69: Chapter 69 The Azure Heaven is dead, the Yellow Heaven shall rise; in the year of Jiazi, great fortune shall befall the world!

After the defeat of Mingguang City, Yan Qinghe led the remaining trial-takers in a desperate escape all the way, only halting their steps after confirming they had completely broken away from the combat zone.

Stopping to look back at the towering and lifeless Mingguang City in the distance, lingering terror remained in the depths of their eyes.

During the escape, they were constantly on tenterhooks, fearing that the monster army would tail them and hunt them down to the last.

Fortunately, the monster army that occupied Mingguang City had no intention of pursuing; after occupying the city, they lay dormant in place and made no further unusual moves.

Only then did the heavy stone hanging in everyone's hearts finally drop, and they secretly let out a breath of turbid air.

Yan Qinghe turned his head to look at the companion beside him, his voice carrying undisguised fatigue and hoarseness: "How many people do we have left?"

Hearing this, that person let out a heavy sigh, his tone full of dejection: "There are only over eighty people left. The rest either died miserably in the beast horde and during the escape, or completely broke away from the Alliance to flee for their lives individually."

Hearing this, Yan Qinghe's expression became increasingly ugly and gloomy.

He had long anticipated that this battle would inevitably result in heavy losses, but he never expected that their Alliance, which once dominated a region, possessed eight cities, and had two million dependents, would end up in such a battered state today.

"Qinghe, what should we do next?" one person beside him asked in a low voice, a look of panic on his face. "We are simply no match for those monsters, and moreover, all our remaining cities are directly along their advancing route…"

Though the words were unfinished, the intention of giving up was known to everyone.

Yan Qinghe's expression flickered several times before he finally gritted his teeth and made a resolute decision, his tone heavy and decisive: "Give up, give up all the cities entirely. With these terrifying monsters around, we simply cannot defend a single city."

As these words fell, the entire scene plunged into a dead silence, everyone's expressions dim, full of unwillingness and bitterness.

The eight cities were the foundation they had painstakingly built bit by bit, spending over two months of effort.

The countless devotedly educated believers and painstakingly accumulated resources within the cities were all the fruits of everyone's day-and-night toil.

Now, everything was abandoned overnight, and all their efforts went down the drain.

After a brief silence, Yan Qinghe quickly gathered his thoughts and arranged countermeasures in a deep voice: "Right now, the monster army is still stationed in Mingguang City. We must seize this window of opportunity, split up to rush back to the remaining cities, and take away the believers we each cultivated as well as some high-value, lightweight, and portable resources—take them all away. No one knows when the enemy will dispatch troops again, so everyone must act swiftly and decisively, and avoid any delay."

Everyone nodded in agreement, with no one refuting.

This was already the only path to survival at present.

"But after abandoning all our foundations, where should we go?" someone asked blankly.

Yan Qinghe pondered slightly, gazing toward the distant horizon, and said in a deep voice: "With the terrifying strength of this monster army, the entire Xiguang Imperial Dynasty no longer has a shred of safety to speak of. We will withdraw and head to the Youying Imperial Dynasty."

Exchanging glances, everyone consented one after another.

Even though the road ahead was distant, hazardous, and unknown, compared to facing the bizarre beast horde that swallowed everything, traveling far to the Youying Imperial Dynasty was already the best choice.

Facts proved that their choice was extremely correct.

When the five-day rest period expired, Carlos once again led the endless monster army on an expedition, successively capturing city after city.

In a short span of a month, the beast horde expanded wildly with the momentum of a whale swallowing and silkworms eating, forcefully devouring half of the Xiguang Imperial Dynasty.

Its territory spread for a thousand miles, and no one could stop it.

Even if the Xiguang Imperial Dynasty dispatched several top-tier level-nine powerhouses to desperately block them, they still could not shake the beast horde in the slightest, and even all perished, returning in a disastrous defeat.

The shadow of the terrifying natural disaster shrouded the entire territory.

All the trial-takers stranded in the Xiguang Imperial Dynasty had no power to fight back in front of the unsolvable pseudo-Divine Beast horde; they could only abandon their cities and flee one after another, scrambling to pour into the Youying Imperial Dynasty for refuge.

A massive number of trial-takers swarmed in, instantly disrupting the layout of the Youying Imperial Dynasty, and the situation became incomparably chaotic.

Resource competition and turf battles among various trial-takers occurred frequently, with countless people being ruthlessly eliminated and completely leaving the field every day.

After the upper echelons of the Youying Imperial Dynasty insightfully perceived this situation, they decisively chose to contract their forces, abandon remote cities, and sit back and watch the external trial-takers infighting and consuming each other, reaping the fisherman's profit.

However, all this fire of war and chaos temporarily could not affect Mingkong City and Xuanming City.

The territory where Su Ming was located was remote and isolated, and it did not border the Xiguang Imperial Dynasty, making it one of the rare stable places in the current chaotic world.

Precisely because of this, the Youying Imperial Dynasty's army, which had originally been eyeing him covetously and looking for an opportunity to encircle and suppress him, had completely abandoned its punitive expedition plan, pulling all its forces back to the core territory to deal with internal rebellion and external troubles.

While the outside world was engulfed in the flames of war and the people were plunged into misery, Su Ming alone obtained peace in a corner.

Yet at this moment, he still had troubles of his own.

His missionary speed was simply too slow.

For some time now, Su Ming had poured all his efforts into spreading the teachings and preaching, repeatedly sparing no expense of his own Divine Power to manifest miracles, display the Nether Divine Dao, and win over the common people in the city to convert.

Yet the results had always been minimal.

Having just entered the Divine Dao, he was ultimately a newly minted deity, and his understanding of the ways to civilize human hearts and spread faith was still too shallow.

"Sigh."

Su Ming quietly sensed the Power Of Faith coming from the two cities, unable to help softly sighing with his heart full of helplessness.

"After painstakingly preaching in the two cities for many days, very few people have become shallow believers so far."

Faith and civilization were like doing math problems; if you knew how, you knew how, and if you didn't, you didn't.

Whether human hearts inclined toward good or evil, and whether they were willing to convert, depended entirely on their original intentions, and could by no means be forcibly reversed by brute force and Divine Power.

Just as Su Ming was troubled by the sluggish progress of his faith, his heart suddenly stirred as he sensed the runes of the human path of the Six Paths of Samsara suddenly lighting up with scorching divine light.

"Full ten days!"

A look of pleasantly surprised joy suddenly lit up in Su Ming's eyes.

Three months in the Chaoming Realm was merely ten days in the outside world, and the human path of the Six Paths of Samsara could finally be summoned once again!

His figure flashed, and he instantly escaped into the Jiuyou Divine Domain, heading straight to the platform of the Six Paths of Samsara.

Without the slightest hesitation, he directly opened the summoning channel for the human path.

"Expensive, it's simply too expensive!"

Looking at the huge consumption required for the summoning, Su Ming couldn't help his mouth twitching, his face full of heartache.

The first time he summoned Ganie, it only required ten thousand divine crystals;

The second time he summoned Yelie, it consumed one hundred thousand divine crystals;

And this third human path summoning directly skyrocketed the cost to two hundred thousand divine crystals!

The human path channel before his eyes had practically become a gold-swallowing beast in his eyes, frantically gnawing away at his accumulated family fortune.

Complaints aside, Su Ming was exceptionally clear in his heart that this was definitely a sure-win, risk-free business.

Cultivating a qualified hero dependent in the outside world readily required hundreds of thousands or even millions of divine crystals in resources, consumed a massive amount of time and energy, and the success rate was not one hundred percent either.

Yet here, two hundred thousand divine crystals could summon a hero dependent, and both Ganie and Yelie were top-tier combat powers even among their peers.

If such an opportunity were known to others, it would inevitably trigger countless people to scramble for it madly.

Su Ming no longer hesitated, directly pouring all two hundred thousand divine crystals into the human path channel.

Surging Divine Power churned, and deep within the channel, thousands of brilliant light spots instantly lit up and twinkled inside.

Su Ming concentrated his perception for a moment, made a precise move, and locked onto one of the light spots.

The next instant, the figure of an old man draped in ancient, worn-out cloth clothes and with a vigorous physique stepped out from the human path Reincarnation channel.

"The blue sky is dead, the yellow sky shall be established; in the year of Jiazi, great peace under heaven!"