Chapter 339: The Grand Ancestor Arrives

Under the moonlight, the pitch-black mountain ridge reflected a cold gleam unique to metal.

The wreckage of several Demon Suppression Hall barges lay twisted on the ground, while over two thousand Demon Suppression Hall warriors crouched naked, hands over their heads.

Hundreds of Wu Clan sturdy men stood on the surrounding high ground, looking down on these captured Demon Suppression Hall warriors.

"You brats, you've run into good luck."

A Wu Clan old man clad in coarse hemp robes, a large red-and-green striped poisonous snake coiled around his neck, stood on a big rock and loudly berated those warriors with their ashen faces, baring his teeth.

"Our Wu Clan has simple, honest customs; all our youths are raised with strict family teachings, obeying ancestral rules, and we have never mistreated the slaves and servants of our clan."

"Tsk tsk, compared to the other great tribes that rival our Wu Clan, they are nothing. You lads who fall into their hands are truly treated like livestock!"

"Don't look at how stout and strong you are now; in their hands, within half a year you'll be reduced to mere bones. Alas, just imagine how miserable that would be!"

"But our Wu Clan is different. As our slaves, as long as you work hard and obey, you'll eat well, dress well, and never have to worry about being beaten for no reason."

"If you work honestly, if you are diligent or earn merit, we can even reward you with a young woman to bear children and serve our Wu Clan generation after generation—what a fine thing that would be!"

A youthful-faced Demon Suppression Hall soldier, still a bit green, no older than fifteen or sixteen, with cultivation barely at Half-Step Chonglou Realm, trembled as he lifted his head, tears in his voice, asking the Wu Clan elder: "Can I… go home?"

The Wu Clan elder burst into a bright laugh: "Little one, what joke is that? Go home? From now on, the Wu Clan is your home!"

Shaking his head, the Wu Clan elder sighed: "Ah, you little brats, why can't you understand our good intentions? Give him ten lashes—let him remember this for a long time!"

Several dozen zhang away, a Wu Clan strongman waved his hand; a python-skin whip 'whoosh' unfurled to over a hundred zhang long, he flicked a whip crack in the air, then came down heavily on the back of that Demon Suppression Hall soldier.

In the valley echoed the boy soldier's sobs; the over two thousand captured Demon Suppression Hall warriors grew ever more pallid, each lowering their head in despair.

Between the Great Jin Divine Kingdom and the Fuxi Divine Kingdom lies a blood‑deep grudge; as the Wu Clan elder said, for them to be captured alive and become slaves in the Wu Clan is already a great stroke of luck.

The Wu Clan also gladly keeps some captured prisoners as slaves, whereas other great tribes of the Fuxi Divine Kingdom would rather chop off these captives' heads to earn military merit.

"Slaves and such."

In the underground world, countless rat‑folk, dwarves, midgets, and other humanoid races— which of them cannot be made slaves?

"Alright, the nice and the nasty have been said; now, honestly follow the Wu Clan's great force… home!" the Wu Clan elder laughed enthusiastically: "Behave, don't cause trouble, you'll come to love our household."

Amid the rough shouts of the Wu Clan strongmen, about two thousand Demon Suppression Hall soldiers staggered to their feet, faces drooping, some softly weeping, and walked forward with heavy steps down the valley.

After walking ten‑odd li, they merged into a larger captive column.

Gradually, the further they went, the larger the troop grew.

Tens of thousands of Wu Clan elites escorted nearly a hundred thousand Demon Suppression Hall captives, marching onward.

Ahead lay the Wu Clan‑opened passage to the surface; on the black cliff face a huge stone gate stood open, and ranks upon ranks of heavily pregnant women rode on gray‑rock lizards and similar mounts, slowly entering the gate.

Hundreds of Wu Clan elders, their breath restrained and clad in hemp garments, stood near the entrance, whispering in small groups.

Each of them glowed with ruddy excitement, their bodies trembling slightly.

From their low‑hummed chatter, the name "Wu Tie" could be heard at any moment; whenever an elder mentioned Wu Tie, his face broke into a smile, the picture of utter satisfaction.

Wu Tie has rendered great service.

Besides the few vials of Starlight Essence he has already used, the hundred‑odd bottles of Starlight Essence he seized, sixty‑four pieces of Soul Essence, and one hundred twenty girls of outstanding innate aptitude and bloodline foundation have all been sent back to the Wu Clan's main force.

With these over a hundred vials of Starlight Essence, each vial can give the Wu Clan's nearly ten thousand unborn children the strongest nourishment, raising their innate endowment to the peak the fetus can withstand.

Thus, these pregnant women secretly dispatched by the Wu Clan this time need not risk danger.

Every time they sneak to the surface to covertly harvest stellar power to boost the innate talent of the Wu Clan's next generation, they face enormous risk; each such sortie sees the pregnant women suffer heavy casualties, and the Wu Clan's able‑bodied also sustain losses.

But Wu Tie actually snatched this much Starlight Essence from Holy Youth, making any risk unnecessary.

Over a hundred bottles of Starlight Essence are enough for the Wu Clan to produce tens of thousands of astonishingly gifted newborns; with concentrated resources and enhanced training, in decades the Wu Clan's overall strength will see a huge increase.

Therefore, these pregnant women, before they could even get a chance for starlight to shine and be tempered, after only a few days on the surface were sent back underground, returning by the same route to the Wu Clan's ancestral land.

The pregnant women also all wore smiles, looking relaxed and pleased.

They all know the risk of coming to the surface to harvest starlight for tempering unborn children; each time such an operation is carried out, the clan's sisters‑in‑law suffer heavy casualties, and many neighboring sisters‑in‑law who go to the surface never return.

But this time, they all returned safely.

Furthermore, according to the promise of the Wu Clan elders, all the pregnant women who came to the surface this time will be given priority in receiving Starlight Essence.

The name "Wu Tie" is also constantly mentioned by them.

In the future, Wu Tie has gained within the Wu Clan a steadfast corps of female supporters.

The pregnant women laughed softly, marching in cheerfully through the huge stone gate opened on the cliff; while nearly a hundred thousand Demon Suppression Hall captives, faces stricken with grief, wept quietly as they were forced into the gate, proceeding down the sloping passage toward an unfathomable fate.

They were born in the Great Jin Divine Kingdom, they grew up in the Great Jin Divine Kingdom.

From childhood they were taught that the demons from underground, the demons of the Fuxi Demon Kingdom, are brutally violent, infinitely evil, the mortal enemies of the Great Jin Divine Kingdom; to fall into their hands is worse than death.

They are merely ordinary patrol squads of the Demon Suppression Hall, not even counting as its elite main fighting force.

Their strength is low, their minds fragile… as captives, forced into the pitch‑black underground world, many have had their spirits near collapse.

Weeping echoed through the ranks, yet no one dared to flee.

The Wu Clan, though somewhat more lenient than other tribes, is only lenient to a very limited degree.

They have personally witnessed what becomes of companions who tried to flee—that nightmare‑like scene is enough to extinguish any urge within them.

A dull thud of footsteps sounded.

Eighteen Wu Clan hulks, their waists bound with python skin, their bodies swollen to over a hundred zhang tall, panted and drenched in sweat as they lifted with heavy metal bars a pitch‑black giant coffin whose surface was covered in countless blood‑red stripes.

After these Wu Clan strongmen transformed to heights of a hundred zhang, each could easily shoulder a mountain.

Yet when the eighteen join forces to bear just this coffin, their steps wobble, their leg muscles twitch violently, and they look utterly exhausted, ready to collapse at any moment.

How heavy can this coffin, ten‑odd zhang long and several zhang high and wide, possibly be?

Outside the stone gate, hundreds of Wu Clan elders quickly came forward; upon seeing the coffin, they solemnly knelt and paid their respects.

"Grand Ancestor." A white‑haired, extraordinarily aged Wu Clan elder bowed respectfully toward the coffin and said: "Laboring Grand Ancestor, this truly ought not to be, but this matter…"

An extremely faint, infant‑like voice issued softly from within the coffin.

"I already know, heh, since it involves the Xi Clan's people, I cannot simply stand by and watch my own youths be bullied."

"Alas, each generation falls short of the last; the Xi Clan, which once vowed to protect all tribes under heaven and resist demons, has now begun to decline."

They really gave the Xi tribe's ancestors face.

On the pitch-black coffin, countless blood-red stripes glowed, and the infant-like voice softly said: "Hurry back, don't hoard the stellar essence—use it if you need to… These cultivation resources are only yours when spent; stockpiling them in the clan is pointless."

Leave a few little ones to attend to it; the rest of you, hurry back. Seal this passage the old way.

This time we'll swagger back through the Xi tribe's main passage… See what they can do to our Wu family.

All the Wu family elders kowtowed in salute, then each broke into smiles as they began arguing over who would stay to serve the ancestor in the coffin.

Among the Demon-Suppressing Hall prisoners passing by, an officer who had just condensed a life pool suddenly roared, leapt into the air, opened his mouth, and spewed a vast white Cold Qi at the coffin.

All his weapons and treasures had been confiscated; this vast white Cold Qi was his innate divine ability, "Northern Dark Xuan Qi", a supreme innate divine gang—when cultivated to its peak, its power rivals a flying sword and can likewise strike down enemies across tens of thousands of li.

Northern Dark Xuan Qi struck the coffin heavily.

With a muffled bang, Northern Dark Xuan Qi shattered outright, leaving no trace on the coffin.

The Wu family ancestor inside the coffin chuckled, with no fluctuation of mana or flicker of light; the Demon-Suppressing Hall officer who had leapt out for a desperate last stand suddenly screamed, his body crashing heavily to the ground and then writhing rapidly.

In just a few breaths, the stalwart, handsome Demon-Suppressing Hall officer turned into a gray-rock lizard over ten zhang long, with exceptionally thick scales and a life-pool aura.

"If you won't be my Wu family's slave, then be my mount." The Wu ancestor said softly, "A life-pool gray-rock lizard is rare indeed. Heh, hehe."

Witnessing this, the Demon-Suppressing Hall prisoners each went rigid with fright.

They knew that when divine abilities are cultivated to the utmost, human cultivators can undergo myriad transformations—but that is self-initiated transformation ability, whether the Thirty-Six Heavenly Gang Transformations or the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiend Transformations, they possess such transformation abilities.

However, the Heavenly Gang and Earthly Fiend transformations are merely temporary, a means for combat.

But the Demon-Suppressing Hall officer before them had been transformed, essence and root, thoroughly into a gray-rock lizard.

These Demon-Suppressing Hall prisoners did not want to become muddled beasts.

So they even stopped crying, their steps stiff, their speed suddenly surging as they stumbled toward the stone gate.

The blood-red patterns on the coffin's surface flared, and the Wu ancestor said softly, "Move out, you little monkeys—no need to rush; just all come along. Honestly, you're a handful."

"Hurry up, that little brat called Wu Tie—old ancestor, I've taken a bit of an interest in him."

"Slaying the spirits of extraterrestrial demons and looting the stellar essence they used for trade… Heck, no one in our Wu family's younger generation has ever done that."

"This brat is interesting… Should our Wu family deliberately raise a few clever, lively brats to specialize in banditry?"

"Stellar essence, what a fine thing!"

"Tsk, banditry… we need to plan long-term and make sure it's done properly."

The eighteen burly Wu men carrying the coffin each drew a deep breath, swallowed a wholly crimson pill, and their skin flushed blood-red as their expended energy swiftly recovered.

Vast clouds of smoke rose beneath their feet as they soared aloft, racing toward Demon-Suppressing City while bearing the coffin.

Hundreds of Wu elders glanced at each other, then swarmed after them.

Behind them, the twelve massive god-demon totem pillars originally meant to protect pregnant women and set up great formations floated silently, keeping pace as they sped forward.

After flying several thousand li ahead, hundreds of mid-sized ark vessels lined up in the clouds like a great net, scanning toward the mountains.

The Wu entourage then marched straight through the midst of the ark formation.

Numerous Demon-Suppressing Hall personnel aboard the arks watched the small Wu contingent, yet showed no reaction.

Once the Wu troupe had gone far off, the ark crews, as if possessed, maneuvered the vessels to face each other in pairs and simultaneously fired their bow aurora cannons.

Over a hundred aurora beams tore the void, and over a hundred arks exploded, together with all the Demon-Suppressing Hall troops aboard, vanishing into smoke.

Even in death, those ark soldiers never knew what had happened.