Chapter 1182: All Things Proceeding Smoothly (I)

The despondent Barren king sat silently on a chair inside the royal tent, deep in his thoughts. Around him, some civil officials were equally dejected and in fact, despairing. Just as the king ran through every part of his life, Li Hao’s voice ran in his ear.

“When the Barren army invades the province of Calm Borders, does the Barren king have the ability to incite all of your soldiers to erupt with blood qi? The combined blood qi needs to blot out the sky and chaos enveloping the world. Do so if you can, forget it if you can’t! I will spare Barren Dynasty if we succeed, but it will no longer exist if we do not!”

Not a flicker of change rippled through the king’s face, but his heart pounded fiercely. How could Li Hao contact him under such conditions?? And speak next to his ear??

Heavens above!

What was most incredulous of all was that there were countless Saint level desolate beasts around them!

Something appeared in his hand the next second.

“This is the armor of my army that can be used to contact me! You can claim ownership through a drop of blood. Only you can contact me directly! I must leave now, or risk losing one of my generals.” Li Hao’s voice carried some mirth in it. “In addition, there’s something unusual about that white horse. I hope the king can explain the situation to me.

“Also, your daughter has good foundations. Finally, help me figure out how many powerhouses Red Dust has sent to Barren. As the ruler of a nation, you should be able to accomplish this. If you cannot, we can forget this conversation.”

The Barren king remained unmoved; he simply marveled at Li Hao’s boldness. He only needed to shout to those outside to perhaps doom the young man! How did Li Hao dare attempt any of this? This was too much! There were so many Saints nearby!

Of course, he would not call out. The king was just shocked and curious as to why Li Hao was so certain that his enemy would choose to stand on the same side as the young man. He was the king of Barren Dynasty!

“Remember this well, Barren king—Silver Moon world should be grasped by only Silver Moon denizens. Those of Barren Dynasty are also of Silver Moon. Whether it is desolate beasts, New Martial, or Red Moon, none of them have the right to be masters of the world! That is all, I’m leaving and await your good news!”

A gentle wisp of wind blew past—the king knew that Li Hao had left. He stood up after a while, drawing a desolate to poke its head inside the tent.

“Do not walk around...” it said coldly.

“I just need to stretch my legs, they’re going numb,” the king answered calmly. “The lords are right here, are you worried that this king will attempt anything? I reiterate what I said before, be careful of Red Dust. You cannot work too closely with him. He must be brainstorming ways to install his powerhouses in the Barren wastelands.

“We will be in extreme danger once there are more than three Saints from his side present! I hope that the lords will convey my words to the honored one. In addition, please pass on the message that Barren is invading too slowly. This might be a precursor to danger.

“Of the Barren humans, only I possess the strongest concentration of chaos presence. My officials are second only to me. Since the situation has developed thus, please permit us to join the war. We must expand the chaos as quickly as possible and assimilate the eastern continent. When will we finally see victory if we continue at this pace?”

The desolate beast blinked at the response. This fellow hadn’t been willing to enter the battlefield before, why was he willing now?

Of course, it was for the best if he was willing. The only concern was if this was a cover for desertion!

“There is no need for the lord to worry,” the king continued calmly. “Barren is my home and I am the Barren king. There is open warfare between us and Skystar now, what path of retreat is there available to me?”

“I will relay this to the honored one...” The desolate beast didn’t wish to offer anything more. Perhaps the addition of these people would indeed accelerate the pace of battle. It was too slow right now.

The Barren king inclined his head and sat down again, a myriad of thoughts running through his mind.

Li Hao, this king will gamble this once! There are many Saints among Red Dust’s side, as well as desolate beasts. Can you really stop or defeat them?

The young man had somehow already discovered the abnormalities involving the white horse. He truly had keen and relentless powers of observation.

All sorts of thoughts appeared in the king’s mind—he was suddenly both nervous and excited. It was an inherent belief that they could not overcome desolate beasts or New Martial powerhouses. But today, he and Li Hao were conspiring against these powerhouses. Could it... be done?

The king suddenly seemed to return to the days in which he unified Barren Dynasty. He was keyed up, apprehensive, uneasy... and a little fearful.

......

Li Hao had already left the Barren wasteland. Gan Wuliang appeared moments later, sweating profusely and trembling all over. His shakes calmed somewhat when he saw Li Hao. He’d almost been surrounded by two Saints earlier. Thank goodness Li Hao’s command reached him in time to secure his withdrawal.

What an exciting life this was!

“Prepare to evacuate the citizens of the eastern continent...” Li Hao suddenly said. “Have Lin Hongyu put together people to facilitate an evacuation.”

“My lord!” The group was stunned by his words. There were numerous provinces that were highly populated within the eastern continent—the population numbered two billion! Such a large-scale evacuation was such an expense of resources and manpower!

The key was that it was impossible to settle so many people with such a rushed evacuation.

“Your Lordship,” Director General Zhao intoned with a deep frown. “It will cause general fear and panic if we evacuate people now. It is also impossible to make the proper arrangements for so many people, nor do we have enough personnel to accomplish such a task. This is neither one million nor ten million people.

“If it was the latter, we could easily do it with superhumans, but this is two billion from the entire eastern continent!”

Li Hao’s words threw them into an uproar. The numbers were staggering!

“Then let’s move everyone east of Calm Borders. That’s only half of the eastern continent...”

“But that’s still impossible.” The director general shook his head again. “There are ten provinces there that make for almost one billion people. My lord, just mobilizing them to move is a massive undertaking. Such a migration would take at least a year’s worth of preparation, even in an age of superhumans.”

What kind of concept was one billion people?

It would take at least twenty thousand trips by warships, assuming they traveled at high speeds and ferried fifty thousand people at once. That was forty thousand one-way trips, and this was under ideal conditions. Reality might require thirty thousand trips or even more.

As fast as the warships were, it would take some time for people to board or disembark the ships, be transported elsewhere, and carry their belongings. Making two transports in one hour would be considered fast enough already.

A warship would only be able to make fifty trips in a day, and that was without rest.

Having taken Boundless and Battle Heaven, Li Hao possessed several dozen warships. They could make approximately three thousand trips a day. That meant it would take ten days without stop to finish the maneuver!

Not to mention, the warships consumed energy. Several dozen warships working day and night would deplete an astronomical amount of resources. These were also best case scenarios!

They might have had enough time had Li Hao ordered this earlier. But if he had, that would’ve been before Skystar and Barren Dynasty met in battle. Evacuating the people ahead of time and abandoning the eastern continent might lead to bigger problems.

Li Hao sank into deep thought. This was indeed very troublesome!

But if he didn’t evacuate the people and Barren expanded its territory, then half of the eastern continent would be assimilated into the chaos. Ordinary people might not be able to endure the onslaught and outright die when the chaos presence ensconced them.

A more coldhearted person would ignore those consequences since there were plenty of people in Skystar Dynasty. If they won the battle, they would kill more than one Saint, the Barren threat would be defused, Red Dust would suffer an enormous setback, and they might have even killed Yu Hai.

It wasn’t necessarily that everyone would die either. The entire population cultivated martial dao these days, which provided some protection against chaos. If they were fast enough, perhaps only eight to ten million might die.

That didn’t sound like much since Skystar had a massive population. That was perhaps only one large city.

However... as Li Hao looked over the teeming soldiers of the million-strong army, he frowned at the thought of ten times this sight dying!

He’d considered this course of action before, but his thoughts then were that the enemy might not proceed with blanket coverage of chaos. The young man also hadn’t been prepared to utilize Red Dust against Yu Hai either.

At this stage in his plans, Li Hao simply needed to ignore the consequences to have everything go off without a hitch. If he cared, the astronomical depletion of resources would grow bigger as time dragged on.

“Chaos presence does not damage buildings,” Li Hao suddenly raised. “If we have sufficient warships and shove fifty thousand people in each of them, evacuating one billion citizens... Forget it, there’s too many of them!

“How about we move one of the ancient cities here? One ancient city can house fifty million under normal occupancy conditions. Squeezing in two or three times that number in an emergency should be fine...”

“Is the marquis really going to move all of the citizens??” Director General Zhao’s head was about to explode.

“Evacuating will make the enemy believe more fully that we want to withdraw from the eastern continent,” Li Hao responded after some thought. “Of course, this is also to preserve people’s lives. Perhaps not that many will die if we don't, but even then, the casualties will be measured in the millions, won’t they?”

“Then... let’s pretend we didn’t react in time... The eastern continent isn’t that important to us...” someone spoke up. Li Hao was surprised to find that it wasn’t Gan Wuliang for once!

It wouldn’t be out of character for the man to say something like this, but it was Northern Fist!

Yao Si had died to save him, resulting in the diminutive old man becoming much more dark and brooding lately. And yet, his boxing style was an expansive and generous one.

Today, this majestic boxing master said to turn a deaf ear and blind eye to what was about to happen.

The eastern continent isn’t too closely associated with us!

The key was that there were too many people to consider!

It was entirely too much of a hassle to evacuate them all. Not only would it create massive delays, but problems could easily develop. An incredible amount of energy would be consumed for the undertaking—all of the energy stones might be exhausted after this operation.

Li Hao sank into deep thought. If they did not evacuate the continent, they could only choose to stop Barren from invading. There were at least six Saints among the desolate beasts; Red Dust might be sending another two or three Saints as reinforcements. That meant Skystar would face at least eight Saints in the battlefield.

He didn’t have enough Saints to meet them in battle and lacked the strength to eliminate one side first, then the other. It was also too risky and could cause a great change in the state of affairs.

From the bigger picture, it was a very worthwhile transaction to trade some mundanes for multiple Saints. It’s not like all of the mundanes would die!

But once Barren invaded and desolate beasts started slaughtering citizens caught in zones of chaos, it would no longer be a matter of millions. Perhaps all of them would be massacred. These powerhouses could easily destroy a city in one go.

It wouldn’t affect the bigger picture if they died since they were all weaklings. So long as Li Hao was victorious in the end, these people would soon be replaced given human reproductive speed.

The young man looked at the sky and turned over many matters in his mind.