Servants were cleaning the blood and gore in the great hall. With one powerful slam, Wu Qi had broken the Heaven Immortal's fleshly body to pieces and crushed the bones to powder. The mess had stuck on the floor, and the servants had to use shovels with sharp edges to scrape it all up.
Wu Qi and Yu He sat opposite each other in the hall with a small table in the middle. Next to them, a beautiful girl clad in a long red dress was gingerly making and serving tea for them. She was Yu He's personal serving lady, whom he had spent the past three months in searching through Hai Province and subsequently purchased at a high price.
With a teacup in his hand, Wu Qi learned from Yu He what had happened with the three black-clothed Daoists.
Early this morning, when Yu He had just arrived in the great hall and begun handling his work, three wild and arrogant Daoists suddenly descended from the sky and threw many private guards of the Prefecture Overseer Mansion to the ground with a round of thunderbolt attack. Later, a thousand Oracles came to their aid, and under the lead of ten Moon Oracles, they quickly deployed a formation and barely stopped the attack of the three Daoists.
Even so, the sword beam shot out by one of the Daoists had lightly brushed against Yu He's shoulder and nearly taken it away from him. Fortunately, he had gotten a few defensive treasures from Yu Mu before he departed from the Yu Clan, and had immediately put on a bone armor when he found something amiss. That had saved his life. After that, all the officials of Hai Province rallied together to attack the intruders, and with the help of a few extremely powerful bone talismans owned by Yu He, they barely made a stand against the three Daoists.
Only then did the black-clothed Daoists declare their intention. They mentioned that they were the emissaries of the Myriad Immortal Alliance, and were here to deliver a message to the authorities of the Hai Province. "... if you do not wish to see the people plunged into misery and suffering, hand over Reverend Yao Yue and his clan members now, and also pay us a large sum of compensation," said one of the Daoists. "Should you refuse, Myriad Immortal Alliance will certainly send experts to attack Hai Province!"
Yu He was cautious by nature. As soon as he realized that none of the Hai Province officials could defeat the three Daoists, he hurriedly ordered someone to deliver a message to Wu Qi.
Wu Qi frowned when he heard what had happened. He drank the tea with one gulp and looked at Yu He with a puzzled expression. Myriad Immortal Alliance was only a loose alliance, and Reverend Yao Yue was only an ordinary ally of the alliance. What made them come all the way here to rescue him? If truth be told, many of their allies were killed by Great Yu every year, and yet, never once were they so angry that they even openly demanded an answer, like what they did this time!
Yu He also looked at Wu Qi in confusion. As the direct descendant of the Yu Clan in Zhong Province, he knew far more about the Myriad Immortal Alliance than Wu Qi did. The relationship between the alliance and Great Yu was very bad. With the Human Emperor personally decreeing that the top people of the alliance had to be captured, the two powers were like fire and water. But, Pangu Continent was, after all, Great Yu's territory. So, even the mighty Primordial Immortals did not dare to act willfully here. It was true that the alliance possessed a massive latent power, as evidently most of the Immortals and cultivators on the continent were connected with it, but Yu He had never heard that the Myriad Immortal Alliance really dared to openly attack Great Yu!
After giving Wu Qi the information he knew about the alliance in a low voice, Yu He spoke of his own doubts. According to his judgment, the alliance should have never done such a thing unless their top-level people had lost their minds!
If Myriad Immortal Alliance really attacked and eliminated Hai Province because of Reverend Yao Yue, Great Yu would certainly resort to all means to retaliate. The relationship between the human race and Immortals on Pangu Continent was extremely delicate, and it took Heaven and Great Yu a great effort to maintain a balance. Myriad Immortal Alliance was likely to break this balance completely if they acted so arbitrarily!
Once the conflict between Heaven and Great Yu went out of control, and a war erupted between the human race and Immortals, there was no certainty that anyone would win the war. And, if the flames of the war raging across Pangu Continent caused the number of casualties to exceed a certain limit, the terrible consequences would not be something the Human Emperor of Great Yu and the Great Celestial Emperor of the Heaven could bear!
"In the past, the Ancient Saints created human beings in accordance with the Heavenly Dao," said Yu He in a solemn voice. "They created the fleshly body of the human race with the bloodline of Pangu the Great Saint and various divine beasts. Nüwa the Saint [1] conjured the soul of the human race with the Myriad Spirit Cauldron, endowing sentience to the human race and waking up our intelligence. All the Ancient Saints had jointly vowed that the human race was the highest of all creatures, the master of the heaven and earth, and the race which bore the Heavenly Dao. If Myriad Immortal Alliance starts the war and lets Great Yu and the Heaven attack and kill each other, and if the human race suffers too many casualties, the Ancient Saints who have vanished may come forward to intervene!"
Wu Qi's heart jerked. The Ancient Saints created the human race, and Nüwa the Saint gave the human race souls, sentience, and intelligence? The legend was similar to the myth Le Xiaobai had read in some ancient books on Earth. But, as for who these Ancient Saints were and what they were doing now, Yu He could not tell. Wu Qi soon put these bits and pieces of thought aside. Where did he have the time to figure out these mysteries now?
"These Ancient Saints and things like that are too far away from us," Wu Qi said, gently tapping the table with his fingers. "The first thing we have to do now is to figure out why the Myriad Immortal Alliance is making such a scene because of Reverend Yao Yue! I'm going to torture him to see if he has any strong backers in the alliance. Prepare yourself, Your Excellency, for war with the alliance!"
Yu He's face suddenly became very serious. He considered for a long while and then said with a frown, "Do you expect there will be a war soon?"
While frowning, Wu Qi looked up and pondered for a quarter of an hour. Then, like how Princess Zhang Le always did, he locked his hands into an incantation gesture, gradually matched the fluctuation of his soul with the surroundings, and intoned a spell under his breath. He was trying to find a glimpse of truth in the boundless uncertainty with divination. But, after a long and hard effort, he had to give up, as he apparently had no exceptional talent in the art of divination. Smiling bitterly, he said, "The Myriad Immortal Alliance acted so arrogantly, and I've ruined one of their emissaries… It would be strange if they do not retaliate!"
Silence fell between them. At last, Wu Qi nodded and said, "They will retaliate, but we can't be sure how hard they will strike. Would they really attack Hai Province with full force, or just keep the conflict to a very small extent, we cannot tell. We can only wait passively and not respond actively."
Wu Qi heaved a long sigh. Looking at Yu He, whose face had turned unsightly, he said, "We should report this to His Excellency Bo Zhongfu, and request him to secretly send in armies from Zhong Province! It is not a shame to ask for reinforcements when we are facing such a formidable enemy. And, it is best to also request reinforcement from His Excellency Grand Oracle of Zhong Province."
Yu He nodded and said, "We'll see what they really want! Reverend Yao Yue? Hehe, since you are going to offer him as a sacrifice, Tan Lang, you must also include all his clan members! We can't surrender them to Myriad Immortal Alliance. We can't afford to lose our faces!"
Wu Qi was satisfied with Yu He's attitude. Hai Province must only use the toughest means to counter Myriad Immortal Alliance's aggressiveness. If Yu He made a concession and allowed those Immortals to obtain a victory, they might send more people into Hai Province. In the end, everything would return to what it was in the past, where the Immortals and itinerant cultivators of Myriad Immortal Alliance were free to do anything they liked in Hai Province!
Hai Province was a privately demarcated territory for Wu Qi, and he would not tolerate anyone infringing his interests here.
After the secret meeting between Wu Qi and Yu He concluded, several official documents were sent to Zhong Ning City at the fastest speed. Meanwhile, the two of them personally participated in the expansion of the city wall, as well as their own subordinates and all the officials of Hai Province.
The official class of Great Yu was very strictly divided, such that it was impossible for someone as prestigious as Wu Qi and Yu He to take part in all kinds of labor. Even if they had the power to move mountains, and many works could be done with just a simple wave of their hands, but because of their status, there were many things that they would never do.
Just like the construction of the city wall, it would take tens of thousands of people years to build it, but any official of Hai Province could build dozens of miles of walls in a single day with his magic power. However, how could one expect these officials to perform such a service?
But now, under the pressure from the Myriad Immortal Alliance, Yu He and others had personally constructed the wall. The new city wall, measuring three hundred feet tall and fifty miles in both width and length, was immediately built. The Oracles had also taken out a great deal of rare and precious materials from the storehouse, using them to carve various formations and runes on the walls made entirely of black rocks, then constructed powerful defensive barriers and vicious traps around the city.
Yu He had just made a fortune, and he was very willing to spend it for the safety of Hai Province. Through Yu Clan, he purchased a lot of powerful bone talismans; countless crossbows and bolts; armors, spears, and war machines. His three thousand private guards were armed to the teeth, and the army of ten thousand soldiers whom Wu Qi had recently recruited was expanded to thirty thousand soldiers, all armed with armors, crossbows, and other weapons.
Even without any cultivation base, the human soldiers could still pose a great threat to cultivators, so long as they knew how to shoot with bows and arrows. The arrows jointly forged by the Directorate of Celestials and Military Court were powerful enough to cause fatal injuries to even Heaven Immortals. Under the guidance of Wu Qi, thirty thousand soldiers were practicing archery day and night.
After training the army for seven days, the secret reinforcements of Zhong Ning City finally arrived.
Learning that the Myriad Immortal Alliance was provoking the authority of Hai Province, Bo Zhongfu simply sent his third son, Bo Yunting, to lead the reinforcement of one hundred thousand soldiers. Among the soldiers were twelve generals, whose cultivation base was ranging from One Stars to Three Stars Realm of Second Pangu Heaven, which meant they were as strong as twelve Gold Immortals. And, Bo Yunting himself was an expert of Six Stars Realm of Second Pangu Heaven!
The reinforcements Yu Mu sent to his only grandson were led by Yu Huai. They comprised of only nine men, not including Yu Huai. But, all of them were from the Principle Clan in Liangzhu, and the strongest Oracle among them had seven golden suns sewed on his sleeve!
The reinforcements were being hidden outside Ningbo City. With everything in place, Hai Province had turned into a huge death trap.