Chapter 42: Chapter 42: Setting Out, Slaughter

The mobilization order arrived, calling for departure in three days. Lu Zhao, with the standard-issue copper token of the Zhou Family’s Hundred Arts Camp at his waist, merged into a tide of black-clad figures.

The Hundred Arts Camp contingent he was in was a mix of Array Masters, Talisman Masters, Alchemists, Artifact Refiners, and even Puppet Masters like himself. The weakest among them was at the Qi Cultivation Third Layer.

Lu Zhao’s gaze swept over the vast procession, and he felt a chill in his heart. Including the Zhou Family’s own Cloud Pattern Cavalry and Law Enforcement Team, as well as the cultivators from various vassal families, this force heading to the front lines likely numbered no less than two thousand!

As far as the eye could see, there were only bobbing heads and multicolored Spirit Lights. The most striking sight was the pack beasts on the outskirts of the column, each as large as a small hill.

They were clad in heavy Profound Iron Armor, their backs laden with mountainous piles of supplies. These provisions included the enormous and numerous Mountain-Splitting Crossbows—Magical Artifacts too large for Storage Bags—as well as crates of Spirit Grass, Spirit Ores, materials, and Spirit Rice.

The skies were not peaceful either. Several Iron-Plumed Vultures, their gray-brown wings stretching several meters, circled low on patrol. Their sharp, hawk-like eyes scanned the winding column below and the distant forests.

But what drew even more attention were the gray specks soaring high above—the very Flowing Cloud Sparrow Puppets that Lu Zhao had personally refined!

With their small size and agility, they wove an invisible surveillance net, taking in every slight movement on the ground below.

Seeing the role his puppets were playing at this moment, Lu Zhao felt a complex mix of emotions: pride in his skills as a Puppet Master, and a heavy sense of foreboding about the uncertain road ahead.

Just then, a low drone overpowered the clamor on the ground, causing everyone to look up.

A behemoth slowly emerged from the clouds behind them, casting a massive shadow. Its entire body was crafted from some kind of Spirit Wood that glowed with the luster of cyan jade. The streamlined hull was long and elegant, yet it also exuded a sense of solid strength. Intricate cloud patterns were engraved on the hull, currently circulating with a faint Spirit Light that pushed aside the surrounding clouds.

"A Flowing Cloud Ship! It’s the family’s Flowing Cloud Flying Ship!" a young cultivator from a branch of the Zhou Family whispered excitedly from within the ranks, his face full of awe and pride.

"Damn, a Tier Two large-scale Flying Spiritual Artifact... I hear at full power, it can travel thousands of miles in a single day!" An Honored Guest Elder next to him, a middle-aged man who had once been a Wanderer, clicked his tongue in amazement. "They’ve even brought this out. It looks like they’re playing for keeps..."

The presence of the Flowing Cloud Ship was a silent declaration of the level of power the Zhou Family was committing this time. It also gave Lu Zhao a more visceral understanding of the battlefield he was about to face.

「After a five-day trek, the column finally reached the designated area on the North Slope of the Celestial Cloud Mountain Range.」

Before they even drew near, a foul stench—a mix of scorched earth, blood, and the faint rot of corpses—drifted toward them on the wind.

The scene before him made even Lu Zhao’s pupils contract, despite having witnessed the annihilation of his own family and grown accustomed to scenes of slaughter.

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a shocking expanse of ruins.

The Qingshi Small Marketplace might have had "Small" in its name, but its grounds were anything but. Built against a mountain, it was once a sprawling collection of buildings. Now, all that remained were broken walls, scorched and twisted support beams, and a chaotic mess of rubble scattered everywhere.

Raging flames had clearly swept through every corner, and in many places, embers still smoldered, releasing thin wisps of smoke.

The streets, once paved with bluestone slabs, had been torn asunder by some immense force, revealing the dark brown earth beneath. Vast patches of dark, almost black, coagulated blood stained the ground.

The Marketplace’s Defensive Array had long been completely destroyed. The surviving Array Bases flickered with a sporadic, chaotic Spirit Light.

Even more chilling were the uncollected remains scattered throughout the ruins—a half-charred, severed arm, fragments of broken Magical Artifacts embedded in wall crevices, and even a corpse pinned beneath a collapsed beam, only its upper half visible.

And amidst these ruins, figures loitered like carrion-eating hyenas.

Their Cultivation was mostly at the third or fourth layer of Qi Cultivation. Their eyes were murky yet vigilant, filled with greed as they rummaged through the ruins for anything of potential value.

Upon seeing the Zhou Family’s massive contingent arrive, these people vanished like startled rabbits into the shadows of the broken walls.

The once-bustling Marketplace was now filled with only dead silence and desolation. Lu Zhao silently took it all in, feeling the chaotic and impure Spiritual Qi that saturated the air.

The impure aura was unsettling. Lu Zhao subconsciously activated the Little Spirit Rain Technique, and his Protective Spiritual Light blocked most of the foul air, but it could not insulate him from the shock of the scene before his eyes.

The Hundred Arts Camp was not sent directly into battle. Instead, they received orders to make camp and establish a temporary base in a relatively untouched mountain hollow several miles from the incinerated Marketplace ruins.

The Array Masters got busy. One Array Banner after another was driven into the ground, and complex Spirit Patterns lit up on the earth, quickly weaving together to form an Array that enveloped the camp.

The Artifact Refiners prepared materials for their work. Inside their tents, the Talisman Masters spread out sheets of talisman paper, their Cinnabar Brushes moving with fluid grace as they drew batch after batch of consumable Talismans. The air around the Alchemists was thick with the fragrance of herbs, their furnace fires burning without rest.

The entire Hundred Arts Camp operated like a precise and efficient war machine, rapidly kicking into gear.

Lu Zhao soon received his assignment: to maintain and service the camp’s Flowing Cloud Sparrow Puppets used for surveillance, and to provide new ones for the front lines as needed. It was a relatively simple task, which allowed him to observe the goings-on within the camp.

In the days after they made camp, he witnessed firsthand the terrifying assembly and ruthless deployment of the Zhou Family’s power.

The massive Flowing Cloud Ship hovered over the heart of the camp, acting as both a stabilizing presence and a mobile command fortress.

Squad after squad of Zhou Family Law Enforcement Team cultivators, dressed in black and emanating killing intent, and the Cloud Pattern Cavalry, mounted on their Cloud Patterned Horses, surged out of the camp like a black torrent. They headed for the depths of the mountain range and for other marketplaces that had been designated as "zones of disorder."

Outside the camp, the atmosphere grew more grim with each passing day. At first, a few scattered Wanderers tried to approach the encampment, but these probes quickly ceased.

In their place came frequent alarms from the camp’s Guard Array, as well as the occasional, brief but violent fluctuation of Spiritual Power and the roar of Magic echoing from the distant mountains and dense forests.

Occasionally, an injured member of the Law Enforcement Team or the Cloud Pattern Cavalry would be brought back to camp, and the news they carried would circulate quietly among the silent masses.

"That group of Wanderers in Northwind Valley banded together. They tried to use the terrain to mount a stubborn resistance. There were even a few Tribulation Cultivators mixed in, looting during the chaos. They weren’t weak."

"Hmph. No matter how strong they are, can they withstand a charge from the Cloud Pattern Cavalry? Within an hour, the valley entrance was flattened. Anyone who put up a fight was killed without mercy!"

"I heard it’s even worse over at Black Stone Collection. The leaders of a few small families and some Wanderers were summoned for ’negotiations’ and were... executed on the spot. The rest are now a rudderless mob..."

"Sigh... Did it really have to come to this?" an old Alchemist lamented, shaking his head. The motion of his hands grinding herbs, however, did not pause.

"Did it have to?" a young Array Master nearby sneered. "The Elders said the situation on the North Slope is deteriorating. We can’t allow any hidden dangers to remain in our rear!"

"These Wanderers and minor families are nothing but opportunists. If we don’t eliminate them, they could be used by our enemies at any moment to stab us in the back! Desperate times call for desperate measures!"

"Exactly. We’re making an example of them! As for the rest, they can either obediently head to the designated zones and work as laborers to rebuild the defense lines, or... they can be silenced forever," another Talisman Master chimed in, his tone cold.

Lu Zhao listened silently to these hushed discussions, his gaze growing increasingly profound.

He recalled Zhou Qixing’s warning back at Cyan Rattan Stream. ’The Zhou Family’s methods have always been the same—win over the useful and destroy those who get in the way.’

’This so-called "bloody massacre" is nothing more than a purge of the unstable elements in their rear—forces that might defect to the enemy.’

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