Chapter 3601: Scornful of Cooperation

Ye Liuyun's Evergreen Vine can now extend dozens of vines, able to fight three to five Ninth Realm Martial Cultivators at the same time.

Li Qianjiao's realm hasn't changed much. After all, in the later stage of the Taixu realm, advancing one's realm becomes even harder.

Her Evergreen Vine, like Ye Liuyun's, now has no trouble fighting several Ninth Realm Martial Cultivators. She obtained many Demon Cultivator and ferocious beast essence pills from a passing merchant guild to feed her vine, achieving the same effect as Ye Liuyun's Evergreen Vine.

After Ye Liuyun led the group to Pingyang Guan, their cultivation sessions concluded, and they decided to go out and be active.

Thus, they took on a few missions as a mercenary corps. These missions were actually issued by Leader Du Hansong of the great army.

Some missions were unsuitable for him to send soldiers, some would fail with too few troops and be wasteful with too many, so he posted the missions publicly, using mercenaries to help fight the Demon Race.

These missions mostly involved clearing peripheral Demon Cultivator forces and scouting posts. After Ye Liuyun's group took several missions, they completed them excellently. He also learned more about the stalemate between the two armies through these missions.

"The Human Race Martial Cultivators here are actually on the brink; they're merely patching up losses, doing remedial actions everywhere, already being pressed down by the Demon Race!"

Through analysis, Ye Liuyun found the situation for the Human Race Martial Cultivators to be very bleak.

He immediately sent local subordinates to contact Du Hansong, hoping to do something decisive that could at least turn some defeats around, or at least prevent them from losing too quickly.

However, the people Ye Liuyun sent all met with failure.

At first, Ye Liuyun worried the envoys' attitude was poor or they hadn't reported truthfully, so he performed a Soul Search on them to learn what happened. In the end he confirmed that Du Hansong was too arrogant and simply despised those mercenaries.

But he still wanted the mercenaries to risk their lives for him, so the missions he issued became increasingly important.

"These people are like that; they won't consider cooperating with others until they're on the brink of annihilation," Chen Yueying advised Ye Liuyun.

"I think they look down on us and still want us to risk our lives for them!" Li Qianjiao bluntly exposed Du Hansong's thinking.

Ye Liuyun didn't consider what they were saying. To him, not having displayed his strength yet, it was normal for the other side to look down on him. When he leads troops, he also dislikes rogue cultivators causing trouble.

However, he saw that both Song Qing and Du Hansong were unsuitable partners.

"Since they all refuse to cooperate, we'll leave!" Ye Liuyun made the decision.

"Where are we going?" Li Qianjiao and Chen Yueying could not guess Ye Liuyun's plan.

"Let's go farther, let them wear themselves out against the Demon Race! We'll head into the Demon Race's heartland to develop!"

Ye Liuyun immediately made corresponding arrangements: "All mercenaries near Pingyang Guan should retreat north, avoid the Human Race–Demon Race battles, and preserve the strength of the Wolf Hunt Mercenary Corps."

He didn't keep any Demon Cultivators by his side; he released them all to go to Black Cloud City to report to City Lord Qian Linghe, take on missions there, improve their strength, and await combat opportunities.

Ye Liuyun, with Tang Xinyao, Li Qianjiao, and Chen Yueying, used his ninth-grade Flying Boat to smuggle across the border into Demon Race territory.

Upon entering Demon Race territory, Ye Liuyun released Lei Ming, a nine-headed demon dragon, and a Demon Lion, and also had Lei Ming free the two Demon captives he had captured; under their leadership, they moved away from the border.

Inside Pingyang Guan, Leader Du Hansong also noticed that the mercenaries in the city had withdrawn, and even the mercenaries in surrounding towns had largely retreated, leaving only a few weak, scattered mercenaries.

"Hmph, just a ragtag mob, still trying to force me to comply with such petty tricks. They're all the same!" Du Hansong, thinking Ye Liuyun was deliberately giving him a hard time, scoffed at the matter and paid it no mind.

Meanwhile, Ye Liuyun had already infiltrated the Demon Race's heartland, successfully seized a Demon Cultivator Force recognized by the Demon Race, and claimed it as his own, establishing his own stronghold.

Further south, there was hardly any place for Demon Cultivators to settle; everywhere was Demon Race territory.

"Let's pause here for now; I'll go fetch the Demon Race's main army, and then we'll use this as a base to lead our forces south to attack the Demon Race's stronghold."

Ye Liuyun let his companions rest here for the time being, while he used the Black Tower to teleport back into the main army, bringing the Demon Race's forces with him.

Yu Xiaofeng had by now expanded the Death Legion to 250,000, with an additional 100,000 Reinforcement Troops undergoing training, providing ample manpower reserves and fully preparing for the Demon Race's army departure.

Seeing this, Ye Liuyun confidently led the entire Demon Race army away, leaving none behind.

After returning, under the guidance of those two Demon elites, he arrived at a relatively remote Demon Race planet and released the Demon Race army there.

"Master, our army still clearly lacks high-end combat power!" Hei Shan immediately warned Ye Liuyun.

Ye Liuyun, of course, understood the issue with their Demon Race army: "I know. Go ahead and prepare defenses; I'll take people to capture high-end combat power for you! First, I'll lead a team to clear the Demons on this planet."

As Ye Liuyun spoke, he and Lei Ming and others began the operation, traveling everywhere to help capture Demon elites. Especially Lei Ming's Zhenmo Tower proved highly effective.

However, the Demon Race has always been relatively united, and Ye Liuyun's group often faced sieges. He also needed to deploy the Sealing Demon Tablet to aid the fight.

When the Sealing Demon Tablet is activated, it selects the strongest Demons to act, making it much harder to capture additional elites.

In the end, they captured nearly a thousand Demon Race members from the later stage of Taixu. Though this number still fell short for the whole army, it was sufficient for current needs.

"We'll keep fighting and capturing the rest as we go!" Ye Liuyun thought it impossible to wait until everything was ready before deploying. With so many Demon forces stationed here, the news would spread quickly.

"Fine!"

Hei Shan immediately ordered the army to set out, dispatching troops to the nearest planet.

The Demons on the nearby planet hadn't realized what was happening before the Demon army appeared before them. Thus they couldn't organize a planetary counterattack and instead each tribe defended the invasion individually.

Therefore, this was the best time for Ye Liuyun's group to train troops and capture high-end combat power.

After securing one planet, Ye Liuyun helped the army capture over three thousand high-end combat units. With these thousands of elites as a foundation, Hei Shan's confidence grew considerably. Even without Ye Liuyun's direct involvement, they could gradually develop. Recent code conversion issues have given us more motivation, faster updates; please take a moment to exit reading mode. Thank you.