Chapter 2241: Advance Preparation

Ye Liuyun, leading his 30,000-strong army, kept pursuing, then suddenly accelerated, clearing a path with war chariots and brutally splitting the routed troops in two, driving them toward opposite directions.

At that point, they no longer had the ability to launch offensive attacks.

And at this moment, waiting ahead of them were two Demon Race armies of 100,000 troops each, launching a full-scale attack on them.

At this time, the Central Empire's main army was so exhausted that even moving was impossible, let alone being their opponent.

Most of them simply surrendered.

After the battle, Ye Liuyun gave all 200,000 pieces of equipment to the Demon Race half-beasts.

The 20,000 Demon Race half-beasts that Ye Liuyun had previously used as labor became the main force of this army.

At the same time, Ye Liuyun selected tens of thousands of weaker Demon Race members and half-beasts, forming a massive logistical support army.

The remaining people were organized by Ye Liuyun into mining armies, sent to various locations to mine for him.

That 200,000-strong half-beast army then marched for Ye Liuyun, seizing Magic Crystal veins from the Central Empire across the lands.

Thus Ye Liuyun's expansion in the Southern Region progressed quickly; with his own equipment‑producing logistics team, he soon organized another 100,000-strong army to guard against the Central Empire's attacks.

This army only defended and did not attack; with Ye Liuyun's 30,000 half-beast army supporting it, the Central Empire sent troops a few times, but each time suffered heavy losses, and eventually dared not send more troops to certain death.

The 200,000 half-beast army Ye Liuyun dispatched also reclaimed dozens of veins, all of which he placed under his own management.

Ye Liuyun kept only half, giving the rest to them so they could improve their own strength.

Because hundreds of thousands of troops helped Ye Liuyun mine, he quickly amassed enough resources and felt it was time for him to leave.

But he still left a fallback for himself, in case he might return later to gather resources.

He selected some Demon Race half-beasts and leaders from the Demon Race army, taught them the method of Soul Cultivation, enabling them to forge Divine Soul Power.

Then he implanted Slave Seals on them and gave them several large‑space Storage Rings, allowing them to store supplies.

Finally, before departing, he handed over the governing position to them so they could develop independently, and also left the repeating crossbows and war chariots to them.

All these people had Slave Seals implanted, so internal strife would not arise again; they were also scattered among the various armies, making it unlikely that the Central Dynasty would wipe them out quickly.

After everything was arranged, Ye Liuyun used the teleportation Black Tower to return to the Central Dynasty of the Divine Realm.

After returning, he kept a low profile, handing all the black gold ore to Tong Xin, Qiong Qi and other artificers to forge equipment, and also left them a substantial amount of timber.

The remaining timber he gave to the Lingyun Pavilion for sale.

Once the timber hit the market, it was immediately welcomed by artificers and Demon Cultivators, and many great families bought it back as building material.

Some families purchased it to build ferries, reviving the ferry business on the boundless sea.

Ye Liuyun thus made a hefty profit.

But regarding the black gold ore, he never disclosed any information outwardly.

The herb the Demon Race half-beasts gave him was also handed by Ye Liuyun to Lin Luoyi and Lin Xiyao, who were tasked with developing a reproductive‑enhancing elixir to distribute to the half-beasts, ensuring the continuation of their species.

Ensuring they would have enough offspring before heading to the Alien Battlefield.

Qiong Qi quickly developed a type of black‑gold armor.

This armor has an additional gilt plate on the arm that can transform into a crystal cannon; when used, as long as it is linked to a Storage Ring, it can directly draw the crystal's energy to launch an attack.

Thus it not only reduces the amount of gilt used, but also endows the armor with offensive capability.

Even if a Martial Cultivator's True Essence is exhausted, it still guarantees their attack capability.

Qiong Qi also upgraded the war chariot, enabling it to perform full‑range attack and defense with only six operators.

The repeating crossbow was directly refined by Qiong Qi into a compact rapid‑fire crystal cannon, more powerful than the armor's crystal cannon, suitable for siege.

Thus Martial Cultivators in combat no longer need arrows; they can simply mobilize the crystals in their Storage Rings as energy.

With these equipments, Ye Liuyun's army's strength will certainly rise to a higher tier.

However, gilt is currently limited, so Qiong Qi could only forge just over 50,000 sets of this armor, enough for the elite strike unit, the half‑beast legion, and Martial Cultivators above the Ninth Realm.

The remaining armor can only be of the ordinary style.

Even ordinary black‑gold armor has defensive power comparable to Super Divine Rank treasures.

Afterwards, Martial Cultivators above the Ninth Realm take turns entering the Ten Thousand Gods Alliance headquarters to secretly familiarize themselves with the new equipment.

Their weapons can also request to be forged using black gold.

Martial Cultivators below the Ninth Realm do not receive this privilege and cannot access these equipments.

Subsequently, Ye Liuyun gathered all soldiers of the Seventh and Eighth Realms, dividing them into two corps according to their realms for unified training and cultivation, allocating resources to them as needed to prepare reserve forces for the Alien Battlefield in advance.

In future wars, various resources such as Divine Crystals, Magic Crystals, elixirs, and weaponry needed will also begin to be stockpiled in advance.

Then he had Xia Tianqiong and others collect information on Secret Realms across the lands, first annexing these Secret Realms to the dynasty, and then organizing external Martial Cultivators to develop them.

Half of the harvested resources are submitted to the Central Dynasty, and the other half counts as Martial Cultivator profit, augmenting the Central Dynasty's reserves.

The more dangerous Secret Realms are personally handled by Ye Liuyun, who collects the resources within them.

Among them, one Secret Realm trapped Ye Liuyun for three months; when he emerged, he had directly refined that realm's Primordial Power and transferred the realm into his own Space World.

It turned out that the Space Power in that Secret Realm was chaotic, with multiple layers of void intermingled like a maze, stacked upon each other, making it ideal for Ye Liuyun to cultivate Space Power.

Although Ye Liuyun located the Primordial Power of that Secret Realm, he still has not fully explored its entirety.

Therefore he first refined it, then brought it back to serve as a site for his own Space Power cultivation.

Relying on this special Secret Realm, Ye Liuyun broke his Space Power through to the Ninth Layer.

After his Space Power reached the Ninth Layer, further exploration of Secret Realms became much easier.

Ultimately, he discovered a particular spot within this Secret Realm.

There, significant void fluctuations seemed present—a type of void—but it was pitch black, completely different from the ninth‑layer voids he had previously encountered.

The Book Demon, upon seeing it, also thought the Secret Realm valuable: "This is a virtual starry sky environment.

It seems the creator of this Secret Realm possessed strong Space Power, managing to create a starry sky here."