The Attack of the Wastrel

The ferocious beast horde had completely retreated within half an hour. The Burnt City was temporarily safe once again.

Le Yan’s face turned dark as he saw the beast horde gradually disappearing from his view. Now that the beast horde had suddenly retreated, Le Yan had lost his chance to earn back some of the reputation that he had lost. Hence, it was of no surprise when he saw that citizens’ awe-filled eyes were all on Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan.

Regardless of how much he hated it, these two people had been invited here by him. He had to express his gratitude and thank them for helping generously and killing those Insect Beasts before they managed to cause any severe damage to Burnt City.

However, Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan were not in the mood to act as polite guests. Although Gu Lingzhi had appeared to be very relaxed in the battle earlier, she would not have been able to defeat the Insect Beasts so easily if it wasn't for her Fengwu Sword being extraordinarily sharp. Furthermore, she had consumed a lot of her spiritual power to destroy the Insect Beasts’ internal organs and thus, she desperately needed to restore her spiritual power.

Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan casually mentioned some placating words then bade farewell and returned to their prepared residence.

As though the withdrawn beast horde were aware of the difficulty of attacking Burnt City, they did not appear for several days. The late reinforcements from other cities also arrived within these few days. When they saw that the Burnt City appeared to be in a complete mess everywhere, yet there were only a few beast corpses outside the city, they sneered. They even sarcastically accused Le Yan of exaggerating the issue and for having the audacity to request for reinforcements from other cities for a beast horde of this scale. Le Yan was incensed but he did not dare to offend them for fear of losing their help. He could only helplessly wait for the beast horde’s next attack and send them out as cannon fodder.

Hence, several days passed. Just as everyone had thought that the beast horde had withdrawn completely and had no intentions of attacking the city anymore, a letter requesting for help from Crescent Moon City arrived and burst their bubble.

“These beasts are really cunning! They actually shifted their position and attacked Crescent Moon City instead!” Le Yan swore out loud but deep down he was actually feeling very pleased, especially when he recalled the look of horror on the faces’ of the reinforcements from the Crescent Moon City.

Earlier, all of you were sneering and mocking me. Now, do you finally understand the strength of the beasts?

“This will not do. We have to rush back to Crescent Moon City immediately, forgive us for not providing any assistance,” Han Li announced and immediately left the Burnt City with his men, intending to hurry back to Crescent Moon City in the shortest time possible.

Once the people from the Crescent Moon City left, the reinforcements from Wasteland City and Forgotten City could not sit still. They were afraid of being the next one to suffer the disaster.

Le Yan pretended to assure them, “Don’t worry too much about it, those beasts always move as a group. Since they are currently attacking the Crescent Moon City, they will not be attacking elsewhere. The Wasteland City and Forgotten City are still safe for now. Furthermore, with the strength of your cities, these beasts probably will not be able to cause much damage anyway.”

So petty indeed! He had turned to use their ridiculing words against them! The reinforcements from Wasteland City and Forgotten City could only grind their teeth in anger. However, they also knew that Le Yan was speaking the truth.

Judging by the beasts’ method of attacking the cities, they really did not have the time to attack the other cities. This gave Burnt City the chance to take a breather. Due to their heavy losses, Burnt City did not have the ability to send out any reinforcements, and they happily took the opportunity to recover.

The other reinforcements knew that they would be of no help here and started to leave one by one after staying behind for a few days. Because of Le Yan’s consistent persuasion, Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan stayed on and only left at dawn of the third day.

The two of them had good physical cultivations and were unafraid of consuming their spiritual power. They resembled two meteor streaks as they rushed back to Spirit City within two days.

Lin Chongyuan had already been informed of the situation in the Burnt City through their previous correspondence. He had started to direct the citizens to strengthen the city walls and stockpile materials for war, such as oil and stones. He had been expecting Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan’s return and he started to ask them about what they had seen and heard in the Burnt City.

When he found out that the mountain of bodies from the attacking beast horde had been level with the Burnt City’s city walls, Lin Chongyuan was immensely thankful that they had not been the first target of the beast horde. Otherwise, even with the presence of Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan, the Spirit City would still have suffered massive losses.

However, their peace had only lasted for a few days before it was disrupted by the arrival of a group of escapees from the Crescent Moon City. Because the leader of this dishevelled group of people who appeared to only be slightly stronger than a regular street seller, was actually the Chancellor of the Crescent Moon City, Yun Zhu!

“…Those Giant Insect Beasts are truly fearsome. Whenever they slam themselves against the walls, the walls show signs of collapse and some parts even break off. Whatever remains will rapidly get eaten up by the beasts. There’s no one who can stop them right now!”

Even as Yun Zhu described the situation, her heart shuddered from memories of the terror. Yet, remembering that there were two people in the room who were able to slay those creatures, her expression became weird.

She had heard about the situation at the Burnt City from the troops who had rushed back to the Crescent Moon City. Initially, she considered sending a messenger to ask for reinforcements from the Spirit City as well, hoping that Rong Yuan and Gu Lingzhi would head over to help them. Yet, even before she could get the message out, the Giant Insect Beasts had already knocked over their city wall and were starting to wreak havoc within the city. In fact, she had only barely escaped the city with a few close confidants because of her own strength. As for the number of survivors still left in the Crescent Moon City, she did not even dare to think about it. Henceforth, it was likely that the Crescent Moon City would plummet from the ranks of the top five cities, due to the huge blow to its foundation.

Lin Chongyuan listened intently to Yun Zhu’s narration. Hearing how the beasts had knocked over Crescent Moon City’s walls, and with such ease, he made a mental note to have people reinforce the city walls as soon as possible.

“Then, do you know where the beasts were headed to after your city?” Lin Chongyuan asked Yun Zhu.

“Um…I’m not too clear on that,” Yun Zhu sheepishly replied.

When the city fell, many of the city residents who were with her only managed to last a few more days in the havoc. In the end, everyone was frantically trying to escape or survive. No one paid attention to where the beasts would target next.

Lin Chongyuan frowned, deep in thought. This was getting more troublesome. Based on the present situation, it appeared as if the beast horde’s goal was the entire Lost Lands. Crescent Moon City was likely only the first stop. If they could get more information on the next target, they would be able to make some preparations. Otherwise, it was likely that the entire Lost Lands would soon suffer unimaginable casualties.

Seeing Lin Chongyuan deep in thought, Rong Yuan spoke up, “Even if we knew the beast horde’s path, and the city they are targeting next, I’m afraid we still can’t do much to slow them down.”

With an abomination like those Giant Insect Beasts, which city could hold up against their offensive?

Furthermore, within the entire Lost Lands, the only ones who were able to slay those creatures were people like Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan, whose physical bodies and cultivation levels were both above the Martial Sage level. Even Lin Chongyuan could not be certain of being able to kill the beasts without a drawn-out battle.

Unfortunately, Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan were only two people. Even if they were to run around the various cities helping to hold off the beasts, they would merely slow down the beast horde by a little, prolonging the struggle without being able to take the initiative.

Seeing how everyone in the hall had sunk into a solemn mood, Qiao Yeshu slammed his hand on the table in front of him, exclaiming, “What’s the point of thinking so much? Why not simply have everyone hide themselves away and hunker down till this is over?”

Chu Jiang glared at him, retorting, “Hide everyone away? Do you have any idea how many people there are in a single city? Where do you suppose we could hide them?”

Qiao Yeshu did not back down, but immediately replied while pointing outside the Chancellor’s Manor, “Spirit City is able to hold everyone.”

Unlike the other cities who were constantly expanding, Spirit City had always been content to preserve the purity of their bloodline. Except for those with relationships to members of the Spirit Tribe, all others who wanted to stay within Spirit City would even have to pay a significant amount in taxes. Because of this, although Spirit City was the biggest amongst the top five cities, it also had the smallest population, thus leading to it having the lowest population density. This was also the reason why the Female Worm had been able to kill so many people previously before being detected.

However, when Chu Jiang heard this, he angrily retorted, “Just because our Spirit City has the space, does that mean we must accept everyone into our city?”

Qiao Yeshu became silent, unable to think of a response.

First of all, not only would taking in so many refugees cause a lot of inconvenience to Spirit City, another problem was that the spiritual energy in the city would be split amongst even more people. Besides this, one other issue was that the residents of other cities may not want to abandon their home cities to temporarily stay here.

Nonetheless, Qiao Yeshu’s suggestion gave Rong Yuan an idea.

While he did not have much feelings for most of the other cities, he still had a great deal of fondness for the Forgotten City. Over the two years, he had formed quite a good relationship with Guan Yue, and if it were possible, he would like to extend a helping hand to him at least.

Once the meeting had adjourned, and only those from within the inner circle of Spirit City were left, Rong Yuan took the chance to bring up the matter, asking if Lin Chongyuan would be willing to accept the people from Forgotten City, letting them seek shelter here temporarily.

Lin Chongyuan pondered the matter for a while before replying, “Actually, it would be good if they could come over as well. The extra manpower would be helpful in defending the city. The problem is, will they be willing to come?”

Rong Yuan laughed, responding, “As long as Guan Yue isn’t a fool, he will not reject this offer.”

Was Guan Yue a fool? Of course not!

The moment he had learnt of Crescent Moon City’s demise, he had been looking for ways to help his city survive, sending numerous messengers to Rong Yuan and Gu Lingzhi to discuss the issue. Learning that Spirit City was willing to let the people from his city take shelter, he immediately felt a burden lifted from his shoulders.

Although the journey from the Forgotten City to the Spirit City would take at least half a month, and likely more because of the sheer number of people, it was still the best solution. After all, Gu Lingzhi and Rong Yuan were unlikely to abandon the Spirit City to stand guard at their city.

Guan Yue thus instantly accepted Rong Yuan’s proposal. Now that they had Lin Chongyuan’s permission to move to Spirit City, all that remained was for him to convince his people to move, leaving behind their homes.

Yet, contrary to his expectations, the moment he announced his decision to the leaders of his city, not a single person raised any objections. In fact, even as he was stressing over how to convince the leaders of his decision, some of the people had already begun cheering at the news.