Chapter Ten: Twenty-Seven Deities Awaken Simultaneously!
“There’s no absolute certainty…”
“Report! We choose to believe in Jiang Ling!” Before General Lin could finish his sentence, a soldier interrupted loudly.
One after another, more soldiers began to speak up.
“Report! We also believe in Jiang Ling!”
“Report! If Jiang Ling hadn’t risked his life just now, we would all be dead! Even if he’s wrong, if we lose our lives, we accept it! Let’s just say it’s him paying us back!”
Seeing the soldiers rallying behind Ji Ling, General Lin was momentarily at a loss, instinctively glancing at General Xu.
At that moment, General Xu’s gaze also met General Lin’s.
The two locked eyes briefly before General Xu grinned, “Damn, these bastards do have a point!”
“If he could awaken twenty-seven gods at once… hell, even just one god awakened would be more useful than us fighting these strange creatures with broken firewood sticks!”
“If we collect, awaken, and summon more gods along the way, maybe, just maybe, we can actually break through this black fog!”
“Hey, Old Lin! Your grandson is taking the college entrance exam in June, right? Don’t you want to see him go to university? See him get married, have kids, and hold your grandchild?”
General Lin chuckled dryly, “That’s only possible if we can survive and get out first.”
“Then isn’t the way to survive right in front of us?” General Xu challenged, looking at General Lin.
“But it’s too risky,” General Lin shook his head. “We are soldiers; we can’t gamble, and we can’t afford to.”
“Moreover, summoning gods requires approval from the Divine Bureau. We have no authority to summon contracted gods on our own…”
“Was that Yinglong statue just now summoned by some damn dog?” General Xu cursed irritably.
“Old Xu! Could you stop swearing like that?” General Lin was at a loss for words.
“Our lives are almost gone! Who cares about that?” General Xu said, staring at General Lin. “Once we get out alive, I’ll take on the Divine Bureau alone! Let them punish me however they want—I’m an old coffin anyway, just do what you want with me!”
General Lin smiled wryly and finally nodded. Then he turned and shouted loudly, “Silence!!!”
Once the soldiers quieted down, General Lin sighed deeply, looked at Ji Ling, and said, “Jiang Ling, step forward!”
Ji Ling immediately stepped out briskly.
“Be honest with me. How confident are you?” General Lin stared intently into Ji Ling’s eyes.
Ji Ling took a deep breath, then pulled out a notebook. “General Lin, I’ll be completely honest—I’m one hundred percent confident! There will be absolutely no mistake!”
“Not now, not before, and never in the future!”
“If any mistake happens, I take full responsibility!”
Meanwhile, in the live broadcast room,
The host immediately pointed at the notebook in Ji Ling’s hand and asked, “Major General Ji, that notebook must be yours, right?”
Ji Yun had just “recovered” and nodded at once. “Yes, I originally only suspected my brother had stolen it, but I still believed he wouldn’t do such a thing. Now that it’s proven, I can’t defend him anymore.”
Ji Yun’s “kindness” stirred up sympathy in the chat.
“My god, does a boy as gentle as Major General Ji really exist in this world?”
“Ji Ling stole Major General Ji’s notebook, stealing all his achievements! Yet Major General Ji still wants to save Ji Ling’s reputation!”
“How can the gap between people be so vast?”
“Born of the same womb, yet worlds apart!”
...
Watching Ji Ling’s unwavering confidence, General Lin was momentarily stunned, then nodded resolutely. “Alright! We’ll do it your way!”
He then looked at the soldiers and shouted, “Contract holders with divine spaces, step forward!”
...
The live chat exploded instantly.
“No way! Has General Lin lost his mind?!”
“Daring to trust Ji Ling? He’s a fraud!”
“This is playing with the lives of our soldiers!”
“Poor soldiers really think it was Ji Ling who saved them, when it was actually Major General Ji!”
“Watching these soldiers blindly die under Ji Ling’s deception while we can do nothing is killing me!”
...
“This Ji Ling is truly evil to the core! What good could this possibly do him?”
“Corrupt to the bone! Risking our soldiers’ lives for a bit of vanity!”
...
As General Lin called out, about seventy or eighty soldiers stepped forward.
“That few?” General Xu frowned and clicked his tongue. “Damn, contract holders really are a rare breed!”
General Lin glanced at General Xu. “You think this is a vegetable market? You can grab a handful at a time?”
General Xu pursed his lips, silent, but his mouth shaped some quite foul words.
“Line up by height! One by one! If you miss out, bad luck for you—blame your height, not me!” In this tense moment, General Lin surprisingly cracked a joke.
The soldiers burst out laughing.
Ji Ling handed the profiles of the twenty-seven gods to the first twenty-seven soldiers, then looked at the twenty-eighth, whose face was still young, and whispered, “Sorry, brother, there’s no more.”
“If there’s more later, you’re first in line!”
The live comments wailed.
Yet, under Ji Ling’s command, the summoning ritual in the black fog proceeded steadily.
The twenty-seven chosen soldiers stood in a straight line, each before one of the twenty-seven god statues, and began the summoning ritual according to Ji Ling’s instructions.
As the twenty-seven soldiers chanted, one divine apparition after another manifested in the sky above.
Seeing the gods take shape above, General Lin was overwhelmed with emotion, tears streaming down his face.
“My heavens! He… he really did it!” General Lin cried out excitedly.
Each of the twenty-seven statues cracked inch by inch, and the gods sealed within fully materialized, completing contracts with the twenty-seven soldiers.
Though most bond affinities were moderate, with only three soldiers reaching a seventy percent affinity with their contracted gods, it was undeniable that all twenty-seven contracts succeeded exactly as Ji Ling predicted, without a single error!
The twenty-seven divine apparitions shimmered together high above, and the Pillar of National Fortune of the Dragon Kingdom blazed with a dazzling light!