While Wu Qi was in charge of laying down the formation to trap and kill the Sovereign, Yu Qingcheng's disciples were giving out instructions to alter the formation's arrangement without letting him know. Was Yu Qingcheng behind this? Did he want to ruin the formation so that Wu Qi would fail the mission?
How could Yu Qingcheng be so stupid? But, if it weren't for him, why would his disciples do such a thing in the valley?
King Yang Qiu had assigned Wu Qi the task of setting up the formation, which was tantamount to putting him in charge of the most important part of the mission. Such trust was precious. But, in Yu Qingcheng's eyes, it was equivalent to a mistrust of the Yu Academy. So, it was hard to say if he would do anything strange to sabotage Wu Qi. After all, he had been working very hard for King Yang Qiu's father for a long time, and Wu Qi was just a new recruit.
From outside the valley all the way to the Supreme Tower, Wu Qi made a careful inspection.
In the crafting rooms at the bottom of the Supreme Tower, eight hundred craftsmen transferred from the army by King Yang Qiu were using the underground flame to forge formation discs and banners. They were all expert craftsmen of magical instruments. With just a glance at the diagrams provided by Wu Qi, the formation discs and banners required for the setting up of the formation were perfectly forged by them, without the slightest defects.
Wu Qi studied these craftsmen with his divine sense. They were all working very hard, and none of them had any unusual expression.
Soldiers who kept streaming in and out of the Supreme Tower also looked normal. They lined up to enter the crafting rooms, then carried the formation discs and banners which emitted faint energy fluctuations in the quantities specified in the instructions, and brought them to the soldiers who were laying out the formation in the valley.
Wu Qi watched the soldiers transporting the formation discs and banners with his divine sense. They were dutifully carrying out their tasks, and he saw no one manipulating the instruments.
As for the soldiers who were installing the formation discs and banners, they were also very attentive in carrying out the task. After all, the military law of the Great Yu was very strict. If they made any mistakes in the installing of the instruments, and if King Yang Qiu held them accountable, not only would they be punished, but even the members of their clans would be implicated.
Apart from the white-clothed disciples of Yu Qingcheng who wandered around, pointing fingers at the arrangements of the formation from time to time, there seemed to be nothing unusual about the rest of the people in the valley.
'Yu Qingcheng, you'd better not sabotage my place, or I'm sure Yan Dan will be tempted to catch up with you!' With a bright gleam flickering in his eyes, Wu Qi clenched his palms into fists as he glanced coldly at the Yu Academy's disciples whom Yu Qingcheng had sent here ostensibly to help him share the workload; who knew what their true purpose was.
Time went by day after day. It was not something that could be accomplished in a day or two to lay out a formation that could be used to trap and kill a mighty immortal like the Sovereign, who held a significant power in the Heaven and whose cultivation base had stepped into the realm of Primordial Immortals. According to Wu Qi's estimation, it would take more than two months to get all the formation discs and banners in place, and get the whole formation up and running, even if everything went very well. And, if the Sovereign got here before the formation was ready, their plan would fall apart.
So, Wu Qi himself joined the work of setting up the formation. Because he was familiar with all the details of the Myriad Poisons Formation, the most important parts were set up by him; due to his guidance, the formation had almost taken its complete shape in just half a month. A heavy murderous air towered into the sky from within the valley, but it was intercepted by some invisible barrier and could only swirl back and forth in the valley.
Within the same half a month, however, rumors had begun to spread among the soldiers that the formation was nothing but a sham, and that it had no power at all. Several times through his divine sense, Wu Qi heard the soldiers whispering at work that the formation could only trap and kill average Heaven Immortals, but had no effect on the Gold Immortals, let alone trapping and killing the Sovereign.
Some said that Wu Qi was just an uneducated barbarian who was lucky enough to find some diagrams of the formation, but in fact, did not even know the basics of the formation. They claimed that the power of this Myriad Poisons Formation was formidable, but because Wu Qi had modified it, it was now worthless.
Others whispered that Wu Qi had only been lucky to break the formation when he was serving in Bo Yunting's army, and in fact, all the credit belonged to Bo Yunting. If it were not for Bo Yunting's brilliance and power, how could they have broken that formation? Some even swore that he had evidence that Bo Yunting had been made a marquis for the credit. "His Majesty is a wise man, and he certainly would not make a marquis at will. The fact that Bo Yunting has been made a marquis proves that the formation was indeed broken by him!"
To reassure the soldiers that Wu Qi really had nothing to do with breaking that formation, some people described to them what a great man Bo Yunting's father, Bo Zhongfu, was. They mentioned that he was one of the Human Emperor's confidants, and that Bo clan had produced people with vast knowledge for generations. Because the members of the Bo clan also had a deep understanding of the immortal formations, Bo Yunting was able to easily crack that formation.
Since the members of the Bo clan had such profound attainments in the field of immortal formations, it must have been Bo Yunting who cracked that formation, and had nothing to do with Wu Qi. Therefore, the soldiers were secretly discussing whether King Yang Qiu's plan to ambush the Sovereign would fail if the formation did not work as Wu Qi had claimed.
The soldiers did not really concern about the failure of killing the Sovereign, if truth be told. However, they were worried that should the formation fail, their lives would be at risk! They knew perfectly well of the ferociousness of the immortals, and they understood how lethal those immortal swords and immortal thunders could be! King Yang Qiu, Wu Qi, and those military officers were high-ranking members of the army, and if the formation did fail, they would certainly be able to escape. But, what about the soldiers? At the end of the day, weren't they the soldiers who suffered?
All sorts of rumors against Wu Qi spread among the soldiers in a matter of two or three days. A lie, if repeated often enough, would be accepted as truth. As a result, when all the soldiers were discussing these rumors, their morale began to slump, their productivity plummeted, and their attitude became careless.
Wu Qi was furious when he found out time and again that the absent-minded soldiers had placed the formation discs, banners, and a few powerful weapons in the wrong positions.
'Whoever is behind these rumors, at least you're on King Yang Qiu's payroll. Now that you've been paid, you should be working wholeheartedly for him, rather than be a hindrance! How could you, as his confidants, do such a thing when I, a man who never regarded myself as his subordinate, is wholeheartedly laying out the formation so that he can have a great achievement?'
Standing at the top of a mountain, Wu Qi looked down on the whole valley, his heart filled with rage. After two hours of careful calculation, several shadows suddenly left his body from the bottom of his feet. A faint smile crept over his face as Wu Qi murmured in a low voice, "Since you want to play, then I'll play with you!"
Bringing with them a huge amount of materials and immortal stones, the shadows went in all directions and began to work stealthily in and out of the valley.
The only man in the valley who could discover the celestial fiend puppets was Yu Gu; but, he was nervously cooking up the crock of poison soup. No one else, whether it be the military officers led by the Yang Qiu brothers or the Oracles in the Supreme Tower, could detect the movements of the puppets who were using the innate escape arts to hide their traces.
'If you want to create trouble, do it as much as you like!' Wu Qi had made up his mind to let those people know what a real expert in the field of formations was!
'Yu Qingcheng, didn't you point to my nose and say I don't know anything about formations? Well, see how I prove you wrong!'
Time went on in Wu Qi's stressful work, and the rumors about him among the soldiers became more and more unpleasant. Seeing that he had not reacted to the rumors, the rumors spread faster and faster, and the soldiers became bolder and more unscrupulous in discussing them.
Once, while Wu Qi was working in front of a not-so-large mountain, a group of soldiers was squatting on the ground behind the same mountain and slackening their work. They were discussing how Wu Qi had offered all his eighteen wives to King Yang Qiu, which was the reason why he was made the latter's personal guard. And this time, because Wu Qi had offered his mother and grandmother to King Yang Shan, who had greatly pleased him, the most important task of laying out a formation to ambush the Sovereign was assigned to Wu Qi.
In addition to these personal attacks, more ridiculous rumors were being spread, including that Wu Qi was actually a toy-boy, and that King Yang Qiu's preference for his beauty was why he was promoted.
After hearing these cutting remarks, Wu Qi threw his head back and heaved a long sigh. He had decided to kill the man who had spread the rumors.
'Who the hell are you? Yu Qingcheng, or someone else? But, whoever you are, when this is done, I'll teach you a hard lesson!
'Now that you've insulted my family, you can expect my revenge!'
Amidst the soldiers' negligence, the construction of the Myriad Poisons Formation was finally completed. Then, with the completion of Yu Gu's crock of poison soup, Wu Qi began to apply the poisonous liquid to the surfaces of the weapons placed in the formation. At the same time, Yu Gu released countless venomous insects, animals, flowers, and weeds that he kept in the Supreme Tower into the valley, turning the valley into a land of deadly poison.
Yu Gu even poured a great amount of medicinal liquid into the valley, which was taken from the pool in the secret chamber of the pyramid where Wu Qi had kidnapped King Yang Qiu previously. The medicinal liquid swept across the valley in a surging spray, and poisonous mosses of all colors grew on the ground where it passed. Soon, inches of moss blanketed the valley, wiggling like worms and looking extremely horrifying.
Standing on the top of a lofty mountain, Wu Qi nodded contentedly as he watched the valley turn into a poisonous place in an instant. Yu Gu was much more resourceful than he had expected. Of the 10,000 venomous things recorded in the Scroll of Stealing, he had actually collected 1,092 of them.
This Myriad Poisons Formation was really very powerful.
'Where are you, Sovereign of the Myriad Immortal Alliance?'
Shortly after the construction of the formation was completed, another Supreme Tower broke through the void and appeared in front of everyone, bringing over King Yang Qiu and a group of formidable experts.
The Supreme Tower made a circle around the valley before tearing through the void and leaving, seemingly uninterested in King Yang Qiu's attempt to ambush the Sovereign.
King Yang Qiu had arrived with all his confidants, and all they had to do now was wait for the Sovereign to show up.