Chapter 72: Night Attack

News that the Bloodline Nobility Clan Alliance’s fleet had been robbed blew like a gale through every street and alleyway in Clear River City.

Everyone was expressing shock over how someone would dare to act so boldly.

They didn’t know, however, that shocking news always came one after the other.

Su Chen, who had just orchestrated the robbery of the Alliance’s ships, had begun to prepare another piece of news - the death off of Xing Shabei.

One chilly night.

Su Chen donned his evening clothes and made his preparations. He was going over the final details of the plan to make sure that nothing was missing.

He was just thinking to himself when he suddenly felt a shadowy wind blow across his back.

Hm?

Su Chen was surprised. He quickly extinguished the light and glanced outside, only to find that the main courtyard was filled with boundless black clouds with lightning flickering across their surface. Outside of the Su Palace, however, no one would be able to see any movement. Anyone standing outside wouldn’t see anything strange; only those who had cultivated Origin Energy before would discover that Origin Energy fluctuations had begun to gather within the Su Palace and reached a relatively frightening threshold.

When he saw this, Su Chen was slightly shocked for a moment before he slightly smiled. “Oh? I haven’t even gone to find you yet, but it seems like you’re already looking for me. Interesting.”

He opened the door to the room. A group of black-clothed people was already standing in the courtyard, black wind whirling around them, casting a gloomy shadow on the whole courtyard. Even though they were wearing black veils, Su Chen could tell from their physical shape that the burly man in the lead was Xing Shabei.

So he wanted to kill Su Chen even more than Su Chen wanted to kill him.

Apart from Xing Shabei, there were three other people Su Chen recognized despite the fact that they were wearing veils - they were Ke Mingshou, Zhou Bai, and Wu Xiaoliang, the three people who had stopped him while he was on the road home that one time.

Even though these three weren’t in the Yang Opening Realm, they were from Bloodline Nobility Clans and were powerful. When factoring in their cultivation bases, which were at the peak of the Blood Boiling Realm, even common mixed-bloodline Yang Opening Realm cultivators might not be able to defeat them, so they could basically be considered Yang Opening Realm experts.

Four Yang Opening Realm experts and a bunch of Blood Boiling Realm underlings clearly meant that they were taking Su Chen quite seriously.

Because Su Chen had sent most of the people in his palace away as pirates, the Su Palace was the emptiest it had ever been right now. This had allowed his opponents to reach the Su Palace’s main courtyard in one straight go.

But even if the house guards weren’t present, the Blood-Robed Guards and the people from the Origin Bureau should have still been present. However, not a single one of them was in sight.

For the people from the Origin Bureau to not be present was explainable. Xing Shabei was still the head of the Origin Bureau. He could easily send everyone on missions just before making his move, and he didn’t need to notify Su Chen.

However, the mysterious disappearance of the Blood-Robed Guards was worth pondering.

Su Chen’s gaze grew slightly chilly.

Xing Shabei had used a Light Shaking Realm cultivator to suppress him during the day, yet he had made a move personally at night. Obviously, this guy knew how to use some trickery. However, if he was in such a hurry to make a move, the ten Bloodline Nobility Clans were obviously involved. It seemed like they had already decided that he was the one who had done it, and they were going to try and take him out even if they had to pay a price for it.

However, they had still underestimated him.

If they had adopted this approach when Su Chen had just arrived, he might not have been able to handle it.

But now...... It was already too late.

At this moment, Su Chen was standing in the doorway, watching the black-clothed people in the courtyard. However, the people in the courtyard couldn’t seem to see him; they continued to walk around in circles within the courtyard.

Su Chen said, “Perhaps you think that you chose a good opportunity. If I was the one who did the Lingyuan Marsh incident, then the Su Palace should have been completely empty, making it a perfect target to attack. But if I dared to mobilize the troops out of the nest, how could I not have made preparations? Xing Shabei, since you’ve thrown yourself into the net, I won’t be courteous.”

As he spoke, he slowly lifted his hand. The black smoke surrounding the intruders suddenly morphed into ferocious Vicious Beasts that charged at the black-clothed intruders within the courtyard.

The black smoke wasn’t from the black-clothed people; it was something that had been set up in the Su Palace.

As the black fog transformed, countless fierce Vicious Beast images appeared and pounced on the people in the courtyard.

The black-clothed people yelled, “Not good! We’ve been ambushed!”

“Where did these Vicious Beasts come from?”

“No, this is an Origin Formation! This is an Origin Formation! Dammit, how does Su Chen know how to make Origin Formations? No one told us he understood them.”

“Help me! I can’t kill these Vicious Beasts.”

“It’s no use. These Vicious Beasts are made of Origin Energy and can’t be killed in the first place.”

“Dammit, this formation is too scary.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We must break the formation! Break the formation!”

Panicked yells began to sound in all directions.

In the eyes of the ambushers, they had entered a frightening world filled with Vicious Beasts made from Origin Energy. Even though they were illusory, their attacks had physical substance behind them because they were made of Origin Energy. They were much weaker than other Vicious Beasts, but they were superior in that an endless number of them could be made.

When faced with these illusory Vicious Beasts, the black-clothed people fought furiously, but the only result was that they were even more viciously attacked.

Not only were the illusory beasts attacking them, but the formation also included lightning and thunder that interweaved with the formation. The storm continued to howl, as if millions of evil demons were howling and wailing, causing a shiver to go down the spine of all those who heard it.

In Su Chen’s eyes, however, all he saw was the black-clothed people waving their blades around wildly in all directions.

If one used a microscopic eye to see, they would see that the Origin Energy was being used in a very particular way, forming strange energy flows that were affecting the opponents.

A few of the energy flows could cause actual physical harm, but they weren’t very powerful. A few of the energy flows buried deep into the person’s body and became illusory senses. Still, more of the energy flows served as the frame upon which an illusory world could be constructed, causing an overlap between illusion and reality. Not only were the illusory beasts formed from Origin Energy being damaged, but the attacks of the people stuck in the formation were also being used against each other.

A few of the black-clothed peoples’ attacks, under the influence of the formation, were redirected toward their comrades. In the eyes of the black-clothed intruders, however, these attacks had come from the illusory beasts.

They made quite the commotion within the illusory realm, slashing and slicing in all directions.

This was the Ten Fiends Thousand Forms Formation.

The Ten Fiends Thousand Forms Formation wasn’t Su Chen’s creation but the joint invention of Jiang Hanfeng, Wei Yang, Ma Xuan, and Ling Yan.

Their first task upon arriving in Clear River City was to create a formation that Su Chen requested would be able to suppress at least seven or eight Yang Opening Realm experts or even delay a Light Shaking Realm cultivator.

None of them could come up with such a formation on their own, but if they allied together, along with Su Chen’s investment that spared no expense, they were just barely able to develop it.

When the formation had been completed, Su Chen had hoped that he would never have to use it.

He hadn’t expected that its first guest would appear in just a few days.

At this moment, a gale suddenly began to whip up amidst the Thousand Forms formation. The sky changed color as thunder began to peal. The people in the black-colored clothes in the formation were buffeted by the winds and the thunder, causing them to cry out in pain. Because the formation obstructed both sound and light, however, nothing could be seen outside. No matter how much the sky seemed to be collapsing inside the formation, the area outside the formation was still calm and peaceful.

“Dammit, let’s go all out!” Xing Shabei yelled explosively. The power of a Yang Opening Realm cultivator erupted from him at this point and surged forth from him in a majestic torrent of energy. If the formation wasn’t present, he alone would have been enough to flatten the Su Palace.

Even so, the Ten Fiends Thousand Forms Formation had been constructed with Light-Shaking Realm targets in view. A few Yang Opening Realm cultivators wouldn’t be able to escape from it easily even if they unleashed all their power at once. All of his efforts were like an ant shaking a tree; there was absolutely no point. He caused quite a scene, but only Su Chen was present to enjoy it.

Boom!

Following the loud explosion within the formation, a streak of lightning came crashing down. Xing Shabei toppled to the ground.

The final intruder had failed. From start to finish, Su Chen hadn’t made a single move.

As he watched Xing Shabei fall, Su Chen waved his hands, dissolving the formation, then opened the door to Li Shu’s room.

Li Shu hadn’t gone to sleep yet. He was writing something down on a book by candlelight.

“What’s keeping you up so late?”

When Li Shu saw that it was Su Chen, he hurriedly stood up and said, “I’m just planning out the next step.”

“Oh? Let me see.”

Su Chen picked up the piece of paper and glanced at it. He was immediately greeted by three characters.

Xing Shabei!

Li Shu explained, “As the Bureau Head of the Origin Bureau, Xing Shabei will be a big burden to master if we don’t take care of him. I’m thinking of how we might finish this person off.”

“Mmm...... That’s exactly why I came looking for you,” Su Chen said.

“So we have the same thoughts about this,” Li Shu said excitedly.

“No, I just wanted to ask you to grab a few people to clean up the mess outside for me.”

“Clean up? Clean what up?” Li Shu didn’t understand.

Su Chen flicked the piece of paper. “Go take a look and you’ll know.”

A brief moment later, he heard Li Shu’s shocked yell come from the courtyard.

Su Chen glanced at the piece of paper in his hand again and smiled slightly. A flame emerged in his palm, burning the piece of paper to ashes.