Before sleeping Punya had sent another shadow to Radha explaining about the things that happened in the clan hall. He had also asked Radha to be careful about the ambushes that might happen. Although it would be unlikely, that they would divide their forces so soon, it was better to be cautious. The members remaining there had almost dismantled everything on the outpost except for the training array. The materials remaining there needed an expert to dismantle them carefully otherwise, they would turn to waste.

Now that most of the members had returned to the clan, there were less than a hundred members remaining on the outpost. If they stayed vigilant, the Battle hall members and the remaining ones that were used to being in the forest would have high chances of survival in case of sneak attacks. And with Radha there, very few below the golden core formation realm could fight her. But Punya knew it was better to be cautious.

So he asked Radha to leave the illusion array on the outpost and at the same time asked Keshab to modify the arrays. This idea was proposed by Keshab. After their meeting, Keshab left for the outpost and there he modified the training array and expanded it to cover the outpost so it would seem that around a hundred members and Radha would always be present there and the array was laden with killing array and self-destruction array.

So in case of any ambushes, they would be attacked with the killing array, and in turn, the array would self-destruct annihilating everything within. The self-destruction array was one of the new arrays from the inheritance and from the look of things was becoming a favorite of Keshab. It would be a nice surprise. Even if the clans didn’t ambush the outpost, if they went there later on for spoils of war, they would be surprised

. After modifying the formations, Keshab and Radha as well as the remaining members returned to the clan through the secret door stealthily. Even though the clan members could survive on the Bareback mountains, the two major clans had allied with the foreign powers, so if the surviving members went to other cities, they were sure to be hunted down and who is to say they weren’t monitoring the exit points of the Bareback mountains to other cities. And that was only if the scattered members could survive in the first place.

Punya and Keshab had thought about this but in the end, decided to make every member return to the clan. The world of cultivation had myriad of bizarre techniques and some of them included tracking a member with bloodline if you have prepared enough sacrifices, so while the idea of scattering clan members throughout the forest for survival seemed feasible, they would be hunted down like dogs later on. As for the fifth elder, he had a lot of knowledge so he would have few ways to prevent himself from getting tracked if he went far enough from the city.

Stolen novel; please report.

He had left the small traces previously because the forest itself would help erase them in a day or two. And not just anyone could trace their tracks, even if traced, there were some made by the fifth elder to mislead opponents on purpose. What he didn’t know was there were shadows following them and protecting them in secret. But after getting out of the shadow’s range, they were on their own. The fifth elder felt it was getting harder the further they went on but he thought it was due to them getting deeper on the mountains and that was one of the reasons.

But since the children were well-behaved and they had a lot of low-level talismans as well as pills, the journey became easier. The forest was somewhat different from what the fifth elder knew but he had read a lot of maps prepared by the clan members over a long period of time, even with the changing forest, the fifth elder knew exactly where he was. He just hoped the clan would hold out so they get enough time to escape. He was planning to return to the clan after a year or two regardless of the outcome.

Till then he had sufficient materials for survival and it would be a good chance to temper the children. The cultivation world was cruel and if these children could survive the Bareback mountains, they would survive whatever the world had to offer. He had told the children this was a part of training and whoever performed the best would get anything they wanted from the clan leader. The children’s parents had said the same thing and since they were of gullible age, they didn’t think the elder of the clan would lie to them.

Punya was still in contact with the shadow and after an hour, the clan members had finally left the outpost. Keshab had finished modifying the arrays on the outpost and had returned to the clan. After another hour, Radha also arrived at the clan with the remaining members. The members were ordered to stay hidden for a few days. They were not to make contact with their immediate family members.

In total, there were thirty foundation building cultivators in the Battle hall excluding Radha, and most of the remaining members were in the ninth stage of the qi sensing realm. Although they couldn’t individually battle with foundation building cultivators yet, four of them could make a group and battle initial foundation building realm cultivators easily. Since they had gone through many life-and-death battles in the illusion array, they had a tacit understanding with each other, and a form of the battle array was beginning to form unknowingly. The major clans were in for a nasty surprise.

After Radha returned to the house, they discussed the things that happened during their absence and the plans going forward. Although at this point, nothing they could do would help much, sometimes even the smallest of preparations could help turn the tide of war. Everything was prepared, and the clan was in a frenzy about producing the auxiliary items. The resources brought from the outpost as well as the deposit made in the clan treasury previously were rapidly declining.

This was necessarily not a bad thing. The only regret was that the second-tier items took longer time to refine and the resources were somewhat more scarce than the first-tier ones. And there were also fewer members who had reached the second tier in the auxiliary profession. The night went by and in a blink of an eye, another day was beginning.