The Golden Page (III)

"Lieutenant Xin...can you sense any dangerous people?" Wei Ren asked Liu Xin.

They reached the Minor Base without any problems. Sneaking into the kingdom was the easier part. Their real mission is going to start now.

An eerie military base was visible from the dune on which they were standing. 

The Aura Cloaking Formation worked wonderfully. No one noticed their arrival. 

This base was nothing compared to Blue Rose Military Base. The tents were impoverished. It looked more like a barbarian army. There was not even a border wall to shield their soldiers.

"Two. There are two River Expansion Experts and four River Formation Experts." Liu Xin replied with a sullen face.

They were outnumbered! These few people were enough to land them into a troublesome situation. Moreover, the number of Qi Streams Experts would be in the hundreds.

All of them had serious faces. Except...Wei Ren.

There was barely any change when he heard the news.

"Where are they situated?" Wei Ren asked another question.

"Who?" 

"The two River Expansion Experts."

"Oh. One is at the eastern side of the Minor Base and the other one is at the centre." Liu Xin was able to judge the position of other powerful experts. 

The two enemy River Expansion Experts can also sense Liu Xin if he were to leave the Aura Cloaking Formation.

"This mission can be accomplished. There is quite a lot of distance between the two of the strongest cultivators on their side. As long as we avoid their senses, then we will be fine. So, If we want to find information, we have to abduct one of their intel team soldiers. Junior Cousin Chen and Han Ge are the best for this job." 

Wei Ren assigned everyone their duties. His mind entered into a trance. He derived a detailed plan and also figured out an escape plan for Wei Chen and Han Ge. Everyone else listened to him silently. They didn't dare interrupt him.

He deliberately chose these two. Wei Chen was proficient in Darkness attribute. 

Cultivators with Darkness attribute are very hard to deal with. Especially during night time. Even their attacks are hard to predict and counter.

Han Ge on the other hand was the eldest of the Han Brothers. He was the most skilled Formation Master. Plus he was a peak River Formation Expert. Together, they would be able to infiltrate quite easily.

But this was not all. He assigned jobs to the rest of them too. Liu Xin was supposed to open a path for the main infiltrators by killing every soldier on WarCrow Posts.

Han Shu and Han Jie would protect Liu Xin from any unexpected attacks and keep things silent.

Only Wei Ren was left. 

He gave himself a role because he felt he was quite useless to all of them.

If anything went amiss, he would send a signal to abort the mission by unleashing his Thunder Walk Divine Art.

No one objected to him.

Liu Xin was happy that Wei Ren had taken the role as the leader. Even though he was the strongest, it was Wei Ren's word that was worth the most.

"As the Lieutenant said when we left the Blue Rose Base, this mission is for the lives of our brothers. I hope we all leave this place alive. If the time comes, when we have to sacrifice ourselves for the mission, then I won't hesitate. But at Least one of us must survive to deliver the intel. Lieutenant Xin is the fastest among us. He is the one who will handle this job if we fail...but I don't think it will come to that." He stopped and looked at everyone's somber faces.

"For the Rose...and the Kingdom."

"For the Rose and the Kingdom." They all repeated after him.

Wei Chen looked nervously into Wei Ren's eyes.

Wei Ren also looked back. He could see a deep fear in Wei Chen's eyes. The latter was obviously scared. It was his first mission where he had a lead role.

"I am sure you will succeed, Wei Chen." He patted Wei Ren's shoulder and sent him off with Han Ge.

Han Ge cast a special Formation to hide their presence. They both used the night as their natural cover. Wei Chen's presence completely disappeared. He became one with the dark. Even River Formation Experts would have a hard time tracking him!

Han Shu and Han Jie guarded Liu Xin's back as he killed his way through the WarCrow Posts.

Wei Ren was left all alone. He was hiding deep into the sand. He dug a hole and started cultivating as soon as he sat down.

"I am still a General…" He thought with remorse. The whole point of joining this mission was to gain experience in battles but he still ended up watching from the sidelines. 

Wei Tian must have picked this mission for him for a reason. He knew Wei Ren would be of no use. The only way he would be able to contribute to the mission was to help in the planning and strategies.

He tried to calm his thoughts. 

He was supposed to wait for one hour. If they didn't return in one hour, the mission would be considered a failure and he would unleash his Thunder Walk Divine Art and alert everybody.

Time seemed to pass very slowly. 

The premonition of danger he kept feeling from his Qi was also increasing every second. The tyrannical red Qi was boiling like a sea of fire. Earth Law was doing its best to calm down his Qi. The Qi meridians also looked overworked.

Thirty minutes later.

Wei Ren was about to lose the reins over his Qi, but then he heard faint footsteps.

"Elder Cousin Ren! We got the intel!" Wei Chen's shy yet cheerful voice pierced through the sand and entered Wei Ren's ears.

A smile appeared on Wei Ren's face. He jumped out of the sand. Sand had turned his brown hair golden.

Specks of golden sand on his black robe shone under the moonlight.

"Senior Han Ge captured the Captain of the Golden Crow Intel Team. We found this jade slip on him. After interrogation, he was eliminated by us. No evidence of our presence was left behind." Wei Chen reported the details in a practiced manner.

"I knew you would succeed Junior Cousin Chen." Wei Ren was happy with the results. He grabbed a pink jade slip from Wei Chen.

Without waiting for anything, he scanned the jade slip.

A cold and dreadful feeling ran through his spine. 

"They are planning to unleash that venom...on the whole army!" 

The jade slip held the deployment plans of the Golden Crow Military. Every soldier was given a venom. This venom was supposed to be used on the soldiers of Blue Rose Kingdom. Such a large scale use of this deadly venom will lead to a mass genocide. The soldiers of the Blue Rose Kingdom are defenseless against such a mysterious and powerful venom.

This venom damages the Ocean Of consciousness. 

How can someone protect himself from such an attack?

His heart kept pounding until he found something strange in these deployment plans.

Only Qi Streams Experts and a tiny portion of the River Formation Experts were given the orders to use the venom. River Expansion Experts were kept on standby. 

"I need to talk to Lieutenant Xin." He said eagerly. He had a theory about the use of this venom and Liu Xin can help him confirm it.

Two minutes later three men came running to them. 

Liu Xin was carrying a giant double edged axe on his shoulder. Both blades of the axe were covered in blood. His clothes were dyed red with blood. Despite all this, his face was covered in smiles.

Han Shu and Han Jie were completely clean.

It looked like they didn't even get a chance to join the fray. Liu Xin handled all the enemies by himself.

"We have the intel. Let's leave right now." Wei Ren gave the orders. Staying in the enemy territory after completing their mission was not wise.

"We have to exit the second Dune Belt first. After that we can fly back to the base."

The Han Brothers cast a simple formation around their party to conceal their movements.

This time they would be running at their top speed. Wei Ren was sure that in less than an hour, the soldiers of the Golden Crow Kingdom would be alerted.

Wei Ren's Thunder Walk Divine Art was on full display. All of them looked at his flashy Evasion technique with amazement.

A third stage Qi Streams Expert was able to keep up with a sixth stage Qi Streams Expert. 

This was unheard of!

By the time it takes to make a cup of tea, they had left the second Dune Belt.

As soon as they entered the first Dune Belt, Liu Xin and the Han Brothers retrieved their flying swords from their void rings.

Wei Ren climbed on Liu Xin's sword and Wei Chen partnered with Han Ge.

Their party soared high into the sky and turned into long streaks of light.

Four flying swords shuttled through the air. 

"Lieutenant Xin, when we left the Blue Rose Great Wall, you said that a hundred soldiers have fallen because of the mysterious venom. How many of these soldiers are at the Qi Streams stage?" Wei Ren asked Liu Xin, who was smiling wide because of the success of their mission.

"Ninety five are at Qi Streams stage while the rest are at River Formation. Young Master, did you find something in the intel we stole?" Liu Xin wiped his smile and asked.

"Indeed." 

An evil smile crept on Wei Ren's face.

"The Venom works only on weaker cultivators. The deployment plans that we stole are more helpful than we imagined.

The Blue Rose Great Wall has three gates. The Western Gate is facing the Grim Vermillion Kingdom. The Southern Gate is facing the main battlefield and the last Gate is the Eastern Gate that we used to enter the Golden Crow Territory. Two dozen River Formation Experts and one thousand Qi streams Experts are supposed to attack the Southern gate. This is where my cousin Wei Yu is stationed. Most of our soldiers are deployed at this gate because it is the one facing the main battlefield. 

So I was asking myself this question. Why are they sending such a small group of soldiers to attack our strongest gate?

They plan to use the poison on all the Qi Streams Experts we have. A formation controlled by the Qi Streams Experts of the Golden Crow Kingdom and the remaining Two dozen River Formation stage Experts can cause pretty good damage. They want to catch us off-guard by using the venom and then hunting down our River Formation Experts. But this is not all. After this first wave of attacks, the Golden Crow Kingdom will send another group of Cultivators to land another blow on us.

They know they can't win against us with normal strategies. Golden Crow Kingdom always uses treacherous methods to achieve success. Our kingdom will lose a lot of manpower if we let them succeed."

"So what should we do, Young Master?" Liu Xin was visibly shaken when he heard Wei Ren's words

"If the venom doesn't work on stronger cultivators, then strong cultivators we shall deploy. We will deploy an entire platoon, consisting of only River Formation and River Expansion Experts." 

He said with a cheerful yet demonic smile.