The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 475 Survivors in the Demon Realm

After clearing out the demon horde at Dongshan Lake and ensuring unobstructed passage in and out of the demon realm, the Demon-Slaying Army split into four groups and set off into the demon realm, as previously planned.

Wu Chang, leading the Wind-Character Demon-Slaying Army, advanced towards Calabash Mountain while reaping demons along the way.

As Wu Chang ventured deeper into the demon realm, he became increasingly convinced that the surge in demons within Dongshan Lake was not an isolated incident.

Since the start of the world instance, the entire Demon Realm has been undergoing some kind of change.

The most obvious change is the number of demons. Compared to when he explored the demon realm before, the number of demons in the demon realm has increased more than tenfold.

When testing the Wind Demon King, he drove an all-terrain transport vehicle. As long as the route was chosen well and the speed was fast enough, he could bypass most of the demons.

But now, when you enter the demon realm again, you can see several wandering demons almost every hundred meters.

They were like monsters that spawned directly in a game, their numbers were unreasonable. The number of monsters that appeared in these four or five days was comparable to the total number of monsters that appeared in the entire Great Xuan Realm in the past seven or eight years.

Moreover, these newly emerged demons are quite powerful, with the weakest being at least second-rate human cultivators, including many demon guards and demon generals.

For example, the old turtle in Dongshan Lake is one of the newly born demon generals.

Even if one were to explore the demon realm now, it would be difficult to reach Calabash Mountain without alerting a large group of demons, no matter how careful one is.

Fortunately, Wu Chang led the team into the Demon Realm not for infiltration and investigation, but to seal the demonic energy and weaken the Demon Realm.

In this way, the increased number of monsters is actually a good thing, as they are all gathered together, saving them the trouble of gathering monsters from all over the place.

To bridge the gap between spiritual energy and demonic energy, the Demon-Slaying Army must kill as many demons as possible to power up enough Demon-Suppressing Blood Talismans.

Therefore, the formations formed by the cultivators do not emphasize mobility, but rather focus on defense and steady progress.

To help the various demon-slaying armies better fight against the demons, all the officials of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, who were not originally responsible for combat, were mobilized to adjust the formations of the demon-slaying armies in real time.

The one who led the formation of the Wind-Character Demon-Slaying Army was Yuan Yan, the Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices.

With the Azure Feather Bird dead, the demons in the Wind Demon King's direction are leaderless, making it the most suitable and safest route for large-scale demon slaying.

Considering the situation, Yuan Yan chose the Four Symbols Demon Extermination Formation, which had a dispersed formation.

Twenty cultivators formed a small team, and the Wind Demon-Slaying Army was divided into one hundred and eight small teams, which spread out in a net-like pattern.

Highly mobile and agile players act as scouts, scattering to search for monsters and luring them back to the main camp.

Once a monster is drawn into the enemy's aggro and follows the scout into the main camp, a corresponding number of squads will be dispatched to encircle and annihilate it, based on the number of monsters attracted.

The Four Symbols Central Hub is overseen and supported by Wu Chang himself, high-ranking members of the Humanity Alliance, and powerful players.

A sand table was placed in front of everyone, with 108 small flags inserted in it, corresponding to 108 groups.

Yuan Yan was positioned next to the sand table, adjusting it based on the intelligence relayed by various scouts.

A player descended from the sky and said to Wu Chang and Yuan Yan:
"A medium-sized monster has appeared in the southwest direction, with an estimated number of around four hundred, including one demon general and at least four demon guards."

Upon hearing this, Yuan Yan waved his hand in the air, and the small flag in the southwest direction opened up in all directions, creating an opening.

Outside the sand table, among the four teams located on the southwest side, the team flags they were surrounding were changing direction.

Without the slightest hesitation upon receiving the order, they immediately dispersed in the direction the team flag was waving.

A dozen seconds later, almost as soon as they were in position, a player wearing a tight-fitting suit was seen running into the formation like lightning.

Behind him, led by a semi-transparent bat, hundreds of birds and beasts screeched and chased after him. It was unclear what the tight-fitting suit had done to make these monsters pursue him so relentlessly.

Yuan Yan stared at the sand table. Seeing the demon enter the Four Symbols Demon Extermination Formation, he immediately issued a command, and the formation on the sand table, which resembled a fishing net, suddenly contracted.

The twenty small flags closest to the beast horde quickly changed formation, forming a circle that surrounded the monsters.

Surrounding the monsters was just the beginning. Each team was further divided into four groups based on the players' characteristics: Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, Vermilion Bird, and White Tiger.

The moment the circle closed in, each group of "Vermilion Birds," skilled in energy control and possessing auxiliary abilities, simultaneously channeled energy into their team flags.

The team flags are connected to each other, forming a special barrier that isolates the monsters from it.

A large amount of energy was transformed into spiritual energy under the effect of the team flag and injected into the barrier, creating a spiritual energy area in the demon realm.

Spiritual energy is no less dangerous than poison to demons. Under the high concentration of spiritual energy, the demons let out uneasy howls. They couldn't care less about chasing the scout and wanted to break out of this spiritual energy circle.

Since they were already here, Yuan Yan wasn't going to let them leave easily.

Under his command, the "Azure Dragons," skilled in long-range attacks, unleashed their firepower into the spiritual energy circle.

Wu Changzhen's martial luck can increase the damage dealt by surrounding cultivators to demons and evil spirits by 20% and reduce the influence of demonic energy by 30%.

With both effects combined, players' damage output increases significantly. Combined with the weakening effect of spiritual energy on monsters, this allows them to easily penetrate the monsters' defenses.

Of the four hundred demons that entered the formation, seventy or eighty had already fallen by the time they reached the edge of the spiritual energy circle.

Immediately following were the "White Tigers," skilled in close combat, who did not stop the demons from leaving. They even made way for the demons to pass.

All they had to do was inflict as much damage as possible on the monsters as they fled past them.

If you fight them, the demons will be trapped within the spiritual energy circle. If you ignore them and leave through the gaps they leave, it's like taking a beating on your own and enduring the damage from the white tigers.

The demons' aversion to spiritual energy, coupled with their lack of intelligence, causes them to subconsciously not resist and only try to escape.

After this round of killings, another seventy or eighty monsters will fall.

When the demons break through the long and short attacks and prepare to leave through the pre-reserved passage, the "Black Tortoises," who are skilled in defense and have various buffs stacked on their bodies, will appear and block the demons' last escape route.

With the White Tiger's backstab and the Azure Dragon's pinpoint kill, in less than five minutes, all four hundred demons were killed or wounded, with only the transparent bats at the demon general level managing to break through the encirclement.

But waiting for it outside the encirclement were three ranked players.

The battle came and went quickly. After the battle, everyone skillfully gathered the demon corpses together, extracted the demonic energy from them, and distributed them equally among all the cultivators who participated in the battle.

They then quickly returned to their team's location, waiting for the next wave of monsters to attack.

The cultivators in the world instance plane are generally not very strong, but they have their own unique strengths in spiritual energy and formation systems.

For example, this Four Symbols Demon-Slaying Formation, once activated, connects the players' energy within the formation. Theoretically, it can easily devour demons of the same size, provided there is no intelligent demon general leading it.

The only two difficulties in implementing this formation are getting players to willingly follow orders and how to distribute resources after the battle in a way that satisfies the players.

These were originally problems, but after Wu Chang killed the old turtle in Dongshan Lake, the players dared not openly resist his orders.

After experiencing the effects of martial arts, they have come to like this safe and efficient way of exorcising demons.

Although the demonic energy was divided equally among all players after the battle, which was somewhat unfair to some of the stronger players, they were now leaving the team to go solo. Leaving aside whether they could suppress more demonic energy, even their own survival was a question.

Weighing the pros and cons, I decided to hold back.

With the cooperation of the players, the Wind Demon-Slaying Army was able to hunt down demons at an extremely fast speed. In just one morning, they killed no less than five thousand demons and collected nearly a thousand blood talismans.

On their journey alone, the demon-slaying army encountered thousands of demons in a single day, a number that shocked Yuan Yan.

But what surprised him even more was the fighting power of the Celestials.

The power of cultivators of the Great Profound Realm is mostly systematic, and their main purpose is the pursuit of the Dao and longevity. Even for a cultivation sect like the Divine Sword Sect, which focuses on combat, combat is a byproduct of their pursuit of the Dao.

But the Celestials are different. Their existence seems to be solely for fighting. They cannot sense the Celestials' Dao from their attacks; all they can perceive is pure destruction.

Even when celestial beings and demons were fighting together, they couldn't even distinguish between them.

It's as if their sole purpose in existence is to create chaos.

Yuan Yan shook his head, thinking to himself that the celestial beings had risked their lives to fight against the demons after returning from the overseas immortal mountains, and he himself had secretly criticized them, which was really wrong of him.

He banished the thought of being impolite from his mind, took out a map of the demon realm, drew an X on their current location, then looked at Wu Chang and said:
"Sect Leader Tang, according to the intelligence reported by the scouts, all the demons in the surrounding area have been eliminated."

He looked up at the sky; it was already late afternoon, and the sky was gradually darkening.

"Sect Leader Tang, the reconnaissance range of the scouts is limited at night, and the coordination between the various teams in the Four Symbols Demon Extermination Formation will also become more difficult." "At the same time, demons are more active at night, and there may be large groups of demons numbering over a thousand. A sudden collision with them will cause a large number of casualties."

"Instead of risking continuing forward, it would be better to clear out a city before nightfall to rest and recuperate."

After listening, Wu Chang nodded and said, "Let's do as Yuan Shaoqing says."

Gathering 10,000 Demon-Suppressing Blood Talismans is a shared task for all four demon-slaying armies; his anxiety alone is useless.

Moreover, Lü Changgeng was focused on opening the Heavenly Gate, and his mind was filled with how to complete the third stage of the sacrificial ceremony. At least half of the demons that Lü Changgeng killed would be used to fill the Heavenly Gang Demon-Slaying Sword.

He stayed up all night working overtime to kill demons, just to catch up on the progress of Lü Changgeng, who was slacking off, and to clean up the mess, which was completely unacceptable to him.

He looked at the map and found that there was a city called Yancheng five miles away, so he ordered the scouts to go and check it out.

The scouts quickly reported back that everything was normal in Yan City, with no signs of monster activity.

He immediately ordered the Wind-Character Demon-Slaying Army to rush to Yancheng.

In the dungeon world, for cultivators who dare to conquer the Tianquan Immortal Mansion, having a photographic memory is just a basic skill.

As the one who came closest to success among all the strategists, Yuan Yan's existence is no less than a living, mobile database; his erudition and prodigious memory are beyond description.

He knew the situation of every city in the Great Xuan territory like the back of his hand.

On the way to Yancheng, Wu Chang learned about the general situation of Yancheng from Yuan Yan.

In terms of urban population and economy, Yancheng ranks in the middle in Tianlan Province, with a population of about 36,000. There are two cultivation sects in the city, and the leaders of the sects are both second-rate experts in the Spirit Control Realm.

Yancheng was some distance from Liuyun City, and it did not fall immediately upon the appearance of the Demon Realm. The cultivators in the city ordered the women and children to leave first, intending to hold the city and wait for reinforcements from the Human Alliance.

The last plea for help from Yancheng came on the fourth day after the appearance of the Demon Realm, and there has been no further news since.

According to Yuan Yan's description, Yan City should have been attacked and captured by demons, resulting in the destruction of the city and the death of its inhabitants. However, when they actually arrived in Yan City, they found that the situation there was much better than they had imagined.

There weren't many corpses around Yan City. There were traces of war on the city walls, but not many, suggesting that it had only been disturbed by a few monsters.

Upon arriving at the city gate, one can see that the gate of Yancheng is wide open, with no signs of damage, as if it was opened voluntarily without any resistance.

Entering the city through the city gate, there were no signs of street fighting, no ruins, and even the streets showed little sign of chaos.

It was as if people were still living here the day before Wu Chang and the others arrived.

Wu Chang looked at Yuan Yan and asked:
"Does Yuan Shaoqing know what happened here?"

Yuan Yan shook his head. His understanding of Yan City came from the Human Alliance and the records of the Great Xuan, and he had never actually been to Yan City.

This was the first time he had ever seen such a scene.

He went to the city gate and observed it carefully for a while, then pointed to the gate and said:

“Someone has set up an array here. Their array skills are superior to mine, and I cannot see the full picture of the array for the time being.”

Wu Chang asked, "In your opinion, Yuan Shaoqing, is there any danger here?"

Yuan Yan shook his head and said, "I can tell that the formation here is just meant to conceal something; there is no danger."

Wu Chang laughed and said, "Then it's alright."

The eerie scene in Yancheng made the players uneasy. They would rather fight monsters all night than spend the night in such a strange place.

If this were a horror movie, any character who dared to enter such a city gate would be immediately accused of being idiotic.

Wu Chang acted as if nothing had happened, instructing everyone not to worry, leaving some people to keep watch on the city wall at night, while the others rested well and would set off again at dawn the next day.

Upon hearing Wu Chang's order, the players had no choice but to stay, even if they were unwilling.

While spending the night in a dangerous area is a major taboo in horror movies, being alone near a dangerous area can lead to certain death.

The players had no choice but to agree to stick together as a team and try to make sure no one was alone tonight.

While Yuan Yan was setting up defensive formations in the city, Wu Chang took Eileen with him, and the two of them stealthily made their way towards the center of the city.

The reason he wanted the Wind Demon-Slaying Army to stay overnight in Yan City was certainly not to use them as bait to try and catch something, but because he had already discovered something unusual in the city.

Yuan Yan couldn't tell because he was only skilled in formations and didn't understand spatial magic.

Wu Chang, who possessed lord-level spatial magic, could tell at a glance that there was an inner world set up in the city before even entering it.

Yancheng not only has an inner world, but also a human destiny emanating from within it.

In the world of dungeons, the mention of humanity and destiny inevitably brings to mind Emperor Zhaoning.

In the world instance, Wu Chang had the most contact with Emperor Zhaoning, but he also couldn't see through Emperor Zhaoning the most. He always suspected that Emperor Zhaoning had some kind of scheme, but he had no evidence.

He didn't invite Yuan Yan and the others, but only brought Eileen, because he suspected that the abnormality in Yancheng came from Emperor Zhaoning.

He will decide whether to make it public once he has ascertained the true situation of Yancheng.

After all, he had already completed three side quests in the Great Xuan Dynasty camp. As long as it wasn't a major problem, he didn't plan to fall out with Emperor Zhaoning. In fact, out of consideration for the Human Elixir and the Disaster Relief Banner, he could even help Emperor Zhaoning deal with some troubles.

Following the aura of the inner world and the human destiny, Wu Chang arrived at a temple with the words "Jingxin Temple" written on its plaque.

The main hall of the temple houses a large golden Buddha statue with its eyes closed and a compassionate expression.

The entrance to the inner world is on the prayer mat in front of the Buddha.

Normally, after kneeling before the Buddha, one can enter the hidden inner world of Yancheng. However, as a space lord, Wu Chang doesn't need to go through such trouble. He simply reaches out and tears open a door.

He and Eileen stepped inside, and in a flash, they entered another city called Yan City.

They appeared at the gates of Yan City, the same city, the same open gates. The only difference between the inner world of Yan City and the other world was that there were many people inside.

It was just getting dark, the busiest time of day.

The city was bustling with people and brightly lit. Despite it not being a holiday, colorful lanterns hung all around, creating a festive atmosphere.

Wu Chang and Eileen concealed their presence and followed the flow of people.

Through brief observation, he could confirm that everyone in Yancheng was alive. No wonder there were no signs of battle in the real Yancheng, but the people in the city had disappeared without a trace, neither alive nor dead. It turned out they had all hidden here.

Moreover, judging from the population density, this place not only accommodated the original residents of Yancheng, but also gathered many disaster victims from surrounding cities and counties.

They all wore smiles, appearing more relaxed than in Zhenyue City and Shuanghu City, showing no signs of being affected by the Demon Realm.

Eileen told Wu Chang that they were all mentally clear-headed and unaffected by the ability.

Their satisfaction and acceptance of their current lives converge into the human spirit, flowing towards the core of the inner world.

Judging from the direction, that's where Jingxin Temple is located.

It is obvious that the purpose of spending such a great deal of money to create this world is to gather humanitarian blessings by saving disaster victims.

Wu Chang and Eileen arrived at the Tranquil Temple in the Inner World. The temple was heavily guarded, with many cultivators both overt and covert. The city-guarding cultivators that Yuan Yan mentioned were probably all here.

Jingxin Temple is the entrance and exit to the Inner World. To leave the Inner World, you must pass through Jingxin Temple.

If someone accidentally enters the Goose City in the inner world, they cannot leave without their permission.

No wonder the other world has gathered so many disaster victims without revealing a word.

However, the few second-rate experts could not stop Wu Chang and Eileen. The two entered Jingxin Temple openly and without the cultivator noticing.

In the main hall of Jingxin Temple, Wu Chang looked at the Buddha statue that gathered the humanistic fortune of the entire Li World Yan City and slowly frowned.

The Buddha in the other world still had its eyes closed and its face showed compassion, but on its full forehead, there was an extra crescent-shaped vertical pupil.

(End of this chapter)