With his father's family out of his reach, Paul focused on the matters at hand, which were surviving the Devouring ant's outbreak and raising his cultivation as much as possible afterward, since it was impossible at the moment.
As for the ants, they didn't show up again after their retreat, and the water was still pouring into their tunnel.
Meaning that it reached quite far by now, and possibly was flooding their nest at the moment.
On the other hand, the capital guards had their hands full.
With the information they obtained during the interrogation, they were busy capturing wanted criminals, taking down gangs, and raiding illegal establishments throughout the city.
Before the day ended, the underground of the capital city was in chaos as the guards eliminated over ten percent of it within hours, and they showed no signs of slowing down.
Thanks to the evidence found during the arrests and raids, many more locations were identified, and additional criminals were apprehended.
Even some nobles who had connections in the underworld found themselves taken into custody and faced interrogations.
-Young man, would you mind sharing the forced slavery spell with us?
The guard captain approached Paul that evening.
-I'm sorry, but I can't.
Paul shook his head.
-I swore a blood oath that I would never spread this spell, since its power is immense and there is no way to protect yourself from it.
-I understand.
The officer said with a disappointed look on his face.
However, he truly did understand, as such a spell in the wrong hands could be extremely dangerous.
The urge to abuse such power might be too strong for some of his own men and even himself, since with this spell, they could interrogate anyone and get all the information they wished, not to mention that, as this was a slavery spell, they would be able to force anyone to do anything they wanted.
-Instead, I am willing to share another slavery spell with you.
Paul's voice brought the captain back from his thoughts.
-This one requires the person to agree to become a slave, but it is painless and does not leave a scar, like the branding does.
Additionally, it holds all the power of the slavery contract, so if you manage to convince anyone to accept it, then you can order them to reveal everything you wish to know, and if they turn out to be innocent, then you can simply break the contract.
The mark will disappear without a trace after that.
Paul explained.
The guard captain didn't even think about it and immediately agreed, since it was better than nothing, and at the very least, it would allow them to quickly figure out who was innocent.
-Why did you teach him that spell?
Natalie asked, after the officer left.
-Because the more it spreads, the less people will need to suffer while being branded.
Paul gave her the same answer he received when he was taught the spell in his previous life.
The night went by uneventfully after that, to the great dismay of Paul and his ladies, but they could do nothing about it for now.
The next morning, the sentries on top of the wall reported that the water overflowed from the ant tunnel.
This could mean only two things.
Either the tunnel was now completely flooded, which most likely meant that the ant nest was also destroyed.
Or the ants managed to collapse it, preventing that from happening.
There was only one way to find out, and a few scouting parties comprised of volunteers went out to assess the situation.
They all returned a few hours later, bringing the news about tens of thousands of ants who looked disoriented, like they had no idea what to do.
One scouting party even dared to approach the nest, using the trees to get close, without being noticed by the ants.
They reported that there was water flowing from the ant's nest entrances.
Hearing this news, everyone cheered.
As everything seemed to confirm that the ant queen was now dead.
This reduced the rest of the ants to an army of mindless beasts without any direction or coordination.
What's more, some of the scouts even attacked a few ants that got separated from the rest in their stupor, and they wiped out a few dozen ants, without so much as a scratch, since the beasts didn't even react when they were killed.
In the afternoon, more groups were sent to confirm this information, and they all returned a while later, confirming that the ants were just wandering around and didn't react even when they were hit with incendiary bombs.
That evening, the orders were given to all forces to prepare to move out at dawn.
Their target was to eliminate all the ants they could find and confirm the destruction of their nest.
Once the orders were announced, everyone started preparations, which mainly consisted of getting more arrows from the warehouses, as nobody was in a hurry to fight the ants in close-quarters combat if it could be avoided.
Additionally, all the cultivators received permission to form their own hunting groups, which made things much easier for everyone.
That same evening, Paul went to look for Xiao Han.
-Uncle, I was thinking about turning tomorrow's hunt into a training day for my ladies and your new recruits.
He said after finding the province lord along with Luo Mo and Luo Feng.
The three men looked at him, surprised.
They knew him long enough to know that he would not propose something like this without a good reason.
-Can you elaborate on that a bit?
Xiao Han asked.
-My ladies have some battle experience at this point, but that's mostly in defending a position, and they mostly fought at a distance.
The same could be said about the recruits in your forces.
You told me yourself that they are inexperienced, so why not use the opportunity presented to us and let them gain some experience in close-quarters combat?
Paul explained.
-Additionally, we were told that we can form our own groups so we can easily join you and train while completing the objective.
Lastly, I also didn't have much close combat experience, and there is something I want to investigate while we are outside, so a bigger force would make things much easier for me.
-Let me guess, you want to go see the hill where the golden light emerged after you bombed it.
Luo Mo said, with an amused smile.
-That's right, I want to see if the culprits left any clues behind.
Paul nodded.
-We were discussing the same thing just now.
Luo Feng said with a smile.