Yan Zaizen felt a sensation of intense deadly crisis, and it felt incredibly strong. His instincts screamed at him that if that mountain arrived, it could threaten his very life. It was the strongest he had ever felt, even stronger than when he was running away from the meteorite descending from the sky before. "I can't let it appear." He concluded, his mind rapidly thinking of solutions.
He looked at the mountain and realized something peculiar and familiar about its current state.
Could it be?!
Taking a deep breath, he spread his arms wide. "I hope this works." He mumbled, his hands started to glow with resplendent silver light, then the silver light erupted over his entire body completely overwhelming the silver-blue light in brilliance. He ran the idea of it into his mind once more and felt correct.
Currently, the emerald mountain was not here, it was instead in a state of mid-transition, so physically speaking, it wasn't here but in Xiāo City. It was reminiscent of a spatial platform in Xuanwu City, but unlike the spatial formation that Han Genju used to get them to escape ten thousand li. The former transports in a similar way to teleportation, while the latter was more of a physical movement shift. Similar to when he was on the spatial platform, there's a small window where one could directly interfere with the preparatory phase of the teleportation.
However, the talisman seemed to be a one-time spatial platform that would send the mountain where it was shattered. This meant the mountain had to have a spatial platform beneath it enabling this, and it must be massive. The wealth to send it just once must be extraordinary.
A cold grin suffused on Yan Zaizen's lips. A beam of silver light shot towards the silhouette of the emerald mountain. Lord Xiāo was shocked seeing this, his eyes widening at this event. What was he doing?
Unfortunately, they were actually quite a distance from each other and he was far too weak to attack when the opponent had thousands of tendrils surrounding him in defense. He needed to prepare another big attack, so he simply did that while waiting for the mountain to arrive to launch a powerful strike.
Despite it taking so long to describe the happenings, the entire engagement had been less than thirty seconds.
The mountain was hit by the silver light which originated from the Spatial Form of Infinite Stability, and like a shadow, the power that it drew itself from destabilized in a similar way as the spatial platform was tampered with at Xuanwu City.
POOF!
The entire mountain vanished. Not just the shadow, but the mountain itself.
Lord Xiāo, Elder Mei, Prince Ren, and everyone else in their group or those who were watching from afar due to this high-level fight catching their attention, had their eyes turned into a needlepoint.
"Wh...what just happened?!" Someone who was a part of the imperial skyship's crew shouted in shock.
"The...the transference...failed…" Elder Mei said, but then she turned instinctively towards Xiāo City, and albeit it was exceptionally far away, the mountain that was always visible was no longer there.
"IMPOSSIBLE!!!" Her entire existence trembled from the sheer shock, and her mind turned dull at the sight of a missing mountain. Her shrieking voice caused everyone, including Lord Xiāo to look towards Xiāo City. There was a form of pure silence in the world, even the wind, the earth, the animals, and their breathing halted as if in agreement of shock.
"WHAT?!" Lord Xiāo felt his mind explode from this realization. He looked towards Yan Zaizen with eyes filled with intense anger and intense shock as well as fear, "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
As for Yan Zaizen, he felt incomparably exhausted as nearly all of his qi was drained in one go. Most people urged caution when releasing their qi all at once due to the damage it can do to one's qi-pathways and meridians, but for him, they have been refined to the peak, and his Herculean Physique strengthened them even more. He could withstand such a force at the qi strength of a peak-Essence Formation Realm.
This didn't mean it wouldn't wear him down. He wasn't physically exhausted or spiritual exhausted, but it was like someone took out all of the blood in his body in one go. It felt odd, exhausting, and empty.
However, "It worked!" He couldn't help but chuckle softly with hints of exhaustion behind the mask, but he wasn't done yet.
"This mountain is no longer yours." His voice was icy-cold filled with imperialistic flavor as if stating a fact that couldn't be any more true.
He touched the empty space and his hand seemed to be vanishing into nothingness. A second later, the Xiāo City lord immediately felt as if his connection to the emerald mountain was severed. A massive amount of blood spewed out of his body and he collapsed from the sky almost instantly. As everyone witnessed this, their eyes widened once more with shock and fear.
What happened?
Yan Zaizen had disrupted the spatial transference, but when he did, he arranged for it to be nearby temporarily. When he reached into chaotic space, he touched the mountain and stored it inside the Meteor Ring thereby cutting the connection it possessed with Lord Xiāo. If Lord Xiāo had been in direct control of the mountain, this would've been an impossible feat, but how could he when it wasn't even in the same plane of existence?
It was like snatching money from a bank with no one there to guard it, and the bank had an open door to your room.
"Hmph." Yan Zaizen snorted, he originally was going to kill this man, but he realized that the Xiāo City Lord was probably a member of Anima Syndicate. The only indication of this was when he attacked his soul, the Anima Shield appeared to defend his soul form. The Anima Shield was a superior-grade art that was a staple to the Anima Syndicate Members upon introduction. At least, Wu Yuanxu said those were core techniques for all members. He couldn't be certain, but if that was the case, he would spare him even though he didn't have to.
However, he wouldn't spare his spatial ring.
He flew over to Lord Xiāo's unconscious body covered in blood, used a tendril to wrap around and take all of his spatial possessions, and then he left a transmission in his conscious for when he awoke. It detailed that he was apart of the Anima Syndicate and that his life was spared due to this and only this. However, there wouldn't be a next time.
In truth, there was another reason. How long would it take someone to reach the True Essence Realm? How much talent do they need to possess? How much determination must they have? He felt like killing someone who reached this level of cultivation without a deep grudge to be a little wasteful. Of course, if they had a life or death grudge, then to the underworld they go. However, that wasn't the case here.
Yan Zaizen looked at the group of imperial members from afar, his eyes slowly suffusing with viciousness. He sent a message to Prince Ren via soul transmission. "As long as Lady Di's father lives, I'll make it my life mission to kill all those from the royal palace. Especially you." His words were spoken with no intent to conceal his murderous desires, and he wanted to make clear his thoughts unlike his original intention of letting them handle it themselves. He couldn't let this root stay unplucked, not to mention, Prince Ren's words from before obviously meant that he called the Xiāo Lord here.
This made him want to kill this bastard immediately, but he held it back.
Just as he was about to leave, he contemplated for a moment, then protectively wrapped his soul energy around the Xiāo's body that should last for a few hours, enough time for him to wake up. He knew the relationship between the royal family and Xiāo wasn't exactly a good one, so he took some precautions.
He took off in flight, disappearing in the distance with a line of silver-blue light trailing behind him like a rainbow and aurora borealis fused into one.
A long distance away, Yan Zaizen met up with Tao. After informing him of what happened, Tao was utterly shocked. He had stayed a long distance away in fear of being recognized, but to think the reverberations he felt before was a battle with a True Essence Cultivator. He readied the skyship and prepared their departure. Due to the circumstances with the mountain transference, it's unlikely that the spatial platform in Xiāo will be functional for a while, so they'll have to travel a few months to the nearest one.
"So, what are you going to do with her?" Tao asked, looking at an unconscious Lady Di on the deck.
Yan Zaizen chuckled evilly, his eyes filled with malevolent intentions. "Many things." He answered vaguely. One could tell that Lady Di's fate wasn't going to be a good one.
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Several weeks later, Lady Di's father was sentenced to treason and put to death. Due to many people already looking for an excuse to removed, coupled with Yan Zaizen's combat prowess and the message he left behind, the Emperor was rather decisive. His possessions were taken and he was immediately dealt with accordingly. It wasn't just him, but the entire Yi family line was destroyed to root out any possible threats to the empire.
His death was publicized and many verified it with their own eyes before the entire country soon knew. The new Imperial Commander would be determined in the upcoming month, and many upper-echelon members felt relieved after the affair. Especially after they realized that the Yi family almost caused the Imperial Family to have an enemy Aurora Soul cultivator that could rival a mid-True Essence Cultivator.
If initial-True Essence cultivation puts you at the peak power of the entire country, then mid-True Essence cultivation puts you at the highest point on the continent. In the entire Grux Empire, not a single late-True Essence cultivator exists. The Imperial Commander himself was only at the half-step True Essence Realm, and his position was given to him due to his merits and favoritism of the previous Emperor.
This is why many people dared to desire his position. Besides the Ancient Emperor, Current Emperor, previous Imperial Commander, Lady Bao's father, and the Imperial Scholar, there were no other True Essence Cultivators loyal to the empire. As for mid-True Essence Cultivation, only the Ancient Emperor possessed this level of cultivation.
It is due to this that Xiāo City Lord, who possessed a sky-rank armament with an initial-True Essence Cultivation, was given due respect despite his obvious disagreements with the royal family, and why offending a mid-True Essence soul cultivator for a disliked military commander wasn't a wise move. Yan Zaizen didn't even realize that he could've directly gone to the Imperial Palace itself and demand his head, and after his strength was revealed, they would've done so swiftly to appeal to him and try to recruit him into their kingdom. Unfortunately, they could no longer do this due to circumstances.
As for robbing everyone, no one took it seriously. I mean, which individual had the balls to tackle Yan Zaizen? That's courting death to prom and then trying to take her forcefully after. If that's not asking for death to strike you, then what was?