Chapter 813: Chapter 50 Consecutive Formation Map

Is there something off with the data?

Qi Yingzhu leaned in to look, but in this world, there was neither Excel nor any kind of tabular rules; a mass of data was squeezed together in plain text form. Little Tiger felt dizzy at just one glance, not to mention discerning anything amiss.

Seeing her confused expression, Lv Yan circled a certain piece of data.

Then another… and so on until he had circled about a dozen figures, then he put down the pen without a word.

Qi Yingzhu immediately understood the implication and compared the data she held with the previous set, focusing specifically on the numbers her master had encircled.

Indeed, upon comparison, she discovered where the issue lay.

In wars among mortals, if the number of soldiers suddenly decreased by one-third, it would be conspicuously obvious, and therefore military strategists derived many corresponding tactics, such as doubling the number of cooking pots, adding clothes to straw dummies, tying branches to horses’ tails to sweep back and forth — creating the momentum of an overwhelming force and so on.

Since cultivators rely on magical treasures and formations for their offensive methods, it is not easy to make direct assessments based on their numbers.

High Rank Cultivators with higher Cultivation Realms could unleash spell power equivalent to two, three, even four or five Low Rank Cultivators, or even more. If one were to judge the number of combatants solely by the effects of spells, it would be near impossible.

However, the data Lv Yan highlighted were the “recovery speeds of war formations” — a figure few people pay attention to.

Though war formations are easy to manipulate, they are still formations after all. Besides needing resources for energy consumption, they also require someone to operate the Formation Device to maintain it.

If a spell hits a part of the formation, depleting the energy there, resources must be quickly extracted for repairs. When the average mastery over formations is moderate, the more people involved in maintaining the formation, the faster its recovery speed.

Upon close examination of the data, Qi Yingzhu realized that extrapolating from this point, there was a noticeable decrease in the number of cultivators inside the city today responsible for maintaining the Defensive Array.

It was only because they had increased resource consumption and formation output that no significant weakness was exposed.

So the question arose: why would the number of cultivators defending the city decrease?

Thinking positively, it could be that under her master’s psychological strategy, these cultivators had completely lost their will to fight and didn’t plan to persist stubbornly.

Taking a more negative view, could it be that these cultivators have already…

“It’s hard to say,” Lv Yan said, shaking his head after hearing Qi Yingzhu’s conjecture, “but indeed, we can’t rule out the possibility that they have broken out of the encirclement.”

“I’ve looked through the intelligence department’s information,” Qi Yingzhu continued, “If hundreds of cultivators were to retreat from Yuanjiang City, it wouldn’t be possible without leaving any trace.”

“In this world, there are indeed ways to escape without leaving a trace,” Lv Yan said leisurely, “such as using a Teleportation Array.”

“Master,” Qi Yingzhu said in disbelief, “If the Dragon Clan or the Feathered Clan had mastered the means of mass teleportation, they certainly wouldn’t have just used it to rescue the Yuanjiang City defenders!”

“Just by dispatching a spy to infiltrate Central State, West State, find a deserted area to set up a formation, and then whoosh, a large group of Dragon Clan and Feathered Clan cultivators are teleported over, then we’d literally have fires flaring up in our backyard! It’s impossible to keep watch over every inch of land, isn’t it?”

“Could there be such a possibility?” Mired in thought, Lv Yan’s expression grew serious, while Qi Yingzhu’s face turned deathly pale.

Even the master couldn’t deny this possibility, could it be that I’ve really guessed it right?

Of course, suspecting such a possibility was merely Lv Yan’s habit as a military general: to avoid missing any detail.

But to truly take it as fact and guard against it without any evidence would be overly paranoid.

Though the Mao Clan of West State all address him as the White Tiger Divine General, Lv Yan is clear that he has not reached the divine level of “victorious in every battle”.

Cultivator warfare is unlike mundane conflicts, filled with all kinds of odd and unheard of artifacts that can suddenly turn the tide of battle.

Take the ancient wars between the Demon Race and Human Race: the former dominated initially, but the latter suddenly produced the Sun and Moon Immortal Weapons, decapitating demons in droves and causing rivers of blood…

Thinking of those two Immortal Weapons, Lv Yan couldn’t help but sigh, increasingly feeling the insignificance of human efforts under the dictate of fate.

If the enemy truly mastered a group Teleportation Array, as Qi Yingzhu said, the alliance between Central State and West State would immediately face the danger of defeat and collapse.

If you seize land and attack cities in the front, while the enemy teleports a few ancestors to your doorstep and takes over your home, how would you continue to fight?

Although there is no evidence at the moment, it’s not a bad idea to make a contingency plan in one’s spare time… Thus, Lv Yan thought about how to deal with this kind of Teleportation Array while also ordering the divisions to strengthen their siege without sparing any expenses.

A Formation capable of transporting so many people at once must leave traces within the city. Capturing Yuanjiang City sooner would confirm this matter as quickly as possible.

In addition, other potential methods of mass transport, such as space-based mobility, also need to be ruled out one by one.

Using rivers for Water Escape? Using the earth for Earth Escape? Using Illusion Techniques for group Invisibility and then finding a secret route to slip away from the battlefield? These feats are beyond the abilities of ordinary cultivators. However, since the whereabouts of that group are currently unknown, all possible scenarios must be thoroughly investigated.

The following day, as the defenders of Yuanjiang City just received donated supplies, they were horrified to discover that today’s siege was exceptionally fierce: it was as if they would not rest until the city was broken.

Lou Ming hurriedly flew back to the city’s defense office, seeking an urgent audience with Long Long to report:

“The enemy has intensified their siege!”

“Oh,” Long Long was drinking tea and slowly set down the teacup upon hearing the news, calmly stating, “Then we should correspondingly increase our defensive efforts.”

“We have increased them!” Lou Ming’s voice became shrill with urgency, “Have you forgotten, sir? There are only a third of our forces left in the city, and the strength of the Defensive Array has been increased to four times its original power!”

An array that originally required three people to maintain now has only one, leading to less flexibility and necessitating an increase in the upper limit of the array’s endurance to three or even four times the original–which also means that the consumption rate of resources has tripled or quadrupled accordingly.

“Tsk,” Long Long said scornfully, “I have already reviewed your Defensive Array. It’s terribly poor, no wonder it couldn’t withstand the siege from outside.”

Lou Ming nearly wanted to kneel down. What kind of timing was this? It was like the enemy was at the gates of the command post, yet the commander was not considering strategic retreat but instead criticizing inadequate equipment… Was that really the point right now?

“Take this.” Long Long picked up a scroll from the table and threw it on the ground.

Lou Ming eagerly caught it, with the fervor of a hawk snatching its prey, and urgently unrolled it to look.

What was written on it was not an evacuation plan for the troops, but a Formation Map of a kind he had never seen before.

“Follow the chained Formation Map I’ve drawn here to connect all the isolated and scattered small Defensive Arrays, which require a large number of cultivators to maintain, into one linked system,” Long Long said casually.