Chapter 72: Naivety

Chapter 72: Naivety

Black clouds pressed down on the region, and civilians frantically ran toward the shelters. Ghost Gu Worms flew out from the vortex, devouring the people fleeing on the ground. Many carrying children barely escaped being swallowed by the worms before they could flee.

Cruel attacks were indiscriminately unleashed on ordinary people as the ghost clan pressed their invasion. Just as they were widening their invasion's reach, a violent roar erupted in the sky, and countless flying Ghost Cultivators were intercepted as human cultivators teleported in.

In that moment, numerous formations unfolded, slowing the ghost clan's descent.

During pre-war preparations, the Immortal Alliance had secretly constructed formation anchor points at various garrison points and organized a large number of Artificers to forge dedicated communication artifacts.

They spared no expense, carving out slots and providing Image Stones free of charge, allowing for long-distance holographic conversations when needed.

To prevent misuse, the communication devices required a blood-binding ritual to activate, making it impossible even for allies to use them.

All cultivators entered a state of combat readiness, and a large-scale temporary communication network was established—far more stable than Message Talismans, essentially the cultivation world's internet.

"Garrison Point 27: Two Senior Ghost Generals are leading an assault!"

"Garrison Point 42: Ghost clan forces spotted!"

"Garrison Point 123: Under attack!"

Countless messages were being broadcast through the temporary communication system.

At Garrison Point 29, over a hundred Soul-Shattering Cannons were aimed at the perimeter, with pills mixed into the cannon's payload. A cultivator skilled in long-range tracking techniques shouted, "Qian (northwest) position! Shift right by three degrees! Enemy forces have entered the five-hundred-mile range!"

A single blast killed numerous Ghost Cultivators, but the first to land were merely cannon fodder used by the ghost clan to pave the way. The Ghost Generals who followed timed the cannons' firing intervals and led their troops in a charge.

The ghost cultivators launched surprise attacks while also seemingly searching for something.

On the other side, the Chu family scions split into two teams—one transporting supplies, the other patrolling other routes alongside the main force. The defensive perimeter was too vast; no one knew from which direction the ghost clan might descend next.

Within the garrison point, Ling Zhu had been temporarily assigned to the Alchemy Alliance due to her special constitution, and Chu Jingxi was staring at the communication device.

This was a collective decision—to keep him off the battlefield for now.

Without first weakening the enemy's main forces or getting near their leader, appearing rashly would only backfire. Chu Jingxi was held back from the front lines when a notification tone suddenly rang.

"Side quest activated!"

"Objective: Kill 100,000 Ghost Cultivators

Current progress: 0/100,000

Reward: You know what.

Failure penalty: You know what."

Chu Jingxi: "..." What the hell did he know?!

Killing people with his thoughts from a thousand miles away?

The system gave no response to this absurdity. After the AFK incident, it had been coming online far less frequently than before.

Chu Jingxi had no choice but to take things one step at a time. He said to Yan Zizhan, "Look at these messages coming in."

Currently, the communication device was mostly receiving reports from various garrison points about ghost clan invasions.

But Chu Jingxi noticed something else: "Garrison points 1 through 40-plus all report 'invasion,' clearly indicating the ghost clan is launching a full-scale offensive. The next set of points use the word 'spotted,' suggesting the ghost clan has adopted a more dispersed strategy. As for points past one hundred, 'under attack'... that means the enemy is launching sneak attacks."

The central region was a key target, so it made sense for the ghost clan to send large numbers of Ghost Cultivators there.

However, the moment Chu Jingxi began speaking, Yan Zizhan had already spotted the anomaly: "If they've chosen a full assault, launching simultaneous attacks from multiple fronts and pushing straight through would be more effective."

Even if they were committing to a desperate gamble, an attack from a single direction should at least involve multiple Senior Ghost Generals.

Given the urgency, Chu Jingxi hesitated only a moment before making a decision.

Just as he was about to pick up the communication device, Yan Zizhan stopped him: "Let me."

Chu Jingxi frowned. He didn't like others taking responsibility on his behalf.

But this time, Yan Zizhan didn't follow Chu Jingxi's wishes. In everyone's eyes, Chu Jingxi was a trump card—if he made a wrong judgment, not everyone would necessarily be understanding.

In this position he'd been thrust into, Chu Jingxi couldn't afford to fail—and Yan Zizhan wouldn't let him.

Yan Zizhan immediately sent a message to those garrison points under heavy attack: "There may be a trap. Suggest withdrawing to the second defense line."

The message quickly reached the outer garrison points. The Taiqing Sect cultivators were highly disciplined and didn't doubt Yan Zizhan, swiftly retreating: "Fall back!"

Other garrison points hesitated upon receiving the message. Just a vague "there may be a trap" telling them to abandon their gains—who could accept that on the battlefield?

The Ghost General attacking the Immortal Alliance's outpost saw the enemy switch from offense to defense and sneered, "These cowards are scared! Kill them all!"

The arrogant voice rang out over the trampled corpses: "There's more flesh waiting for us in the inner city!"

Any red-blooded person would be enraged by such a sight, but the Immortal Alliance leader's expression turned grim. He didn't even say "retreat"—he shouted, "Get out now!"

If they were speaking their native tongue, a few words would suffice, but deliberately shouting in the common tongue was a clear sign something was wrong.

Not all garrison points reacted so quickly. Some missed their best opportunity and were crushed by Senior Ghost Generals, helplessly watching as an eerie red light approached at blinding speed.

The red light was extremely hot, filled with destructive power, and the cultivators' eyes bulged in fury.

They faced the eerie red light and, in their last moments, could only activate the Image Stone function on their communication devices before being annihilated in the glow.

Within just a few days of the ghost clan's invasion, the Golden Immortals of the central region had defeated four Senior Ghost Generals and annihilated thirty ghost clan squads.

However, because of the failure to evacuate in time on the first day, three garrison points were overrun. Two of those points happened to be located at strategic fortresses with sea routes, mountain passes, and multiple thoroughfares, creating a wide-open gap for the ghost clan's large-scale invasion.

Garrison Point 27 was dangerously close—only one outpost away from Chu Jingxi and the others. If that gap opened, it would give the ghost clan the opening they needed to break through at a single point.

At that moment, Chu Jingxi and the others were still watching the final moments of the garrison cultivators. In the sudden red light, a blurry figure appeared, and with two simple swings of its arms, a group of cultivators disintegrated in the glow.

Chu Tiannan's voice was tense, every syllable forced out: "From the fallen garrisons, a few young members of my Chu family managed to escape."

It wasn't luck—the Immortal Alliance had already issued orders beforehand that the Chu family's young cultivators would be used for other purposes later on the battlefield, and in a true emergency, they were to be prioritized for extraction.

"Now is not the time for grief," a Taiqing Sect cultivator said sternly. "The front lines haven't been broken. The central region must be held no matter what."

Beyond the second defense line, a large number of ghost clan forces were still lying in wait.

The command center went quiet. New messages kept flooding the communication device as nearby garrison points discussed the matter:

[Simply retreating isn't a solution.]

[That red light seems more like the effect of a magical artifact. The ghost clan didn't press their advantage—perhaps using the artifact causes backlash, or it requires time to recharge?]

A Heaven Immortal from one garrison point proposed: [We could launch a preemptive strike before the ghost clan makes their next move.]

For the moment, no one responded.

Chu Jingxi pursed his lips, unsurprised by this situation.

The ghost clan army's biggest trump card right now was that red light that could kill cultivators in an instant. Under normal circumstances, whether it relied on a magical artifact or innate power, the more heaven-defying the ability, the more limitations it came with.

But that was just speculation—what if that killing red light could be unleashed multiple times in succession, and the ghost clan was deliberately pausing to lure them into a trap?

Sending a few cultivators to test it would be suicide, while throwing their core forces at it would be gambling with their lives.

In the end, the Golden Immortal stationed in the central region announced that specific orders would come within the hour.

Many knew full well that this hour might be meant for Gold Immortal Fulu to trace back cause and effect—something that would definitely come with a heavy backlash. Wasting a Golden Immortal's strength on something like this just wasn't worth it.

A Taiqing Sect cultivator said grimly, "No, we can't wait. If we wait any longer, we'll be stuck on the back foot."

At present, the ten regions where the terrifying red light had erupted all happened to be clustered around them.

Almost everyone's gaze turned to the same person.

If there was any reason the ghost clan would go after the toughest nut at the center first, it could only be Chu Jingxi.

"I recall the ghost clan has a Ghost General good at divination? Could it be that they deduced Chu Jingxi's approximate location and launched attacks with that as the center?"

The moment those words left his mouth, an urgent report came in from outside—

"After seizing stronghold twenty-seven, the ghost clan has launched a surprise assault on stronghold twenty-eight!"

Once stronghold twenty-eight fell, they'd be next in line.

Yet there were also ghost clan forces outside their own stronghold; they could barely hold their own, let alone send reinforcements. Just as the Taiqing Sect cultivator had said earlier, just sitting around waiting would only make things worse.

"There's only one way to save them," a cultivator looked at Chu Jingxi, "use the immobilization spell to freeze the Ghost Cultivator at the source of the red light, and we'll hit it with everything we've got to wipe it out."

Yan Zizhan furrowed his brows.

One of the ghost clan's main goals was to kill Chu Jingxi—they'd definitely have prepared countermeasures. Going there now would most likely be walking right into the lion's den.

The cultivator noticed his concern and said, "The ghost clan shouldn't know which stronghold he's in specifically, or they'd have already thrown everything they had at us. There's no way they set up counters for him in all ten possible strongholds."

Besides, even Gold Immortal Xuanlu had tried everything and still couldn't escape Chu Jingxi's immobilization technique.

From every angle, the argument held up—continuing to wait was just sitting there waiting to die.

The cultivator who made the proposal also promised to lead the charge at the very front, even if it meant self-detonation, to cut a bloody path and coordinate with Chu Jingxi to approach the source.

As the focus of all the pressure, Chu Jingxi remained silent, seriously treating everyone in the room as his enemy.

Right now, the cautious, the impatient, the clever, and the not-so-clever were all in one room. Chu Jingxi kept analyzing the ghost clan's thinking through their words.

Once he'd heard enough, he finally spoke up: "I've been thinking about one question."

Everyone instinctively held their breath, waiting to hear what he'd say.

"Is the ghost clan's attacker a moron?"

"..."

Before anyone could react to his seemingly random remark, Chu Jingxi continued: "Given the power of that red light, even if we fell back to the second defense line, the ghost clan could just chase us down and kill us."

According to intelligence from the Immortal Alliance, the Alliance had pulled back at just the right time, yet when that lethal red light was fired at them, it completely missed.

Not only was the attacker brain-dead, but he was clumsy too?

His words made everyone realize how weird it really was.

"A powerful being never seen in past wars, yet apparently not too bright. The ghost clan got really anxious when you widened the distance, which means speed is their weak point... Most importantly, the ghost clan seems to think they can restrain me, charging in with reckless confidence."

Chu Jingxi felt like some part of this was oddly familiar.

His gaze accidentally met Yan Zizhan's, and in that instant, the same idea hit them both at once—they thought of the same bastard: Gold Immortal Xuanlu!

More precisely, a trick Gold Immortal Xuanlu had used before.

"Puppet Dao Soldiers!" Chu Jingxi said. "At the Boundless Wasteland, Gold Immortal Xuanlu brought numerous Puppet Dao Soldiers, lying in wait to ambush me near the Sea of Blood."

Before he even finished, a Taiqing Sect cultivator slammed the table: "That's right!"

Xuan Lu had been in cahoots with the ghost clan for a long time. Since he could casually whip out that many puppets back then, there was no reason not to use them in this invasion.

But he quickly shook his head. "There's no way the ghost clan could make puppets that powerful."

Everyone had the same reaction—a flash of realization, then instinctively denying it. After all, the demon race's skill in this area was already top-tier, and the ghost clan couldn't surpass it, and Gold Immortal Xuanlu was hardly a master at it either.

Chu Jingxi didn't think anything was impossible.

Comparing the footage from the Recording Stone with the images from the fallen strongholds, the blurry figure in the red light had the exact same attack moves, angles, and turning directions.

It was practically robotic, like a machine.

"There's no way the ghost clan bred a batch of identical super-soldiers."

"..."

The cultivator who'd spoken earlier swallowed hard, focusing on the worst-case possibility: "If it's puppets, we're screwed. You can't exactly flirt with a hunk of iron."

Chu Jingxi couldn't argue with that.

So far, every enemy that had triggered his Fellow Daoist skills had at least a sliver of consciousness, including corrupted, mutated corpses.

Even the Heavenly Thunder was imbued with the will of heaven.

As for truly lifeless things like magical artifacts, if their wielders were conscious beings, the system counted them as attacks from enemies.

But if it were puppets with no self-awareness at all, that was a whole different story. Chu Jingxi had never thought about this before, and a wave of delayed dread suddenly hit him.

They were at a major disadvantage, and bad luck never comes alone—the next second, a distress call came in from stronghold twenty-eight.

They didn't even have time to talk—they just projected directly.

On the battlefield, ten thousand li out, the red light was clearly impossible to stop. The cultivators at stronghold twenty-eight pretended to retreat, and when the distance closed, a squad of their fastest cultivators suddenly burst out and dove headfirst into the dense enemy ranks.

The ghost clan seemed to sense what was coming and shouted in their native tongue: "Stop them—!"

But no one could stop a self-destruct. Amid flesh, blood, and spiritual light, the human cultivators' self-destruction turned a hundred li of land into a giant meat grinder.

Before the terrifying heat wave even died down, another squad of human cultivators charged in.

A second wave? The ghost clan instinctively fell back, and when they saw the stronghold's cultivators not making a move, they flew into a rage.

Knowing that charging into the enemy camp meant certain death, the human cultivators who charged in did their best to record intel on the ghost clan below from a high vantage point.

In the split second before the ghosts could strike, they annihilated themselves.

From a stronghold away—close enough to see, far enough to be helpless—they could only watch as living people were reduced, in the next instant, to a torn scrap of clothing fluttering in the wind.

The feed on the communicator was a little distorted, and the younger family scions like Chu Tiannan couldn't bear it and instinctively looked away during the second self-detonation.

Chu Jingxi, however, didn't blink once, his eyes glued to every single frame.

Yan Zizhan was the same, and suddenly he pointed at a specific spot.

The Ghost Cultivators were almost all wrapped in defensive cloaks, looking like a vast, dark sea at first glance. At the spot he pointed to, during both previous self-detonations, the ghosts in the rear had almost instantly clustered protectively around one cloaked Ghost Cultivator.

This "Ghost Cultivator" was even taller than the average ghost, but his face and build were impossible to make out—seemingly some kind of confusion spell on his robe to hide his true appearance.

Chu Jingxi saw it too, thought for a moment, then put the communicator away with a blank face.

"Let's go. We're providing backup."

The people around him were taken aback and immediately tried to talk him out of it. From the footage, the ghosts had that cloaked figure shielded at the very back—even a Golden Immortal couldn't break through the encirclement to take him out.

"What if it really is a puppet?" His special constitution wouldn't do anything.

From the footage, Chu Jingxi had basically gotten the full picture, including the enemy forces currently attacking the stronghold.

His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Puppet or not, even if Heaven's Dao itself showed up, it would be overshadowed by me."

Everyone was stunned.

System: "???"

Author's note:

Bonus scene:

Chu Jingxi: "One smile brings down a city, another brings down a nation."