In the Demon Suppression Division: Crimson Words Nurture the Blade, Slaying Demons to Prove the Dao

"Xuanfeng, you look down on me. You want me, Old Han, to be a deserter?" Han Tieshan was immediately displeased upon hearing this.

Wei Xuanfeng raised his hand and slapped him.

The force wasn't heavy, but it was crisp and loud, leaving Han Tieshan stunned.

Then he cursed.

Han Tieshan covered his face, opened his mouth, but couldn't say a word.

"Old Han, do you think you're afraid of dying?"

"Of course not!"

"Do you think our generation can defeat all these demons?"

Han Tieshan remained silent.

"It's never-ending."

Wei Xuanfeng spoke for him, saying, "We kill a hundred today, and two hundred more come tomorrow. How many of us in this generation will live to old age? But these kids are different."

He glanced back at the children huddled together, trembling in the distance. "They're too young to fight now. But they'll grow up! When they grow up, learn martial arts, and pick up a knife, they'll be stronger than us. But the prerequisite is... they have to live."

Han Tieshan lowered his head.

After a long silence, he muttered something.

"Old Wei, come back alive! I, Old Han, will treat you to a drink when I get back!"

He knew that the chances of Wei Xuanfeng returning alive were less than 10%...

Wei Xuanfeng patted him on the shoulder and said, "If you can take all these children back, I'll treat you to drinks when we get back!"

Han Tieshan grinned, wanting to laugh, but didn't.

He turned to look at Jiao Xiaoxiao in Wei Xuanfeng's arms.

"How about this young lady comes with me?"

Upon hearing this, Jiao Xiaoxiao immediately hugged Wei Xuanfeng tightly.

"Xiaoxiao, go with your brother Han. There will be food along the way, and someone will take care of you..." Wei Xuanfeng said softly.

"I want to be with you!" Jiao Xiaoxiao buried her face in his shoulder, her voice muffled but more determined than before, "I'll follow you, even if it means death!"

Wei Xuanfeng was stunned for a moment.

Han Tieshan glanced at him and didn't insist any further: "Fine, you can protect it yourself."

Wei Xuanfeng nodded and gently patted Jiao Xiaoxiao's back. "Alright, let Xiaoxiao stay by your side."

Actually, he didn't want Jiao Xiaoxiao to leave him either.

It wasn't that he was arrogant; even if there were many more monsters, he was confident he could lead Jiao Xiaoxiao to safety.

I feel more at ease when she's by my side.

……

Han Tieshan turned and walked towards the children.

When he called the children to assemble, a boy suddenly broke free from the line.

The child was about ten years old, his face was covered in dust, and he had scraped his knees, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.

He ran up to a farmer, looked up and shouted.

"Father! Let me stay! It would be my honor to die alongside you!"

The farmer slapped the back of the child's head with such force that the child stumbled.

Instead of crouching down to hug him, he roared in the fiercest voice he had ever used.

"Bullshit! Who told you to stay?! Follow this official! Do you hear me?! Follow him!"

The child covered his head, tears welling in his eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but the farmer raised his foot as if to kick him, and the child finally turned and ran away.

He ran into the line, turned around and glanced back. The farmer was standing there with his back to him, his shoulders trembling slightly.

Once the children were far away, the farmer squatted down, buried his face in his knees, and spoke in a hoarse voice as if it were being squeezed out of his throat.

"My son, your heart is already an honor for your father. But... to die alongside your own child is a father's shame."

……

Han Tieshan and the children disappeared at the end of the village road.

Wei Xuanfeng withdrew his gaze and turned to face the remaining two hundred soldiers and sixty-odd villagers.

"Fellow villagers, brothers of the Demon Suppression Division."

His voice wasn't loud, but everyone heard him clearly: "The monsters will arrive soon. The soldiers have all been through battles, so I won't say more. But folks, the hoes, carrying poles, and machetes in your hands aren't just for show."

I, Wei Xuanfeng, want to make this clear from the outset...

I don't need you to be the first to rush to your deaths, but you need to let your brothers know that you have people backing you up.

He looked around, his gaze settling on several strong-looking men.

"You, you, and you... what do you guys do in the village on a regular basis?"

"I'm a blacksmith."

"I am the craftsman who builds the wall."

"I... my family used to run a hunter's shop, we knew how to set traps."

"Alright." Wei Xuanfeng nodded. "Blacksmith, collect all the ironware in the village. Sharpen the swordsmen's knives if they're dull, and mend any burrs on the farm tools. Tie any that can be tied to wooden poles to be used as spears."

Those who build the wall, you take people and raise the earthen wall at the village entrance by half a person's height, and build two low platforms behind the wall so that people can stand on them and reach the outside of the wall.

"Hey hunter, go to the bamboo grove at the village entrance and set traps along the way. Sharpen the bamboo thorns and bury them in the ground. Don't expect to kill any monsters, just enough to sprain their ankles."

He made arrangements extremely quickly, assigning each instruction to a specific person.

"The remaining men were divided into three teams. One team followed me to patrol the walls, and the other team was responsible for taking down the doors of each household and using them as barriers at the entrance of the alley."

Women, find linen and cotton and wrap them around the arms and legs of the soldiers, wrapping several layers to block as much of their claws as possible.

Elderly people, you don't need to be idle either...

"Torch! Make lots of torches! Monsters are afraid of fire. You all stay behind the wall, and if there's any movement outside, light the torches and throw them out."

After he finished speaking, everyone sprang into action.

The blacksmith brought out his anvil, the wall-builder led his men toward the village entrance, and the hunter bent down to set traps in the bamboo grove.

The women tore apart old clothes from their homes and wrapped them around the bare arms and legs of the soldiers. An old man sat at the entrance of the ancestral hall, bundling the cut branches into torches and stacking them neatly.

No one stood still.

The entrance to Xinghua Village has gradually changed...

The earthen wall had been raised by half a person using stones and planks, and sharpened bamboo poles were piled up at its base.

The entrance to the alley was mostly blocked by the removed door panels, leaving only a narrow gap for people to pass through.

Water vats were lined up behind the wall, torches were piled up in three heaps, and oil-soaked strips of cloth were wrapped around wooden sticks, ready to be lit at any time.

Wei Xuanfeng stood atop the highest section of the wall, gazing at the deep darkness of the night in the distance.

The air carried a fishy smell, which grew stronger and stronger.

……

In the shadows outside the village, a figure in a black robe stood on a tree branch.

Old Mo looked at the busy figures in the village and gave a silent, cold laugh.

He had already taken a detour to leave Kangcheng, but the black water mosquitoes were stolen, his physical body was destroyed, and the Earth Immortal Spring Lotus was eaten...

His plans, which he had been working on for more than half a year, all fell through.

But just as he was about to leave, the demonic beasts whose seeds he had planted using secret methods began to go berserk, much earlier than expected.

"Heaven hasn't forsaken me," Old Mo said in a low voice. "Wei Xuanfeng, you stole my Black Water Mosquito, ate my Earth Immortal Spring Lotus, and now you still foolishly remain in this Apricot Blossom Village..."

"Even God is helping me take your life."

His voice carried on the night wind, brimming with barely suppressed excitement, "If you die here today, the black water mosquitoes will still be mine!"

He opened his mouth and uttered a string of strange syllables.

The sound wasn't like human speech; it was more like the resonance of some insect flapping its wings—deep, resonant, and with a chilling rhythm.

The instant the sound landed, pairs of eyes lit up in the surrounding darkness...

Crimson, dark green, amber, densely packed, like a burning grassland.

The monster moved.

Like a tide, it cascades down the hillside.

The wolf demon was at the front, the iron-hoofed deer demon was in the middle, followed by a dense swarm of monkey demons, and some other beasts that Wei Xuanfeng couldn't name.

Their hooves and claws crushed the withered branches and trampled the field ridges as they surged toward Xinghua Village.

The ground began to tremble slightly, as if something enormous was turning over underground.

……

Zhang Shouyi ran back, his face pale, without even having time to perform the proper etiquette.

"Commander Wei! Monsters are coming! At least a thousand! And they're heading this way!"

Wei Xuanfeng did not answer him.

He has already seen it.

Xinghua Village is built on a low hillside, and the moonlight is bright, illuminating the entire hillside clearly.

Black, gray, and crimson monsters surged out of the distant woods, forming a moving shadow in the moonlight, like a flood suddenly filling a dried-up riverbed, pouring down the slope of the hillside.

The wolf demon at the front had already bared its fangs...

Zhang Shouyi stood beside him, his hand on the hilt of the knife at his waist, his fingers slightly white, but his voice was still steady.

"Commander Wei, I've seen this kind of situation twice before, once in the south and once in the west."

"and then?"

"Then the city fell."

Wei Xuanfeng remained silent.

He saw the soldiers behind him trembling as they gripped their swords, and he saw the color slowly fading from the faces of the villagers behind the wall…

Fear spread through the air, faster than the footsteps of a monster.

Wei Xuanfeng said to him, "Old Zhang, don't be afraid. This village is easy to defend and difficult to attack. Even if there are ten times more monsters, we can hold out for an hour or two."

Zhang Shouyi smiled bitterly and said, "Commander Wei, I believe you, but the morale of the brothers is really too low."

At this moment, Wei Xuanfeng realized that the despair and fear in everyone's eyes had been magnified infinitely as the monster got closer and closer.

If this continues, the defensive line will collapse on its own without any attack from the monsters.

This was when he realized the most fatal flaw in his plan.

In his past life, he was a mercenary. When he went on missions with his squad, he didn't need to consider morale, no matter how difficult the environment.

Because every member of the team has a strong will to survive.

Through professional training, they can transform this will to survive into combat power on the battlefield!

But these soldiers and villagers were different; they were still just ordinary people.

They will be afraid, and when their fear reaches its extreme, they will break down.

At this time, it would be great to have a political commissar.

Say a few inspiring words to boost morale and build fighting spirit.

Can……

Asking Wei Xuanfeng to kill people and then to deceive them is asking too much.

Just as Wei Xuanfeng was about to bite the bullet and imitate the political commissars of his previous life, saying some inspiring words.

Jiao Xiaoxiao, who was in her arms, suddenly spoke.

A tender child's voice brings a song to life again in the night.

"A great river, its waves wide!"

"The wind blows through the rice paddies, filling both banks with fragrance."