Prodigal System in the Flourishing City

South Town of the mine.

Originally, it was a small town under Jiuyao’s control.

Now it had already been surrounded by Jiuyao’s forces, who were in the middle of a roaring, full-on assault.

However, Jiuyao’s troops were in high spirits, because they could already tell these people were no match for them at all—the other side was about to rout!

Sure enough!

Among the defenders on the walls, someone shouted "Retreat!", and with a thunderous rumble they all bolted madly toward the mine!

"Chase! After them!"

The Jiuyao commander howled at once.

Lord Jiuyao had ordered a city-wide slaughter!

How could they possibly let these little punks get away?!

And so, the roaring pursuit began.

A hundred thousand Iron Cavalry were falling back, and Jiuyao’s forces were in hot pursuit!

The one leading the hundred thousand Iron Cavalry was Dawa.

He wasn’t worried about being caught; the combat ability among the hundred thousand Iron Cavalry might vary, but coming from the Demon Realm, their Speed was something those people behind simply couldn’t compare to!

Meanwhile, Xin Lifeng was directing everything meticulously from the underground base.

Dawa: "Reporting, we’ve begun retreating. We’re two hundred kilometers from the mine!"

Xin Lifeng: "Good, maintain Speed and advance!"

Dawa: "Yes!"

Xin Lifeng: "Erwa, have you locked onto the targets?"

Erwa: "Already got them. When do we strike?!"

Xin Lifeng: "Wait for my order! It has to be fast, precise, and ruthless!"

Erwa: "Relax!"

Xin Lifeng: "Dawa Three, where are the people? Have you brought them back?!"

Dawa Three: "Already brought back! Can deploy at any time—they’re all relatives and such of Qi Bei’s underlings!"

Xin Lifeng: "Very good!"

Xin Lifeng: "Local Snake, have you set everything up along the route?"

Local Snake: "You can rest a hundred hearts on that! This is my old line of work!"

Xin Lifeng: "Alright, then I won’t nag you. Just improvise as needed!"

Dawa: "Reporting, less than a hundred kilometers now!"

Xin Lifeng: "Good! Dawa Three, start releasing people!"

Dawa Three: "Yes!"

Xin Lifeng: "Dawa, once contact begins, immediately scatter and relocate!"

Dawa: "Understood!"

...

Orders kept passing down; on the surface it still looked like only Jiuyao’s men were relentlessly chasing the hundred thousand Iron Cavalry, but in the shadows, moves were being made nonstop.

In a dug-out cave near the mine, Dawa Three began opening up the tunnel.

One squad after another of Qi Bei’s subordinates appeared there.

These subordinates were all low-tier, Cultivators who hadn’t been taken into the combat units.

But they shared one thing in common: every one of them had family members in Qi Bei’s battle formation this time.

They’d been captured without knowing why, and now they were being released just as inexplicably, with no idea what was going on!

Besides these, another cave was also releasing people.

This cave was full of merchants—traders who dealt in ore transport.

These merchants were basically all part of Qi Bei’s faction; after all, to Jiuyao, dealing with merchants was more painful than killing them.

He’d long since developed the occupational hazard of wanting to rob any caravan he saw!

The merchants’ faces were all full of panicked bewilderment, completely clueless about what was happening!

But the next moment—

They still didn’t know what was going on, but they did know what they needed to do!

Run!

𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Yes, run!

Run like mad!

Because from the south, a huge mass of vicious, murderous-looking men charged out, as if they meant to grind them into dust.

At once, the group bolted north in blind panic.

Doesn’t matter how it came to this—stay alive first!

So, if someone had been watching from the sky at that moment, they would have seen that the pursuit had changed.

Just now, it had only been Jiuyao’s troops chasing the hundred thousand Iron Cavalry; now, another panicked, desperate fleeing crowd had appeared in front of the Iron Cavalry!

Very soon, the hundred thousand Iron Cavalry caught up with this terrified crowd, but they didn’t attack them—instead, they swept them up and drove them north together.

Because Jiuyao’s forces were behind them killing, they didn’t see this scene at all, and were just screaming as they chased.

Starting from this moment, that force they’d previously been unable to catch no matter what suddenly started having stragglers!

They were finally spilling blood!

So they got even more excited!

And in that excitement, they paid even less attention to the fact that the numbers within the hundred thousand Iron Cavalry were slowly shrinking.

One after another, Iron Cavalry soldiers were yanked straight down into the ground by hands reaching up from below.

Exactly the same method Local Snake’s clan had used to kill those Supervisors—except this time, it wasn’t killing, it was rescuing!

And just like that, the hundred thousand Iron Cavalry within this fleeing column kept dwindling.

By the end, only the people Dawa Three had released were left, running for their lives!

They could already see the unit behind them was crazily slaughtering their people—if they didn’t run, they were dead for sure!

Xin Lifeng stared at the surveillance feed sent back by the drones, calculating the distances.

He felt it was about time.

Xin Lifeng: "Erwa! Move!"

With that one order from Xin Lifeng, Erwa, who’d been lying in wait, immediately led his men in a sudden charge.

Their target was the forward detachment that Qi Bei’s army had sent out.

Qi Bei’s force was very cautious; ever since they’d seen Beizhen’s city gates standing wide open, they’d been advancing in a search formation.

Though they relaxed quite a bit after safely passing through Beizhen, the vanguard units were still probing ahead of the main body.

And now, with one side prepared and the other unprepared, these slightly relaxed forward units suddenly took a head-on beating!

What’s more, Erwa and his team didn’t even use any fancy attack techniques—they just used the raw advantage of their bodies to slam brutally into these men!

In an instant, the vanguard were uprooted and sent flying!

Before they could even react, they heard the rumbling roar behind them, and each of them hurriedly looked back!

Then they too started running for their lives!

They had to warn the main force—someone was charging this way!

And so, Jiuyao’s troops chased the clueless merchant convoy, the merchant convoy chased Qi Bei’s forward detachment, and all of them thundered straight toward Qi Bei’s main army.

If the composition were only that simple, then even if they did run into Qi Bei’s main force it wouldn’t be a big deal—at most they’d fight a battle without knowing what was what. Anyway, the two factions had already clashed more times than anyone could count!

However!

What they didn’t know was that behind their Jiuyao formation, another "unit" had appeared.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a unit, but individuals—these people swiftly and directly merged into Jiuyao’s ranks, charging together toward Qi Bei’s main force in grand fashion.

Just like that, Jiuyao’s army inexplicably swelled by quite a bit.

Of course, Jiuyao’s underlings were in no state to notice; as the saying goes, "the onlooker is clear, the one in the game is muddled." They’d already been set ablaze by bloodshed!

Even if they occasionally saw a few unfamiliar faces, they’d just assume it was someone they normally didn’t run into much!

That group that had slipped in, of course, was the men of the hundred thousand Iron Cavalry!