After a century of worship, I became the ancestor of the tribe.

Chapter 145 Killing a Third-Tier Fault-Level Tyrant? (Seeking Monthly Tickets)
On the wasteland, a troop of Xiaoyang tribe soldiers fled in panic, their formation scattered all over the mountains and plains in an attempt to evade pursuit.

Some of the Xiaoyang tribe soldiers would look back as they fled, fearing that the people behind them would catch up.

Some of the owls, when they looked back, saw many of their kin behind them and breathed a sigh of relief.

Behind Xiao Yang's escape route, Shen Can collected the remains of the third-tier Xiao Yang centurion he had killed.

Ignoring the fleeing Xiaoyang tribe soldiers, they turned and went far away.

Among the soldiers of the Xiaoyang Clan, warriors at the first to fifth level of the Heavenly Vein Realm may hold positions such as centurion or chiliarch.

It depends on the composition of the Xiaoyang clan soldiers. If they come from a small clan with few members and weak soldiers, even if they have a Heavenly Vein of four or five levels, they may only be a centurion.

If there are more clan soldiers, even if they are only at the third level of the Heavenly Vein, they may still become a centurion.

Those who reach the rank of commander are mostly martial artists at the sixth or seventh level of the Heavenly Meridian.

Above the rank of commander-in-chief is general, and their martial arts realm is mostly at the eighth level of the Heavenly Meridian.

However, there are a very few individual martial artists whose martial arts level is only at the third or fourth level of the Heavenly Meridian, but they are still considered to be in a similar situation.

This situation either indicates that the clan is powerful or that the person in charge is truly capable.

Above that is the commander who governs a region, whose realm has reached the ninth level of the Heavenly Vein.

At this moment, Shen Can was hunting down third-tier warriors of the Xiaoyang Clan. He would kill any centurion, chiliarch, ten-thousand-man commander, or leader he encountered.

It is said that the younger generation of the Jishanbo tribe was wiped out during the battle with the Xiaoyang tribe.

He thought Xiaoyang's plan was good.

That's a great plan; we should learn it.

Shen Can didn't know how many martial arts prodigies were among the younger generation of Xiaoyang, but that didn't matter. Focusing on the Heavenly Vein martial artists was the right thing to do.

Even an ordinary Heavenly Vein Warrior would be a minor clan leader or elder in a small branch of the Xiaoyang Clan.

Killing one is equivalent to destroying the "fire pillar" of a small tribe.

This would not only destroy the potential of the Xiaoyang Clan, but also allow him to obtain resources from them.

……

The southward-bound Xiaoyang army confronted Jishan and Yanran in the east and west, respectively, at Xueguan Mountain City in the east and Liuming Ancient Land in the west.

Within a distance of tens of thousands of miles from the Xiaoyang tribe's territory to Xueguan Mountain City, four main garrisons were established to be responsible for the relocation of tribes and the extermination of human tribes within the area.

The distance of thousands of miles between the north and south is something that a Heavenly Vein Martial Artist can traverse in one or two months, even if they are not in a hurry.

If we also consider waterways, war beasts, and birds of prey, the speed would be even greater.

Not to mention Shen Can, a peak third-tier witchcraft practitioner whose martial arts combat strength rivals that of a ninth-level Heavenly Vein cultivator.

With his divine sense probing range of sixty feet, supplemented by witchcraft, and the fact that both the camps and the migrating tribes of Xiaoyang used watery and marshy areas as their residences, it was even more convenient for him.

While it can't be said that he's on par with fourth-tier players, he's practically invincible below fourth-tier, and dealing with ordinary third-tier players wouldn't be too difficult for him.

Moreover, along his journey, the Azure Phoenixes patrolled the hundreds of miles of sky above, while the Huo Ning, Huo Yan, Huo Tu, and other members of his clan relayed messages below.

Using these methods to hunt down ordinary Heavenly Vein warriors of the Xiaoyang Clan is practically a dimensional reduction attack.

When the Xiaoyang Clan plotted against the Jishanbo Tribe, they only targeted the talented warriors of the Jishanbo Tribe to ambush and kill them.

But he didn't. As long as someone had a Heavenly Vein, he would kill them regardless of whether they had talent or not.

Ordinary Heavenly Vein warriors of the Xiaoyang Clan may seem insignificant, but they form the backbone of the clan's army. Even a small-scale clan army commander can launch an attack independently.

Xiaoyang used a system of 10,000-man commanders leading troops and 1,000-man commanders dividing troops to separately besiege and suppress the rebuilt human tribes in various places.

Tribes like Huotang and Huoning, which rebuilt their populations to over 100,000 or 200,000, are, after all, a minority.

Most rebuilt tribes have between 20,000 and 30,000 members, with some having fewer than 10,000.

In this situation, a thousand or so Xiaoyang tribe soldiers would be enough to attack this rebuilt tribe.

Now things are really messed up; the commander of the Xiaoyang Thousand-Man Army is being killed one after another.

……

Jinyangshan Market.

"How many centurions are still leading troops!"

Inside the city, Mu Yun roared in anger, as one of the four guardians.

After breaking through the human defenses, the Mukang branch recruited 100,000 soldiers from within the clan and gave them to him.

It can also recruit members of the Xiaoyang tribe from the migrating tribes at any time to join the tribe's army. The number of tribe soldiers it can control is more than several hundred thousand.

Everything was going well at first; the reconstruction in the surrounding area consisted of scattered small human tribes, so there was no need for it to intervene personally.

Although the various tribal soldiers under his command could not compare to the elite front-line troops confronting Jishan, they were still capable of suppressing these remnants of human refugees.

Now things are really messed up; reports keep coming in of Heavenly Vein martial artists going missing.

Missing?

You motherfucker!
Even those scattered celestial veins without surnames were hunted down.

How can you play this!
Inside the main hall, the group of Xiaoyang warriors remained silent, not daring to raise their heads or speak.

"Mu Jiang, you speak."

"Commander," the commander of the Xiaoyang army, who was called out, said meekly, "In the past six months, seventy-eight Heavenly Vein warriors under my command have gone missing."

"Commander, sixty-three of the chieftains of our small tribes that migrated from the mountains have gone missing."

At this moment, Commander Xiaoyang spoke up again.

Like the human race, there are many small tribes with only one or two Heavenly Vein Warriors in the mountains and forests of the Xiaoyang Clan's territory.

These small tribes are similar to human savage tribes, with little heritage, no witchcraft, and their internal resources are only enough to advance to the first or second level of the Heavenly Vein.

Many such tribes have migrated out now, originally intended to occupy the land.

They even killed the Heavenly Vein of such a small tribe, looting all their beast bones, hides, and tattered belongings. The people who did this have no class whatsoever.

Mu Yun's gaze fell on the other commanders of ten thousand men in the hall.

"what about you?"

"Thirty-seven are missing."

"Commander, I'll keep it a little less, twenty-seven!"

Boom!

Mu Yun jumped up and kicked the last one to speak, Xiao Yang, out of the main hall.

"You think I'm going to give you a treat just because you're giving you less?!"

Mu Yun looked at the remaining two commanders who hadn't spoken, and lost all interest in listening to their reports.

"More than two hundred people have died in just six months. If five or six hundred die in a year, how am I supposed to explain this to the clan leader!"

"How many Heavenly Meridian warriors does my Mukang branch have? Can it withstand such disappearances?"

Mu Yun was furious. The Xiaoyang Clan had quite a few Heavenly Vein Warriors, but they couldn't withstand being hunted down like this.

"Find it for me!"

"Find this damn guy for me!"

The commanders lowered their heads and remained silent. It wasn't that they hadn't searched, but they couldn't find anything.

These centurions and commanders, along with the scattered commanders of tens of thousands, died silently. Even if they used themselves as bait, what good was it if the attackers didn't come? How long could they be on guard every day?

In the first half of the year, they were tasked with finding bronze chariots, and now they've come up with this in the second half.

For a small tribe with only one or two Heavenly Vein warriors, the absence of Heavenly Vein warriors is tantamount to a headless wild beast.

Forget about besieging the human tribes near their migration sites; the human tribes have already begun to fight back.

The area that had been painstakingly suppressed suddenly lost more than two hundred Heavenly Vein Warriors, leaving them feeling like they had no one left to use.

Under Mu Yun's furious gaze, a commander who had not spoken before finally broke down under the pressure and said honestly, "Commander, eighty-three hundred and one thousand commanders have gone missing on my side, along with more than a thousand tribal soldiers."

"..."

Mu Yun narrowed his big eyes and waved to the commander who had spoken.

"Come here, come here."

Rumble!
The already shattered hall was smashed again, and the outspoken Commander Xiaoyang crashed to the ground with his chest caved in, blood gushing from his mouth.

"Why the hell aren't you missing yet! Why don't you just die!"

"Who is it?"

Mu Yun roared, "Of the four guarded areas, why did this happen here?"

Could it be that the Jishanbo tribe is planning to do something underhanded?

"Gather your troops, unite the scattered tribes that have lost their chieftains, and reorganize the great tribes!"

……

Heyang Market.

This city, situated on the Guimu River, was first built during the northern expedition of the Marquis of Yongshan. The gray city walls are covered with mottled marks.

On the city wall, warriors from the Xiaoyang faction patrolled.

Below the city walls, warriors from the Xiaoyang faction constantly came and went.

Near the water's edge, there are even more densely packed arrow towers and shaman towers, covering the wide expanse of water within their attack range.

On the Guimu River, Shen Can gazed into the distance at the ancient city of Xushi.

You didn't expect it, did you? He's back.

Witchcraft medicines need areas with abundant source energy to grow, while source stones need to be born in primordial veins.

However, it is rare for a primordial vein to form on the vast land. Occasionally, a small primordial vein is discovered, and how much source stone it can produce depends entirely on luck.

After hunting down Xiaoyang warriors and tallying their collections over the past few days, Shen Can discovered a slight pattern.

Those small tribes that migrated from the land of the Xiaoyang clan, even though they only have one or two Heavenly Veins and are as poor as the Zhiyan clan back then, can often find excellent witch medicines and minerals.

The commander of the Xiaoyang tribe, who leads troops in the field, can occasionally be seen with a few scattered pieces of Originium. On average, killing about ten of them can yield a witch's medicine that is over a hundred years old.

A century-old witch's medicine is worth dozens or even hundreds of Originium.

If he can't get Originium, he can always get witchcraft medicine, right?

Shen Can didn't mind that Xiao Yang's ordinary third-tier strength was weak; he just hoped that Xiao Yang's fourth-tier strength wouldn't come looking for him.

I came to Heyang Market because the guys who do logistics are richer.

The four garrison areas of Xiaoyang were established based on the four markets in the north, and he has now visited one of them.

In contrast, Jinyang Mountain is located in the northeast of Ji, but it is not as wealthy as Heyang, which served as a transit point for spoils of war.

Looking at the dark light shimmering above the city walls of Heyang Market and the rows of magical artifacts resembling stone towers, Shen Can felt somewhat uneasy.

Its defensive capabilities are even stronger than those of Jinyangshan Market.

He was quite confident in taking down a ninth-level Owl Sun in the wild, but he wasn't that foolish as to charge into the heavily fortified Owl Sun camp.

He can take a beating, but he can't take a kill.

For the next six months or so, Shen Can remained hidden in the Guimu River.

This great waterway of Ji County is truly a wonderful place.

Xiao Yang's warships traveled north and south, and supplies needed to be transported from here to both the four garrisoned areas and the two Xiao Yang camps facing Jishan and Yanran.

Unfortunately, Xiaoyang made rapid progress in the early stages, conquering human tribes one after another, and most of the spoils of war had already been taken away.

Now that the stalemate has ended, fewer warships are transporting resources on the Guimu River, but more are transporting troops back and forth.

Despite the scarcity of resources and the abundance of resources in Xiaoyang, Shen Can did not complain.

Martial artists and resources from Xiaoyang kept drifting randomly from the passing warships.

Every so often, Shen Can would hand over the resources he had collected to Huo Ning, Huo Zhan, and others, so that Cang Luan could send them back to the clan.

All that remained in his possession were martial arts and witchcraft texts, source stones, witchcraft medicines over a hundred years old, and some remains of Xiaoyang warriors.

His actions on the Guimu River naturally alerted the Xiaoyang tribe, and passing ships strengthened their defenses.

But it's not a big problem. The Guimu River runs through Ji County from north to south. At its widest point, the river is over a hundred miles wide, with countless branches and marshes on both sides.

These marshes are mostly fertile lands, and the migrating Xiaoyang tribes took these places as their new ancestral lands.

Although the area occupied by Xiaoyang seems to stretch for thousands of miles from north to south, the winding riverbanks on both sides of the Guimu River extend for tens of thousands of miles.

Defend?
How to prevent?
After each attack, Shen Can would flee hundreds or even thousands of miles away, waiting for Commander Xiaoyang to arrive with his troops, by which time he would have already escaped.

He carried out his operation along the banks of the Guimu River, hiding even the Azure Phoenix Soldiers and the Antelope Beasts, leaving only himself to do the work and then run away.

A body of water in a certain spot along the Guimu River.

Shen Can inhaled and exhaled the medicinal power, his blood energy surging within his Heavenly Meridians. Under the impact of the wild blood energy, his eighth Heavenly Meridian was instantly broken open.

The surging medicinal power repeatedly washed over the newly opened Heavenly Vein, expanding it to a very wide extent.

In recent days, he has not only hunted down ordinary Heavenly Vein cultivators, but also killed ten thousand-man commanders and four Heavenly Vein level eight cultivators.

He carefully sensed all the martial artists, from the first level of the Heavenly Meridian to the ninth level, using his divine sense.

Both cultivate the Heavenly Vein; the Heavenly Veins of the Human Race and Xiaoyang are largely the same.

In Shen Can's observation, the width of the Heavenly Meridian he has now opened is wider than that of the Heavenly Meridian warriors in his hands who are at the first to eighth level of the Owl Yang Heavenly Meridian.

However, compared to the Heavenly Vein of the ninth-level Heavenly Vein warrior that was killed, its width is still twice as small.

His Heavenly Meridian is wider than that of ordinary Owl Yang Heavenly Meridian warriors, thanks to the Wild Beast Battle Body which stabilizes him.

Over the past year or two, the body's meridians have been constantly being cleansed by blood and qi, resulting in an increase in their width and strength.

Shen Can also interrogated the Xiaoyang clan soldiers. The only Xiaoyang with the Heavenly Vein Ninth Level that he killed was named Mu Tuo.

Mu Tuo has a lifespan of nearly two hundred years and advanced to the ninth level of the Heavenly Vein more than 150 years ago. He is one of the martial artists of the Mu Yan branch who is expected to advance to the fourth level of the Divine Treasure.

Shen Can even compared Mu Tuo's Heavenly Vein with the Jiang Zhen he had killed, although the Jiang Zhen's remains were somewhat broken.

Even with careful perception, one could still discern that Jiang Zhen's Heavenly Vein was several times weaker and less powerful than Mu Tuo's.

There are also significant differences in the level of blood and vitality between the two.

Shen Can didn't make the comparisons for nothing; he drew down all the patterns he saw and added annotations.

After advancing to the eighth level of the Heavenly Vein Realm, Shen Can spent two days stabilizing his realm.

He then chose to continue his seclusion, preparing to advance to the ninth level of the Heavenly Vein Realm in one go, and then go out to cause trouble.

(End of this chapter)