The front hall of the palace was ablaze with lights and filled with voices. The emperors and ministers of six dynasties were drinking and talking happily. In the center of the hall, hundreds of beautiful dancers were dancing with enchanting moves along the music, which was so loud that it could be heard from dozens of miles away. The military camps outside the city were brightly lit as well; half of the sky was lit up by countless torches and candles. Millions of soldiers of the six dynasties were drinking wine and eating meat as well while numerous pretty girls kept shuttling between camps, having a moment of pleasure with those soldiers and captains who were aroused by the atmosphere.
It took seven days and seven nights for the emperors and ministers of the six dynasties to reach a formal alliance. After signing their names and stamping their seals on the allied treaty paper, they killed a white horse and burned the paper to pray to the Heaven and Earth. With that, the six dynasties were formally an alliance. There were hundreds of detailed and complicated terms in the allied treaty, and everyone was very satisfied with them. It balanced the interests of the six dynasties as a whole and of the individual parties as well, being open and fair, without any loopholes.
At the same time as the treaty was signed, the six dynasties built earthen platforms which were boarded by their emperors, who conferred Wu Qi as their Prince. With the same title of nobility Great Yan had given him, the emperors named him the Prince of Tianyun, issuing clear written imperial edicts that his status was higher than all the civil and military officers of the six dynasties, and gave him the right to supervise, inspect, assign, and direct all the ministers of the six dynasties. In the past, Su Qin was considered the most powerful man because he was made the prime minister of the six states, but Wu Qi had outdone him now, being conferred as the Prince of the six dynasties.
With the alliance formed and the conferring ceremony concluded, the emperors and ministers of the six dynasties feasted to celebrate.
After an all-night celebration, the people of six dynasties would gather up their armies, pack up their belongings, and follow Wu Qi to Pangu Continent for building a new power in that wonderful, mysterious, and abundant land. Knowing that the Black Celestial Forbidden Curse which had plagued them for so long could be removed, everyone was in a relaxed mood and looking forward to moving to Pangu Continent.
It was a magical world with a vast land, countless people, and treasures. There was so much to be done.
So, all the emperors and ministers feasted to their heart's content; wine was drunk like water, and although many of them had stepped into the realm of Heaven Immortals, they were soon drunk due to such unbridled drinking. Even a man as deep and dignified as Ying Zheng began to debauch, merrymaking with a wine jar in one hand and a beautiful girl in the other. Happy laughter drifted out of the great hall, echoing far and wide.
The unprecedentedly light-hearted mood let everyone indulge themselves in this night of celebration. Even Mo Di was dancing with a sword in the square in front of the great hall, drunk as he unleashed sharp sword intents which sliced the passing clouds in the sky into pieces while the moonlight was obscured by the bright green gleams emanated from the sword.
Mo Di was dancing with a sword; Xun Kuang was reciting a poem; Han Fei stammered with Lin Xiangru over, who was a weaker drinker; Fan Yuqi and Lian Po had taken their shirts off and were wrestling with each other in a corner of the great hall; Jing Ke and Huhai were laughing and shouting at one another... The great hall was a complete mess.
The front part of the palace was a mess, with the emperors and ministers of the six dynasties venting the pressures that had accumulated in their hearts for more than two thousand years. Meanwhile, in the forbidden palace in the rear part of the palace, Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le were sitting in a quiet chamber, examining a black pearl the size of a thumb that hovered in front of them.
The pearl was taken from the Outer Dimension Great Void Formation in that mysterious cave Wu Qi found many years ago. It was this pearl that shattered the dimensional blades unleashed by the formation, and with the shattered dimensional forces, it produced three hundred and sixty Innate Grand White Spatial Breaching Pearls, as well as the silver lotus flower [1] 1 .
The pearl floated silently in front of Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le, its dark surface rippling like water as the green candlelight in the chamber shone upon it. The couple examined the pearl with their divine senses; it seemed to be quiet and motionless, but in fact, it was leaping in and out of the void at a frighteningly high frequency.
In every passing second, the pearl disappeared and reappeared 1.8 billion times! The terrible high-frequency oscillation even tore apart their divine senses several times. If it were not for the fact that they were both practicing extraordinary cultivation techniques and their divine souls had stepped into the innate realm, the backlashes would have seriously injured them.
After trying hard for a while, Wu Qi's divine sense finally entered the pearl and went deep into its core.
The interior of the pearl was packed with dense, overlapping spatial barriers, which were highly compressed and formed a huge maze. Had it not been for the strength of Wu Qi's divine soul being several times stronger after absorbing a lot of soul essences twice in a row, his divine sense would not have been able to get out of the vast maze to find the core of the pearl.
As soon as he left the maze, Wu Qi's divine sense arrived in a vast emptiness. Wave after wave of powerful spatial oscillations were constantly traveling back and forth through the boundless void; each wave was very different from the previous, and all contained a hint of the law of space. The occasional collision of two spatial oscillations would immediately produce a large number of dimensional blades that flew in all directions. However, as soon as these dimensional blades hit the outer spatial barriers of the pearl, they would shatter, turning into countless fragmented spatial forces drifting aimlessly in the void.
At the core of the pearl was a tiny black flame wrapped in a three-layer rune formation that gave off a strange glow. The flame was beating like a heart, and with each beat emerged a new spatial oscillation in the void. As it was beating ceaselessly, more and more spatial oscillations filled the void.
Princess Zhang Le gave a sudden exclamation and opened her eyes to wink at Wu Qi. At this moment, the couple was connected at the heart, so Wu Qi could understand her immediately. She was asking him if he knew about that flame.
Wu Qi nodded slowly with a delightful smile on his face. How could he not recognize this black flame, when he was the owner of another innate divine flame, the Divine Flame of Order? Clearly, it was the 'Divine Flame of Void', which was known for its incredible ability to burn through the void and destroying all kinds of obstacles. It was best at destroying various spatial restrictive magics, and although it was not very effective against the forces of five elements, it could easily break through any formation that was specifically designed to trap and harm the enemy with spatial restrictions.
Ancient immortals preferred to hide their cave abodes by means of twisting the void and reversing time and space, or to use interstitial space to hide precious treasures and scrolls. However, in the presence of Divine Flame of Void, any magic related to space was useless. Just as the Divine Flame of Order had a repressive effect on all fiends and evil spirits, the Divine Flame of Void had the same effect on all restrictive spatial magics.
It could not even burn through a thin piece of paper, but a tiny wisp of it could easily penetrate thousands of miles of the void!
Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le smiled at each other. No wonder this pearl had such a strange ability to penetrate the void with such a high frequency. It turned out that a ball of Divine Flame of Void was trapped in its core, which explained everything.
Furthermore, the triple-layered rune formations that trapped it were just an ordinary acquired restrictive formation of five elements. The Divine Flame of Void could burn through the void, but it could not inflict any serious damage to the forces of five elements, which was why it could be trapped within the pearl with only a very common restrictive formation of five elements. Apparently, the immortal who crafted this pearl was definitely a grandmaster in the field of artifact refinement. Otherwise, he would not have come out with such a wonderful idea.
After looking at each other for a while, a sheet of chaotic light suddenly rushed out of Wu Qi's nostrils and mouth, and two beams of five-colored rays shot out of Princess Zhang Le's eyes. The two energies fused together in the blink of an eye, creating an infinite transformation. Then, a tiny hand, only a few inches long and looking like a real human hand, flew out of the mass of mixed energy and gently grabbed toward the pearl.
A faint whistle rang out as a wisp of Divine Flame of Void, the size of a hair, was extracted from the pearl by the small hand. Before it could burn through the void and escape, Wu Qi opened his mouth and sucked it into his body, fusing it with his chaotic energy.
Silently, Wu Qi exercised the spirit-gathering technique found in Scroll of Stealing, and after using a great amount of his chaotic energy, he formed a seed of Divine Flame of Void in his body, just like what he did to the Divine Flame of Order. The seed was flushed with the chaotic energy in his body, and as long as it absorbed enough of it, it could quickly turn into a sea of black flame and burn the void into nothingness.
"Nice! With this treasure, it will be much easier to open the doors of other people's cave abodes in the future!" Wu Qi laughed triumphantly.
Since Wu Qi had only extracted a wisp of Divine Flame of Void from the pearl, it did not suffer any damage and remained as an extremely powerful artifact. After considering for a while, he asked Princess Zhang Le for her Five Thunder Soul-Shattering Zither, embedding the pearl into its body and refining it again with the precious materials he had looted some time ago.
The original Five Thunders Soul-Shattering Zither could only hurt the enemy's soul by producing thunderous sounds. But now, after fusing with the Void-Splitting Divine Pearl and being refined again by Wu Qi, whenever Princess Zhang Le plucked the strings, the surrounding void would shatter and turn into numerous dimensional blades to attack the enemy. Coupled with the stronger thunderous sounds, Princess Zhang Le could kill those immortals who were weaker than her in batches.
After figuring out the secret of the black pearl and each benefiting from it, Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le finally left the chamber happily. Just as they stepped out of the chamber, several serving ladies greeted them.
"Duke of Yan Le from Great Yan, Lu Chengfeng, has requested an audience with Prince of Tianyun. He has been waiting outside for a long time."
Refer to Chapter 150