Chapter 4: The War Draws Near

  Two months have passed in the blink of an eye, and Lei Hao gets up at dawn every day to practice for a whole morning. At noon, he takes his team out to patrol the mountain. He endures physical training and builds strength, while his subordinates patrol the mountain. In the evening, he trains his subordinates again. This life is simple yet fulfilling.

  It turns out that Lui Hou can still live a fulfilling life without a computer, phone or tablet.

  Every day, Lei Hao feels his strength increasing bit by bit, and now the massive boulder he uses for training has exceeded 4,000 catties. Just thinking about it is a terrifying number. His physique has become even more robust, with muscles bulging all over his body, full of explosive power. This cow demon's body is incredibly strong, and he hasn't encountered any bottlenecks in his training so far, with his strength increasing every day. Of course, this is also related to Lei Hao's intense training, as whenever he feels the pressure from the boulder on his back decreasing, he would unhesitatingly switch to a heavier one. Fortunately, the Kunyuan Mountain is vast enough, and the little demons under him are familiar with it, so they can always find suitable massive boulders for him. Many times, Lei Hao has trained himself to the point of exhaustion, and if not for the two cow demons watching over him every day, he might have been crushed to death by the massive boulder on his body long ago. Of course, if he had trained like this in his previous life, he would have definitely been crippled by now. The human body has its limits, but a demon's body does not.

  And the newly born little demon's power will rise sharply within a certain period of time, and Lei Hao tightly grasped this opportunity, tempering his body to be extremely solid.

  Lei Hao secretly used the heavy wolf-toothed club, a thousand or so jin in weight, of another Great General in the Dongfu, trying it out and finding that while he could use it, he was far from being able to wield it with ease. This made Lei Hao realize the gap between them and steeled his resolve to work even harder.

  On the night of the full moon, Lei Hao tried to absorb the moon's aura again, but after sitting cross-legged under the moonlight for a whole night, he gained very little. He was forced to transform by the Demon King using the Enlightenment Technique, and now it is difficult for him to retain his spiritual energy. Without a technique to absorb spiritual energy and moon aura, his development space would be very limited. Lei Hao had inquired with Bao Er about this, and learned that when he promoted to Little Sovereign, the Great King would reward him with a copy of the Demon's Decision, which made Lei Hao look forward to it even more. Currently, Lei Hao's physical body was rapidly improving, so it wasn't urgent for him to find a solution, and he could also draw some blood energy from his food, which was very beneficial for Lei Hao who was struggling without a breathing technique.

  That night, Lei Hao brought his subordinates back to the cave mansion and saw Bao Ershisi. Lei Hao was about to go up to pay his respects, after all, he was still one of Bao Ershisi's small team leaders.

  "Niu brother, you're back! I was just about to go look for you." Bao Er saw Leihao and rushed forward, grabbing him with one hand.

  "Commander Leopard, what's wrong?" Lei Hao asked curiously after taking a glance at Commander Leopard's face.

  "Guess what I heard when I was delivering the blood food to Da Wang today?" Bao Ershisi pulled Lei Hao into a corner of the cave and said mysteriously.

  "What?" Lei Hao also curiously asked, "The king is preparing to launch a major attack on the Snake Demon Cave in two days." Bao Er said quietly to Lei Hao. "What...” Lei Hao was shocked and almost shouted out loud, luckily Bao Er quickly covered his mouth. "Don't make any noise, don't make any noise, if the king finds out that I'm spreading rumors outside, I'll be beaten with a whip." Lei Hao was frightened by Bao Er's words.

  When Lei Hao heard the news, his heart skipped a beat and he felt a little flustered. Although he had made great progress in strength and speed over the past two months, he was still not calm when he suddenly heard that they would be going to war soon and he would have to participate in the battle. "Why did the king suddenly think of attacking the Snake Demon Cave?" Lei Hao asked Bao Er in a low voice.

  "What's this, suddenly remembering that our Water Cavern and Snake Demon Cavern have a deep grudge. Last time the Snake Demon Cavern attacked us and killed nearly half of our brothers in the Water Cavern. That was when the Great King recruited another batch of young demons. This grudge has been endured by the Great King all this while, and now that we have you young demons, our Water Cavern's demonic army has regained its vitality. Can the Great King still endure it?"

  "Is the Snake Demon Cave very powerful?" After some thought, Lei Hao still decided to gather some intelligence on the enemy.

  "It's definitely stronger than our Water Cavern, our Great King can't beat the Green Snake King. It's said that we're going to attack, but it's just the Great King trying to save face from before. Otherwise, where would our Water Cavern's reputation go? The surrounding caves like the Multi-Yao Cave will all laugh at us. Niu brother, you are one of my two team leaders under me, I waited for your return today to tell you this news, just wanting to let you prepare more. Most of your new demons die on their first battlefield, when the war starts and we can't win, just let those useless things under you charge forward, as long as you survive, there will be more little demons in the future."

  Lei Hao returned to the stone room with a heavy heart.

  War, still a war between demons, Lei Hao suddenly felt death was so close to himself.

  Divider line

  Kan Yuan Mountain's training grounds. Lei Hao gazed at the numerous little demons standing neatly in front of him, his eyes drifting slightly.

  After spending more than two months with them, Lei Hao gradually accepted this group of silly little monsters. Compared to the mostly hypocritical friends he met in his previous life, these clumsy little monsters were more sincere and genuinely respectful of Lei Hao. Whenever they encountered something they thought was good while patrolling the mountains, they would bring it back and present it to Lei Hao like a treasure, even if most of them were useless garbage like wild fruits and some spiritless wild flowers and grasses. Last time, Lei Hao told them for his own sake that if they saw ginseng, they should pick it for him. This group of silly little monsters really did so whenever they saw it, regardless of whether the ginseng was growing on a cliff or in a mountain valley. Several times, they got hurt and bruised but still presented the ginseng to Lei Hao with a foolish expression.

  All of this deeply moved Lei Hao, who had experienced the warmth and coldness of human relationships. Although Lei Hao never said a word, he trained even harder, and the strength of these 50 little demons also increased with him. Now, even the small fox could briefly lift a giant stone weighing over 1,000 pounds.

  Let them go to their deaths to protect themselves? Lei Hao had never thought that way, his blood wasn't that cold. But attacking the Snake Demon Cave was war, and Lei Hao himself had to think of ways to survive, how could he let these 50 little demons all live? Lei Hao hadn't thought about escaping, but this Kan Yuan Mountain was huge for him, but for a demon king like Hun Shi Mo Wang, it would only take a few minutes to run through, if he escaped and got caught, it would be life or death, although it's unlikely that a demon king like Hun Shi Mo Wang would care whether Lei Hao, a small demon, would escape or not, Lei Hao couldn't take the risk.

  "What the hell, what should I do?" Lei Hao muttered to himself.

  "Head, what's wrong with you today?" As time passed, the increasingly clever little monsters also discovered that Lei Hao was abnormal today. In the past, Head would not have let them stand for almost half an hour without saying a word.

  Lei Hao withdrew his attention and looked at the small monsters in front of him, their clumsy faces a picture of concern. His eyes slowly moistened as he felt a sense of existence for the first time in this unfamiliar world. He didn't care about anything else, just that these inexperienced little monsters could survive half of them was already a blessing. Even if he took them to the battlefield, it wasn't certain they would survive, but at least Lei Hao had tried his best, and that was all that mattered.

  "Damn it, can't young people be impulsive? Men, either die or live, where does all this nagging come from?" Lei Hao gritted his teeth and roared in his heart.

  "Alright brothers, today we're gonna practice something else." Lei Hao raised the wolf-toothed club in his hand, which was his weapon as a squad leader. He had always thought he had time to train his strength first before practicing with his weapon, but who knew they would be going into battle so soon.

  "Head, why are we practicing with weapons today?" a sturdy and powerful ape demon curiously asked.

  "Practice if you must practice, what's with all the nonsense. Pick up your weapons and let's get started." Lei Hao shouted loudly.

  Lei Hao needs to come up with a suitable battle formation to protect himself and these fifty little soldiers.

  Although he actually doesn't know anything about battle formations, from the scattered appearance of those small demons in the cave, it seems that the war of the demon tribe should not have any formation arrangement, and it should be a chaotic melee, relying on numbers and individual combat power to win. Even if there are some demons that can form a group, they should be few in number, and very few can exceed one team of demons. Both sides have about 7,000 to 8,000 demons, so the battlefield won't be too dense.

  He just needs to firmly control the fifty little demons under his command, and not be dispersed by the first wave of attacks from the Snake Demon Cave. If he concentrates on attacking, how many demons can withstand it? Those below the Great General level should not be able to.

  The little monsters in their hands were armed with a variety of weapons, knives, guns, swords, clubs, wolf teeth... First, they practiced swinging their weapons at imaginary enemies in a fixed formation without hurting their comrades around them.

  Lei Hao rubbed his temples with both hands, recalling the limited information about military affairs in his mind. "Formation? Hmm, I don't think I've ever read a book on this aspect. The most famous 36 Strategies? Hmm, what I remember most clearly is to grease one's soles and run away as the best strategy... Dammit, if only I had known earlier, I wouldn't have watched those X-rated movies, but instead watched more military programs on CCTV7!"

  "Eighty-seven, you're a tiger, put your knife away, don't hurt your own brother!" Raymond shouted loudly at Eighty-seven, whose knife almost chopped the cow in front of him.

  "Are the weapons ready? Ah, yes, there's that one... what was it called again? The One-Character Long Snake Formation or something like that. That should be able to handle it." Raymond suddenly remembered this battle formation. The triangular-shaped formation had a strong ability to break through the battlefield, as long as the tip of the triangle could withstand the pressure and move quickly enough, they would be able to break through the snake demon army in no time, and withstand the first wave of attack.

  Lei Hao stood up at this thought.

  "Brothers, stop, I have some news to tell you. Our Water Cavern is going to go to war with the Snake Cavern soon, and we will be heading into battle immediately." As soon as Lei Hao finished speaking, a group of little demons burst into an uproar. The tiger demon, lion demon, wolf demon, and others were all extremely excited - these guys were naturally more bloodthirsty. If Lei Hao hadn't subdued them the moment they awakened, he wouldn't be able to control them now. A few cow demons still looked calm, but the little fox demon, mouse demon, pig demon, and others all had fearful expressions.

  Lei Hao, who had seen through the expressions of all the little demons, suddenly let out a loud roar: "Brothers, do you believe in me?"

  "Believe." The group of demons also shouted loudly.

  "Alright, you follow me, I'll take you alive to the battlefield and bring you back alive. Will you follow me?" Lei Hao said slowly and deliberately.

  The demons fell silent for a moment, then shouted in unison: "We swear to follow the boss to death!" Even the usually shy little fox's face turned red. They were small demons, they were stupid, but they weren't foolish. After more than two months of being together, these initially confused and naive demons had long since figured out who treated them well and who didn't. And every day, under Lei Hao's influence, their way of thinking drew closer to Lei Hao's. Lei Hao valued loyalty, and so did they.

  A loud sound echoed through Kanyuanshan, startling a flock of birds into flight, as if they were witnesses to this moment.