Chapter 299: To War!

The Refinery Worm had slowly uncovered the full extent of the underground passageways underneath that warehouse. There was a large room, presumably for longer term storage of slaves, and also a half dozen secret passages of different sizes. The Falcons tasked Little Birds with tracking every person who frequented the areas where the passages ended, while War Falcons were set to trail each person that was seen entering or leaving the close vicinity of the passageways. They didn’t exactly know where each passage ended, but they had a pretty good idea by having the Refinery Worm follow them to the buildings or other structures they ended at.

After a few more weeks, they had created something of a profile on each of the people that were seen most commonly around the exit points. Each of these suspects were then trailed and records kept of who they commonly met with. With a bit of study, commonalities started to show up between them and the most important targets were identified. With that in mind, they’d already found the ‘distribution’ points. The places where slaves were taken after being collected from Lionheart and the other nearby Towns. They were amazed to realize the scale of the operation at this point. There were far more people being taken and sold as slaves than they had thought. There was at least a half dozen of these locations in 10,000 Wave province, let alone all of the Dou Kingdom.

Watching them, they learned that many people who were presumed dead while adventuring in the wilderness actually ended up in the hands of slavers. The War Falcons did some investigating and learned that there was a portion of cultivators that preyed upon other cultivators. They would form a team and invite new cultivators only to surprise attack them and then sell them to slavers. Others would wait for lone cultivators to enter battle with a Demonic Beast, then swoop in and finish off the Beast and knock out the cultivator. Hearing this, Sage ordered the War Falcons to keep track of the culprits in the Lionheart Town area.

We may not have enough manpower to clean up the whole Kingdom, but at least we can keep our own yard in order.

“We want to strike each of these ‘distribution points’ at the same time. The issue is our lack of qualified Core Formation cultivators. So, instead we will be dividing into three. Each group will be responsible for taking down two of the distribution points. These teams will be led by: Black Saber, Wu Chang, and myself. Each of the teams will consist of a fully trained Legion as well as a second Legion of trainees.”The meeting was called and Sage passed a Memory Sphere to Black Saber and Wu Chang. After they reviewed the information in detail, they joined him in briefing the rest of the Horde. The identity of the Falcons and Little Birds was of course secret, but the commanders knew of the War Falcons and could assume the information came strictly from them.

Black Saber and Wu Chang had already read this information so they were prepared and ready. The other commanders spent a few moments taking it all in before they started to discuss the orders. There were only a few objections.

“We can’t take the trainees into battle! Even the fully trained legions are unfamiliar with each other. They’ve only just finished their training camps!”

“That’s right! Its already bad enough to start an operation with inexperienced units, let alone taking untrained ones as backup!”

Sage eventually shook his head and answered them quite calmly, “You’re wrong. This is a perfect time to use these newly formed units. The slavers have no idea that we’re coming and we outnumber them by many times. The untrained units will merely be responsible for forming a secondary perimeter and the easy battle should give the main units some confidence. There will be losses, but that is a requirement to forge strong soldiers.”

The objections ended there. The Centurions that had voiced their opinions realized that only one of the Legionnaires was concerned. The other five as well as both Black Saber and Wu Chang were very calm. Black Saber had sacrificed many men in his time as a bandit leader. It was inevitable that some would fall along the way, and those that remained would be stronger for it. Wu Chang on the other hand, felt a twinge of pain internally at the idea of losing subordinates, but it was smothered by the idea of getting revenge on the slavers. His spirits were also quite high at having joined the Jade Horde. More than a thousand of his city guards had joined the Jade Horde so far and the single Legion that Black Saber had brought with him had turned into six.

Soon enough the planning was finished and each of the three units set out. Given that Wu Chang was the City Lord, the large scale troop movement was easy to explain as a training exercise. The news of the City Lord joining the Jade Horde was not new in Lionheart Town, so it didn’t draw too much attention. After leaving town, the legions split up and each moved to one of the distribution points. Black Saber moved towards the furthest targets, while Wu Chang handled those closest to Lionheart Town.

They had planned the attacks to start at the same time, so both Wu Chang and Sage’s unit had to delay to give Black Saber time to move into position. They waited at a hidden camp, drilling the untrained soldiers for a few days until the time of the assault arrived. At that time, the Refinery Worm had entered the distribution point and Sage made sure there were no signs of alarm. They’d already searched each of the camps for hidden exits, but to be sure the second legion had spread out to form a perimeter a mile wide. If there were any secret tunnels they hadn’t found it was unlikely they would extend that far away.

When the time came, Sage made a hang signal to the Legionnaire. The Legionnaire signalled the Centurions and the force a thousand strong crept forward quietly. They weren’t a troop trained for stealth, and with a thousand men with armor and shields they were far from silent. On the other hand they moved quite quickly and the outer layers of sentries couldn’t put up much of an alarm before they were taken down by Stumblebow bolts. When the Legion was a hundred feet away from the walls of the hidden compound, a loud noise rang out and there was loud yells. The were noticed, but it was too late for the slavers to put up a unified defense.

Sage’s Twin Soul took out the pair of slavers guarding the inside of the gate. That bought just enough time for him to toss a huge battering ram out from the Universe Ring. The nearby members of the Jade Horde took up positions around the ram and Sage released a huge gout of flame onto the huge doors. Mundane fortifications like these weren’t really built to keep a cultivator out, they were more to control the normal folk and to fight against swarms of lower level Demonic Beasts. Against cultivators, especially a Core Formation cultivator, they were only delaying tactics. Even the thirty foot high walls of the compound were easily scaled by an invading force.

The ram, powered by cultivators, blasted through the flaming gate in only three swings. Sage stepped out of the way and the first century of the legion marched in. Five centuries had surrounded the building from the outside, while the rest were gathered up at the gate and flowing in. These large distribution centers were quite large, enough to almost be considered a prison back on earth, they were sizable enough to house hundreds of slaves at a time. Such scale in multiple locations was astounding, and disgusted Sage enough that he committed the Jade Horde with excessive numbers.

We can’t let a single one of these bastards get away.

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