Chapter 560

A sky-full of fire feathers flew from the direction of Anyang City.

Thousands of streams of light had just rushed to a thousand-zhang height when each stream was struck by dozens of fire feathers; the fire feathers turned into shocking rainbows that shot forth, blasting the escaping lights apart in midair.

This was the split attack of the Vermilion Bird fire feathers from the Four Spirit Warship; as the founding god-emperor of the Great Jin Divine State's military-array killing weapon, the Four Spirit Warship's power was immense, and each commander of the Beiyuan Guard spat blood, his whole body wrapped in thick flames, crying out miserably as he fell from the sky.

Their armor was pierced, various defensive secret treasures were smashed to pieces, and the Vermilion Bird true fire scorched their flesh, burning their skin split and flesh torn, almost refining their marrow out of their bones.

The Vermilion Bird true fire only scorched for three breaths before vanishing into thin air; thousands of commanders fell to the ground, each charred black and near death. The air reeked of a scorched smell, like a clumsy cook's burnt lamb leg, a most unpleasant odor.

On the rear little mound, one after another common folk and noble youths stared agape at the sky above Beiyuan.

They only saw a flash of light and shadow, then a gigantic flame wing with a span over ten thousand zhang appeared out of nowhere; all eighteen Four Spirit Warships shimmered with four-colored spiritual light and instantaneously teleported to the sky above Beiyuan.

The Four Spirit Warships have the ability for long-distance teleportation, but such teleportation consumes a huge amount of energy.

In the direction of Anyang City, above the headquarters of the Imperial City Military Office, a hole nearly a hundred li in diameter was visible to the naked eye; the air there flowed and twisted rapidly, like a piece of frosted glass hanging in midair.

The eighteen Four Spirit Warships instantly drained the heavenly-earthly primal energy above the Imperial City Military Office headquarters, combined with their own vast stored energy, enabling this over-a-thousand-li instantaneous jump, directly leaping over here.

Only after those Four Spirit Warships had appeared above Beiyuan for several breaths did a deep, muffled boom come from the direction of Anyang City.

The air violently undulated as primal energy from all directions rushed into the primal-energy void above the Imperial City Military Office headquarters; the energies collided and frothed, causing roiling black clouds and chaotic thunder above the headquarters.

Originating from the Black Phoenix Army, he was the trusted commander left by Pei Feng's father; now holding the rank of a first-grade general and concurrently serving as the commander-in-chief of the Imperial City Military Office, Ma Shu wore heavy armor, gripped a long halberd, and led a large group of soldiers as he jumped down from the Four Spirit Warship.

When Ma Shu jumped down, he didn't pick a spot; he planted both feet heavily on the belly of a Beiyuan Guard commander, instantly making the man vomit blood, a "ge-ge" sound in his throat, and he fainted while spitting blood.

"Seize… completely abolish their cultivation, take them down, take them down." Ma Shu roared loudly: "The dog's gall knows no bounds, truly the dog's gall knows no bounds; we must uncover their masterminds… outside Anyang City, harboring ill intent, hiding heavy troops, we must uncover their masterminds—this is rebellion, rebellion!"

Crowds upon crowds of the Dongyuan Guard jumped down from the Four Spirit Warship, wielding binding ropes, swiftly tying up the thousands of wounded Beiyuan Guard commanders into bundles like zongzi.

An old military law officer from the Black Phoenix Army, in charge of military law and executions, brandished a specially made military punishment tool and came down hard on those bound Beiyuan Guard commanders; their divine fetuses were forcibly ripped open, and immediately a mournful wail spread throughout Beiyuan.

When the divine fetus was destroyed, vast magical power surged out from the shattered divine fetus—undoubtedly like a bomb exploding inside the body.

The Beiyuan Guard commanders whose cultivation had been ruined saw their bodies suddenly puff up into meatballs with a "hu" sound, then accompanied by a sharp "si-si" noise, streams of pure magical power of various hues spurted from their pores all over, turning into lingzhi-shaped spirit clouds that shot straight up into the sky, trembling slightly in the air, undispersed even by fierce winds.

Thousands of such spirit clouds blossomed at once; outside the southern gate of Beiyuan, on the little mound several hundred zhang away, the gathered nobles and princes all changed color.

Those princes from military families, having experience and knowledge, knew what this portent signified.

Thousands of divine fetuses were destroyed!

The divine fetus was destroyed!

Directly shattered!

This differs from damage to the soul; the soul is like mist or water, a fluid substance—even if harmed, as long as the soul's source imprint is not injured, with good medicinal pills it can gradually recover.

Roughly speaking, the soul is like soft clay; after being shaped into a vase, even if a large chunk is cut off and divided into several pieces, it remains soft mud; adding some new material and kneading and pinching it can easily restore it.

But the divine fetus is the extreme condensation of essence, energy, and spirit—a perfectly integrated great "Dao fruit."

Just as a clay embryo, once fired into fine porcelain, is certainly a hundred times harder and a thousand times more precious than raw clay, but once the fired porcelain shatters, repairing that damage is vastly more difficult—by tens of thousands of times—than repairing damaged clay.

Moreover, the vast magical power stored within the divine fetus erupts instantly, also dealing a massive blow to the soul's source imprint. A cultivator whose divine fetus is damaged will eighty percent become an idiot, twenty percent become feeble-minded; unless protected by a soul-secret treasure, even complete mental faculties are hard to preserve.

The blossoming of thousands of spirit clouds signifies that thousands of divine fetuses have been destroyed.

After Princess Jing Sheng was placed under house arrest, those commanders ordered to join the Beiyuan Guard were all elite scions carefully selected from the great military clans.

Not mentioning how many resources they consumed, for the powerful military clans, cultivation resources are not a major issue.

Yet these elite scions are each family's direct line, the eldest sons of the main branch of the principal wife; they are elites, representing the future hope of the great military clans, the core backbone that those clans have painstakingly cultivated for their future families.

These people's divine fetuses shattered, turning them into idiots or feeble-minded……

"Duke Huo Xiong of Yu Province… how dare you? How dare you?" A burly prince from the Lü military clan drew his waist sword, pointed at the Four Spirit Warship in the sky, and began to howl hysterically.

"Not to coexist under heaven, not to coexit under heaven… this grudge, this hatred, my Lü clan…" This Lü prince shouted in rage and desperation.

Among the thousands of officers of the Beiyuan Guard, there were over five hundred Lü clan members, close paternal cousins of this Lü prince. The thousands of spirit clouds shooting straight up signified that his more than five hundred clansmen brothers had been destroyed… this grudge, this hatred—no coexistence under heaven.

In the sky, four Four Spirit Warships simultaneously blazed with dazzling light.

A cold voice came from the warship: "Old man, I've heard there's a little dog barking wildly… Beiyuan has been occupied by rebel traitors; all soldiers are national scourges and rebels… and now there's a little dog speaking for the rebels? Clearly, he's an accomplice."

"Since he's a rebel, of course he deserves to die."

A earth-shaking tiger roar rang out; the four Four Spirit Warships flickered with white light all over, and a white tiger phantom leapt out of thin air, opened its mouth, and a white light bomb ten zhang in diameter howled down from the sky in a straight line, striking as fast as lightning the little mound where the common folk and noble youths were watching the spectacle.

With a tremendous boom, a column of light a hundred zhang thick shot straight up into the sky; the earth shuddered violently, and on the little mound not even a scrap of cloth remained, as rings of shockwaves swept outward in all directions, lifting the ground layer by layer.

A hurricane howled as it swept past; Li Ergouzi and his group standing outside Beiyuan's southern gate screamed shrilly, uncaring of decorum, flopping down with a "pa" and clutching their heads with both hands.

The hurricane kicked up dust; one blow shattered Beiyuan's southern gate together with a large stretch of its wall into rubble, broken bricks and tiles flying into Beiyuan's gardens, shattering countless plants' stems and leaves, and breaking who-knows-how-many Beiyuan Guard soldiers' heads.

Huang Lang stood on the bow of a Four Spirit Warship, coldly gazing down at the huge crater blasted below—150 zhang in diameter and nearly 1000 zhang deep. The power of the Four Spirit Warship is truly terrifying; this was merely a combined strike of its minimum output, yet the killing effect was somewhat shocking.

Clad in a blood-red robe, wearing a blood-red seal at his waist, and crowned with a black feathered cap, Huang Lang is not only the administrative head of Yu Province but has also been appointed by Wu Tie as the Supervisor-Commissioner of the Imperial City Military Office.

The meaning of Supervisor-Commissioner is that he has direct authority to oversee, investigate, judge, and punish all administrative affairs of the Imperial City Military Office, as well as military discipline, law, logistics allocation, and so on.

This post's authority far exceeds that of a mere provincial administrator of Yu Province—by who knows how much.

Huang Lang used to be merely a prefect of an ordinary commandery; he never imagined that after following Wu Tie for just a few years he could climb to such a lofty position. Although this is due to Wu Tie's subordinates lacking usable talent, Huang Lang also feels grateful to the point of tears, having long devoted his life and fortune wholeheartedly to Wu Tie.

In this move against the Beiyuan Guard, Huang Lang, a wily old fox, knows that Wu Tie's doing this is to completely break with certain people.

Since we're breaking ties… is there any need to show mercy?

Roll up your sleeves and just get it done.

Civil officials' court intrigues, military men's fire mergers—put bluntly, it's all the same thing: just go all-in and risk your life!

So, upon hearing that Lü prince draw his sword and shout, Huang Lang said nothing more and issued a kill order. You said it was an irreconcilable feud? Now that it truly is irreconcilable, it's either me or you.

If that's the case, then it's you die, I live—what a fine thing!

Huang Lang stood with his hands behind his back on the warship's bow, face grim, looking down at the densely packed Beiyuan Guard already formed into battle arrays, who, amid the low whispers of some junior officers trying to incite them, were already itching to move.

"You lot, do you intend to rebel?" Huang Lang sneered at the Beiyuan Guard below.

"We are the Beiyuan Guard, the guards protecting the imperial household… we are not rebels; they are the true traitors." A fourth-rank commandant who had not fled but hidden in the formation suddenly leapt up: "Brothers, kill, kill, kill, kill the rebels, save the commanders!"

Bang!

The commandant who had just jumped up suddenly had his skull explode.

By Huang Lang's side, a Wood Sprite Elder held a Nine Refinements Immortal Soldier longbow that flickered with a faint, mysterious light, smiling as he nodded: "Powerful, the bows and arrows of the Great Jin Divine State are just more powerful than our own. Hey, point and shoot, and the power is tremendous, tremendous… wonderful, wonderful hey, hehe."

Hundreds of Wood Sprite Elders stood respectively on the eighteen Four Spirit Warships, each gripping a Nine Refinements Immortal Soldier longbow in their hands, their eyes gleaming like vultures waiting to strike, fixedly staring at the North Garden Forbidden Army below, which looked as helpless as chicks.

"Brothers, kill…" another Commandant jumped up.

He had just leapt up when an arrow pierced his skull, then the arrow exploded violently, spraying blood over the heads and faces of the nearby soldiers.

Everywhere, mid- and low-ranking officers of the North Garden Forbidden Army jumped up shouting, but their jumping speed was still slower than the Wood Sprite Elders' bow-drawing speed. Arrow after arrow sliced silently through the sky, precisely harvesting their lives.

Each officer killed weakened the North Garden Forbidden Army's morale by a thread.

When the number of slain mid- and low-ranking officers reached about four or five thousand, the North Garden Forbidden Army's morale had completely collapsed; above their massive formation, the originally forming army spirit and killing intent had utterly dissipated.

No one knew who started it, but with a 'clang' they threw their weapon to the ground.

Afterward, the sound of 'clang' rang out continuously as the North Garden Forbidden Army soldiers threw their weapons to the ground.

Huang Lang waved his hand, and a large group of East Garden Forbidden Army soldiers surged out from the Four Spirit Warships, stepping on wind and cloud as they landed, waving their weapons and shouting loudly at those North Garden Forbidden Army soldiers.

The North Garden Forbidden Army soldiers drooped their heads and knelt on the ground, hands clasped behind their heads, allowing the East Garden Forbidden Army soldiers to pull on lengths of rune rope, binding them together like strings of beads.

A single rune rope could bind a thousand soldiers; once each bundle was full of a thousand soldiers and their cultivation sealed, the East Garden Forbidden Army would pull the rope, leading them away from the North Garden.

Hundreds of large warships flew in from the direction of the East Garden, with throngs of Five Elements Spirits leaping down from the ships to cooperate with the East Garden Forbidden Army in escorting these North Garden Forbidden Army soldiers to the East Garden.

The East Garden spans a vast territory, stretching tens of thousands of li, enough to accommodate a huge number of soldiers.

The commanders and officers of the North Garden Forbidden Army must not be left alive, but these soldiers merely followed orders; Wu Tie held the Divine Emperor's Edict, and also had Sima Fa's Imperial Edict, so these soldiers could be broken up and reorganized for our own use.

As for whether there are any die-hard followers of military lineages among these Forbidden Army soldiers, there naturally will be.

But Wu Tie wouldn't care about those.

The conscripted and reorganized Forbidden Army soldiers shouldn't expect the treatment of his regular troops; all reorganized Forbidden Army will be placed under a restriction. Regardless of whether they agree or not, regardless of what they think in their hearts, Wu Tie doesn't need their loyalty—only that they can form ranks and fight to the death.

With the Four Spirit Warships in hand, first the North Garden, then the West Garden, and finally the South Garden.

In just a day and a half, Wu Tie used the same method: first stripping the military registers of all commanders, officers, and soldiers of the Three Gardens Forbidden Army, casting them into the ranks of rebels, then sweeping violently, abolishing the cultivation of all commanders, and sending all Forbidden Army warriors to the East Garden to be broken up and reorganized.

Outside the gate of the Imperial City Military and Horse Bureau's office, on the newly installed notice board, several large bulletins bore scarlet vermilion characters like bloodstains, glaringly bloody and tinged with a murderous aura.

Wu Tie frankly declared in the notice that the so-called Three Gardens Forbidden Army were all treasonous rebels, with a written testimony personally penned by Princess Jing Sheng as proof.

After investigation by the Imperial City Military and Horse Bureau, among the Three Gardens Forbidden Army, there was indeed not a single person registered as a soldier of the Divine State.

Therefore, the Imperial City Military and Horse Bureau abolished the Three Gardens Forbidden Army, imprisoned all rebel commanders, and captured all soldiers for reorganization.

Wu Tie sternly warned everyone in the notice: "You must be loyal to the state; do not engage in deceitful schemes, or else a cataclysmic disaster will befall you!"

Wu Tie's actions were like a huge stone dropped into a fish pond, startling countless fish, shrimp, turtles, and crabs, with all kinds of turtles and tortoises crawling out.