King of Creation Chapter 2123 - 2108: The Mystery of the Missing Patrols

"What happened?" Ye Zhen was startled by Liuu Feng’s hurried arrival.

"Sir, two patrol teams have lost contact and gone missing!" Liuu Feng responded.

Upon hearing this, Ye Zhen shot up, "Two teams? Missing, uncontactable? How long has it been?"

According to the Great Zhou military system, a team consists of fifty people, and five teams make up one regiment, which is two hundred fifty people.

Within the entire defense system of Blood River Fortress, aside from the forts, outposts, and beacon fire towers scattered everywhere, patrol teams are dispatched daily based on the regiments centered around every fort to check the condition of each outpost and beacon fire tower.

This prevents the beacon fire tower from being destroyed or captured by the Demon Clan without Blood River Fortress being aware.

But now, two patrol teams have disappeared.

The potential behind this is astonishing.

The most likely scenario is that a demon invasion has occurred.

What’s alarming is that once the Demon Clan invades Blood River Fortress unnoticed, or infiltrates from the defense area into the rear,

The former could cause Ye Zhen, the Marshal, to receive a major penalty, requiring achievements later to offset it. If no significant combat achievements are made within ten years, his title or fiefdom might be revoked.

As for the latter, the impact is even greater. If confirmed, the military judge from the Northern War Zone could directly execute Ye Zhen, the Marshal, without the Grand Governor Ji Yuan from the Human Demon Battlefield intervening!

Regardless of the scenario, the consequences are extremely dire.

"Immediately elevate all personnel from the Heavenly Wave Army of North Sea to Level 1 War Preparations; reconnect all forts, outposts, and beacon fire towers to confirm safety, fully investigate surrounding conditions, reinforce patrols, and report immediately upon discovering any traces of the Demon Clan."

"Order the Military Priest to re-examine the Guardian Formation for any anomalies, report immediately."

"Order the First Army, Third Army, and Seventh Army at Blood River Fortress to standby, ready to deploy at any moment."

"Command the Heavenly Patrol Divine General and Heavenly Patrol Divine Hunter to mobilize fully and search for the Demon Clan’s whereabouts!"

Given the severity of the situation, Ye Zhen issued several commands in a row, almost deploying the entire Heavenly Wave Army of North Sea.

"Yes, Sir!"

After Liuu Feng departed, Ye Zhen slightly moved his Divine Sense, and invisible green waves spread in all directions.

This is the power of the Little Demon dispersing in all directions.

Using the ubiquitous flowers, grass, and trees, the speed at which Little Demon’s power spread reached its peak.

In just two hours, Little Demon’s Yimu Spiritual Power covered the defense area of Blood River Fortress, 400,000 miles long and 100,000 miles wide.

In other words, Little Demon’s power monitored the entire Blood River Fortress defense area within just two hours.

However, this monitoring isn’t real-time.

In such a vast area of 400,000 miles long and 100,000 miles wide, even with Little Demon’s talent from the Ancient Giant Spirit Tree Demon, there isn’t enough deep Primordial Spirit Power to fully cover the area.

Not even with Ye Zhen’s help.

Little Demon’s monitoring is somewhat akin to sight.

In other words, Little Demon’s talent is somewhat like sight.

The range of vision is vast, able to see in all directions, but this is only seeing, not seeing all directions simultaneously.

Only when the sight is focused on a specific direction can one see the situation in that direction. Without focusing, one cannot see.

Meaning in this situation where Little Demon’s power covers a vast area, once Ye Zhen or Little Demon directs their Divine Sense towards a specific direction or area, they can use the flowers, grass, and trees in that area as eyes to see everything in that direction.

The area they can clearly see at one time is approximately 10,000 miles.

But even so, an hour later, Ye Zhen and Little Demon had scanned every area within the Blood River Fortress defense region like sieving through it.

From a certain perspective, this search is even more detailed than the inspections of patrol teams and local military, only consuming Primordial Spirit Power heavily.

This is the critically important strategic weapon Ye Zhen spoke of earlier.

In the surrounding of Blood River Fortress, due to perennial wars, without the thousands of years old flowers, grass, and trees enriched with refined essence, otherwise, Little Demon could awaken them using the Yimu Spiritual Communication Secret Method, and these Tree Demons and Flower Demons would become sharp and proactive eyes for Ye Zhen.

They would continuously update Little Demon on the situation within Blood River Fortress.

But under current conditions, this cannot be achieved; Little Demon can only slowly seek and nurture.

"Nothing!"

"Scanned the entire defense area, found no traces of battles, no blood..." Ye Zhen frowned deeply.

At this moment, Liuu Feng and Gu Tieqi jointly arrived.

"Grand Marshal, all forts, outposts, and beacon fire towers are normal, and no suspicious traces have been found in the surroundings, not even a trace of battle!"

Ye Zhen frowned deeply, "This isn’t normal!"

"Even if it was a large-scale ambush, a troop of a regiment size would still leave behind signs of battle, no matter how careful the cleanup afterwards.

Moreover, in a normal situation, to swallow an entire regiment in one gulp would take a little time; there would always be time to send a warning. Unless..."

"Grand Marshal, unless it’s an invasion by a Dao Realm expert! If a Dao Realm expert goes all out, wiping out over two hundred people in one move is not difficult!" Gu Tieqi said worriedly!

"Impossible, the Blood River Fortress’s guardian formation is not for show. A Dao Realm expert might be able to hide their presence while sneaking around, but if they go all out, even if they unleash the power of the Early Stage of Realm King Realm, the guardian formation would immediately detect it." Liu Feng objected.

"But weren’t there previous incidents of Demon Clan Dao Realm invasions in the Eastern War Zone too..." Gu Tieqi was a bit stubborn in this regard.

"That was a special situation. A Dao Realm invasion is impossible. A large-scale Demon Clan invasion is impossible, yet two regiment patrols vanished into thin air, strange indeed!"

Ye Zhen’s brows furrowed into a shape of an "川". "Bring the Spirit Map, I want to see the patrol routes of those two patrols and their surrounding environment."

The disappearance of this patrol must be investigated. Two patrolling regiments disappearing at once means five hundred people.

With such losses, Ye Zhen’s army of two hundred twenty thousand troops would be insufficient, even if he had a million troops.

"Grand Marshal, the two missing patrols had patrol routes in these two directions." Liu Feng drew for Ye Zhen. "Looking at the route, these two patrols did not overlap at all. The shortest straight-line distance between their patrol routes was over two thousand miles."

"Therefore, the probability of them encountering trouble simultaneously is very low. But strangely, the Heavenly Patrol Divine Hunter has searched this area four or five times with no results." Liu Feng indicated on the Spirit Map.

Suddenly, Ye Zhen’s eyes moved, and his finger pointed to the large areas without military markings on the fortress region on the Spirit Map, "What’s this place?"

"Sir, this is the Dingbian Fortress! It is one of the two surviving fortalices within the Blood River Fortress range. It has a population of over eight million, strong in strength.

At the same time, it is also one of the sources from which the civilian laborers we dispatch each year to repair the fortress at the Blood River Fortress come, and it is one of the grain supply points for our Blood River Fortress.

According to the Law of Great Zhou, Dingbian Fortress must supply us with three million stone of grain each year, ten thousand pigs, five thousand sheep, one thousand cattle, and various other meats totaling ten thousand pounds. It is an important source of our military grain supplies."

The fortress is a unique characteristic of the Human-Demon Battlefield.

Initially, it mainly consisted of deserters, sin slaves, remnants of troops, families of the dead Border Army, and some local people.

The battles on the Human-Demon Battlefield are too frequent, and scattered tenants and citizens not only face the harassment of the Demon Clan, but also the raids and even plunder by the soldiers stationed there, who ignore military discipline entirely.

The robbery of grain, wealth, and women, despite strict military laws, is never completely forbidden.

Moreover, the military life is very tough, and often the soldiers cover for each other, making it difficult to find those who break the law.

Gradually, these border people of the Human-Demon Battlefield spontaneously united to resist the Demon Clan and those law-breaking Border Army soldiers.

As for escaping the Human-Demon Battlefield, it wasn’t something they hadn’t considered.

However, most of the land in the Great Zhou Dynasty is owned; these border people, with no possessions, aren’t sure if they could even cross the vast mountains and rivers to reach the heartland of the Great Zhou.

Even if they reach the heartland of the Great Zhou, with no possessions, they can’t escape the fate of becoming slaves to noble families.

Being a slave, with life and death in someone else’s hands, might be worse than relying on themselves on the Human-Demon Battlefield, where there might still be a slim chance of survival.

Thus, the remaining part of the border people united, built fortalezas, took in powerful but crippled Border Army soldiers, and even deserters, gradually growing stronger.

It became a force that neither the Demon Clan nor the Border Army dared to underestimate, with military power much stronger than a regular fortress.

Initially, the Imperial Court of Great Zhou did not allow such armed forces to exist on the Human-Demon Battlefield.

However, the Imperial Court of Great Zhou found that the existence of such fortresses could greatly alleviate the military logistics supply pressure on the Human-Demon Battlefield and could serve as a reserve demon-fighting force to some extent.

Additionally, they could enrich the lives of the border troops to some extent, alleviating the pressure on the garrisoned troops on the Human-Demon Battlefield.

Gradually, they tacitly allowed the existence of fortresses, as long as each fortress paid taxes on time and completed its mandatory service of providing civilian laborers.

Of course, the Great Zhou Dynasty wouldn’t let them develop their armed forces uncontrollably. The armed forces of a fortress should not exceed thirty thousand, this is the bottom line.

Violators will be punished.

But that being said, no one knows to what extent the strength of the fortresses within the Human-Demon Battlefield has grown over countless years.

Only that these fortresses also suffer occasional attacks by the Demon Clan, which weakens their strength; otherwise, the Great Zhou Dynasty would have taken action long ago.

"Sir, could there be an issue with this Dingbian Fortress?" Gu Tieqi asked.

Ye Zhen and Liu Feng exchanged a glance, both seeing the caution in the other’s eyes.

Normally, there shouldn’t be an issue with the fortress.

In fact, Ye Zhen and Liu Feng couldn’t have imagined there would be a problem with the fortress.

However, the secret decree from the Ren Venerate Emperor Ji Long served as a reminder for Ye Zhen and Liu Feng.

The purpose of the Ren Venerate Emperor Ji Long’s emergency secret edict was related to the fortress on the Human-Demon Battlefield, and it was the main reason Ye Zhen stationed the Heavenly Wave Army of North Sea at the Blood River Fortress.