Chapter 2274: The Secret Hidden in Intelligence

"The Fu State war... the divine descent of the blue-skinned..." the soul-capturing mirror in his bosom murmured, "It's here, don't flip, it's here!"

He Lingchuan did not misremember, for Fu Chanran's intelligence clearly recorded:

The Great Battle of Xilongpo between the Fu State and the Shen State involved divine descents!

The Shen State had stood for many years, and He Chunhua also understood Zhang Chi had the Dao, so the footsteps of large-scale expansion had long slowed, focusing entirely on domestic economic development. It must be said, the Shen State's luck was truly good, its national strength significantly increased during the Bei Mu War, which indirectly aided He Chunhua's ambition, causing the Shen State to become restless again.

Border conflicts between the Shen State and the Fu State intensified daily, the Fu State's forces inferior to their opponent, suffering a thorough beating.

And Xilongpo was a strategic location; once seized by the Shen State, the Fu State's heartland would be in peril.

The Shen State originally had victory in hand, but who would have known the Battle of Xilongpo would suddenly witness two great divine descents, directly obliterating the advantage the Shen State army had gained. The Fu State seized the momentum to counterattack, the Shen State army suffered heavy casualties, and directly retreated within its own borders.

The invasion failed.

Fu Chanran also mentioned in the intelligence report the appearance of these two heavenly deities: one was a merperson, the other resembled a dough figurine kneaded by a craftsman. The Shen State soldiers present at the time described them as "treading through the void," and they descended divine arts in midair, freezing the entire battlefield for ten li.

The Shen State soldiers were caught off guard, a large number frozen solid.

The Fu troops seized the opportunity to raise their weapons, striking them into scattered fragments, bodies and heads separated.

This matter, He Lingchuan also received a military intelligence report from the western front not long afterward, but it was not detailed, only stating that the Fu State had summoned deities and defeated the Shen State army at Xilongpo.

After all, in today's world, this is no longer rare, even small states can summon heavenly deities.

He Lingchuan was busy at the time, and Fu Chanran's briefing was overly verbose and messy, so He Lingchuan merely glanced at these two intelligence items and gave them no further thought. But combined with what Sun Hongye said today, upon careful reflection, this is utterly terrifying!

Looking at the timeline, the heavenly deity that descended upon Puchu Island appeared not long afterward on the Fu-Shen battlefield, and displayed tremendous divine power.

This "not long" actually means at least several days. During these few days, did those two "deities" return to the demon realm, or did they remain constantly in their vessels, in the human world?

No deity has ever managed the latter, not even Lady Lady Lady Mitian in his time—each divine descent lasted only a few hours in the human world.

Even if these two celestial demons returned to the demon realm and then descended again, the fact that their vessels could sustain multiple descents is remarkable in itself.

Where did the Fu State obtain such resilient vessels?

Sun Hongye's intelligence helped He Lingchuan directly uncover the truth:

Puchu Island is the demon's puppet experimentation ground!

He Lingchuan inferred that the Fu State had once sought aid from Between Between Between Beijia. But the spiritual aura's resurgence caused worldly order to fall into chaos, Between Between Between Beijia now also presents a contracting posture, and the Bei Mu War never formally ended, with sporadic clashes between the two states; half a year ago, Mu State's general Ji YingSong still won a great victory. Thus, Lingxu City did not directly dispatch troops to assist, but instead sent forth those two celestial demons.

At the time, this intelligence report was buried among over two hundred other reports and stood out nothing, but once He Lingchuan paid attention to it, isolating it and combining it with Sun Hongye's intelligence for contemplation, he felt the divine descent at the Great Battle of Xilongpo held many more aspects worthy of thorough investigation.

The Shen State people said the two heavenly deities "tread through the void."

Such a description is somewhat strange. Previously, witnesses of divine descents usually said, "light points descended from the heavens, entered a person, and that person gained divine power."

But the Shen State's account claims these two heavenly deities flew directly over, without the customary prelude.

Did they simply not see the light points descending?

Now He Lingchuan feels the answer may well be negative. For Sun Hongye also said that when those two celestial demons arrived at the county seat of Fuxian, they likewise flew directly over.

Even if the concentration of heavenly and earthly spiritual aura is no longer what it once was, their conduct is far too lax, is it not?

This leads to a terrifying inference:

Could these two celestial demons have remained constantly within their vessels?

Not just a few moments, not just a few hours, but after descent, they have long resided in the human world, never returning to the demon realm?

This idea is too horrifying, even He Lingchuan feels a chill run down his spine.

If true, would this not be one of the ultimate goals of the celestial demons—

Eternal descent?!

As of today, the plan of the Lingxu Holy Venerable to return to the human world is no longer a secret. For this plan to succeed, it actually requires achieving two goals:

One is the complete descent of the true soul and spirit.

Two is the ability to remain in the human world for a long time, preferably eternally.

The achievement of these two goals depends both on the strength of the celestial demon's soul and spirit, and on the strength of the vessel's divine body, plus one final condition that now seems less difficult— a significant increase in spiritual aura concentration, allowing true immortals and great celestial demons to move freely.

Since these celestial demons emerged from the puppet experimentation ground, He Lingchuan can assume that this descent experiment perhaps achieved a breakthrough success, for the old shipwright of Puchu Island had previously never witnessed the phenomenon of sea freezing.

And these two celestial demons' souls and spirits are not necessarily exceptionally powerful, to avoid creating difficulties for the experiment.

"It appears the Battle of Xilongpo was also an experiment, testing the power of celestial demons participating in actual combat." He Lingchuan murmured, "Just how much of their divine power did those two celestial demons pour into the human world, and how much force did they exert on the battlefield?"

Before the decisive battle between Lady Lady Lady Mitian and the Red General, the Red General, as an exceptionally high-quality divine vessel, had already been able to withstand Lady Lady Lady Mitian's six or seven tenths of power descending, meaning that once Lady Lady Lady Mitian's true body descended, he could basically wield the power of a great celestial demon to slaughter in all directions.

How much power did those two celestial demons allocate for descent into the human world? Three tenths, five tenths, seven tenths, or...?

The soul-capturing mirror could not help but say: "The power of an ordinary divine descent could not possibly freeze a ten-li sea domain for a full hour, especially in midsummer."

This divine art must constantly contend with the power of the great sea, with the power of nature.

"Do not forget, they also froze many Shen State soldiers on the battlefield." He Lingchuan focused his thoughts, "The Shen State's yuan power has been steadily increasing these years, and it is not comparable to those weak, chaotic small states nearby. To freeze them, these two celestial demons' divine power must forcibly suppress the Shen State's yuan power, even if only for a dozen or so breaths!"

"Two obscure celestial demons, using only the power of their avatars, could they possibly oppose the yuan power of the Shen State army?" He Lingchuan shook his head, "That seems unreasonable."

It is not that the celestial demons have weakened, but that the yuan power has strengthened.

However, the relationship between yuan power and divine power has never been fixed. Just as water can extinguish fire, fire can also boil water.

It depends on quantity, and on momentum.

Then there is only one possibility, is there not? The soul-capturing mirror grew more fearful the more it thought: "Hey hey, you wouldn't be suggesting, they, they descended in their true forms?!"