His broadsword whistled like thunder as it slashed down on the white-robed man, bringing with it a will that wished to destroy the very heavens.

That sword blow no longer seemed like a Battle Skill. Instead, it seemed like it was a kind of Dao that wished to defy the heavens and overturn the earth.

Seeing Long Chen’s attack slashing down on him, the white-robed man’s tortoiseshell flew out.

What shocked everyone was that the originally palm-sized tortoiseshell quickly enlarged, reaching three meters in width as it protected him behind it.

BOOM!

Sword Qi heavily slashed down upon that tortoiseshell. The strange lines on top of it lit up, and a bizarre reaction occurred.

Long Chen’s Sword Qi seemed to be like light hitting a mirror, and the majority of it was reflected out.

The tortoiseshell managed to block that attack, but in the end, it finally cracked and exploded from the terrifying force. Its pieces scattered to the ground.

As for the white-robed man, he also wasn’t that well off and repeatedly vomited out blood. Obviously, that tortoiseshell had been unable to completely block all of Split the Heaven’s force, and as the tortoiseshell’s master, the white-robed man also received a heavy impact.

The strange lines on top of the tortoiseshell had dispersed most of the force. However, he was still heavily wounded.

Looking at the tortoiseshell pieces and the wildly vomiting blood white-robed man, people became a bit sluggish. They were filled with reverence towards Long Chen.

Crack! Suddenly, people noticed that Long Chen’s broadsword was covered in growing cracks.

The broadsword finally exploded, its fragments littering the ground.

Looking at those fragments, Long Chen couldn’t help but sigh. Even this broadsword’s quality was too inferior to endure Split the Heaven’s force.

Bursts of pain came from Long Chen’s meridians at this time. It felt as if they were on fire, some aftermath of using Split the Heavens.

Despite advancing to the Blood Condensation realm and having his meridians grow wider by a great deal, and even despite the expert from the Spirit World transforming them, Long Chen’s meridians were still unable to completely endure the impact.

But of course, this was many times better than the last time. His meridians were only slightly damaged and hadn’t cracked. They would recover quickly.

The most important thing was that this was his most powerful application of Split the Heavens, but his meridians had still been able to take it. That was definitely something to celebrate.

And another surprise for him was that despite using his full strength, he was still far from being able to bring out the full potential of Split the Heavens. It seemed like it was much more profound than he had thought and he had only just begun to scratch its surface.

He was a bit regretful that he hadn’t managed to kill the white-robed man. Who would have thought he would have such a strange life-saving measure?

That tortoiseshell definitely wasn’t an ordinary item. It was practically unheard of within the secular world. He couldn’t compare to sect disciples when it came to the treasures they possessed.

All of his spiritual qi was now exhausted. Even the divine ring behind him faded away. He was now deathly tired, entering an extremely weak state.

But Long Chen knew that the white-robed man wasn’t that much better off. Looking at him vomiting blood, his internal injury must be severe. Both of them were still relatively even.

However, Long Chen’s side held a definite advantage since he had two Tendon Transformation experts who weren’t injured at all. Furthermore, he also had Little Snow and Chu Yao. The white-robed man would definitely die.

CRACK!!!

More cracking sounds rang out, startling the crowd. But when they looked carefully at Long Chen and the white-robed man, nothing strange seemed to be happening.

CRACK!!!

This time people managed to hear that this sound wasn’t coming from them.

“The city gates!”

People hastily turned to see that the huge, imposing city gates had become covered in cracks.

“Long Chen’s attack caused the city gates to crack!”

People suddenly noticed that a deep ditch had been dug in front of the city gates. That ditch led straight up to the white-robed man.

Only then did people realize that the tortoiseshell had deflected the majority of Long Chen’s attack into the city gates.

Although it didn’t completely break the gates, they were still badly damaged, giving people an endless shock.

Just what level of strength was that? Was that a strength that humans could really possess?

Furthermore, that had been caused by only a part of the force that had been reflected by the tortoiseshell. If it had been a direct hit, the entire city gates would have probably been completely destroyed, right? Everyone’s jaws dropped as they looked on in horror.

CRACK!

The city gates continued cracking, and in front of everyone’s appalled eyes, they began to completely collapse!

“NO!”

What was completely unbelievable for everyone was the scene of the white-robed man looking at the city gates in fright. He even let out a heart-rending cry.

BOOM! Countless pieces of rubble shot out as the city gates tumbled to the ground.

Suddenly, a three-meter-thick pillar of light shot from the ruins of the city gates into the sky. An extremely dense spiritual qi was blown out along with it.

Everyone only watched dumbfounded by these events that completely overturned their comprehension of the world.

Long Tianxiao suddenly realized something after seeing that pillar of light. Years of suspicions and doubt were completely resolved at this moment.

“It’s a spirit stone mine. There’s a spirit stone mine below the city gates!” Some people had managed to see through what it was.

Spirit stones were special spiritual items formed naturally from heaven and earth. They were condensed underground for millions and millions of years, absorbing endless spiritual qi to form a kind of ore.

That kind of ore was viewed as a lifeblood for cultivators. It was said this kind of ore vein was extremely rare, and most of them had already been occupied by the various large sects.

Only with the support of spirit stones could sect disciples cultivate so quickly. It was the greatest support of the sects.

Long Tianxiao had a complicated expression as he shook his head at the distant fourth prince. “Just for a vein of ore, you wanted to kill and silence me?”

The fourth prince’s expression was ashen. He knew that his judgment day had finally arrived. In front of Long Tianxiao’s words, there was not even the slightest thing he could say in return.

“Years ago when we were drinking, His Majesty once told me that there was a vein of ore near the capital. He said if it was excavated, it would allow the Phoenix Cry Empire to rise high above other empires.

“Back then I thought he was talking about some rare iron ores that could be forged into weapons, so I only laughed and didn’t pay it any mind.

“I really never thought that it was because of something like this that you thought I had learned your secret. You wanted to exterminate me for something like that? That really is a joke,” Long Tianxiao sighed and shook his head.

“WHAT?!” The fourth prince was shocked. He had always thought that Long Tianxiao had known all about the spirit stone mine.

Over twenty years ago, the Grand Xia had married off their most beautiful princess to Phoenix Cry in order to prevent further conflicts and form an alliance between the two empires.

But the Grand Xia’s princess’s mission hadn’t been to make peace. She had a greater mission. That mission was to take control of Phoenix Cry so that it could be swallowed by the Grand Xia.

That had been shrewdly hidden by the princess extremely deeply. Once she had arrived at Phoenix Cry, she put in her full effort to wait upon the Emperor, and with her skillful techniques in bed, she began to receive heavy pampering from the Emperor.

Not long after, she gave birth to a prince, the fourth prince. The Grand Xia’s princess had always maintained a low profile, never entering the conflicts between concubines, patiently enduring and eventually becoming a good sister to the Empress.

Originally, the Grand Xia’s plan had been to overturn Phoenix Cry, but during that process, the fourth prince’s mother found a shocking secret.

That secret had been told to her by the Emperor after he had gotten drunk. He had told her that Phoenix Cry was about to become the most powerful empire in all of history. Being put on guard from that, the princess had used all her skills in bed to make the Emperor a slave to her skirts, and he finally told her the secret that he had found a spirit stone mine.

Originally, the Emperor had been planning on building a secret tunnel to be used to escape from assassinations or other dangers. If an enemy managed to enter the city, he could manage to slip away without anyone noticing.

But halfway through the excavation of the secret tunnel, they had found that the stones were becoming increasingly harder, and even cobalt started to appear.

Cobalt was a partner substance that was formed along with spirit stones. Where there was cobalt, there would be spirit stones. That discovery caused the Emperor to go wild with joy.

He directly exterminated everyone who had known about the secret tunnel to keep the whole matter secret. However, the Emperor had never been a tight-lipped person.

A short while after telling her this, he died of ‘natural causes’.

The Emperor had been within the Empress’s palace when he had died. Moreover, he had died on their bed while being intimate with each other.

The Empress had been frightened out of her mind, but luckily, the fourth prince’s mother had ‘just happened’ to be walking by.

And in her panic, she had taken her good sister’s advice, faking that the Emperor had entered seclusion.

The plan was that they would eventually say he had died in seclusion, limiting the amount of panic that would occur. They just had to find a suitable moment.

In the end, under her scheming, the Empress smoothly gained all the authority over the empire. Lured by the power, she decided to just leave the Emperor in ‘seclusion’ forever.

As for the spirit stone mine, she never learned anything about it.

Whenever she would have any tough problems she would always go to her good sister for help. Her sister became her most trusted aide.

The fourth prince’s mother leaked the information of the spirit stone mine to her father. The matter had become too huge, so she didn’t dare do too much without his advice.

This occurred right at the moment when an expert from the Xia family was in a sect. But that expert wasn’t even good enough to become a disciple. He was only a worker. But by using this information, it was possible for him to enter the sect as a disciple.

Everything went extremely smoothly. The sect secretly sent people to investigate the terrain, confirming the existence of a spirit stone mine.

But rushing in to mine it would release spiritual qi, alarming the surrounding powers. They sent orders down to take control of Phoenix Cry as fast as possible and also built a Hidden Spirit Formation to completely conceal the aura from the spirit stone mine.

That Hidden Spirit Formation had precisely been the city gate tower. Normally, the aura from the spirit stone mine was completely isolated from the rest of the world. That way they could secretly mine it in the future.

However, members from the sects couldn’t reveal themselves in the secular world without other powers noticing. And so they could only rely on the power of cultivators from the secular world. In order to not cause too many waves, they could only rely on the Grand Xia slowly infiltrating Phoenix Cry.

But their only worry was Long Tianxiao who also knew about this. He had become their biggest problem, and that was what had led to all of this.

But now Long Tianxiao said he hadn’t known about the spirit stone mine. Just what kind of joke was this? They had been more than capable of silently mining the spirit stone mine the entire time.

“AHHH!!! I’LL KILL YOU ALL!!!”

A bitter voice screamed out. The white-robed man was like a beast as he looked at Long Chen and the others, his eyes filled with wild killing intent.