Author's notes

In the Demonic Mountain...

Yan Hui decides...

Bai Xiaosheng is...

In Shou District, Governor Gongsun Heng is...

Li Changge is...

Chapter 31 – Yan Hui's decision and Li Changge's worries

"We will definitely succeed. My daughter, Yan Hui, had the late Ling Xiao as her master." The man speaks, puffing out his chest.

"Indeed, with her strategies we will succeed."

"We are still grieving his loss."

"It was an immeasurable loss."

"I will inform you that we will leave for bear country today."

"Are our scouts' reports ready?" The Demonic Mountain Master asks looking at one of his subordinates.

"Yes. We have already handed it over to Yan Hui."

"Excellent."

"It's incredible that even though she's young, her strategic ability is better than many veterans. Ling Xiao trained her very well and passed on all his knowledge to her. I'm glad we managed to keep her with us."

"It was great that we found the right treatment for her heart problem."

"Plus, she has that demon slave who has excellent skills."

"What about the grandmaster summoning? How many demon masters and their levels do we need to send?"

"I managed to divide it. Even sending twenty-five percent of our force to the capital, we can move almost the remaining thirty percent. We don't need to send the same amount as with the Demonic Valley and the Demonic Platform because the conquest mission from the Bear Tribe and Dragon Valley, just as sending forces to subjugate Shuo Province after the fall of the Tang Kingdom caused us to send forty-five percent. Shuo's mission of conquest will take place soon. After all , Ashile Sun is considered the God of war and with his four demon slaves he will be able to succeed. The barrier around the mountain is firm and very strong. We will not have any problems with the demons. I have selected two hundred demon masters of considerable level and with strong demon slaves to stay here. That's enough. Furthermore, the mission won't take more than three months. By then, the rest will return from the capital."

"I thought I would send Yan Hui to subdue the Shou State."

"Sun is an excellent strategist. Furthermore, they have more demon masters helping than you will be in this campaign of conquest of the demon bear tribe and Dragon Valley. Her strategic ability will be fundamental and can help deal with the low number of personnel because the capital ordered us to prioritize the conquest of Shuo because even though it has suffered from consecutive attacks for months, it is still standing. It is the last province of the Tang kingdom to be conquered."

"Is it true that the kingdom will send an army reinforcement?"

"Yes. A portion is being relocated from Shou District. As Ashile Sun wishes to take the lead and prefers to coordinate reinforcements with other demon masters, the soldiers are being relocated and will meet us outside the barrier."

"They were of no use in conquering that district. How can they be of any help against the demon tribes?"

"General Lu Musheng, known as the "demon hunting general" has experience in dealing with various demons and our commander, Su Ying and her group are with him. We will have additional reinforcement."

"Then, she will go straight... I imagined that after months of battle, she would rest. She spent a long time in the fallen kingdom of Tang supporting the soldiers in the military offensive."

"She is bitter about not being able to conquer Shou, so she insisted on continuing to fight, as well as wishing to go with General Musheng to attack the Bear Tribe and Dragon Valley."

"I heard she's in love with the general."

"The general loves her too. I wonder when they will arrange the wedding."

"Why didn't she ask to join forces with Ashile Sun if she was bitter about not being able to win over Shou? After all, having two notable demon masters together would double our chances. Both are among the most powerful demon masters currently.?"

"She didn't ask and I decided to follow her wish to be with her beloved."

"Why?"

"They despise each other. Honestly, that would get in the way. The two groups can't work together. The best thing for us is for her to follow the general."

"How strange... Why can't they work together? If they both attacked Shou together, the district would fall in less than two days."

"Divergence of methods and both are dominant. Neither of them will submit to the other even if we decided who would have leadership, in addition to there being other disagreements between them. Their advantage is better if they act separately. Together, they would only hinder each other . Regarding Yan Hui, Su Ying manages to work well with her because the young woman is not dominant, in addition to the fact that she is only responsible for the strategic part. So, if we combine the two we won't have any problems while you can work with her. Have you already they did some missions together in the past."

"Yes. I can do it. Our methods are the same and because of that, we are more compatible."

Then, they return to the conversation about other details of the invasion while defining some points that they will convey to Yan Hui.

Not far away, in one of the finest houses on the Demonic Mountain, a young woman, who was kneeling on a cushion, looked at a ceremonial funeral plaque with her mother's name, as well as observing the funeral offerings, in addition to the incense sticks that he had lit before downing a glass of wine in its designated spot.

Beside her were scrolls containing various notes about the attack mission of the Bear Tribe and Dragon Valley. She also saw through the window the movement of several demon transport boxes because she knew that the objective, in addition to subjugating the demon tribes, was to capture new slaves to increase the attack force.

She remains crestfallen again while in her hands lies a parchment that was crumpled by the pain and sadness that gripped the girl when she read the document after managing to successfully and without leaving a trace break into her father's office to obtain that report that exposed the truth of what happened years ago, when he lost the two people he loved most. Her shifu and her mother.

In the young woman's eyes there was the purest pain, although sparks of deep hatred were beginning to emerge as well as a strong desire for revenge, with her knowing that revenge is a dish best served cold.

The demon master was so immersed in these feelings that she didn't care about the means because the end was more important and if there were consequences, she would deal with it without any complaints as long as her objective was achieved although she wished she could catch the mastermind as well and not just the murderers. .

Bai Xiaosheng approaches her and asks, "Are you really going to go through with your decision?"

"Yes. I will not hesitate."

The shadow demon smiles because he could see that same child from the past, who saved him from ending up being a slave to a sadistic demon master, in the face of his older version even though he was still very young.

After his clan was attacked and many managed to escape, some were captured while the others were killed because they were considered weak and worthless according to what he heard from the demon masters and among those who were captured to be turned into slaves, he he was the youngest and ended up in front of her when he weakly tried to flee from his pursuers due to being unable to transform into a shadow due to the damage he had previously suffered.

Xiaosheng saw the look of pity towards him and as he observed her, she was not like the others because of her gentle look while at the same time the deepest regret for his situation was visible.

As she reflected at that moment, there was no way to escape. It was an indisputable fact that he would be captured and with this thought in mind at the same time as he felt various spiritual powers around him and that they were getting closer and closer, he decided that he must choose his master and that little girl was a master of demons.

He remembers her being clearly saddened by the prospect of enslaving him and this touched him. The human was different from the others of her race and therefore, she had to insist using the argument that he would be captured and would certainly undergo several tortures at the hands of others. He also said that he preferred to submit to her to escape a life of suffering because he heard that the right of property over a demon was respected and as he said this, he again saw in her a look of disgust when he referred to himself as property. This reaction only encouraged him even more to choose her as his master.

The child confirmed what he said and accepted to make the master-slave contract with regret, thus causing him to be spared while he confessed that he had felt great pleasure in seeing their defeated faces when they saw that they had made the contract.

Later, the demon was able to move freely, in addition to having his powers recovered along with the healing of his internal injuries when Yan Hui secretly gave him a version of the Ningxue Wan pill that was produced by the Demonic Mountain because its use was prohibited. by demons, even those who were turned into slaves.

Then, completely recovered and able to use his powers, he used his shadow to go to those captured, masterfully dodging the surrounding protections, and then seeing the relief of the members of his tribe when he manipulated their shadows, causing their deaths. of those who were being tamed while receiving a thank you at the end before life ceased in those bodies.

After all, they would rather die than submit in the name of their clan's pride and it was only possible to kill them through the shadows because he was the most talented in his clan along with the fact that he was the only one who possessed this ability to manipulate the shadows of other demons, including those from his clan and as a result of this prodigious ability, Bai was considered a prodigy.

Xiaosheng remembers when she discovered what he did hidden from her, with the demon confessing that at the time he was worried that he would be punished until the human sadly said that she understood his act because it was the only way to free them from the pain. and the humiliation causing him to be pleasantly surprised to hear these words from the young woman at the same time as he saw the sadness on her face.

For his sake, the human issued some orders using the curse of the contract to force him to obey her and among these orders was the prohibition of telling the truth to anyone when questioned about any matter regarding what happened that day and If there was an order to nullify any other previous orders and tell the truth, the first order ordering him to lie would have to be kept secret, causing him to become confused as he felt the curse forcing him to obey the given commands.

Only later did the shadow demon become happy with these orders as he saw that they were necessary because the sudden death of members of his kind raised suspicion about him being the culprit and even though the Demonic Mountain Master had ordered Yan Hui to publicly give the order to annul any previous orders and for him to tell the truth was activated, his right to lie by maintaining the first order given and as a result of his responses, they ruled him out as guilty while accepting the hypothesis of collective suicide as a plausible explanation for the their death.

Bai comes out of his memories and observes the young woman carrying out the last procedures to honor the dead in relation to her late mother, knowing that she would then go to the place where they kept the memorial for her late master, Ling Xiao.

Meanwhile, hundreds of hundreds of kilometers away, in the Tang kingdom that had fallen to the attack of the Dacheng kingdom, more precisely in the meeting room of the mansion of the governor of Shuo Province, Governor Gongsun Heng, his trusted general Guo Ning, advisor Qin Gu, personal guard Xu Feng, and the governor's adopted daughter Li Changge, whose first and last name was kept because they were the only things she remembered when she was found by Heng and his wife years ago , when she was just a young girl, they were talking about defenses and strategies, among other subjects.

Even though she was a snow tiger demon, they didn't care about her race and raised her as their daughter, in addition to keeping her identity a secret.

Originally, only those in that room knew that she was a demon and not a human.

However, a week ago, the truth ended up being revealed to everyone when the young woman had to take on her true form, which was immense to deal with some particularly powerful demon slaves.

Currently, she was the commander of the light brigade because the governor was recovering from a serious injury. She was also a military strategist and thanks to her strategies she managed to resist until that moment, thus frustrating the enemies who had vainly waited for the chance to subjugate the district when Heng was forced to move away from the battlefield along with the fact that there was a large difference in her strategies with that of her adoptive father.

She was offensive while her father was defensive and this abrupt change of strategy caught the attackers off guard, thus guaranteeing a great victory on the battlefield while the fact that the young woman was a military strategist was hidden by saying that it was someone else who created the strategies to avoid making it a bigger target than it already was.

After all, in a war, if you manage to render your enemy's military strategist useless, you will destabilize the army while causing chaos, thus helping to subjugate your opponents.

However, another problem arose with the change of command.

With the removal of her father who possessed spiritual powers and was one of the few capable of using powerful techniques, there was a considerable gap in defense at the same time that it made the others overloaded in the defensive part because the snow tiger demon could only take care of the part. offensive in attacks as well as in creating battle strategies.

"The demon master, Ashile Sun, is also called the God of War, in addition to being one of the notable demon masters, this being a title given to the most powerful demon masters. With his four slave demons he can subjugate any location and he is on his way. Most likely, when he reaches the battlefield he will take control of operations after the consecutive defeats of the Dacheng kingdom's troop commander."

"I understand. That's why he is part of Dacheng's main military offensive that will join the detachment that is close to us while part of the army left this morning."

"He prefers to act without the Dacheng soldiers who are currently attacking other small kingdoms. It's a shame that our kingdom couldn't handle the attack."

"Yes. For now, we have our stocks and are protecting the food production site."

"Unfortunately, winter is coming."

"I can help in the winter. My domain is water. Therefore, I can absorb the cold, thus allowing the weather to not be so harsh for the crops. Perhaps, I can even maintain a mild climate. Furthermore, I can use the snow and cold as weapons against attackers."

"But, won't that stress your body, daughter?" Gongsun asks with visible concern on his face.