Chapter 917
Even a God Can't Save Me
An aged yet powerful voice, like the grandest of bells, resounded through the night sky.
Immediately afterwards, a streak of azure light rose from the backyard, circled in mid-air, and landed steadily on the roof of the main hall.
It was an old man with white hair and beard, wearing a Taoist robe embroidered with blue cloud patterns. He held a dragon-headed cane in his hand, and his eyes, when they opened and closed, seemed to emit a faint, tangible light.
Most strikingly, three palm-sized ancient bronze mirrors surrounded his body, emitting a soft yet unsettling spiritual light.
"Grandpa! Grandpa, you've finally come out of seclusion!" Huang Debao knelt down with a thud as if he had seen a savior, and burst into tears. "If you had come any later, the Huang family line would have ended!"
Huang Delong, who had been hiding behind the door, scrambled out and kowtowed repeatedly: "Father! It's them! It's that guy in the gray clothes down there who ruined our business!"
The patriarch of the Huang family, Huang Zhenyuan. The hidden pillar of White Stone City, it is said that he had already reached the late stage of Foundation Establishment thirty years ago, and had been in seclusion to break through to the Golden Core stage.
Huang Zhenyuan surveyed the corpses scattered across the courtyard from his vantage point, his gaze finally settling on Zheng Yi, who stood at the very front.
"What ruthless methods. A mere martial artist has actually managed to train an iron army of mortals. And he even managed to destroy the Blood Spirit Array that my foolish son spent a fortune to acquire." Huang Zhenyuan's tone was filled with contempt. "However, mortals are still mortals. Do you think you can shake the foundation of my cultivation family with just a few tattered beast armors?"
He slammed his dragon-headed cane heavily onto the roof tiles.
"Buzz!"
The three ancient bronze mirrors surrounding him shone brightly, and three thick beams of blue light, arranged in a triangular shape, suddenly swept down towards the crowd below.
"Not good! It's a magic weapon! Raise your shield!" Guo Tianyou was shocked and instinctively raised the Flame Lion Skin Heavy Shield in his hand.
"boom!"
A beam of cyan light swept across, blasting more than a dozen heavily armored infantrymen, shields and all, flying them away and crashing heavily into the wall. Although the Flame Lion Hide had absorbed most of the heat, the sheer force of the magical artifact still caused them to cough up blood.
"Hahahaha! Did you see that? This is the power of cultivators! You ants are nothing but a fart in front of the old master!" Huang Delong screamed excitedly, his previous fear completely gone.
Huang Zhenyuan stroked his long beard and looked at Zheng Yi: "Boy, kneel down and commit suicide now. I can spare your body and guarantee that I will only kill those who participated in the siege, and spare the old and young remaining in Hongyun City. This is my last act of mercy."
Zheng Yi looked at the arrogant old man on the roof and suddenly smiled.
He laughed with extreme sarcasm, as if watching a self-important clown.
"What are you laughing at?" Huang Zhenyuan frowned, a sudden surge of inexplicable irritation rising in his heart.
"I laugh at you for shutting yourself in and ruining your brain." Zheng Yi slowly stepped forward and walked towards the steps of the main hall.
"In the face of true power, what is the Foundation Establishment stage...?"
As Zheng Yi took his first step, his aura began to undergo a dramatic change.
The reserved, quiet Zheng Yi who seemed like an ordinary schoolteacher had vanished. A terrifying sword intent, ten or even a hundred times stronger than Huang Zhenyuan's, erupted like a dormant volcano that had been dormant for millennia!
This sword intent did not intentionally oppress anyone, but the temperature in the surrounding air suddenly dropped, and even the space itself seemed to groan under the strain of this sword intent.
Huang Zhenyuan's arrogance froze instantly, his pupils contracted to pinpoints, and his body trembled involuntarily.
That was a tremor from the depths of the soul.
“You…you are not an ordinary martial artist…this sword intent…you are a Golden Core…no! A Nascent Soul stage sword cultivator?!” Huang Zhenyuan’s voice was as shrill as an old hen being strangled.
Zheng Yi did not draw his sword.
He simply raised his right hand, his index and middle fingers together, and pointed at Huang Zhenyuan on the rooftop.
"break."
He uttered a single word softly.
There was no dazzling sword light, nor any earth-shattering explosion.
But to Huang Zhenyuan's utter astonishment, his three bronze protective mirrors, which he was so proud of, suddenly shattered with a crisp sound.
"Crack... Bang!"
The three top-tier Foundation Establishment stage magical artifacts didn't even last half a second before turning into a cloud of metallic powder, which scattered everywhere.
The instant the invisible sword intent pierced through the mirror, a bottomless blood hole appeared between Huang Zhenyuan's eyebrows.
The old patriarch of the Huang family, who had just emerged from seclusion and was ready to wreak havoc, didn't even see how he died. His withered body swayed, like a tattered sack, and fell straight down from the roof, landing with a "thud" in front of Huang Delong and Huang Debao.
Do not look down.
The entire courtyard fell into a deathly silence.
Huang Delong and Huang Debao stared blankly at the old man's corpse at their feet.
One second they were still fantasizing about a counterattack. The next second, their greatest asset was crushed like a bug.
Guo Tianyou swallowed hard, staring at Zheng Yi's retreating figure, his eyes burning with fervor.
"This...this is the true strength of the master..."
Zheng Yi withdrew his hand, patted the dust off his hands, as if he had done something insignificant.
He looked at the Huang brothers, slumped on the ground, and said calmly, "Your mercy is too expensive for me. My rules are simple." Zheng Yi turned around and ordered Guo Tianyou, "Huang family direct descendants, behead them. The rest, disarm and spare their lives."
"Understood!" Guo Tianyou grinned maliciously and stepped forward, knife in hand.
"No! You can't kill me! My son is a steward of the Qingyun Sect! His master is an inner sect elder! If you kill me, the Qingyun Sect will tear you to pieces!" Huang Delong burst out with his last will to live, frantically kowtowing, his forehead hitting the bluestone slab and blood streaming down his face.
Zheng Yi didn't stop walking; he simply turned his back to Huang Delong and said something in a low voice.
"Let him come."
The sword fell, and blood splattered everywhere.
In the backyard of the Huang family mansion, in front of a massive underground vault door carved from a single block of basalt and weighing tens of thousands of kilograms, Han Wuhen was holding a torch, his entire body of fat trembling with excitement.
The dozen or so high-level sealing talismans that were originally pasted on the gate were now scattered on the ground like a piece of charred waste paper. Zheng Yi had just casually waved his sleeve, and the basalt gate, which was said to be unbreakable even by a full-force attack from a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator, was neatly sliced in half like tofu, revealing a bottomless bluestone passageway inside.
"Go...go in and take a look." Han Wuhen swallowed hard, his voice trembling uncontrollably. He even forgot to have the guards scout ahead and rushed in with a torch in hand.
Elder Liu followed closely behind. Although he tried his best to maintain the composure of an elder of a cultivation family, his pace, which was twice as fast as usual, still betrayed his inner fervor.
The passageway wasn't long; after walking only a dozen steps, the view suddenly opened up before us.
"My goodness..." Guo Tianyou followed behind, carrying a blood-stained sword. He peeked inside and couldn't help but curse, almost smashing the sword on his foot.
This is an underground stone chamber, about half the size of a drill ground. The walls of the chamber are inlaid with dozens of large luminous pearls, illuminating the entire space as bright as day.
In the very center, neatly stacked boxes of spirit stones resembled small mountains. The lids were wide open, revealing low-grade spirit stones emitting a shimmering white light, while mid-grade spirit stones glowed with a warm blue hue. The immense spiritual energy gathered together, forming a faint layer of white mist on the ceiling of the stone chamber.
"One, two, three... Good heavens, just these mid-grade spirit stones alone are worth at least fifty thousand!" Han Wuhen rushed to a box, plunged his hands into the pile of blue spirit stones, letting them slip through his fingers with a crisp clinking sound. "Didn't Huang Delong say he emptied his pockets buying Soul Control Crystals? This is what you call emptying your pockets?!"
Elder Liu had already walked to a row of mahogany antique shelves, and his hands were trembling even more violently than Han Wuhen's.
“Millennial Blood Ginseng…Iceberg Snow Lotus…and this is…Earth Core Fire Fungus?!” Elder Liu picked up a jade box with a seal, opened it a crack, and sniffed it. His eyes almost popped out of their sockets. “Has the Huang family bought up all the rare and precious materials on the outskirts of the Qingyun Mountains?! These things could be exchanged for several magic treasures at the Qingyun Sect!”
Besides spirit stones and medicinal herbs, on the other side of the stone chamber, hundreds of weapon racks were neatly arranged. They were filled with all kinds of weapons, including swords, spears, and halberds, all crafted from top-grade black iron mixed with various rare metals, gleaming coldly. In the far corner, dozens of large iron boxes were piled up. Han Wuhen opened one and found it filled with land deeds for mines, medicinal fields, and shops around White Stone City, as well as thick ledgers.
"These weapons, though not as durable as those we forged from materials made from demonic beasts, are sharp and lightweight, making them perfect for equipping the newly recruited city defense troops and scout battalions." Zheng Yi had somehow entered the vault. With his hands behind his back, he calmly surveyed the astonishing wealth, as if he were looking at a pile of ordinary stones rather than a mountain of gold and silver.
"Sir!" Han Wuhen turned around abruptly and knelt on the ground with a thud, not out of fear, but because his legs went weak from excessive excitement. "We've struck it rich! Our Hongyun City has truly been transformed this time! With this foundation, let alone this area of hundreds of miles, we can even challenge those second-rate cultivation sects!"
Zheng Yi didn't help him up, but simply ordered, "Take your men and inventory everything overnight. Seal all the spirit stones, medicinal herbs, and land deeds, load them onto carts, and transport them back to Hongyun City. Don't keep a single one. Have Tianyou's men distribute the weapons directly to him for re-equipping."
"Understood! Even if I, Old Han, were to chop off these hands, I would never embezzle a single penny of public funds!" Han Wuhen patted his chest and guaranteed.
“Tianyou.” Zheng Yi turned to look at Guo Tianyou.
"Your subordinate is here!"
"Leave two hundred heavily armored infantrymen to take over the defense of the four gates of Baishi City. Post notices that the Huang family has been wiped out, but Baishi City has not been violated in any way. Tomorrow morning, the city gates will open as usual, and merchants will resume business as usual. Have Zhao Sanhuai dismiss the remaining Huang family servants and retainers who have not shed blood, and give them some travel expenses."
Zheng Yi arranged everything methodically, "After we finish these tasks, the main force will escort the supplies back to the city. We'll hold a victory celebration banquet in Hongyun City."
"Order!"
That night in White Stone City, the city was brightly lit, but there were no cries or killings. Apart from the thick, lingering stench of blood emanating from the Huang family mansion, the people of the city didn't even feel much unrest.
At daybreak, an enormous convoy of transport vehicles, escorted by eight hundred heavily armored infantrymen, drove out of the south gate of White Stone City in a grand procession.
Zheng Yi uprooted the wealth accumulated by the Huang family over generations and transported it all to Hongyun City without leaving a single cart.
……
Two days later, Hongyun City was completely engulfed in a sea of revelry.
The last rays of the setting sun had not yet completely faded, and hundreds of bonfires had already been lit in the open spaces inside and outside the city gates. The firelight illuminated half the sky and gave the black rocks on the city walls a warm glow.
There was no strict military formation, no hierarchical constraints. The city guards took off their heavy demon armor, changed into clean coarse cloth clothes, and sat together with the city's residents.
Dozens of large, fat pigs and hundreds of sheep were roasting over a fire, sizzling and dripping with oil onto the charcoal, sending up plumes of white smoke and a smoky aroma. Wine jars were piled up like small mountains; these were all top-quality aged wines that Han Wuhen had brought back from the Huang family's wine cellar. Once the mud seals were broken, the aroma could waft for three blocks.
"Come on! Let's drink!"
Guo Tianyou, his chest bare, held a large, rough porcelain bowl and clinked it against several of his centurions. The liquor dripped from his chin onto the scar on his chest, which he nonchalantly wiped away with the back of his hand, roaring, "That's great! This Huang family liquor is definitely stronger than usual!"
"That's right!" A centurion, gnawing on a leg of lamb with grease all over his face, said, "Commander Guo, you didn't see how scared those bastards were when we stormed into the Huang family mansion! Before, when they came to our Hongyun City to collect taxes, they looked down on us like they owned the place, but now? They're completely trampled under our feet!"
"Alright, stop bragging. It's all thanks to the master." Guo Tianyou kicked the centurion. "Without the master's earth-shattering sword that split the city gate open, without the master killing that old bastard, we'd still be eating dry rations outside the city!"
The atmosphere around another campfire not far away was rather comical.
Iron One-Eyed was still bound hand and foot to a cart. Not only that, but to prevent him from moving around and tearing his wounds, Master Kulian had his limbs fixed in splints, making him look like a giant turtle turned upside down.
"Zhao Sanhuai! You son of a bitch! Pour me some wine! What's with just letting me smell it?!" Iron One-Eye stuck out his neck, his one eye wide open, staring at Zhao Sanhuai who was slowly tearing apart the roasted meat across from him.
Zhao Sanhuai slowly chewed the meat, picked up a leather bag full of wine, walked to the cart, looked down at Tie Duyan, and grinned: "Boss Tie, the master has spoken. Your bones haven't healed yet, you can't drink. If you really drink and get an infection, not even a god can save you." (End of Chapter)