The Undying Immortal System
Chapter 327: Life 77, Age 73, Martial Emperor Peak

ShouLi stood from her throne and calmly approached the Sovereigns while I followed behind. As we moved, the Sovereigns’ faces morphed into looks of suspicion.

Before coming here, they would have known that I was an accomplished Formation Emperor, and they had to have assumed that I would have installed a series of both defensive and offensive formations. As Martial Sovereigns equipped with Rank 7 weapons and armor, they wouldn’t have been afraid of such things, but they were still cautious.

As they spotted the random formations that I had placed around the throne room, their suspicions faded, and their expressions became more confident.

Unfortunately for them, they only knew me as a skilled formation specialist. Since they hadn’t known anything about my inner world, they were in no way prepared for the way things actually unfolded.

Only a couple of meters away from the Emissary, ShouLi stopped and raised her fists in a martial salute. “Honored Sovereigns, I—”

In the calm before the start of battle, I had the time I needed to clear my mind of distractions and reach out into my surroundings with both my soul and intent. Then, with specific locations firmly fixed in my mind, I flexed my will and pulled ten Peak Emperor-Peak Rank 6 body cultivators out of my inner world.

One appeared both in front of and behind the Zhuge, Li, and Jiu Sovereigns. The other four surrounded the Emissary on all sides. Only Ning ZeKun was left alone.

This didn’t catch the Sovereigns entirely off guard. They had just arrived, and since I hadn’t participated in a pantomime with Ning ZeKun this time, they were still a bit wary of walking into a trap. However, even though they were expecting something, this didn’t help them much.

The moment the group appeared around the Emissary, ShouLi slammed a will-lock on him to prevent him from defending himself.

The Emissary broke free from the lock after only a fraction of a second, but that was all the time the Emperors surrounding him had needed to launch their most powerful attacks.

Two Rank 6 war hammers, one Rank 6 sword, and one Rank 6 spear slammed into the Emissary’s body.

Unfortunately, these weapons weren’t nearly as sharp as Ning ZeKun’s sword. Even though they were Rank 6 weapons, they couldn’t penetrate the Emissary’s robes. However, the attacks were still enough to break several of his bones.

The Emissary was severely injured, but this didn’t make him any less of a threat. He had a storage bag that could have contained any number of tools capable of turning things around.

I had to prevent him from using them.

A long time ago, back during one of my first adventures in the Nine Rivers Sect, I had copied several techniques that would enable me to utilize my overly powerful soul in combat. While I had studied them enough to know how to use them, I had never employed them in actual combat. The risk was simply too great. If I made a mistake, my soul could end up horribly damaged.

Now, though, if we didn’t take out the Emissary before he was able to send a signal to the Saint, we would be facing a danger far greater than that of a little soul damage.

I had to act.

As the Emissary stumbled from the attacks of the four Emperors, I sharpened my soul and will to a point and executed the Mortal Yellow technique Soul Needle.

A lance of soul energy shot out of me and stabbed into the Emissary’s chest.

His armor, which had been powerful enough to absorb blows from Rank 6 weapons, offered no resistance to the power of my soul.

An instant after my Soul Needle pierced his body, the Emissary dropped to the ground in an unconscious heap.

A moment later, Liang flicked his sword and separated the man’s head from his body.

Then, NiangBa reached down and grabbed his storage bag before anyone knew what had happened.

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While our group of six was able to overpower the Emissary with relative ease, the other Sovereigns only needed to defend against two Emperors each. This gave them a chance to turn things around a bit.

On the far left of the group, the initial round of attacks struck devastating blows against the Li Sovereign. However, he was able to slide out of the brawl before any follow-up strikes could land.

Once he was free of our encirclement, he must have seen what we had done to the Emissary. He immediately created a portal and dove through it to escape.

The Jiu Sovereign, however, was caught between the attacks on the Li Sovereign and the attacks on the Emissary. Unlike his teammate, he didn’t have anywhere to run to. Even though his armor allowed him to survive the initial barrage, he was pinned in place. So, once the Emissary was down, our group of six wheeled on the Jiu Sovereign and slaughtered him before he could escape.

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On the right side of the group, things didn’t go nearly this well.

I hadn’t wanted the Sovereigns to know about my connection to Ning ZeKun, so I had avoided any interactions with him in this life, and I had yet to give him his memories from the previous one. He was nominally on our side, but nothing tied him to us other than a few words from Emperor Li.

So, when the attack began, Ning ZeKun didn’t rush to support us. Instead, he jumped to the side and assumed a defensive position from which he could protect himself from both sides of the conflict. Even as the Emissary and Jiu Sovereign went down, he just stood there, unwilling to take part in the fighting.

This should have been fine, but it left an opening for the Zhuge YeDu to escape.

As the initial strikes were about to land on the Zhuge Sovereign, a bright light burst from his armor that blinded his two attackers. These blows still landed, but the light had caused the attackers to recoil, so the hits weren’t nearly as powerful as they should have been.

With Ning ZeKun leaving an opening to his left, Zhuge YeDu evaded his attackers and leapt out of the encirclement. However, unlike the Li Sovereign, Zhuge YeDu did not immediately create a portal to escape. He just took up a defensive stance and waited for his assailants to resume their attacks.

However, after the Li Sovereign fled and both the Emissary and Jiu Sovereign died, he became a bit more cognizant of the position he was in.

Just as all of my Emperors were about to focus on bringing him down, Zhuge YeDu sent out a blast of qi, creating a powerful illusion that stopped us in our tracks. The effects of this illusion lasted no more than a moment, but before we were able to break out of our stupor, Zhuge YeDu was already gone.

With all Sovereigns aside from Ning ZeKun either dead or fled, the battle came to an abrupt end.

Looking over to where Ning ZeKun was still guarding himself against the possibility of being attacked, I tossed the man his memory orb. “I assume that Li has already briefed you. You should know what to do with that.”

ZeKun narrowed his eyes in suspicion, likely wondering if this was part of our trap, but he didn’t have much of a choice here. The Li and Zhuge Sovereigns had seen that we hadn’t attacked him, so he was already on our pirate ship, whether he liked it or not.

After absorbing his memories, ZeKun nodded. “I… see…”

Then, he looked at me with a grimace. “When we attacked this time, we didn’t order our troops to retreat. The invasion is still underway.”

Right after he said this, the floor of the palace’s marble platform burst apart, and TongBin jumped out from the tunnel that I had dug underneath it. “That bastard came back! This time, he even brought a pair of Emperors with him.”

Grunting, I just waved my hand and pulled TongBin and most of the other Emperors into my inner world.

Then, I hopped on my horse and rushed to Mount Jiang with Liang, NiangBa, and ShouLi at my side. Unfortunately, as a Sovereign, Ning ZeKun couldn’t join us on this journey.

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The fighting around Mount Jiang was intense.

While Ning ZeKun had signaled his team to retreat, the Emissary and Jiu Sovereigns were no longer capable of giving such orders. As for the Li and Zhuge Sovereigns, I could only think that they were hoping that their army’s numbers would be able to crush us.

With thousands of Kings and hundreds of Emperors arrayed against us, if we had fought the same way we had in my last life, they might have even succeeded. This time, though, we had Zhuge Yan directing our strategy. With his help, while we didn’t come out of this battle unscathed, our losses were minimal.

Once the various forces retreated, I headed back to Dragon Gate and brought a group down into the cavern where I had installed the anti-portal conference room.

After activating the formation, I looked around at the group that included Ning ZeKun and the leaders of my clan. “Two of the Sovereigns are dead, but the Li and Zhuge Sovereigns were able to retreat. What are our options?”

ShouLi bit her lip nervously. “Do we need to go back and try again? I don’t…”

Yan calmly shook his head. “No. Not yet. This time, we have every reason to believe that the souls of the Emissary and Jiu Sovereign are trapped and that their Soul Lamps remain lit. We also still have two empty formations. We just need to track down the two remaining Sovereigns and kill them.”

I nodded. “I agree. We have 11 months before the next shipment to the Central Continent is due. If the Sovereigns are still alive at that point, then they will be able to cause trouble for us, but right now, we are not in any danger. We still have a chance at success.”

Yan looked at me. “There is another problem, though. The portal to the Central Continent is located at the Summit of Dragon Peak, within the Nine Rivers Sect. That is a place entirely under the control of the Jiu Clan. You might have killed their Sovereign, but they still have several Emperors among their ranks, and, if necessary, they can call on the entire sect to defend them. We need to be careful.”

Ning ZeKun stroked his chin in thought. “If the Li and Zhuge Sovereigns decide to hunker down in the Nine Rivers Sect, that’s going to be a problem. With sect’s Mountain-Protecting Formation shielding them, their combined forces will be able to hold out for quite a while.”

As I thought through ZeKun’s words, I couldn’t stop the smile from forming on my face. “If they want to play turtle in the sect, then that’s fine with me. Let them. Our true goal shouldn’t be killing the Sovereigns anyway. It should be raiding their clans and stealing their wealth and knowledge. If they choose to hide away, then that gives us free rein to take all their stuff.”

Ning ZeKun’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he nodded in agreement.

Yan, however, held up a hand and shook his head. “Yes, but also no. Stealing from the Li and Zhuge Clans would be nice, but the real prizes are all in the Nine Rivers Sect. Consider the Trials that are capable of granting peak four-star affinities for every element. How much essence do you think the sect has stashed away? Why should we just… leave it sitting around?”

Stealing a load of essence would be nice, but personally, I didn’t consider it too important. After all, with enough time, I would be able to harvest as much essence as I could want. On the other hand…

“The sect’s karmic energy storage.” I turned my gaze to Ning ZeKun. “The Ning Clan has a way to store and transfer karmic energy, right? Can you let us examine it?”

A pensive expression appeared on the man’s face, and as his lips shifted in an uncomfortable grimace, I recognized the signs of Oath-enforced silence.

I held up a hand. “Let's talk about that later.”

ZeKun nodded and relaxed.

“Yes, that would be for the best. However, there is something far more valuable in the sect that we need to get our hands on. The Bloodfire. If you want to gather blood essence and expand your clan more rapidly, you must take control of the Bloodfire.”

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