“A brilliant move!” He Junyi clapped his hands, his eyes gleaming with approval. “If we withdraw, the Zhao and Cheng families will be paralyzed by paranoia. They’ll terrify themselves thinking we’re razing their undefended spiritual mountains. We leave a few scouts behind, and the moment they stick their heads out of that tortoise shell, we strike with a carbine thrust! Without their Grand Formation, they are nothing.”

Ji Shuguang sneered, waving a dismissive hand. “Why leave them guessing? We should march straight to their doorsteps in broad daylight. Strip their vaults bare. I refuse to believe they evacuated every last scrap of wealth. And if we find anyone left behind? Kill them. Let their blood serve as a warning.”

He Junyi hesitated, his brow furrowing. “Wouldn’t that forge a blood feud that can never be unmade? The only ones left behind would be the old, the infirm, the mortals… slaughtering them might be excessive.”

“Excessive?” Gu Lizhan cut in, his voice dripping with venom. “Look around you, He Junyi. We are already at war. Did they show mercy when they butchered the Gu and Si cultivators? If your stomach is too weak for the task, stand aside. This old man will stain his own hands.”

“Patriarch Gu speaks with wisdom,” Ji Shuguang said, smoothly stepping in to paint a tantalizing picture. “The Zhao and Cheng families fled in a panic. Their mountains are ripe for the taking. Patriarch Gu, I suggest you pick the choicest peak among them to re-establish your clan’s foundation.”

Gu Lizhan’s eyes widened, greed instantly replacing his anger. He bowed deeply. “My gratitude, Elder Ji!”

“No need for thanks. It is what you are owed.” Ji Shuguang stood, commanding the room. “It is decided. We withdraw immediately. We will collect some ‘interest’ from the Zhao and Cheng estates. If they dare sortie to stop us, we crush them. If they continue to hide like turtles, we turn our blade toward the Wang family!”

The movement of nearly a thousand cultivators was impossible to mask, nor did Ji Shuguang attempt to. The coalition army retreated from Thunder Roar Mountain with arrogant swagger, their banners snapping in the wind.

Inside the barrier, Lei Liheng watched them go. He immediately convened a war council.

The patriarchs of the Zhao and Cheng families wore expressions of pained conflict. They knew their homes were being ravaged, their ancestral halls likely defiled. Yet, even if they were given a second life, they wouldn’t dare step outside the array. They had come to Thunder Roar Mountain prepared to pay a price for survival. This was that price.

They dispatched urgent transmission talismans to the Wang and Li families, warning them of the shifting tide. It was a cold courtesy. The Wang and Li clans hadn’t sent aid to Thunder Roar Mountain, and the Lei alliance had no intention of returning the favor. But intelligence was the one commodity they could afford to share. If they severed even that line of communication, the five families would truly be enemies when the dust settled.

Wang Family Ridge.

The warning arrived swiftly. Wang Hao wasted no time.

In the clan hall, he sat across from Patriarch Wang Yanzhao and laid out a heavy wager. To secure the Li family’s unconditional support, Wang Hao offered to cede a massive portion of the next harvest from the Essence Condensing Fruit tree.

If the tree bore three fruits again, the Li family would receive two.

Given Wang Hao’s exceptional alchemy success rate, a single fruit could yield four Foundation Establishment Pills. This was a king’s ransom.

Li Yaozu, the Li patriarch, accepted the terms after a brief calculation. But in truth, he would have likely agreed even without such a rich bribe.

The Li family’s rise was inextricably tied to the Wang clan. Without Wang Hao, the raw fruits were useless to them—they had no alchemist capable of refining the treacherous Foundation Establishment Pill. If the Wang family fell, the Li family would return to the dark ages, begging scraps from the Qingyuan Sect’s auctions.

History was proof enough. The Li family had obtained ten Foundation Establishment Pills over the years—every single one traced back to Wang Hao or his clan. From the initial fruit split, to the demon core trade, to Wang Hao’s overseas acquisitions, and the spoils of war against the demonic cultivators.

Of those ten pills, they had used seven and produced five Foundation Establishment experts. With two currently stationed overseas, the Li family brought five powerful experts to Wang Family Ridge.

The defense force was substantial.

The Wang family fielded Wang Hao, Wang Yanzhao, Wang Longyou, Wang Yanzhi, and Wang Wenyuan. Combined with the five Li elders, they had ten Foundation Establishment cultivators holding the line—more than the three families at Thunder Roar Mountain combined.

However, numbers could be deceiving. Wang Yanzhi was still nursing grievous wounds. Wang Guang’an, their strongest fighter at the peak of Foundation Establishment, was absent. Several of the defenders, including Wang Wenyuan, were newly ascended rookies. In terms of raw combat power, they were somewhat brittle.

The Li family arrived in force, abandoning their own mountain to pack into Wang Family Ridge. They beat the Maple Leaf army by mere hours.

The Wang clan’s defense relied on the Dazzling Light Sky Fire Array. Unlike the Lei family’s turtle shell, this formation sacrificed durability for devastating offense. It was easier to breach, but it had teeth. The best defense, after all, was to incinerate the attacker.

There were four critical array nodes. Wang Yanzhao assigned the commanders: himself, Wang Hao, Wang Longyou, and Li Yaozu would each hold a node, supported by a deputy Foundation Establishment cultivator and thirty Qi Refining disciples.

Wang Yanzhi commanded the mobile reserve.

In a transparent attempt at matchmaking, Li Yaozu assigned Li Derong—the strongest fighter among the Li deputies—to Wang Hao’s node. The elders hoped the proximity would spark a romance between the two prodigies.

It was a wasted effort. Wang Hao and Li Derong had known each other for decades, fought side-by-side in the wilderness, and faced death together. They shared a deep, professional respect, but their hearts belonged to the Great Dao. Neither had room for a Dao Companion.

The Maple Leaf army appeared on the horizon, a dark stain against the sky.

Having learned from the stalemate at Thunder Roar Mountain, they abandoned probing attacks. There was no tentative testing of the shield. They launched a total assault from the first second.

Low-tier formations shared a common weakness: point attacks were ineffective, but distributed pressure could crack them. The enemy split their forces, hammering all four sides of the mountain simultaneously. Each flank was spearheaded by four or five Foundation Establishment experts.

At Wang Hao’s node, five enemy experts stepped forward.

They wasted no words. Talismans ignited, and Magical Artifacts hummed with lethal intent as they bombarded the shimmering curtain of light.

Inside the array, Wang Hao watched the chaotic blooms of energy ripple across the barrier. His expression remained placid. He raised a hand, fingers splayed.

“Now.”

Behind him, the Qi Refining disciples waved their command flags in unison, pouring their spiritual energy into the nodes.

The sky above the array warped. Clouds of red light swirled and condensed into hundreds of roaring fireballs. With a collective gesture from the defenders, the fire rain descended.

The enemy Foundation Establishment experts sneered, easily dodging or deflecting the flames with personal barriers. Their Qi Refining subordinates were not so lucky.

The fireballs didn’t fall one by one; they descended in clusters. A single Qi Refining cultivator might face a dozen explosive spheres at once. Panic set in. Shields shattered, screams were cut short, and within moments, dozens of attackers were reduced to ash.

Ye Jingshan, leading the assault on this flank, gritted his teeth. “This formation bites back.”

He exchanged a glance with his lieutenant and reached into his robes, pulling out a shimmering, ominous talisman—an Array Breaking Talisman.

They had used one at Thunder Roar Mountain to great effect. It didn’t just attack the shield; it sent a seismic shockwave through the earth veins, destabilizing the very foundation of the mountain.

“Coordinate with the southern flank,” Ye Jingshan ordered. “We hit them together.”

Moments later, two Array Breaking Talismans were activated simultaneously.

They struck the barrier like meteors.

BOOM!

The sound was less an explosion and more a tectonic groan. The entirety of Wang Family Ridge convulsed violently.

Inside the node, the Qi Refining disciples were thrown to the ground, blood leaking from their ears. Even Wang Hao had to bend his knees to absorb the shock, his internal organs rattling. He gritted his teeth, forcing a surge of True Essence into the control flag to stabilize the wavering light.

But the Array Breaking Talisman was a nemesis to structured energy. The connection to the earth veins stuttered. The barrier protecting Wang Hao’s sector thinned, becoming translucent and fragile.

“Pour it on!” Ye Jingshan roared, seeing the opening. “Break it!”

The Maple Leaf cultivators unleashed a frenzy of attacks. Artifacts, spells, and talismans smashed into the weakened section like a landslide.

CRACK!

Despite Wang Hao’s desperate stabilization, the damage to the foundation was too severe. A jagged breach tore open in the curtain of light directly in front of them.

Only this sector had fallen; the other three nodes held firm, their curtains still shimmering. But the enemy had their door.

Wang Hao slapped the transmission talisman at his waist, his voice calm but urgent. “Sector One breached. Requesting mobile support.”

He glanced at Li Derong. She met his gaze, her eyes hard and focused. Years of hunting demon beasts together meant they didn’t need words. The main wall was down, and they couldn’t hold back five Foundation Establishment experts with just their artifacts.

In perfect sync, they both slapped their Storage Bags. A new set of array flags appeared in their hands, humming with prepared energy.