"It is time…" Lin Mu opened his eyes as he heard the message.
He had been cultivating and optimizing himself for the final battle, and now it had finally arrived.
~GRRR~
A growl was heard coming from the distance, and a red blur floated over from the distant mountains.
"Time to hunt?" Little Shrubby asked.
"Indeed… time for the final hunt." Lin Mu replied as he stood up from the rock.
He had used up every cultivation resource he could use to further himself and was now at his best.
'Hopefully this will be enough…' Lin Mu thought to himself as he got onto Little Shrubby's back.
The two of the flew towards the nexus and took a newly built teleportation gate.
~SHUA~
When they reappeared, they were standing atop a small hill that was hidden with several illusory formation arrays.
"You arrived just on time." A voice was heard, making Lin Mu turn around.
"How could I be late for this?" Lin Mu chuckled at Jing Luo. holds © this.
"Mmhmm… and neither is anyone else, thankfully." Jing Luo said, his eyes looking at the horizon.
"Everything went well, I assume?" Lin Mu questioned.
"On our end? Yes. The empire? Not so much." Jing Luo answered.
"Oh? Did they cause any trouble?" Lin Mu asked, while furrowing his brows.
He knew well that the imperial court was mostly in turmoil since the poisoning of the emperor and him being unable to do anything. The princes were already trying to capture power and the nobles were looking to cut out a part of the cake for themselves.
The objective that Gu Yao had set out to do with respect to the emperor was already accomplished.
"More like they are crumbling. The Vermillion Legion has been annihilated." Jing Luo replied.
"What?" Lin Mu was surprised, but then a certain person came to his mind. "Is Wu Hei?"
"The soldiers with injuries and those that were in the infirmary are fine. They were moved by Wu Hei beforehand." Jing Luo answered.
"That's good…" Lin Mu said, but his brows didn't ease up.
He thought for a moment before speaking.
"Why would the northern tribes attack the Vermillion legion? Wasn't their plan to use the passage?" Lin Mu questioned.
"We don't know… but what we do know is that after attacking the Vermillion legion, the northern tribe's people didn't actually go further. They seemed to have retreated." Jing Luo answered.
"Hmm… this doesn't seem right… if they eliminated the vermilion legion, they have an open route." Lin Mu spoke. "At least they think they do, we after all, have our people hiding there too." He added.
"We discussed about it and can only guess that it was a power statement; a threat." Jing Luo said.
"That does seem like something they might do." Lin Mu replied. "Or… maybe it's a distraction?" Lin Mu suggested.
"A distraction from the passage? Hmm… that does seem reasonable. After all, even if they think the passage is secret, they still can't bet on it. I would probably do the same in their place." Jing Luo said, understanding Lin Mu's mind.
"Exactly. And it also helped to panic the imperial court. They are now useless. If we were not in the alliance, it could have been a great blow." Lin Mu agreed.
"What about the new 'allies'?" Jing Luo asked.
"Oh, they are ready. They'll be here in a minute's notice. We simply need to wait for the right time." Lin Mu replied.
"Good… you should talk to the rest till then. Who knows… it might be the last." Jing Luo said.
Lin Mu's expression turned firm, and he nodded. Even though Lin Mu hoped to win, he still knew coming out of this with no casualties was impossible. Even high level experts of theirs would perish inequitably.
Lin Mu thus looked around and saw a lot of his friends and acquaintances that he had gathered over the past few years.
There were the patriarchs, the elders, the clan members of the Fenlong kingdom, several merchants who were also strong and had decided to participate, some independent powers and even mercenaries!
Lin Mu didn't even know that the mercenary unions which had been forced by Gu Yao to disband through trickery were now working for the alliance. There were simply too many people in the alliance, thus Lin Mu couldn't know all of them.
About ten percent of their manpower was composed of the independent experts and powers who had joined. This also included itinerant cultivators and people like Jiao Fang.
Lin Mu spent a couple minutes with each important person, talking about the present and future.
But in all these, Lin Mu realized that there were two people missing. Returning to Jing Luo, Lin Mu couldn't help but ask.
"Where's your grandfather and Duan Ke?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Oh, they will be arriving later…" Jing Luo answered in a low voice.
"Hmm…" Lin Mu could guess the rest of the part. "And they'll be hiding till the right moment?"
"Indeed… after all, grandfather holds one of our biggest trump cards. It is not something that can be easily revealed. That sword will alert every strong cultivator in the world upon its appearance. Which would also mean the northern tribes." Jing Luo stated.
"That is for the best. There is still the ancestral bell we need to be careful about." Lin Mu agreed.
~SHUA~
And just as he said that, Lin Mu sensed a very faint flicker in the space.
His eyes sharpened and he looked at the sky in distance.
"What happened?" Jing Luo asked, seeing Lin Mu's sudden actions.
"I… don't know… but the space just trembled weakly." Lin Mu replied.
He was about to use spatial perception to check for anomalies, when a strong wave of spirit Qi was felt coming from the distance.
"THEY'RE HERE!!! THE HILLS ARE DISAPPEARING!" A voice announced loudly.
Lin Mu and Jing Luo's eyes snapped at the hills, while Lin Mu's spirit sense soared quickly and reached the area.