Chapter 1217: This Boring Pacification Without Strong Cultivators Is Finally Coming to an End

"Fifteen years to pacify the Yan Shi Star Domain."

"Acceptable."

Jiang Ding, who had been cultivating, opened his eyes and gazed into the distance, toward the endless starry sky: "Continue the offensive. Use directional teleportation arrays to deploy the forces, splitting them into three grand armies — East, West, and North. Huateng leads one route, Fire Leopard San leads one route, and Dong Xue He Wang, Bone Flame Canghai Tianjun, and other ordinary Hua Shen cultivators gather together as one route. Continue the pacification, continue expanding the army."

"Carry the will of the Immortal Gate through to every corner of every Minor Thousand World."

"Thoroughly settle accounts with every living being that ought to be settled."

"Yes!"

Shan Chun Jian Master Dinghai Zhenjun and the other staff officers of the General Staff Department saluted in unison.

……

Under the will of Dayang Canghai Tianjun, all twelve army groups of the Immortal Gate's Jiao Jiao Mingyu Second Expeditionary Front were mobilized, splitting into three forces, each numbering millions of troops, marching toward the four directions with overwhelming martial might.

Time flowed at an unhurried pace.

No matter what happened on the front lines, Dayang Dayang Tianchi never once took the initiative to attack. It merely drifted through the starry sky as the pacification armies advanced, always maintaining its position at the center of all the armies.

Jiang Ding continued to cultivate, steadily accumulating the vast magic power needed to advance from Hua Shen Zhong Qi to late Hua Shen.

During this period, news from the front lines kept arriving.

In the third year, the East Route Army under Huateng reported that they had successfully captured the Yunliu Minor World of the Cangyan Star Domain. The ruler of that minor world, the king of the Blue Cloud Giant Whale clan, had fled without a fight, taking a few of the clan's powerful cultivators and their families and escaping into the unknown starry sky before the pacification army arrived.

Huateng's bloodline inheritance contained tracking secret arts. After gathering the aura from the Blue Cloud Giant Whale clan's palace, she reported that she was confident she could pursue the Giant Whale King, but the time required was uncertain, and she requested orders from the Command.

The Command's reply arrived swiftly.

"No pursuit is necessary."

Jiang Ding annotated: "Simply occupy the Dong Xue Liuyun Minor World. Resume production according to the established plan, set up teleportation arrays, establish protective arrays, and conscript the Dong Xue Liuyun Minor World Legion, and so on."

"Hua Shen cultivators, unless they possess the essence of Void Refinement or an artifact of Void Refinement, cannot survive alone in the starry sky for more than three hundred years. These Hua Shen cultivators of the myriad races do not possess the ability to survive independently apart from a Minor Thousand World. There is no need for concern."

"We obey the Vice Commander's order!"

The many Nascent Soul-period officers of the Immortal Gate and the Minor Thousand World cultivators such as Huateng in the East Route Star Legion strictly carried out this order.

They swept forward all the way.

If the enemy fled, they occupied the Minor Thousand World on the spot, conscripted armies, set up arrays, and let the Immortal Gate's rule take root.

If the enemy resisted, in the hands of an Imperial Son of the Blood Vine Demon, all resistance was feeble and would soon be crushed.

Even when multiple Minor Thousand Worlds formed a coalition army, with dozens of Hua Shen cultivators joining forces to surround and kill, they could not change this

outcome.

Moreover, as the campaigns continued, the strength of the Immortal Gate's conscripted armies was rapidly increasing. Their battle formations were beginning to take shape and had already reached the combat power of peak Hua Shen.

Every cultivator who had survived this far was a survivor of countless brutal struggles — both strength and luck were theirs. Once their inner hesitation, doubt, and distrust were resolved, their combat power would quickly recover.

Besides, there were Immortal Gate officers serving as the core of instruction.

In truth, Master Dinghai Zhenjun Qiangxuan and the others had already begun to feel ripples in their hearts, giving rise to wariness.

The talent displayed by certain cultivators of the myriad races had, in fact, far surpassed that of the Immortal Gate's rank-and-file soldiers — though their relative numbers were very small, appearing at a rate of one in a hundred or one in a thousand.

But with an army numbering in the millions or tens of millions, such genius cultivators of the myriad races were practically everywhere!

Teaching them was even easier than teaching Immortal Gate citizens who had gone through years of compulsory education. These geniuses were too clever, their comprehension excellent, they were willing to endure hardship, their willpower was strong, they understood the bigger picture… their virtues were simply too many to count — a single hint was enough for them to grasp it.

At first, Master Dinghai Zhenjun Qiangxuan and the other Immortal Gate officers were delighted, but later they grew somewhat afraid. For the first time, they entertained the thought of holding back in their teaching and setting up obstacles, especially when instructing same-realm Nascent Soul cultivators of the myriad races in battle formations.

However, this was Dayang Canghai Tianjun's order, and they would not disobey.

The East Route pacification army progressed smoothly, and the North Route pacification army was the same. With the presence of Fire Leopard San, a Hua Shen cultivator of the human race with a Fire Spirit Dao Body, the rebelling Minor Thousand Worlds, whether facing him alone or gathering multi-race coalition armies to surround and kill, were helpless.

At most, they could temporarily defeat one or two army groups, inflicting heavy casualties.

However, once the elite fleets ranked among the top of the conscripted fleets arrived, all resistance would be destroyed. Or wherever Fire Leopard San appeared on the battlefield, the rebels on that battlefield would collapse and suffer total defeat.

This was the terrifying aspect of an Imperial Son-level existence at the Hua Shen stage.

Without Void Refinement, these Imperial Sons were nearly invincible. Unless dozens of Hua Shen cultivators gathered together, there was no hope of victory.

Compared with the East and North Route pacification armies, the West Route pacification army under Dong Xue He Wang progressed more slowly. They had no Imperial Son-level existence and could only rely on the greatest number of Hua Shen cultivators to attack, advancing steadily step by step, killing their way forward inch by inch. They were occasionally surrounded and attacked by multi-race rebel forces, and the battlefield reached a stalemate.

However, once the pacification army's battle formations on the battlefield gradually became proficient, and the supplementary soldiers and officers delivered from the rear were fully replenished, the pacification army's strength began to rise extremely rapidly, and then it began to break through the enemy's defenses, pursuing the fleeing and driving out the resistant, achieving victory in the pacification battle.

Although this route was the most arduous, with many dead, it did temper the army. The Ninth Star Army Group among its conscripted starry sky fleets had the strongest combat power among all the conscripted units, possessing strength exceeding peak Hua Shen

by a margin, and was once slightly praised by Dayang Canghai Tianjun.

The three pacification armies advanced steadily, pushing forward step by step.

In just forty years, they had recovered more than fifty Minor Thousand Worlds. The Immortal Gate's logistical supply channels were initially opened up, and the fleet of hundreds of millions of Immortal Gate citizens confronting the great powers of the Badaxian Sect on the front lines once again received supplies of soldiers, heavenly materials and earthly treasures, spirit stones, and so on.

During this period, a few minor episodes also occurred.

The kings who had abandoned their clans and fled, such as the Giant Whale King, after lingering in the dead starry sky for several decades, were unwilling to accept it. Taking advantage of the pacification armies' departure, they began to raid the Minor Thousand Worlds behind the lines, attacking the mountain-protecting arrays and the garrison armies left behind, and quickly gained the upper hand.

The strength of the rear garrison legions was indeed very poor, so much so that even with the aid of arrays they could not match the Giant Whale King and other lost dogs.

However, when at the center of the layered arrays, the light of an ultra-long-range teleportation array flickered, and a graceful woman with emerald-green vine-like hair appeared at the very center of the array, the Giant Whale King's face showed terror, and he burned his essence blood, fleeing madly into the distant starry sky.

Unfortunately, this was futile.

He had appeared within Huateng's gaze — that meant death, with no other outcome, because the Giant Whale King was not even at peak Hua Shen cultivation, only at Hua Shen Zhong Qi.

Not only the Giant Whale King, but all other alien kings who attempted to raid the rear while the front lines were away met similar fates — those who died, died; those who fled, fled. They were thoroughly terrified and no longer had any courage to approach any Minor Thousand World.

The disappearance of these destabilizing factors allowed the many recovered Minor Thousand Worlds to become completely stable.

At this point, the East, West, and North Route pacification armies no longer spread outward, but began to gather together, with great solemnity.

This was because the most powerful existence among the rebels — the lord of the Blood Vine Demon Imperial Court, Steel Bone King — had taken the field.

He gathered the many kings and armies of more than fifty Minor Thousand Worlds, was extremely confident, no longer passively holed up, and took the initiative to sally forth, defeating the unprepared Fire Leopard San's North Route army and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of conscripted cultivators.

The North Route army narrowly escaped into a Minor Thousand World, relying on arrays to hold their ground, besieged day and night, with the possibility of total annihilation at any moment.