Chapter 833: Seeking Refuge

Half a month after accepting Emperor Haozun’s appointment, Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le returned to Dong Hai Province with a large number of subordinates.

Thanks to the rapid promotion of his title, in addition to Dong Hai Province, Wu Qi’s immediate fiefdoms now included thirty nearby provinces which were taken over from Zhong Province and two other first-grade provinces. These provinces were the fiefdoms that he could pass down to his heirs. As long as he did not conspire to revolt and offered a certain amount of tribute to Liangzhu every once in a while, he and his descendants were free to do whatever they wanted on the land of these thirty provinces.

With a large number of administration officials, Lu Chengfeng began to take over the vast territory newly transferred into Wu Qi’s name. Thirty provinces, thousands of counties, hundreds of thousands of cities, from Prefecture Overseers to County Governors, City Lords and administration officials of all grades, they all needed to be handled and arranged by him. If would be convenient if Wu Qi had thousands of children and grandchildren now. By just sprinkling his descendants across the thirty provinces, the basic administrative framework would be in place. In fact, this was also the most common means by which the powerful clans of Great Yu governed their territories.

The problem was that now Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le had no descendants. They did not have enough people to run these provinces, so all the trouble was left to Lu Chengfeng. For the time being, it was a good idea to keep the existing officials in place, as long as Yan Bugui sent enough spies to keep an eye on them.

Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le were too lazy to pay attention to these trifle affairs. They had focused only on Emperor Haozun’s appointment.

Thirty-six revered elders from the Secret Palace had followed Wu Qi secretly to Dong Hai Province. Beneath Dong Hai City, in a huge cave dug out overnight using magic, they carefully produced an oddly shaped Supreme Tower.

The pyramid-shaped Supreme Tower was all dark and several miles high, with a huge circular hole dug in the middle. Dazzling light could be seen flickering inside the hole that ran through the pyramid, while a violent aura of space energy was constantly spreading out from it, making many soldiers and generals in the cave extremely nervous.

The cave, dug by magic at a depth of a thousand miles, was twenty thousand miles in diameter and eight hundred miles high. Standing in such an enormous cave, the Supreme Tower looked tiny. At the moment, following Wu Qi’s instruction, tens of thousands of soldiers were carefully carving complex patterns on hard rocks around it. Thirty-six revered elders carefully examined the carved patterns, and then filled them with an alloy solution made by a mystic art.

After solidifying, the purple-glowing alloy solution turned deep black. As the revered elders worked tirelessly, a huge formation ten thousand miles in diameter, which looked like a black peony in full bloom, was gradually taking shape.

Thousands of energy crystals mined from beneath You Xiong Plain were sent into the air by magic. Suspended hundreds of miles above ground, these huge energy crystals were miles in diameter and contained enormous amounts of energy. All of them were carved into perfect spheres with complex runes on their surfaces.

The formation on the ground and the crystals suspended in the air formed a complete network of energy. When the last crystal was sent into the air, the cave began to fill with faint energy pulses that felt like the beatings of a heart, which made the soldiers and generals staggered as if they were drunk.

After that, 3,600 huge black stone pillars were erected. They were topped with green pillars of fire a hundred feet in diameter, which shot up to a height of a hundred miles, giving off an eerie green light that illuminated the whole cave. These pillars were used to suppress the energy pulses emanated from the formation and stabilize the surrounding void.

Wu Qi’s divine sense swept through the round cave. Because of the 3,600 pillars, the surrounding void had become extremely stable. He roughly calculated and concluded that it should be able to withstand the full-force blow of an immortal who had just stepped into the realm of Primordial.

‘These revered elders from the Secret Palace do have some fascinating techniques.’ Wu Qi was amazed as he looked at the thirty-six elders who were busy with their work.

After the pillars were erected, the revered elders performed a grand blood sacrifice under the Supreme Tower. Large numbers of livestock were slaughtered and blood was spilled all over the ground. Then, as the incantation murmured by the elders echoed across the cave, a blinding light burst from the hole in the middle of the pyramid. Immediately after that, viscous liquid energy turned into two monstrous water dragons and poured out of the hole with a terrible force, smashing into the rock walls thousands of miles away in an instant.

The huge cave began to tremble violently. Fortunately, the pillars had sealed off the void and made the rock walls immensely strong. Even so, Wu Qi saw that the void, which was strong enough to withstand a full-force blow from a ninth-tier Primordial expert, had cracked with numerous seams and was almost shattered by the two water dragons, which were purely made up of liquid energy.

The streams of liquid energy kept on pouring out of the holes. Soon the cave had turned into a sea of liquid energy, and its level was rising rapidly. In just a quarter of an hour, the cave was as full of liquefied natural energy as the huge spirit cave beneath You Xiong Plain, with extremely rich Pangu Sacred Energy surging back and forth restlessly like giant purple dragons.

This was the spatial corridor Emperor Haozun had ordered the revered elders of the Secret Palace to construct for Wu Qi. It connected this cave with the enormous spirit cave beneath You Xiong Plain, drawing endless natural energy there over here to help Wu Qi train his army.

With a diameter of twenty thousand miles, this cave was large enough to accommodate more than a billion people training at the same time, and the endless supply of natural energy constantly channeling from the spirit cave beneath You Xiong Plain was so abundant that they did not have to worry about the lack of energy. Coupled with Dark Yin Celestial Tower’s ability to accelerate time by two thousand times, as long as Wu Qi could find enough and reliable recruits, Dong Hai Province could secretly expand its army by hundreds of millions and become a major military stronghold east of Liangzhu.

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When all the work was done, Wu Qi sincerely thanked the revered elders, who then left in secret as when they came, without alerting anyone. No outsider knew that there was such a spirit cave beneath Wu Qi’s Dong Hai City.

Wu Qi, delighted, put his arms around Princess Zhang Le’s waist and laughed. “This is where our family will rise,” he said, “with this spirit cave, we can have as many soldiers as we want, and as many disciples as we want!”

The princess was excited, too. She put her hands on her waist and said confidently, “Just hand the task of training the new recruits to me. I’ll fill this cave with new recruits!”

Just as the couple was discussing how to maximize the use of this spirit cave to enhance their own overall strength, a gust of cold wind suddenly blew from behind. Gold Horn, Silver Horn, Gold Feather, and Silver Feather ran noisily in their direction. The brothers were fleeing in front, while the sisters were chasing after them. As they ran, Gold Horn shouted, “Boss, there’s an old man named Bo Zhongfu looking for you! You better go and meet him quickly, he looks like his whole clan has been eaten by someone!”

Wu Qi and Princess Zhang Le glanced at each other. The princess pointed to the cave and signaled that she would take care of things here.

Wu Qi nodded, then with a flash of his body he was back on the surface, appearing directly in the great hall within the Mansion of King of Dong Hai, the former Mansion of Prefecture Overseer. After being promoted to King of Dong Hai, the mansion was to be expanded in accordance with Great Yu’s norms of etiquette, but Wu Qi had not yet had time to pay attention to it, so everything remained the same as when he was Prefecture Overseer, and the great hall was slightly cramped.

The Prefecture Overseer of Zhong Province, Bo Zhongfu, was standing quietly in the middle of the great hall with his three sons. With hands clasped behind his back, he stared blankly straight ahead, while the expression on his face was changing constantly. But regardless of how it changed, as Gold Horn had said, he looked particularly unsightly as if his whole clan had been eaten by someone.

With a chilly breeze, Wu Qi appeared in front of him, smiling and bowing, “Lord Prefecture Overseer!”

Bo Zhongfu’s third son, Bo Yunting, was Wu Qi’s immediate superior, and it was only two or three years ago that Wu Qi was still under his command. Therefore, after greeting Bo Zhongfu, Wu Qi gave him a friendly nod.

Bo Zhongfu was startled by the sudden appearance of Wu Qi. He took a sharp step back, fixed his eyes on Wu Qi, and suddenly fell to his knees heavily with his three sons. An abnormal flush came over his pale face as he said in a hoarse voice, “King of Dong Hai, please help me! Please save my whole clan! Although my clan and King Wei Shan are related by marriage for generations, King Wei Shan…”

As he spoke, he suddenly choked on his own breath and began to cough so violently that blood sprayed out of his mouth.

Bo Yunting and his brothers hastily put their hands on their father’s back and rubbed it to help him breathe properly.

After a few moments of intense breathing, Bo Zhongfu stared at Wu Qi, who was dumbfounded, and cried out, “If King of Dong Hai can save my whole clan, we will pledge our allegiance to you from this day onwards, and my clan will be at your mercy for generations to come! If you don’t believe me, I can swear by my soul that if I dare to show even just the slightest sign of disobedience, I will be the last of my clan, and there will be no more Bo clan after I die!”

Looking at the agitated Bo Zhongfu, Wu Qi kept a straight and serious face, but inside he was bursting with joy. ‘So Bo Zhongfu’s clan and King Wei Shan are related by marriage for generations? Since the recent few generations of King Wei Shan are all the incarnations of some almighty experts from the Buddhism League, Bo Clan is bound to be exterminated in Great Yu’s purge of local officials because of this relationship!

‘But if I can take him under my wing… Among other things, he’s the Prefecture Overseer of Zhong Province who governs three hundred provinces!’

With such a vassal clan, Wu Qi’s strength would be completely different, and he would have the power similar to that of a real influential clan in Great Yu. Best of all, with Emperor Haozun’s trust in him now, and with his friendship with King Yang Shan, it would require him minimal effort to provide refuge for Bo Clan.

Looking at Bo Zhongfu, who was coughing up blood, Wu Qi pretended he was thinking for a long time, before finally nodded slowly.

“Third Yong Master and I have a great relationship, so, how can I stand by and watch now that Bo Clan is in trouble? Please rest assured, Prefecture Overseer, I’ll undertake the responsibility of taking care of Bo Clan! As long as Bo Clan completely severe its connection with King Wei Shan, I promise that none of you will be implicated!”

Bo Zhongfu breathed a sigh of relief at Wu Qi’s promise. He nodded and said with a smile, “The connection has been completely severed. King of Dong Hai can trust me on this!”

Wu Qi helped him up. The two looked at each other and smiled at the same time.