Chapter 2349: Chapter 2349 Weakness
Ye Liuyun spotted Celestia and Granth hiding rather well and smiled as he asked, "Are the two of you planning to fight it out, or would you prefer to surrender right away?"
Granth remained still, uncertain whether Ye Liuyun was speaking to him.
At the same time, Celestia rose to her feet and revealed herself, abandoning her concealment. She looked straight at Ye Liuyun and asked, "Did you kill Huzi and the others?"
"No, two of them were injured and stayed behind to recover." Ye Liuyun replied truthfully.
But just as he spoke, Celestia launched a sudden assault.
"Idiot! Are you going to help or not?"
She shouted at Granth while attacking.
Finally realizing she was talking to him, Granth charged at Ye Liuyun.
Yet Ye Liuyun only smiled. In one swift motion, he slashed his blade at Celestia while his Divine Soul’s Scarlet Phantom Eyes flashed. It casted a spell to control Granth.
Granth’s physical body and Divine Soul were both exceptionally powerful, as his true identity was that of a Demon. With his Golden Phantom Eyes, Ye Liuyun had already discerned the nature of his Divine Soul. It took the form of an Arrogant Bear.
That was precisely why illusion magic was the most effective way to subdue him. If Ye Liuyun were to rely on brute strength alone, defeating Granth would’ve been quite difficult.
Under the spell’s control, Granth’s vision shifted. To him, Ye Liuyun now appeared as Celestia, while the real Celestia looked like Ye Liuyun.
Celestia had already been struggling against Ye Liuyun’s strength. Now, with Granth attacking her by mistake, she stood no chance.
The first strike from Ye Liuyun’s blade filled her with dread. She hadn’t expected someone in the mid-ninth tier martial practitioner to possess such terrifying sword intention.
Hurriedly, she summoned a defensive shield and blocked the attack. Just then, Granth swung a massive axe at her in a wide arc.
"Huh?"
Celestia gasped instinctively, raising her shield again to defend.
A deafening boom echoed as Granth’s full-force blow struck. Though the shield absorbed most of the impact, the shockwave still hurled Celestia backward and fractured the bones in her arms.
"You fool! Are you insane?!" Celestia screamed in fury.
At this moment, Ye Liuyun seized the opportunity and released his Divine Soul. It surged into Granth’s Ocean of Consciousness and branded it with the Slaving Seal.
Only now did Celestia realize that Ye Liuyun had already discovered Granth’s fatal weakness. Without hesitation, she released her Divine Soul and surged straight into Ye Liuyun’s Ocean of Consciousness.
Her forte lay precisely in the Divine Soul. Though not quite a match for Ye Liuyun, her strength in this aspect far exceeded that of ordinary martial practitioners. That was why she and Granth made such a formidable duo. Their abilities complemented each other, allowing them to unleash power far beyond what they could manage alone.
Celestia had intended to strike while Ye Liuyun was busy attacking Granth, launching a sneak assault on his Ocean of Consciousness. But the moment she entered, she was immediately suppressed by the Universal God Token.
In the blink of an eye, Ye Liuyun’s Divine Soul returned to his Ocean of Consciousness and stamped her with a Slaving Seal.
"You walked right into this one yourself," he said with a faint smile.
Lone Star had no words to refute him. In just one encounter, both she and Granth had fallen under Ye Liuyun’s control.
It hadn’t even crossed her mind that her Divine Soul was, in truth, far inferior to his. Even if they had clashed directly, she would have stood no chance.
She let out a long sigh, resigning herself to fate.
Granth, now bearing the Slaving Seal, immediately submitted to Ye Liuyun’s command.
Initially, Ye Liuyun hadn’t planned to keep the arrogant bear Demon. He considered Granth too dim-witted.
But for the sake of the token he carried, Ye Liuyun decided he was worth retaining.
“This oaf is yours now, keep him in line." Ye Liuyun instructed Celestia. He also believed that only by pairing these two together could their full combat potential be unleashed.
"Yes!" she replied promptly, accepting the responsibility.
"You two will return to the secret realm. Collect a jar of Pure Brew each day and set it aside for me. Then spread word that Huzi and his crew failed to capture Mystic Fox. They were captured by me instead."
Ye Liuyun sifted through their Interspatial Rings. He took only the woodsman’s ring and his token. He left their personal resources untouched, planning to use them both as bait inside the Stygian secret realm.
"If someone asks why we didn’t take action, what should we say?"
Being more thorough, Celestia asked Ye Liuyun.
"Just say Huzi intercepted you. Say he couldn’t accept that Mystic Fox was killed by me and insisted on hunting me down." Ye Liuyun replied coolly.
"Then where should we lead them?" Celestia asked.
"Tell them you have no idea. Say Huzi chased me off into parts unknown. Let them come find me themselves."
Ye Liuyun knew that revealing too much information could raise suspicion.
Not long after Celestia and Granth left, Huzi and the others arrived. The two injured men had only managed to stabilize their wounds, and it would take time for them to fully recover.
Ye Liuyun ordered them to return to the Stygian secret realm for rest and to gather more Pure Brew. He also instructed them to spread word that he was hiding within Cao Qingyun’s residence.
As for himself, Ye Liuyun used his Phantom Illusion technique once again to change his appearance and returned to Qingyun City.
This time, he focused on one of the servants in Cao Qingyun’s mansion.
The servant’s role was to buy food for the household, a lowly position that didn’t warrant much attention. The food he brought back was always inspected by the kitchen.
The servant didn’t have a Divine Soul contract. However, he was well aware of the strength of the experts within Cao Qingyun’s mansion.
Ye Liuyun immediately controlled the servant’s Divine Soul, extracting information about the mansion and its personnel. Afterward, he allowed the servant to continue his duties, gathering more precise intel.
Since being near Cao Qingyun would attract surveillance, Ye Liuyun chose to send someone to blend in with their forces instead.
The experts in Cao Qingyun’s mansion mostly focused on monitoring the surrounding area, leaving the interior relatively lax. No one paid attention to a mere servant.
Once back, the servant took advantage of idle moments to subtly gather information about the martial practitioners and experts by chatting with other servants.
Cao Qingyun had recently learned that he had been placed on the Stygian blacklist, so he had been staying home more often. Even when business meetings were held, he mostly received guests at the residence.
Ye Liuyun had no difficulty obtaining the necessary information. There were only about twenty experts at the Omnipotent Level in Cao Qingyun’s mansion, the same as in his mercantile group. It didn’t take long for Ye Liuyun to collect this intel.
Eliminating these forces wouldn’t be difficult for him. Even with so many experts, they were nothing compared to the Blade Legion.
The key challenge was that if Ye Liuyun caused too much of a disturbance, local patrols and military forces would rush in to assist.
He didn’t want to directly confront the local garrison, as that would attract the attention of the Sanctuary Dynasty.
At that moment, Celestia also sent Ye Liuyun a message. Some members of Stygian had already gone to gather information about Cao Qingyun.
Most of them suspected that Ye Liuyun might be planning to make a move on Cao Qingyun. Therefore, most of them were simply curious, wondering if Ye Liuyun could successfully take on the mission of taking down Cao Qingyun, worth three hundred points.
The numerous assassins probing Cao Qingyun’s estate immediately alerted both Cao Qingyun and the martial practitioners within his residence.
In response, they quickly recalled ten Omnipotent Level martial practitioners from the guild to bolster the estate’s defenses.
Ye Liuyun, on the other hand, seized the opportunity and continued to visit the Qingyun Guild daily, looking for a chance to act.
