Sovereign of the Three Realms

“Ole King, follow Xiao Yu.” Jiang Chen gave the order.

Although they were moving beneath the earth, this happened to be one of the Rat King’s strengths, so they easily followed Xiao Yu’s trail.

“Yu’er, hurry and come greet your senior brothers.” Liu Chengfeng’s voice sounded from the ground.

Xiao Yu hastened to walk forwards, “Junior brother Xiao Yu greets his senior brothers.”

“Mm, you’re Xiao Yu? Not bad!” A low voice responded.

Liu Chengfeng obviously held high esteem for the owner of this voice, “Yu’er, this is Zhou Yi, senior brother Zhou and one of Elder Iron’s personal disciples. He’s not yet thirty and already of the earth spirit realm. His future is boundless! You must take heed of your senior brother’s words in the future.”

When Xiao Yu heard that the other person was younger than him but already in the earth spirit realm, shock billowed his heart as he said respectfully, “This junior brother is beyond amazed by senior brother Zhou’s plentiful genius. I’ve been training in the mundane world all this time and thought that I was someone. I had been self satisfied when those in the outside world gave me the title of genius. It seems that I am a true frog at the bottom of the well. Senior brother Zhou is truly someone who lives up to the title of genius!”

Although Liu Chengfeng was rather taken aback by these words, he still felt rather gratified. It seemed that after suffering setbacks from last time’s marriage proposal, Xiao Yu’s mental state had been elevated.

At the very least, he voiced flattering words quite smoothly. If it’d been the previous Xiao Yu, he would’ve never disdained to say such things.

It looked like Xiao Yu had matured.

Liu Chengfeng doted on this disciple the most and he was happy to see him develop thus.

One had to say, Xiao Yu’s flattery hit precisely the right points. He first self deprecated and lowered his posture, then he heightened Zhou Yi’s genius through compare and contrast.

Some traces of a smile appeared on Zhou Yi’s originally coolly composed face.

“Xiao Yu, your Northern Palace is also one of my honored master’s men. We’re all of the same family in the end. You needn’t stand on ceremony. When the honored master received your urgent and secret missive this time, he sent me and these junior brothers out of the mountain. Just how large of a business deal is this that even you as the Northern Palace can’t get a thorough grasp on things?”

Liu Chengfeng took over, “This time’s matter involves too many parties, if it wasn’t for the senior executives of the sect backing me up, I would be hard pressed to make this decision. The matter is thus — I saw Tian Shao of the Dragonteeth Guard accompany a woman to the border a few days ago. I sent men to follow them and I discovered that they had stashed away thousands of creatures at the peak of the mortal rank amongst the borders.”

“Peak of mortal rank? Thousands of them?” Zhou Yi’s tone tightened with gravity.

“Indeed, beyond a doubt! All fine specimens of the peak of mortal rank and they are of even higher quality than our Yellow Winged Condors and the Dragonteeth Guard’s Lesser Dragons. I have never seen such numbers of spirit fowl in all my years of raising creatures for the Northern Palace.”

The Yellow Winged Condors were the equivalent of the Silverwing Swordbirds. It was also quite difficult to raise them, and each Condor represented painstaking effort from the Northern Palace.

The first time when Jiang Chen had passed through the Northern Palace, he so happened to run into the two frauds that the Northern Palace disciples were furiously chasing after. It was because the two frauds had posed as Dragonteeth Guard and defrauded them of two of their Condors that the Northern Palace disciples had run into Jiang Chen and the others.

They had the impulse of giving up on those frauds when they saw Jiang Chen’s entourage and switched to robbing Jiang Chen of his Goldwing Swordbirds instead.

This was the beginning of the grudges between the Northern Palace and Jiang Chen.

This also obliquely demonstrated that it was truly difficult to raise a Yellow Winged Codnor.

And now that thousands of spirit creatures that were of even higher quality than the Condors had appeared, this caused the Northern Palace’s blood to boil and for them to be at a loss of what to do.

Although they knew that all of it had to do with Jiang Chen, they still decided to take the risk when greed stared at them in the face.

Besides, they were well aware that the Northern Palace had long since formed a death grudge with Jiang Chen, and there was no need to be polite with him.

Liu Chengfeng knew that with the Northern Palace’s strength, they may not be able to fight against Jiang Chen.

Therefore, he had chosen to send an extremely urgent missive to Elder Iron and ask him for his instructions.

If the sect made an appearance and gave its support, then Liu Chengfeng could act with impunity even if this matter had to do with Jiang Chen and the Dragonteeth Guard.

Zhou Yi also became enthusiastic when he heard Liu Chengfeng’s words, “If they really are at the peak of the moral rank, then their battle strength is on par with an expert true qi master. This isn’t rare if it was a human practitioner, but it is very uncommon if it was spirit creatures! Palace Head Liu, much credit goes to you for this time’s accomplishment!”

Liu Chengfeng was also overjoyed with Zhou Yi’s acknowledgement, “Not at all, not at all. We’re all working for Elder Iron. I’ve always toiled away on his behalf without complaint.”

“Mm, then, where are those spirit creatures now?” Zhou Yi asked.

Below the ground, Jiang Chen exerted his Ear of the Zephyr to its limits, deathly afraid of missing a single word. Rage was boiling and frothing in his heart for a long time.

All this did indeed have to do with the Northern Palace!

Liu Chengfeng sighed, “I’d thought to ambush them in our territory. After all, Tian Shao didn’t take many men with him and he was with a woman to boot. We could ambush them with no one being the wiser. However, a great accident occurred in the midst of all this.”

A great accident?

Zhou Yi was immensely startled as Jiang Chen below the ground was also taken aback. What accident could there have been?

“Just what is the situation? Hurry and speak.”

“Disciples from my Palace had been keeping an eye on them along the way, preparing to ambush them as soon as they turned back. Who would’ve thought that the mantis was stalking of the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. Tian Shao and the others were intercepted by another party before they had time to turn back.”

“How is that possible? Apart from you, who else in the Skylaurel Kingdom has such daring to make a move against the Dragonteeth Guard?” Zhou Yi found it hard to believe.

“They’re not from the Skylaurel Kingdom. The mountain valley that the spirit creatures were in was not part of our kingdom’s jurisdiction, it was part of the neighboring Yunmeng Kingdom. The Yunmeng Kingdom has always been unfriendly with us and under the protection of the Purple Sun Sect! Those who intercepted them were precisely disciples from the Purple Sun Sect!”

“The Purple Sun Sect?” Zhou Yi’s forehead creased. “Does the Purple Sun Sect wish to become involved in this mess?”

“Indeed, it’d be hard for them not to be tempted with such a large number of spirit creatures.” Liu Chengfeng sighed. “My abilities are paltry and I was forced to ask Elder Iron for his aid.”

“That is to say that the Purple Sun Sect already have the spirit creatures in hand?”

“Not yet, not yet!” Liu Chengfeng hastened to say. “The Purple Sun Sect Group is the stronger party as they have some disciples at the earth spirit realm and the small spirit realm. Although they hold an advantage in absolute power, but Tian Shao and the others have the strength of large numbers of spirit creatures. They’re an even match for now and they are in a stalemate. The Purple Sun Sect disciples obviously don’t wish to harm too many spirit creatures and they want to capture them alive, so they should still be in stalemate.”

“Stalemate?” Zhou Yi chuckled. “Stalemate is good, that’s precisely what we need. Come, let’s go and take a look. We do not be in a hurry to make a move. The best thing is that both sides sustain great losses and we swoop in for the easy pickings.”

Liu Chengfeng beamed, “That’s what I was thinking as well.”

Liu Chengfeng felt greatly reassured with the appearance of the sect disciples representing Elder Iron’s intentions.

“Right, we shouldn’t linger for too long. Tian Shao and his group have been there for a while already, I’m worried that Jiang Chen will become suspicious if they don’t return soon. Things will become even trickier if he arrives.”

“Jiang Chen?” Zhou Yi’s tone turned frosty when he heard this name. “And what the hell is he? I’ve heard that he’s offended my honored master and I was fretting I couldn’t find him. If he pokes his head out, I’ll capture him and take him back for my master’s judgement!”

Liu Chengfeng dithered, thinking that ‘Although the earth spirit realm is strong, Jiang Chen isn’t someone to be overlooked. Your honored master was at the peak of the earth spirit realm and he couldn’t do anything to Jiang Chen.’

Zhou Yi seemed to read Liu Chengfeng’s mind as he snorted, “Old Liu, speak candidly. I know that Jiang Chen scared you out of your britches last time and I’ve heard Wang You speak of the marriage proposal. This Jiang Chen played some power games and he cowered behind borrowed influence. If it hadn’t been for Tutor Ye’s appearance, my master would’ve put ten Jiang Chens to death. If it hadn’t been old man Fei suddenly appearing the last time, what basis would Jiang Chen have to strut around with?”

“Yes, yes! Jiang Chen is flaunting and strutting around with borrowed power!” Liu Chengfeng nodded hastily, but he inwardly prayed that Jiang Chen wouldn’t arrive that quickly. Although Zhou Yi spoke masterfully, Liu Chengfeng wasn’t that certain that the former would be able to do much against Jiang Chen.

After all, many people who’d seemed stronger than Jiang Chen had all walked away with a face full of dust in front of Jiang Chen. Yang Zhao didn’t even know how he had died.

Perhaps Jiang Chen was skilled at borrowing strength, but why were these great personages happy to lend it to him?

Liu Chengfeng had thought of this question previously, but he had to admit that there was indeed a great power in Jiang Chen that they were unable to fully see through.

“Alright, good things shouldn’t be delayed! Old Liu, lead the way and let’s go take a look. I have a better idea now that the Purple Sun Sect disciples have become involved.” A few more traces of ease could be found in Zhou Yi’s tone.

Jiang Chen below the ground would’ve never guessed that even the disciples of the Purple Sun Sect would become involved. This posed a rather thorny problem.

“The Purple Sun Sect!” Jiang Chen lightly ground out that name as a sharp light shot flashed in his eyes. “Long Juxue, I hope your current strength doesn’t disappoint, otherwise I’ll feel rather bored when I kill you!”

The accidental involvement of the Purple Sun Sect reminded Jiang Chen of the events in the Eastern Kingdom, recalling Long Juxue, those disciples, and the battle in front of the Second Crossing.

Even to this day, Jiang Chen still hadn’t determined just which hidden power had dissipated Chu Xinghan’s mighty blow in the face of his overwhelming advantage and saved him?

Jiang Chen often thought of this matter even now, but he couldn’t find an answer.

He’d once suspected that it had been the old grandfather of the Eastern clan, but he felt that that was impossible upon further thought. Chu Xinghan was someone who’d entered the earth spirit realm. The old grandfather of the Eastern clan was most likely not at that level yet.

Besides, there was no motivation for the Eastern grandfather to save him.

And even if he had, there was no reason for him to conceal his identity.