Jiang Chen hadn't expected to talk these people into rebellion with just a few words, but at the very least, his words could plant a seed in their minds.
At the very least, they would further sour the relationship between the royal family and the other factions in the alliance, letting the cracks spread even wider.
As long as he achieved that goal, the alliance's collapse was only a matter of time.
Patriarch Luchan, upon hearing Jiang Chen's words, flew into an even greater rage. Fury surged through his heart: "You little brat, spewing lies to bewilder the masses—die!"
Patriarch Luchan decided to act personally!
"Stop!"
At that very moment, the Holy Land's grand formation suddenly erupted with streaks of radiant light. Gap after gap began opening within the formation.
Through each gap, Holy Land cultivators swarmed out in droves.
In no time at all, over a thousand Holy Land cultivators had charged out from the formation. Their momentum was like tigers descending from the mountains and flood dragons probing the sea—clearly, they had been prepared for this.
Seeing that the first wave of alliance cultivators, having been hit by the Wind-Cloud Soul-Scattering Powder, had collapsed helplessly to the ground, the Grand Sovereign bellowed, "Take them all alive!"
Killing them would have been easy enough at this point. These people had no capacity to resist whatsoever—their limbs had gone so limp they couldn't even move, let alone fight back.
But the Grand Sovereign clearly had no intention of wiping them out. Instead, he ordered them captured.
Watching the Grand Sovereign lead the Holy Land cultivators out, Patriarch Luchan felt not a shred of joy. He had been fretting over the fact that the Holy Land's forces wouldn't come out to fight.
Now they had emerged—and in massive numbers at that—but Patriarch Luchan's expression was uglier than a dead man's.
Clearly, in this situation, he was the last one who wanted to face the Holy Land's army head-on.
He couldn't quite be called a lone commander at this point, but he was getting close. The forces behind him might not have been fewer in number than the Eternal Holy Land's. However, compared to the murderous, battle-ready ranks of the Holy Land, those forces behind him had long since lost their will to fight—let alone that their combat strength was far inferior to the Holy Land's elite cultivators.
Moreover, the Wind-Cloud Soul-Scattering Powder wielded far too much deterrent power. Patriarch Luchan had already failed to command this group before.
Their fear of the powder clearly surpassed even their fear of the royal family.
So at this stage, unless reinforcements arrived, the situation had actually fallen into the Eternal Holy Land's control.
Patriarch Luchan was a man who knew when to hold on and when to let go. Seeing that the situation was beyond recovery, he let out a cold snort: "Eternal Holy Land, I'll grant you this victory! But don't celebrate just yet. The alliance army is vast—your desperate resistance will ultimately be futile. Mountains may not move, but waters do. We'll meet again!"
With that, Patriarch Luchan was about to leave.
Clearly, this old fox knew how to bend with the wind.
"You think you can leave? Did you ask me?" The Vermilion Bird Divine Spirit would never permit Patriarch Luchan to escape. It tapped lightly upon the void, and two Vermilion Bird feathers transformed into twin blades that swelled with the wind, carrying an aura of heaven-destroying, earth-shattering power as they slashed down fiercely toward his escape route.
These blades conjured from the Vermilion Bird feathers might have been slightly inferior in sharpness, but the terrifying aura of slaughter and destruction they contained made Patriarch Luchan's breath catch in his throat.
In an instant, his escape route was blocked.
Once the enemy had guessed his flight path, he would have no choice but to switch directions.
Patriarch Luchan's resolve to flee was ironclad. He no longer intended to look after the other three leaders either.
A voice in his heart, growing ever clearer, was screaming at him: leave now—if you don't, your life may be in danger.
Yet no matter how Patriarch Luchan exhausted every trick in his repertoire to carve out a new escape route, the Vermilion Bird Divine Spirit kept him locked down tight. The blade-light conjured from the Vermilion Bird feathers hovered over him like a death warrant, haunting him relentlessly and cutting off every possible path.
"How is this possible? How?!"
Patriarch Luchan was hemmed in on all sides, his heart seething with frustration. In his lifetime, he had participated in countless battles and considered himself a man of wide experience—never before had he been made so utterly passive.
Ever since comprehending the half-god realm, apart from feeling somewhat restrained in the presence of true gods, Patriarch Luchan had always carried an air of superiority over everyone else.
"Could it be that this figure shrouded in red mist—without any fanfare—is actually a god?" The thought sent a chill through Patriarch Luchan's heart, a nameless dread flickering through his mind.
If that were true, it would be far too terrifying.
"Impossible! If it were a god, even the faintest release of divine pressure—the mere aura of the divine realm—would be enough to shatter my divine consciousness. This being's bloodline aura is potent, but it doesn't feel like a human cultivator. Could it be some sort of bloodline spirit beast?"
Truth be told, despite his panic, Patriarch Luchan's powers of judgment were still remarkably sharp.
With that thought, his anxiety deepened. He flicked his wrist, intending to produce a spatial-transmission talisman to make his escape.
But the moment the talisman appeared, a streak of brilliant light shot across his field of vision. Before he could even activate it, an arrow snatched the talisman clean out of the air.
The arrow pinned the talisman firmly to a massive stone pillar ahead.
With a sharp thud, the arrow embedded itself in the stone, producing a crisp, ringing sound.
Patriarch Luchan looked toward the direction the arrow had come from and saw Jiang Chen standing with bow in hand. That shot had clearly come from the young man.