From the very day the core of the formation was established, the three of them — Han Li chief among them — had stopped residing inside the cloud-structure buildings. Fearing a sneak attack by high-ranking demon cultivators, all three took up seats in meditation beneath the towering sacred tree instead.
Since the formation's core had been laid out using the reserve sacred tree as its foundation, it would remain perfectly safe so long as the tree itself was unharmed.
As for the several thousand guards from various clans who had followed them here, they had been evenly distributed among the surrounding mountain peaks, forming a protective ring around the valley where the formation's core lay.
Crab Daoist, meanwhile, had been instructed by Han Li to remain hidden inside one of the buildings within the enormous cloud structure. With this golden crab's cultivation base, simulating the aura of a mid-stage human cultivator was effortless. Apart from Mahayana-stage existences, no ordinary practitioner would ever be able to perceive his true level of cultivation.
As a result, although Cao Ji and Fei Xiaoxi had seen Crab Daoist at Han Li's side on several occasions, they had paid him no mind whatsoever, simply taking him for one of Han Li's personal retainers.
Ever since the grand formation had taken shape, intelligence about the battle between the allied forces and the demon armies at the front lines had been streaming in day after day.
Even though Han Li and his companions were stationed here at the formation's core, they were able to keep abreast of the situation on the front at all times.
According to the reports, the allied forces and the demon armies had launched a series of seven brutal engagements at the border in rapid succession. Only after both sides had suffered losses amounting to nearly one-fifth of their total strength did the allied forces begin to retreat in a way that appeared natural and left no obvious trace.
On the demon side, three Supreme Ancestors had appeared in person once again. More than twenty Supreme Ancestor avatars were present as well, along with several hundred Demon Venerables and comparable existences. In terms of high-level combat power, the demons held a firm advantage over the alliance.
Moreover, because the allied forces had deployed countless deception tactics beforehand, their large-scale withdrawal had aroused no suspicion on the demon side. The moment the demons caught sight of what appeared to be a faint sign of defeat, they pressed forward with fierce momentum.
The allied forces, for their part, did not simply collapse and flee. Instead, they fought and retreated in turn, continuously organizing fresh resistance against the demon armies that pursued them closely. Skirmishes large and small erupted daily, gradually and imperceptibly drawing the battlefield closer and closer toward the Wood Realm's grand formation.
Time trickled by, and the flow of intelligence shifted from once a day to twice, then three times…
The demon armies were steadily approaching the ultimate formation that the Wood Clan had erected with the combined might of their entire race.
……
Within the territory shrouded by the Wood Realm's grand formation, atop a towering peak, a massive platform had been hastily constructed. The Wood Clan's provisional Grand Elder stood ramrod straight upon it.
A short distance ahead of him sat a formation circle no more than four or five zhang across. Seated around it were eight aged Wood Clan elders, their faces deeply lined with wrinkles, their eyes closed in concentration. Each cradled a white wooden disc in one hand while the other hand tapped rapidly at its surface, sending flickering signals across its face.
From these wooden discs, beams of white light shot out intermittently, converging above the formation circle to weave together into a sizable curtain of light.
The provisional Grand Elder gazed at everything displayed within that luminous screen with rapt attention.
Countless motes of light, densely packed and innumerable, covered its surface. They fell broadly into two colors — green and purple — sometimes intermingling, sometimes splitting apart at speed, shifting and swirling like armies maneuvering on a battlefield. The patterns of movement were endlessly unpredictable.
No matter how the configuration changed, the two sets of light motes were gradually retreating in the same direction. Ultimately, they slipped into an enormous pattern etched across the screen, and the instant it flashed, every last mote vanished into thin air.
At that moment, the eight Wood Clan elders opened their eyes. The radiance on their wooden discs dimmed and withdrew, and the curtain of light collapsed inch by inch until nothing remained.
"Excellent. This round of divination has gone smoothly once again. You have all worked hard," the provisional Grand Elder said, a hint of a smile crossing his face as he addressed the eight elders with genuine courtesy.
"Not at all. This battle concerns the very survival of our Wood Clan. As the Eight Spirit Diviners, we are bound by duty to do our utmost. However, the result we have just obtained is based solely on current conditions. Should subsequent developments shift, or should the demon armies change course, the outcome could differ immediately," one of the eight elders replied with a light cough.
"Of course, I am well aware of that," the provisional Grand Elder said, clasping his hands together before him with a solemn expression. "That is precisely why the coming days will be so critical. I must trouble the Eight Elders to perform another divination each day, so that we may guard against the battle spiraling beyond our control."
"Although all eight of us possess a degree of talent in divination and are normally capable of making certain predictions, this engagement involves a staggering number of powerful existences. Far too many factors fall outside the scope of what we can foresee. We can only do our best, and our results should serve merely as reference points for the Elder Council," the same elder who had spoken said, shaking his head.
"I understand that perfectly well," the provisional Grand Elder replied with a bitter smile. "But with the help of the eight of you, I can at least feel somewhat more at ease."
While divination arts could never be used to directly predict the outcome of a clash involving over a million combatants, leveraging a measure of predictive calculation to project the broad trajectory of a massive battle and arrive at a reasonably accurate advance judgment — that was entirely feasible.
And these eight Wood Clan elders were the most renowned diviners within the entire Wood Clan, officially designated by the Elder Council as the Eight Spirit Diviners. Over the years, they had contributed more service to the clan than anyone could count.
It was precisely because they had divined so often in the past that their life force had been consumed to such an extreme degree, leaving their appearances as withered and decrepit as they were.
For that very reason, the Wood Clan had kept the Eight Spirit Diviners in reserve during their previous clashes with the demon race, never daring to deploy them lightly.
But that decision had proven costly. The Wood Clan's former Grand Elder had fallen into a demon trap in the ensuing engagement, suffering grave injuries and losing more than half of the clan's territory in one fell swoop.
Now, in this battle upon which the fate of the entire Wood Clan hinged, the Elder Council could no longer afford such caution. They had summoned the Eight Spirit Diviners once more, putting them to work divining the shifting conditions of the battlefield so that no further disaster might catch them unawares.