replenishment of Spiritual Energy, it would grow desolate.

The Life Realm Immortal Palace wouldn’t crash down like the Sun Cave Heaven, but it would wither, close off, and in the end might be left with only a single Spiritual Spring.

Indeed, Yang Zhenshan estimated that the reason the Life Realm Immortal Palace had originally only had a single Spiritual Spring was precisely because it had gone a long time without Spiritual Energy replenishment.

"Xuanzhen, what ideas do you have?" Yang Zhenshan cut off the discussion and asked Xuanzhen.

Xuanzhen stepped forward and said, "True Monarch, with our strength we definitely can’t be compared to the top forces. If we want to raise the overall strength of the Life Realm Immortal Palace in a short time, relying only on cultivation is impossible. So I think we should look for ways in other areas!"

"Other areas? You mean?" Yang Zhenshan asked.

"Relying on external tools, like Flying Boats!" Xuanzhen said.

Small Flying Boats had no offensive capability. Medium-sized Flying Boats, while possessing some offensive and defensive power, were not very strong. Only large Flying Boats possessed remarkable offensive power, enough to threaten Foundation Establishment Cultivators.

The Spirit Source Land could now manufacture Vermilion Bird Cloud Boats, but the production speed was relatively slow; it took three to five years to build one.

Currently, the Spirit Source Land had only five lark Cloud Boats, three more than it had a dozen years ago.

The Spirit Source Land could indeed expand the scale of lark Cloud Boat production, but even with expansion, at most it would only reach one boat per year.

The production speed was still a bit slow, but this could still be considered one way to enhance the overall strength of the Life Realm Immortal Palace.