The shift in power had gone quite easily. In fact, the most difficult part had merely been convincing the guards on the walls not to throw their lives away. After a short argument, they were finally cowed by the bodies of Wu Chang and the Strongfist Brothers. A few of them were quite loyal, but after they were killed by their own fellow guards, the rest of the takeover was disturbingly smooth.

With the transfer of power basically complete, Sage took over the City Lord’s Manor and finally took a moment to rest. Their plan had been successful, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t stressful. Before the five Tiankong children had made a scene outside the city gates, Sage had been carefully preparing a Formation Array, the Seven Layer Barrier. It was a very large scale array that was very exacting in its specifications and also very demanding of energy usage. Each layer was a different color of the rainbow and was also an individual array formation. The Seven Layer Barrier was a textbook example of a sect protecting array, or in this case, city protecting. He chose it due to the large power as well as its great selectivity. Each of the layers could be tuned to allow one-way passage, and also to be selectively permeable.

Once Wu Chang was drawn out of the city, Sage had to trust that the five of them could distract the City Lord long enough for him to place the inner layer of the array. Sage could avoid the City Guards, but he wanted to be sure that Wu Chang was distracted. Thankfully, their wounds weren’t too serious and Sage finished playing the second layer of the formation before Wu Chang figured it out. The inner layer had blocked vision and sound to deter anyone in town from rushing to Wu Chang’s assistance, and also to prevent the City Lord from hiding among the buildings or using any secret resources he might have hid in his home. It would have been simpler to just put a single barrier around the battlefield to trap Wu Chang and the Jade Horde, but the smaller array would be easier to see and harder to ensure Wu Chang would be captured.

With how badly Ruanfu sought revenge, Sage wasn’t going to leave things up to chance so he chose to place a massive formation to create the outer cage. Even if they weren’t able to place the inner array, Wu Chang was already trapped before the five even stepped up to the city gates. That said, things might have devolved into a manhunt without the second barrier, so he was quite pleased that they’d succeeded. For the first night, Sage left the city barriers up and went into the Universe Ring. Sage brought along the Tiankong siblings as well as their parents, holding a party to celebrate. They’d been waiting for this day for over a hundred years so they were quite joyful. The Inner World produced a few types of wine using the many special resources there, and they were drinking some of the finest types. Barrels that had been aged for a few dozen years were saved up just for this occasion and they even brought along some of their friends from the Inner World.

Their friends were pretty odd, considering that the Inner World was only populated by Hoplites, insects, and normal animals. A few of their friends were simple minded Hoplites, but a few of them were actually Spirit Animals that had mutated from the normal animals, and there was even a giant beetle that they’d somehow convinced a Hoplite Elder was one of their own species so it could get a Human Seal. Seeing the Spirit Animals were their friends, Sage gifted them their own Human Seals at the party. A giant lizard, a winged squirrel, and a pair of green furred minks were turned into teenagers and the Tiankong siblings squealed with happiness. Or at least, that’s how Sage saw it. Jiyao was actually just acting even more cocky and posing, Tujiu was smiling widely without saying anything, and Songji’s eyes were gleaming.

Once the party was over, Sage sent them all back to the Inner World and went to sleep. The next day, he returned to the City Lord’s Manor. With just a night passing, it had already been nearly a month in the Inner World so the Tiankong Siblings were back to peak condition and Sage put them to work. There were still many secret weapons he wanted to keep hidden, but any group with a rank six and six rank fives could easily hold a single city. Even if the main target of their revenge was achieved they still couldn’t rest easy. The Tiankong children still had a grudge to settle with the Prefect of Dawn Mountain County, and Red Jungle County. They also had one more important target: Whitestaff.

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Despite the seriousness of the situation, Sage was flabbergasted when the six Tiankong siblings all made a unanimous request. Now that King was avenged, they were ready to take up his mantle. They would continue to serve as long as Sage brought them husbands and wives. He saw the same simple, but lustful arrogance in their eyes that King had in the past.

Your kids are a spitting image of you. You don’t have to worry about your line ending anymore. I miss you buddy.

Sage’s own targets for revenge were far more than the Tiankong family. There were those powerful people who’d chased him deep into the Shou Empire. The Fu Clan that had killed him. ‘Skyfire’ Jiang Hua, who murdered the whole Lang Clan, and then simply all the people that had forced him to run from the Holy Flame Sect because of a seal.

Some of them he would seek after soon, but others were still beyond his reach. For now, he had to entrench himself in Lionheart Town and consolidate his strength. The goal of rebuilding the Lang Clan had spurred him to develop the Jade Horde and after many twists and turns he was finally back on the right track. He had to move quickly to build more strength before his enemies noticed him. If the Fu Clan or Jiang Hua knew who he was and what he was doing, they would certainly move to finish him now. Of course, neither party had any idea he existed, but he wasn’t shy this time to use his real name. So, he needed to be strong enough to resist them once they saw that a Lang had taken control of Lionheart Town.

Sage would not have had the guts to do such a thing in the past, but now that Ruanfu had broken through to tier 6 they could compete for control of one of the weaker provinces, let alone a single city. A power like the Fu Clan couldn’t just commit Nascent Soul Cultivators without any consideration. Like the Holy Flame Sect, most of the first rate powers only had a handful of Nascent Soul Cultivators, they were strategic resources. It also wouldn’t be a guarantee that they could kill an enemy at a similar level, not unless they heavily outnumbered them, especially if they were assaulting a foe who was hiding by defensive formations and had an army to back them up. By having Ruanfu to back him up, Sage felt bold enough to declare his name to the world. He wasn’t foolish enough to issue challenges to his foes, or cry out about any injustices, but he at least had confidence to use his name in public again.

For the next few days, the Tiankong siblings traveled the city and showed off their strength, making sure everyone knew how powerful the new City Lord’s faction was. Sage busied himself in building the rest of the Seven Layer Barrier. Each layer was contained within the previous, getting smaller and smaller. Sage added a layer a few streets back from the City Walls to create a fallback point if the walls were breached. Then, he boldly put the next layer around the huge Lang Clan compound that was mostly unused. The next layer was placed around the Lang Clan Hall, and the entrance to the family tomb. The last two layers were actually the largest and he left town, placing layers that were even larger than the dark blue barrier that had trapped Wu Chang. He left a little trick, adding a barrier only a half mile outside the dark blue barrier, and then the final layer was another ten miles out to create a nearly twenty mile perimeter of control around Lionheart Town.

With the basics in place, Sage put Songji and Baozhai in charge of ‘re-educating’ the city guards. The two ladies had an interesting mix of sugar and spice, so he was sure they could handle it. Juzui was very refined and so he was put in charge of relations with the other powers in town. Tujiu was a brute, so Sage had him put the local criminals in line, and lastly there was Jiyao. Sage didn’t want Jiyao pissing people off with his arrogant self-love so he just put him in charge of clearing out the Lang Clan lands. In the decade he was gone, the town had spilled over into the ‘free land’ even more and Jiyao would likely enjoy kicking them out. Sage left Ruanfu and Wanqian Lei in charge of the City Lord’s Manor. There were plenty of people arriving daily wanting to suck up and Sage didn’t want to deal with them all.

He would meet them all when the formal ceremony started.