The Chong Clan fought its way through the city, pushing towards the center where the large entrance to the subterranean caverns was located. The streets ran with blood, but it only took a few hours for the Chong Clan to take control of Good Fortune City. The other Clans, Sects, and groups in the city had already pledged neutrality or had surrendered to the vicious fellows with centipede masks. The Chong Clan formed a perimeter around the Fu Clan compound, keeping them contained while they solidified their control over the city.

Without even needing to ask, the Ci and Min Branches stepped forward to maintain control over Good Fortune City. The Branches had already fulfilled their obligations, but even with the heavy losses they’d suffered they were still willing to step forward to assist the Chong Clan. The main family allowed them to step in, as they were after the glory of defeating their longtime rivals. Allowing the Branches to take over patrolling the streets would free up more of their own forces for the real attack. Taking control of Good Fortune City was only the warm up.

A couple more hours were spent securing the city before the Chong Clan advanced upon the Fu Clan proper. It was at that point that the Fu Clan chose to bring out their magical siege weaponry once again. They had five multi-storied buildings that were like clones of the defensive pagodas except instead of powering a giant defensive barrier, their energy was devoted to a small barrier protecting just the building. The buildings were quite large and had enough room for a dozen war machines on each floor, even though it was quite obvious that these buildings had signs on them detailing their former purposes. One of them, the ‘Training Hall’ was something of a gym, usually filled with training dummies and exercise equipment, but it was Sage’s guess they just swapped all the normal furniture for their large siege weapons. The buildings were probably designed as defensive fortresses and then repurposed to other uses in peace times. It would be extremely easy to change out all the furniture and bring out weapons using storage treasures.

The defensive buildings didn’t block the path into the underground cave system, but they were placed so they could bring their full power onto any moving into the caves while also being heavily shielded against attacks from other directions with large boulders. These large rock formations looked like natural extensions of the rocky outcropping that led to the subterranean passage, but they were covered with Formation Arrays to multiply their toughness. After a few probing attacks, the Chong Clan was smart enough to realize this open path was a psychological trick. Without anything stopping them from proceeding, they would be tempted to rush forward and simply accept the losses suffered from attacks by the defensive buildings. It was such a great trap, enticing the enemy to accept a small loss to avoid a big one. The defensive buildings were so heavily fortified that taking them down would surely cause great damage to the Chong Clan, far more than just rushing past them.

Sage watched these events from above. With the long gap allowed for securing the city, the Lang Clan had time to move one of their Observation Airships over Good Fortune City and Sage took the opportunity to go along for the ride. He preferred to let the Chong Clan take all the heat for wiping out the Fu Clan, so he was trying to stay out of it as much as possible. At the same time, he also wasn’t going to let this attack fail, so he wanted to be nearby in case things got out of control.

Giant weapons slung giant projectiles, enhanced with various types of elemental Qi and empowered by expensive materials. They smashed into the Chong Clan members and inflicted wounds with every attack. Yet, the Chong Clan didn’t take things lying down. They brought out their own siege weaponry and brought them to bear against the Fu Clan’s defensive buildings. The defenders had the advantage of more heavily fortified positions, but the Chong Clan used Formation Plates and shack-like stone buildings similar to the ‘command tent’ to insulate them from the Fu Clan’s weapons. Both sides slung attacks back and forth, adding to the blood running through Good Fortune City’s street gutters.

Sage was pleasantly surprised to see that the Chong Clan didn’t take the Fu Clan’s bait. They didn’t rush into the caverns and focused their attacks upon the defensive buildings. They even positioned themselves so only a small portion of the defender’s attacks could land on them, putting three of the buildings in line so two of them couldn’t contribute much to the battle. The Chong Clan attacked with single-minded devotion, focusing their all on eliminating each of the defensive fortresses one by one. When the first one was finally smashed apart and its survivors torched by the multi-colored flames of many different cultivators, they finally couldn’t stand it any longer and Sage felt the disturbance in the air.

The laws of the world twisted and shifted, these powers were invisible to the normal person and only perceptible to powerful cultivators. Almost instantly, there was an equivalent response from the Chong Clan’s side. Eight individuals walked out of the subterranean passageway, each of them emitting powerful fluctuations of energy. Then, from the Chong Clan’s side, ten individuals stepped forward to meet them. As soon as these eighteen Nascent Souls took the field, the rest of the battle stopped. The siege weaponry went silent on both sides and every eye was turned towards this clash of the two Clan’s leaders.

From the numbers involved, it seemed obvious that the Chong Clan held the upper hand, but from the wary looks that either side was giving the other, it wasn’t quite so unbalanced as they assumed. A cultivator couldn’t tell the exact strength of those that were more than a few stages more powerful than themselves, so only a few of the people in this face-off had the full picture on the extent of the other party’s strength. They stared each other down and a few voice transmissions techniques flew back and forth, which Sage assumed was the strongest cultivators telling the others exactly how strong their enemies were.

As for Sage himself, he was still level 67 and so only the strongest on either side were out of his range of sensing. In the Fu Clan, two of the cultivators were outside his range, while in the Chong Clan only the Matriarch was. These three were the only peak Nascent Souls. Both clans also had a level 69, but the old woman of the Wa Faction was extremely old. Then the Fu Clan had a level 68 and 67, while the Chong Clan had a pair of 67s. The greater numbers on the Chong Clan’s side were made up in the lower end of Nascent Souls. The Fu Clan had a trio of new Nascent Souls, but they only matched up to the triplet women from the Xie Faction. The leader of the Xiyi, a level 66, and the pair from the Wu, a 64 and 62, had no equal counterpart in the Fu Clan. On the other hand, the Fu Clan also had an extra peak stage Nascent Soul over the Chong Clan.

When the battle starts, the Chong Clan will have to use weaker cultivators to restrain stronger ones and try to finish the lower level battles quickly. The Fu Clan might also be doing the same thing but in reverse. If the two strongest Fu Clansmen teamed up against the Chong Matriarch they have a good chance of beating her, and then the rest of them will be in big trouble with a pair of peak Nascent Souls running loose.

They might really be in big trouble if I wasn’t here. Hah. Who am I kidding? They’re probably going to have a skirmish and then try to come up with a reason to call things off if they’re too evenly matched.