The Divine Nine-Dragon Cauldron

“They were quite strong, the strongest one being a fourth-grade Almighty, the weakest ones being some fairies. The situations on both sides were intense, each suffering casualties,” Bai Shanliang explained.

He then added, “The Shangguans were in a defensive position, and they sustained more injuries than deaths. When our auxiliary army arrived, the people attacking the Shangguans couldn’t endure our attack and had to retreat. They scampered in many separate ways. Therefore, Cabinet Master Kongchan came to the nearest members of the Situ family to borrow helpers.”

Su Yu squinted his eyes slightly, a stern look gradually appearing on his face as he said in a grave voice, “Wow! There really is something wrong!”

Upon hearing that, Bai Shanliang stared at Su Yu and asked, “What makes you say that?”

Su Yu collected his thoughts and looked over at Lady Situ, his face somber. “Lady Situ, please summon all of your people with combat power and tell them that they must prepare for a battle!”

His abrupt words made all of the Situ people freeze. They had been anxiety for quite a long time, so now, they tensed up even more upon hearing his ominous words.

“What do you mean?” Lady Situ asked with a scowl.

Su Yu cast a look at the half-empty Situ’s house, then said in a low voice, “You’ve been trapped!”

“The enemy’s real target isn’t the Shangguans! It’s you, the Situs!” Su Yu’s eyes shone with a shrewd light as he warned her.

What? The Situ family is the real target of that gang of people? Lady Situ gasped.

She dared not be reckless, let alone allow frenzy and panic to submerge her family. So, she said, “Please elaborate more on this, and if what you say is reasonable, I will arrange my family members to face this battle! I just don’t want to allow any random speculation without evidence first, as that would only give rise to chaos.”

While gazing at the enormous, burning formation of fiery balls, Su Yu explained in a stern voice, “Three days ago, I was informed that the Shangguans have been under attack for several days!”

She then asked, “In your opinion, what kind of people would continuously attack a family for as long as several days, with no assurance? You have to know that it only takes the strong men of the Red Blood Palace three days to arrive at the Shangguans’. Besides, with the students executing missions nearby, it would take even less time!”

After shaking her head, she asked, “Aren’t they afraid that they’ll lose as they try to attack the Shangguan family and be destroyed by the strong men of the Red Blood Palace if they arrive in time?”

“Well… That just means that their purpose isn’t to conquer the Shangguan family, but to conceal their ulterior motives!” Su Yu’s mind was clear and bright.

Lady Situ pondered this, but still didn’t quite understand what he was saying. “I still don’t understand. What do they really want?”

Su Yu replied, “They have already done what they wanted to do!”

He then pointed at the defensive formation and the Situ family, which had lost half of their family’s power. All of a sudden, Lady Situ seemed to have been enlightened and her facial expression changed to one that was filled with shock as she exclaimed, “So… You’re saying that they’re creating a diversion while they strike their actual target somewhere else?”

She blinked rapidly, then asked, “They’re acting like they’re attacking the Shangguans in to attract the people of the Red Blood Palace over there, and they will then take the chance to attack the Situs?”

Su Yu nodded. “They even purposely injured but did not kill the Shangguans, causing many strong men from the Red Blood Palace who went there to be preoccupied with taking care of those wounded!”

He then added, “This reduces their manpower, and also, because of that, the Red Blood Palace would have to borrow helpers from the nearest members of the Situ family, thus placing the Situs in a vulnerable and weakened state! This is all a scheme of entrapment that has been carefully devised by them!”

His words made the entire place plunge into absolute silence. The Situs felt chills run up their backs. Su Yu’s analysis was clear and reasonable, so they could not deny it!

They all wondered… With half of our combat power gone, isn’t our Situ family now at our weakest, thus being easy to invade?

It turned out that the enemy’s real target was never the Shangguans, but the Situs! Lady Situ’s pretty face looked horrified, and her body was trembling lightly.

After losing her mind for a short moment, she finally said, “Send my order to all of the Situ members at the fairy levels. Tell them to gear up for battle!”

As she spoke, Lady Situ retrieved a messenger jade pendant and muttered some words into it, then hurled it into the air. The jade pendant vanished into the void, carrying the message to Cabinet Master Kongchan, who hadn’t been gone for long.

However, after crossing the formation of fiery balls, the jade pendant fell out of the void. With its light dimming, it plummeted downward and shattered into pieces upon hitting the ground!

“Someone out there is setting up a formation, as the message was intercepted!” Lady Situ’s face fell and turned pale.

Everyone’s heart sank upon hearing this. It appeared that someone really was playing dirty tricks on them! They all began to voice their shock…

“The student of the Red Blood Palace is right! We are being targeted!”

“Who? And… How did they do it? When Cabinet Master Kongchan was around, didn’t she notice the formation? What kind of experts have set up the formation?”

“Oh no! If the jade pendant isn’t delivered, our family is going to be obliterated!”

“Don’t panic!” Lady Situ yelled after hearing the panic rising among her people.

Her former prestige was taking effect at this point in time, so all of the people immediately started to quiet down.

“All of you must retrieve your own jade pendants and deliver the message to Cabinet Master Kongchan. Each of you choose a different way to send them out!”

Upon receiving this instruction, thousands of people did just what she had instructed. Nonetheless, following the immediate shattering and crashing sounds that reverberated incessantly thereafter, everyone’s hearts were even heavier than before. Their messages had been intercepted as well.

“All of our messages have also failed! We are under siege!” someone shouted, while a collective panic rose among the people again.

Lady Situ’s eyes darkened as she bellowed, “All of you, shut up! You are panicking before the enemies have even arrived! If they really do come here, are you going to just hand yourselves over to them to be killed and tormented?”

The crowd rapidly fell silent, while everyone was trying their best to suppress their fears.

“Ghost Shadow San, bring the ten trained death fighters and go out in different directions. I believe that if you manage to escape far enough, you’ll no longer be under the formation’s influence,” Lady Situ commanded.

She then added, “Then, you must deliver the message immediately! You must inform Cabinet Master Kongchan about our situation, and ask him to bring back half of our people to come to our aid.”

Swish!

As a gust of wind howled, a mass of black remnant shadows appeared soundlessly beside Lady Situ. It appeared so fast that it couldn’t be captured by the naked eyes of those below the Almighty level at all.

Su Yu was slightly stunned as he thought… What a fast speed! That person must have the body cultivation of a fifth-grade Almighty!

But, the individual’s cultivation was merely that of a second-grade Almighty, yet his body’s cultivation was extremely outstanding. Shortly after his appearance, ten more remnant shadows appeared on both sides of Lady Situ, each with the body cultivation of around a third-grade Almighty’s.

The Situ family have been training this troop in secret! They certainly are judicious… Su Yu thought as he nodded silently. To have risen up as such a powerful influence in the Blessed and Heavenly Lands, they naturally had taken adequate precautions!

“Rest assured, my Lady, we will do as you have said!” After Ghost Shadow San received the command, he turned into a black tenuous line before vanishing into the formation.

The other ten individuals also began to depart in the direction of their choice. Their purpose wasn’t to fight the unknown enemies, but to escape from the formation! Among the 11 of them, it would suffice even if only one of them managed to escape.

Ten of them had the speed of third-grade Almighties, whereas one had the speed of a fifth-grade Almighty. So, unless the enemies had boundless military strength, they wouldn’t be able to stop all of them!

Bang!

However, before they were even gone for long, a body suddenly fell from the clouds and smashed into the formation above the air fortress. It then caught fire and began burning intensely before it crashed down onto the island!

The corpse’s chest was lacerated from the front to the back, and it had clearly died in a very horrendous way! As people fixed their gazes upon it, they wondered… Is he one of the ten people who was just sent out?

“Gah! Someone was lying in ambush deep in the clouds!” someone exclaimed in shock and dismay.

The Situ people all took in sharp, cold breaths. It hadn’t even been a full minute since they had departed, yet one of the ten had already been assaulted! At that moment, the remaining black figures could be vaguely seen, flickering amid the clouds.

Bang!

And then, another one fell from the sky, turned into a fiery ball, and crashed toward the island!

Bang!

Bang!

Four!

Five!

Six!

All of a sudden, humans rained down from the sky, one after another. In this way, all of the black shadows were torn apart and tossed down from the depths of the sky! With each individual that was thrown, the Situ people’s faces grew darker and darker.

Nine!

Ten!

Lady Situ’s gorgeous face turned deathly pale as she fixed her gaze on the thick, dense clouds in the sky and exclaimed in shock and horror. “Who is hiding there? Show yourself!”

“Haha, I’m not even hiding! You lot are just too stupid to spot me!” A cold, cruel sneer sounded from the depths of the clouds.

Shortly thereafter, mass after mass of dark shadows flashed amid the clouds. They were numerous and densely packed, and it looked as if countless locusts were flying deep inside the clouds, weaving a densely packed net.

At the same time, numerous shrill, ear-piercing shrieks shrouded a huge part of the ocean, accompanied by an enormous spiritual pressure. Mad winds were howling, forming one tornado after another and devastating the clouds within the thousand-mile perimeter. It was at this moment that those innumerable black shadows had shown their true selves!

As the scene unfolded, everyone was shocked. Those weren’t locusts at all, but neither were they humans! They were ferocious birds that had colossal bodies!

Their lowest cultivation was that of a first-grade fairy’s, and the highest was that of a fifth-grade Almighty’s! Besides this, there were five fourth-grade Almighty ferocious birds, while those of a third-grade, second-grade, and first-grade Almighty level were numbered less than a hundred!

As for the ferocious birds of the fairy level, they were incalculable! There were at least ten thousand of them!

Fierce, stringent shrieks reverberated ceaselessly throughout the space, while whiffs of cruel, brutal energies and an astounding spiritual pressure were thick and dense, entirely covering the black clouds of ferocious birds in the sky. Everyone was sinking into a state of utter despair as they watched this scene unfold!

They all wondered… How are the students from the outside sanctum capable of holding off such an invasion?

Unless the entire outside sanctum got into the action, regardless of how many of them were coming, their deaths were certain! They would all end up as meals for these ferocious birds!

They no longer pinned their empty hopes on Cabinet Master Kongchan to return with the troops, as even if she did, it would be all in vain now! Even Cabinet Master Kongchan, with her cultivation of a sixth-grade Almighty, would die horribly in the face of this enormous army of more than ten thousand ferocious birds!

Worse still, they worried that Cabinet Master Kongchan may have even already met her tragic fate! After all, if they had already encountered the vast group of ferocious birds for real, Cabinet Master Kongchan and her people would be devoured by the deluge of ferocious birds in an instant, until nothing was left at all.

Su Yu’s eyes darkened as he inhaled a deep breath. This was such a colossal group of demonic beasts! In the Blessed and Heavenly Lands, apart from the Red Blood Palace and the Purple Cloud Palace, no other faction could survive such an attack!

He had to wonder… How could such a terrifying influence be hiding in the Blessed and Heavenly Lands, without being noticed by anyone at all? It’s no wonder that the third-ranking family was devastated overnight back then!

Now that this awful threat had been exposed and was on the loose, it was even possible that factions like the Soul Seizing Palace and the Returning Principal Faction would be wiped out by the deluge of these ferocious birds overnight! Among all these ferocious birds, there was a vulture that was entirely golden, and it had a pair of terrifying, sharp eyes.

It seemed like the imperial leader of all of the other ferocious birds, as they all hovered around it. Standing upon the vulture’s body was a purple-clothed young man, who had his hands behind his back, his eyes filled with viciousness.

Lady Situ’s entire body was shuddering slightly as despair crept into every corner of her heart. She simply didn’t know how to defend herself against such a threat. Even at its peak glory, the Situ family had failed to resist the attack by this deluge of ferocious birds, and now, they were at their weakest!

The Situ family members were all despairing and feeling hopeless, and some of the most timid ones were feeling weak in the knees. Worse still, some were lying motionless on the ground, having been paralyzed by fear!

Right then, a stream of warmth flowed from her palm, while a gentle but powerful voice resonated in her ears and traveled into her heart, “Lady Situ, be strong! If you lose your fighting spirit, your people will be utterly helpless.”

Upon hearing this voice, Lady Situ became a little more clear-headed, and she lowered her head and looked at the hand that was now holding her palm. It looked old, but it was warm and strong, like the hand of a youth.

As she lifted her gaze, she was met with a fairy-like and dignified yet senile face. It was also peaceful, composed, and firm, as if nothing, even the sky falling, could shake it.

“Where… Is the hope…” Lady Situ’s voice had turned low and hoarse from despair.

Su Yu gazed at the ferocious birds and said indifferently, “There must be a reason they took a detour and only struck while the Situs were in a weakened state!”