Zhang Che was really very depressed. Seeing the golden vortex on the verge of a qualitative upgrade, and the demonic army actually ran away…
He immediately grew furious. He directed his babies to chase after them in a craze, wanting to kill as many as possible before the demonic army fully retreated.
The best result would be if the golden vortex grew!
There was obviously a hierarchy among the demonic tribe. When retreating in defeat, the stronger ones were the first to withdraw, directly letting the cannon fodder in front stop the beastmaster army’s advance.
Even the stronger demonic beasts were higher in status than the ordinary demonic soldiers, following them into the black door.
As a result, despite Zhang Che’s babies killing many demonic soldiers, the amount of mysterious energy he got was extremely small. It wasn’t enough for the golden vortex to power up.
In the end, Zhang Che went chasing after the demonic creatures personally on the Darkfiend Abyssal Dragon. The scarlet sword flew out, madly harvesting the demonic cannon fodders’ lives like a reaper’s scythe.
When all of demonic army had entered the black door, the battlefield was covered in the corpses of the various demonic creatures. The smell of their blood was so pungent it would make normal people faint.
This battle was won so easily. Everyone cheered at their victory.
Originally, everyone thought there would be an unending wave of demonic creatures coming out from the black door as reinforcements. Unexpectedly, not only was there no back up, they retreated in defeat without any hesitation instead. It truly surprised them.
However, those who were in the know were able to guess what happened. It was mainly due to the demonic army being unable to obtain any corpses after killing the beastmasters’ summoned beasts, leaving them no reason to stay.
With that, the military higher-ups’ theory was confirmed.
After the demonic army realized they were unable to send their most powerful creatures over, their main objective was to obtain the corpses of exotic beasts and achieve some kind of goal.
Given that the exotic beasts nearby were either killed or driven away by the humans, and the demonic army had to suffer bombardments from the sky in addition to facing off against the powerful beastmaster teams, naturally they’d choose to retreat after measuring the pros and cons.
——
“What a pity, just that little bit more!”
While everyone around him was cheering for their victory, Zhang Che was the only one who couldn’t bring himself to smile.
If he could have killed a tiny portion more of the demonic army’s cannon fodder, Zhang Che was sure the golden vortex would complete its accumulation of energy and power up.
Alas, he was just that tiny bit away from reaching that point.
Li Xin, who had been paying attention to Zhang Che, saw the bitter smile on his face. She walked up to him and asked curiously, “Captain, are you not happy with the demonic army retreating?”
-Unhappy? Of course I’m unhappy! It would be strange if I was happy!-
Of course, Zhang Che couldn’t say that aloud. He nodded with a grave expression, replying, “Ai, we killed too few demonic creatures. If I were stronger, I’d be able to kill more of them. That way, I could have weakened the demonic army further. How regrettable…”
Li Xin’s eyes were immediately filled with little stars. -Captain is like the role model of humanity. He killed so many demonic creatures, and yet he still blames himself for not killing more of them! If everyone had the same mentality and resolve as him, humanity wouldn’t be in much danger even if the demonic creatures dared to invade us again!-
How could she possibly know that Zhang Che didn’t care about the safety of humanity? As long as he could become strong enough to protect his friends and family, it was enough for him!
Later, when the troops started clearing the battlefield, Zhang Che was still brooding over the matter. He couldn’t help but think that if he didn’t have to stay here to guard the black door, could he go to where the other demonic armies had yet to retreat and farm more of them?
After all, the scarlet sword was the strongest attack Zhang Che could personally use, second only to the Earthen Rock Demon.
If the golden vortex could grow stronger once more… even if it only doubled the scarlet sword’s range, it would be able to attack within a three hundred meter radius!
Since the demonic army had retreated, they only had to clean up the battlefield, stay guard here and wait for the military to send people to take over.
Although the black door was indestructible, just like the spatial gateways, the military could set up layers of defense, building powerful defensive structures.
As long as there weren’t any powerful creatures as strong as epic-quality exotic beasts in the demonic army’s next invasion, they would be unable to break out of the black door.
——-
After the battle ended, the beastmaster army took turns to reorganize themselves.
Zhang Che and the others from the spearhead teams were also given time to rest. They found a clean area on the icy plains and set up camp, everyone taking out rations and starting on a simple dinner.
At the same time, all the military zones in northern Hua Xia that were close to the icy plains were mobilized urgently. Squadrons of transportation planes came flying to the icy plains carrying large amount of supplies, ready to start building defensive structures.
After delivering the supplies, the transportation planes were also given the important task of ferrying the demonic creatures’ corpses back.
Although it was still unknown what uses there were for the demonic creatures’ corpses, after conducting research, their value would be determined.
The only regrettable thing was that the demonic creatures were all unafraid of death. As a result, there were extremely few of them captured alive, totalling less than four digits of them.
It went without saying that the research institutes all over Hua Xia would fight for the rights to obtain some of this batch of demonic creatures.
——
Night came. Zhang Che lay in his tent, counting his gains for today.
First was the golden vortex. Nothing more needed to be said about that. Although Zhang Che could feel that the mysterious energy it absorbed had reached a critical point, it was still slightly lacking in the end. So, there was no qualitative changes to it. The range of his control over the scarlet sword remained around a hundred and fifty meters.
Next was the large amount of energy the rainbow crystal had absorbed from the demonic beasts that Zhang Che and his babies slew. They had formed an egg-sized mass of light underneath the rainbow crystal.
Before this, Zhang Che hadn’t had the time to study what uses this mass of energy had. Now that he was finally resting, he could no longer endure it. He immediately started studying it carefully.
It was obvious this energy wasn’t something the rainbow crystal needed. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have gathered the energy and put it aside.
-Could it be that the rainbow crystal prepared this energy for me, to upgrade my physique?- Zhang Che first thought of this possibility.
In the end, after some attempts, the blob of energy showed no reaction at all.
-Strange. Is it prepared for the babies, then?- Zhang Che then thought, feeling pleased.
If that was true, didn’t it mean that he could shorten the time needed for his pets and subdued beasts to grow stronger?
Ranking up from gold-quality to dark gold-quality already required ninety days of time. There wouldn’t be any further upgrades in the near future.
If he could shorten this time, wouldn’t that mean that Zhang Che would experience a huge increase in strength soon?
Thinking of that, he immediately started trying to guide the energy to the masses of light representing his pets below.
“It moved! Is it really possible?” Zhang Che grew very excited. Under the direction of his will, the mass of energy had really started moving!