829 A Great Purge

All over the sky, thunderclouds were pushing down fast. Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le stood under the dark clouds with hundreds of generals from Dong Hai Province. The lightning lit up their bodies, and the twinkling light made their faces flicker like evil spirits.

Three days had passed since Emperor Haozun convened a grand council of courtiers in Liangzhu, and the purge of rebels within Great Yu had only just begun. At the moment, Wu Qi was leading hundreds of generals and tens of thousands of soldiers from Dong Hai Province to attack the very root of Jiyi Clan, a famous clan of Great Yu.

Jiyi Clan was an honorable clan with the blood of the Sacred Emperor, Xuanyuan. It was considered a collateral branch of Great Yu's imperial clan. The clan's overall strength was extremely powerful. It controlled virtually all the various artisan workshops under the Directorate of Celestials, and was responsible for the production and storage of all ordnance and armaments. Therefore, Jiyi Clan's wealth was only under Emperor Haozun, and of all the powerful clans in Great Yu, it was the most extravagant clan with the most lavish lifestyle.

The long enjoyment and carefree life had turned Jiyi Clan into an almost pure merchant clan. They did not care about the power struggle in the imperial court, neither did they care about anything outside of Great Yu. They were only concerned about whether their mansions were luxurious, whether their concubines were beautiful, whether their maids were luscious. Their whole energy was devoted to enjoyment, so the Jiyi Clan was almost the first one to betray Great Yu.

Over the years, by relying on the advantage of being in charge of ordnance production for Great Yu, Jiyi Clan had secretly skimmed off large quantities of rare materials each year and sold them to the Heaven and the Buddhist League. These materials, which were considered precious even in Pangu Continent, were the most valuable treasures that were enough to make people risk their lives in outer heavenly realms. And yet, the Jiyi Clan had secretly sold them to the outsiders.

As the price for their betrayal of Great Yu, the people of Jiyi Clan had received a lot of spirit pills that could prolong their lives, and countless luscious and beautiful female immortals whom they could use freely as forbidden mistresses. And each generation of their patriarch and elders were secretly taken away at the end of their lives, then received initiation from those Primordial experts who crippled the cultivation bases of the human race they had cultivated since young. Finally, they had their fleshly bodies remade in the Eight Treasures Lotus Throne of the Buddhist League, which gave them the physique of cultivators.

At present, there was an immortal clan in charge of immortal artifacts production in the Heaven, and their surname was Jiyi!

It was a total betrayal! Because of the betrayal of Jiyi Clan, the immortals of the Heaven were able to obtain the materials enough to produce at least three to five Primordial artifacts every eon, many of which were rare materials that were not produced and could not be found in the outer heavenly realms. But, they were all secretly sold to the Heaven by the Jiyi Clan.

Shocked and awed by Emperor Haozun's boundless killing intent at the court, the patriarchs of the powerful clans who knelt down and confessed their crimes had been imprisoned in the Secret Palace's divine dungeon, then tortured and questioned about what they had done. Before the Jiyi Clan, more than thirty powerful clans had been slaughtered, and because of its tremendous wealth, Emperor Haozun had specifically asked Wu Qi to lead an army and annihilate the Jiyi Clan.

"All of the wealth found after the destruction of Jiyi Clan belongs to King of Dong Hai alone!" It was obviously Emperor Haozun's extra reward for Wu Qi, and naturally, Wu Qi welcomed it with open arms. He hastily assembled hundreds of generals with the cultivation bases of the Second Pangu Heaven, as well as hundreds of thousands of soldiers of varying overall strength from Dong Hai Province, then retrieved large quantities of heavy ordnance from the armory of the Directorate of Celestials to attack the Jiyi Clan.

The present Jiyi Clan did not have Supreme Oracles. They had, after all, evolved into a merchant clan. The strongest members of the clan were the few sons-in-law who possessed the cultivation bases of the Second Pangu Heaven. A clan like this was extremely easy to annihilate to begin with. But, no one expected that the Jiyi Clan had actually constructed a powerful formation in their very base, one that was clearly a product of the immortals.

The ancestral land of Jiyi Clan was situated between three hills, a basin about two hundred miles in circumference. Originally, the small basin was inhabited by only about a thousand core members of the clan and tens of thousands of servants. But, as their patriarch was thrown into the divine dungeon and Emperor Haozun had issued a decree to execute the Jiyi Clan, the total number of people who sought refuge here, including the members from both lineal and collateral branches as well as servants and guards, had increased to over five hundred thousand.

A pale golden light blanketed the entire basin, and on the peak of each of the three hills surrounding the basin hovered a cloud of purple smoke. On every purple cloud were nine round mirrors, about a thousand feet tall each and shining with a cold light. Snakes of lightning could be seen slithering back and forth around the edges of these bronze-colored mirrors. When the mirrors trembled occasionally, countless golden rays would shoot out of them. The rays unleashed by twenty-seven mirrors interwove into a huge net of light, slicing anything along the way into pieces. The broken bodies of nearly a thousand soldiers from Dong Hai Province scattered messily all over the place were to the credit of these golden lights.

Wu Qi had led an army to attack the Jiyi Clan. At Huang Liang's order, who was in charge of the campaign, hundreds of thousands of soldiers fell into a neat formation and charged toward Jiyi Clan's ancestral land. But, the mirrors suddenly emerged on the peak of the three hills, and numerous beams of golden light came falling down toward them. As a result, nearly a thousand soldiers at the head of the formation were silently sliced into chunks of meat the size of fists by the golden light without even having the chance to let out a single cry.

The sudden attack of the golden light caused Huang Liang to hastily order the army to retreat three miles back.

Wu Qi hovered midair as he exercised his Chaotic Divine Eyes and saw a fat middle-aged man over a palace at the heart of the basin, furiously scolding a few young men in Daoist outfits, whose faces were pale. Clearly, when the few young men saw the army charging at them, they hurriedly activated the formation, but the golden light had only killed about a thousand soldiers in the end.

If they could let the army come a little deeper, the formation could at least kill over eighty percent of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers from Dong Hai Province. This was the reason why the fat middle-aged man was scolding them now. They had wasted an opportunity to inflict heavy losses to Wu Qi's army.

Wu Qi snorted coldly, then muttered under his breath, "You should be thankful that your Jiyi Clan has a stroke of good luck, for you've only killed slightly over a thousand men. If you had really caused serious losses to my army, what awaited you would not just be a pure slaughter. There are many ways to die... Well, since you've killed some of my men, I'll kill you all by cutting and slicing each of you a thousand times. If my men get hurt again, you'll realize that being dead is better than being alive!"

Princess Zhang Le nodded seriously. A little irritated, she glanced at the remains of the soldiers who had been killed, then gritted her teeth and grumbled in a low voice, "Such heavy casualties... How much is the pension we need to pay?"

Even as Wu Qi was stupefied by her remarks, the frustrated princess had pressed both her hands down, causing the thundercloud that blotted the sky to smash down like a massive wall. The cloud blanketed a region in the void that was hundreds of miles in circumference; when it was less than ten thousand feet from the ground, it suddenly shot out countless bolts of lighting, each as thick as a water bucket. At that very moment, it was as if a forest of lightning had grown out over Jiyi Clan's ancestral land. The dazzling lightning pierced the formation of golden light and blinded the eyes of the countless people in the basin.

The twenty-seven mirrors began to tremble violently. Under Princess Zhang Le's terrible attack of the thundercloud, they let out cries of agony. The biggest advantage of this formation was that it could borrow the endless energy beneath You Xiong Plain to fight against enemies equivalent to the level of Gold Immortal. But in the face of Princess Zhang Le, who was already a Primordial expert, the formation's power was just too weak.

Amidst the mirrors' cries, countless beams of golden light towered into the sky, trying to rip the dense thunderclouds apart. But, the avatar of the God of Thunder floating over the princess had only raised both hands and swung them down toward the basin, following which countless thunderclouds immediately came whistling over from all directions. More bolts of lightning shot out of the thundercloud that was thicker and heavier now, converging into a sea of plasma that flooded the entire ancestral mansion of Jiyi Clan.

Huang Liang, standing on the crest of a hill, raised his long knife high up and cried out at the top of his lungs, "Our Lord Mother's divine abilities are formidable, her magic power is boundless, and her lightning magic is earth-shaking! When are you, a bunch of evil clowns, going to surrender if not now?"

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers from Dong Hai Province raised their weapons at the same time and roared in unison. Amidst their wild roar, the twenty-seven mirrors could no longer withstand the attack of the lightning Princess Zhang Le had summoned. The energy within the mirrors was smashed to pieces, and the surfaces of the thick and the heavy mirrors cracked like a spiderweb. Soon, they all exploded along with a deafening rumble.

Wu Qi gently waved his hand, and hundreds of thousands of fierce soldiers swarmed into the basin immediately like a tidal wave. One after another, the countless members of Jiyi Clan screamed and yelled in despair as they began to flee in all directions like some headless flies. However, since even the formation was destroyed, how could these people, whose cultivation bases were so weak, have the opportunity to escape?

In addition, Wu Qi had opened his mouth and unleashed thirty-six Kunwu Swords which transformed into huge swords of light about a few miles high and stabbed into the ground around the basin, completely locking down the entire region. After that, it was a complete slaughter. Soldiers rushed into the basin with sharp swords and knives, killing everyone in there regardless of their gender, age, or status.

Blood spilled all over the ground, slowly turning into a few crimson rivers and then pouring into a nearby great river. About an hour later, the river, which was tens of miles in width, had turned completely blood-red. Columns of fire rose into the sky from across the basin; the despairing members of Jiyi Clan had put their ancestral mansions to the torches, burning everything and themselves into ashes. However, as buildings in Great Yu were all constructed of boulders, the result of the burning was not great. No one knew how much oil of the merman had the Jiyi Clan wasted to cause such a great fire.

Similar fires could be seen breaking out from countless places, both near and far. The powerful clans who were loyal to Great Yu had raised their butcher knives toward those who had betrayed Great Yu. Just as Wu Qi was slaughtering Jiyi Clan, tens of thousands of other clans were struggling and wailing in raging flame and blood.

All the people of Baihuang Clan, the once most powerful clan in Great Yu, were killed, except Baihuang Mo and a few others from the clan's collateral branches. Hundreds of Supreme Oracles from Baihuang Clan were executed by revered elders from the Secret Palace. In the face of these revered elders' attacks, they were extremely vulnerable without their Supreme Towers, their strongest fortresses.

Wu Qi glanced around; his Chaotic Divine Eyes allowed him to see things that were happening in great distance.

He saw that in the barracks of You Xiong Army, groups of soldiers and captains were dragged to the edges of large pits by those private soldiers and guards serving the clans loyal to Great Yu. They then raised their weapons and killed the ones who harbored ulterior motives against Great Yu, before throwing their corpses into the pits.

Large-scale resistances broke out in some camps, but revered elders from the Secret Palace immediately launched bloody crackdown on these rebellious soldiers and captains. The resistance of the army rebels was so feeble and laughable under the Supreme Oracles' means who could exterminate everything.

Suddenly, a heaven-shaking cheer erupted from the army of Dong Hai Province, who had rushed into the depths of Jiyi Clan's ancestral mansion, and then Huang Liang's loud, excited void could be heard, "My Lord, we've found Jiyi Clan's treasure vault! So many treasures, so many good things!"

Wu Qi roared with laughter as he pulled Princess Zhang Le's hand and quickly flew in the direction of Jiyi Clan's ancestral mansion.