"Conquering a kingdom is easy, but keeping it is hard."
Right now, Xu Cheng deeply understood the truth of that saying.
The Extreme North was vast—larger even than the Star Dou Forest in terms of area. If the Sun-Moon Empire wanted to station troops there, leaving aside the extra cost of frontier subsidies, merely stopping Tianhun and Shrek from secretly pulling tricks would already demand a substantial military commitment.
Did the Sun-Moon Empire lack troops?
No.
Just the Five Hands of the Nation included nearly 6,000 elite soldiers. Add in around 100,000 low-level troops, and their total numbers were no less than those of the original continent's empires—Star Luo, Tianhun, and so on.
But the problem was, the bigger the territory, the more stretched the troops became.
The Royal Soul Engineer Corps was the real elite royal guard, not to be moved lightly unless war erupted. They were stationed near Mingdu. Of the other four beast soul regiments, at least two had to stay behind to defend the capital.
Currently, Fire Phoenix and Imperial Dragon had been deployed to Star Luo to collaborate with inside agents in the Star Dou Forest. So for the Extreme North…
Never mind. He'd just transfer two battalions from Evil Sovereign stationed at Mingdu and two from Imperial Dragon in Star Dou. That should be enough to piece together the combat strength of one soul engineer corps.
For now, things were stable.
The Clear Sky Sect had been suppressed—its two Limit Douluo were neutralized and unable to act freely.
As for Shrek Academy and the Body Sect, they'd been thoroughly restrained. If the former didn't have a demigod protecting them and the latter didn't reside in such a complex, mountainous terrain, Xu Cheng could've steamrolled them both by now.
Xu Cheng pondered quietly.
The important point: With the development of soul tool technology, this was no longer the era where quantity mattered most.
A few high-level soul engineers, operating surveillance soul tools, could peer across dozens of kilometers from the sky. (Just like in the original novel, when Ju Zi used her technological advantage to pull off a strategic deception.)
The southern border between the Extreme North and Tianhun/Douling stretched six to seven thousand kilometers. Assigning just one of the Five Hands of the Nation to monitor it was honestly a bit stretched, but still manageable…
The Core of the Extreme North
Blizzards still raged. The heavens and earth remained cloaked in a mystical, snowy veil.
To humans, this was a forbidden zone.
At this moment, Ah Tai, Xiao Bai, the Ice Jade Scorpion Clan Leader, and the Ice Silkworm Clan Leader were seated in a circle.
Almost all present were 100,000-year soul beasts, except for the Ice Silkworm leader—a trembling, just-over-10,000-year-old spirit-type soul beast.
To him, getting killed by a human and turned into a spirit ring… didn't seem much different from being eaten by a fellow soul beast.
So when the Ice Jade Scorpion Leader dragged him out of a kilometer-deep frozen cave, the silkworm had begged for its life, cried, pleaded—only to be tossed here anyway.
The atmosphere was oddly silent.
But the silkworm leader—keenly observant—instantly noticed the most striking figure: Xu Cheng.
Not the Titan Snow Demon King—though his seated body was several dozen meters tall, like a mountain. Among this gathering of top-tier soul beasts, only one person was clearly out of place: this human youth.
His calm aura, the others' complete lack of hostility toward him—in fact, even a trace of reverence-all signaled this was no ordinary human.
The silkworm leader thought bitterly: Being cautious is a survival skill. Even as a clan leader, I live in constant fear. Any day I might become someone's snack…
In the world of soul beasts, power is everything. The strong bloodlines are born noble. The food chain is fixed. One species preys on the next. As for spirit-type soul beasts like him, even his mysterious, ancient ancestor was once hunted.
"Ice Silkworm Clan Leader?"
Xu Cheng smiled at him.
"Yes! That's me!" The massive silkworm squirmed quickly over the snow, making splashing sounds as it positioned itself humbly.
"Are all Ice Silkworms this slick-tongued?" Xu Cheng chuckled.
"…"
It stayed silent. But inside Xu Cheng's spiritual sea, Heavenly Dream Ice Silkworm appeared in miniature form, perched on his shoulder.
Looking at the huge ice silkworm before them, he sighed:
"We don't really have a choice. In the Extreme North, Ice Silkworms are top-tier prey. To survive, we build nests deep underground, lay eggs far beneath the ice… but just look at this guy—he clearly already knows all our secrets."
"If we weren't a bit cunning, we'd have been wiped out long ago."
Xu Cheng nodded slightly.
Heavenly Dream might act carefree on the surface, but his past was not without hardship.
As Heavenly Dream finished speaking, the Ice Jade Scorpion leader awkwardly turned away.
But the Ice Silkworm Clan Leader suddenly looked up in shock.
"Y-You're… Ancestor Heavenly Dream?!!"
The creature's expression turned ecstatic.
"Didn't think anyone still remembered me after all these years," Heavenly Dream smiled warmly.
"When I was just a child, I saw you once. You were already a fearsome beast with hundreds of thousands of years of cultivation. I never expected…" the Ice Silkworm leader murmured.
"Heh… 'fearsome beast'? Spirit-type soul beasts don't deserve that title. Even after a million years, we're still prey." Heavenly Dream shook his head. "Let's not talk about this."
"Ah Cheng, whatever you want to say to them, go ahead."
"Heh, would you like to join the Sun-Moon Empire?" Xu Cheng asked with a smile.
"Sun-Moon Empire?"
While the Ice Silkworm leader looked confused, the Ice Jade Scorpion leader explained everything that had happened—the human invasion, Xu Cheng's intervention, Snow Empress and Ice Empress's roles.
"Of course!" the silkworm leader said excitedly. "From this moment on, we are Sun-Moon soul beasts!"
He was beginning to understand why he'd been called here.
Maybe… because of their ancestors' relationship with this human, their clan's future could finally change.
But Xu Cheng wasn't talking about some shallow alliance.
"What I mean by Sun-Moon soul beasts is something different from the rest of the Extreme North. You… will be formally incorporated."
Xu Cheng explained.
He had always been intrigued by the Ice Silkworm Clan's pure spiritual power.
If they were human spirit-type soul masters, they'd be treated like precious treasures. But as soul beasts? They were just food. This wasn't entirely irrational—humans could slay soul beasts to boost their power or act as powerful support units for teammates, sometimes even pairing with soul tools to become battle soul engineers.
But soul beasts worked as species, not teams. And spirit-types were just… spirit-types.
Yet in Xu Cheng's eyes, the Ice Silkworm Clan held tremendous potential.
More than all the other Extreme North soul beasts combined, even.
Why?
Because spiritual power—in human society, especially in the Sun-Moon Empire—is one of the rarest resources.
Why?
Because:
Spiritual Power + Soul Tool = Surveillance Soul Tool
Spiritual Power + Soul Power + Soul Tool = Mecha…
(End of Chapter)