The destruction of Tianyan City Lord’s Office shocked the entire Divine Prefecture, and the news quickly spread all over the land. The Ancient God Clans were the first to receive the news. Even after they withdrew from the Ziwei Segmentum, they had been keeping close tabs there. They had a feeling that Ye Futian would start with Tianyan City first.
After the death of Tianyan the Great, Tianyan City became the only Ancient God Clan without the protection of a Great Emperor’s will. How could Ye Futian miss such an excellent opportunity to take them down?
Sure enough, they soon receive the news that Tianyan City Lord’s Office was destroyed and Wang Zhan—the City Lord of Tianyan—killed. He had died on his knees. This news greatly alarmed the other Ancient God Clans, becoming even more vigilant. After all, there was a precedent in front of them. If Ye Futian were that strong, sooner or later, he would come to destroy them, just as he did with Tianyan City.
In addition, after some forces, such as the Domain Chief Manors of both the West Sea Domain and the Donghua Domain, learned of the news, they were greatly troubled. Chief Xihai and Ning Yuan, the Domain Chief of Donghua, knew very well that if it were not because they were directly under the command of Donghuang Imperial Palace, which Ye Futian still heeded, he would have already started in on them.
Now, there was a sharp sword hanging above all of their heads. This sword may fall at any given time, and they would not have a moment’s peace.
They heard that when Ye Futian destroyed the Tianyan City Lord’s Office, the people from the Imperial Palace were present but did nothing to stop it. Ye Futian had the imperial arms—the Sky Tremoring—in his possession, so people from the Imperial Palace just watched the City Lord’s Office be destroyed.
An Ancient God Clan such as Tianyan City was a principality in the land of the Divine Prefecture, the premier armoring force in the Divine Prefecture, and the most powerful force in the Tianyan Domain. Yet it disappeared just like that and became part of the past. It was said that after Ye Futian and the others left, the City Lord’s Office was raided by other cultivators inside Tianyan City. Many cultivators Ye Futian spared were brutally murdered by the people of Tianyan City and met a miserable end.
The horrific nature and cruelty of men were played out so vividly in Tianyan City.
They were all believers when things were going well. But in times of need, they chose to pick up the swords and join in the slaughter.
Many lamented and grieved.
After this battle, no one did not know of Ye Futian’s name in the land of the Divine Prefecture.
…
All the cultivators at Ziwei Imperial Palace were eagerly waiting for the return of Ye Futian and the others. When they learned of the destruction of Tianyan City Lord’s Office, the people of Ziwei Imperial Palace were extremely excited. The principalities of Tianyan City had moved against them more than once, and twice they had used imperial arms on Ziwei.
Now they were finally destroyed, and justice had been served.
In the Imperial Palace, they watched those cultivators from Tianyan City Lord’s Office who had been taken prisoner. Each of them wore cold expressions, and fierce murderous intent raged about them. Those from the Tianyan City Lord’s Office only felt tremendously sorry for themselves. Now, they had indeed fallen into the lion’s den, and there was probably no hope for them, ever.
“Uncle Tie, give Lord Chen the divine arms and implements that we have taken from the City Lord’s Office in Tianyan City and have him distribute them among the five palaces and the protectors. Each protector may take a few suitable pieces; the rest can be divided equally among the five palaces as their cultivation resources. The lords of each palace will be in charge of them and may allocate them as they see fit.”
Ye Futian continued to speak to Blind Tie, “Also, the resources for armoring that we have taken will be handed over to the Armoring Palace to be at your disposal, including all the armoring methods and materials. I suggest that we build an armory inside Ziwei Imperial Palace and store these items and all the implements and divine arms that we will be making in the future. What do you think?”
“Good.” Blind Tie nodded. Everyone else agreed. Now, they had taken all the resources of Tianyan City, including the method of armoring and various other resources. In the future, the level of armoring in Ziwei Imperial Palace will undoubtedly continue to improve. Conceivably, more and more divine arms and implements would be made, hence the need to build an armory.
Everything else aside, just the divine arms they had looted this time from Tianyan City Lord’s Office were incredible; they had pretty much transported their entire treasure trove here. However, Ye Futian did not hide them somewhere else. Instead, he wanted them to be divided equally among the five palaces.
This was the first time they had gone out to seek the destruction of an Ancient God Clan. They couldn’t keep all the treasures and lock them inside the imperial palace. If he wanted to use this event to strengthen his people as a whole and ensure their loyalty to the Ziwei Imperial Palace, he had to do more than talk. At the very least, Ziwei Imperial Palace had to prove its value to the others, or else they had no reason to risk their lives for Ziwei.
The five palaces each needed their resources. Previously they had the pills he produced, and now they had divine arms at their disposal. Not only did all these items significantly improve their strengths, but they made cultivators from each palace feel that they were part of the Ziwei Imperial Palace.
They shared woes as well as fortune. If any gains were to be had, all of them would partake and benefit together.
The fact remained that the Ziwei Segmentum was still facing specific threats in the foreseeable future. Although the threat of Tianyan City was eliminated this time and they had obtained the imperial arms, they had paid a great price for their victory. The Ziwei Segmentum had lost Ziwei the Great.
No one knew what would happen in the future. Therefore, Ye Futian wanted to do the best he could to expand and secure the power of Ziwei Imperial Palace.
“In addition, the cultivation in the art of armoring would require Uncle Tie’s attention. In addition to yourself, you will need to select and train up some more outstanding armorers. Those selected from the Ziwei Segmentum can be trained carefully, but,” Ye Futian paused for a moment before he continued, “Ziwei Segmentum is connected to the outside world. Therefore, even the people from Ziwei Segmentum cannot be fully trusted. If they are to be trained as part of the core group, they have to be evaluated strictly beforehand and their backgrounds thoroughly checked.”
Last time, what happened on the battlefield reminded him that he needed to be wary of any spies that might have been implanted inside Ziwei Imperial Palace.
“I understand.” Naturally, Blind Tie understood the implications.
“I can find someone to help you.” Ye Futian smiled as he thought of an ideal candidate, whose cultivation today was considerably more advanced. Feixue—the daughter of his teacher Qi Xuangang. Feixue possessed terrific abilities.
Blind Tie nodded.
“As for them,” Ye Futian looked at the Renhuang cultivators who were brought from Tianyan City, “starting today, all of them will be under the direct command of the Armoring Palace. Those who are good at armoring will be assigned to armoring; those who are not good at armoring will be assigned to assist the building of the armory and all the preparations. In addition, find out what each of them is good at; these are the things worth knowing. I am afraid these matters must be entrusted to Uncle Tie. You will have your work cut out for you shortly.”
“Of course,” Blind Tie nodded. These things were what he had dreamed of. He couldn’t be more pleased about how things had turned out.
He was now in charge of the Armoring Palace, and Tianyan City Lord’s Office—the target of their retaliation this time—was the number one principality of armoring in the Divine Prefecture. Everything they had taken was related to armoring. Thus it fell naturally under his management in the Ziwei Palace. He could tell that the other lords were quite envious of his good fortune this time.
How come they were not so lucky to have these kinds of resources showered upon them?
The Armoring Palace was the latest addition. However, no one expected that the first Ancient God Clan to be annihilated would be a force in armoring.
This time the Armoring Palace would go through a significant transformation. In the future, its potential was immeasurable. Conceivably, it would continue to grow even more prosperously than the Alchemy Palace.
“If you need more manpower, you may have your pick from the Ziwei Imperial Palace,” Ye Futian continued.
“Understood,” Blind Tie replied before proceeding to take the prisoners away. At the same time, Lord Chen arranged for a lot of people to come help. After all, this time, they had brought over a lot of Renhuang, so they needed to establish reasonable control over them first.
Although Ye Futian didn’t kill them, he could squeeze all they are worth out of them and have them make divine arms and other implements for the Ziwei Imperial Palace.
Afterward, Lord Chen and the others were tasked with cleaning up and distributing the rest of the implements. Although for most cultivators, the power from any implements was limited in the face of absolute power, implements could be used to increase one’s combat effectiveness when the opponents were of the same realm.
After Ye Futian left them, he planned to retreat again, to make another batch of pills. He wanted to produce another set that would improve the strength of the cultivators who were at the upper-level of the Ziwei Imperial Palace. He felt that time was becoming ever more pressing and that chaos was looming. He must elevate the power of the Ziwei Imperial Palace to the highest possible level.
Now, just having the imperial arms was far from enough.
…
While Ye Futian and the others were busy working, Haotian Clan of the Divine Prefecture had not been sitting by idly.
Inside a great hall, the clan lord of the Haotian Clan was sitting cross-legged, surrounded by a dreamy divine light of the Great Path. In front of him, there were elusive phantoms. They were none other than the rulers of several other Ancient God Clans.
They were meeting and conversing in a peculiar way.
Tianyan City’s destruction meant that there were only five remaining Ancient God Clan, and all of them could feel the danger hovering above them. Now, it was either for them to destroy Ziwei, or Ziwei would destroy them in return. Clearly, this was an urgent matter that needed to be discussed.
The point was that Ziwei was not so easy to destroy anymore. Doing so might even bring severe catastrophes upon themselves.
Everything else aside, just the abilities that Ye Futian derived from the imperial arms and Buddha’s Celerity alone were enough for him to break into any one of their Ancient God Clans. Ye Futian’s ability to come and go as he pleased was enough to cause endless disasters for them.
Now, they must find a foolproof way to get rid of Ye Futian, once and for all. But so far, they had not been able to come up with any solution!
