Chapter 42: Ruins Monsters and Ruins Realms

"Change horses, I have urgent military intelligence to deliver." Chen Mo revealed the letter and handed it to the Post Station master.

Their trip out this time was under military orders, and they carried military letters with them to allow them to requisition horses from post stations to deliver intelligence in emergencies.

The Post Station master dared not delay and hurriedly led over a horse; Chen Mo vaulted onto the new horse and then lifted the person bound behind the previous horse to place them behind the saddle.

He had already changed horses several times along this journey; at this speed, he would be able to reach the military camp in most of a day.

This speed was certainly considered slow, but there was no help for it; the horses at the Xingyuan Prefecture post station were not fast horses specifically used for delivering military intelligence.

Most were just inferior horses, and they could not run very fast.

After riding and galloping again, and changing horses once more on the way, he finally saw the military camp.

At least from the current perspective, nothing had gone wrong in Xingyuan Prefecture yet; the Dutian Dao Sect members seemed to be mostly in Anyang Prefecture, and this time was just a coincidence that they came near Xingyuan Prefecture.

But this was only Chen Mo's speculation; the information they had forced out was too little, and that strongman was even at the bottom of the Dutian Dao Sect, knowing very little.

Even if there were a major task to be done, they would certainly hide it from him first.

Therefore, no matter what, he had to report this news up the chain of command first.

This way, no matter what the people of the Dutian Dao Sect wanted to do, they would at least have some preparation.

The Personal Soldier responsible for guard duty saw him galloping in and could not help but show confusion on his face.

"I have urgent business to see the General." Chen Mo shouted and rode into the military camp.

Rushing to the front of the study, he dismounted; before anyone could announce him, Chen Mo dragged the strongman and went straight into the study.

"Foster father, something big has happened." Chen Mo tossed the strongman aside and spoke hurriedly.

"Hmm!" Sun Shouren stood up abruptly, his expression both surprised and slightly confused, but as a veteran of the battlefield, he was accustomed to remaining fearless in the face of danger.

He waved his hand to dismiss those around him to prevent any uncontrollable news from leaking out, then asked Chen Mo, "What exactly has happened?"

"Reporting to foster father, the child and many brothers went to Qingzhou to investigate the traces of bandits, but unexpectedly encountered evildoers who claimed to be from the Dutian Dao Sect on the way.

Those evildoers had strange methods, able to use human arms and tongues as weapons to hurt people, and were quite hostile to us, killing anyone they saw. The Fifth Brother also captured a strongman from the Dutian Dao Sect, who I have now brought here." Chen Mo spoke briefly and concisely, narrating the general course of events.

The more Sun Shouren listened, the gloomier his expression became; there were many things Chen Mo did not understand, but he knew some.

"The people you encountered are not evildoers; they are Qi Refiners." Sun Shouren's tone was slightly heavy as he spoke in a low voice.

"Qi Refiners?" Chen Mo asked; although he had known that those so-called Immortal Masters could practice Qi cultivation when he browsed that Dutian Great Dao Scripture earlier.

But what he had learned was only the surface, because he could not continue reading that technique.

"So-called Qi Refiners are different from us Martial Artists; Martial Artists temper their physical bodies to cultivate Inner Qi, while Qi Refiners draw the Qi of Heaven and Earth into their bodies, using the Qi of Heaven and Earth to perform many methods.

Their methods are extremely strange and varied; refining their own bodies to use as Flying Swords to kill enemies is one such usage.

But if it comes to close-quarters combat, these Qi Refiners are far from being a match for us Martial Artists."

Sun Shouren spoke slowly to explain to Chen Mo, telling him the situation as he understood it.

A Fifth Rank Official, placed in the Imperial Capital, was nothing, at most just a Six Ministries Vice Minister.

But a Fifth Rank Town Defense General, placed in the provinces, could absolutely be called a high-ranking official of a region.

Many secrets were not secrets to him; the things he could understand and come into contact with far exceeded what someone like Chen Mo, a Personal Soldier, knew.

Just like Internal Martial Arts, the reason he dared to say that after Chen Mo achieved success in his training, he could ask him for an Internal Martial Arts manual.

Was because with his status and power, these things were not very difficult for him to obtain.

"Then why must these Dutian Dao Sect Qi Refiners use tongues and arms as weapons? If they used carefully crafted steel needles, wouldn't it be more hidden and have better effects?"

Chen Mo raised his own question; compared to having to take off an arm during battle, using steel needles to ambush was undoubtedly more hidden.

"Ordinary steel needles have no spirituality, while the human body naturally carries spirituality, especially the bodies of those Qi Refiners themselves, which are washed by the Qi of Heaven and Earth; after being refined, the power is even greater.

The reason those Dutian Dao Sect Qi Refiners attacked you is mostly because they took a fancy to your bodies.

Although our bodies as Martial Artists are not as good as their own, they are still much stronger than ordinary people's; using them for refining is not only more convenient, but the power is also stronger."

Sun Shouren spoke slowly to answer Chen Mo's doubts; if one were to talk about these things, they were actually not very secret.

It was just that Chen Mo's status and position were not high enough to come into contact with these things.

Chen Mo had originally thought that the people of the Dutian Dao Sect might be practicing evil paths, which was why they used bodies as blades.

Now it seemed that the Qi Refiners of this world, even if not all of them, mostly did this.

"Then does foster father know that we also encountered a person who could not be killed?" Chen Mo spoke again; since someone could answer his questions today, he would seize the opportunity to ask more.

He immediately gave a clear account of the events before and after entering Qingzhou territory and encountering that strange disaster victim.

Hearing Chen Mo's narration, Sun Shouren's face became extremely ugly, and he signaled for Chen Mo to close the doors and windows tightly to prevent eavesdroppers before he spoke.

"The thing you encountered is called a Ruins Monster; no matter how many times you kill them, they will not die.

The place where Ruins Monsters live is called a Ruins Realm; the Ruins Realm you encountered was still okay, although there was an unkillable person, it was not considered very strange.

Ruins Realms will continue to expand slowly over time, and we Martial Artists are helpless against them, which is why Qi Refiners have such a lofty status in our Great Gan."

What Sun Shouren said was not very detailed, but Chen Mo could savor more information from these words.

That was that there was more than one Ruins Realm, and the one he encountered was not considered very strange; there were more and even stranger Ruins Realms in existence.

"Then why has this child never heard of such things in our Xingyuan Prefecture? Could it be that these Ruins Monsters only exist in Qingzhou?" Chen Mo asked curiously; regarding this point, he was indeed quite confused.

Listening to the meaning in his foster father's words, there was more than one Ruins Realm, and only Qi Refiners could suppress them.

If a Ruins Realm had appeared in Xingyuan Prefecture, he should have heard at least some rumors.

"Of course not; Qingzhou has them, and Xingyuan Prefecture certainly has them too. I don't know much about them, I only heard a few high-ranking masters from the Heaven Supervision Bureau talk about it.

Ruins Realms and Ruins Monsters are illusory realities; the human heart and mind will have an impact on them.

The more people who know about a Ruins Realm, even if they haven't seen it with their own eyes, just hearing rumors or a few words, the stronger that Ruins Realm will become.

Seals that have already been laid down might even be broken open, and the price to pay to seal them again would be much greater."

Sun Shouren gave a general account of what he knew; after all, he was only a Martial Artist, not a Qi Refiner.

If he hadn't assisted a few Qi Refiners in handling such matters, he probably wouldn't have had the chance to know these things.

He wouldn't talk about these things to outsiders on weekdays, but since Chen Mo had already encountered a Ruins Realm, he had to tell him the stakes involved.

"You must not spread even a shred of news about this matter to the outside; besides you, how many others know, and where are they now?" Sun Shouren asked.

Chen Mo reported the names of those few new recruits one by one; apart from those who had seen it with him, Chen Mo had not specifically mentioned this matter when interacting with others.

Furthermore, he had also specifically warned those few people never to tell anyone else about this.

At the time, he just didn't want to meddle in this idle business, but he hadn't expected that it would count as a lucky strike, ensuring that this matter would not spread widely.

Only after hearing this did Sun Shouren heave a sigh of relief; he knew the terror of the Ruins Realm, and compared to other things, the consequences of this matter leaking out would be the most severe.

But immediately after, he thought of another point: why did the people of the Dutian Dao Sect appear near the Ruins Realm, of all places?

More importantly, there was actually one among them who could borrow the power of a Ruins Monster; clearly, this group of people were by no means ordinary Qi Refiners.

They were heading to the Qingzhou region at this time; although their specific purpose was unknown, they likely had no good intentions.

"Take my warrant, lead a troop of men to dash to Qingzhou at full speed, do not make contact with those Dutian Dao Sect members, and first bring your fourth brother and the others out of Qingzhou." Sun Shouren took out his seal and immediately wrote a Command Order.

He was not sure what the Dutian Dao Sect members were plotting, but he knew he had to get his adopted son and nephew out first.

These people were his trusted subordinates, and each one of them could lead a battalion of men on their own; if he lost them, he could forget about ever returning to the battlefield in this lifetime.

Losing Zhao Yuncheng was already enough to make his heart ache; there must absolutely not be any other losses.

"This child accepts the order!" Chen Mo took the military order, hurriedly assembled a group of elite troops, and quickly rushed toward Qingzhou.

(End of chapter)