When Duke Yong's group heard this voice, they immediately all knitted their brows and revealed worried looks.
That was because the owner of this voice was not someone that Duke Yong or anyone in his group recognized.
This should be a place that was hidden from everyone because it led to a place that was a kilometer away from the city. There shouldn't have been anyone else that knew where this secret passage ended.
So why were there these people here now?
The guard captain waved his hand and the guards came in front of Duke Yong.
There were only a few people in the enemy group, so as long as they worked together, they would be able to break through and get Duke Yong out of here.
After all, all the guards that had come along to guard Duke Yong were the elite personal guards of Duke Yong. Not a single person here was weak.
But to their surprise, the other side suddenly released their aura and charged forward.
There were only ten enemies, but each one of them were in the Ninth Qi Gathering Realm while the guards only had an average cultivation of the Seventh Qi Gathering Realm.
There were only a few of them that were in the Eighth Qi Gathering Realm and the guard captain was in the Ninth Qi Gathering Realm.
Seeing how strong the enemy was, the guards had no choice but to take a formation.
This was an array formation that they had trained in that would allow them to fight off multiple powerful enemies at once. This was a formation that allowed them to combine their defenses and attacks to create an even stronger force.
With this formation, it was no problem for them to take down enemies that were stronger than them individually with the combined power of their group.
But the problem was that they had never tested this formation against ten Ninth Qi Gathering Realm Cultivators.
So they were unsure how this would go.
However, things didn't go as they planned as the leader of the enemy and another one of the enemies pulled out weapons from behind them.
The aura of these weapons were different than usual, they were much stronger than just the Qi Gathering Realm…
These were Foundation Realm Artifacts!
The guard captain gritted his teeth when he saw this, but he knew that hesitation would cause their deaths, so he shouted, "Everyone, charge!"
All the guards suddenly roared out as one as they followed the guard captain in his charge.
The guard captain was at the very front of the formation, so he gathered all of the energy of the subordinates behind him into one attack. With all this energy, it felt like this attack could cut through the heavens themselves.
But one of the enemies with the Foundation Realm Artifact came forward and lifted up that artifact which was a shield to block this attack. The moment that the guard captain's sword came in contact with this shield, all of his force was negated and his charge was stopped dead in its tracks.
The guard captain tried to back away, but before he could, the leader of the enemies swung out with his sword Foundation Realm Artifact.
The guard captain raised his own sword and gathered all of the energy of the formation to block this attack, but the Foundation Realm Artifact cut right through his sword like it was butter. In front of the guard captain's shocked eyes, the sword continued to come closer and closer until he felt a pain in his neck.
His view suddenly flipped upside down and continued to spin until it finally stopped. At that point, all he could see was his own body that had fallen to the ground without a head.
Behind the guard captain, the other guards were also hit by the sword energy that was released by the Foundation Realm Artifact.
They did their best to resist it, but it still cut through half of them before finally being stopped.
With just this one attack, half of the guards had fallen.
Duke Yong revealed a shocked look when he saw this, but he knew what was going to happen.
It seemed like the He and Yin Family really went all out, bringing out everything that they had to take them down. At the same time, it seemed like he had been too obsessed with his plan that he didn't pay attention to the other families like he should have been doing.
He had sunk too many resources into that plan that he had weakened himself enough that the other families could work together to take him down.
But that shouldn't have been what happened.
After all, the creatures from the experiment should have only made him and the Yong Family stronger.
So where had it all gone wrong?
He never would have known that it all went wrong when he sent those bandits to that small dungeon town that he had heard about…
After all, if he had never done that, Lin Fan would have never come to Brilliant Light City.
But it was too late for regrets.
Since he couldn't win with force, the only other way that he could handle this was with his words.
Duke Yong cleared his voice and said, "I don't know who you're working for, but there's no need for you to do this. You should know the influence and prestige the Yong Family has. As long as you put down your weapons and come work for me instead, I can promise you endless riches."
The enemies looked at each other before breaking out in laughter. Some of them even pointed at Duke Yong as they laughed at him.
Duke Yong's heart was filled with rage, but he suppressed this as he said, "You can laugh, but you can't deny the power that the Yong Family has. Do you really think you'll get a better offer from your current employers? You should know that they'll most likely kill you all to silence you."
When he said this, the enemies fell silent as they stared at Duke Yong.
After a long period of silence, the leader finally asked, "What can you give us then?"
Duke Yong revealed a faint smile when he heard this before saying, "As long as you come work for our Yong Family, I can give you fame, power, and fortune. Anything that you desire will be yours. You should know how powerful the Yong Family is as one of the five ducal families. There won't be a better offer from anywhere in the entire…"
His voice trailed off in the end as he noticed the smiles that appeared on the faces of the enemies. He could tell that something was wrong when he saw these smiles.
It didn't take long before the enemies suddenly burst into laughter again as they pointed and mocked him.
They laughed for a while before the leader of the enemies said, "Look at the great duke, begging for his life. It really brings a tear to the eye thinking about all the times that we suffered under him."
Duke Yong's heart dropped when he heard this.
He had thought that these people had been bought over with money, but now it didn't seem to be the case. If these people were working for the enemy to get revenge, it was hard to say how this would turn out.
After all, people went crazy when it came to revenge.
The enemy leader was in no mood to play around anymore after he finished laughing at the duke.
Since he had already exposed himself, there was no need.
The enemy leader came right up to the duke and asked with a serious look, "Do you remember what happened in Green Oat Village, do you remember the famine that we had to face?"
Duke Yong knitted his brows to think, but he really couldn't remember this Green Oat Village. Still, he knew that he couldn't just say that he didn't remember since it would make the other side even angrier, so he simply said, "Of course, it was a tragedy what happened in your village, but I guarantee that we can rebuild it together."
At this point, he was just saying whatever he needed to say to survive.
The enemy leader revealed a cold smile, "Is that so?"
Duke Yong felt a bad feeling when he heard this, but it was too late for him to turn back so he said with a smile, "Of course, I'll do whatever I can to support you in rebuilding your village."
The enemy leader's smile disappeared as he said, "It's too bad that Green Oat Village doesn't exist."
After he said this, all of the enemies looked at him with looks of disdain and hatred.
It was clear that to Duke Yong, they were nothing more than ants that he could trample at any time. This was how it had been before and this was how he still acted even though he was in this situation.
He clearly had no idea who they were even in this situation.
Duke Yong's smile froze on his face before his expression sank and he gave a sigh. He then asked, "Can you at least spare my children?"
That was the least he could do since he had a responsibility to keep the bloodline of the Yong Family alive. That was his responsibility as Duke Yong, the current patriarch of the Yong Family.
The enemy leader looked at his wife and concubines on the side and asked, "Are you with him?"
When they saw his gaze fall onto them, the wife and concubines all trembled before quickly shaking their heads and saying, "No, no, we have nothing to do with him. We were just with him for his money and power, nothing else."
The enemy leader revealed a lewd smile before saying, "Then since you have nothing to do with him, how about having some fun with us? I'd say that I'd be willing to let you go if you pleased me and my brothers."
A chill ran down the backs of the wife and the concubines, but they were shallow women to begin with. If there was a chance to live, they would take it.
So the wife and the concubines lowered their collar a bit to show a bit of their flesh before saying, "As long as you promise to let us go, we can surely please you."
Duke Yong felt like he had been thrown into a bucket of ice water.
This was the wife that he had loved and treated with respect for ten years and now just to keep herself alive, she was offering her body to their enemies?
Was there any greater shame on him as a man than this?
If he allowed this to happen, even in death, he would be filled with shame!
So with a roar, Duke Yong suddenly pulled out his sword.
The enemies all raised their guards because they knew that a cornered beast would bite the hardest. They didn't know what Duke Yong was capable of, so it was better for them to be careful than to be careless.
But Duke Yong didn't charge at them at all.
Instead, Duke Yong turned in the direction of his wife, his concubines, and his children.
Since they were determined to bring shame to his name, he had no other choice. He would end them by his own hands rather than let them bring shame to his name.
As they saw Duke Yong approach, the wife, the concubines, and the children all felt a chill run down their spines as they realized that something bad was going to happen.
The wife and concubines started bowing to Duke Yong and saying, "Your highness, it was for the children! It was all for your children! We wanted to keep the Yong Family bloodline alive!"
But those pleas fell onto deaf ears as Duke Yong raised his sword and cut their heads off one by one.
After he was done, he raised the sword and stabbed it into his own stomach before lighting a flame over his head.
He stood on the pile of corpses that he had created and shouted, "No one can bring shame to the Yong Family!"
Then he allowed the flame to fall onto him, burning his body and all the corpses under him.
Even in his death, he would go out in a manner befitting of Duke Yong.
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