Chapter 455 Ambush

In this atmosphere, someone finally couldn’t hold back anymore.

The first ones to act were Eden—they contacted Ling Mo the day after the meeting to inquire about the demons. It seemed the news dropped at the meeting surprised Eden, but what astonished them wasn’t Guang Ling’s issue, but rather… the truth of the world.

As mentioned when Eden contacted Ling Mo, the Dark Zone world is the real world. This point further confirmed the leader’s suspicions that the demons were indeed sent by God to help humans evolve. Those who did not evolve were wiped out two years ago in the great destruction, and this was practically a second chance from God. If they didn’t cherish this opportunity to evolve, they would end up like the Dark Zone and face extinction once more.

Ling Mo felt they were quite good at concocting narratives.

However, there was still worry on their side about whether the early reconnaissance would reveal him—more precisely, Cheng Ming’s presence. After all, all demon strongholds and suspected demon strongholds had been investigated. If they were discovered, it would be a problem.

Ling Mo assured them that nothing would go wrong and prepared them for their actions.

So after a week of preparation, Eden was ready to move—they planned to strike first and take down the Eternal Life Palace.

Because the Eternal Life Palace was also considering going solo, or rather, planning to betray them. This was their own speculation, probably because the early expedition didn’t allow the Eternal Life Palace to prepare for many things, forcing them to abandon or halt some operations. Unfortunately, Eden ended up on the abandonment list.

Ling Mo pieced together from their words that the Eternal Life Palace would abandon Eden likely because Eden was progressing too slowly with the demons. The last time there was a demonic invasion in the city, it was actually co-handled by Eden and the Eternal Life Palace, but it ended up derailed by a Chicks organization that made the plan fail. It now seemed like the Eternal Life Palace wanted to use Eden to control the demons to strike other forces—essentially, getting others to do their dirty work without getting their own hands dirty.

Moreover, no one had anticipated the demons would get involved with humans, which would also minimize exposure risks.

However, it’s worth mentioning that a rather active organization back in the city, led by Bai Yan and her group, seemed quite concerned about this issue. If not for their guidance back then, Ling Mo and the others might have missed these details.

Later, Xia Xinyan also had someone investigate Bai Yan, and the final intel wasn’t much, but it confirmed that Bai Yan had significant friction with the Eternal Life Palace. It wasn’t the kind of conflict that could just be swept away, but one that required the other side’s complete destruction. However, Bai Yan was quite mysterious, making it hard for even the Eternal Life Palace to track her movements; thus, not many others knew about it.

Originally, Ling Mo had planned to collaborate with Bai Yan to eliminate the Eternal Life Palace, but unfortunately, the Eagles Alliance couldn’t find any news about Bai Yan, so they had to give up.

Ahem, getting back on track.

In short, the significantly advanced expedition left Eden unable to pull out this blade in time. Even now, even if Eden had managed to use Ling Mo, the fake “Cheng Ming,” to show their work, given their current relations with the Eternal Life Palace, they could not inform them; and the Eternal Life Palace coincidentally thought it was time to deal with Eden, their now useless partner. Although it’s unclear what methods they intended to use, it certainly wouldn’t bode well for Eden.

So Eden was planning to take the initiative and eliminate the Eternal Life Palace in the exploration area they were responsible for.

The method employed was the demons Ling Mo controlled in the city.

It was quite interesting.

Ling Mo agreed quickly, setting a meeting time and place with Eden, and the show was about to begin.

The Eternal Life Palace managed areas in the cities north of Elk Mountain, all bustling places in reality, and importantly, not far from Shen City. According to intel from there, the Eternal Life Palace seemed to be eyeing Shen City, perhaps looking to see if there were any opportunities to exploit.

That was convenient for them.

However, Eden was not foolish enough to go all in without first confirming the demon situation, so before taking action, they proposed to meet Ling Mo—more accurately, meet Cheng Ming.

While communication could ensure that nothing went wrong, meeting face-to-face introduced a lot of variables. Therefore, to ensure stability, Ling Mo planned to lead Eden to face off against the Eternal Life Palace directly; by then, Eden would likely be too preoccupied to worry about them, and as for those demons, Ling Mo had ways to bring some out.

Of course, he wouldn’t say this directly in communication; instead, he negotiated a meeting location with Eden—on the outskirts of Lanxiang City, where the Eternal Life Palace’s main forces were stationed, arguing that it was closer for a faster response. Fortunately, Eden didn’t raise suspicions.

The time was set for 3 PM that very afternoon, but on the same day at dawn, Ling Mo and Xia Xinyan had already begun their actions.

Since they had already promised to bring an army of demons for help, demons were certainly included in the play. So, this time they brought along Guan Ling, Meat Can, Xiao Bai, and that fox, forcing a bunch of clueless demons to act as minions—this was the fun part. The demons in the city were also quite brutal, but if they encountered a stronger presence with a clear intention to make them submit, they’d do so without hesitation, so simple-minded they wouldn’t even consider any tricks.

Guan Ling probably forged those demons into her subordinates in Shen City this way.

With these preparations done, Ling Mo and Xia Xinyan, along with Guan Ling and those demons, began today’s main event—just like the last demonic invasion incident, a large number of demons launched a direct attack on the Eternal Life Palace’s encampment, starting with a crazy smash and then retreating.

A very basic lure-and-ambush tactic, but in this environment, it was the most effective—originally, the Eternal Life Palace’s mission was to investigate the whereabouts of demon strongholds and their movements, but up to now, they hadn’t made any useful discoveries. Thus, under this premise, having a group suddenly appear to launch a random beating and then dip, it was hard not to make them associate it with the demon evolution mentioned at the meeting. So regardless of whether these demons were engaged in guerilla tactics or something else, they had to go investigate, as it was their only lead.

They might just find the location of the demon stronghold through this clue, right?

—At least when they set off, Yanzi Gui thought so.