Chapter 2936: Nighttime Arrest / The Arrest in the Dark Night

The moment the Zhao uncle and nephew were brought into the palace, the ruler of Balei wanted to flay them alive, but considering they were his chips for staying alive, he still suppressed his killing intent.

Unexpectedly, those two actually escaped!

Before the nation fell, hearts in the palace were unsettled; who still heeded the ruler's orders? The Zhao uncle and nephew paid a heavy bribe, and the guards responsible for watching them turned a blind eye, letting them escape.

The gaze projected by the Nine Nether Great Emperor made the Balei monarch and ministers tremble involuntarily.

How would this evil god deal with them?

But before the Balei King could even open his mouth to plead again, he heard the clip-clop of horse hooves; the Nine Nether Great Emperor's mount passed by his side, leading several thousand Red Armor Imperial Guards to take control of the palace city.

These warriors' red armor had an ancient style, unlike contemporary regulation issue; their eyes were cold and stern, their bearing lofty, completely different from the Shen army. The Balei palace people, seeing them, subconsciously swallowed their saliva, awe rising in their hearts, and recalled the various rumors that had spread wildly throughout the capital.

The seventy thousand Balei troops that Master Baili had rushed to the Trapped Dragon Cave, most were now escorted out as captives.

At that moment, Balei's fate was already sealed.

Fighting Shen to this extent, it was no easy feat for Balei to mobilize seventy thousand troops; it was also driven by the gods, wanting to relieve the siege for Jialou Tian and the others.

If they had arrived before dawn, they could have helped Jialou Tian take Panlong; unfortunately luck was not on Balei's side, they were a step late, failed to seize the opportunity, and failed.

Losing these seventy thousand elite soldiers, Balei's defensive strength became even more hollow.

Cang Yan and the Shen allied forces inside the Trapped Dragon Cave switched from defense to offense, waving their armies northward.

Seven days, merely seven days, they captured Balei's capital, capturing the Balei ruler alive!

Everyone understood:

Shen had previously fought Balei in a deadlock; the reason they suddenly became so fierce overnight was because Cang Yan's people participated in the war!

But that's not right either; Cang Yan is ten thousand li away, where would they get an army to participate in the war?

Thus a piece of hearsay spread: the ones who joined forces with the Shen great army were actually not the Cang Yan army, but the legendary army that had long vanished from history — the "Great Wind Army"!

The Great Wind Army and Panlongcheng are a legend from two hundred years ago, and the legendary birthplace, the Panlong Wasteland, is actually not too far from the Trapped Dragon Cave and Balei's capital; from nobles to commoners in the Balei capital, many have heard of it.

In the seven-day battle just past, among the enemy troops there was an army in blood-red armor, coming and going like the wind, striking ruthlessly, their style completely different from the Shen army.

They killed the most enemies in the shortest time.

No matter how the world speculates afterward, there is one fact that is clear and unmistakable:

Balei's nearly three hundred years of Jiangshan has drawn its final period here.

Since the Panlongcheng era, generations of Balei monarchs had foresight, allowing them to stabilize the nation amidst chaos; pity that in today's sudden upheaval it could not adhere to its original national policy, and was ultimately crushed to pieces in the struggle of great powers.

Its fate is merely a microcosm of a small nation under the times.

……

By the middle of the night, the farmsteads in the suburbs were immersed in tranquility, lacking much of the capital's clamor.

A mass of dark clouds drifted across the sky, blocking the full moon; the capital's night instantly became darker.

At a farmstead in the southern suburbs of the Balei capital, the threshing floor held over a dozen large haystacks. The moon had just slipped into the clouds when the haystack at the very edge of the threshing floor rustled, and two people burrowed out — precisely the Zhao Huanrong uncle and nephew!

They were both dressed as commoners, coarse clothes and cloth caps, no longer the retired old officials, no longer the generals who commanded troops.

Zhao Huanrong was originally the Balei Vice Chancellor; after retiring he lived in Longxu West Town for several years, using his own resources to arrange and execute plans for Duanmu Heng, and pulled his nephew Zhao Shuo into the scheme, starting from the assassination of He Changjue, pulling open the curtain on the Trapped Dragon Cave battle!

At the time who would have guessed that the heaven-shaking plan capable of killing the Nine Nether Great Emperor, capable of moving the trial wheel of the destiny tribulation, was actually set in motion single-handedly by these two figures.

In the Trapped Dragon Cave battle, all four Immortal-Demons of the Lingxu multitude perished. Zhao Huanrong didn't keep up with the times; by the time he rushed to the inn, the Heavenly Palace envoys like Duanmu Heng had already left the premises empty —

They had withdrawn in advance, but didn't take Zhao Huanrong along, not even thinking to notify him to flee.

Zhao Huanrong and his nephew made contact, wanting to lead their troops to flee west, but on the road they were stripped of military command by a general dispatched by the Balei King, and escorted to the capital.

On the eve of the capital being breached, the two bribed the prison guards to escape the palace, then took advantage of the ban-evasion formation on the city gates malfunctioning when the Nine Nether Great Emperor broke it, using earth-escape talismans to flee the capital.

"Hurry, hurry, the farther from the capital the better!" Zhao Shuo urged his old uncle, "Another ninety li to Wu County, and we'll be temporarily safe!"

"Ninety li!" Zhao Huanrong deflated the moment he heard it, "Don't you have any mount-type divine tools?"

Although he also had cultivation, he was used to a life of luxury; hearing he had to walk ninety li in the wilderness made him deflate. It had rained a few days ago, the ground was full of pits and hollows, wet and slippery; he had already fallen twice while leaving the city earlier, his back covered in mud.

"They were all confiscated before entering the palace." Zhao Shuo looked at him coldly, "Aren't you the same? The only earth-escape talisman I brought out was already used up escaping the city!"

Zhao Huanrong had no choice but to lift his legs and follow him fleeing. Their families were in the capital, unknown how they fared now, but they could barely protect themselves, so they could only not think too much about it.

Who knew they had just tried to enter the mountains via a small path behind the village, when suddenly firelight flashed outside, and then someone shouted:

"There are people in Lin Zi! Search!"

The two were scared into fleeing for their lives. It was dark; Zhao Huanrong hadn't run more than ten steps before he stepped into empty air, tumbled down the slope with a clatter, and crashed onto a large rock — *crack* — his leg snapped.

He let out a miserable scream, then urgently called: "A Shuo, save me!"

Zhao Shuo didn't even turn his head, charging alone into the depths of the woods.

Hearing the footsteps outside the woods drawing closer, Zhao Huanrong cursed his nephew ten thousand times over in his heart, yet forgot that he and his nephew shared the same ancestor just a few generations up.

But merely a dozen breaths later, a rustle sounded in the woods, and Zhao Shuo came running back.

Zhao Huanrong was overjoyed: "At least you have a shred of conscience, hurry, carry me…"

But Zhao Shuo didn't even look at him, sprinting wildly in the opposite direction. Then something shot out from behind a tree, piercing straight through his right leg!

Only then did Zhao Huanrong hear a *whoosh* — a faint sound.

Zhao Shuo stumbled and fell to the ground, less than two zhang from Zhao Huanrong.

Firelight towered on all sides; they were surrounded by enemies.

It's over, Zhao Huanrong sweated profusely.

Now that they were caught up to, they had only a dead end.

Zhao Shuo still didn't spare Zhao Huanrong a glance, only caring about escaping into the distance. One leg couldn't move, so he exerted force with his other three limbs; even if he had to crawl, he would crawl far away.

Zhao Huanrong saw his face pale as paper, occasionally looking back, eyes bulging, staring into the woods with the look of someone who had just encountered a man-eating evil ghost, therefore desperately wanting to escape this place.

That was instinctive fear.