Battle Royale of the Sinners

September 20th, 182 A.D.

Henei outskirt, north of Yellow River.

Huangfu Song, Zhu Jun, and Dong Zhuo marched along the river toward Liyang County as it was the only path with a proper road. The pathway was unobstructed by any natural barrier, so the troops had it easy.

As honest nobles, Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun took turns to lead the march.

On the contrary, Dong Zhuo volunteered to be the rearguard general as he did not want to bother sending scouts to the surrounding areas. Furthermore, a letter had arrived in his hands yesterday.

Dong Zhuo had read the letter and burned it to destroy the evidence. Though he was frustrated by Jia Xu's tone, he took his times, thinking about what he should do to reap the most profits from this situation.

He managed to extract the most important information from this letter. For some reason, Ye had probably fallen to the hands of Zhang Tong, which was the reason how the letter was sent to him before they even arrived at Ye.

As a schemer, he did not tell this to anyone but Li Ru. He already told everything to his advisor. Hopefully, he would get a new inspiration or an ingenious stratagem to get the most out of this situation, yet, Li Ru told him.

"This is a sensitive matter. I wish to take a few days to investigate both Liu Ping and Zhang Tong Army and their movements first. For now, please write a reply letter and tell them that you will not help Zhang Tong, but you will not help Liu Ping either. I believe we can extort a large number of tributes from Zhang Tong this way."

"Right now, you must not decide which side you will take. You have to wait and see their competence in the battle first. Once we have enough intel, we can decide if we want to cross Liu Ping right here, or we should continue playing along and kill Zhang Tong instead."

"If we pick Liu Ping's side, we can get rid of Zhang Tong and plunder his city. I've heard he has quite a fortune from the soap trade and the food trade. We can also use his dead body as your achievement to gain reputation and respects from the courts, so we can use the officials in the courts for your cause later."

"But we can also stick to our plan and backstab Liu Ping here if the Imperial armies are likely to fail this campaign. By getting rid of Liu Ping, the throne will be empty. By the time, the two Yuans will likely to declare themselves as Emperors and start fighting against each other. Then you can also take the throne as well."

The advice of Li Ru made Dong Zhuo hesitated if he should side with Liu Ping or Tong as both sides had pros and cons.

'I still can't see how Zhang Tong can defeat Liu Ping.'

'But I have a bad dream last night …'

'I dreamt that Liu Ping Army was defeated and he was burnt alive.'

'I saw Zhang Tong killed both Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun.'

'Then I saw him attacking me.'

'I don't like this at all. But my instinct tells me that I should side with Zhang Tong.'

'But my logic tells me, I should kill him.'

Dong Zhuo gritted his teeth as he tried to make a decision. While he was thinking, his mind got sidetracked, and his imagination took over his train of thought. For ten minutes, he fantasized about him being surrounded by pretty women.

Then, he suddenly recalled a certain woman in the inner palace.

It was a beautiful matured woman with purple hair and sharp eyes. She wore the uniform of a maid, but her look and her body was definitely top class.

His imagination wondered, he pictured Liu Ping being with the purple hair maid, which made his mood sour.

'Dammit! He can enjoy those women but I can't! This is not fair!'

'That's it! Liu Ping has to die!'

'As long as he lives, I can't enjoy the women in the inner palace!'

His greed and lust overwhelmed his logic. He had made his decision before he got the approval from his advisor.

'I'll rewrite the letter. I'll cooperate with my grandson-in-law for now. I can have him owe me a favor, so I can make him fight Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu for me.'

…

At night, Dong Zhuo sat down on a chair inside his tent, writing a reply letter to Jia Xu.

While he was writing, Li Ru arrived. He had finished his investigation.

"My lord, I've gathered more information about Liu Ping's current movements. He managed to enlisted Wang Kuang and his 30,000 soldiers with him. Also, I found out that Lu Zhi, the minister of writing, was at Liu Ping's side. I think Zhang Tong wouldn't have a chance against those three if they lead the pincer attack from Jinyang."

From Li Ru's point of view, Tong would never have a chance against these overwhelming forces and many elite generals. In addition, Zhang Yang of Shangdang and Ding Yuan of Jinyang were likely to join this crusade to gain achievements as well. Li Ru could not see how Julu could survive from these massive forces.

As he was reporting what he found, his eyes caught on the content of the letter that Dong Zhuo was writing. Li Ru stopped talking and read the letter.

"M-My lord? You're allying with Zhang Tong!?"

"What? You're against it?"

"Of course! Zhang Tong has no future in this war! He will lose a hundred times out of a hundred! His army is weak. He doesn't have any experienced general. He was a country bumpkin from birth who happened to defeat an incompetent governor. No matter how I see it, he can't possibly overcome the Imperial Army! Even his father, Zhang Jiao is nothing but Zhang Tong's puppet. He is nothing but a lousy crazy priest. Those two doesn't have a chance!"

Debunked by Li Ru, Dong Zhuo frowned and contemplated his thought once more. It was indeed illogical to side with Tong right now. However, his desire was his priority. The beauties and riches came first, and everything else was side jobs!

"No! I will side with my grandson-in-law this time! We will help him destroy Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun, then we will retreat to the capital to take over the Imperial Court while that insolence brat Liu Ping is still on the northern plain!"

Li Ru was taken aback by Dong Zhuo's ambition. Despite the fact that the decision of his boss was illogical, he immediately adapted to the changes and analyzed the army movement again.

He closed his eyes and imagined a map in his mind. He assumed that Ye City had fallen, and if Tong was controlling it, what would he do. Li Ru connected Jia Xu's letter with his assumption, a new geographic map appeared in his mind.

Li Ru opened his eyes again.

"My Lord, please forgive me for a moment. I need to open a map on the table."

Dong Zhuo took away the letter and the ink set to make a space on the table. Li Ru proceeded to open strategic maps of Henei, Shangdang, Jinyang, and Ye City.

After a few minutes of pondering, Li Ru got rid of Shangdang and Jinyang map. He connected the two remaining map together and started putting chess pieces on the map.

"My Lord, to be honest, I doubt that Zhang Tong can defeat Liu Ping Army. But if my prediction is correct, he can defeat Huangfu Song and Zhu Jun with our help."

Li Ru pointed at Liyang County. He moved three red chess pieces there and a black chess piece at Liyang location.

"If I were Zhang Tong, I will make a stand over here. But this troop will be a decoy, the main army of Zhang Tong will definitely sneak around by either trekking through the mountains or sail on the Yellow River toward Henei City. If he takes it, Liu Ping supply line will be cut off, and he will be forced to take it back or retreat to the Capital."

Dong Zhuo gazed at the map with a confused look. He did not fully understand Li Ru's explanation, so he did not speak further.

"We can play along with Zhang Tong. It doesn't matter if he can survive this war or not, we can take this chance to withdraw our troops back to the Capital and take over the power."

"If Liu Ping manages to come back alive, we'll kill him and take the throne."

"If Zhang Tong wins, we'll still take the throne."

"Either way, my Lord. You will be the next Emperor after this plan succeeded!"

...

...

Meanwhile, Ye City.

The famine hit Ye City this year. The harvest taxes dropped by 80% of the usual rate, and the city suffered from the deficit income. Fortunately, Tong had supplied the city granaries with his [Create Food], so the citizens would not starve this year.

Tong also tested using his [Create Food] skill with his demon soul, and he discovered the exploit that the system goddess mentioned.

…

********************

[Create Food] LV.6 (24,829/320,000)

- Create a food product or a raw food ingredient.

- 100 tons of food can be created from one usage.

Skill Cost: 1 Lifespan

Skill Upkeep: 2,000 Lifespans per year.

Skill Restriction:

- The host cannot create food that the host has never eaten before.

- Can only be used once per day. Skill resets at midnight.

********************

…

In the skill description, Tong could only use the skill once a day after the big nerf. However, he could continue using the skill multiple times if he had the demon soul using it. Unfortunately, Tong's controlling skill was still bad as he only managed to activate the skill once every a few minutes.

This was a loophole that the goddess was afraid of. She was not capable of "Fully" controlling or obstructing someone else's awakened [Souls of Sins]. At best, she could influence the growth rate of the unawakened [Sins], be it weaken them, or strengthen them. But she could not restrict the [Sins] which had already been awakened. The only one who could govern the servant souls of sins would be her father.

This was the reason why she forced every immortal to reincarnate into mortals if ones wanted to play around in this dimension, so she did not have to worry about anyone abusing this "Bug" that she could not fix.

The demon soul had the same ability as the true body, but they had to consume the true body's lifespans as a fuel. Thus, it took ten times the usual in exchange for the unrestricted use of the skills.

Thanked to the exploitation, Tong filled the city granaries to the brim, which delighted the officials and the citizens.

The taxes and the food problem in this city had been temporarily solved.

Cleared from the provision issues, the army was ready.