Chapter 140 - 112: The Mortal Realm... Is Crazy.
Chapter 140: Chapter 112: The Mortal Realm... Is Crazy.
The next moment—
The seven Level 6 Cannon Towers on the Heaven and Earth Chessboard.
All unleashed their might in unison.
Beams of brownish-black light blasted toward the City Defense Grand Array. A single volley left the array teetering on the verge of collapse. After three volleys, it shattered completely.
Hundreds of light beams, like a world-ending cataclysm brought by gods and demons, once again began to indiscriminately bombard every corner of the Pill Sect’s city.
At the same time.
Chen Fan’s light chuckle echoed from the sky.
"It does consume a lot of Ghost Stones, but didn’t your Young Master of the Pill Sect give me 10,100 Ghost Stones as a congratulatory gift yesterday? It’s more than enough."
"Damn it, damn it!!"
The furious and panicked shouts of the Pill Sect Elders echoed continuously from within the city, but their voices were increasingly tinged with terror. They had no way to counterattack and could only take the beating passively.
The City Defense Grand Array was already destroyed.
Their only hope had been to wait for the enemy to run out of Ghost Stones, but now, it seemed their opponents showed no signs of slowing down.
"We surrender!!"
Hiding in an inner hall, a Pill Sect Elder stared with bloodshot eyes at the collapsing buildings and disciples being blasted to pieces. Suppressing the rage in his heart, he roared, "We are willing to surrender to the Mortal Sect—no, the Mortal Realm! Stop the attack! We can sit down and talk!"
...
"The Ghost Stone consumption is a bit fast."
Aboard the Nine-Five Dragon Carriage, Wang Mazi said urgently, "Should we pretend to accept their surrender, demand some Ghost Stones from them, and then continue?"
"No need."
Chen Fan glanced at the rapidly dwindling pile of Ghost Stones in the corner of the carriage—only about 7,000 remained. Without much thought, he shook his head and refused. "We can’t give them a chance to breathe. This many Ghost Stones will be enough."
"Also—"
"In the future, we will certainly need to accept surrenders. If we feign acceptance now only to attack again, no one will ever surrender to us again. Every enemy we face will fight to the death. We must at least leave open the possibility of surrender for other factions in the future."
High above in the heavens.
No response came.
Only the merciless beams of light continued to rain down like Celestial Punishment, destroying the entire Pill Sect city.
...
"Damn it!"
A trace of despair flashed in the Pill Sect Elder’s eyes. He knew he was finished. The enemy was using a method he couldn’t comprehend at all. ’Why can they fly?’
’How are they able to fly?!’
For the first time, he deeply regretted rejecting the Third Elder’s suggestion to build an escape tunnel. He had believed the Pill Sect would never fall and that building one would be a complete waste of resources.
The next moment!
A brownish-black beam of light blasted through the inner hall. His abdomen was pierced, and he collapsed into the distant rubble.
He struggled to pull a Fake Death Pill from his robes and swallow it. His breathing soon stopped. ’As long as I can survive this... I’ll have a chance to make a comeback.’
...
The bombardment lasted for the time it takes to burn a stick of incense.
The Nine-Five Dragon Carriage descended from the sky, its supply of Ghost Stones nearly depleted.
They had blasted a breach in a section of the City Wall, and the Nine-Five Dragon Carriage landed near the opening.
"..."
Chen Fan leaped from the carriage and tossed the Jade Ring into Zhou Mo’s arms. "This Exotic Treasure will allow you to sense killing intent. I’ll wait for you outside the city. Take your men and bring out everything of value from inside."
"Understood."
Zhou Mo nodded with a solemn expression, slipped the ring onto his thumb, and led Lame Monkey and the others into the ruins of the Pill Sect’s city.
As far as the eye could see...
...not a single intact building remained.
They had bombarded the city for the time it takes to burn a stick of incense. Not long into the attack, the Pill Sect Elder’s shouts had fallen silent, but to be safe, they had continued until nearly all their Ghost Stones were gone.
After all, their individual cultivation levels were relatively weak.
If someone had survived and ambushed them from the shadows while they searched the ruins, it could have been disastrous.
In the current situation, even if someone was still alive, they would surely be on the brink of death.
...
The merchant caravans from various factions surrounding the Pill Sect watched this scene unfold, all of them frozen in place. It wasn’t until the Nine-Five Dragon Carriage landed and the Banner representing the Mortal Realm fluttered in the wind before the Pill Sect’s ruins that they snapped out of it.
They scrambled to pull out their Sound Transmission Talismans and quickly send out the news.
"The Mortal Realm... they’re insane."
"Which faction is the Mortal Realm?"
"It’s that Mortal Sect from yesterday. They’ve gotten even crazier. They... they massacred the Pill Sect."
"What do you mean, massacred?"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
If...
...slaying the Ghost King had made the Jiangnan factions who watched Jiangbei aware of a new rising power...
Then killing the Young Master of the Pill Sect had let most of Jiangnan’s factions know that an arrogant power had appeared.
And today, by massacring the Pill Sect...
...they had announced to nearly every faction in Jiangnan that a power both arrogant and strong had emerged in Jiangbei.
...
"Careful!"
Inside the Pill Sect ruins, a vigilant Zhou Mo, holding his Big Saber, pulled a body from under the debris. Only after hacking it into eighteen pieces did he say hoarsely, "The Domain Lord got news from the Young Master of Medicine King Valley. The Pill Sect has an elixir called the Fake Death Pill."
"After taking it, you can enter a state of fake death and revive after the effects wear off."
"Any corpse we see must be chopped into eighteen pieces. That way, even if they’ve taken an Earthworm Pill, they won’t be getting back up."
The group made their way through the ruins, approaching the buildings that looked important.
"This is..."
Zhou Mo looked at a sign in the rubble, a glint in his eye. "The Treasure Vault. Follow me inside. There might be traps. I’ll take the lead."
He took a small Pill Bottle from his robes and held it in his mouth. It contained the Altar Holy Water he had brought with him.
"There’s an old man’s body here. His chest is pierced through."
Lame Monkey cautiously used the Godslaying Spear to flip the body over and inspect it. He then stabbed it a dozen more times. Still not feeling assured, he stabbed the neck dozens of times until the head was completely severed from the body. ’I refuse to believe he can survive this,’ he thought.
"This old man’s clothes are unusual. He might have something good on him."
"Hey, a Sect Leader’s Order!"
"The things on his neck and hands look valuable. I think they’re Exotic Treasures. Take them, take them."
"There’s a medicinal garden over there."
Just then, Big Fish, who was searching outside the Treasure Pavilion, pointed to a section of the ruins. "There are a lot of medicinal herbs planted inside. Looks like there are Heavenly and Earthly Treasures too."
"Take it, take it all!"
Zhou Mo said excitedly, "Pack it all up and take it away."
"Um... don’t all these herbs require different storage conditions? If we just pull them out recklessly, won’t they die?"
"Wait here. I’ll go ask the Domain Lord."
...
"..."
Chen Fan guided the Nine-Five Dragon Carriage to land in the ruins of the Pill Sect city and strode toward the medicinal garden, his brow slightly furrowed. He could see the information panels for the Ghost Plants and Heavenly and Earthly Treasures, so he knew how to transplant them.
But he didn’t understand any of these other medicinal herbs.
No matter.
He had a friend who did.
Immediately after.
He pulled out the Sound Transmission Talisman that the Young Master of Medicine King Valley had left him. The talisman would connect to the Young Master via the Medicine King Valley’s relay station. The moment the connection was established, he wasted no time and spoke.
"Young Master Qi, I need to trouble you with something. There’s a medicinal herb here that looks like a foxtail but is reddish. Do you know what it is?"
"Are its leaves blood-red?"
"That’s right."
"That’s Blood-crying Grass, the main ingredient for the Cultivation Pill. Did you find a wild one on Nameless Mountain? They’re worth a lot of Ghost Stones."
"How do I transplant it?"
"Just pull it up by the roots, but you must plug the stalk with one of its leaves to prevent the medicinal properties from leaking out."
"There’s another one. It looks like a tree root, and you can faintly hear a heartbeat from it."
"That’s an Earth Vein Spirit Root. To transplant it, you need to pack the roots with the surrounding soil. It has to be soil from right there; soil from anywhere else won’t work. That one is very valuable."
"Another one, a fern-like plant. A single drop of liquid is condensed at the tip of its leaves, and it’s hard to shake off."
"That’s Star Tears. Whatever you do, don’t shake the drop off. It’ll be worthless if you do. To transplant it, you have to carefully dig up the roots. They’re very long, so you need to dig up all the soil within a three-foot radius. That one is also very valuable."
"There’s also..."
"Wait."
Qi Feng interrupted him from the other end of the Sound Transmission Talisman. After what seemed like a long silence, his bewildered voice came through. "Can you tell me, are you still on Nameless Mountain?"
"No."
"Then where are you now?"
"In the Pill Sect’s medicinal garden."