Chapter 41: Dispatching Troops to Suppress the Rebellion (Part 1)

When Chunxiang met Li Yuanyuan, she suddenly found herself on the verge of tears. Li Yuanyuan never expected that someone old enough to be her grandmother would weep like a small child before her, so she gently asked what was the matter.

Chunxiang recounted everything that had happened during this period truthfully. Only then did Li Yuanyuan understand the grievances that she and the other three had suffered recently. She took out her deputy identity token and handed it to Chunxiang, telling her that from now on, she could easily enter the sect using this token, and the disciples of the sect would naturally not dare to block anyone bearing a personal disciple's token.

However, Li Yuanyuan did not immediately agree to Chunxiang's request to return with her. After all, she was no longer the Empress of Dayong, so she instructed Chunxiang to stand by in place before flashing away to Liao Chen's residence.

Liao Chen was drinking tea when Li Yuanyuan suddenly appeared before him. She cupped her fists and bowed, saying, "Master, internal strife has broken out in the Dayong Kingdom. Members of the imperial family have been abducted by people from the Sword Sect, the Tanyuan Sect, and the Changle Sect, leaving the common people to suffer immensely. Please permit this disciple to descend the mountain, quell the internal rebellion, and execute the true culprits!"

Liao Chen nodded and said, "Call your four senior brothers and go down the mountain together! If manpower is insufficient, you may take some inner sect disciples along."

Never expecting her master to be so perceptive and unconcerned about their safety, Li Yuanyuan acknowledged the command and departed from the sect alongside Jiang Qian and the others.

Shortly after their departure, Liao Chen summoned the Four Great Demonic Emperors: Jiuling, the Demonic Ape, the Golden Eagle, and the Hundred Flowers. All four were peak Greater Sage realm experts, and he ordered them to tail the five personal disciples.

The four Greater Sages were extremely thrilled at this assignment. This was a monumental stroke of fortune; if they completed the mission flawlessly, the possibility of being rewarded with Emperor Pills was not out of the question. Previously, because they had assisted Liao Chen and accepted Li Yuanyuan as a disciple, they had received numerous medicinal pills that propelled their cultivations directly to the peak of the Greater Sage realm. At this moment, they were only one opportunity away from becoming Quasi-Emperors, and if they survived the heavenly tribulation, they would truly become Great Emperor realm experts.

On the other side, Li Yuanyuan called Jiang Qian, Qin Tian, Hu Ling'er, and Ye Wushuang to descend the mountain for suppression. The four immediately set aside their cultivation and unhesitatingly grabbed their weapons along with a large pile of storage bags before heading out. Li Yuanyuan did not find it strange that her four senior brothers were bringing weapons—after all, having a weapon in hand provided a sense of security. But why were they carrying so many storage bags? The four of them remained tight-lipped, offering only the vague reply: "You'll know when the time comes!"

Their eccentric behavior left Li Yuanyuan bewildered, but since they refused to elaborate, she did not dwell on it. However, when the five of them arrived before the inner sect disciples and loudly announced that they were heading out on a mission, the inner sect disciples swarmed out like locusts, every single one of them with storage bags tied all over their bodies. This only deepened Li Yuanyuan's confusion: what on earth was wrong with these people?

Harboring her doubts, Li Yuanyuan and the others arrived at the Sword Sect. Hearing that disciples of the Morning Light Sect had arrived, the Sword Sect urgently mobilized to meet the enemy. Sword Sect Master Hong Xiaotian, leading a host of elders and disciples, stood in confrontation with the Morning Light Sect disciples.

Hong Xiaotian declared, "Fellow Daoists of the Morning Light Sect, this monarch is Hong Xiaotian, Master of the Sword Sect. Our Sword Sect has had no prior dealings or animosity with you all. Why have you come here to attack our gates today?"

Jiang Qian spoke in a cold voice, "Hong Xiaotian, although your Sword Sect has no direct enmity with the Morning Light Sect, my junior sister Li Yuanyuan is the former Empress of the Dayong Dynasty. Now that people from your sect have detained the members of the Dayong imperial family with the surname Li, it constitutes an indirect grievance against our Morning Light Sect. I now give you two options: first, you, Hong Xiaotian, dissolve the sect and commit suicide to atone for your crimes; second, allow us to annihilate the Sword Sect, leaving not a single soul alive!"

"Audacious! Brat, who gave you the gall to speak to this old man in such a manner? Even if my Sword Sect is inferior to your Morning Light Sect, we are not something that little brats like you can casually manipulate. Expecting me to dissolve the sect and then commit suicide is entirely out of the question. Do you really take my Sword Sect for cowards?" Angered by Jiang Qian's words, Hong Xiaotian angrily refused.

In his view, there was no doubt that the Morning Light Sect was powerful. However, if this sect were to simultaneously declare war on the three major sects—the Sword Sect, the Tanyuan Sect, and the Changle Sect—even if the three sects were ultimately defeated, the Morning Light Sect would certainly not fare well. One had to know that each sect had at least one hundred thousand disciples, meaning the three sects combined nearly forty thousand disciples. Even with a human-wave tactic, the Morning Light Sect could not easily emerge victorious, and the final outcome went without saying.

Just as the Morning Light Sect disciples arrived at the Sword Sect, Hong Xiaotian had already sent out calls for reinforcement to the other two sects. Soon enough, people from those two sects would arrive.

What Hong Xiaotian did not expect, however, was that this time the Morning Light Sect was not attacking the three sects one by one to break them individually, but rather dividing its forces into three separate routes. The first route, led by Jiang Qian and Li Yuanyuan, attacked the Sword Sect; the second route, led by Qin Tian, attacked the Tanyuan Sect; and the third route, led by Hu Ling'er and Ye Wushuang, attacked the Changle Sect.

Initially, Li Yuanyuan worried that her four senior brothers, whose cultivation bases were merely at the Imperial Realm, would suffer if they divided their forces to attack the three major sects. But upon seeing that her four senior brothers possessed genuine combat power comparable to Saint realm experts, her worries dissipated significantly. Of course, possessing strength merely comparable to the Saint realm would not have been enough to justify dividing their forces. At the same time, all four of these senior brothers unexpectedly possessed Quasi-Emperor weapons. Armed with such weapons and matched with their personal combat prowess, they were fully capable of defeating experts at the seventh layer of the Saint realm.

Naturally, these were not the full extent of their hidden assets for dividing their forces. Jiang Qian had reminded Li Yuanyuan that, for their safety, the master had dispatched four Greater Sage inner sect protectors to follow them in secret. If they truly encountered mortal danger, these sect Greater Sage protectors would intervene in a timely manner.

Seeing how arrogant and conceited the Sword Sect Master was, Jiang Qian sneered coldly. However, wishing to avoid excessive bloodshed, she once again spoke in a loud voice, "Listen well, people of the Sword Sect! I do not wish to incur too much heavy karma through killing, so I am granting you all a path to survival. As long as you now announce your withdrawal from the Sword Sect, I will spare your lives. Half an hour from now, if anyone still dares to offer stubborn resistance, my Morning Light Sect will show no mercy!"

Hong Xiaotian laughed heartily and said, "Little girl, do you think everyone in my Sword Sect is afraid of death? No matter how you try to sow discord and drive a wedge between us, the people of our Sword Sect will never back down or flee!"

However, the moment his voice faded, a number of Sword Sect disciples actually announced their withdrawal from the sect, dealing Hong Xiaotian a resounding metaphorical slap in the face. Enraged and humiliated, Hong Xiaotian struck those disciples who had announced their withdrawal dead with a single palm strike. In doing so, he intended to kill a chicken to scare the monkeys, but the remaining Sword Sect disciples were so terrified that they could only await the descent of death. Jiang Qian felt no sympathy for the deaths of those disciples who had renounced the sect; after all, having joined a sect, choosing to abandon it out of fear of death was a betrayal of the sect, and such people's deaths were entirely unworthy of pity.

Time passed swiftly. Half an hour later, seeing that no one else was withdrawing from the Sword Sect, Jiang Qian shouted loudly to the Morning Light Sect disciples behind her, "Junior brothers and junior sisters, follow me into battle! Leave none alive!"

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" Acknowledging the command, the Morning Light Sect disciples roared in unison.

The battle between the two sects erupted instantly. Li Yuanyuan took the initiative, clashing directly with Hong Xiaotian as the very first opponent. Meanwhile, Jiang Qian locked horns with He Hongfei, a senior elder of the Sword Sect. The other Imperial Realm outer sect protectors of the Morning Light Sect engaged the various elders of the Sword Sect, while the remaining members each selected their own adversaries.

The moment Hong Xiaotian exchanged blows with Li Yuanyuan, he immediately discovered that she was actually a peak Saint realm expert. At that moment, he felt as disgusted and wretched as if he had swallowed feces. After all, she had previously been merely at the peak of the Imperial Realm, relying on secret techniques to temporarily display the combat power of the fifth layer of the Saint realm. He had assumed that no matter how strong she was, she could not exceed the fifth layer of the Saint realm, nor could she maintain such combat power for long, meaning that as long as he continuously depleted her spiritual energy, defeating her was merely a matter of time.

Yet now, Li Yuanyuan directly displayed the cultivation of the peak Saint realm. How was he supposed to fight this? At that moment, Hong Xiaotian felt like he wanted to die. What kind of situation was this? Why had her cultivation broken through the Imperial Realm and reached the peak of the Saint realm in just a few short months? He, Hong Xiaotian, had spent a full thousand years of bitter cultivation just to break through the Imperial Realm and reach the third layer of the Saint realm. Comparing people like this was truly enough to infuriate one to death!

"Li Yuanyuan, exactly how did you break through the Saint realm and reach your current peak Saint realm cultivation?" Hong Xiaotian demanded while trading blows with her.

Li Yuanyuan did not conceal it and answered truthfully, "There is nothing strange about that. The master I acknowledged is the Invincible Ancestor of the Morning Light Sect. Even if you wanted to be envious, you couldn't!"

Though her voice was not loud, many on the battlefield heard it. The name of the Invincible Ancestor of the Morning Light Sect spread instantly, and the onlookers immediately rushed to disseminate the news.

Upon hearing the four words "Invincible Ancestor," Hong Xiaotian momentarily lost his focus. He never imagined that he had provoked the disciple of such a supreme powerhouse; even if he won today, he feared he would meet a terrible end.

Seeing that her opponent dared to be distracted during combat, Li Yuanyuan unleashed the divine-grade technique, "Heavenly Dao Marvelous Art." This technique truly replicated Hong Xiaotian's own attack, but reinforced by Li Yuanyuan's profound cultivation, the enemy's own offensive method was elevated to even greater heights. With merely a casual strike, the latter was shaken to death on the spot.