Strands of divine sense darted back and forth among several Mountain Folk immortals. None understood why Zhu Yan neither attacked nor retreated, leaving both sides locked in a standoff. Zhu Yan had certainly done something, but none of them had caught his gesture of casting the three flying boats into the realm of the Mountain Folk. Furthermore, that immortal artifact, lingering perpetually on the verge of detonating, stirred violent tempest after tempest across the Immortal Heaven, masking all traces. Thus, the three Mountain Folk immortals had no idea what Zhu Yan actually intended to do. Yet one thing was certain: as long as they kept their eyes firmly fixed on him, it would be difficult for any scheme of his to come to fruition.
The three Mountain Folk immortals therefore exercised great patience, faintly encircling Zhu Yan without hemming him in completely.
Right at this moment, an aura suddenly surged from the southern Immortal Heaven, as though another immortal were making an appearance. Yet this newly arrived immortal was not one of the Mountain Folk, but rather their mortal enemy, Guiche. The moment it appeared, it watched from afar, neither taking action nor leaving, clearly scheming to profit from the chaos.
While the stalemate held above the Immortal Heaven, the three flying boats had already descended over the coordinates Wei Yuan had designated. Only now did Zhu Yan's immortal power dissipate, allowing the three vessels to return to their original size and hover directly above the entrance to the secret realm.
Sun Yu and Xu Wenwu emerged from the flying boats. Taking in their surroundings, they ordered the vessels to activate their onboard formations. Each of the three flying boats served as the node of a grand formation, isolating this expanse of heaven and earth from the outside world.
At that moment, an avatar of Wei Yuan stepped out from the secret realm's entrance and exchanged greetings. The three flying boats then deployed multiple smaller skiffs to construct a cargo transfer platform at the entrance. Countless cargo crates were brought to the platform and subsequently ferried into the secret realm one by one.
Inside the secret realm, Wei Yuan opened his eyes with a faint smile. "They've arrived."
During this past month, Wei Yuan had not merely buried himself in cultivation; he had thoroughly scouted the surrounding territory for several hundred li, mastering every contour of the terrain. Now, as Qingming cultivators filed in without cease, Wei Yuan distributed the construction blueprints he had prepared long ago to the engineers in charge. Over a thousand templates immediately broke ground, erecting a laboratory and a refining workshop on-site. They then set up a grand formation to alter the environment, inserting a miniature boundary stone to convert the atmospheric conditions into something suitable for human habitation.
Defense, naturally, was of paramount importance. In a single breath, the cultivators erected eight defense bases aligned with the eight trigram directions. As for the power supply, several colossal crates were carried in, and a number of template Dao Foundation cultivators who specialized in energy delivery took their seats inside them, setting the entire base rumbling into full operation.
These template Dao Foundations lacked prowess in combat and slaughter, but their virtue lay in a steady, unending stream of Dao power output, like water flowing ceaselessly from an inexhaustible spring. A batch of template Dao Foundations could be utilized for an entire month before being swapped out for the next.
Summoning Sun Yu and Xu Wenwu was also Wei Yuan's tailored move specifically designed for this secret realm. The life force in the realm was both formidable and bizarre, which happened to be Sun Yu's forte. In environments with particularly extreme ecosystems, the living organisms within tended to be just as extreme—exceedingly resilient in certain respects, yet possessing glaring vulnerabilities in others. Sun Yu possessed superb medical mastery, already touching the threshold of communing with the Heavenly Will. The higher one's medical skill, the more prominent one's attainments in biochemistry became; with just a slight pivot in research direction, he could develop a series of specialized weapons targeting biological weaknesses. As such, once Sun Yu identified an enemy's weakness, his innate divine ability could simulate lethal toxins custom-tailored to that specific species.
Xu Wenwu was the other extreme. His mindscape world already had a working framework: his void carrier was fully operational, and his puppet mecha boasted immense destructive power, but he suffered from one glaring weakness—an excessive consumption of ammunition. However, if supplied with a steady stream of external munitions, Xu Wenwu became a walking humanoid artillery battery capable of laying down sustained carpet bombardment, which was precisely what was needed to deal with the bubbles shielding the stone palace.
And ammunition supply happened to be the arena that best manifested Qingming's industrial capacity.
It had already been proven that Dao Foundation-grade high-explosive flying swords produced marked results against the bubbles; even after manifesting as seven-colored bubbles, they could still be chipped away layer by layer.
Back then, Wei Yuan had been underprepared, carrying a mere two hundred flying swords. Under normal circumstances, such an arsenal was enough to level a city's defensive ward, but who could have foreseen that this secret realm truly harbored defenses on par with an ancient immortal? Two hundred strikes at the dharma-idol level against such a barrier had been akin to an ant trying to shake a giant tree.
Therefore, Wei Yuan had requisitioned an entire container of flying swords this time, numbering one hundred thousand in total. One hundred thousand dharma-idol strikes could smash even a hard-shelled ancient immortal to bits! The honeycomb launchers mounted on the shoulders of Xu Wenwu's dharma idol could hold a hundred flying swords on each side. While these flying swords could be generated with his own magic power, doing so would essentially drain him dry after two salvos. With an external supply of ammunition, however, he could sustain dozens of rounds.
Naturally, Wei Yuan did not rely solely on Xu Wenwu. He had also brought in several long-range flying-sword launchers. All of these launchers were housed within freight containers and could be deployed as soon as their outer casings were opened, requiring operation by dharma idol cultivators. Once a dharma idol bonded with and refined the long-range flying swords via the onboard formations, they could guide the swords through divine sense within firing range, ensuring every strike hit its mark.
Hule Gao'en alone could operate three launchers, whereas for the Golden Pellet dharma idols, two cultivators were needed for one launcher.
The entire preparation proceeded methodically. Ten days later, all construction was finished, and Sun Yu's tests on the bubble remnants in the laboratory bore fruit. Having thoroughly unraveled the structure of the remnants, Sun Yu used the secret realm's biomass as a primer, the flesh of immortal beasts brought along as culture medium, and his innate divine ability to catalyze the mixture, concocting a batch of viruses specifically engineered against these bubbles. Wei Yuan then empowered them with mortal karmic luck, completely transforming the virus. As the outer world's sayings went, the difference between having karmic luck empowerment or not was like the difference between a common cold and smallpox.
Once the virus was prepared, Sun Yu crafted a batch of toxic flying swords and mixed them into the flying-sword munitions.
Another ten days passed in this manner. With everything in readiness, Wei Yuan launched his offensive once more.
Xu Wenwu acted as the vanguard in this battle. Aiming directly at the target several hundred li away, he emptied the honeycombs on his shoulders in a single breath. His dharma form then shuddered, shaking off the empty sword canisters before lifting two fresh ones and slotting them onto his shoulders, unleashing another barrage of two hundred flying swords.
The rest of the long-range flying-sword launchers opened fire simultaneously. Countless flying swords roared into the sky, arcing toward the stone palace.
Sitting upright in the center of the grand formation, Wei Yuan hitched his divine sense onto several high-speed flying swords, already arriving around the stone palace to monitor the battlefield.
Surrounded by a cluster of shadow-recording orbs, Wei Yuan wore an unhurried, composed demeanor. Cradling a teacup in one hand, he took a gentle sip, then pointed into empty air. Motes of golden light soared into the vault of heaven and reappeared high above the stone palace. Each mote of golden light transformed into a regular hexagonal wafer of radiant gold.
In the blink of an eye, three hundred and sixty wafers took their positions one after another, resembling three hundred and sixty great stars blazing across the firmament.
Just then, Xu Wenwu's flying swords arrived first, scattering at once to bombard the bubbles across the widest possible surface area. In an instant, a colossal wall of flame sprang up around the stone palace; in the fiery glow, countless bubbles were faintly revealed.
While the fiery wall still burned fiercely, the second wave of flying swords arrived. This time, all the swords formed a straight line, adopting the method Wei Yuan had previously used to relentlessly bombard a single point, forcibly blasting open a passageway!
The flying swords from the myriad long-range launchers followed in rapid succession. Immense in number, they arrived in staggered waves and lacked the exquisite precision of Xu Wenwu's guidance, essentially amounting to a relentless carpet bombing of the bubbles encasing the stone palace.
Yet carpet bombing had its own distinct advantage: the attrition on the bubbles was undeniable, effectively amounting to an outright clash of magic power between both sides. Though the opponent employed the methods of an ancient immortal—a setup at least equivalent to a modern immortal going all out—Wei Yuan answered with one hundred thousand strikes at the dharma-idol level, not falling behind in the slightest.
In an instant, an overwhelming sea of flying swords swept in from all directions. Waves of explosive fire surged one after another, overlapping across a span of several thousand paces. Amid the roaring flames, eerie emerald flashes flickered from time to time—the result of swords loaded with the brand-new virus being swallowed by the bubbles.
After a round of dense concentrated fire, the new bubbles generated by the stone palace clearly failed to keep pace with the rate of consumption. Most of the bubble layer became visible, whittled away layer by layer. Flaunting his boundless resources, Wei Yuan blasted three paths open in one go, guiding the flying swords to advance along three prongs.
At this critical juncture, Wei Yuan flicked his finger. High above the stone palace, the three hundred and sixty hexagonal luminous mirrors suddenly blazed with blinding brilliance. Three hundred and sixty slender pillars of light converged into a single point, condensing into a terrifying beam of destruction that plummeted from the heavens and struck squarely against the stone palace's layer of bubbles! Wherever the beam landed, massive swathes of bubbles instantly evaporated. The pillar of light, dozens of zhang across, emitted a strange humming buzz as it tore through layer upon layer of obstructions in the blink of an eye, crashing down onto the stone palace itself.
This was precisely one of the three great Dao methods developed by Qingming specifically for Wei Yuan: Great Celestial Extermination Immortal Light. The core principle of all three methods was identical: to help Wei Yuan vent and discharge his Dao power. For instance, the destructive power of this Great Celestial Extermination Immortal Light was equivalent to the all-out strike of ten early-stage Scenery Command cultivators combined!
Under the extreme heat, the highest level of the stone palace immediately turned incandescent red and melted. As though writhing in agony, the entire stone palace actually twisted, then let out a wretched scream!
Watching the trembling stone palace from afar, Wei Yuan finally rose. With his hands clasped behind his back, he took step after step into the air, walking toward the stone palace under the watchful gaze of the myriad shadow-recording orbs.
Chapter 1336