After breaking through to the Earth Realm Hao Xuan had grown a lot stronger. He trained every single day and then would go on different missions to gain experience as well. That is how he spent the next three months. His current cultivation level was Earth Realm level seven.
Using the blood from the Ice dragon he leveled up Wrath of Deimos to level Eight and was able to summon eight red demonic arms holding swords and glaives made out of demonic energy. But it wasn't easy to control these arms all at the same time and required a lot of concentration, which wasn't a good idea in the midst of a battle. The slightest mistake could cost him his life.
So he decided to give up on summoning new arms and instead focused on making four of them stronger than the rest. This caused a change in his own personality along with the technique itself.
The description of Wrath of Deimos changed; "Able to give control of Great Demon Deimos's many powers, at level eight allows the user to summon the Six-Armed devil's true form completely or partially summon a total of eight different 'arms' that can take any form before that. The higher the cultivation level, the more variety the user has. Each arm can be individually controlled and change its form into any shape or size."
His progress went from level eight out of 999 to two out of a total of Eight levels. Now he could summon two arms that looked like they were actually coming out of his own body and he could change their form into anything he desired. The only thing he couldn't change was their color, which was still dark red and looked quite scary up close.
"Ninth Brother! There is a reconnaissance mission directly from General Li, I have some errands to run, can you take it in my place?" Hao Xuan opened his eyes and saw First standing a few meters away from in the training ground with his usual smiling face. General Li was the four-eyed great general in command of the Red Legion. He thought about it for a few seconds and remembered there was nothing else going that required his attention so might as well do this.
"Sure. What's the mission exactly?"
"A trading party consisting of several hundred people was coming over from one of the grade-3 neighboring kingdoms and it disappeared near the ancient forest soon after entering our borders. We have lost all contact with them and since there were some members of royalty in there, its a high priority mission. You will be given command of one hundred Legionaries. From now on they will all be under you."
Hao Xuan felt his heartbeat increase. Finally, he was able to have his own soldiers to command. And they were all from the red legion, meaning they were all elites and would be able to fight much larger forces than themselves.
"Here, this will give you a general direction of where they are," First said as he handed him a token that looked like it was made from bronze with a small glittering formation on top. The formation had an arrow that was pointing towards a certain direction.
"It will lead you to within a few miles of them. Be very careful though, there were many strong warriors in the party and whatever happened didn't even give them enough time to send out an SOS," First finishing with a serious look, patting Hao Xuan's shoulder.
"Pack for your journey, you will have to go quite far and through many dangerous areas. Careful of both men and beasts. Don't trust anyone blindly."
"Thank you brother," Hao Xuan said with a smile and gave First a bear hug. Staying around Third had changed his personality quite a bit. Now he was much more open and frank, yet at the same time quite harsh towards strangers.
"Haha, alright, good luck. If there are any issues I want you to turn back without hesitation. Your life is more important than some royal from a backward country," said First while patting his back. They had grown quite close in the last few months. Hao Xuan would often visit Anya, little Qiye, and Ming with First when they were out running errands. Qiye loved playing with Zhurong and Ming would just sit on the side and watch Hao Xuan when she thought he wasn't looking.
Hao Xuan woke Zhurong up from his nap. He was now a few inches bigger but still just as chubby and looked very cute and huggable. He packed all the essentials, some clothes, a lot of food, and some other stuff and then left on foot to meet with his new subordinates.
First impressions were everything and he wanted to make an entrance so as he walked, he kept thinking about what he should say to them to make them respect him and follow his orders without question.. Because obviously they knew as well that this was his first command.