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"That's exactly why I find it suspicious," Enlai Ke frowned and pondered. "The new Beast King is no simple-minded fellow. I've had a few encounters with him before, and judging by his past deeds, he’s undoubtedly a master of schemes—his cunning is as terrifying as his martial prowess... at least before he became a Sword Saint. A beastman as shrewd as him wouldn’t fail to see the pros and cons of such a strategy, yet he still chose an all-out war. If I can’t figure out his reasoning, I won’t be at ease."

"Perhaps he’s newly ascended to the throne and is desperate for a victory to consolidate his position," the female staff officer speculated. "After all, the Beast King is from the Wolf Clan. Even with his Sword Saint status, his rule might not be entirely secure."

"His wife is the leader of the Lion Clan and a Saint Martial Emperor. Even if other clans have objections, they wouldn’t dare voice them openly. Plus, the previous civil war subdued the five major combat races—he has no reason to worry about his throne." Enlai Ke rested his head on his hands, leaning back in his chair with a frown. "Given that werewolf’s personality, he wouldn’t take such a huge risk without a solid plan. But where does he plan to strike?"

While the human high command speculated about the enemy’s schemes, the real conspiracy was already shifting from covert scheme to open strategy.

The original objective of the human forces on the southwestern front was to pin down the enemy until counterattacks on the other two fronts forced the beastmen’s main force to retreat. Unexpectedly, Chen Xuanfeng disregarded the limitations of the beastmen’s total numbers and launched assaults on all three fronts, annihilating six hundred to seven hundred thousand human troops in one fell swoop, catching humanity off guard. However, seasoned southwestern commanders quickly adapted, abandoning the strategy of total mobilization and instead concentrating their forces in a few easily defensible fortresses, preparing for a war of attrition. After all, Chen Xuanfeng had already mobilized nearly all available beastman forces—any major losses would be irreplaceable. If they didn’t seize this chance to deplete the beastmen’s fighting strength, it would be an insult to their fallen comrades.

Yet, while Chen Xuanfeng had anticipated their plans, they remained oblivious to his true goal.

Once the ubiquitous guerrilla forces vanished and refugees retreated into remote mountains and hills, the beastmen’s movements slipped beyond human surveillance. With the lightning-fast leopard clan on the ground and eagle tribe patrols in the sky, all human scouts met a swift end.

Only then did Chen Xuanfeng’s true strategic objective emerge—this war, centered on the three fronts of the western continent, involving millions of lives and shaping the fate of the entire land, was merely a veil to conceal it.

Thus, 150,000 elite beastmen troops bypassed human defenses and encamped near the desert. The southwestern human command was vaguely aware but largely indifferent—beyond these hills lay only desert and sea. If the beastmen wanted to cross, so be it.

Unfortunately, humanity’s only two grand mages of spatial magic were in the eastern Yellow Dragon Empire and the southern Sixteen-Nation Alliance. If either had been there, they would have detected massive spatial fluctuations emanating from the beastmen’s camp for seven straight days. By the end, the vast encampment stood empty.

A look back in history would reveal that this camp’s location was where Chen Xuanfeng had reappeared years earlier after the dispute over the "River Styx Tower." Indeed, this was one of the key spatial coordinates linking the Twelve Sages’ relic, the River Styx Tower, to the prime material plane. Though the tower had since been dismantled by the vile lich King of the Undead and rebuilt as his private residence, the "Necrohall," the spatial teleportation array here remained functional.

This time, it was Chen Xuanfeng himself who activated the array.

Activating a spatial array didn’t necessarily require vast mana—what mattered was mastery over spatial essence and immense mental power. Having developed a sword technique capable of severing space, Chen Xuanfeng’s understanding of spatial laws rivaled even the grand mages. After attaining Saint-level power, he could instinctively perceive void fluctuations—how else could he construct his combat domain? As for mental power, he could now refine his combat energy into Nine Yin True Energy, then convert it into mental power via the Nine Yin Manual’s Soulshifter Art, rendering it practically inexhaustible. Even if the Twelve Sages were resurrected or the Queen of the Elves descended, none could surpass him in raw mental strength, let alone endurance. Combined with the residual dark magic in his body, he could activate the array single-handedly without assistance.

Thus, with the array operating at maximum capacity, 150,000 troops crossed a thousand miles of desert in just seven days, penetrating deep into the heart of the Mercenary Empire—even the six massive war Behemoths, notoriously difficult to teleport due to their size and energy, arrived intact. Only the original garrison forces remained on the southwestern front.

The array’s exit point lay less than a hundred kilometers from "Starcrusher," precisely where the River Styx Tower had once returned from another plane.

In the distance, though the fortress walls were invisible, the towering, unadorned spire of the Starcrusher Spire loomed.

"Last time, I was awed by its majesty. This time, I’ll shatter it with my own hands..." The silver-haired wolfman chuckled softly as he gazed at the pale, unembellished tower. "Word of our arrival must have spread by now. I wonder what Xi Luo and the others will choose to do?"

Heroic Werewolf Scroll, Chapter 111: One Hundred Thousand Warriors Shatter Starcrusher

The endless desert at the continent’s heart, untouched by oceanic warmth and moisture, remained perpetually arid, a barren expanse stretching thousands of miles. Yet during the great magical war, the fragmented divinity of the Nature Goddess’s avatar, shattered by four forbidden spells here, forcibly created hundreds of oases—large and small—which later became the foundation for human settlement. The largest of these, spanning hundreds of square kilometers with abundant water, supported a population numbering in the millions and livestock in the tens of millions, serving as the site of the Mercenary Empire’s capital: Starcrusher.