Chapter 246: The Army Commanders

Waking up the following morning, Hui Yue felt both exhausted and excited. He spent quite a few hours preparing to meet the many experts and start preparing for war. He was going to speak with a whole training ground filled with Emperor ranked experts; experts who proved to be stronger than their peers, and he felt slightly nervous thinking about how he should go about it.

Dressing himself, the young man left the elegant rooms he had been given. As he left the room he found that the hallway outside was not empty as he expected, instead Lord Pan was standing there with Wan Qiao and a small group of lords. This took Hui Yue by surprise; it was completely unexpected.

Looking at them, he cleared his throat, “Excuse me; I am in a hurry this morning. How can I help everyone?” He asked perplexed. He was not certain why this many experts awaited his departure, but now that they were here, it would be rude not to hear what they wanted.

“Don’t mind us,” Lord Pan said with a hearty laugh when he saw the perplexed expression on Hui Yue’s face. “We are just here to see what you plan on doing with the many Emperors that are awaiting your arrival,” He continued his words showing the intent of all the experts by his side.

Hearing why the experts were here, Hui Yue felt slightly sour as he grumbled to himself, ‘I already have to deal with a lot of pressure, and now these lords think that they can come watching as though this is some sort of entertainment.’

‘This is a good thing,’ Lan Feng pointed out as he heard the grumbling Hui Yue. ‘When the lords are here they are most likely backing you with their strength. Having them observe what is happening likely none of the Emperors would want to test your strength. Well, to be honest, I don’t think that this would happen. I do think that some of the Emperors will be jealous of you and your position, but they cannot show their jealousy as long as their lords are present.’

‘I guess you’re right,’ Hui Yue sighed as he looked at the guards. With a nod to Lord Pan, Hui Yue turned around and quickly left behind the group of lords who followed. The group was chatting amongst themselves with smiles on their faces. All of them were excited to see just what Hui Yue had planned for this group of guards that were waiting for him.

Walking through the castle, Hui Yue quickly made it to the training ground. Swallowing his saliva, his throat suddenly went dry when he saw just under a thousand Emperors standing in front of him. All of the emperors were looking at this young man. Some of them had a gentle smile on their faces, other of them appeared spiteful. Some looked serious while others looked as though they were being made fun of. But one thing they all had in common was that all of them were watching Hui Yue. Some of them started speaking together while others were quiet, yet as Hui Yue made his way towards the top of the arena, he could see all the Emperors and all the Emperors could see him.

“I am glad to see you all made it here today,” Hui Yue said with a smile on his face. He did not try to enhance his voice, all he did was speak. Not all the Emperors had quieted down, making it impossible for some of them to hear what was being said.

Hui Yue paid it no attention instead he continued, “I want everyone to split up. Thousand man commanders go over there. Two thousand man commanders move over here.” Both times he pointed to various places within the training ground; however considering that the Emperors were still speaking amongst themselves many did not hear what he said. The young man paid no attention to them and kept pointing out the locations for five thousand man commanders, and finally ten thousand man commanders. While he told the Emperors to find their location, only a few of them actually moved. Most of the others were still busy chatting amongst themselves, not paying attention to what he wanted them to do.

Seeing this, Hui Yue’s eyes darkened, and with a voice that was the same strength as before he opened his mouth, “Those experts who ignore me, I will just tell your lords that I have no use for you. If you cannot even follow a simple order, then there is no way I can make you into army commanders.”

Although this was said with the same strength voice as before, it instantly caused everyone who was mumbling amongst each other to quiet down and stare at Hui Yue. Some of the experts opened their mouth, their expressions were filled with disbelief, but as they looked at the young King that was standing on the arena, they saw a hard face which showed no signs of remorse. It was clear that he was completely serious.

Seeing this a sudden rush appeared in front of the stage and after only a few moments, all the experts had sorted themselves so that they were grouped together by which rank they had in the army.

“This young man is quite skilled,” One of the lords said as he saw how Hui Yue managed to make all the experts get in order. “Although our Emperors are unaware that we are watching, he is fully aware of it. To threaten them in such a way while knowing that we already are aware of what is going on. I cannot wait to see what he is going to do next.”

Hui Yue’s ice-blue eyes were merciless as they looked at the experts in front of him. Hui Yue was fully aware that these experts all looked down on him, and they were clearly unhappy that they had to follow his orders. Hui Yue, on the other hand, was unhappy that he had to deal with these so-called experts who had no knowledge about what it meant to go to war.

“I am here to teach you what it means to go to war,” Hui Yue said. This time, when he spoke no one else dared to interrupt him. They all shared the emotion that even though Hui Yue was weaker than them, he was someone who had been ordered here by their lords. If he were to say that they were doing badly, was that not the same as losing face for their lords? None of the guards could accept losing face for their lords. Due to this, they all listened to what Hui Yue was saying.

“In war what matters is not your personal honor, nor is it the honor of your lords. In war it is Shenyuan you are fighting for, and for Shenyuan you will become chess pieces who will make sure that we win the war.”

“Thousand man commanders, below you all the men will be split into groups of five. The main job of these groups is to make sure that they survive. Survival and teamwork are what they need to remember. In these groups of five, they are to work together to destroy the human waves that will be pushed towards us. By having five experts looking after each other, it should be impossible for the human wave to get even one of them with the others watching their back. Even if this feels like the powerful bullying the weak, this is war. At such a time there is no room for honor and dignity. Anything goes in war, as long as you can win against your opponent then anything is allowed.”

The words Hui Yue spoke caused many of the experts to look at him in dismay. These were cultivators not warriors. For them, battling against weaker enemies was already asking a lot, but to group together against weaker enemies was even more shameful. What Hui Yue asked them to do went against everything they believed in. Even the Saints who were standing further away and listening to what was being said had gone quiet.

Hui Yue, looked at the dismayed expressions and heaved an internal sigh. The pride amongst these guards was hard to kill. Making them understand that they could not duel their way to victory in war was even harder. To make them understand that they would have to team up to annihilate the soldiers was the only way Hui Yue could guarantee the success of this war; however, to make these proud cultivators change, Hui Yue was not quite sure about how to accomplish this.

Sighing once again, Hui Yue looked at the experts in front of him. “Do not think that war is a duel. This war is something we cannot afford to lose. We have to win and to win we need to use our strongest warriors to decimate the army of the Siban Empire. Although we are strong, the country we are up against has a very large army. As an empire, their army has been trained properly from the start. Every soldier is ready to throw away their lives for the sake of winning the war. They will launch suicide attack after suicide attack. For them, death is something they take pride in. They will keep attacking until they manage to kill even one of our experts. For twenty common soldiers to trade their lives for one King ranked expert, they would be thrilled. Tell me, although your rank is far above these common soldiers, are you able to throw away your lives for the sake of winning a war? Are you capable of attacking a Saint for the sake of killing him, even if it means trading your own life for his?”

Every word that Hui Yue spoke caused great shock in the hearts of the experts. For them, their lives were something they highly valued. They were still training on the path of being a truly supreme expert and wished to break through the bottlenecks they were experiencing. Training and reaching the pinnacle of power, becoming Saints much like their highly respected Lords.

Their hearts trembled as they heard what Hui Yue was saying. The fact that they were willing to trade their lives was something which required respect, and definitely, something which they needed to acknowledge.

“If you want to survive, if you want to win this war for the sake of your lords then you make sure that every group of five works together. They work together to stay alive, and at the same time to get rid of the army. We all wish to survive and cultivate after the war, but not everyone will survive. But, we can work together to lower the number of casualties.”

The experts who at first had looked at Hui Yue with disdain were now all nodding their heads. Their hearts which were filled with unwillingness and a feeling of their dignity being trampled were now filled with vigilance and worry. If a war truly was as dangerous as Hui Yue said, then it was obvious that they would need to change their normal way of fighting.

Even the Saints who were listening were frightened when they heard what kind of tactics the Siban Empire was likely to use. Numerous human waves were something that could be countered, but only to a certain degree. Using Wu Wei to kill many men was possible was a solution, but there was a limit to how many people their attacks could reach at a time. To have five King ranked together to protect each other was indeed something that would lower the casualty count of their army. Having listened to Hui Yue so far, the experts finally started to understand why a mere King was promoted as the Grand Marshall. This young man, who seemed to be a cultivator much like the rest of them, was aware of how an army thought and worked something which the Emperors had to admit that they were unaware of.