Chapter 1659: Operation Marionette

"What do you mean the Revival Pond is not working?" Wan Yanmei asked.

"It’s as I said: no one is reviving," replied an elderly man holding a bamboo slip.

"I’m asking why."

"The only thing we’ve determined is that all our soldiers have experienced true death. As for the reason? That’s beyond my department."

Wan Yanmei groaned. She then summoned numerous department heads to figure out this mystery. It took a few minutes, but eventually, they realized the enemy had established an [Existence Heiarchy Zone] that allowed them to bypass the eternity characteristic of their Emperor Path cultivators.

"Now that we understand how they did, I need solutions," Wan Yanmei stated.

"I doubt there is little we can do," a strategist commented. "We don’t know whether the zone is a result of a formation, a unique location of this world, or something set up by the Saint."

"In other words, we have once again circled to the core problem we are facing: the lack of information."

A pondering silence reared its head in this meeting. Everybody present has had plenty of experience with timeline conquest. The difficulty of these conquests can range from as challenging as copying a large book — meaning the process is easy but takes time — to requiring countless Tribunal Saints to take action. However, no matter the difficulty, the beginning stages are never this infuriating.

Most timelines are caught by surprise, which grants an enormous advantage to the Divine Timeline. But even when they somehow got wind of the invasion, their preparation are never so complete or unique. Usually, these timelines need time to catch up and must rely on desperate measures to prolong the inevitable.

"Should we continue the original plan?" someone asked. Without the Revival Pond to accelerate their dead cultivators, their troops will not be sufficient until the next time the gate sends in reinforcement.

"Yes, and we must be even more aggressive," Wan Yanmei stated. "Send in more of the Silver Legion." The strategists glanced at each other. They understood her thought process. More soldiers meant more deaths from the enemy’s side, which meant more souls and destiny to activate the gate and ask for reinforcement. The problem is that this approach seemed a little risky after just descending to this timeline. However, she was the First Commander, and her words were absolute.

The battlefield between those two timelines was intense. The Heavenly Army was no joke. Every single soldier had a Willpower Armor, which was condensed because Battle Maniac pushed them to their physical and mental limit to train their willpower, followed by using military arrays to manifest the armor for everybody.

However, despite being such a well-trained army, these guys still were not a match for the Silver Legion. Even with the boost from the Heavenly Art Division, the Heavenly Army requires three soldiers to kill one member of the Silver Legion. The Heavenly Court still had other elite divisions, but wouldn’t the same be said for the Divine War Post?

As such, Qiyuan still had to use his only advantage: number. Unfortunately, Wan Yanmei sent even more soldiers, forcing him to do the same and raising the casualty. Ying Zheng was smart to evacuate everybody in the region and used formations to reinforce the surrounding areas; otherwise, this battle would have been devastating to Qin.

’They are finally stopping?’ Qiyuan thought as he glanced at the screen. After over three hundred years, no more enemies rushed out from the Black Dimension, as the Divine War Post’s headquarters had been designated. ’There hasn’t been an attack on the court yet. Could it be that the information was wrong? Or is the attack coming now?’

These thoughts occupied Qiyuan’s mind as he tried to determine his next move. For the sake of safety, he ordered the divisions that did not partake in the previous battle to remain in high alert. Meanwhile, he focused on the aftermath. Soldiers need to be healed, casualties counted, strategy learned, and many more things. The war has just started, and things are not looking good for their side.

Boom!

An explosion echoed throughout the entire court, and it was just the beginning. More explosions soon followed from every corner, alarming Qiyuan and everybody present in the court.

"What the hell is going on?" Ye Guang asked.

Qiyuan did not answer but used a detection technique to observe the source of the explosion. He saw a soldier who had just participated in the battle was attacking his comrade, and the latter used the attacks with the most destruction possible to wreak as much havoc as possible in the process.

"Have they betrayed us?" Ye Guang asked. "No, this looks more like mind control."

"This is a trap," Qiyuan suddenly said as he looked at the screen. The Black Dimension released a power that suddenly sucked out all the souls and blood spilled on the battlefield. The truly horrifying thing is that it did not matter whether these souls had been most destroyed or even already in the underworld; they were sucked into the Black Dimension.

"Their goals are soul energy?"

"Not just souls, but destiny," Qiyuan added.

"What should we do?"

Qiyuan paused. "Let’s leave them for now. The priority should be to quell the chaos."

"Are you sure?"

"Come on."

Qiyuan’s decision was immediately proved to be the correct one. The issue of these controlled individuals became more complicated. Not only were the soldiers who participated in the fight starting to turn on their comrades, but members of other troops would also suddenly turn aggressive. Then, members from departments who were nowhere near that battlefield showed a similar transformation. The randomness of whoever can suddenly turn the enemy made everybody on edge.

Resource Management Department:

Wang Wei was reading several reports. Balancing out the amount of World Sources created and how much is spent for so many people proved to be a greater inconvenience than he had thought it would be. And that’s not mentioning having to deal with so many people questioning his choices of which department should be prioritized. If he had to speak honestly, he was starting to regret accepting this position.

"Hmm?" Wang Wei muttered as a young man was approaching. He recognized him as he could be considered his secretary.

"Sir, I have your —"

Gray chains suddenly materialized and bound the man. A growl then escaped his mouth before his eyes turned red, followed by a nasty aura emanating from his body. Wang Wei then heard the distant explosions. "Is this the source of the danger?" he muttered.

He observed things in the distance with a frown before focusing on the man, directly looking at his [Existence Blueprint]. After searching for half an hour, Wang Wei finally discovered something. He condensed golden needles and injected them into the squirming secretary. A small red parasite slowly ejected from the man’s forehead.

"What an interesting creature," Wang Wei muttered as his eyes turned all gray. "The source seemed to be the blood of the Silver Legion. Then, they divide themselves and continue to transmit through contact." With this simple divination, he had a picture of what had happened. The spilled blood of the Silver Legion secretly impregnated the Heavenly Army with these parasites. Then, when they come into contact with their comrades, healers, and pill masters, these people become affected before spreading it even further to other departments.

"What a mess," Wang Wei complained as he looked at what was happening outside. The infected were captured instead of being killed, as per Qiyuan’s instructions. However, because more of them kept appearing and the fact that it was not possible to determine who was infected, the court was in chaos as everyone was suspicious of each other, which was not the best state of mind to be in, since most people needed to work together to capture these infected individuals.

A scroll, a golden Buddha, and a towering bell floated in the sky as the Literary way, Buddhism, and Taoism used their means of purifying evil or detecting the true self. However, the success of these methods is less than ideal. The parasites that have not been ingrained into the [Existence] can be dealt with, but after three hundred years, these were far in between.

"Wife," Wang Wei said as he contacted Wu Hong.

"I was just about to contact you."

"I think this will be our official debut."

"Stop wasting time."

"Alright." Wang Wei teleported above the sky, where Wu Hong was waiting for him. They communicated swiftly before she sprang into action. She weaved runes into the sky into a formation that mirrored their [Blueprint Observation Technique]. Once she was done, Wang Wei used his Fate Dao to create an eye at the center of the formation. Their technique — while helpful — was slow and took time to detect even one of these parasites. So, the two agreed to add Wang Wei’s Divination to speed up the process.

The array’s first two steps were swiftly finished, leaving the last one. Wang Wei waved his hand to summon the Weave from the Divination Department and fuse it with the array.

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