Demoness, where are you Fleeing to?
Chapter 832 - 691

Chapter 832: 691

While the fierce battle raged in the direction of Xiangyang City, Luo Yan, Jiang Hanyun, Yue Qianqian, Leng Yurou, and their companions were emerging from Xue Yunrou’s "Nine Heavens Ten Earths Pimo Divine Shuttle."

"Is this the Jinque Heavenly Palace?" Jiang Hanyun gazed into the distance at the magnificent and beautiful palace, her eyes filled with intense curiosity, "Indeed, a palace worthy of the heavens. I’m really curious to see what the scenery looks like above this Heavenly Palace."

Dongfang Liang’s complexion was ashen, "What are you trying to do? Are you planning to attack the Jinque Heavenly Palace? Have you all gone mad? Do you know what place Jinque Heavenly Palace is? Even the likes of the Yang Emperor of Sui, Taizong Emperor of Tang, the First Emperor of Yuan, and Emperor Tai of Jin never dared to entertain such thoughts."

"Why can’t we? Some say that there has been infighting within Jinque Palace. After Shaosiming fled with her palace-defending magical instrument, the ’Immortal Slashing Order’, and no one knew her whereabouts, the defensive system of Jinque Palace has shown significant vulnerabilities."

Luo Yan twirled a lock of her white hair, side-glancing at Dongfang Liang, "What’s the matter? You’ve taken so much Silver Coin from Li Xuan and taken shelter under his wings; are you being so timid about doing a little errand?"

The ones who were really timid weren’t just Dongfang Liang; Lu Xue, Master Mu, and others looked equally pale.

They didn’t know beforehand that their trip westward on the ’Nine Heavens Ten Earths Pimo Divine Shuttle’ would run into such bad luck.

Especially Lu Xue, who felt like crying. It was bad enough that he had to be drained of blood once a month; now, he had to serve Li Xuan and offend the Jinque Heavenly Palace. Truly, his luck had bottomed out.

That damn Bashe—

Dongfang Liang sneered, "The ’Nine-square Divine Array of the Large Circle’ of the Jinque Heavenly Palace does indeed hinge on the ’Zhushen Order’ and ’Immortal Slashing Order’ of Dasiming and Xiaosiming as its core. Xiaosiming’s departure with the ’Immortal Slashing Order’ certainly would induce a flaw in the array.

However, even so, one must not underestimate this divine array, especially the most central Nine Palaces array hub, which conceals infinite deadly mechanisms. Thinking we, with our meager force, can break into Jinque Heavenly Palace is pure fantasy!"

"What if I said we have collaborators inside the palace?"

Luo Yan grasped the twin knives inside her sleeve, "I won’t hide it from you, of the seven heavenly level individuals left to defend the palace, two will lend us aid. We have no intention of penetrating the heart of the Heavenly Palace; we only plan to enter the East Island of the palace.

But to ensure the success of this operation, we need someone familiar with the array structures of the Heavenly Palace to lead the way, and you, Dongfang Liang, are just the right person for it.

Dongfang Liang’s face twitched slightly. The East Island was Jinque Heavenly Palace’s ’storage area’.

Inside, the granaries were endless like the sea of clouds; gold, silver, and jewels were piled like mountains, along with all sorts of rare treasures, as well as a multitude of magical instruments and Immortal Artifacts stored there.

Although the most top-tier palace-defending instruments were deep within the Nine Palaces, the total value of the East Island’s storeroom was still over seventy million teals of patterned silver.

Although it was not the core area of Jinque Heavenly Palace, its importance was second only to the core array hub.

He scoffed disdainfully, his demeanor cold and indifferent, "Sorry! I clearly stated the terms of my agreement with County Prince Fenyang from the start: he can’t force me to be an enemy of Jinque Heavenly Palace."

Dongfang Liang speculated that the current Dasiming would never allow those old subordinates of Shaosiming to remain in the Heavenly Palace.

So the two ’collaborators’ inside Jinque Heavenly Palace must have something to do with Master Zhongliu.

Dongfang Liang would never allow himself to collude with his enemies, right?

"Li Xuan doesn’t intend to force you," Luo Yan’s lips curled slightly, her voice haunting, "but he asked me to pass on a message to you, saying that if you do this job well, you can take a cut from all the loot."

Dongfang Liang was taken aback, then promptly rose on his flying sword, his eyes filled with a cold murderous intent, "When do we start, right now? Quite coincidentally, I just happened to have been in charge of the East Island storage for a time twenty years ago. I know all there is to know about that place—where the good things are, and the secret codes to open the stores."

Indeed, it is said that people die for wealth as birds die for food.

Dongfang Liang had done the calculations. If they could successfully penetrate East Island, thanks to his knowledge of the storage rooms, they could plunder wealth worth three to five billion.

So even a mere one percent cut would be quite considerable.

※※※※

Outside Xiangyang City, after several days, segments of the defensive moat—a full two li wide—had been filled in.

The Xiangyang City of this world was undoubtedly more majestic and robust, with a wider and deeper moat.

However, at the same time, people’s physical strength and power had also increased, and with the assistance of magical techniques, an ordinary soldier from the army of Weisuo could carry a 300-jin weight on his shoulder for half a day.

The numerous demoted troops under Li Xuan’s command were also willing to exert themselves. In just seven days, they completed the task of filling the moat.

Especially on the east side, where the Jin Army was concentrating its attack, an entire three li of the city wall was now exposed to the Jin Army without any cover.

However, over the following days, the Jin Army’s offensive was still lackluster. They continued their earthworks and kept building artillery and archery platforms under heavy fire cover one li away from the city walls.

The materials were directly made of the abundant Black Iron Stone seized from Zhong Xiang, as well as numerous sturdy stones that continued to be transported.

The defending army of Xiangyang could not stand by idly. They continuously operated heavy cannons and counterweight catapults to bombard these platforms, causing them to collapse before they could be completed.

The Jin Army did not show any signs of discouragement. As the platforms fell, they were rebuilt, and at the same time, a large number of Hongyi Cannons were used to fire at the exposed artillery positions on the wall, removing them one by one.