Chapter 2163.2: Explosion

In the clearing of Black Maple Peak, Yuwen Zonglin and Ouyang Baitian weakly lifted their heads. They sighed in unison when they saw one hundred cultivators in the air.

“The opponent is too arrogant. This formation seems dominating, but it couldn’t withstand a single combined blow from three nascent souls and twenty golden cores!” Ouyang Baiyi descended from the sky and loftily looked down at his older brother sprawled on the ground.

“Where is he?” Ouyang Baiyi looked down his nose at Ouyang Baitian.

The man shook his head.

“He should be somewhere in the mountain. Fan out!” Yuwen Tuo shouted to his men as he helped up Yuwen Zonglin.

……

“Oh? They broke the formation? That was a bit slower than I thought.” Fifty kilometers away, Lu Yun took a bite out of a spirit fruit and crushed two spirit talismans he’d placed next to him.

……

Within Black Maple Peak.

Ouyang Baitian paled as he looked at Ouyang Baiyi and opened his mouth, seeming to want to say something. He flushed unnaturally before he could get a word out and golden light burst out of his dantian.

“No!” Being mid nascent soul powerhouses, Ouyang Baiyi and Yuwen Tuo sensed something off about the situation and immediately rose into the air on the back of sword light.

Humm!

A second formation snapped into place outside the mountain and prevented them from leaving.

Boom!

Boom!

Yuwen Zonglin and Ouyang Baitian detonated their nascent souls!

Power sufficient to destroy heaven and earth filled the vicinity, obliterating the fifteen kilometers of Black Maple Peak.

The entire world fell silent.

……

The power generated by the self-denotation of one nascent spirit cultivator was unfathomable. A cultivator of the same level would die if they were caught in the center of the explosion. There were two such cultivators self-detonating at the same time in the mountain!

Although Yuwen Zonglin and Ouyang Baitian were heavily injured and their nascent souls impacted, their core origin was unharmed. The explosion of two nascent souls at the same time was enough to level Black Maple Peak.

If it wasn’t for a protective formation around the mountain keeping the recoil in, the shockwaves might’ve even reached Dark City fifty kilometers away.

All that was left of the mountain now was a massive pit that stretched thirty meters across. It was a pit that buried the Ouyang and Yuwen Clans.

……

“Alright, show’s over, time to go home.” Lu Yun stretched lazily and jumped down from the tree.

Lu Xuan and He Wuheng stood up at the same time. They sensed startling energy ripples from fifty kilometers out, but didn’t know what’d happened.

“Young master, don’t we want the twenty thousand ransom anymore?” He Wuheng hesitated.

“Twenty thousand paramount spirit stones?” Lu Yun snorted with laughter. “We’ll take it from their family mines if we want spirit stones. We don’t need to go to the trouble of kidnapping their people.”

Get rich?

To Lu Yun, the lives of the one hundred powerhouses were the real wealth!

Paramount rank spirit stones?

Just a small trick to provoke the enemy into losing their temper. It was their fault for valuing their dignity so much.

……

The capital was in an uproar by the time Lu Yun returned. First Ouyang Baitian and Yuwen Zonglin jointly challenged the strongest of Dark City—Lu Tianling—and were soundly defeated.

Then, the two patriarchs were kidnapped and held for ten thousand paramount rank spirit stones each. It stunned the city’s cultivators when the word spread. Capturing two mighty patriarchs and extorting payment from their families… The world had gone mad!

What happened next overwhelmed the city and sent the other four families and imperial family into raging fury!

The latter had been watching on the sidelines and even with some schadenfreude. However, news of the complete demise of Ouyang Baitian, Yuwen Zonglin, and the one hundred cultivators sent to rescue them took the empire by storm.

It wasn’t just a loss to the two families, but a loss to Darklake Cultivation Empire at large! That was one hundred powerful cultivators and a handful of nascent soul experts!

It rocked Darklake and even alarmed some of her neighbors. Nascent soul powerhouses were the pillars of third rank cultivation empires. These empires were deemed third rank due to the presence of nascent soul heavyweights.

In the world of cultivation, cultivation empires were divided into nine ranks. First rank empires were deemed thus if they possessed foundation establishment cultivators, second rank if they had golden core, and so on and so forth.

Foundation establishment, golden core, nascent soul, soul projection, soul separation, combination, tribulation, and awakened. There were eight ranks in total that corresponded to eight ranks of cultivation empires. The legendary ninth rank empire boasted of wandering immortals.

Destruction of the physical body and reassembly of the nascent soul made one a wandering immortal.

Being a third rank empire, nascent soul cultivators were the foundation of Darklake Empire. Every nascent soul powerhouse was extremely precious to Darklake, and now six had died in one fell swoop—including two patriarchs of the seven great families! Twenty golden core cultivators had died along with them, an enormous loss that cut to the heart of even Darklake—first among the third rank empires.

Not to mention, their strongest Lu Tianling was heavily injured at the moment!

Fear and danger were found around every corner in Darklake and every blade of grass and tree was a potential enemy. The Ouyang and Yuwen Clans were nearly mad with fury.

……

Meanwhile, the source of the kerfuffle sauntered back home like none of this had anything to do with him. At a time like this, no one paid attention to a useless noble son loitering on the streets.

Lu Xuan and He Wuheng naturally knew what’d happened when they returned to the capital with their young master. As strong as their composure was, they were also immensely startled by the turmoil. They finally understood just what they’d accomplished on this trip outside the residence.

What did Lu Yun care about the commotion? Those were people who wanted him dead. Why would he keep himself in check if he had a chance to eliminate the enemy?

He wasn’t a saint—he’d fight anyone who called him a saint!

And it was just a few nascent soul cultivators. If it really ended up threatening Darklake’s security… he’d just compensate the empire then.

“Lu Yun, where have you been all morning?”

The young man was greeted by a brooding Lu Xiaochi as soon as he entered the front door.

“Eh, nothing much. Just went out for a walk,” Lu Yun glossed things over.

“Second master…” He Wuheng swallowed hard and found it difficult to say more.

Lu Xiaochi nodded at the grand steward and proclaimed righteously, “Spies from our enemies have infiltrated Darklake—the Ouyangs and Yuwens have suffered much from it. Even their patriarchs are dead, so you should stay home for a while.”

The seven great families were starting to suspect that the disaster that’d visited their brethren was the work of Darklake’s number one enemy—the Tianlong Empire.

“You are an important person of the Lu Clan and your grandfather’s biggest treasure. Keep in mind that they may very well target you to threaten your grandfather!” Lu Xiaochi declared solemnly.

Lu Yun bobbed his head up and down, the very image of a biddable child.

……

Lu Xiaochi breathed out much more easily when he watched Lu Yun’s departing back. This young master was the clan’s only weakness.

“How are you, Uncle He?” He smiled gently at the recovered He Wuheng.

“Second master… this old servant has a report to make to the patriarch!” He Wuheng took a deep breath.

“Foster father?” Lu Xiaochi frowned. “Foster father entered closed door cultivation after the fight this morning.”

Lu Tianling had sent He Wuheng to tell the young man to curtail his activities because his grandfather was entering closed door cultivation. Who would’ve thought that the steward would be commandeered into other tasks instead?

Lu Tianling had no choice but to enter closed door cultivation before receiving a response.

“Closed door cultivation?” He Wuheng smiled with resignation. “Second master, let us go to a secret chamber!”

……

“What?!” Lu Xiaochi gaped at the family steward, his mind buzzing and not knowing what to say.

“You mean everything that happened today is a result of that little bastard?” Lu Xiaochi heaved for breath and stared wide-eyed. His voice trembled from the news.

He Wuheng nodded ruefully and manifested a golden hammer in his hand. It was Ouyang Baitian’s personal treasure—upper rank Mountain Shaker.

“This… this…” Lu Xiaochi was so shocked that his mind went blank. “This kid really knows how to get himself into trouble.”

"Second master, we must let the patriarch know. It would result in the extermination of our clan if someone else finds out,” He Wuheng said worriedly.

“Extermination of the clan…?” Lu Xiaochi cocked his head as a meaningful smile appeared on his lips. “Darklake is small puddle—how much trouble can there be even if it’s turned upside down? Who would dare exterminate us? There’s no need to bother foster father with this kind of matter.”

A mysterious expression on his face, Lu Xiaochi waved off the steward’s concerns.

……

"Young master young master, bad news! Bad news!” Lan’er hurriedly ran up to Lu Yun when he returned with Lu Xuan.

“What is it?” Lu Yun smiled to see his maid.

“Miss Fengwu is trapped inside the Ascella Formation!” she said urgently. [1]

Lu Tianling had turned the entire Lu complex into a Major Cycle Nebula Formation. It was comprised of multiple smaller formations and the Ascella Formation was one of them. Being one that trapped its targets, even golden core cultivators would find it difficult to escape once they were caught within.

“Miss Fengwu?” Lu Yun blinked, then smiled as a beautiful form flashed through his mind. “Let’s go and see this Miss Fengwu!”

Fengwu was a girl traveling by herself that Lu Yun had encountered on the streets of Dark City half a year ago. She was so captivating that the number two beauty of the city—Yuwen Shengxiang—paled far in comparison to her.

As the greatest pestilence of the capital, Lu Yun naturally captured her and brought her home when he saw her. When he wanted to defile her, Lu Tianling stopped him and almost broke his legs.

𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Lu Yun had yet to undergo reincarnation then and was not the current Lu Yun that he was now. His grandfather had warned him that he was not allowed to lose his virginity before he reached foundation establishment. If he did, he would be exiled from the family.

Lu Yun conducted all manner of wild escapades and was the height of lawlessness, but his grandfather kept him strictly in check when it came to affairs between man and woman. He was so strict that Lu Yun didn’t dare try to touch his grandfather’s bottom line.

Fengwu’s face drained of color when she heard Lu Tianling’s words. She’d thought she’d escaped calamity, but after the young man reached foundation establishment…

Therefore, she spent the past half year trying to escape from the Lu residence. Layered with protection as it was from the Major Cycle Nebula Formation, there was nowhere she could go.

The great formation had shook this morning when Ouyang Baitian’s hammer came down. She’d thought her chance had arrived and tried to make a run for it, but ended up trapped in the Ascella Formation.

1. Ascella is a star located in the Sagittarius constellation. ☜