Chapter 404 - 402: Sudden Blow

Chapter 404: Chapter 402: Sudden Blow

Hundreds of disciples from Celestial Punishment Peak formed a battle array and flew into the Immortal City.

In the outer city, countless halls and buildings had collapsed. Charred corpses littered the ground, a scene straight from hell.

How could the few surviving cultivators possibly stand against the disciples of Celestial Punishment Peak?

Wherever the battle array passed, the crying ceased.

They soon reached the edge of the inner city. The Wuji Ship unleashed seven or eight types of offensive restrictions in a relentless bombardment.

With the Northern Domain’s Nascent Soul True Monarchs in the sky occasionally casting a spell or two to attack the array, by the time the battle array arrived, the Immortal City’s second Tier Four Grand Array was already on the verge of collapse.

Without a Nascent Soul True Monarch to oversee it, even a Tier Four Grand Array couldn’t display its full power. How could it withstand the attacks of so many Nascent Soul-level cultivators?

Besides, powering a Tier Four Grand Array at full capacity consumed Top-Grade Spirit Stones.

This war had been raging for several years. No matter how wealthy the Du Family was, their supply of Top-Grade Spirit Stones—the hard currency among all High-Tier Cultivators—could not be limitless.

After several rounds of attacks, they likely didn’t have many intact Top-Grade Spirit Stones left.

’The number of dead in this war is incalculable. I fear it would take a hundred ritual services just to guide the countless vengeful spirits...’

Bai Zichen gazed at the Immortal City from afar. The gruesome sight made the corner of his eye twitch, having witnessed the ruthless methods of Celestial Punishment Peak.

The model of the Righteous Dao, the number one sect in the world, was never associated with mercy or soft-heartedness.

Great True Monarch Hongfa would willingly waste a precious century of cultivation and reduce his chances of reaching Divinity Transformation to save millions of common people.

Yet, to conquer Zengguang Immortal City, causing the brutal deaths of many times that number of cultivators and mortals, his heart was like a rock, unwavering in the slightest.

Yuan Mo had, in a few words, branded the Zengguang Du Family as a wicked Cultivation Family beyond redemption, making their slaughter justified. The carnage in the city was thus the Du Family’s own doing, with no blame to be placed on Celestial Punishment Peak.

The Du Family had produced True Monarchs for generations. With no external threats or internal strife, their expansion rate was astonishingly fast.

After several thousand years, most mortals in the Immortal City could trace their lineage back a few generations and find some sort of familial connection.

The Du Family strictly enforced a system of major and minor lineages. The True Monarch’s direct lineage and the direct lines of True Men within three generations were the major lineage; all other clan members belonged to the minor lineages.

If a branch failed to produce a Foundation Establishment Cultivator, it was immediately demoted to a side branch.

As for descendants without a Spiritual Root, unless they were from a True Monarch’s direct lineage, they couldn’t even be recorded in the family genealogy.

Generations later, even if a descendant developed a Spiritual Root, succeeded in cultivation, and returned to the clan, they would be required to take their mother’s surname to distinguish them.

If Celestial Punishment Peak wanted to pull the weeds and tear out the roots, it would basically mean slaughtering every mortal in Zengguang Immortal City and the dozens of nearby towns and villages.

However, the intention revealed by Celestial Punishment Peak seemed to be to punish only the main culprits. The members of the major and minor lineages would certainly not escape.

The side-branch cultivators would likely not be purged; there were simply too many to count.

The glory of the Zengguang Du Family was mainly enjoyed by the members of the direct lineage. The other Du family members were only slightly better off than loose cultivators, at least not lacking a basic legacy after showing some talent.

But as for any profound legacies or extra cultivation resources, that was out of the question.

"Fellow Daoist Bai, why don’t we enter the city together... The Du Family is a prominent clan in the world. With their prestigious reputation and their willingness to spend on cultivation resources, they have quite a few Core Formation Guest Elders with different surnames."

Tang Yuan, a man with red hair, yellow eyes, and an unusual appearance, eagerly extended the invitation.

"As local cultivators, we can’t just stand by and watch things unfold. We should contribute a little... Since the Ten Thousand Immortals Ceremony was scheduled, some of the treasures must have already been brought into the Immortal City. And don’t forget the Du Family’s ten-thousand-year-old treasury!"

Seeing that Bai Zichen was unmoved, Tang Yuan could only reveal his true intentions, his eyes filled with urgency.

The inner city held the essence of the Immortal City: the major auction houses, shops, and the Du Family’s various enterprises were all located there.

But the things Tang Yuan mentioned were either carried by Du Heng himself or hidden in the Heaven-Reaching Immortal Pagoda; they would never be found in the inner city.

He invited Bai Zichen to come along because he wanted to ride his coattails and rely on his strength.

The Du Family originally had thirteen of their own Core Formation True Men, two True Men who had changed their surnames, and seven guest True Men with other surnames.

They had lost a few in the years of war, but there were definitely still a double-digit number of Core Formation True Men in the inner city.

Looting for treasure in the enemy’s home turf, facing fellow Core Formation cultivators who could appear at any moment, and dealing with ubiquitous restrictions—Tang Yuan wasn’t confident he could escape unscathed.

"Alright, let’s enter the city together!"

Bai Zichen didn’t expect to get his hands on the treasures prepared for the Ten Thousand Immortals Ceremony, but the wealth of the Immortal City was world-renowned. Just looting one auction house could double his personal fortune in Spirit Stones.

He could also send any Spiritual Objects and Magical Treasures he didn’t need to the Sect’s Secret Vault to give the disciples of Qingfeng Sect some motivation.

Speaking of which, the level of Qingfeng Sect’s disciples was still too low.

Even the Magical Treasures that Ancestor Bai had discarded were piling up into a small mountain in the Secret Hall.

Besides him, the entire sect only had two Core Formation True Men, Wei Dao and Zhou Suqing. How could they possibly use so many Magical Treasures?

Moreover, both of them had aspirations. They weren’t cultivators who had exhausted all their potential just by reaching Core Formation; they still intended to refine their own Lifebound Magical Treasures.

Going into the city alone or together made little difference. The wealth in Zengguang Immortal City was more than a few of them could ever hope to plunder completely.

After all, he had a friendly relationship with the Tianhe Sword Sect, and Tang Yuan was True Monarch Tang Fei’s disciple. It was only right to look out for him a bit.

The group arrived before the inner city’s array and drew their swords in unison, sending ripples across the Tier Four Grand Array.

This array filled the sky with a frosty hue. Just getting close was enough to chill one’s bones and joints, causing them to shiver uncontrollably. Not even True Essence could block it.

Once the sword light entered within a hundred feet of the array, it slowed to a crawl, as if it had been frozen solid.

It was only because the grand array was severely damaged, with ninety-nine percent of its attention focused on the Wuji Ship and the Nascent Soul True Monarchs in the sky. Normally, anyone who entered within ten thousand feet would be frozen into a block of ice and fall straight down.

The impact of so many Northern Domain Core Formation True Men, Celestial Punishment Peak’s Taixu Dao Soldiers, and the disciples’ battle array on this Tier Four Array was negligible.

Under normal circumstances, even if they were allowed to bombard it for three to five years, they wouldn’t be able to break through the grand array’s outermost line of defense.

Among everyone there, only Bai Zichen’s casual strike—his Moonlight Sword Threads piercing through snowflakes to crack the seemingly eternally frozen glacier—counted as an effective attack.

They weren’t expected to break the Tier Four Array; that would be a fairy tale.

They only needed to drain the Tier Four Grand Array’s power, forcing it to draw on Earth Vein Spiritual Power to repair itself.

As one side weakened and the other grew stronger, the shorter the Tier Four Grand Array would be able to last.

It was unclear if the addition of Bai Zichen and his group was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but half a day later, the frosty mist of the inner city’s grand array receded, revealing magnificent pearl palaces and shell towers within. The splendor was so great it felt as if one were standing in a true Immortal Hall.

With a fierce thrust from the Spirit Deer of the Riding Deer Arhat, the inner city’s array collapsed with a deafening ROAR. Thousands of cultivators roared and stormed inside.

Along the perimeter of the array, several thousand Du clan members sat cross-legged on the ground, completely motionless.

A gentle breeze blew past, and they disintegrated into fine dust, leaving no corpses behind.

Only the few leaders with deeper cultivation levels still maintained their intact bodies, slumped crookedly against the remnants of the array.

All of them were devoid of any aura, having had their Magical Power forcibly drained by the array until they died of exhaustion.

The main force split into several streams, spreading out into different parts of the inner city, and the sounds of battle immediately erupted.

The inner city was the residence of the Du clan members. There was no possibility of reconciliation; they fought to the death on sight.

In terms of both quantity and quality, the attacking side surpassed the Du Family by an unknown number of times.

However, taking advantage of the complex terrain of the inner city, where the pearl palaces and shell towers each had their own restrictions, the defenders were still struggling to hold on, as a moment of carelessness could lead to falling into a trap.

Bai Zichen’s group forged ahead. Their eyes lit up upon seeing a towering auction house. With a flash of moonlight from his hand, he shattered the two Defense Restrictions at the entrance.

They ignored the front hall, the auction hall, and the private boxes upstairs, barging directly toward the back rooms.

The decorative auction items displayed on counters everywhere were mostly Tier Three objects. Not just him, but even the Core Formation Sword Cultivators from Tianhe Sword Sect managed to suppress their excitement and refrained from taking anything, heading straight for the place where an auction house was most likely to hide its goods.

Bai Zichen was only responsible for breaking restrictions. They passed through layer after layer of buildings, and no matter what kind of restriction it was, he sliced it open with a single sword strike.

They had almost reached the core treasury without encountering a single defense that required a second strike from him.

Aside from that, there were a few scattered auction house guards and Du clan members, who were handled by the others. The few Core Formation Sword Cultivators dispatched them cleanly and efficiently.

"This is the auction house’s vault. The unsold treasures from the last auction and the items for the next one should all be in here."

As a critical location, the auction house had its own guards. Even under these circumstances, there were still seven Du Family guards, including one Fake Pill Cultivator. The rest all had Late-Stage Foundation Establishment cultivation.

Bai Zichen didn’t even glance at them. He walked to the front of the secret vault, upon which was a restriction in the shape of a Tai Chi symbol.

Behind him, the few Core Formation True Men from Tianhe Sword Sect attacked together, intercepting the group of Du Family guards who fought like death warriors.

The guards had surprisingly practiced a battle array, taking up a seven-star formation. Suo Qian’s sword light flared, but several consecutive strikes failed to take them down, all being neutralized by the enemy. A flush crept up beneath his sallow face.

He then brought out a Sword Pouch and flung it forward. Dozens of points of cold radiance shot out, viciously attacking one person in the array.

Even though the power of the battle array diverted most of the attack, a few points of cold radiance still broke through the defenses, drawing beads of blood on the target’s forehead.

A Late-Stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator collapsed limply. With the battle array broken, they no longer had any means of defense.

Suo Qian cut down the remaining Late-Stage Foundation Establishment Cultivators in two or three strikes. The last one, a Fake Pill Cultivator, was decapitated by Tang Yuan, who seized an opportunity to separate his head from his body with a single sword stroke.

When he recalled the cold radiance into his Sword Pouch, one could finally see them clearly: they were Flying Needles as fine as ox hair.

’Flying Needles... that’s rare...’

Even Bai Zichen couldn’t help but have his attention drawn to them. Flying Needles could be considered a variation of the Flying Sword.

Some sword cultivators, finding the cost of refining a Flying Sword too exorbitant to bear, came up with the idea of using fewer Spiritual Materials to refine Flying Needles to save on costs.

But after actually refining them, they discovered that a single Flying Needle had low killing power. Even when controlled with a Sword-Controlling Technique, it was difficult to achieve effective results.

It wasn’t until they were made in complete sets, taking advantage of their numbers—even forming arrays with the needles—that a viable path emerged.

However, the refining cost for that was also not low.

Moreover, controlling a set of Flying Needles with ease required even more absurd levels of Divine Sense and Magical Power than controlling a sword.

This caused Flying Needles to become an obscure school of cultivation, or to be used as Suo Qian did: unleashing them all at once against an enemy to win through sheer numbers.

He was completely incapable of meticulously controlling each Flying Needle to unleash its true power.

As the main attacker, Suo Qian felt deeply embarrassed for having to make such a big deal out of dealing with a Fake Pill Master and a few Foundation Establishment cultivators, and nearly failing at that.

He stepped forward and picked up the storage bags of the fallen guards. Just as he was about to say a few words to ease the awkwardness, he saw a fist, as white as jade, appear right in front of his face. His expression changed drastically.

The well-defined fist carried an air of ancient permanence. It appeared so suddenly that no one noticed it, completely unaware that another person was hidden there.

The fist rapidly grew larger in Suo Qian’s eyes, to the point where he could see the lines on the knuckles. He didn’t know what magic had hit him, but his True Essence was completely frozen.

He couldn’t even summon his Sword Light Protection. Under this one punch, there was absolutely no chance of survival.