Chapter 733: Gouyu Awakens
House Sikou wouldn’t choose the path of mutual destruction unless it was the only choice they had left, and on a certain level, it gave Jiang Chen some freedom to prepare. With the memories of his past life, Jiang Chen had an extremely stable foundation in formations. As such, laying down a formation wasn’t a problem for him. The crux of his problem lay in making each strike true. Given that he could only spare one attack for a seal, it was imperative to make the strike count. If he were to fail and alert the sealer to what he was doing, he would be in grave trouble. If in the worst case scenario, the sealer was alerted and flew into a rage, he could very well fly into a rage and kill all the slaves. Then, Jiang Chen’s failure would become an unredeemable failure in his heart. As such, Jiang Chen would not attempt anything until he was sufficiently a.s.sured of success. Time pa.s.sed by day by day. Seven days later, Jiang Chen finally performed his last modification of the formation, according to the results of his experiments and deductions. This newly modified formation seemed even more precise and thorough than before, thanks to the Crimson Heaven formation flag.
“Everyone, this is the best I can do. Failure or success, I hope you don’t blame me,” Jiang Chen closed his eyes to offer a silent plea to his sect members. He had truly done everything he could up to this point. He had devised a method to create sixty four clumps of energy that would be held by the formation. Once the formation was activated, all the knots of energy would come alive at the same time. Fifty four of those clumps were meant for his sect members from the Regal Pill Palace, whereas the remaining ten was a.s.signed to ten relatively strong cultivators. They were all at least earth sage realm cultivators, and some even sky sage realm cultivators. “Miss Huang, I will be starting now.”
At the center of the formation, Jiang Chen nodded at Huang’er standing outside and began activating the formation. The formation slowly rumbled to life as sixty four rays of light flew towards the people inside the formation like meteors. After the flashes of light started to dissipate, countless formation glyphs crawled through the surrounding s.p.a.ce like newly born tadpoles.
Wham! The light entered the people’s qi oceans.
“Everything depends on this!” Jiang Chen gritted his teeth and started to make rapid hand seals. The light kept growing thicker and stronger with each seal. Every slave was gradually enveloped by the light; Jiang Chen could make out everyone’s qi oceans as clouds of nebula. Each qi ocean seemed to entrapped by spiderwebs of restrictions. Those were the seals outside their qi oceans!
“Break, break I say!” Jiang Chen growled as he urged the formation to its full power. The light slammed into the seals surrounding everyone’s qi oceans, causing illusory sparks to scatter into the air. Bzzt!
The ear-piercing noise continued for a moment.
One breath, two breaths… It had only been three breaths of time, but it felt as long as an eternity.
Crackcrackcrack...
No sound would’ve sounded sweeter to Jiang Chen’s ears as cracking sounds marked the moment the restrictions around the slaves started to crumble. With a sound like torn sheet metal, all the seals completely disintegrated! Jiang Chen let the formation dim, and shut down. His forehead was covered in sweat, but his eyes were s.h.i.+ning with delighted pleasure. “It worked!”
Outside the formation, Huang’er was also wearing a look of joy as she stepped quickly into the formation and asked, a tad concerned, “How are you feeling, Sir Jiang?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just a little tired because this formation used up too much energy. It won’t affect my core,” Jiang Chen scanned himself briefly and found nothing wrong other than a little over-expenditure of consciousness. This formation was extremely sophisticated and exhausting. It really wasn’t something that a mortal sage realm cultivator should be able to control. In fact, a sage realm cultivator simply didn’t possess the qualifications to control this formation. If Jiang Chen hadn’t possessed exceptional advantages in every aspect of his cultivations, he wouldn’t have been able to utilize this formation.
…...
The moment the formation broke through the seal, Sikou Nan was abruptly jolted out of his meditation far, far away at House Sikou. His command seals had all disintegrated on their own! It was the middle of the night, and he’d just been about to enter a meditative state. Unfortunately, it’d also given Jiang Chen the opportunity to break the seals without Sikou Nan noticing. By the time Sikou Nan realized what was happening, his command seals had already been shattered to bits. He took out their corresponding tokens, but noted that they too had all been reduced to fragments. When his consciousness swept through his tokens, he noticed that a total of sixty-four tokens had been broken. Sikou Nan’s expression changed greatly as he swore non-stop, “d.a.m.n it! d.a.m.n it!”
He knew that the destruction of these tokens meant that all sixty-four seals had been destroyed. Moreover, the method his enemy had used to crack these seals was extraordinary! His enemy’s timing and cracking method were absolutely top notch. He hadn’t the slightest chance to react.
“Who is it? Who is it?!” Right now, Sikou Nan’s feelings were utterly messy. Despite the fact that it was midnight right now, he ran straight to his father’s doorsteps.
Sikou Yuan was also shocked when he heard the news. Father and son exchanged looks with each other as they stared at the shattered remains of the tokens. Their fear and anger battled each other relentlessly inside, but they had no place to vent. They weren’t afraid of enemies who would come after, but an enemy who they didn’t even know felt far more threatening. At least, looking at the results in front of their eyes, it was obvious that this person wasn’t the type they could get away with underestimating. Even Sikou Yuan himself couldn’t break through sixty-four seals all at once in just a few breaths of time.
“Nan’er, has the Million Puppets Pavilion offended anyone as of late?” Sikou Yuan sounded a bit conflicted.
Sikou Nan answered almost absentmindedly as he kept staring down, “We’re businessmen who seek profit. Why would we offend someone for no particular reason? Plus, there aren’t any amazing customers who have showed up as of late.”
“Was there anyone of great influence amongst our goods this time?” Sikou Yuan asked again.
Sikou Nan thought for a moment and shook his head, “There really isn’t anyone on the Divine Abyss Continent that could be considered as a person of great power to Veluriyam Capital. Our sources as of late have been pretty clean too. They all came from those middle and lower regions. Not a single one came from the Upper Eight Regions.”
“Are there any foreign races involved in our trade?” Sikou Yuan asked again.
“Father, I am not an idiot. The Million Puppets Pavilion only works with the human trafficking trade, never other races.”
Sikou Yuan nodded, “This is strange then. The fact that this robber could instantly crack sixty four seals in an instant means that his strength is terrifying. This person… could it be that they cultivate some sort of evil art that uses cultivators as cultivation furnaces?”
“Father, why do I get the feeling that House Wei probably has something to do with this?” Sikou Nan said sullenly.
“House Wei?” Sikou Yuan shook his head, “House Wei themselves are in a complete mess right now, not to mention that I know very well what level they’re at. There’s no way they could unlock sixty four seals at once in just a couple of breaths of time. Even in the Veluriyam Capital, only those who belong to those top forces are capable of something like this.”
Sikou Nan was feeling very dejected. He dearly wished that this was done by House Wei so he could at least have the pleasure of wiping the ground with them. It was at least better than knowing nothing right now.
“Father, I’m afraid that this person will unseal the slaves one after another now that they’ve had their first success. If that happens, then all our slaves would become his in just half a month’s time.” The fact that their seals were broken meant that these slaves were no longer under House Sikou’s control.
“Can we check where these unsealed slaves came from?” Sikou Yuan asked again.
Sikou Nan shook his head with dejection, “Our sources have plentiful as of late, and since they’re numbered based on cultivation and potential, they cannot be differentiated at all once they’ve been grouped together. Moreover, we never pay attention to where our goods come from unless their ident.i.ties are unusually sensitive.”
If they couldn’t figure out the source, then they wouldn’t be able to investigate the ident.i.ty of the culprit using that lead. Therefore, that line of investigation was a dead end. Sikou Yuan let out a long sigh, “Just who has a bone to pick with House Sikou?”
Ferocity flashed through Sikou Nan’s eyes, “Father, in my opinion, it is best if we just bear the losses and kill off the remaining slaves. If we can’t get them back, then we will at least make sure that that robber gets nothing in return.” It was the second time Sikou Nan had brought up this suggestion.
Sikou Yuan was still hesitant to accept that choice. It was a final choice that he didn’t want to make unless he had no other choice, because it gained them nothing except embarra.s.sing their opponent. Moreover, Sikou Yuan was still hoping that they could somehow regain these slaves. It was just too wasteful to kill all of them just like that. In addition, this method of mutual annihilation might provoke this hidden enemy into anger. They might end up taking revenge because of this.
Sikou Yuan was old and wise, and he didn’t wish to unknowingly make such a big enemy for House Sikou. “Nan’er, if this really is the act of those deviant cultivators wanting to use our slaves’ physical bodies to practice their cultivation, then he will only do worse if we destroy these slaves. If this person turns vicious and causes trouble to the family from the shadows, it will become a rather troublesome issue. We may not fear them, but there’s no denying the fact that it’d be an annoyance.”
“Hmph, are you saying that we should endure such a huge loss and do nothing about it? Not only that, we even have to consider the robber’s feelings?” Sikou Nan was ultimately in the prime of youth. He couldn’t accept this conclusion at all.
“Nan’er, we must look at the bigger picture. We must not do this unless we are pushed to the cliff’s edge.”
…...
Inside the secret room, Jiang Chen had to meditate for a full day as he slowly healed his consciousness. Although the seals on those now freed slaves had been destroyed, their senses were still sealed away. They wouldn’t be able to return to the person they’d been before unless these particular seals were eliminated too. However, these particular seals were not explicitly controlled by House Sikou. Therefore, their safety was no longer a concern. Moreover, unlocking the seals on their senses was a lot easier compared to unlocking the seals on their qi oceans.
When Jiang Chen had recovered, the first thing he did was to unlock the seals on Gouyu, Xue Tong and a few others. These five bodyguards had followed him all the way since the Eastern Kingdom, and their loyalty had never wavered during the whole ride. The five of them slowly regained their consciousness after their senses were unlocked. Gouyu was the strongest out of all of them, and she was also the first to open her eyes slowly.
When she saw what was before her, she thought that her eyes were blurry or she was experiencing an hallucination. She even blinked a couple of times as she alternated glances between Jiang Chen and Huang’er. “Young master, am I… dreaming?” Gouyu felt like crying. Even with her unyielding temperament, she couldn’t help but feel the agitation that came after being granted a new lease on life.
“Gouyu, I’m sorry I didn’t manage to save you all earlier,” Jiang Chen sighed.
Huang’er’s eyes had also reddened a little, “Big sister Gouyu, Sir Jiang has walked over countless miles and gone through innumerable obstacles to come to Veluriyam Capital. Thankfully his efforts were ultimately not wasted, and all of you are fine. You are safe now.”
Gouyu stared at Huang’er, but wore an expression of blank puzzlement on her face, “You… are you little sister Huang’er?” Other than her clear and bright eyes, Gouyu wasn’t able to connect this exquisitely beautiful girl to the Huang’er she knew back then at all.
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