Chapter 1597 - Return Gift

Yu Wentai brought more than a dozen guards back to the Immortal Slaughter Palace, and his arrival caught the receiving elder off guard.

"You're only a mere deacon, and what right do you have to see the palace lord?!" the elder barked, his contempt sharp enough to cut. Yu Wentai was only a lowly deacon with no standing in the Immortal Slaughter Palace, and without Duan Li backing him, he didn't even measure up.

"Indeed, I don't have the right to request an audience with the palace lord, but I have news about Liu Wuxie. If you delay this and something happens, can you afford the consequences?" Yu Wentai snapped, narrowing his eyes into a vicious glare that forced the elder to flinch.

After all, the Immortal Slaughter Palace's assets had suffered devastating losses in recent days, and the investigation tied every thread back to Liu Wuxie. Yet Liu Wuxie moved like a slippery eel, shifting positions the moment he destroyed a place, always finding a way to infiltrate it, no matter how tightly they sealed the area.

The Great Conversion Mythical Art terrified them most because it could convert anyone into a devotee.

In the past, Liu Wuxie hadn't dared to convert too many people, given his low cultivation. His main fear had been that he wouldn't be able to keep firm control over everyone.

Ever since Liu Wuxie had comprehended the profundity of unity with heaven and earth, the faith pool had vanished, and the Spring of Faith had replaced it, flowing through his body. That change allowed him to fully condense the Great Conversion Mythical Art and maintain control over a thousand people with ease.

"You can tell me, and I'll report it to the palace lord," the elder insisted, staying wary.

"No. This is too important. Please report it to the palace lord that I request an audience," Yu Wentai said, keeping his face resolute and refusing to take a step.

The elder couldn't force the issue because he couldn't shoulder the consequences if he delayed something truly critical.

"Wait here," the elder instructed. He conceded, but he still glared at Yu Wentai as if he meant to carve the man apart. If the news proved false, he would personally snap Yu Wentai's head off.

Yu Wentai and his men stayed where they stood, and they waited about fifteen minutes before the elder returned.

"The palace lord is currently discussing matters with the elders, and he has time now. Come with me," the elder said.

Lately, the Immortal Slaughter Palace's upper echelons had gathered again and again, arguing over how they could capture Liu Wuxie.

The Laman Astral Domain was too vast. On top of that, Liu Wuxie's cultivation was too high, and even cultivators at the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm weren't his match. Yet the Immortal Slaughter Palace didn't have many quasi-immortals to hunt him personally, and they didn't even know where Liu Wuxie was hiding.

As soon as the palace lord learned that Yu Wentai knew Liu Wuxie’s exact whereabouts, he consented to grant him an audience.

Liu Wuxie had sealed off everything that had happened on Anlu Star, and the Immortal Slaughter Palace only sent people there once a month to collect astral stones. The next collection date was further in the future.

Had they known Anlu Star had already fallen, the palace lord wouldn't have bothered with Yu Wentai at all. After all, reports of Liu Wuxie's attacks had poured in from everywhere except Anlu Star, so any normal mind would assume Anlu Star remained untouched.

Besides, Anlu Star was only a low-grade planet that produced astral stones. Liu Wuxie had been destroying crucial assets, so who would think he would go to a barren backwater like Anlu Star?

Yu Wentai passed through several halls, and he finally entered the Immortal Slaughter Palace's core region. They barred the guards who accompanied him from entering, forcing them to wait outside.

Hundreds of elders stood inside the hall, forming the Immortal Slaughter Palace's upper echelons.

Yu Wentai stepped into the main hall on trembling legs, and nervousness showed on his face. This was the real Yu Wentai, because swaggering in boldly would only raise suspicion.

On a distant mountain peak, Liu Wuxie stood in silence. He had shaken off every pursuer.

"Immortal Slaughter Palace, you're going to love this gift," he said, a cold smirk curling at the corner of his lips.

"How do you know Liu Wuxie's exact location?" an elder at the Heaven Gaze Realm asked the instant Yu Wentai entered, motioning him to stop at the entrance.

After all, it was unprecedented for cultivators at the Transcendent Realm to step into this main hall.

"Liu Wuxie has gone to Anlu Star," Yu Wentai blurted out on the spot.

"Not good!" the palace lord roared. He snapped his hand up and summoned a barrier, locking down the entire hall.

However, he reacted one step too late. Hundreds of martial souls hidden on Yu Wentai detonated at once, and Yu Wentai detonated together with them. Each martial soul matched the Heaven Gaze Realm, and many of them stood at the pinnacle.

A massive mushroom cloud rose into the sky the moment the martial souls exploded, visible from billions of miles away. The sheer force of so many martial souls detonating together reached the level of quasi-immortals.

Almost immediately afterward, the guards waiting outside the main hall detonated the martial souls on their bodies as well.

Logically, Yu Wentai should have needed time to detonate all those martial souls, and a quasi-immortal should have had enough time to stop him. But Liu Wuxie had left his own imprint on the martial souls when he had passed them over, and he controlled the detonation the moment Yu Wentai entered the main hall.

The moment Yu Wentai spoke, the martial souls detonated. That was why the palace lord couldn't react in time, as Liu Wuxie's method had already rivaled a quasi-immortal's.

The entire Immortal Slaughter Palace shook violently under the blast, and countless buildings collapsed to the ground. A quasi-immortal detonation could have leveled the entire Immortal Slaughter Palace.

In the final instant, the palace lord unleashed his domain and crushed the explosion's power down to the lowest impact, avoiding total annihilation. Even so, the elders inside the main hall still took the full brunt.

Dozens of elders closest to Yu Wentai vaporized instantly, leaving nothing behind, not even bones. Those farther away fared slightly better, yet cracks spiderwebbed across their bodies. Many felt fine fissures around their dantian, and they could already sense energy leaking through them. Their cultivation would slowly regress.

Nearly a hundred elders of the Immortal Slaughter Palace perished in the blast, a loss that cut straight to the core of the sect’s strength.

It was as if a magnitude-15 quake had torn through Tranquil Peace City, leveling countless structures and crushing cultivators beneath the debris. The surrounding mountains cracked open, a deep chasm carving its way from the Immortal Slaughter Palace into the range beyond.

Ordinary martial souls would never create an effect this great, but Liu Wuxie had embedded an immortal rune on ten martial souls, and most of the destructive force came from those runes.

The ordinary disciples suffered the worst luck of all. The shockwave ruptured eardrums, and more than half lost their hearing on the spot. The sonic boom also erased a massive swath of buildings, burying tens of thousands of disciples in the destruction.

Liu Wuxie's return gift hit too hard for the Immortal Slaughter Palace to endure, and that brutality explained exactly why he dared to come here alone.

Countless cultivators flew out of Tranquil Peace City and stared toward the Immortal Slaughter Palace. They watched several mountains vanish under the shockwave while the entire Immortal Slaughter Palace collapsed into ruins.

Screams rose from deep inside the sect as disciples and deacons clawed under wreckage and dying dust.

"Liu Wuxie, I want you dead!" the palace lord roared.

As a dignified expert at the Quasi-Immortal Realm, he usually kept his composure through anything, but rage swallowed him whole now and sent boundless waves rippling outward.

"Liu Wuxie?" the entire Tranquil Peace City echoed, the name spreading instantly after the palace lord’s roar.

Speculation spread through the streets as Liu Wuxie's name echoed across the Laman Astral Domain.

"Did Liu Wuxie break into the Immortal Slaughter Palace and cause this?"

"If that's true, then Liu Wuxie is insane to infiltrate the Immortal Slaughter Palace."

The cultivators who survived the blast staggered out of the main hall, and the sight of the ruins made their hearts bleed.

"From this moment on, we'll go to war with the Heavenly Dao Society!" the palace lord commanded, declaring war.

Almost immediately, an even greater piece of news slammed into the Immortal Slaughter Palace.

"This is impossible! How could the Heavenly Dao Society have two quasi-immortals guarding it?!"

The Immortal Slaughter Palace had spies in the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, and they rushed back with the report the moment they confirmed it.

The palace lord staggered, and helplessness washed across his face. He had ruled for centuries and weathered countless storms, yet fatigue finally sank into his bones this time.

If he waged war with the Heavenly Dao Society, he would have to face Di Can and Ren Can.

The Immortal Slaughter Palace couldn't send a large number of quasi-immortals away without leaving the headquarters empty, and if Liu Wuxie seized that opening, destruction would follow.

"Palace Lord, why don't we target the Heavenly Dao Society's assets as well?" some elders suggested, stepping forward.

"It's useless. The Heavenly Dao Society doesn't have any assets, with all their products sold through distributors," an elder at the pinnacle of the Heaven Gaze Realm replied. He had been among the party that had attacked the Heavenly Dao Society, and he knew the truth firsthand.

When they had visited the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain, they had investigated the Heavenly Dao Society thoroughly. There, they had found that the Heavenly Dao Society was efficient in its approach.

They partnered with the Nine Dragon Palace for the Golden Cicada Pills, the Divine Sun-Moon Palace for talisman runes, the Comet Temple for array runes, the White Mist Villa for blacksmithing runes, and the Heavenly Dragon Sect for martial souls.

That meant every storefront selling those goods had no direct connection to the Heavenly Dao Society, including the Soul Pills distributed by the Skyward Gate. None of those foundations was weaker than the Immortal Slaughter Palace.

If they dared destroy those shopfronts, they would inevitably offend those superpowers. They might afford to offend one or two, but if those superpowers united, it would become a nightmare.

Aside from the Alchemy Hall in Mount Dragon City, the Heavenly Dao Society owned no assets. Even though Alchemy Hall primarily served as a venue for business negotiations, it sold only a few pills on ordinary days.

Even in the Thousand Islands Sea Region, they had cooperated with the Mei Clan to develop the region. Thinking back now, Liu Wuxie had laid out a perfect structure that accounted for everything and never tied the Heavenly Dao Society directly to those businesses.

The Nalan Clan had used the same approach to distribute the counterfeit Soul Pills, yet the difference was clear. The Heavenly Dao Society did business openly, while the Nalan Clan had hidden behind a scheme.

"What should we do then? Are we supposed to stay here and wait to die?" many elders shouted as they clenched their fists in frustration, choking on helplessness.

They had slaughtered five thousand elites of the Heavenly Dao Society through meticulous planning, yet Liu Wuxie had revived them upon his return.

"Palace Lord, you must avenge us!" many disciples screamed as they crawled out of the ruins, with missing limbs and nearly crippled cultivation.