“The sect master was right: as expected, they’ve got support from the Divine Mountains,” said someone from the Longevity Blade Sect. Remember, this was the lower lands! After becoming a supreme, everyone had to ascend to the Divine Mountains.
The only supremes who could remain here were emissaries sent down by the various clans, and none of them intervened in worldly affairs.
Furthermore, Jiao Qi and Meng Huairong were already at the ninth stage of the earth-supreme level! It seemed that whichever faction was backing Upheaval received word of their arrival and sent the two of them down to protect the gang.
“After reporting back to the Divine Mountains, we must explain the situation to the sect and thoroughly investigate just which faction is behind this. The territory of the lower lands has long since settled. Whichever organization is supporting them is letting them monopolize the lower lands’ manpower and resources. This is a blatant violation of our arrangement and will destabilize the Divine Mountains.”
“You’re right. Once we get back, we’ve definitely got to investigate this. There’s no way anyone could send ninth-stage earth supremes down to the lower lands without leaving any sort of evidence behind.” The others agreed. From their tone, it was clear that they now had a common enemy.
At that moment, however, Meng Huairong spoke up. “You, the brat who fired that lightning. You’re from the Xiao Family, aren’t you?”
“I am!” Xiao Zhan glared coldly at her, but his gaze was solemn.
Just now, he’d fired that lightning bolt as sneakily as possible. The way he saw it, even if Jiao Qi and Meng Huairong dodged it, they shouldn’t have dodged it so easily.
When she heard him acknowledge it, Meng Huairong grinned, then looked at Jiao Qi. “Master told us to ‘take special care’ of anyone from the Xiao Family. Now that we’ve confirmed our target, let’s quit messing around. Hurry up and call in our brothers. Once we’ve captured the lot of them, let’s head back and report in.”
“Sounds good.” Jiao Qi calmly nodded his assent. The next moment, Meng Huairong raised her hand into the sky.
The representatives from the Divine Mountains furrowed their brows and watched her movements on high alert. They thought she was about to execute some divine art, but she simply fired a beam of light into the sky.
Of course, this wasn’t enough to make them lower their guards…..
Just as they were looking around on high alert, they saw four teams of a thousand troops flying in from the four sides of the city.
When they sensed thousands of supreme-level auras clustered together, their expressions darkened.
“Supremes! All of them are supremes!”
The thousands of yao from the Yao-Sealing Pagoda surrounded them, and the looks on their faces changed dramatically.
“How is this possible? No faction could possibly end so many earth supremes to the lower lands at the same time. If they did, they’d cause such a disturbance that there’s no way other clans and sects wouldn’t discover them.” They cried out in alarm.
At that moment, Xiao Zhan’s pupils violently constricted. “You…. you’re yao!”
When Xiao Zhan roared, the other experts of the Divine Mountains subconsciously glanced at him, then back at Jiao Qi and Meng Hairong.
Meng Huairong simply smiled, her eyes narrowing into slits, and laughed. “You got that right.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, her gaze darkened. She turned towards the other supreme-level yao and cried out, “Seize them all!”
Thousands of supremes filled the sky and blotted out the sun. Everyone in Upheaval’s meeting hall was visibly astonished. They silently focused on Ye ZIchen, who was still sitting in his chair sipping at his wine. Their gazes were full of reverence.
Even Wei Jie, who’d followed Ye Zichen longer than any of them, was overcome with awe.
Supremes.
Thousands of supremes.
He’d never once underestimated Ye Zichen, yet he never would have guessed he possessed such an army.
Gao Xiong and the other captured clan heads were grey with despair. Had they known it would end like this, they would never have dared provoke Upheaval, no matter what they did.
The hall was terrifyingly silent until Jiao Qi and Meng Huairong, as well as a few other yao supremes, dragged Xiao Zhan and the others inside. “Come on in.”
Whump. Whump. Whump.
They kicked their captives to the ground, then knelt on one knee in greeting. “Master, we’ve captured them all.”
“Thanks for your hard work.” Ye Zichen nodded at them, and the yao got to their feet and stood to the side. Ye Zichen set down his wine gourd, walked to the center of the room, and looked right at the captured supremes and despairing family heads.
“Why did you feel the need to do this? I did nothing to provoke you, yet you came all this way just to harm me. What, did you think I was an easy target? Or did you think that with the Divine Mountain’s support, you could act as brazenly as you wanted?”
They were silent, all save for Xiao Zhan. He glowered sinisterly at Ye ZIchen and roared, “You pitiful yao, how dare you act to flagrantly in god race territory!”
Yao?
The others looked over. Ye Zichen smiled calmly in the face of Xiao Zan’s glare and shrugged. “What a load of nonsense! I’m a proper human being. That said, my subordinates are indeed yao; that’s the truth. But so what?”
“So what? You’re human, yet you’ve allied yourself with yao. ‘So what?’ Have you no shame?”
“What can you do about it?” Ye Zichen shrugged disdainfully. He couldn’t be bothered to waste words with them, so he turned to his subordinates. “Take them outside and kill them.”
“Your Excellency, please,” said one of the captured family heads. He poured everything he had into one last attempt to explain himself. “The Xiao Family intimidated us; we had no choice. I beg you, please leave us a path for survival.
Despite himself, Ye Zichen arched his brows. “Really?”
“Every word is absolutely true. Any of us can testify to its veracity.”
After that, it wasn’t just the family heads. Even the experts of the Divine Mountains couldn’t help but speak up. “We were forced to come here by the Xiao Family too. Also, although your Raging Flame City suffered grave damages, but that was all caused by the Xiao Family’s heavenly lightning. It had nothing to do with us at all.”
“You….” Xiao Zhan started to object, but Ye Zichen signaled to Jiao Qi.
Whack!
Without so much as letting him speak, Jiao Qi smacked him so hard, the whole left side of his face swole up. “This is no place for you to speak.”
Ye Zichen glanced at Xiao Zhan, then arched his brows and chuckled. “Are you saying that, so long as I’m willing to let you go, you’ll do anything I ask of you?”
The family heads from the lower lands and the experts from the Divine Mountains both nodded frantically. “That’s right.”
“That’s just great!” Ye Zichen nodded in satisfaction, then pointed at Xiao Zhan and his allies. “Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance. I’ll give you a single path to survival. I’ll spare anyone who kills one of the three of them.”
“Do you dare? If you dare touch us, just wait! We’ll exterminate your entire clan!” roared a member of the Xiao Family.
“Shut your mouth!” Jiao Qi slapped him across the face again, sending teeth flying out of his skull.
The other Divine Mountain experts gulped. Members of the Xiao Family….
Evejn if they had ten thousand times the courage, they wouldn’t dare!
“What, none of you dare? So you’re saying you all want to die?” When a long time passed without any movement, Ye Zichen picked up his blood-covered sword and held it in his palm. “Only three of you can live. Seize this opportunity!”
