Xiang Shaoyun sat down cross-legged and started slowly sensing the formation lines carved atop the crystal vein, etching every single one of them into his brain. Meanwhile, a slaughter was progressing all around him. Scarlet Flame Monarch had set his eyes on a pseudo-God and two Great Saints. As a God, he mounted a sneak attack on them, easily defeating them.
However, he did not kill them; Xiang Shaoyun had requested that they capture the pseudo-Gods and Great Saints alive. As for the other enemies, none of them could escape. All of them perished under the hands of Despair, his men, and the Four Night Saints.
One of the top-tier Saints recognized Despair. A look of overwhelming shock covered his face as he exclaimed, "Y-you're the crown prince!"
"What a surprise. There is still someone here who remembers me? Good for you. At least you won't die a clueless death," said Despair as he locked onto the Saint with his aura of despair.
He then started madly slashing at the Saint. One saber of despair after another flew toward the Saint, instantly seriously injuring the helpless Saint and pushing the Saint to the brink of death. Quick-witted, the Saint quickly begged for mercy, promising to reveal the Tiele Dynasty's current situation. Only then did he gain the chance to live.
Since Despair wanted to reclaim everything that was his, he needed to understand the dynasty's current circumstances. Thus, he spared the Saint for now. Soon, he learned of the dynasty's latest updates. He also found out that the king had killed all his fellow clan members from his branch. Upon learning of that, he almost lost control over his killing intent.
Tiele Daxiong, I won't spare you! roared Despair inwardly.
Tiele Daxiong was none other than the king of the Tiele Dynasty. What grudge did he have with Despair? In truth, Despair was the descendant of the previous king and had been appointed the crown prince. Unfortunately, Despair was still a young boy when the king passed away from some accident.
The current king took the chance to steal the throne and proclaimed that he would return the throne to Despair when Despair reached adulthood. As Despair grew, he became a renowned general and crown prince that enjoyed the support of the masses. At that point, the king was naturally unwilling to pass on the throne that the king had snatched with great hardship. Thus, he schemed against Despair and almost killed Despair.
With great difficulty, Despair escaped with his life. However, he had become a wanted fugitive and could only live in the Western Desert. He started cultivating hard, hoping to one day take his revenge against the king.
Despair was now a Great Saint that even a peak Great Saint would have a hard time defeating. In fact, one needed to be a pseudo-God to stand a chance against him. However, he alone still couldn't take back everything that was his. Thus, he placed his hope on Xiang Shaoyun.
So long as Xiang Shaoyun agreed, Gods would move out against the Tiele Dynasty's Gods, giving Despair the chance to reclaim his throne.
After cleaning up the battlefield, Despair and his men arrived at the mountain ridge Xiang Shaoyun was at. He became increasingly hopeful that he would be able to take his revenge.
After two days of silent sensing, Xiang Shaoyun had finally finished investigating the god-grade formation.
After letting out a long breath, he said, "I never expected this to be three formations placed atop each other. How complicated. Furthermore, it covers a large area. This formation's creator is truly a monstrous genius."
With his memories from his previous two lifetimes, Xiang Shaoyun was extremely proficient in formations. Even so, he had no choice but to admit that the creator of this formation was an incredible expert. He stood up, released his clone, and flew out of the cave. He could sense that the aura of all the Tiele Dynasty members had disappeared.
With a satisfied expression, he looked at the Army of Despair standing guard around the mountain ridge and said, "Split into small groups and spread out. Don't allow anyone to approach this place."
"Yes, overlord."
Xiang Shaoyun then transmitted to Scarlet Flame Monarch, "Scarlet Flame, seal this place up. I might create quite a big scene later. I don't wish to attract any unwanted trouble."
Scarlet Flame Monarch nodded and sealed the area, making it so that an ordinary person would have no way of sensing or approaching the area. As for Xiang Shaoyun, both his main body and clone started working in tandem to break the formation.
The formation was not only located underneath the mountain ridge—many hidden formation lines were also beneath the nearby valleys. He had to work on the inner and outer formation at the same time before he could destroy the formation eye. Only then would he be able to slowly disable the formation. Otherwise, not even a God would be able to locate the entrance. In fact, the God might instead trigger the formation and turn himself into a pile of mincemeat.
Splitting his attention into two, Xiang Shaoyun utilized the divine dao eyes and profundity of earth to slowly destroy the formation eye. Despite his smooth progress, he still broke out in cold sweat, afraid that he would accidentally make a mistake. A mistake would cost him his life.
With his cautiousness and the divine dao eyes, he eventually broke the formation without any mishaps. He had taken seven days in total to achieve that feat. One could only imagine the feat's difficulty.
In his process of breaking the formation, he had also gained significantly, as his understanding on the combination of formations had deepened considerably. With the formation gone, the area around them underwent great changes. A terrifying dragon roar resounded from the valleys all around them.
Roar!
Nine energy dragons soared from the valleys. The dragons were stunning and lifelike, giving off a massive pressure to everyone in the area. Fortunately, everyone was an expert. They were able to resist such pressure, and no one was adversely affected.
"Sure enough, this is the aura of nine converging dragons. Even after being abandoned for so many years, these nine dragons are still considerably powerful. There is probably quite a lot of dragon liquid under the ground," muttered Xiang Shaoyun. He then reached out and absorbed the nine dragons into his astral cosmos sea.
The nine dragons were enough to help a Dragon Ascension Realm cultivator advance rapidly. In fact, they were extremely helpful even for Money. Of course, Xiang Shaoyun did not plan to let Money have them.
Money was already a Demon Saint. The celestial snake and dragon bloodlines in his body had reached a perfect balance. Even if the energy dragons could increase his strength considerably, it would still be much better to use these energy dragons on the youngsters from the sect.
After all, the Ziling Sect youngsters were still somewhat weak compared to the youngsters of other tier-8 organizations. The nine energy dragons would bring them to a whole new level and shorten the gap between them and the youngsters of the other organizations.