Chapter 170: Chapter 159: Reverse-Slaying a Foundation Establishment (Final)

PFFT!

After reappearing, Lu Zhao could no longer suppress the backlash. He violently spewed a mouthful of viscous blood. Having used the Blood Shadow Escape for the second time, his deathly pale face instantly turned a waxy, sallow yellow, like gold paper. He felt his vision darken and stars swam before his eyes; he felt like he was about to faint on the spot.

Seeing this, Lu Zhao bit his tongue hard. The sharp pain allowed him to cling to his last shred of clarity. With a trembling hand, he took out the Jade Bottle again and poured the three remaining Red Blood Pills into his mouth. The Pill’s violent Medicinal Power exploded within him like a fire, preserving his last, fading breath.

After Zheng Feng’s desperate strike missed its mark, Lu Zhao’s counterattack came instantly. As Zheng Feng’s aura fluctuated wildly from the backlash of his Secret Technique and the missed attack, what greeted him were the four Corpse Puppets, which had finally completed their encirclement and formed a Battle Array!

The Tier Two Strong Demon Ape Corpse Puppet stood in the center, its Dark Gold body suffused with a bloody light. The three Tier One High-Grade Strong Iron Ape Corpse Puppets were positioned in a triangle like three steel fortresses. The Evil Qi of the four linked together, forming a mobile prison that reeked of death, slowly closing in without a single gap.

Soon, four massive, blood-red or black-and-blue fists, carrying a vicious wind powerful enough to shatter city gates, smashed down toward the trembling Zheng Feng from four inescapable blind spots! The shadow of death instantly engulfed what little remained of Zheng Feng’s vision.

"No!"

Zheng Feng’s eyes looked ready to split as he let out a roar of despair and indignation, filled with endless regret and venomous hatred. It was only now, as if waking from a long dream, that he truly realized what a fatal mistake he had made by losing his mind over his great-grandson’s tragic death.

Instead of choosing to flee immediately after being so heavily injured, he had let hatred cloud his judgment and tried to capture and kill Lu Zhao. As a result, he had fallen headlong into the death trap his opponent had laid.

Gravely wounded and on the verge of death, facing a Puppet Battle Formation composed of four painless, ferocious, fearless, and overwhelmingly strong Corpse Puppets, the outcome was already sealed!

PFFT! BANG! CRACK!

A series of dull thuds of flesh and bone colliding, the shattering of a protective barrier, and the crisp snap of a Skeleton completely breaking and pulverizing rang out one after another!

The dim Protective Spiritual Light that Zheng Feng had propped up with his remaining Magical Power shattered instantly like paper-mâché! His body instinctively recoiled, and he managed a harrowing escape from the heavy fists of the three Iron Ape Corpse Puppets smashing at him from the sides and rear. However, he was struck squarely in the center of his chest by a punch from the oncoming Tier Two Strong Demon Ape Corpse Puppet!

"WAAAH!!!"

Zheng Feng’s entire chest visibly caved in! Blood mixed with shattered internal organs and fragments of his sternum sprayed out wildly as his body was thrown backward uncontrollably, like a tattered kite with a snapped string.

His already-dwindling life force was, under the force of that punch, instantly extinguished like the last flicker of a candle in a gale. He crashed heavily against a massive, scorched-black rock in the distance. He twitched once like a dead fish, blackish-red foam mixed with organ fragments continuously bubbling from his mouth. His eyes lost focus. At this moment, he had truly run out of oil, his lamp extinguished, with only a single, tenuous breath remaining.

Lu Zhao fought back the dizziness churning in his Sea of Consciousness and the burning sensation from the Pill in his gut. His gaze was icy, without a trace of pity or hesitation.

With a thought, the advancing Tier Two Strong Demon Ape Corpse Puppet didn’t pause for a moment. It raised its massive, Dark Gold-covered foot and brought it stomping down with the force to crush mountains, aiming straight for Zheng Feng’s head, which he was too weak to turn.

SPLAT!

A sickening, muffled sound, like a ripe watermelon being smashed by a giant rock, made one’s scalp tingle.

The Zheng Family Ancestor, Zheng Feng, had fallen!

Lu Zhao let out a long, foul breath thick with the smell of blood, as if expelling all the pent-up frustration in his chest. He forced his nearly collapsing body forward, his steps unsteady, and quickly collected Zheng Feng’s ruined corpse, the Flying Shuttle on the ground, and the intact Storage Bag from his waist.

After recalling the four Corpse Puppets into his Corpse Nurturing Bag, Lu Zhao’s gaze turned calm and cold. He looked far into the distance, toward the Zheng Family’s Spirit Mountain.

"My revenge... is only half complete," he muttered to himself, his voice hoarse and icy.

Lu Zhao intended to finish the other half. Without Zheng Feng to hold the fort, the Zheng Family was no longer impregnable in his eyes, even with their Tier Two Mountain Protection Array.

’A Grand Array without a Foundation Establishment Cultivator to control it... is just a dead thing,’ Lu Zhao thought. ’Besides, I know the Array’s weak points... How many full-force assaults from the Corpse Puppet Battle Array can it possibly withstand...’

「Half a day later, near the Zheng Family’s Spirit Mountain.」

A massive, translucent Array Light Curtain, like a giant inverted bowl, tightly enveloped the entire Zheng Family Spirit Mountain. Runes flowed erratically across the curtain’s surface, its Spirit Light glittering, emitting a powerful and heavy defensive aura. Beneath the light curtain, the dense buildings and scattered courtyards of the Zheng Family were visible.

Above the Spirit Mountain, dozens of figures riding Magical Artifacts darted about nervously on patrol. They had clearly received orders from their superiors to push the Array’s power to its absolute limit, making the light curtain as bright as if it were on fire.

Lu Zhao’s figure appeared before a seemingly ordinary mountain hollow outside the Array Light Curtain. The terrain here was gentle, and the Spiritual Power fluctuations seemed slightly more sluggish than elsewhere. This was the very place he had repeatedly confirmed through Zheng Hu’s memories: a relatively weak link in the Mountain Protection Array’s Spiritual Power circulation!

"Break!"

With a thought, a fierce light flashed in his eyes. The Tier Two Strong Demon Ape Corpse Puppet and the three Strong Iron Ape Corpse Puppets instantly appeared before the light curtain. Their heavy footsteps kicked up dust, and their massive figures blotted out a portion of the sky.

The four streams of ferocious Evil Qi instantly connected and solidified! Under the precise control of Lu Zhao’s Divine Sense Threads, four giant fists, like colossal siege rams, carried terrifying brute force. Wreathed in dense black Evil Qi, they brazenly smashed toward the light curtain’s node at the mountain hollow!

BOOM!!!!

The four forces, superimposed and resonating, generated destructive power far exceeding the full-force strike of an ordinary Early-stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator! At the point of impact, the Array Light Curtain violently caved inward, letting out a piercing, overburdened groan, a CREAK and a SQUEAL, as if it were about to shatter!

Countless fine cracks instantly spread out like lightning from the indentation! The radiance of the entire Grand Array covering the Spirit Mountain dimmed! Although its deep foundation prevented it from being pierced in a single blow, and the dented light curtain was struggling to squirm and repair itself, this strike had undoubtedly shaken the Array’s foundation. The cracks remained on the light curtain, as conspicuous as festering sores.

"Again!" Lu Zhao’s eyes were as cold as iron. Disregarding his own injuries, he once again activated the Corpse Puppet Battle Array! The target was still the same spot!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Once, twice, three times... Each combined heavy strike from the Corpse Puppet Battle Array landed like a war hammer on a drum, precisely hitting the center of the cracks at the same node! The Array Light Curtain fluctuated and trembled violently. Its Spirit Light flickered on and off erratically. The spreading cracks continued to widen and deepen like a spiderweb, and the speed of the repairing Spirit Light couldn’t possibly keep up with the speed at which the cracks were expanding!

The Cultivators who had been patrolling nervously above the Spirit Mountain were now in disarray. The few Zheng Family Elders in charge of the Array Discs at the Main Array Hub saw Lu Zhao’s arrival but couldn’t see their own Elder Ancestor. It was as if a dreadful thought occurred to them all, and their faces turned ashen. All they could do now was hold on and hope that their family’s Mountain Protection Array could stop the man before them!

「Twelve hours later.」

The light curtain was now as dim as a guttering candle in the wind, covered in cracks.

Accompanied by a colossal roar that shook the heavens and earth for dozens of miles around, a sound like the entire glass sky shattering to pieces, the Mountain Protection Array that had guarded the Zheng Family for countless years burst apart with a bang, like a punctured, illusory bubble!

Lu Zhao remained expressionless. Flanked by the four Corpse Puppets, who exuded a monstrous, ferocious Evil Qi like envoys from hell, he stepped over the shattered Array Base and walked through the once-impenetrable gates of the Zheng Family, all under the horrified gazes of the Zheng Family members.

「Another day later.」

The once prosperous and bustling Zheng Family, always filled with guests, had been reduced to a deathly silent expanse of scorched earth and ruins. Amidst the rubble, thick black smoke still smoldered, twisting and rising into the air. A pungent, heavy stench—a mixture of blood, charred wood, and burnt flesh—permeated the atmosphere.

On the few remaining tall buildings and stone walls, huge claw marks and horrifying holes and scorch pits left by Magic bombardments were everywhere. In a few corners that had been lucky enough to escape the Corpse Puppets’ destruction, the old, weak, women, and children of the Zheng Family huddled together like frightened quails, trembling uncontrollably. Their eyes, looking out at the ruined courtyards, held nothing but boundless terror and numb despair; even their sobs were faint and feeble.

Lu Zhao stood atop the ruins of a core hall that had been razed almost to the ground. Beneath his feet were hot rubble and cold bloodstains. He silently gazed at the scene before him, which looked as if it had suffered an apocalyptic tribulation. His expression was calm and untroubled, as if the scorched earth had nothing to do with him. Only a barely audible sigh, which dissipated into the wind, escaped his lips.

He knew he couldn’t possibly kill every single member of the Zheng Family. The number of Zheng Family Cultivators was far greater than the Xu Family’s. He currently had neither the strength nor the time to hunt down those who were away on missions, or the perceptive few who had sensed something was wrong just before the Mountain Protection Array shattered and used secret passages to escape.

However, the Zheng Family’s core combat strength was annihilated, their Foundation Establishment Ancestor had fallen, their Mountain Protection Array was broken, and their ancestral lands were destroyed... Each piece of this news was like a thunderclap that could shake the heavens.

Once word of the tragedy here spread... those old enemies suppressed by the Zheng Family, or neighboring powers that had been secretly coveting the Zheng Family’s vast resources, would inevitably swarm in like hungry sharks that had smelled blood, baring their greedy fangs.

In this cruel Cultivation Realm where the strong devour the weak and mercy is nonexistent, how long could the remaining Zheng Family bloodline, having lost their final sanctuary, possibly survive among the circling jackals?

"The rest... I’ll leave it to the world," Lu Zhao muttered, his voice indifferent. In the distance, the cries of a few vultures sounded particularly shrill.

He took one last look at the scorched earth, soaked in the blood and tears of countless Zheng Family members. Then, Lu Zhao turned, and his figure vanished completely. He left behind nothing but a silent, empty, massive tomb of ruins, its thick smoke yet to disperse, looking exceptionally desolate in the dim afterglow of the setting sun.

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