“The Blood Sea!” Lu Yun and Qing Han blurted out nearly simultaneously.

A glint entered Mo Yi’s eye, and Feng Yi contorted with horror. Though the Blood Sea was less than a year old, its infamy had spread far and wide as a zone forbidden to life. Its notoriety rivaled several of the most terrifying tombs in the world.

About a month ago, a golden immortal had come out of it alive, and with a connate-grade treasure for his pains! The Nephrite court had acted upon it immediately, forcibly inviting that immortal to Xiankan and dispossessing him of the treasure.

The emperor who’d done so wasn’t Zhao Shenguang, but some ‘celestial emperor’ from elsewhere. That was why he’d been so bold and unbridled toward the Chen Clan and everyone else.

Now they learned that that emperor had also been swapped out, replaced by the person in front of them!

Lu Yun and Qing Han immediately sensed the unique aura from the man before them. He was just like the monsters from the Blood Sea! Others might not have been able to discern it, but they’d spent three months drifting in the crimson sea, encountering countless monstrosities of every variety. That aura was too familiar for them to miss.

“The Blood Sea… can he be that golden immortal who came out from there?” Feng Li yelped.

“Heh heh heh…” The ‘Nephrite emperor’ bound on the ground suddenly cackled evilly, his eyes shot through with red. “I didn't expect you to identify my origins. In that case, all of you will die… aaaaaah!”

Crunch!

Before he could finish, a swift kick in the face from Mo Yi turned his words into a painful scream. The bloody color in his eyes receded from the impact and was swiftly replaced with a look of incredulity. There were people in the world who didn't fear the Blood Sea’s power?!

“I don’t care where you came from. Now that you’ve refined a heavenly mandate of the nine majors, you’re the perfect sacrifice. I’ll be able to recover my cultivation in Dusk Province,” Mo Yi’s voice was as cool as before. She didn’t seem to care whether this ‘emperor’ came from the Blood Sea or elsewhere.

“I’m taking him to the ancient tomb so I can sacrifice him to the restriction there. What happens next is up to you.” She glanced at Lu Yun, her voice quieting. “I’ve dealt with everything here in Dusk City, but the Nephrite court has laid down an all-consuming snare everywhere else in the province. Be careful.”

In the year and three months of Lu Yun’s absence, the Nephrite court had taken over the province. Although the restriction forbade golden immortals and above from entering, controlling a province that spanned a mere eighty thousand kilometers in length was trivial for a government that could muster the full force of a major.

The Feng clan, in particular, had poured out its forces into Dusk, tightly gripping every city it could get its hands on.

Many had noticed that the earth vein in Dusk Province, previously damaged by some invasive force, had begun to recover. Ambient natural qi in the land, nearly depleted before, was also returning at a shocking rate. There were even traces of immortal qi being created.

More importantly, Dusk Province would become a sacred land for cultivation in the future. Aside from the ancient lord’s inheritance tower, the Sword Lake behind Sword Pavilion was a place that countless sword cultivators dreamed of. It was a lake that bred sword intent.

……

Just like Feng Li said, Mo Yi had only crushed the Feng experts in Dusk City, rather than the rest of the province. Lu Yun needed to tend to the other details himself.

News of the battle at Sword Pavilion had already spread to the capital. Though Lu Yun had captured Feng Wuhui and the imperial soldiers under his command, there’d been plenty of successful escapees. Some fled to Outré Province with Zhu Yu, while others made their way to Dusk City to seek help.

The entire province was astir with concern and suspicion.

Lu Yun’s massacre in Xiankan with the Great Formation of Heavenly Fiends had struck fear into the hearts of many, and the four hundred eighty million thunderbolts he’d called down upon a group of dao immortals outside Xiankan had further shaken the world.

Even the coronation of the new Nephrite emperor had been outshone.

Knowledge of Lu Yun’s return to Dusk Province sent a wave of terror through its inhabitants. Some lambasted him as a veritable demon, and the province was no longer its former self.

More than half of its native cultivators had been sent on suicide missions by the Feng Clan; to the Blood Sea, for example, or any of the multitude of dangerous tombs out there.

Nowadays, the province was occupied by outsiders who had plenty of cause to fear and resist Lu Yun. Although the newly-built Dusk capital was well-defended with formations and a dao immortal with their cultivation sealed, its residents nevertheless quavered with dismay. After Feng Wuhui’s loss at the Sword Pavilion, the transportation formation there was completely sealed. The newcomers couldn’t leave, even if they wanted to.

……

Mo Yi flew into the distance with the fake emperor, while Lu Yun began straightening the city out behind the scenes.

“Heh… the Feng Clan’s done a lot of big things, eh?” Derision danced on the corners of his lips.

They’d instituted a toll of a hundred thousand premium immortal crystals to enter the inheritance tower, having considered the structure their private property. It was something Mo Qitian and the others had joked with him about, but these bastards had actually done it!

The innumerable immortal crystals within their vaults blinded him with their brilliance. Of course, he accepted the unexpected gift without ceremony.

The next day, Yuying, Feinie, Xuanxi, Aoxue, and Huangqing descended from the sky, charging into the city with an endless stream of Infernum. Though Feinie was a golden immortal, she made sure to seal her cultivation back to august immortal realm.

The Infernum and ghostly servants, on the other hand, were the opposite of ‘alive’. They retained the cultivation they’d reached in life and were unaffected by the power of the restriction. With peerless immortals like Beigong Yu and Lü Biao among them, they were utterly unstoppable for the Feng clan immortals.

A clean sweep!

The five envoys led ten thousand Infernum and ghosts on a sudden assault upon every key location in the capital. The city fell before its defensive formations could even be activated. Every outsider was sealed and imprisoned, regardless of their identity. The cultivators of various clans in the inheritance tower were likewise ‘invited’ out.

Nephrite Major trembled in consternation. No one had expected Lu Yun’s response to be so swift, capturing the capital a mere one day after defeating Feng Wuhui’s ten thousand formations!

After that, the envoys each led their own company of troops to fight elsewhere in the province. With help from the Dusk Phalanx, they seized every city in no time at all, though the Infernum suffered enormous losses in the process. Only the seaside citadel remained under the imperial court’s rule, because a weapon of war had been set up there.

When news of the province’s loss traveled to the imperial court, the Nephrite emperor flew into a towering rage. Yes, the Nephrite emperor! Strangely enough, a celestial emperor still occupied the throne.