The new era of chaos begins in the Song Dynasty

Chapter 435: Ascension Ceremony
Cheng Zhishao, whose courtesy name was Yishu, was from Meishan, Meizhou. He was the nephew of Su Shi's mother, and his brother Cheng Zhicai was the husband of Su Shi's sister Su Banniang.

Cheng Zhishao was very good at logistics. When the Song Dynasty attacked Huangzhou, Cheng Zhishao was first the Xihe Transport Commissioner. Before his troops moved, he had already collected enough supplies to support 100,000 cavalry for ten months.

Of course, among the troops mobilized by the Song Dynasty this time, the maximum number of real cavalry could be 10,000.

However, if we calculate based on the fact that one cavalryman consumed the same amount of baggage as three infantrymen, there is no doubt that Cheng Zhishao's logistical support for the Song army was quite outstanding.

And precisely because of this, some time ago the Zhao Song government sent an imperial envoy to commend him, and promoted his rank (Xianmoge Daizhi), allowing him to temporarily handle border affairs (Xihe defense).

Cheng Zhishao was a civil official who had just come to power. He lacked a target to establish his authority. The lunatic who broke into the camp was just the right person for him to make an example of someone to scare the monkeys and establish his prestige.

Cheng Zhishao ordered his elite soldiers to kill the crazy people who broke into the camp. The "sharp soldiers" here are actually heavy infantry wearing infantry armor.

The heavy infantry was the absolute backbone of the Song Dynasty army. If it came to a head-on battle, no other type of troops on the battlefield of the cold weapon era could match them, including the organized cavalry (including heavy cavalry).

At this time, the main force of the Song army in Xihe Road had already advanced to Huangzhou, so there were less than 300 heavy infantrymen left in the Xihe camp. A large part of them had to guard the key positions of the camp. Therefore, Cheng Zhishao could only mobilize 20 to 30 elite soldiers.

What's even more terrible is that this time the Song army's attack on Huangzhou was almost a sure win. All the capable generals in the army basically rushed to join the expeditionary army, while the generals who stayed behind in the Xihe camp were mostly marginal figures who had neither ability nor backing.

Therefore, when this third-rate general led his elite soldiers to besiege and kill Wang Yuan and Han Wu, Wang Yuan could not help but laugh in anger: Who is he looking down on!

Why did they say that the elite soldiers only surrounded and killed Wang Yuan and Han Wu? Where did Chen Shen go?

He certainly went where he was supposed to go.

The ever-changing evil demons are doing a big job in the Song Dynasty, playing tricks of confusing the false with the real, and the biggest flaw is the disciples of Su.

Chen Shen went south to break the impasse and learned from Cheng Han, the son of the fallen Cheng Zhicai, that Qin Guan's true identity was hidden in the Xihe camp, so he came to rescue him.

Of course, Qin Guan could not be found in the real Xihe camp, otherwise Chen Shen would not have gone to so much trouble.

Just as Wang Yuan was colliding with some heavily-armored sharp soldiers and swinging his sword to kill people in all directions, Chen Shen took advantage of the fact that everyone's attention was temporarily attracted, secretly tore the barrier of reality, and sneaked into the foggy space alone.

When Chen Shen entered the foggy space, he found himself in a twisted camp that was extremely similar to the Xihe Camp.

Or it should be said that the strange military camp in front of Chen Shen was a completely distorted and evil replica of the real Xihe Camp.

Strange blue-purple crystals replaced stones and wood and became the foundation of this camp.

The surfaces of those crystals are engraved or painted with various twisted and mysterious symbols and patterns.

There are also countless deformed evildoers and demons with twisted things on their bodies, and they serve as soldiers in the twisted camp.

Not only that, in the center of the camp stood a huge eye-shaped altar. The altar was divided into nine sides, with nine poles on top. Each pole was burning with blue-green magic fire, and a person was tied on it, who looked like a human candle.

These people were exactly the ones Chen Shen wanted to save. Eight of them were Su Shi's disciples, namely Qin Guan, Chao Buzhi, Huang Tingjian, Zhang Lei, Chen Shidao, Li Di (these two were called the Six Scholars of Su Shi's School), Liao Zhengyi, and Dong Rong (these two were called the Four Scholars of Su Shi's School together with Li Gefei).

The last one was not a disciple of the Su family, but a woman with countless blasphemous magic patterns and feather tattoos all over her body.

Chen Shen looked at her from afar and felt that the woman was inexplicably familiar.

Chen Shen's brain was much more useful than in his previous life. He guessed the identity of this non-mainstream "witch" ignited by the devil's fire almost in the next second - the evil demon Su Xiaomei of Tengzhou, or should she be called Su Banniang.

She was originally a lady from a prominent family, but due to an unhappy marriage, she died of illness with resentment, and eventually fell into depravity, becoming a minion and servant of the evil god.

Su Baniang holds a very high status among the fallen evildoers, and she has even transformed into a true demon.

Such an existence should not be nailed to the altar and burned by the devil's fire as a sacrifice like Qin Guan and others.

But Su Baniang was treated like this. It was obvious that there was something wrong.

If there is a problem, it must be solved, and the problem Chen Shen solved was very simple, which was to ask the person involved directly.

Chen Shen secretly found a twisted evildoer, strangled it silently, and then stripped off its filthy clothes and put them on himself.

By the way, the difference between evil followers and evil demons lies in the clothes they wear.

Here only the evildoers wear clothes, even though those clothes are stained by all kinds of blasphemous things; but they still represent the last bit of the evildoers' distorted humanity.

The real demons, in the conventional sense, are naked. They basically do not wear any clothes, or all of their skin is covered with twisted magic tattoos, or they directly grow twisted feathers, scales, keratin growths, hair, etc.

When Chen Shen put on the evil disciple's filthy clothes, he was not completely disguised as an evil disciple. Even the clever evil demons could easily find out that he was a pretender who sneaked into the devil's lair.

However, the evil demons are happy to see the emergence of such existence.

A "little mouse" who overestimates his own capabilities!
An ignorant and arrogant demon slayer!
He will become a rare amusement for the demons! A toy! And a delicious snack!

Of course, Chen Shen's main purpose was to hide his true identity and take advantage of the arrogance of the evil spirits to fish in troubled waters.

He was wearing filthy clothes, and under the unscrupulous gaze of countless evil demons, he fled to the sacrificial stake where Su Baniang was imprisoned in a slightly "panic" manner.

Now that he was closer, Chen Shen discovered that as the devil fire burned, the breath of Su Baniang, who seemed to be wailing in pain, was actually slowly expanding.

He came closer and asked in a low voice: "Madam, as an evil demon of the Wanbian system, why are you also offered as a sacrifice to the Lord of Wanbian?"

Su Ba Niang opened her reptilian-like vertical pupils and stared viciously at the filthy clothes covering Chen Shen's face, but laughed loudly, "Sacrifice? Haha! Idiot! I am the one who enjoys the sacrifice! You mortal, I am afraid you don't know that as long as I complete the ritual of the Nine Lights Ascension Ceremony, I can absorb all the wisdom and talents of the eight sacrifices, be praised by the Lord of Change, and be sublimated into a new Heavenly Venerable! From now on, this planet will no longer belong to Qing Bao Tianzun alone!"

(End of this chapter)