652 Qingzhou Alliance Plans
At Small Wolf Mountain, where the white tiger and black tortoise clans were transporting spirit stones, Qin Huai and his companion, the king corpse, smelled blood long before they arrived.
“Did someone get here first?” Qin Huai wondered who might dare rob the royal clans. The three sects or Sacred Heart Sect? He quickened his pace, leaving a trail in the sky.
Upon arrival, a grim scene met him: countless dead bodies and rivers of blood. The attack was one-sided. But Qin Huai laughed when he recognized the victors.
“It’s you guys!” He landed, meeting the members of the renowned Qingzhou Alliance: Fang Huo, Le Ji’an, Wang Gang, Xu Tong, and Xiong Yujie.
Xu Tong grinned. “We had the same idea, it seems.”
“Any tails following you?” asked Qin Huai.
Xu Tong replied teasingly, “Xiang Mingfeng and She Wanshan drew most of the attention, so we lost most pursuers.”
Fang Huo added, “But our sect master, Yun Qi, is the real magnet. Everyone sees him as a target.”
The group continued discussing the implications of their actions and the decisions they made. Qin Huai then handed a bottle containing beast trailing pearls to Wang Gang and Xiong Yujie.
“There are ten special pearls inside. They can control the blood beasts… You two will take three thousand blood fiends to Qingzhou. Give them to Old Master Tong, and he will have his people make three thousand more.”
Qin Huai had made a toy-like thing based on the scarlet blood bead, so making it wasn’t hard. But making three thousand would take time, so Qin Huai just made one bottle and gave it to them.
Wang Gang and Xiong Yujie were from a small force, and the latter was a wild cultivator and had traveled a lot. He was careful and knew many things and had seen many places, so this made him good for taking care of the blood beasts.
“Understood!” The two nodded in agreement.
“Can we fight with this?” Xiong Yujie, a former scholar turned wild cultivator, asked, referring to the beast trailing pearls.
“I can only barely use it to manage them. With these few pearls, six hundred is the maximum one can handle in battle,” Qin Huai replied.
Wang Gang wondered, “What if we run into spies from the three sects?”
“Try for peace first,” Qin Huai said. “If that doesn’t work, eliminate the threat. Trust your judgment.”
The two nodded, showing understanding.
Fang Huo, concerned, said, “With experts leaving the main battlefield, they might target us. Should we retreat to Qingzhou?”
Le Ji’an responded sharply, “That would only reveal Qingzhou as our base.”
Qin Huai asked, “Is Qingzhou at risk?”
Xu Tong spoke up, “Our Military Advisor Gou has created a blood shadow maze array in Qingzhou, masking our presence. Thanks to him, our moves remain hidden.”
The group expressed respect for Gou Jie, once a promising young expert who sacrificed personal advancement to oversee their defenses. His skill in array formations had become legendary.
“Most who fled Qingzhou were Sacred Heart Sect followers or refugees headed to East Qingzhou. The three sects and six clans will likely arrive soon,” Xu Tong continued.
Qin Huai firmly said, “We won’t ally with the Sacred Heart Sect. We have better options in the three sects.”
He was only a step away from the king realm, so he naturally spoke confidently. Also, they had better groups like the three sects to join. They didn’t want to consider the ruthless Sacred Heart Sect.