Chapter 2016: Early Known Nightmare

**Chapter 1997: The Nightmare I'd Seen Before**

Wan Qiliang frowned.

"The captive said that the Heavenly Palace Protector also sent an overseer from Yaodi to Guo Baiyu. This person usually interfered with military affairs, but they are not here now."

Wan Qiliang mused, "What does this 'overseer' look like, and who accompanies them?"

His subordinates brought a captive, who was originally a leader in Guo's army. The captive recounted in detail that the overseer was a robust man in his early thirties, often accompanied by a plain-looking girl of sixteen or seventeen. Guo Baiyu had also strictly ordered that no one in the army should disrespect this girl, and she was given special care regarding her daily needs.

It sounded like this girl might be the "Divine Incarnation" sent by the Heavenly Palace to Guo Baiyu. However, Wan Qiliang had previously eliminated two groups of enemies whose supposed Divine Incarnations turned out to be fake. Those local magnates only realized just before their deaths that they had been tricked by Qingyang.

So, was the Divine Incarnation she sent to Guo Baiyu real or fake?

However, none of the enemy factions Wan Qiliang had previously dealt with had an "overseer" sent by the Heavenly Palace. Did this indicate that Qingyang valued Guo Baiyu more?

After all, Guo Baiyu had performed better in the war against the Dragon God.

Wan Qiliang pondered for a moment, then asked the captive, "Has Guo Baiyu ever tried to summon a Divine Incarnation?"

The captive shook his head and honestly replied, "I don't know what 'summoning a Divine Incarnation' looks like."

"Praying and chanting for a period of time."

"No, the commander was always busy."

Wan Qiliang asked a few more questions but, finding no useful clues, withdrew his troops and returned to the city.

The Flesh Fortress was breached, and the Dragon God's army and the Bixia people, who had been held outside, quickly arrived.

The Bixia army had fought hard for a long time, but upon seeing the Great Emperor of Nine Serenities, they instantly collapsed—

Because he held the head of General Chongwu in his hand!

He was the pillar that had allowed Bixia to fight until now. With his fall, Bixia's backbone was broken.

This was the turning point of the Bixia War.

Subsequent events held no suspense. He Lingchuan cleared the way and brought his troops to the walls of Anrong City. Seeing his son's tragic death, the old Bixia patriarch knew that all was lost. Heartbroken and dispirited, he immediately committed suicide.

Bixia harbored enmity with the allied forces, and it had been instructed by the Heavenly Palace and Qingyang to oppose the Great Emperor of Nine Serenities. This sealed the Bixia patriarch's fate, leaving him no retreat and no option to surrender to the Great Emperor of Nine Serenities like the allied forces.

Defeat meant only one path: death.

Only with his death could the Bixia clan hope to survive.

With General Chongwu and the old patriarch both dead, Bixia's resistance instantly crumbled.

Their war with the allied forces had lasted two years, leaving them exhausted and impoverished. Now, with the patriarch and his son dying on the same day, Bixia lost its last shred of morale.

What meaning would further resistance hold, beyond merely increasing casualties?

That day, Anrong's city official led his clansmen out to surrender the city.

This was also why He Lingchuan lured Chongwu to attack him: although Anrong's capital was not as fortified as Yaodu, taking it would still take more than a day or two, which didn't align with He Lingchuan's strategy of quick victory. Therefore, he set himself up as bait to instantly crush the Bixia people's hope, disheartening them and eradicating any will to resist.

In other words, if he defeated General Chongwu, the task would be largely accomplished.

Subsequently, He Lingchuan took control of Anrong City and held a grand celebratory banquet in the old royal palace, fulfilling his promise to his troops:

To treat them to a lavish breakfast within Anrong's palace city.

At this point, dawn had not even broken.

The entire Bixia clan surrendered, and the Bixia territory was incorporated into the Dragon God's domain, bringing the war in the central and western Flashgold Plains to an end.

He Lingchuan had to admit that he had a preconceived notion: he thought Qingyang's best support for Chongwu would be a Divine Incarnation, allowing him to summon a true celestial god.

It was still too narrow a view.

The Flashgold Plains also held numerous great demons that could be used by the Heavenly Palace and Qingyang, as well as arcane and indescribable secret arts and divine spells, such as the Flesh Fortress and the Jindu Ghost Infants. If utilized well, these methods could even be more effective than directly summoning a god.

Not to mention ordinary people, even immortals had barely witnessed the abilities of the Jindu Ghost Infants. Combined with the Flesh Fortress, it was truly a deadly trap.

From the moment they bypassed the mountain pass, He Lingchuan and the Black Armored Army had actually entered the disguised Flesh Fortress. The monsters before them, including those slain by He Lingchuan and the Black Armored Army, were all Ghost Infants born from the Jindu Ghost Mother's borrowed womb.

The woman at the bottom of the lake was their human mother, or rather, the vessel for their birth.

The unending stream of small monsters being summoned must have been the ability of one of them, but it required reliance on the mother's body. Therefore, once the woman died, both the Flesh Fortress and the small monsters vanished.

This Flesh Fortress was activated by her body, a process filled with unimaginable agony, especially when the large and small monsters together drained the mother's life force to heal their wounds.

The woman was not a Divine Incarnation, but she was supplied with Emperor's Dew and Profound Crystals; otherwise, she could not have sustained such consumption.

The terror of this deadly trap lay in the fact that enemies trapped within the Flesh Fortress often mistook it for a formation, then wasted time and effort trying to find a way to break it, ultimately being exhausted to death.

Only those who understood the operating principles of the Flesh Fortress had a chance to survive it.

Although the Great Emperor of Nine Serenities' reputation was fearsome, neither Qingyang nor Chongwu believed he had ever encountered such grotesqueries.

Almost no one could break the Flesh Fortress in haste. It was a unique manifestation of divine magic in the human world, not something naturally belonging there. The Jindu Ghost Mother herself was a special entity among celestial gods, virtually bypassing the two-world barrier by exploiting a loophole to place the Ghost Infants in the human world. Moreover, the Ghost Infants possessed growth potential, completely unlike typical Divine Incarnations.

But no one knew that long ago, in the Panlong World, He Lingchuan had personally experienced the terrifying power of the Flesh Fortress.

At that time, his small team barely escaped. It was General Hong who arrived to kill the Devourer, bringing everything to an end.

Therefore, He Lingchuan had a profound impression of that battle. Upon seeing the flesh-and-blood stone patterns in the stone tablet, it instantly triggered his past memories, and he also knew the fatal weakness of this trap.

As for today's battle, it was hard to say whether He Lingchuan was exceptionally lucky or if Chongwu and Qingyang were simply extremely unlucky.

But He Lingchuan found one thing strange:

The Flesh Fortress was a divine ability of the Devourer, but during the battle against Chongwu, no Devourer appeared within the Flesh Fortress. Otherwise, the difficulty of this campaign would have increased by at least another level.

The Jindu Ghost Mother's litter size was not fixed; she could produce up to nine offspring at a time, but the chance of a Devourer appearing was minuscule and not humanly controllable.

He Lingchuan had seen one Devourer in the Panlong World and later encountered a nest left by a Devourer in the Demon's Nest Swamp in the real world, but he had not heard any news of such creatures since.

It was unknown where Qingyang acquired the Flesh Fortress; one could only say that Qing Palace's collection was simply too vast.