Divine Brilliance

“I really can’t believe that such a person like city lord Yue would fall under the hands of an underaged kid who still smells of milk…”

“Kid? The kid you mentioned caused those 4 thousand cloud ships to be crushed. And in just 20 days he had swept several provinces of land, no one able to block him!”

“Scoff! He can only be proud for a moment, being so arrogant just because he had such little achievements. I heard even when his father was at his strongest he was thrifty. Even his carriage was a normal cloud stepping carriage. Now, look at him, who knows how much of the people’s money did he use…”

“I only know that Xie Rong died so tragically, Taoyun City lost 5 times in 5 battles, all of which were head-on in the battlefield. If we don’t surrender, we would most probably follow in that Xie Rong’s footsteps. We are different from Huanlong province and the others, those people surrendered and then betrayed before surrendering once more. Zong Shou not bothering about them was expected, why should you and I join in them?”

“However that carriage is not bad. Be it spirit master or martial cultivator, they would have benefits cultivating inside. Unfortunately within these few years probably only those cities directly under Gantian Mountain can afford to buy them. This time they earned so so much…”

“Things aren’t like that, one must be loyal and righteous. This Zong Shou is so domineering at such a young agee. He won’t last for long!”

“Loyalty and righteousness? You talk about that but why did you surrender without fighting. So what if he is domineering at a young age? As long as his territory is peaceful and could give us yearly rewards. As for whether or not he lasts long, we must look at how many powers remain in Donglin Cloud Continent that is able to be enemies with Gantian Mountain.

Zi Donglai smiled as he came back to his senses from being deep in thought. Although he was thinking about something just now, the words of the people around him all entered his ears.

He knew that most of these people were disunified. Their thoughts were all different. Who knows how Zong Shou had managed to do that.

He thought back to an agreement that he had signed when he met with Zong Shou before. He had borrowed 50 thousand grade 4 beast crystals from that Gantian Mountain monster king.

This time, Yuanlong City had suffered huge losses, 25 cloud ships were sunk, not only did they not get anything, but tens of thousands of elite troops had died in better. Just the compensation money alone was a sky-high amount. Having these beast crystals helped solve his pressing issues.

Even if the interest was terrifyingly high, but it could allow Yuanlong City to swiftly recover their strength. It was better than slowly weakening and falling in the future. Naturally, he had to pay such prices to be able to obtain that loan.

“Please be careful with your words! No matter what the person you are talking about is, he is our ruler. How can you be disrespectful towards him? Xijie City asked for it, there’s no need for us to feel sad for them. Whether or not Gantian Mountain falls in the future, at least now we need to act the way subordinates are supposed to act…”

The moment he said that everyone around became silent. The ten people here were all around Yuanlong City and treated him as sort of their leader.

Since Zi Donglai has made such a decision, even if they were a little unwilling in their hearts, they needed to suppress it down.

Zi Donglai was lazy to bother about them. In his heart, he was thinking about what kind of person was Zong Shou exactly?

If it was before there would be people who looked down on him for being unable to cultivate martial arts and practice spiritual cultivation. However, now, no one dared to look down on him.

To be able to behead Yue Guanyun, push Taoyun City to the brink of destruction, and cause Gantian Mountain City to rise up once more in the west of Donglin, becoming an overlord.

Even if such a person had no strength or ability to fight back, it was enough to make one fear him!

This meeting had really given him a deep impression, letting him see a whole load of styles.

…

In the snow land, close to 20 thousand cavalry were swiftly traveling. Tens of thousands of horse hooves raised up and down, like moving thunder, causing the snow to splatter all about.

Zong Shou was similarly moving forwards with his horse, protected in the middle by the army. His face showing some slight signs of exhaustion.

A consecutive 20 days, he had traveled non stop like this. He rode on the warhorse, pretty much not resting at all. To say that he wasn’t tired was a lie.

Just him alone had already caused 3 grade 4 Windrider foals to collapse from exhaustion. At Xijie City he had a rare 2 days rest, following which he needed to travel swiftly once more, what a tough life.

However, he had no choice. This east-side matter has been solved whilst there might be a huge war beginning with Blazing Flame and Yunxia Cities which he needed to personally take a look at.

This monster king position was truly a tough one to take up. He was feeling a little regretful. If he wasn’t angered and stimulated by Long Ruo and that bunch of people, he wouldn’t have gone crazy. Within 20 days to crush Huanlong, Tianfang and Xiping Provinces.

Actually, the best way was to slowly bite and consume them within these few years. Like him, forcefully swallowing and sweeping them up would instead cause indigestion.

Coincidentally at this moment, a red shadow descended from the sky. Hu Zhongyuan reached out with his hand and grabbed the red swift bird in his hand.

Zong Shou knew that this was definitely from Hu Qianqiu or Qiu Wei, he was lazy to see, just asking, “Is it from Uncle Hu or Uncle Qiu, what’s the situation there?”

Hu Zhongyuan took out the note and took a look, his brows frowning slightly, “It is father! He said that Yunxia City is attacking strongly and have gathered 900 thousand infantry and cavalry, along with subordinate city lords. They have attacked 3 days and 3 nights around Chenbing and Gu Ou City. However during noon today, they backed off. They have signs of joining up with Blazing Flame mountain. It seems like they found out about the situation on this side…”

Zong Shou’s lips curled. As expected from Feng Nu and Xiong Ba who had been through many wars and a mighty lord of a region. They knew how to read the situation.

Suffering heavy losses in the cloud ocean and returning empty-handed. They knew that their side had suffered catastrophic losses and was really weak but instead chose to go all out to attack to try to break the situation.

After learning that Tianfang and the other 2 provinces were swept and Taoyun City had no way of restricting their enemy’s strength, they decisively pulled back. The way they used troops didn’t give the enemy any chance at all.

Following which, Hu Zhongyuan said, “My father said that although Yunxia mountain’s attacks are strong, it is weak on the inside, people are all unsettled. He is 70% confident to be able to crush them in one strike. He grumbles that the ruler restricts him such that he can only defend Gu Ou City, missing a good chance.”

Zong Shou involuntarily laughed. When he made Chuxue gave the series of orders he predicted that Hu Qianqiu would be a little unhappy.

“Send a letter to your father. Tell him that when one uses a fist to hit people, one needs to clench tight with five fingers, pull back to store energy before one can inflict pain. If not what’s the point if it doesn’t hurt? Yue Linghuan’s talents are no weaker than his father and can’t be underestimated. We mustn’t be too careless…”

Hu Zhongyuan nodded, he agreed with what Zong Shou said. Although that Yue Linghuan lost 5 times in 5 battles against the ruler, he was still able to maintain not being crushed.

After knowing that the matter was impossible, he pulled back all his forces. Gathering the army of Taoyun City in Hanxi Province such that it was airtight.

It caused Zong Shou’s army strength to be like rats pulling a tortoise, it was totally helpless, only being able to return in vain. He also had to leave generals like Chai Yuan and Ling Fakong and also call Ren Bo over to rule these new territories to prevent Taoyun City from counter-attacking.

Which was why everyone including Hu Zhongyuan didn’t dare to underestimate him.

This Yue Linghuan was really decisive, unlike his father.

If any losses happen on the west line, this person would definitely take advantage of it.

The moment Zong Shou finished, his mind slightly wandered off. This time going towards Gu Ou City might be the last battle he participates in for the coming few years that he is in Gantian Mountain.

Tiegang Hall was also about to be completed soon. Ending all matters and he could be able to put everything down at ease to search for his own sword path.

The position of king of a country seemed really extravagant and honorable, holding hundreds of millions of lives in your hands. However, that wasn’t what Zong Shou wanted!

To complete the wishes of that person, he had already wasted a lot of time.

Closing his eyes, he allowed the Windrider foal under him to gallop on its own whilst Zong Shou slowly meditated.

During the consecutive 20 days and nights, he had slowly learned how to enter a meditative state whilst on a horse.

At the start, it was just to recover soul power. As time went on he could even cultivate under such a state.

And at this moment, what Zong Shou paid attention to most was the one origin sword that he was developing in his soul.

That illusionary spirit sword’s color became more and more yellow and there started to be dragon patterns wrapping around it.

Actually, since he had obtained all the fortune from the beast tomb as well as used the energy destroying crossbows to destroy those 4 thousand cloud ships, the king path energy that was gathered on the sword body which was the so-called dragon energy was already growing. When he led the army south and expanded tens of thousands of miles did the dragon energy within start to grow and become thicker and thicker.

This was the growth of a country’s strength and the sign of an army strengthening.

What he didn’t expect was that the problem of the dragon energy contaminating his body didn’t occur.

He remembered what Wei Xu said before he left. Zong Shou newly instinctively turned his attention to the nine-story purple golden pagoda.

If it was as he expected, the dragon energy must have been forcefully suppressed by that golden pagoda. It seems like this item was far from as simple as helping to repress the soul.

His senior brother has indeed left him a huge gift.

This magical treasure of who knows what grade was something Zong Shou still couldn’t touch. He could only take a close look before not bothering about it anymore.

Following which he continued to gather up true spiritual charms in his soul ocean. Since he asked Xuanyuan Yiren for help regarding the purify word’s true meaning and also he had researched fully and thoroughly the heaven swallowing energy conversion technique.

Moreover making use of Little Gold’s ability to swallow and purify many precious items, he was now at the last few steps of these 2 true spiritual talismans.

Maybe in 4 days, maybe in 10, in less than half a month his spiritual cultivation would be able to reach the Return to Sun realm!

There was a total of 2200 miles from Xijie to Gu Ou. Luckily the route was flat and they also didn’t need to take a detour. Galloping day and night they only needed 2 days and 2 nights to arrive.

Zong Shou formed true spiritual charms non stop on his horse, using this chance to comprehend laws and check on what parts of his body were lacking. Even then he didn’t feel tired at all.

On the morning of the 3rd day, the Gu Ou city in the distance was finally in their sights. Zong Shou felt slightly regretful, stopping his meditation. At this moment there were only 2 true spiritual charms in his soul ocean that was still incomplete.