Chapter 63 - The Ghu Clan Takes Action

The North Ghu City Lord allowed Yaan to explain exactly what he wanted.

Firstly, Yaan explained that he wanted to sell the Yuso Clan corpses at the corpse auction, which was to be held by Nadda on behalf of the Ghu Clan.

Of course, the Yuso Clan was a huge clan, there would be far too many corpses after the North Ghu City Lord took action, and they wouldn’t give away the Origin Soul Realm corpses.

In the end, the city lord agreed to have the Ghu Clan refine as many of the Yuso Clan corpses into corpse puppets as possible prior to the auction. They would not receive the Origin Soul Realm corpses, and the Ghu Clan would only be able to refine around half of the Yuso Clan corpses in time for their auction, but that was already more than enough.

The city lord also accepted Yaan’s next request – for the Ghu Clan to hold no other corpse auctions until Nadda and Yaan had finished their own. Nadda was one of the key players in North Ghu City’s corpse trade anyway, it wasn’t a problem for the Ghu Clan to give him this chance.

In this auction, Ghu Nadda and Yaan would be splitting the profits half and half, just like they had agreed beforehand. They didn’t hide this from the city lord, and thankfully, he found this acceptable given the value of the information that Yaan was providing.

Yaan’s plan did not end here, however. Besides obtaining more corpses, he also wanted to create a demand for more corpse puppets within the city. After discussing this with the city lord, he agreed to make use of the Undead Corpse Sect in the assault, using them as the vanguard. Like this, the Undead Corpse Sect would lose many of their corpse puppets in the battle. The Undead Corpse Sect was always a big contender in the inheritance, so there was no doubt that they would desperately purchase whatever corpses they could procure after returning to North Ghu City.

There was one more ingredient that was needed in order to make this auction successful…

Fear.

Corpses could be sold at much higher prices prior to the inheritance opening, all because of fear. The cultivators who planned on entering the inheritance would spend their money more recklessly in those final few weeks due to their anxiety building up. They would do whatever they could to increase their strength rapidly. After all, the death rate in this inheritance was terrifying, nobody would be frugal with their money when their life was at stake.

Yaan wanted to use the assault on the Yuso Clan to build up the fearful atmosphere throughout North Ghu City.

As such, he asked the city lord to make a huge scene when he departed for the Yuso Clan. As for who caused this spectacle and how they achieved it, Yaan didn’t care. What he wanted was for the great factions of the province to create a scene, increasing the anxiety felt by those who watched cluelessly from below!

He also asked the city lord to make an even bigger spectacle of their return, openly displaying the sea of Yuso Clan corpses to the city residents below.

Yaan already thought that he was asking for a lot, but this was not the end of the deal. In the poison oath, he made the city lord swear to engage in a fair exchange for the location of the Spirit Heart, meaning that he needed to compensate Yaan fairly. Since Yaan had no idea how much a Spirit Heart was actually worth, he needed the city lord to agree to this, since it would force him to repay Yaan with money and resources equating to the true worth of the Spirit Heart.

Of course, the term ‘fair exchange’ was quite vague, but this was intentional on Yaan’s part. He didn’t want to pressure the city lord too strongly, otherwise, their relationship could turn bad, and the city lord might try to find ways around the poison oath. Yaan was sure that such a thing shouldn’t be possible, but he couldn’t be too careful when dealing with an Origin Soul Realm cultivator.

He might end up receiving less than the information was worth, but this minor loss was insignificant in the scheme of things. Even with just those Yuso Clan corpses, Yaan would be making an absolute killing. The Spirit Heart was useless to him anyway, it didn’t matter whether it was owned by the Yuso Clan or the Ghu Clan, because either way, Yaan knew that he could not take it for himself.

For now, the matter of Yaan’s further payment was put aside, they could work through this at a later date. Because right now, the most important matter was…the attack against the Yuso Clan!

And with that, the deal that would soon shake North Ghu City had been settled.

Yaan relaxed in his temple abode, practising his sword arts calmly whilst patiently awaiting the city lord’s move. As time passed by, the city became increasingly crowded, with people flocking from far and wide for the opening of the North Ghu Inheritance.

Soon enough, one month passed by. The big factions held onto the expectation that the Ghu Clan would take this opportunity to hold an auction like they usually did prior to each inheritance opening. In fact, they would normally hold multiple auctions of varying scales and purposes, including that infamous underground auction…

However, a full month passed by, leaving just two months until the opening, and not a peep was heard from the Ghu Clan! Nobody knew that the Ghu Clan was busy right now, they had no time for auctions, not to mention that they had agreed not to hold any corpse auctions before Yaan and Nadda held their own.

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People grew restless over the following two weeks. In fact, some started to realise that all of the Ghu Clansmen within the city were wearing a deep, murderous expressions. The number of Ghu Clansmen present was also very high compared to normal times, however, this could possibly be attributed to the coming inheritance exploration. Even so, many people started to feel like they were preparing for something else…

Since there were many different large-scale factions currently residing within the city, the murderous auras exuded from the Ghu Clansmen led to a building tension amongst everyone in the city. With the nine Northern factions present, people naturally worried that the Ghu Clansmen were preparing for some sort of terrifying battle within the city itself!

There was another strange matter. There wasn’t long left before the opening of the inheritance, yet the Undead Coffin Sect was nowhere to be seen! This sect was the only one out of the nine Northern factions that attended the inheritance opening every single year…so where were they?!

Whilst people were worrying over the strangeness exhibited by the Ghu Province’s most powerful factions, an unrelated rumour began to spread amongst the masses as people discussed the all-too familiar 90% death rate figure. Many individuals disregarded this figure, everyone knew that most of those deaths were from those weaker cultivators with weak backings, right?

However, a new rumour appeared from seemingly nowhere. This rumour spread like wildfire, reaching out into each and every region of the city!

Apparently, the reason for the big factions, particularly the Ghu Clan, experiencing far fewer losses in the inheritance, was all thanks to their corpse puppets! When people looked into the statistics, they found that it really was true that the more corpse puppets a group took with them, the fewer living casualties they would suffer!

Naturally, starting and spreading this rumour was Yaan’s idea. With Nadda’s various connections, it wasn’t difficult to spread a rumour across the city in a short period of time.

Many rolled their eyes at this rumour, saying people were mixing up causation and correlation. In reality, those groups with more corpse puppets suffered from fewer casualties for an obvious reason…anyone who was able to afford an army of corpse puppets was far stronger than the contenders in the first place!

That said, people hesitated…perhaps they should buy a corpse puppet, just to be safe…

Exactly one month before the opening of the inheritance, the situation unfolded far too rapidly. The first sign that something was amiss, was when every Zue Clansman within the city shot up into the sky and rushed Northwards at their fastest possible speed!

Like everyone else in the city, Yaan also saw this. He stared up at the sky and watched from his temple garden. After a moment, a smile appeared on his face.

“So this is the city lord’s spectacle, huh? He’s actually using the Zue Clan to satisfy my condition…but he is also using the Zue Clan to bait the Yuso Clansmen within the city into a trap! So he really did draw in the other Northern factions to cooperate…impressive…”

The city residents watched in bewilderment as the Yuso Clan delegates chased after the Zue Clan! People began to panic….just what had caused two of the strongest groups in the Ghu Province to look so desperate?!

Fear spread through the city, and now, even those who neither knew nor cared about the disputes between the Ghu Province’s largest factions, started to feel increasingly tense. This unknowingly added to their nerves regarding the upcoming inheritance. Those who intended to explore this death trap were nervous to begin with, but now, the various developments caused their anxieties to all blend together, transforming into outright fear!

For ten straight days following the Zue and Yuso Clans’ sudden departure, the city seemed to fall into silence. It was unknown when they left, but people realised over these ten days that the Ghu Clansmen also seemed to be absent from their own city! It wasn’t just the Ghu Clansmen though…none of the nine Northern factions who had made the journey to the city were present right now…they had all vanished at the exact same time!

During these ten days, the fear and anxiety festered, driving some people to the brink of madness.

Ten days later, the Ghu Clan suddenly reappeared! They flew in from the North, naturally attracting attention as they ignored the usual city entrance procedures.

They all had deep killing intent lingering within their eyes and leaking out into their auras. Some were covered in blood, others were clearly injured…but every single clansman was surrounded by a horde of corpses. Some of these corpses looked like ordinary, albeit well preserved corpses, whilst others had clearly been refined into puppets. This gave others the feeling that all of those unrefined corpses would soon be refined into corpse puppets!

“Wait a moment…” An old and well-travelled Qi Temple Realm cultivator in the city below furrowed his brows and stared upwards, before his eyes suddenly shot open and he gasped deeply.

“Th-that’s, that’s Great Elder Yuso Dune!” His voice was filled with shock.

Yuso Dune was a great elder of the Yuso Clan, a renowned Peak Spirit Core Realm powerhouse! How did he die, and why was his corpse floating there in the air, beside a Ghu Clansman?!

However, the shock was far from over.

Womp!

From nowhere, a tall and muscular middle aged man with a domineering demeanour appeared standing in the air. His dark hair floated about, even though there was no wind. When they laid their eyes on this overbearing man, everyone below inadvertently gasped.

“Origin Soul Realm being!”

“Oh my heavens, it- it’s the North Ghu City Lord!”

“Wait a minute…those three behind him…aren’t they…?!”

Slowly, the chatter fell into a dead silence. The sudden public appearance of the North Ghu City Lord was shocking enough, but floating behind him, there were three figures that a select few people also recognised.

However, even those who did not recognise those figures were still able to understand…

“Three…Origin Soul Realm…Corpses…?!”

“Th-th-they’re from the Yuso Clan! It’s the three Yuso Clan Origin Soul Realm powerhouses from the Northern border!”

The silence which had engulfed the city a moment ago was swept away by explosive chatter, as a mixture of shock, terror, awe and confusion filled the masses! They realised now, that all of these corpses…were Yuso Clansmen!

The entire slaughtered Yuso Clan was drifting in the air behind the Ghu Clan, it was a certified sea of corpses!

However, the North Ghu City Lord only wore an indifferent expression, as if the worries of those people below had nothing to do with him.

Not long after the Ghu Clan, followed some elders and disciples from each of the other eight Northern factions.

Not one person dared to even look in the city lord’s direction. The power that he had displayed earlier was simply too terrifying. It made them all feel like ants before a god…even the Origin Soul Realm clan lords of the Zue, Bo and Lin Clans felt this way.

And before his death, the Yuso Clan Lord had experienced this exact same feeling.

As Yaan looked up, he couldn’t help but smile.

The North Ghu City Lord had honoured their promise, showcasing the corpses of the Yuso Clan to the masses in the city below. With this, Yaan and Nadda had already advertised their products to the cultivators in the city. Not only that, but the unease felt by the inheritance-explorers should have now reached its peak.

The perfect conditions had been set, and now, it was time for Nadda to hold the auction.

Yaan’s eyes lingered on the Yuso Clan Lord’s dead body for some time. When he saw this man, this powerhouse of the province once again, he was reminded of the events of the past. It had been a few years since that time – since the Yuso Clan Lord plotted against not only himself, but the other eight Northern factions.

When Yaan saw that man’s lifeless body, he couldn’t help but smile. He did not do this for revenge, as he had already realised that pursuing revenge was a fruitless endeavour, however…this was undeniably satisfying.

Because of him, this Origin Soul Realm powerhouse had now fallen to the state of being a mere corpse puppet.

“Even Origin Soul Realm cultivators can be killed easily, if they find themselves facing someone stronger. There is always someone stronger…I wonder, is there anyone in this world who trample on all others…?” Yaan muttered quietly.

Yaan shook his head and looked away as the brief hint of satisfaction in his heart vanished without a trace.

He did not do this for revenge. He did this for his cultivation. He did this for his survival.

In the end, the destruction of the Yuso Clan was not personal…

It was just business.