Chapter 436: 411 Ascending the Platform

Deep in the great mountains, in the depths of winter, surrounded by snow-capped peaks on all four sides, there was unexpectedly a vast sea of flowers in the center.

That sea of flowers covered the entire valley for a radius of ten miles. With high mountains on all four sides, the valley was warmer than the outside, and there were sparse green plants at the foot of the slopes. But that sea of flowers in the very center was still extremely abrupt.

An ordinary sea of flowers might be colorful and magnificent, but the sea of flowers in the valley was pure white. The vast sea of flowers had only one kind of flower, that small, white, semi-transparent white flower that looked just like a snowflake.

Looking at a single one of these white flowers, it might not be outstanding, and even felt too thin, but with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of them growing together, under the sunlight, each one seemed to be flashing, like a sea of stars, outlining a dreamlike atmosphere.

Tang Zhao stood at the edge of the sea of flowers and immediately understood why Meng Huazhou felt so confident after fleeing here.

The best way for a tree to hide is, of course, in a forest!

All the flowers were the same; he was hiding among one of the ten thousand white flowers, so how could one find him?

If these were truly living flowers and plants, it would be simple. A fire would burn him out, but this was an illusion; those flowers and plants were illusory, untouchable and ungraspable, impervious to water and fire, yet they were so realistic that even looking at them closely with the naked eye, one could not tell them apart. How was one to find the one that was Meng Huazhou among the thousands of white flowers?

If one really had to sift through them one by one, even without missing a single one, it would take too much time. As long as he held out until nightfall, Meng Huazhou would win.

When Black Widow and the others saw the sea of flowers, they also immediately understood the difficulty and could not help but be lost in thought, one after another carefully considering how to drag Meng Huazhou out.

Yue Lai suddenly said, "How about using wind? Using a gale, the kind of gale that can blow the flowers flat. See which one is blown down, and that one is the real one; the rest, being fake, naturally won't fall."

Black Widow was about to question this: if all the flowers fell, and only one did not, it would be easy to distinguish like a crane in a flock of chickens, but if all the flowers did not fall, and a flower in the middle fell, how could one see it clearly?

Tang Zhao said first, "No, look closely. When the wind blows over, those flowers move."

At this moment, a breeze was blowing in the canyon, and the sea of flowers swayed gently with the wind. Yue Lai observed carefully and saw that those flowers indeed swayed with the wind, their branches and leaves soft, and even the petals were trembling, without a hint of stiffness. If they couldn't be touched, one would never imagine this was an illusion.

"Hmm..." Yue Lai shook his head, frowning in thought.

Tang Zhao said, "Don't worry, it's not our turn to act; someone is coming to solve it."

What his gaze was fixed on was precisely the team they had just encountered by chance.

Compared to the team of a dozen people from just before, there were now over a hundred people gathered in the valley. Although they were in casual clothes, they were all covered in leather armor and wore weapons.

According to military regulations, this was a standard Hundred-Man Squad, capable of completing some small-scale combat missions. Considering that a talent like Huo Chaoqun, who had impressive strength and had learned Qi to step into the threshold of a Loose Practitioner, was only a new recruit among them, this team was truly "elite troops." Such a team used on an ordinary battlefield could defeat ten thousand with a hundred, which was common; in fact, they would never be used on an ordinary battlefield, only to face extraordinary enemies.

For example, completely leveling a stubborn Demon Cave.

At this time, the team had finished assembling. At the very front was a young man carrying a sword, clearly a Sword Student and also the leading officer, the Captain. He raised his hand slightly, signaling everyone to focus their attention.

"The first step of the extermination operation: drive out and kill all the Fierce Beasts within the range of the Demon Cave. Divide into three squads. The first squad drives from the southeast to the north, and the second squad drives from the southwest to the north. The two squads will form an oblique angle and converge in the due north. The third squad will set up a net to block them in the due north."

The army does things methodically, with proper tactics. That small squad had long since arranged the tactics, and at this moment, they were just declaring them again. Everyone responded loudly and dispersed according to their formation.

After the leader gave the orders, he said again, "Little Huo, you ride my horse."

Little Huo was naturally Huo Chaoqun. He had just arrived on foot and was a head shorter in the team, so he hurriedly said, "Captain, how can I ride your horse..."

The leader laughed, "If you don't ride the horse, will you stay behind and command for me?"

Huo Chaoqun said awkwardly, "I didn't mean that..."

The leader suddenly laughed, "It's not impossible. In your file, the examiner specifically noted: excellent command ability, has a sense of the big picture, and is a talent for a general. Generals must command thousands of troops and horses; how can you not handle such a small task?"

Huo Chaoqun was a bit anxious and said, "That was the Instructor's partiality; how can a lowly new recruit like me command..."

This Captain was probably a reckless person; once he had an idea, he wouldn't let it go, so he laughed, "So I didn't ask you to command thousands of troops and horses all at once. Isn't this small task for the Hundred-Man Squad today just right for training? Pass my order—"

As soon as the three words were spoken, Huo Chaoqun could only stand at attention with the others and say, "Subordinate is here."

The Captain handed his command flag to Huo Chaoqun and said, "Huo Chaoqun, you go up to the platform and wave the flag. Everyone, watch the command flag and act according to orders."

Once this order, which was playful and absurd in its core but serious on the surface, was issued, it was immediately executed without compromise. Their team carried a simple high platform, similar to a suspended platform made of scaffolding, which was now set up on the ground, erecting a platform six zhang high. Huo Chaoqun took the command flag and quickly climbed onto the Jiangtai.

Before he got on the platform, he was naturally restless and wished he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into, but once he climbed up to look into the distance, he actually calmed down.

Just as the comment Tang Zhao specifically noted on his grades said, he was born with the talent of a general and also had the experience of fighting with a hundred peers. After climbing the platform and looking down from a height, his field of vision suddenly opened up, and he was no longer nervous. He calmly raised his hand and first waved the command flag to call everyone to return to the team.

The Captain laughed, "Good, looks the part. It seems there's no problem." He then took the lead as an example and acted according to his flag signals. Although the other soldiers felt it was strange, they had long known their Captain was a weirdo and were used to obeying military orders, so they followed the orders.

Huo Chaoqun committed the terrain to memory, made some deductions, and then raised the flag to arrange for everyone to advance in batches. He adjusted the team into two oblique directions and advanced to exterminate them in two separate waves, ensuring that the Fierce Beasts driven out would not all crash into the net at once, causing defensive pressure.

Seeing that he had entered the state, the Captain was very satisfied. He no longer had any scruples and rode his horse into the flowers with the soldiers to drive out the Fierce Beasts.

A hundred or so people entered the Demon Cave, and one could hear the noise of people and horses. Before long, the large sea of flowers began to surge, and Fierce Beasts of all sizes were driven out from within.

The large ones were sporadic gray wolves and mutated Fierce Beasts like earth pigs, and there were more of various snakes, insects, rats, ants, earthworms, and snails that had been magnified a hundred times.

Those Fierce Beasts had no brains; they ran wherever they were driven, and most of them rushed to the north. At this time, a net of blades and spears had long been set up in the north, specifically to capture and kill Fierce Beasts. As long as they crashed into it, they would die without a doubt. For the few that didn't crash into the net, soldiers were already standing by with weapons to finish them off. One could see the flash of blades and shadows of swords, black Qi permeating; the weapons here were sharp, the soldiers were elite and fierce, and the formation was stable, so naturally, they killed one for every one that came, without any mistakes.

Tang Zhao was even a bit amazed watching from the side. Firstly, he didn't expect that there were so many Fierce Beasts hidden in the sea of flowers that looked no more than half a person's height. It was indeed a Demon Cave, a place where Yin Qi accumulated, and even the ants passing by had to be urged into behemoths.

Secondly, he also admired the army's smooth and flowing way of killing Fierce Beasts, as smooth as combing hair. Just watching from the side gave one a sense of "swish-swish-swish" pleasure. To say it with some shame, the Land Inspection Division, which specifically dealt with Fierce Beasts, did not have this kind of efficiency most of the time.

He watched with a relaxed and happy mind for a while, and then thought: seeing them so skilled, it must be a fixed program to hunt Fierce Beasts in this Demon Cave; perhaps they used this place as a training ground. It was far from human habitation and the terrain was flat, which was indeed suitable for training troops. But why did they suddenly want to completely eradicate the Demon Cave now?

Did it have anything to do with the major events that happened in Yunzhou recently?

Because they wanted to concentrate their strength to do big things, so they left no hidden dangers?

Thinking this, he turned to look at Huo Chaoqun, very gratified that his half-student could have such a performance, when suddenly his brow jumped.

A wisp of cyan smoke had already wrapped around the command platform at some unknown time.

That was a familiar Sword Art.

It was Shangguan Jianke who had arrived.

Tang Zhao's heart tightened. He looked left and right but did not see Shangguan Jianke's figure. It seemed that even if he had arrived, he had hidden himself first. Perhaps that Sword Guest himself could not distinguish where Meng Huazhou was hiding in the illusion, so he was waiting for the soldiers to take action to sweep through the illusion first, or even completely destroy it, before coming out to pick up the scraps.

But at that time, he would have to face two enemies: Meng Huazhou and the army. It stood to reason that Shangguan Jianke felt there were no real experts in the army, only one Captain who was a Sword Student, and the rest were all Mortals. Under the gap in realms, no matter how many people there were, they did not constitute a threat, so he did not take it to heart.

Tang Zhao actually wanted to tell him: don't underestimate the Human World's army. There were as many Sword Guests on the front line as there were hairs on an ox, but they still had to maintain a certain scale of ordinary human armies precisely because they were truly useful. At least with the bonuses of terrain, Array, and Art Tool, they could do a lot against lone Heavenly Demons and Sword Guests. Not to mention those war Art Tools that relied on high-power advantages.

By comparison, Tang Zhao was a bit worried about Huo Chaoqun. The other soldiers were all in formation and safe, but now only he was outside the team, and he didn't have a powerful Art Tool by his side. Yet Shangguan Jianke had already entangled the command platform under his feet. If there was an attack, he would bear the brunt of it, so he must protect him a little.

The step of driving out the Fierce Beasts went very smoothly, but the number of Fierce Beasts was not small, wave after wave, and it had been over an hour. The sun had shifted a few more degrees to the west.

He really could hold his breath.

The army's clearing movement was not small, but neither Shangguan Jianke nor Meng Huazhou showed any reaction. Meng Huazhou might not dare to show his head, and the longer it dragged on, the more favorable it was for him. Shangguan Jianke was truly able to hold his breath.

Tang Zhao glanced at the silk thread in his hand. When the army entered the flower bushes just now, the silk thread moved, but there was no displacement, which showed that Meng Huazhou was not under great threat, so he remained in place. Just clearing the Fierce Beasts could not shake his situation.

I wonder how the army will completely erase the Demon Cave next? Can Meng Huazhou still sit firmly on the fishing platform?

"Good, now the second step. Completely destroy this Wind-type Demon Prison. Everyone withdraw from the flower bushes, retreat ten zhang!"

The soldiers retreated together, but one person opened a Space Art Tool parcel and took out a cylinder as tall as a person.

Tang Zhao let out a silent "Oh," not expecting it to be an old friend, the Sword Light Cannon.