Revolt against the Heavens

In the Desolate Dune Desert, a group of over a thousand demons was walking. They had caravans pulled by demonic beasts. Among the group, the clothes were very disparate. Some were wearing red and black armor with the emblem of City Lord Sihe. Others also had the emblem of the Nalupu Kingdom on their armors, but they were few. Then, there was a larger group of demons who were not homogeneous at all. Almost each one was wearing something else and not a single one had a complete armor.

Finally, there was a last group, the largest, who wasn't wearing any armor at all. In fact, they didn't even have shoes to begin with. And their weapons were very rudimentary. They were wielding halberds. Some also had a sword at their side and a few had bows in their back. Clearly, those were all slaves. And they were forming some kind of perimeter around the entire group. Each group of slaves was led by a soldier in armor.

Thanks to those soldiers, the group was marching in a perfect formation. It wasn't rare for the soldiers to issue orders so the formation didn't break apart. Everyone had to be synchronous. Considering that they had been attacked several times already, they were being extremely careful.

In the very middle of their formation, there was a rich palanquin carried by burly slaves without any weapon. As the sun was very high in the sky, the palanquin was completely close. However, everyone could still feel the gaze from the woman inside. As a 2nd-grade Accomplished Demon, she could sense everything that was going on around her by using her spiritual senses. Unfortunately for her, she had had no time to relax recently. With all those attacks, she was forced to push her spiritual senses to the limit in order to try and feel any change in the sand around them.

Just like Cao Yun, her spiritual senses had a hard time getting deep into the sand. But unlike him, she had nothing to help her and it didn't feel familiar at all. In fact, the faint intent within the sand was almost rejecting her. Thus, she had to really exert herself to be able to sense anything at all. Hopefully, the Sand Wolves Tribe wasn't buried too deep in the sand.

That woman was sitting cross-legged in her palanquin, her eyes closed. Her skin was a bit lighter than some demons as she was always hiding from the sun when she could. At the same time, her skin was extremely smooth and she didn't seem to be older than twenty-five, or even younger. On her pretty face, there was some light make-up and a few locks of red hair were falling on its sides. She was Xin Zhe, a close associate of City Lord Sihe.

Her current mission should have been easier and she was getting incredibly frustrated as time was passing by. At first, everything had gone very well. But it had been weeks since they had heard anything from their vanguard parties. Most likely, they were all dead. Worse than that, they were perpetually harassed by some Sand Wolves Tribe. Recently, they had been able to capture one of them alive. But as she was trying to probe his mind, some seal attacked her from within his sea of consciousness. While fighting that seal, she had killed him and hadn't been able to extract anything out of him. Considering her talents in that domain, it had infuriated her even more.

There wasn't any other way to put it. She hated this damn desert!

When she found the Sand Wolves Tribe, she would make them pay with tears and blood. Of course, she couldn't kill or maim them as her master wanted them as slaves. But she had many ways to torment and torture them. That being said, even now, she was too busy trying to sense anything at all to think about it. She didn't dare splitting her focus. The next time, the Sand Wolves Tribe attacked, she would be ready. At least, she was convinces of it.

The sun was finally at its highest point in the sky. By then, the heat around the group was extremely intense. The soldiers in armor were all Golden Blood Children so they could resist that kind of heat even while wearing that much metal. Even the slaves weren't in a bad state. After all, they had all come from tribes in the desert. Looking at them, it was clear that they shared common traits, like leathery skins. But at the same time, they also had obvious differences showing that they had been abducted from different tribes all over the place. However, not a single one of them was too affected by the sun.

On the other hand, the mercenaries weren't too well. A large part of them had not reached the Golden Blood Child realm yet. As such, this heat was a bit difficult to contend with. Of course, it wasn't anything they couldn't withstand, but it was still very uncomfortable. Some were even eyeing the palanquin, feeling jealous of Xin Zhe. But not one of them was stupid enough to say anything about that. Who had told them to be weak after all?! If they had been Accomplished Demon, they could have ridden in that palanquin. But they wouldn't have needed one to begin with.

A general close to the palanquin sent a signal to his men, rising his closed fist. Quickly, the order spread and the entire group stopped marching. At that very moment, they all heard a whistle in the distance. An arrow had been shot rather far from their group. For everyone, there was no doubt about it, this was a signal from the Sand Wolves Tribe. But they couldn't know whether it was just a ruse or an actual attack. Indeed, they had been attacked by some tribesmen, but they had also been tricked by fake attacks as well. Although they knew that this was meant to throw them off, they were forced to take everything seriously. Even if those small raids couldn't wipe out the army, no one wanted to be among the victims. And that was why the slaves were surrounding the entire group.

A small battalion of slaves was sent forward with an armored soldier leading them. When they reached the location where that arrow had been shot, they didn't find anything at all. Most likely, this was a feint.

Just as they were coming back toward the army, screeches echoed in the sky. Suddenly, giant eagles dove toward the demons. What the slaves knew but had not told their masters was that such an arrow was meant to attract the attention of demonic beasts, not demons. In fact, it was often used to distract them away from the tribe in case of emergency. Even with all her seals and mind attacks, Xin Zhe couldn't perform a Soul Memory Search. In other words, she could force the slaves to answer her questions, but she couldn't force them to tell everything that they knew as she simply couldn't know the extent of their knowledge.

And with the numerous attacks from the Sand Wolves Tribe, the slaves had even become more rebellious. It was irritating her even more. Maybe she would need to imitate Boss Gui. If she skinned a few of them alive to teach the others a lesson, they might be more open about what they knew. But then, City Lord Sihe would probably be pissed off. Besides, she would simply diminish her own forces and that could even impact the morale of the entire army as it would show that she was losing her nerves...

Three large eagles attacked the still army. Those were Sun Radiating Bald Eagles, 5-core demonic beasts. As they dove down, they lacerated a few slaves and killed some mercenaries. All of them were ready for battle and tried to retaliate but the Sun Radiating Bald Eagles were not stupid. After using the surprise to their advantage, they flew away with a few preys they had captured.

Completely infuriated, Xin Zhe left her palanquin. From her spatial ring, several metallic disks appeared and she threw them toward the escaping Sun Radiating Bald Eagles. Around them, the light of the sun was making discerning their exact position difficult. Every soldier could see several faint images of the eagles instead of a single clear one. But for an Accomplished Demon, this was a useless trick as she could see without her eyes.

Her metallic disks all reached their targets. In an instant, thee three Sun Radiating Bald Eagles were cut apart. Several pieces fell to the ground in a spectacle of gore. It was clear to everyone that Xin Zhe was reaching her limit. After the demonic beasts, some were afraid that they would fall victim to her anger. Instead of sending joy through the army as their attackers had been killed, they were more anxious than ever. And she could also feel it.

"We'll set camp for the day. Since they wanted to devour us, let's enjoy their flesh instead."

Giving orders to some of her men, she also asked for wine and dried meat they had in their spatial rings to be distributed among the army. Although they had not prepared for such a long expedition, they had taken more provision than necessary, thankfully. Of course, the three corpses were not enough to feed everyone. But since their flesh was better than the dried meat they had in their spatial rings, it was distributed to the soldiers and mercenaries that had already showed their valor. Then, the rest was given in priority to the high ranking soldiers and mercenaries.

Looking in the distance, where the arrow had come from, Xin Zhe could imagine the blood running through her fingers. She couldn't wait to get her hands on those primitive tribes. This time, she imagined many torments she could inflict upon them without upsetting City Lord Sihe. They would pay for wasting her time. If she could, she would love to bathe in their blood.

-

In the Sand Wolves Tribe's main settlement, Cao Yun was finally ready. It had been several months since he had first arrived. For the time being, General Sha Lang Hu's strategy was working just fine. They were receiving messages almost every week and Xin Zhe's progress had slowed down considerably. At the moment, Cao Yun was almost certain that his plan would work. Although Dian Mo wasn't as useful as usual, he had still helped him quite a lot, he was forced to admit it. And the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' was close to completion.

Assisted with several Bamboo Maps he had drawn thanks to the tribe's accurate maps, he had already planned the whole thing. Considering the size and the complexity of the array formation though, he was forced to ask the help of most of the village.

Although he had been mostly secluded this whole time, he had interacted with the entire tribe. By now, he knew everyone by name as each one had wanted to meet with Tie Po. Chieftain Sha Chai Ren had even told him of the tale of Tie Po and why this name had been chosen for him. To put it simply, Tie Po was their equivalent of Emperor Nuwa, but he had failed. Around fifteen thousand years ago, he had tried to lead the nomad tribes against the Nalupu Kingdom of the time. Slavery had also plagued the demons. After losing their human slaves, they had not waited long before enslaving their own kind as it felt natural to them.

Tie Po was a legendary figure who had stood up against that. Obviously, he wasn't opposed to human slavery in the least. But he deemed that a demon should never treat another demon like a mere human. So he led a rebellion against the Nalupu Kingdom. Tie Po was stopped and massacred. Most of his close followers were also tortured to death in front of large crowds. But his fight had not been for nothing. The Nalupu Kingdom had been weakened and they couldn't hunt down the nomad tribes who had been united under Tie Po. Unfortunately, this union didn't last long and several centuries later, the Nalupu Kingdom had become stronger than before. Still, traces of these events remained.

Demons who had learned to live without slaves didn't try to enslave their own kind as much as before. Of course, it changed very recently because of this Empyrean Asura Theocracy.

Even though Cao Yun didn't want to get attached to this tribe, he was forced to admit that he did in fact care about them. Now, he was almost certain that he couldn't abandon them even if his plans failed and the situation was critical. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to make that choice. Thankfully, there was no child in the settlement. Because of his history with his younger sister, Cao Yun was weak when it came to children. He knew it, but this didn't change anything. In fact, even Xixue was causing his memories of his sister to resurface. He could not abandon her, no matter what happened.

It took more than twenty days, but the 'Golden Cicada Sheds Its Skin' had been set up. According to his estimations, it had around seventy-eight percent of efficiency. For such a complex array formation, this was extraordinary, especially considering that Cao Yun wasn't either a Spirit Warrior nor an Accomplished Demon. Even a middle Spirit Warrior would probably have a hard time dealing with such an array formation. And because the knowledge of array formations was really poor in the Desolate Sepulcher, Cao Yun was confident that not even Xin Zhe would see through it.

In fact, from the reports he had read, she was becoming more and more upset. This would make her careless. The mere fact that she was making her army march in a tight formation was a sign that she wasn't a great strategist. Or maybe, she simply wasn't used to dealing with array formations. No general in the Hongchen Kingdom would have allowed his forces in such a tight formation as it would increase the risks of falling into a trap like the one Cao Yun had set up. Array formations were a real problem during military campaigns. But demons in the Desolate Sepulcher just weren't used to them, as they weren't used to poison.

Cao Yun had indeed the possibility of using poison, but even the Sand Wolves Tribe wouldn't approve of it, so he had decided not to use any.