293 The War Begins

A massive army from the machine race made their way to the mainlands of the Mortal Plane while deep down underground Mei was sitting in another meeting with all the heads of the clans and sects. "As you may already know they have already arrived and are making their way to the mainland. Luckily we were not caught off guard and set up a space time detection arrays in every part of the lower plane to detect their arrival. This makes things a lot easier for us since we are not caught off guard.

"All mortals and cultivators have all moved underground as well. I must thank you all for your cooperation over the past year and a half. Because we all banded together, both devil cultivator and righteous cultivator, we will be able to survive this threat and live to see a new future. " 

Mei was truly grateful that every clan and sect no matter if they were evil or good was able to put aside their differences in a time of crises and work together. "Now that we know where they are it will not be long before they discover us. We need everyone to move to their assigned battle positions. It is now time to whittle down their forces. Myself, the Tang clan, and Grandpa Mu will be on the front lines. While the rest of you will be in charge of guerilla tactics. I have made many traps but also handed you Armageddon grenades." 

Mei had many armament masters working on this. They were the spitting image of grenades back on earth except they did not explode like a normal grenade. These grenades were to be thrown up above the enemies after a set time where they will then create a magic circle in the air casting a medium version of Armageddon down on top of the enemies. This along with the mini version of the same spell as traps in the floor, walls, and ceiling would cause the Machine Empire a good number of casualties. 

"We will follow your commands, Young Miss Mei." The group of clan and sect leaders all said at the same time. 

Millions of cultivators of all different stages began positioning themselves in the designated hidden areas. These areas were set up to block multiple types of radars. Mei had tried to think of all different kinds of detection systems that she could remember from earth as well as Phantasia and the mortal plane. She then worked day and night until she was able to block all these different kinds of detections to keep the guerilla warfare low-level cultivators safe. 

Time was ticking and the Machine Empire's army was moving faster than expected. A trip that should have taken them months only took them a week to traverse the thousands of kilometers it takes to go from the frozen north to the mainland. 

When they arrived at a port that normally would be hustling and bustling with people, but instead they found nothing. Not a single sound could be heard except the rustling of the leaves in the wind. "GD… Something does not seem right..." Lina found that things seemed a bit off.

They flew over the entire port and found not a single soul. GD felt confused but pushed it aside as something might have happened here. But as they went from town to town and still found no living people GD began to frown. 

"Where the hell are all the people!?" GD yelled out shooting his gun at a house destroying it instantly. "What kind of invasion is this!? Not only can we not detect a single soul there isn't even a single item in any of these houses! They're all empty! Did we come to the right world?" 

Confusion began to set in. GD could not understand no matter which town or city he went to why there was no one in any of them! It was not until one of his lieutenants came rushing over that GD finally understood why. "Sir! We have multiple signatures underground."

"Underground? How many!?" GD asked as he took the scanner from the Lieutenant. 

"Millions of them sir. It's like this whole backwater world moved underground. Even the main targets are underground" The Lieutenant had never seen anything like it before. Why would they all suddenly move underground?

Looking at the screen, GD felt just as confused as his Lieutenant. He could not understand why they would move underground. They tested the air in every area and found no anomalies. Even if it was a new kind of diseases they should have been able to at least pick something up."I don't understand what is going on. But whatever the reason is for them to all be underground it does not matter. Our mission stays the same, eliminate every living human on this lower plane!" 

"Yes Sir! I will get the numbers ready!" The Lieutenant saluted before running off to organize the army.

"GD, I have a feeling things will not go as smoothly as we think." Lina truly felt that something was very strange.

"I feel the same but what can I do? Orders are orders. Take this." GD passed over a small metallic orb to Lina. "If things start to go south, use this and warp back to the Machine Empire. If anything you need to stay alive. Your father would be lost without you."

***

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