Chapter 856: Dark Flame Reborn

By the time the first light of dawn washed over Southern Blue, the flames therein had more or less begun to die down. Leaders of mercenary corps big and small were gathered in the Frost Wolf Corps' base, most of them with swollen faces or even carried in.

There were quite a few people around, but the place was permeated by utter silence. Everyone wore frightened expressions, not daring to even breathe loudly or glance at the demon lady.

Ji Tianqing was instructing a couple of corps commanders to set up a stage, and Frost Wolf was also among them. Before last night, he was a fairly well-respected character in Southern Blue, but now, the dejected man had no choice but to carry logs about and perform manual labor.

With so many champion-level experts working, a simple stage was very soon completed. Ji Tianqing instructed the men to place on the stage a large chair that had been carried over from somewhere else. She then waved at Qianye, saying, "Come up!"

Qianye ascended the platform with a wooden expression and was duly pressed into the seat by Ji Tianqing, facing the crowd of mercenaries.

The latter took a step back to stand behind Qianye. "From today on, our mercenary corps... what should we call it?"

"Tianqing," Song Zining replied expressionlessly.

"No! It has to be Song Seven, of course!"

"Bah! I don't want such a ragged mercenary corps named after me!"

"You have no choice!"

"This corps is Qianye's, why must it be named after me?"

Ji Tianqing slapped her forehead. "Oh right, let's call it the Qianye Mercenary Corps, then!"

"No." Qianye could bear it no longer.

After a brief period of quarreling, they finally decided to reforge the Dark Flame Mercenary Corps in the neutral lands. Hence, the name became "Dark Flame".

Ji Tianqing raised her voice. "From today on, you are a part of Dark Flame Mercenary Corps. I'll give you half a day's time to settle private businesses. You will all report-in tonight, whoever fails to show up will be responsible for their own fate. I've already shown you enough examples anyway."

All the mercenary heads agreed. Who would dare otherwise?

Greatly satisfied, Ji Tianqing slapped the back of the chair, saying, "This Qianye is your commander from now on."

She then pointed at herself. "I'm his aide-de-camp, remember?"

The crowd bowed at the same time. "Yes, Sire Aide-de-camp!"

This lineup and vocality sounded more like Qianye was Ji Tianqing's aide instead. Beside them, the seventh young master could no longer sit still. He took a step forward and said in a clear voice, "This young master is Song Zining, and I will be your military strategist from now on."

The people below glanced at one another, but no one had heard of such a character. Where had this Song Zining popped up from?

A complacent Ji Tianqing roared, "All dismissed, get back to work. Assemble at 1800 sharp!"

"Yes! Sire Aide-de-Camp!"

The entire courtyard was emptied in a flash, leaving only Frost Wolf and a number of his high-ranking officials. Qianye remained seated on the platform like a statue, gazing blankly at the empty courtyard.

There wasn't anything for him to do from the beginning to the end. He had no other use except for holding the title of commander. All those mercenary leaders barely spared him a glance—almost as though this corps commander was nonexistent.

Actually, there were quite a few mercenaries who knew Qianye and his accomplishments. It was just that the mercenaries here were fairly low in status, and even in Frost Wolf, only a couple of them had taken part in the Black Grove battle. They had only heard but never seen Qianye's power. Ji Tianqing, on the other hand, had beaten them up violently, sending half a dozen men flying with every slap. Hence, comparatively, they were much more apprehensive of the girl.

Next up was the repair and renovation of the courtyard. With the Frost Wolf experts working as manual laborers, the construction work progressed at a quick pace. Qianye stayed behind to oversee the project while Song Zining went to reserve an entire nearby hotel as their temporary residence. Ji Tianqing ran about here and there, looking for mercenaries who were inwardly dissatisfied, slacking off, or disobedient.

Just like that, evening arrived in the blink of an eye, and the mercenary leaders began filing into the Frost Wolf base one after the other. Quite surprisingly, there were only two of them missing.

These leaders had brought their staff list, property deeds, and armaments inventory—their entire fortune more or less. This was more of a robbery than incorporation, but losing their possessions was much better than losing their lives. Ji Tianqing had already taught them this logic last night.

The young miss performed a roll-call and organized them into groups. She split them into several groups and ranks, differentiating them by the number of troops they could command.

Her seemingly careless classification was actually quite clever. The strong and obedient were assigned to the highest rank, followed by the weaker obedient ones, and then the strong but somewhat disobedient. The weak and disobedient people were inserted into the lowest-tier, only slightly superior to ordinary mercenaries.

The last group was naturally dissatisfied, but no one dared to speak up after Ji Tianqing killed the lead dissenter with a single slap. They finally understood that Ji Tianqing was simply waiting for them to jump out and give her an excuse for murder.

The clamor lasted until midnight before the fledgling Dark Flame began to take shape. The framework was organized by the high-ranking officers—they would decide how to disassemble, reorganize, and garrison the soldiers. What finally appeared before Qianye was a massive entity with over four thousand soldiers and ten champions. In terms of fighting-power, however, it was still far from the Dark Flame of the past.

With so many complex matters to handle, any other person would've taken half a month to complete this process. In Ji Tianqing's hands, though, all matters big and small flowed smoothly like spring water. She wasn't just bragging—perhaps not many people in the empire could outperform her as an aide-de-camp.

On one hand, Ji Tianqing was rather talented in this regard, while on the other, she had full control. Everyone had been beaten into submission, so whatever she had decided on would be carried out without a second word.

From the beginning to the end, Qianye only needed to stay on the sidelines and didn't even get the chance to talk. He sat like that all night, feeling quite bored.

With all the plans settled, Ji Tianqing sent the men back to collect and take inventory of their resources. This process would take several days at the very least.

Now that they were finally given a break, some of the commanders contacted the city lord via certain channels, hoping that he would be able to give them justice. These people, regardless of the size of their mercenary corps, had once enjoyed some level of status and were bosses inside their own gates. How could they endure someone ruling over them?

But Ji Rui simply refused to come out and see anyone. He ignored and forgot about whatever happened outside of the manor gates.

In this manner, everyone came to understand Ji Rui's intentions—he couldn't afford to offend these three people.

In the blink of an eye, all these leaders felt their sky turn dark.

Some were dissatisfied after losing their greatest backing that was Ji Rui. They gathered their most powerful men, trusted aides, and valuable assets before creeping out of Southern Blue in the depths of the night. Most of them, however, understood their own abilities and knew that they couldn't survive outside of Southern Blue. So, they decided to swallow their voices and accept their incorporation into Dark Flame, recognizing the fact that they had to call someone else master from now on.

Regarding the mercenary corps who wanted to leave the city, Ji Tianqing didn't make things difficult for them. These people wouldn't be loyal if they stayed behind, anyway, so it was best to let them go.

Song Zining and Ji Tianqing weren't idle during this period. They proceeded to negotiate with one merchant after the other, discussing new deals for the corps. The biggest source of income for the mercenary corps in Southern Blue was protecting these merchants. Maintaining order in the city was their basic job, while the stronger ones would be dispatched to escort the trade caravans along the way. The strongest soldiers would accept combat missions like ambushing rival merchant caravans.

Presently, Dark Flame had rounded up all the mercenary corps in Southern Blue and became a giant tyrant that even Ji Rui couldn't contend with. Hence, it was only natural that all negotiations would begin anew.

All the merchants were quite worried at first because this wasn't the first time something like this had happened. After gaining a monopoly over the market, mercenary corps would usually raise their prices several times or even engage in robbery themselves. Such an action would only net them a single fortune since merchants would avoid such places after suffering a loss. Without their main source of income, these mercenary corps would eventually have to disband.

There had been too many such examples. Even though such mercenary corps would disperse with the wind, the merchants were the ones to suffer most from their initial misdeeds. Hence, these managers all felt worried and restless.

They nonetheless found—to their great astonishment—that Dark Flame operated differently from the other mercenary corps in the neutral lands. Song Zining didn't exploit the merchants with unreasonable price increases. On the contrary, he lowered the prices on an assortment of services and combined certain fees together. In summary, the capital these merchants had to fork out was decreased by a fair bit.

Most of the managers were surprised, but no one was going to stand up and object to such a good deal. Additionally, many of them began considering increased investments in the city once the situation had stabilized.

Next up, Song Zining proposed another plan. Companies setting up weaponry workshops as well as those trading in rare-materials and high-end airship parts would receive a fifty percent discount. He was even willing to inject a twenty percent investment capital once these factories had been constructed.

Managers of large merchant companies began inquiring about the details in excitement. Smaller companies were lacking in ability, but they more or less knew some channels for airship parts. As such, they also paid great attention to the "high-end airship parts" category.

A well-prepared Song Zining immediately distributed the relevant documents.

After looking through the papers, most people revealed expressions of disappointment, but there were a few of them who looked rather thoughtful. Song Zining's standards were indeed quite high, requiring the equipment to be at the level of a second-grade reserve warship or higher.

Such an airship level was rare in the neutral lands, but it wasn't impossible if they could find a channel to and from the empire or Evernight.