Chapter 3179: Chapter 3179
Jiang Yunmu was already paralyzed with terror. Once the demonic vines wrapped around him, he couldn’t fight back at all; the vines were draining his power at a terrifying speed.
“What is this? Ye Liuyun, you dare kill me?” Jiang Yunmu shrieked.
“Heh. Who gave you the guts to act so wild in front of me? I never planned to kill you princes, but...”
Ye Liuyun paused, smiling lazily at him.
“But what?” Jiang Yunmu’s heart pounded; he bitterly regretted his earlier arrogance.
“But I can make your cultivation regress until you’re nothing but a cripple.” Ye Liuyun finally said it aloud.
“You... you...” Jiang Yunmu’s lips trembled. He wanted to curse Ye Liuyun, but he truly didn’t dare.
He could feel the vines siphoning his energy. If this continued, his cultivation would indeed fall. Once that happened, he’d lose any chance of contending for the throne.
In truth, the demonic vine had already received Ye Liuyun’s silent order to drain him slowly—just enough to scare him. At its current strength, it could have dropped his cultivation in an instant.
“I admit my mistake! Make it stop! Whatever you want, I’ll agree!”
Jiang Yunmu reacted immediately, surrendering without hesitation.
Ye Liuyun instantly had the vine halt. He’d only meant to frighten the prince; Jiang Yunmu hadn’t truly offended him. Keeping him around might still cause Jiang Yuntian some trouble later.
“Fine. Since you’re so sincere, I’ll give you a chance. Hand over every resource you carry and order your army to surrender, and I’ll let you go,” Ye Liuyun said bluntly.
“I can give you the resources. Can I keep my troops?” Jiang Yunmu tried to bargain.
Ye Liuyun seized the chance to stab Jiang Yuntian in the back: “No can do. I’ve already taken the Eldest Prince’s tribute; I must take your army as well. Not crippling you is already mercy—you have no leverage here. Otherwise, I’ll follow the Eldest Prince’s request and drop you straight back to Unity Seventh Layer!”
“Damn you, Jiang Yuntian—so vicious, plotting to cripple my cultivation!”
Jiang Yunmu lost all composure; he now hated Jiang Yuntian with a vengeance.
Ye Liuyun chuckled inwardly but only urged him to hand over the resources and order his men to surrender. The vines still coiled around Jiang Yunmu, refusing to release him.
Jiang Yunmu obediently produced everything he carried. Ye Liuyun saw the haul was substantial; whatever the prince had kept hidden couldn’t amount to much.
Under Jiang Yunmu’s command, his hundred-thousand royal troops and two-hundred-thousand surrendered soldiers all pledged allegiance to Ye Liuyun. Their commanders, controlled by Jiang Yunmu, dared not defy the order.
Ye Liuyun considered the numbers and realized he couldn’t possibly absorb so many prisoners. He turned to Jiang Yunmu: “Do you want to keep any soldiers?”
Jiang Yunmu blinked, not understanding.
“You’ve cooperated nicely. If you’re willing to pay a bit more, I could leave you some guards and troops. I’ll take most of the strongest men—that should satisfy the Eldest Prince’s demands, wouldn’t you say?”
Comprehension dawned; Jiang Yunmu nodded frantically. “Yes, yes! Take the main force—that counts as completing the mission!”
Then he remembered he had no resources left. He asked Ye Liuyun if he could pay later.
After a moment’s thought, Ye Liuyun told Jiang Yunmu to arrange for the payment to be delivered to Jiang Yunmo at once.
He then took only eighty-thousand mid-to-late Unity soldiers, leaving the rest—lower-level troops and surrendered prisoners—to Jiang Yunmu. He didn’t want them.
Jiang Yunmu’s personal guards were also left untouched to protect him. Grateful, Jiang Yunmu thanked Ye Liuyun profusely.
With a bodyguard of Ninth-Layer elites and two-hundred-twenty-thousand troops, he could hold out for a while. If reinforcements arrived quickly, he still had a chance to recover.
As soon as Jiang Yunmo received the resources, Ye Liuyun left without delay, using the black teleportation tower to return to the planet Jiang Yunfei had previously conquered. There he had Xiao Heng and Cui Daoran march the troops out for continuous drills, not stopping until the army finally reached a full hundred thousand men.
He hadn’t expected it to be so easy to muster those hundred thousand soldiers.
Every last one of those final hundred thousand troops was at least at the fifth level of the Unity realm—already considered formidable compared with the various armies of the Fire Seal Dynasty.
The Fire Seal Dynasty fielded more than just the princes’ forces; other legions were campaigning everywhere, seizing resources.
The army Ye Liuyun now displayed was so strong that even the dynasty would need two or three hundred thousand troops to wipe it out—if it could manage that at all. And that was before counting the five thousand best soldiers he still kept hidden.
All that remained was to wait for the dynasty to deliver the promised resources.
To prevent the dynasty from using the delivery as cover for a sudden strike, he stayed completely out of sight, letting Xiao Heng accept the imperial commission in his stead.
When the dynasty’s delegation arrived, Ye Liuyun watched from deep space.
They were few: only a dozen Unity-ninth-level experts escorting a single imperial clerk. Yet among them Ye Liuyun spotted two cultivators whose soul force was exceptionally strong. One of them could even sweep his divine sense over Ye Liuyun himself.
The reach of that perception startled him. He was already two days’ travel from the planet—at his current mastery of spatial power, two days could carry him across two entire worlds—yet the expert could still sense him.
Still, distance rendered that perception harmless; the man couldn’t attack from so far away. And in raw soul strength, Ye Liuyun was actually superior.
So the delegation had no choice but to follow the dynasty’s standard enlistment procedure and hand the resources to Xiao Heng. Following Ye Liuyun’s instructions, Xiao Heng registered the legion under the name “Legion of the Dead.”
Whether those two soul cultivators had come to guard the clerk or to target Ye Liuyun himself, he gave the Fire Seal Dynasty no opening.
He simply marveled inwardly at the expert’s skill: Looks like I’m still far from mastering soul force.
Before, he had always been the one watching others from afar; now that he had encountered someone with even greater range, he immediately began to imitate and practice.
His soul power was immense, but he had focused on combat; his sensory range was only half that of the stranger. Over such distances he missed countless details—anyone deliberately concealing their presence could slip past him unnoticed.
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