Chapter 567: Chapter 353: Need to Understand Both Yourself and the Enemy
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"To win the war, we must understand both ourselves and our enemy. Simply forming an army and entering a random nation won’t be enough to hope for victory. Doing so would ultimately cost us more lives than we can afford to lose. The first thing you need to figure out is: what is the purpose of this war? What exactly do you want? Yes, you’ve said freedom, but in what form? Do you want to take over a kingdom? An empire? Do you intend to wage war on both places simultaneously? Do you want the Divine Origin to expand and surround another kingdom, or do you seek coexistence with humans?"
Yan Xiaobao sighed deeply, feeling a headache coming on. Wan Qiao’s eyes sparkled as she gazed at him, her lips curling into a grateful smile.
"I knew you would excel at this," she said with a laugh. "So, what’s the first thing we need to do?" she asked, catching Yan Xiaobao completely off guard. It seemed she’d been toying with the idea of a prolonged war all along. But then, she was a magical beast. She wasn’t used to planning and preparing for everything beforehand.
Yan Xiaobao sighed again, deciding he might as well help this woman. By assisting her, he would have some power to protect the people he cared about in the Sun Kingdom while granting the beasts the freedom they truly desired.
"First, gather all the Lords of the forest," Yan Xiaobao said with a sigh. "We need to hold a meeting as soon as possible. First, we need to determine whether they’re even interested in participating in the war. Second, we need to learn about their territories. I need to know how many guards and soldiers each of them has. I need to understand their possible terms, the locations of their lands, and the distance each must travel to meet up with the main army; I believe this will be your guards and soldiers from the capital."
"We also need to uncover what these Lords truly want when they speak of freedom. Do they want to expand the Divine Domain? Do they wish to coexist with humans in the same world? I genuinely don’t know what they want; all I can do is talk to them."
Wan Qiao was thrilled by the flood of words pouring from Yan Xiaobao’s lips. She had already decided she wanted to start a war, but in her world, the only way she planned to wage it was by bringing in numerous Saints and crushing the Saints from the other three kingdoms. This would render them powerless and allow beasts to take over everything. That might work to a certain extent; however, it was unlikely to help those lower-grade beasts who ventured into human territories. The humans could easily capture them and force them into beast contracts because Lords couldn’t be everywhere at once.
Yan Xiaobao sighed once again, pondering what the most beneficial solution might be. "Wan Qiao, I hope you can invite all the Forest Lords and have them arrive as soon as possible," he said as he stood up slowly. "Before they get here, I will focus on my training. Please try not to throw anything too overwhelming at me, or I fear I won’t be able to handle it," he said with a sigh, bowing slightly before leaving the room slowly. After Yan Xiaobao departed, Wan Qiao ran around excitedly to prepare for dispatching the Forest King, summoning them to her castle.
While Wan Qiao was filled with energy and gratitude upon hearing Yan Xiaobao’s words, she also felt joy seeing that the young man was willing to involve himself in war preparations. This was exactly what she had hoped for. As a magical beast, strategy wasn’t her strength, nor was she good at the practicalities of war. To her, power was the only thing that mattered. If she possessed power, she had everything she needed—in this situation, that belief was proving flawed.
On the other hand, Yan Xiaobao was not energized by the situation at all; instead, he felt both shaken and uncertain about how to proceed. While he held several military strategies in his mind, to find the best path forward, he needed to know exactly what the beasts were seeking.
After spending some time in Chenyuan, Xu Yuan realized he still didn’t fully understand the world of beasts. He hadn’t noticed their deep desire for freedom. Pondering this, it became clear to him that the Divine Domain didn’t house any ordinary beasts, which in turn explained why Divine Beasts had to turn to each other for food.
To Yan Xiaobao, this wasn’t unusual at all. While living in Liluo City and traveling to the Magic Forest where his parents resided, many magical beasts preyed upon each other, especially lower-intelligence ones like boars, rabbits, birds, and deer. For him, magical beasts hunting other magical beasts was simply natural, yet from what Wan Qiao had said, this was uncommon. Now, it had become so dire that intelligent beasts were hunting other intelligent beasts, leading to the plight of the Single-Horned Jasmine Hawk.
Yan Xiaobao could somewhat understand the Hawk’s predicament and genuinely wished to help, yet he wasn’t certain how to do so. Deciding not to dwell further on the war for now, Yan Xiaobao returned to his room, where he sat down and began cultivating. He never missed a night dedicated to refining the Heaven and Earth Essence. With his eyes closed, his soul grew quieter as it absorbed the essence, gradually purifying and refining it further into spiritual energy.
The night passed, and Qing Yue woke early the next morning. Unmindful of the war situation, he headed to the training grounds, where he began working on his training regimen. Every day, he could feel his body gaining strength, and while his physical prowess increased, his ability to harness internal energy improved as well. The spiritual energy circulated faster than ever before, allowing him to use greater amounts at once. It was astonishing how much of a difference this made to both his body and his mind during training.