Chapter 753: Mercenaries
The most intense battlefield remained with Ramdo and Ying Huo.
The two of them had truly fought to the point of outright fury, or rather, they already harbored an irreconcilable enmity.
The One-Wheel Cult, organized by Ramdo back then, had killed the parents of Ying Huo’s previous incarnation. Even though the current Ying Huo was merely a partial consciousness inheritor of Ning Yan Huo, this hatred had been preserved completely intact.
Over the course of a hundred years, it had undergone many twists and turns, transforming from a reborn ordinary Golden Apple Tree into the inheritor of the tree demon Ying Huo by activating its true legacy.
Of course, to describe it more coldly, a certain small Golden Apple Tree demon, whether fortunate or unfortunate, unlocked the legacy of the former super great demon Ying Huo, and subsequently, its personality was warped by a vast amount of information into the form of Ying Huo.
While it couldn't be strictly considered rebirth through possession, it had inherited everything from Ying Huo.
From knowledge to renown.
The current Ying Huo, in terms of both combat power and processing speed, had already surpassed Ying Huo's most brilliant period. It was just a pity that the Federation was no longer the Earth of yesteryear, when there were only "three or two kittens" at the Six Tiers.
As a tree demon, Ying Huo actually didn't care much for humans. Had it still been during that era on Earth, it might very well have devoured humanity whole.
If it dared to massacre humans on a large scale, it would immediately be attacked by all the True Immortals acting in concert, which would ultimately lead to its demise.
Thus, Ying Huo devised a gentler plan to eliminate humanity—the Wood Elf Plan.
According to its observations, only about three percent of humans were superhumans, with the remaining ninety-seven percent still weak and short-lived.
Yet, they also harbored desires for strength and longevity, even if reality didn't permit it.
Therefore, Ying Huo put forth the temptation of reincarnation as a Wood Elf, offering ordinary people who desperately sought power a chance to become stronger.
Mortals transformed into Wood Elves could, from the outset, possess two to three times the physical prowess and lifespan of ordinary humans. Furthermore, after sacrificing their ability to learn other elemental spells, they would possess a natural affinity for wood-element spells, giving them a greater chance to become mages.
The only problem was that the transformation process had both a high failure rate and a high mortality rate; it was essentially gambling with one's life.
Ying Huo's intention was to continuously attract the largest demographic of mortals to voluntarily transform into Wood Elves, slowly "washing" the human race. After all, it had all the time in the world.
Could ten thousand long years not be enough to turn the original human species into a rare animal?
This gentle, "breeze and fine rain" style of racial transformation was far more subtle and pervasive than crude slaughter.
Womb as a weapon, invincible under heaven.
Anyway, it had all the time in the world.
Once the majority of humans transformed into Wood Elves, it would essentially mean their demise as a distinct race. What's more, those who became Wood Elves would even thank it, the instigator, in reverse.
...
The person etched deepest into Ying Huo's memory, besides Ramdo, was Bai Mo.
Unlike its pure hatred for Ramdo, its emotions toward Bai Mo were exceedingly complex.
On one hand, the other party was its creator; without Bai Mo's plan back then, Ying Huo would never have been born. But on the other hand, it was also he who ultimately shattered its soul and snatched away what was perhaps the only Ninth-Tier Golden Apple in human history.
As the strongest Golden Apple Tree demon, it naturally knew how a Ninth-Tier Golden Apple could be cultivated.
All it required was the blood sacrifice of a million people, coupled with pouring resources into it relentlessly.
Compared to the cost of a million lives, it was actually more difficult to gather the resources to pour into it.
Times were different. Back then, it had only been a few years since the "Heaven-and-Earth Opening" (Spirit River Autumn), and all sorts of Heaven-grade Spirit Materials, which were now rarely seen even for a fleeting glimpse, were still ubiquitous.
Now, trying to gather all the rare heavenly treasures and earthly delights needed to create this Ninth-Tier Golden Apple, even a True Immortal like itself found it an arduous task.
What's more, this damn thing was a divine artifact to Six-Tier cultivators, but it already had little effect on True Immortals. Only someone "with a hole in their brain" would exhaust their family fortunes and bear the infamy of killing a million people to refine it.
Naturally, this also stemmed from Ying Huo's empathy for its own kind; it didn't wish to see any more of its kin killed.
Precisely because refining this wretched fruit had cost it its life back then, it simply buried the method of its creation deep within its heart.
...
The colossal tree enveloped the entire Planet of Execution, its dense roots extending all the way into space.
Aside from the Wood Elves, armies from the Federation itself, as well as mercenaries several times the number of regular troops, also appeared on the battlefield, emerging through the roots that stretched directly into space.
The colossal body of the World Tree had at this moment transformed into a planet-sized super aerospace carrier, transporting hundreds of thousands of regular troops and millions of mercenaries.
Yes, the most numerous combatants on the battlefield were, in fact, mercenaries.
In wuxia/xianxia terms, they were called loose cultivators.
In Western fantasy terms, they were called adventurers.
They chased wealth like hyenas, and also roamed everywhere, unwilling to be constrained by organizations due to their love for freedom.
This True Immortal battle was undoubtedly a golden opportunity to get rich. Both sides had promised immense rewards, ranging from cultivation methods leading directly to higher tiers, to Heaven-grade and Earth-grade Spirit Materials; all could be exchanged for the heads of enemy soldiers.
Moreover, there were also gains to be had from scavenging corpses.
Even the corpses themselves were a form of profit.
Ying Huo and its subordinate tree demons could directly enhance their cultivation by digesting the corpses of cultivators, so it had even put bounties on corpses.
A complete corpse of a Three-tier cultivator could be exchanged for a hundred thousand Federation dollars.
After over a hundred years of frantic development, thanks to the contributions of artificial wombs and cloning technology, the Federation's actual population now exceeded a trillion.
However, a considerable portion of this population was hidden within the flagship vessels of various great noble families.
In the true sense, only less than four hundred billion citizens held proper Federation identification.
Over ten billion people with cultivation aptitude had appeared in the Federation.
A small number with higher innate talent and intelligence were absorbed into the Federation government or the major sects and prominent families; the rest had to find their own path.
After all, cultivation resources within the Federation were not particularly abundant. Even top-tier great sects had to be meticulous in their calculations, able to prioritize only a select few.
Many cultivators with truly ordinary aptitudes, although they could actually live quite well in the mortal world—earning hundreds of thousands a month, owning cars and houses, with a life of ease and freedom within reach—
—once they had come into contact with the transcendent world, where the powerful lived for countless years and could overturn rivers and seas, they found it difficult to content themselves with the happiness of ordinary people.
They would rather return to the superhuman world, be "Gu-fed" and used as tools or cannon fodder, fighting with their lives on the line as the lowest rung of cultivators, striving and snatching, rising by devouring others, all for that glimmer of hope for advancement, rather than becoming a handful of yellow earth a hundred years later.
Having seen the vast ocean, other waters are no longer water.
This was the origin of the million mercenaries.
PS: I might not have time to write the second chapter, if not, I'll have to make up for it tomorrow. Also, this book is still very long; even if I update daily, it's impossible to finish within a year...
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