Chapter 83: The Northern Sea

General Bai Mu remained far behind the demon army formation. Listening to the deafening battle cries and screams echoing through the skies, alongside a continuous stream of reports, he issued his military commands. In accordance with his directives, successive waves of demon troops were dispatched to launch attacks from various directions.

During a brief lull, Bai Mu asked his nearby attendant, "How many days has Bang Die been inside the city?"

The elite scout, a minor demon, counted on his fingers and replied, "Seven days already."

"Hmm, seven days, that should be about..." At this point, he paused abruptly and added, "What about Hu Si?"

The elite scout made a wry face and said, "General, he... he... this humble one does not know."

General Bai Mu nodded and asked no further, simply gazing far off toward the direction of Qiyi, his eyes deep and profound.

During the Battle of Cang River, Hu Si had infiltrated the human ranks alongside the other spies. While the intelligence brought back by the various agents varied, only he had detected anomalies among the human forces through troop movements. Following closely behind, he finally uncovered Zhu Ganglie's scheme to build a dam and store water in the upper reaches of the Cang River. Upon receiving this report, Bai Mu immediately turned the situation to his advantage, breaking the human defense line at Cang River in a single stroke. Through this major achievement, Hu Si had distinguished himself, earning the privilege of answering directly to General Bai Mu and securing a powerful patron.

Dispatching spies into the city to cause chaos, carry out assassinations, or seize an opportunity to open the gates was one of the few strategies the demon race could employ. The humans were well aware of this, yet they could never root out all the infiltrated demons.

Compared to the tactical warfare skills of humans, demon soldiers were vastly inferior. Whether in formation, signaling, or weaponry, they lagged far behind humans by countless margins. Even though Bai Mu had pulled aside numerous scouts and minor scouts to drill them individually for a long time, the best he could achieve was to make them understand flag signals, heed bugle calls, and know when to charge and when to retreat. Beyond that, there was nothing else he could do.

Looking at the military formations of his own soldiers and then at the humans opposite them, Bai Mu felt almost nauseated.

Faced with a fortified city that could only be battered by sacrificing the lives of countless demons, Bai Mu had no choice but to pin his hopes on his spies.

"Awooo—awooo-awooo—awooo-awooo—"

A deafening roar erupted from right in front of the city. Beyond mere venting, the cries were filled with jubilation. The shouts were passed backward through the demon ranks in waves, transforming into unbridled celebration and howling by the time they reached Bai Mu.

"Has the city fallen?"

The message conveyed by the sound was sharply grasped by Bai Mu, and an instant sense of wrongness washed over him.

It was far too easy! The humans had made preparations for so long, stockpiling hundreds of thousands of heavy troops behind towering walls and thick ramparts—how could it possibly fall so easily? The heavy losses at the previous city were still fresh in General Bai Mu's memory. In a split second, Bai Mu roared out an order:

"Pass the word down! All soldiers are forbidden to enter the city!"

Bai Mu's roar thundered like rolling thunder, yet his face turned somewhat pale, for he knew very well in his heart that this command was already too late...

Bai Mu's guess was not wrong.

Even a fraction of a moment before his thunderous roar, Senior Scout Lu Li was already flying triumphantly through midair, shouting wildly as he led his subordinate lesser demons charging through the smashed city gates. They poured in like a tidal wave, rushing forward with an unstoppable, mighty momentum directly toward the second set of city gates that had appeared before them.

Before Lu Li could figure out why there was yet another city gate inside the city, a massive gate of refined iron plummeted from the shattered gate structure behind him, slicing the tidal wave of demons in two. Following right above the colossal drop gate, a rain of fire erupted across the sky!

The ground, along with the city walls, instantly burst into raging infernos. Billowing black smoke, accompanied by the shrieks and agonizing wails of the demons, pierced the firmament.

The urn city made its first appearance in the history of warfare between humans and demons, and the fiery trap at Qiyi's urn city would become a heavily detailed stroke in the annals of the human-demon wars.

The urn city had been packed with black rock oil scavenged from all corners of the Western Border, laid over dry straw, waiting for tens of thousands of demons to swarm inside. Then, the humans dropped the pre-prepared thousand-pound hanging weights and set the fire. Soldiers atop the city walls used crossbow carts and archers to pin the massive horde of demons firmly within the city, burning them alive.

Most demons did possess the innate ability to climb, which was why demon sieges rarely utilized equipment like scaling ladders, relying instead on swarming up like ants. Yet faced with blazing infernos below and flying arrows above, any climbing was utterly futile. The raging fire transformed the entire urn city into a boundless sea of flames.

The miserable shrieks echoing from within the city even caused the demons still attacking from the outside to pause in their tracks. Those blocked outside by the great gate finally snapped back to their senses and scrambled backward in panic, but right on their heels came countless massive boulders.

The tragic losses caused Bai Mu's face to turn as dark as a coat of ink.

"Sound the gongs, retreat!"

Upon learning that the bee demon Lu Li had also entered the city, Bai Mu decisively issued the order to fall back.

Then followed three days of reorganization. The demons began constructing crude cloud stockades outside the city, while the humans seized every moment to replenish arrows, rolling logs, and grinding stones, repairing the damaged battlements. Having rebuilt their strength, both sides resumed a grinding, tug-of-war style siege on the fourth day.

For over twenty days straight, the demons launched wave after wave of attacks against the humans, leaving thousands of corpses behind each day. Yet the demon forces' best achievement was holding a foothold on the city walls for less than an hour, only to be forcefully rammed and knocked down by two squads of small mechanical beasts charging on horseback straight from the ramparts, causing the walls to change hands once more.

Before Qiyi, the demons witnessed for the first time the immense variety of human mechanical beasts, weaponry, and strategies: there were the small mechanical beasts known as "Gluttons," covered in full armor with massive blades mounted front and rear; the "Golden Crows," capable of spitting gouts of flame stretching dozens of yards; and the "Torrent," which could continuously fire dozens of short arrows... various kinds emerged in endless succession.

Simultaneously, however, the demon race was rapidly evolving. Those demons who survived the fires of war quickly transformed into elites, while numerous beast-demons advanced into lesser demons after consuming vast amounts of demon pills. The demon soldiers were being tempered at an astonishing speed; though their numbers dwindled, their quality improved dramatically.

Before Qiyi, both sides were enduring a grueling struggle.

Yet across the broader theater of the Western Border war, the demons still held a tremendous advantage. Although Lu Li had perished, another Senior Scout, the Ape Demon Yao Jue (pronounced Yue Rong), broke straight through the Western City and began pillaging the surrounding areas. Two other Senior Scouts, the Bai Ze demon Qi Feng and the Red-Eyed Boar Demon Qi Ji, also pushed deeply eastward. Qi Feng closed in on the Three Mountains Pass, while Qi Ji began advancing toward the Great Zhou's Sishui Pass.

Almost the entire northern expanse of the Great Zhou's Western Border, save for Qiyi, had fallen into the hands of the demons.

***

Just north of Mount Mei lay an endless expanse of massive lakes, with huge bays and ocean-like curves succeeding one another. Standing by the lake, the opposite shore was entirely invisible—it was completely a boundless ocean.

This inland sea was already close to being an open ocean, thus named the Sea.

The North Sea.

A long, winding procession of travelers crept forward along the edge of the North Sea. This was already the northernmost fringe of the entire Jambudvipa continent; cross the sea, and one would reach the Northern Kuru Continent of the demon race.

The terrain by the lake was flat, possessing abundant water sources, making the vegetation here exceptionally lush, growing dense and impenetrable forests. However, the biting chill of the North Sea seemed to be absorbed and gathered alongside the water by the vegetation. As a result, the entire lakeside was boundless and freezing cold, devoid of birds and beasts. Even ordinary demons dared not approach lightly. While those with sufficient cultivation could resist this endless cold, they could not obtain enough food and clean water, thus forming vast, uninhabited regions over the course of years and ages.

Even a nation as enthusiastic about expanding its borders as the Great Zhou had never undertaken any reclamation of the North Sea territories. To establish a city, apart from the massive investment during the initial reclamation phase, one had to continuously transport grain, fresh water, and weapons in the later stages. To say nothing else, the grain and forage required merely to station a brigade of troops was an astronomical figure.

Yet at this moment, Liu Chou was leading a multitude of demons slowly migrating westward along the boundary of the North Sea's edge.

Not all lesser demons were willing to accompany him, but Liu Chou did not force them. He simply conveyed Wuhuanzi's words and then ordered three scouts to take a roll. Ultimately, aside from the three scouts Tiger-of-Yin, Ox-of-Shi, and Bear-Mountain, who were willing to travel along, there were over a thousand lesser demons, while another half preferred to remain in the mountains.

As for the beast-demons, Liu Chou took every single one of them without a shred of mercy. Over the course of three to five days, he led the demons to capture dozens of beast herds. Instead of killing them, he bound them with ropes, strung them together, and led them along.

In this freezing world, whether they were lesser demons, beast-demons, or even minor demons with sufficient cultivation like Tiger-of-Yin and Ox-of-Shi, all felt a chill sinking deep into their marrow. Only Liu Chou remained unmoved; his physical body was already formidable enough to resist this level of cold invasion.

Food supplies were consumed at an astonishing rate. In such a freezing environment, the lesser demons' appetites had increased dramatically. In less than ten days, they had devoured the captured beast herds. Just as all the demons thought they were about to run out of food, Liu Chou issued an order to slaughter the beast-demons to serve as provisions.

Meat-beasts.

This was the collective term the lesser demons used for the beast-demons. When food was plentiful, these beast-demons served as laborers, cannon fodder, and claws; but when there was no food, they became the food themselves.

With over four thousand meat-demons, each lesser demon had three or four to share. Such a massive quantity finally supported Liu Chou and his followers in pushing out beyond the borders of Mount Mei. If one headed straight south from here, it would lead to the heartland of the Great Zhou; heading west would reach the Qin Mountains. Yet this was still part of the North Sea's fringe—under the same biting cold, it remained impossible to find sufficient food.

The looks some of the aggressive lesser demons cast at their companions had already changed. However, Liu Chou had once strictly forbidden it: slaughtering beast-demons was fine, but killing a comrade was a capital offense. Even though their stomachs growled with hunger, the lesser demons could only glare with fierce eyes, not daring to make a move lightly.

At this very moment, Liu Chou issued the order to march south, slightly entering human territory before making further plans.

The Great Zhou had deployed two elite armies in the northern border—the Dragon Cavalry and the Coiled Snake—specifically to counter the northern demon tribes. Each of these two elite armies possessed several warships, yet they too dared not venture into the fringes of the North Sea, patrolling only along the borders. The area Liu Chou was now invading happened to lie right in the gap between the two armies: a vast wilderness inhabited by savages, dotted with several savage settlements commonly known as barbarian villages.

Outside the civilized subjects of the realm lay nothing but savages—this was the state law of the Great Zhou, yet it was not the rule of the North Sea's edge. Even the Dragon Cavalry and Coiled Snake armies knew that these savages scraping by in the border crevices of the North Sea were different from traditional savages. Compared to them, the savages in the heartland of the Great Zhou were as adorable as infants.

The savages here were tall, robust, and possessed immense barbarian strength, capable of devouring anything that could be swallowed—whether it was rotting corpses, worms from excrement, or the bodies of enemies and allies alike. As long as it could be eaten, they ate it; as long as it could fill their bellies, they ate it. Relying on crudely polished stone or bone spearheads and spikes, or even thick tree trunks as weapons in their hands, they attacked anything they could lay their hands on and turned it into food.

To a certain extent, calling the savages here "barbarians" would be much more apt.

To them, demons were also food. But today, Liu Chou intended to turn them into food instead.