Not Just Quantity, but Quality!

Inside Longdan City, a pall of gloom hung over the Xia Hai Legion's headquarters. Xia Donghai and a gathering of core officers sat together, their faces dark and silent. "About how many more days until the commander-in-chief emerges from the secret realm?" Xia Siren, head of the recruit regiment, put down his cup and broke the silence. Ever since the cities controlled by the Xia Hai Legion were surrounded by Yu Xian's summoned beasts, many class-holders who had only recently joined were abandoning the legion one after another. These recruits were fickle fence-sitters of the lowest loyalty; the moment things looked bad, they ran with zero attachment. Xia Donghai replied grimly, "Three days at least, a week at most." "Then what do we do now? More and more people are defecting. Even if the commander-in-chief turns the tables once he's out, doesn't our Xia Hai Legion care about its face?" grumbled the commander of the tank regiment. Though they had done everything possible to restore morale, the paramount priorities for class-holders were leveling up and earning money. As core officers with subsidies and legion perks, they had no need to worry about food or drink. But the rank-and-file class-holders at the bottom not only had to pay legion dues to enjoy experience buffs, they were also required to take part in legion activities when needed. Such people could never feel true loyalty toward the legion. When traveling to the next city, if it was not under the Xia Hai Legion's control, they would cut ties without hesitation and enlist with another legion. What was more, most of them lived day-to-day. If they earned nothing today, they might go hungry tomorrow. In circumstances like these, if they did not leave the legion, were they supposed to wait around to starve? Xia Donghai said sternly, "I have already dispatched an assassination squad. Yu Xian targets our legion, so we can target his just the same. The moment any member of the Sparkle Legion steps out of a city, our assassins will slaughter them!" "Will that even work?" asked Xia Cheng, commander of the mage regiment. Xia Donghai fell silent at once. The Sparkle Legion seemed to have anticipated this move; ever since Yu Xian went into action, not a single Sparkle Legion member had walked out of the city gates. Even Yu Xian and his inner circle stayed inside. That in itself was bizarre. By all logic, the Sparkle Legion had far shallower reserves than the Xia Hai Legion, and their members were lower in level, so they should have burned through their stockpiled resources much faster. Could the members of the Sparkle Legion all be made of iron, needing neither food nor drink? Lodging was solved by having a base, but food and drink still cost money. Even if the auction house had mysteriously put up vast quantities of dirt-cheap food, they could not possibly hold out for long. "To be rendered helpless by a mere Yu Xian—you really are utterly useless." Just as everyone sat at their wit's end, a cold voice drifted in from outside the door. The door swung open on its own, and a young man with long blue hair and a tear-mole at the corner of his eye floated inside, coldly sweeping his gaze across everyone present. Xia Donghai sprang to his feet, crying in pleasant surprise, "Commander!" He was an old veteran under Xia Hai. Back when Xia Hai first founded the Xia Hai Team, he had served as the team's warrior while Xia Hai was its mage. "Donghai, your performance this time has deeply disappointed me," Xia Hai said faintly, casting a glance his way. Xia Donghai bowed his head and offered a bitter smile. "It was primarily because I did not expect Yu Xian's response to be so swift and fierce. And... I truly underestimated him." If he had treated the situation with total ruthlessness from the very start and rallied the entire legion to swarm Yu Xian, things would never have ended up like this. After all, summoning required both space and time. So long as Yu Xian could not summon a hundred thousand beasts in a single breath, they could have easily been overwhelmed by the legion's united strength. Then, as quickly as Yu Xian summoned beasts, they would have wiped them out, until Yu Xian was either surrounded and slain or collapsed from exhaustion. "Enough. What use is holding meeting after meeting? Come, let's look outside," Xia Hai said in exasperation. Under his sweeping gaze, everyone subconsciously hung their heads. The group left the base and followed Xia Hai up onto the walls of Longdan City. Sure enough, looking outward, the entire landscape was packed with grotesque, bizarrely shaped summoned beasts as far as the eye could see. These summons varied in size; some clearly looked dangerous, while others looked exceedingly difficult to kill. "In the Zhen Realm, power has never been decided by numbers." Xia Hai glanced around, then slowly ascended into the air on an incline. Once he reached a certain altitude, he passed beyond the protective zone of Longdan City. In an instant, countless beams of light shot toward him across the sky—the high-flying aerial summons were attacking. Yet Xia Hai did not even spare them a glance. He extended a hand forward and said flatly, "Glacial Hell Storm!" A surge of blue energy erupted in an instant, sweeping across sky and ground alike. Every summoned beast struck by the blue energy froze solid into an ice sculpture. In the distance, Shi Jie and the others watching from afar were not surprised. From the moment Xia Hai appeared, they had anticipated this outcome. "That bastard Xia Hai has gotten stronger again," Shi Jie remarked with a chuckle. The old man beside him relaxed his brow slightly and smiled. "It seems Yu Xian's summons are nothing more than paper tigers after all. Against an artillery mage like Xia Hai, they pose no threat whatsoever." No matter how vast their numbers, they remained mere cannon fodder. The surrounding class-holders nodded in agreement, feeling as though a way to deal with Yu Xian had finally been found. The summons in the sky began crashing down. Some shattered to pieces upon hitting the earth, but others slammed into the ground leaving deep craters, the ice coating their bodies fracturing into dense webs of cracks instead. "Hmph!" Xia Hai noticed this immediately. Snorting coldly, he raised his right hand toward the heavens. World Ruin: Myriad Burial Blades! He brought his hand slashing down. Countless blades condensed from red energy fell from the sky, raining down dense slashes upon the summoned beasts. Those that had only been frozen without dying were swiftly executed. Yet after he unleashed the skill, a considerable number of beasts still remained on the ground. Crack, crack, crack... The ice shattered away, and the surviving summons all looked up toward Xia Hai. One of the beasts even flashed a sinister grin, as though declaring that beyond quantity, they also had... quality! The next second, a beast bound in iron chains gave a low roar. Countless iron chains shot from its body, all hurtling toward Xia Hai in midair. If the chains struck Xia Hai, he would be dragged to the ground, where an encirclement of hundreds of elite summons awaited him. Hades Psychokinetic Form! Xia Hai's eyes widened, and his body abruptly expanded, transforming into an energy form composed of pure violet light. The chains passed straight through him without inflicting the slightest damage. In this state, he was completely immune to physical harm; the chains could not touch his body at all. Then he looked up and bellowed, "World Ruin... Pluto!" In this form, an eye suddenly opened upon his forehead and blasted a violet beam of light into the sky. Energy rapidly coalesced high above, forming a colossal celestial sphere.