Yu Mi embedded the jade command token Bao Gu had given her into the control hub of the main array, then sent her divine sense inside. At once, the interior and exterior of the flagship, which was even larger than Shadow City, appeared clearly in her mind. Through her divine sense, she used the main control array to operate the ship.
The problem was that the flagship was simply too enormous. For the moment, she found it difficult to adapt, and could only try controlling it bit by bit. Fortunately, there were still over thirty array masters in the main control array chamber, each responsible for helping her manage a separate section.
She heard one of the array masters beside her say that the Command Lord rarely operated the flagship personally. In ordinary times, the main control array was operated jointly by one hundred and twenty array masters. After issuing orders, the Command Lord would hand the flagship over to the array masters. But because of the incident with the berserk demonic general, the array masters aboard the flagship had been slaughtered, and replacement array masters had yet to be assigned. As a result, Yu Mi could only take over the portions that lacked array masters to control them.
Not long after Yu Mi left, Bao Gu received a message.
Jade Shura had been captured.
When she heard the report from her subordinate, she froze on the spot. Her first reaction was: How was that possible? Her second reaction was: How had Jade Shura been captured?
In order to intimidate the various powers and prevent anything from happening to Jade Shura, she had specifically assigned one thousand Da Luo Crimson Gold warships to accompany her. Even if Jade Shura teleported back and forth among those Da Luo Crimson Gold ships, no one should have been able to catch her. And even in the worst case, if they sacrificed all the Da Luo Crimson Gold ships, could they still not use the ships’ realm-breaking power to forcefully tear through the spatial confinement seal and teleport back to Green Province?
Less than two hours ago, she had received Jade Shura’s battle report requesting aid. She knew that although Jade Shura had fallen into a difficult situation, the main force of her army and the thousand warships were still intact. They were fully capable of protecting themselves. So how had she been caught?
Yu Mi had not even arrived yet, and Jade Shura had already been captured!
Bao Gu almost felt as if someone were playing a joke on her. She snatched up the battle report and sent her divine sense inside to read through the entire course of the battle. Only then did she discover that it was probably because Jade Shura did not understand the Da Luo Crimson Gold ships well enough. The one thousand Da Luo Crimson Gold warships had not displayed even close to their proper combat power. At most, they had been used like relatively sturdy ordinary warships of this world. Throughout the entire battle, they had practically been led around by the nose. The enemy had fought however they wanted.
After Jade Shura became trapped, she arranged the Da Luo Crimson Gold ships into a defensive formation and set up camp. It was as if she were saying, “I’m thick-skinned and tough. Hit me all you want. I’ll camp here first, wait for reinforcements, and then beat you down.”
Then, cultivators at the Tribulation Crossing stage, dressed in the clothes of the Hatchet Gang’s Gold Armor Guards, suddenly charged to Jade Shura’s side and seized her. With their commander captured, and with the enemy’s cultivation realm far too high, the Gold Armor Army did not dare to stop them when they escorted their commander away. They could only watch helplessly as Jade Shura was taken.
Bao Gu turned back and carefully read through the entire process again. She realized that this had been a trap designed in advance. The Flame Saint Sect had gathered over four hundred thousand troops and mobilized the strength of the surrounding cities all for the sake of finding an opportunity during the battle to capture Jade Shura. The earlier attacks had all been merely to restrain Jade Shura and obtain the corpses of Gold Armor soldiers. They had stripped off the armor, disguised themselves as Gold Armor troops, infiltrated the army, approached Jade Shura, and captured her…
Naturally, news of Jade Shura’s capture was delivered to Bao Gu and Qu Yirou at the first possible moment.
After receiving the news, Qu Yirou immediately set out to find Bao Gu. She was in Shadow City, mobilizing money and supplies from Soul Chasing Pavilion branches everywhere in preparation for building the realm-breaking gate, so she arrived extremely quickly after hearing the report.
Qu Yirou showed the token Yu Mi had previously given her to enter and leave the Command Lord’s residence. She encountered no obstruction the entire way and soon arrived before Bao Gu.
When Bao Gu saw Qu Yirou come in, anxiety and confusion were obvious on her face. Bao Gu handed her the battle report. She knew that while Qu Yirou could receive news, the Hatchet Gang’s battle reports would not be delivered into Qu Yirou’s hands.
Qu Yirou took the report and examined it with her divine sense. Afterward, she returned it to Bao Gu and asked, “How do you plan to handle this?”
The enemy had captured Jade Shura for the sake of Bao Gu and this debt-collecting operation. Qu Yirou knew Bao Gu would do everything in her power to protect Jade Shura. The Flame Saint Sect would not take Jade Shura’s life, but she could not help worrying.
Now that Jade Shura had fallen into the Flame Saint Sect’s hands, Bao Gu’s previous plan had been disrupted, and she had been forced into a passive position. The Flame Saint Sect had captured Jade Shura, but they had not taken advantage of the chaos caused by the commander’s capture and the army’s lack of leadership to attack and wipe out the hundred thousand troops. Clearly, their goal was not to start a full war with the Hatchet Gang. They wanted to negotiate with Bao Gu.
Bao Gu pondered briefly. She took out a sound-transmission jade talisman and contacted Yu Mi.
“Senior Sister, where are you?”
Yu Mi replied, “I’m just about to set out and rendezvous with Jade Shura.”
“Postpone your departure. Pavilion Master Qu and I will come to you.”
After speaking, Bao Gu cut off the sound-transmission talisman and called, “Pavilion Master.”
Qu Yirou nodded. With Jade Shura captured, she would not feel at ease unless she went in person.
Bao Gu brought out a teleportation platform and teleported with Qu Yirou to the exterior of the flagship. Then, by using the aura connection she had with the flagship, she successfully boarded through the teleportation array aboard the ship and brought Qu Yirou to the main control room.
This was Qu Yirou’s first time entering a Da Luo Crimson Gold flagship. At first glance, she felt as though she had stepped into the very center of layer upon layer of arrays. When she raised her eyes and swept her gaze around, she saw that the entire Da Luo Crimson Gold ship was covered in the aura of arrays. That energy was extraordinarily powerful. Even her divine sense could not penetrate it.
Yu Mi had only just finished speaking with Bao Gu when she saw Bao Gu mysteriously appear before her with Qu Yirou. She was surprised yet again. Subconsciously, she glanced at the command token controlling the main control array before her. She had not expected Bao Gu to still be able to board the ship while the flagship was activated even after handing over the main control array’s token.
Then she remembered that Bao Gu’s aura was branded into the token. She guessed that Bao Gu’s aura had likely also been branded into the main control array of the Da Luo Crimson Gold ship. With aura recognition, Bao Gu did not need a “key” like the command token to board the ship or perform other operations. The thought flashed through her mind, and she asked, “Why are you here?”
Bao Gu said, “Jade Shura has been captured.”
Yu Mi froze in shock.
“What? How is that possible?”
Bao Gu handed the battle report to Yu Mi.
Yu Mi took it and scanned it. For a moment, she was speechless. Then she said, “She actually got caught like this?”
Qu Yirou felt faintly embarrassed. The disciple she had personally taught had been captured under the protection of a hundred thousand troops and one thousand Da Luo Crimson Gold ships. It was indeed rather humiliating.
Now that Jade Shura had been captured, matters had become troublesome. At the very least, they could no longer use the Da Luo Crimson Gold flagship to bombard the enemy.
Yu Mi carefully read the battle report and said, “Judging from the enemy’s setup, it seems they want to use Jade Shura as leverage for negotiations.”
She pondered briefly, then said, “Bao Gu, if you step forward in this matter, you’ll be in a much more passive position. Let me go instead. What is our bottom line in negotiations?”
Bao Gu said, “You stall them. I’ll sneak over and rescue her.”
Yu Mi asked, “How confident are you? Since the enemy has captured Jade Shura as a bargaining chip, they’ll definitely guard her extremely tightly. They may even have done something to her.”
To put it bluntly, once they had captured Jade Shura, they might have taken a wisp of her life-soul and sealed it into a soul tablet. In that case, even rescuing Jade Shura would be useless. If they crushed the soul tablet, they could take Jade Shura’s life even if she were a hundred thousand miles away.
Bao Gu did not dare gamble with Jade Shura’s life, so naturally she could not say she had much confidence.
She said, “I’ll decide after I see the situation. You see what conditions they propose.”
She then looked at Qu Yirou and asked, “Pavilion Master, are you willing to go with Yu Mi?”
Qu Yirou nodded.
Bao Gu said to Yu Mi, “Protect Jade Shura first. Everything else can be decided according to the situation. Other than the realm-breaking gate, you may make the decisions.”
After saying this, she turned and stepped onto the flagship’s teleportation array. Through the array, she entered the teleportation domain gate cabin, then used the teleportation domain gate to head to the Flame Saint Sect.
The Flame Saint Sect was located in Fire Province, in a region of active volcanoes. There were dozens of active volcanoes of all sizes, which erupted from time to time. The volcanic ash produced by their eruptions blanketed the entire area so that sunlight could not be seen. The place was dim all year round. Mortals and the ordinary creatures commonly found elsewhere did not exist here.
This region was abundant in fire spirit stones, and all kinds of mineral resources were extremely rich. Some high-level fire-attribute demonic beasts often appeared here, and it was also the largest source of fire-attribute spiritual treasures. It produced fire spirit stones and ores. It was wealthy, lacking neither refining materials nor cultivation resources. Its strength was naturally extremely formidable.
The conflict between the Hatchet Gang and the Flame Saint Sect had started because a dozen or so medicinal gardens and fire spirit stone mines under Earth Dragon Fortress had “somehow” ended up under the Flame Saint Sect’s name.
Back when Bao Gu was still around, Earth Dragon Fortress and the Flame Saint Sect had already clashed over the mining of fire spirit stones. At the time, however, they had only been minor skirmishes, and Sun Dilong had naturally handled them. Later, after she left, the Flame Saint Sect “took over” all the fire spirit stone mines within its territory. Some of the medicinal gardens Earth Dragon Fortress operated in Fire Province had also fallen into the Flame Saint Sect’s hands under various pretexts.
One had to know that many of the spiritual treasures in those medicinal gardens were already extinct in this world. They had been seeds she obtained from the Flood Dragon Treasure Garden, the Xuantian Mountains, and the Demon Saint, then handed to Sun Dilong to plant.
Now she had gone out for a trip and returned only to discover that the things she had ordered people to plant had all become someone else’s property. How could she possibly be happy about that? Besides, if it were merely mineral resources, that would be one thing. But these were spirit herbs! Did raising an army not require spirit herbs? Did raising a glutton like Qingying not require spirit herbs?
If Qingying had not been stuck at Bao Gu’s mistress’s place and unable to return, Bao Gu would absolutely have sent Qingying over to collect this debt. She refused to believe that these people could capture Qingying too.
Because the Flame Saint Sect and the Hatchet Gang were currently at war, every city within the Flame Saint Sect’s territory was in a state of battle readiness. The city gates were tightly shut, and the defensive arrays were fully activated. Never mind teleporting into the city; even an ant would not be able to crawl inside.
Bao Gu landed outside the city. Looking from afar, she saw the city walls heavily guarded. Fire Armor troops dressed in armor glowing with fire spiritual power protected the walls so tightly that there was not a single gap. Warships stood in formation above the city.
Bao Gu understood why the Flame Saint Sect would rather go to war and capture Jade Shura than return those medicinal gardens and mines.
The output value was simply too great. They had held them in their hands for hundreds of years. The mines were being dug from the Flame Saint Sect’s own territory. The spiritual treasures and spiritual fruits growing in the medicinal gardens absorbed nutrients from the soil of the Flame Saint Sect’s territory. And now they were supposed to just hand them back to the Hatchet Gang? What kind of joke was that?
The medicinal gardens had been growing for several hundred years. The ninth-rank spirit herbs inside were almost mature. Could they really return them just because someone told them to? After managing them painstakingly for hundreds of years, were they supposed to have worked for nothing? This was the Flame Saint Sect’s territory. What right did the Hatchet Gang have to come into their lands and dig up their mineral resources? You say you detected mines here, so you came to dig them? Then if I say there are mines beneath Shadow City, can I go dig there too?
The profits were too enormous, so naturally they would not hand them over easily. Since both sides had their own reasoning, the only thing left was to let fists do the talking.
Now, Jade Shura was extremely important to the Flame Saint Sect. Naturally, they would not tell the Hatchet Gang where she was being imprisoned. If Bao Gu wanted to rescue her, she had to first locate her.
The Saint Flame Sect had a total of thirty-six cities above and below ground. The cities were connected by teleportation arrays and teleportation domain gates. Jade Shura could have been imprisoned in any one of them.
At present, Bao Gu could only first send out Shadow Pavilion’s spies within the Flame Saint Sect to gather information. While waiting for the spies’ reports, she did not remain idle. Concealing her aura, she slipped around outside Flamefire Sacred City, the Flame Saint Sect’s most important city. Whenever she saw a suitable location, she buried a few array pillars or set up several small arrays.
Flamefire Sacred City held the same importance to the Flame Saint Sect that Shadow City held to the Hatchet Gang. Its city-protecting array used sacred artifacts, and more than one of them. Judging by their auras, Bao Gu initially determined that there should be five: one each in the east, south, west, north, and center. As for whether there were more underground or hidden in the shadows, that was hard to say. In any case, the ones visible to the eye were the five in those directions.
If Jade Shura had not fallen into the Flame Saint Sect’s hands, the Hatchet Gang could have directly used the Da Luo Crimson Gold flagship to blast open Flamefire Sacred City’s protective array and give them a major show of force. Then, by parking the Da Luo Crimson Gold flagship above Flamefire Sacred City, they would basically be able to reclaim the dozen or so mines and medicinal gardens.
But now, they did not dare act rashly.
What if a single blast wiped out Jade Shura along with everything else?
