At the same time that Shen Junan was preoccupied with pursuing Guo Wenchang, the situation near Ten Thousand Swords Mountain also unfolded.

When Guo Wenchang had first appeared, there were a few other Boundless Sect disciples who had followed him into the air as well.

“Coincidentally,” there just happened to be twelve others with him.

Each one of them possessed a few treasures of their own as well, and the twelve Spirit Burning Realm cultivators also ran off in pursuit of riches.

Everything had occurred so naturally that, in the blink of an eye, only the group of Light Shaking Realm cultivators remained at the original site.

The remaining soldiers all glanced at each other. All of their superiors had split up to chase after the choicest portions for themselves, so after only a moment’s consideration, they decided to divide the rest of the spoils amongst themselves.

Even though they would most likely still have to hand over most of what they plundered, they would still be able to make some money from it.

Given how often Su Chen pulled off heists like these, it was high time that he got a taste of his own medicine.

The attackers quickly descended, swooping down towards the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain like hungry vultures.

At this moment, their war chariots were pounding away mercilessly at the mountain, throwing the cultivators there into disarray.

However, when the attackers landed on the ground, they found that the scenery around them had drastically changed. Their opponents were not in disarray; instead, they had somehow gathered together and boxed them in on all sides.

The Boundless Sect’s disciples were standing in formation, facing off grimly against the invaders. There appeared to be a few thousand of them present.

Illusion formation?

Everyone was stunned.

So what they had seen earlier was all an illusion?

So the Boundless Sect had been prepared for their attack?

However, when the soldiers realized that the strength of the troops they were facing was distinctly average, their fear and panic immediately disappeared.

One of the younger defending cultivators hoisted the battle banner in his hand and fiercely shouted, “Fight!”

“Fight!” all of the disciples responded vigorously.

“Weapons!” one of the Origin Qi Scholars in the lead yelled. All the other disciples drew their weapons, unleashing countless blades, spears, swords, and battleaxes on their opponents as a unified whole.

Even though these weapons were formed from Origin Energy, their destructive potential was staggering. They carved a vicious path through the opposing forces, wiping out any resistance in their way.

The fifty Light Shaking Realm cultivators simultaneously began to revolve their strength as they barked, “So even dogs dare to be so presumptuous!”

Waves of energy surged as the fifty Light Shaking Realm cultivators attacked simultaneously, creating a vortex of death. The enemy’s weapons were shattered in this fearsome vortex.

But the Boundless Sect’s disciples didn’t seem too worried. The young commander leading them continued to issue commands. “Flames!”

Next, the formation of cultivators unleashed a violent, raging wave of flames that dashed out in front of them.

These Origin Skills, which were unleashed by a battalion of Origin Qi Scholars at once, would force even experts to take them seriously.

Even so, the fifty Light Shaking Realm cultivators not only had quality but also quantity. Just this thousand soldier formation was not going to overwhelm them.

These Light Shaking Realm cultivators glanced at each other and chuckled as they unleashed a wave of wind that snuffed out the flames.

One of the soldiers even said, “They have quite a few sly tricks up their sleeves, but their strength is limited. What are these tricks going to do?”

“That’s right. Let’s not waste any more time and destroy these guys,” the others responded.

The surprise that had come from being ambushed was beginning to fade.

At that moment, however, the clouds dispersed as yet another group of soldiers appeared before their eyes.

“Another group? They’re just delivering themselves into our hands now,” someone scoffed.

“Wait a moment. Something seems off about this group,” another said as they pointed at the oncoming soldiers.

Everyone else quickly realized what was off about the group.

The second group of soldiers also numbered at around a thousand, but their auras were much more extraordinary. It seemed that they were all at the Light Shaking Realm?

How was this possible?

It had to be another illusion technique.

Yes, it had to!

That was what everyone thought.

An army of a few thousand Yang Opening and Blood Boiling Realm cultivators was pretty normal, but an army of a thousand Light Shaking Realm cultivators was definitely abnormal.

When the attackers’ thoughts reached this point, they became confident that this new group of soldiers was merely an illusion.

At this moment, the newcomers unleashed an attack.

They were once again led by a single person, who jabbed his finger out at them. The thousand-man army attacked alongside him, and a wave of rampaging flames flew forth.

This level of strength, which should have only belonged to someone at the Ultimate Emperor Realm, was actually manifested by a thousand person group of soldiers.

However, this only strengthened the Long Sang Origin Qi Scholars’ belief that this was all just an illusion.

True Light Shaking Realm cultivators were free spirits. It was impossible for them to be this united, or for them to cooperate with each other to this degree.

They were so confident that they didn’t even attempt to defend themselves, treating this shocking wave of flames as nothing more than an illusion. As such, the end result was easily imaginable.

A moment later, the roaring flames engulfed them.

If the fifty Light Shaking Realm cultivators had attempted to run, then it probably wouldn’t have been very easy for the newly emerged army to hit them all. After all, they were still seasoned Light Shaking Realm cultivators while the Boundless Sect’s disciples were relatively new to warfare. More importantly, running away would have wasted a lot of time.

But reality was different. The fact that they had been tricked by an illusion technique earlier had left a shadow on their hearts. The fifty Light Shaking Realm cultivators made no attempt to dodge or defend themselves, resulting in them being slaughtered almost immediately.

These cultivators should have been the core strength of the invading forces, but a single moment’s lapse in caution had resulted in them being completely obliterated. Even more tragically, the other Long Sang attackers had no idea that this had taken place.

The illusion formations set up around Ten Thousand Swords Mountain entirely concealed the ambushers’ aura, making it so that anybody outside the formation would have no idea what was happening inside the formation. This gave the Boundless Sect’s disciples even more of a chance to mount a deadly counterattack.

The three hundred war chariots were caught up in a “people’s war” [2]⁠— 18,000 of the Boundless Sect’s Origin Qi Scholars utilized the terrain, Origin Formations, Origin Tools, medicinal pills, and other secret skills to resist the Imperial Guards’ offensive push. The Light Shaking Realm cultivators weren’t participating because they had more important targets to kill, and because they also saw this as an opportunity for the other disciples to temper themselves. Of course, to minimize losses, they had still ended up sending out thirty or so them to protect the disciples.

As for the other Light Shaking Realm cultivators, they got into formation and prepared to ambush their opponents yet again.

Even though the Boundless Sect had a thousand Light Shaking Realm cultivators, almost all of them were newly ascended. The military strength of a peak Thought Manifestation Realm cultivator, twelve experienced Spirit Burning Realm cultivators, and fifty Light Shaking Realm cultivators was not to be underestimated. Even if they did win a straightforward fight, their losses would be great.

As such, the best approach was to divide and conquer, and then wiping them out in one fell swoop when they were weakened enough.

Even though this was an extremely old-fashioned tactic, it was still quite effective.

Especially when their opponent’s didn’t know exactly how strong they were.

After slaughtering the fifty Light Shaking Realm cultivators, Yan Tuohai, who was leading the Boundless Sect’s Light Shaking Realm disciples, said, “Let’s go and finish off those twelve Spirit Burning Realm cultivators as well.”

The Light Shaking Realm cultivators then divided themselves into twelve groups and flew off in different directions, as the locations of where the bait would flee to had been decided beforehand. Each group of Light Shaking Realm cultivators had around eighty people in them.

Usually, ten Light Shaking Realm cultivators were more than enough to handle a Spirit Burning Realm cultivator. Eighty was clearly overkill, so it wouldn’t take them long to deal with their targets.

Even so, no one wasted any time in sprinting to their destination at full speed.

The most important factor in this battle was speed. If they waited too long, then the people serving as bait would be in danger.

And the person in the most danger was Guo Wenchang.

The person he was drawing away was the strongest, but he would also need to survive for the longest.

Guo Wenchang was still flying through the sky.

“Hahahaha! I want to see how far you can run. If you know what’s best for you, then hand those treasures over to me right now! I promise that I’ll spare your life,” Shen Junan laughed loudly. He appeared to be in quite high spirits.

His opponent had already taken out six Origin Tools, each one of them a valuable treasure. His composure was already beginning to boil over.

The more treasures his opponent pulled out, the more resolute he became about capturing his opponent.

Unfortunately, many of these treasures were defensive in nature, making it hard for Shen Junan to actually capture Guo Wenchang despite the gap in their cultivation bases.

Wait a minute.

These treasures were all defensive in nature?

Shen Junan slowly began to feel like something was wrong.

Even though he was impulsive, he was not necessarily an idiot. An unsettling thought popped into his head, causing his expression to sink slightly as he abruptly stopped pursuing Guo Wenchang. “Are you purposefully dragging me around?”

Guo Wenchang started. So Shen Junan had seen through his ploy?

Shen Junan glared at Guo Wenchang. “Tell me. What kind of tricks have you left behind at Ten Thousand Swords Mountain?”

Guo Wenchang remained completely silent.

At this moment, his best thing he could say was nothing.

Even so, Shen Junan’s sense of unease only continued to grow.

The Crown Prince had personally entrusted this mission to him. There was no way that he could fail his expectations.

He was not afraid of being defeated. Rather, he was more afraid of how many lives he would lose in this battle.

The Imperial Guards were somewhat expendable, but every Light Shaking Realm cultivator lost was a huge blow to the success of the operation, and the Crown Prince’s evaluation of his success would definitely suffer.

This old commander didn’t know what kind of ambush had been set up at Ten Thousand Swords Mountain, but if Guo Wenchang dared to draw him away on his own, then it was likely that Guo Wenchang had some level of confidence in his chances of success.

Shen Junan’s anxiety spilled over at this thought. He turned around and immediately began to fly towards Ten Thousand Swords Mountain.

However, there was no way that Guo Wenchang was going to let him leave like that, so he hurriedly made an attempt to give chase.

However, he had only just barely gotten close when Shen Junan suddenly turned around and swiped at Guo Wenchang’s face with a Clouddragon Claw.

Guo Wenchang was badly startled, but his figure managed to disappear and reappear off in the distance in time to dodge.

“Hm? Su Chen’s Whitetower Teleportation?” Shen Junan muttered in a low voice.

Whitetower Teleportaiton was a skill that Su Chen was quite well known for. Many people knew about it, but Shen Junan didn’t expect that he would actually be willing to pass it on to others.

Not many people could understand Su Chen’s thought process.

However, Guo Wenchang mastery of spatial principles was low, so his Whitetower Teleportation was far inferior to Su Chen’s.

Shen Junan smiled fiercely. “If you have the ability, then come and deal with me. Otherwise, I’m going to leave.”

As he spoke, he turned around and ran off again, forcing Guo Wenchang to give chase once more.

Now that Guo Wenchang had lost the initiative, the situation had become much more complicated.

At first, Guo Wenchang had been the one running away as fast as he could, relying on the power of his treasures to escape. Now, however, he needed to obstruct Shen Junan from leaving while also avoiding Shen Junan’s attacks. The difficulty of the latter was, understandably, far greater.

Shen Junan repeated this maneuver a few times, each time missing Guo Wenchang by no more than a hair.

Even so, Guo Wenchang gritted his teeth, unwilling to give up.

No matter what, he could not allow Shen Junan to ruin the plan that they had set in place, especially given that the thousand Light Shaking Realm cultivators had already split up to take care of the twelve Spirit Burning Realm cultivators. If Shen Junan were to return at this moment, then the Boundless Sect’s Light Shaking Realm cultivators would be the ones being slaughtered rather than the other way around.

Even if it meant his death, Guo Wenchang would not let Shen Junan leave.

As he steeled his resolve, Guo Wenchang charged at Shen Junan yet again.

“Good! Keep coming at me!” Shen Junan yelled loudly as he clawed out again.

Guo Wenchang’s figure flickered again as he prepared to use Whitetower Teleportation to dodge. But at the same moment that he reappeared, Shen Junan suddenly bellowed.

Guo Wenchang suddenly found that he was paralyzed, as if he had been struck by a lightning bolt.

A moment later, Shen Junan’s hand slammed violently into his body.

This single strike severely wounded Guo Wenchang.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_war for more information.