The still-shocked commander of the Ku Kang Camp braced himself and forced his heart to stop pounding.

The enemy is definitely now running around in their camp without being found. A small smile returned to his face, becoming a somewhat vicious look on his handsome face.

From what Reynold understands, the Snowdrifts does have the power to kill a Paramount fighter like Syriong. Yet, it doesn’t mean that those bunch of kids could handle him.

The White Emperor turned to his closest assistant and said, “Continue firing the Void Cannon. Set the remaining two at those rats scurrying up the East and West lanes. Then, assemble my personal guards, I have some important ‘guests’ to entertain.”

…..

At this time, the barbarians within the Ku Kang are busy with all kinds of work. Cooking food, sharpening weapons, reloading cannons. They are all nervous for the upcoming battle.

They now understand why a hundred thousand warriors had been assigned to the southern walls. The Saint Empire troops are really devil-like to break all tradition and launch an attack that could ignore high walls.

However, there is one small group that is unfazed by all the frenzied activity around, as though it did not concern them.

The irony is, their unease exactly because of them. Specifically, three people in their group: a boy with black hair and sparkling onyx eyes, a girl with white snow-like hair and brown eyes, and a boy with prominent emerald green eyes, tanned skin, and black hair – Kairos Astroire, Baixue Luciette, and George Kitty aka Mudskipper.

They are leading the elites of the Snowdrifts here on a mission to assassinate the leader of the Ku Kang Camp, White Emperor Reynold Lambert Siegmund.

In a fair fight, the three strategists concede that the Ku Kang Camp is indeed nigh invulnerable. Therefore, they had to attack the weakness of this place, and if there isn’t a weakness, they must create one.

And thus, they pointed their blades at the ones leading this camp.

To do this, the three weaved a death trap for their enemies.

It started with their graduation. They know that with Calculus Devilheart’s pettiness, he will assign them as death warriors if he could not kill off the Snowdrifts outrightly.

The next step is to carve out a path of survival for their guild out of all the roads leading to death.

They knew that they had to convert as many enemies into allies as possible.

The next step of the plan began when Tommy returned to the battlefield after being awarded royal guards for his valiance. No one knew, but at that time, the Dark Hall had already fallen into the hands of the Snowdrifts and the nine Ghosts of the Dark Hall and their Hall Master hid themselves within the ranks of the royal guards.

In fact, the Ghosts and the Dark Hall Master who had vouched fealty to the throne was more than happy to defect from the Devilheart regent to the true successor of the Vestimore clan – Crown Princess Relestia Vestimore. As the best of the best saboteurs from Saint Empire, even the disguised person’s family member could not tell them apart from the real thing.

If not for the Hall Master being forced to defend against the Void Cannon, even the White Emperor Reynold would not see through his cultivation as Peak Triple S rank.

The Ghosts with such convenient skills on hand, it’s impossible that the three most brilliant war strategists in the Snowdrifts wouldn’t make use of it.

With them around they began the third step of their plan.

There was immediate effect:

When they were first ambushed by War God Tattoo death warriors, the army fell into a critical situation as a second group of ambushers flanked them. The Snowdrifts were all at the frontlines protecting the soldiers. At that time, the Silver Ghost, Master of Death Hall, immediately disguised as Tommy and led the Snowdrifts’ barbarians against them. Later on, when Martial General Gu died and the Saint Empire soldiers directed their anger towards Kairos, the Purple Ghost, Master of Dance Hall, and Orange Ghost, Master of Thoughts Hall, diffused the situation saying that: “A gem will always shine. Let them say what they want. In the end they will only be slapping their own faces.”

And then, The Hall Master, Gold Ghost, Silver Ghost, Copper Ghost, and Blue Ghost enacted the actual ritual that Kairos and his brothers had done in private.

With their flawless disguises, they replicated every detail in the swearing ceremony that even a single tear will flow down their cheeks in the exact path.

The ritual is but a ruse to steal the attention of all onlookers while a small group of elites left to sneak into the Ku Kang Camp. For this end, they even fooled their own soldiers by saying they had not yet officiate their brotherhood.

Then, under the help of the three hundred master thieves sent by the Thief King Rielon, the party following the real Kairos went undetected towards the Ku Kang’s plateau and spent days setting up the great defensive formations that will protect them against War Gods Paint warriors.

To become invisible, Kairos remodelled the master thieves’ technique of creating a shadow clone that they used to sneak into places or test out a vault’s defences.

Since those clones are made of light and darkness to create an illusion, it was easy to refit it to become a camouflage.

Not only so, the original technique also allowed the thief to mimic all kinds of aura, otherwise the clone wouldn’t be convincing enough. This create any sort of presence means that it is possible to mimic wild flows of heavenly energies, and therefore they easily planted all the traps under the enemy's eyelids.

Afterwards, they snuck into the tunnels to sneak into the Ku Kang Camp. Underground pathways like these are too easy for the Cave Trolls to find and infiltrate, but they soon found that there was in fact no path that lead up the plateau.

The shafts that are supposed to be throughout the plateau’s body never existed. There were only underground shelters and hidden trenches around the region with one-way teleportation wards from the Ku Kang Camp.

Indeed, the soldiers from the top of the plateau did not walk down miles to reach the outside, but simply teleported. Not only are one-way teleportation much cheaper than the usual, it is also safer for a stronghold. Besides, during wartime, any decent city will lock down the place from incoming teleportation to prevent a talented array master from sneaking enemies in.

However, without a path up doesn’t mean much against natural burrowers like Cave Trolls.

The group quickly destroyed the bedrock and dug their way upwards while avoiding the cannon ports. Those storage places where their cannons were kept are also isolated, and only accessible with one-way teleportation wards.

They arrived to the top in a single day but there are four thousand three hundred of them in the group, and they couldn’t just waltz out of a hole. They carefully drilled a single small opening in the ground then they released several tiny dragonlings to scout out the area.

After finding the store houses, armoury, sleeping quarters, command tent, and other important structures, they split up and created several exits in secluded areas.

They wore the outfits and weapons pre-prepared by the clothiers and blacksmiths from the Crystal Valve and quickly mixed into the crowd. The Crystal Valve itself had been handed over to Alan who stayed behind to protect the two hundred thousand Snowdrifts’ soldiers. Together with him are Leaf, Small, Smaller, Snow, George, Luciette, the four captains, Von Cixton, and Lux Cixton. All of them serve a better purpose fighting in the army.

The two hundred Astroire family guards dressed up as porters to handout poisoned food and tempered equipment.

The two hundred quartermasters from the Trade Federate exited the store house opening and immediately started tabulating the enemy’s resources and inventory.

The hundred elites of the Solitary Blades clan wore sword master uniforms and entered the armoury, preparing to destroy everything in secret.

The hundred elders from the Pink Chicken clan was disguised as Barbarian Chiefs, while the two thousand two hundred soldiers from Steel Rose, Green Dog, Purple Turtle, and Fritzgen dressed as their subordinates. They joined in the patrol, and loosened the northern gates.

The Angelheart family Rune Masters, Blue Frost Blacksmiths, Light Rose Healers, and Northern Cross Inscriptionists were easier to mix into the crowd as artificers and medics. The four hundred of them held back, awaiting command.

…..

The White Emperor disappeared from the southern wall like a roaring gale. The soldiers around him looked at him with utter respect as he disappeared from their sight.

“Our commander is invincible!”

“Such an intense pressure can only come from the strongest cultivator.”

They didn’t know the hurry that Reynold is in as he charged over to meet his guards.

He need to send them to protect the generals, strategists, medics, and important places before the Snowdrifts could act. He estimate a good number of enemies must’ve snuck in, at least a hundred in number.

When he reached his tent, the White Emperor is pleased that his guards are already assembled, in full alert and completely armed. Though his soldiers would’ve receive his command before he left, they had very little time because of his speed.

He landed before them with robes swirling around his legs, but before he could say a word, everyone stared behind him with googly eyes and open mouths.

Reynold furrowed his brows, knowing his well-trained guards wouldn’t make such a mistake, and he turned his head towards where they were looking.

Immediately he had the same expression as his soldiers as he saw looming above them is a giant Winged Storm Bear.

That colossal being that is obviously formed by wild elements smashed a single claw down onto the sleeping quarters of their soldiers.

A terrible quake shook their camp as the building and the soldiers within were turned into dust.