So after paving the way for the Vermilion Bird Divine Bird, Jiang Chen simply withdrew to a safe distance, no longer involving himself in the battle.
Judging by the situation and his own estimation, the Vermilion Bird Divine Bird would certainly gain the upper hand in this fight. Whether it could actually kill the Xiahou Ancestor, however, would depend on luck.
After all, the Xiahou Ancestor was ultimately a Divine Path powerhouse. The birth or fall of a god was an incredibly significant event in a place like the
Just as Jiang Chen had estimated, the Vermilion Bird Divine Bird maintained the upper hand throughout, but the Xiahou Ancestor still had enough strength to protect himself.
The battle lasted one day, two days, three days…
Of course, for such a prolonged fight, the Vermilion Bird Divine Bird had no issue. But the Xiahou Ancestor simply couldn't endure this kind of sustained combat.
Because being pinned down by the Vermilion Bird Divine Bird was, without question, the worst possible news for the Xiahou family.
The fourth day, the fifth day, the sixth day…
The Xiahou Ancestor tried every conceivable method, but was never able to break through the Vermilion Bird Divine Bird's blockade.
By the sixth day, the
But they waited one day, then another — a full five or six days passed, and the Ancestor still hadn't returned.
Meanwhile, the Sacred Land knew that the Xiahou family's only remaining hope for desperate resistance lay in the Xiahou Ancestor. So for the past several days, the Sacred Land had been waging a psychological warfare campaign.
They constantly proclaimed that the Xiahou Ancestor was already trapped and not far from death.
At first, the Xiahou family didn't believe a word of it and even scoffed. Clearly, they felt that with the Sacred Land's current strength, who could possibly trap the Xiahou Ancestor?
However, the Sacred Land insisted with absolute confidence, claiming that the Vermilion Bird Divine Bird had been deployed, while emphasizing that the Imperial Family's own Ancestor had not accompanied it. The Xiahou Ancestor, fighting alone, had stumbled into the Sacred Land's trap and was now barely clinging to life — he could fall at any moment.
Once or twice, such psychological attacks might not have been convincing. But several consecutive days of sustained propaganda, combined with the Xiahou Ancestor's prolonged absence, made these attacks increasingly effective with each passing day.
By the fifth and sixth days, although the Xiahou family's leaders were still desperately trying to rally, the family's fighting spirit finally collapsed.
The Sacred Land didn't even need to keep up the propaganda — the Xiahou family had already become convinced that the Xiahou Ancestor was truly trapped and might perish at any moment.
Otherwise, how could the Carefree Marquis's earlier promise of the Ancestor's imminent return have gone unfulfilled for so many days? The only explanation was that the Xiahou Ancestor himself couldn't break free.
That the Xiahou family had held out this long was largely due to fighting spirit.
Originally, the Yun Lang Sect Master and the Tian family patriarch had both developed deep reservations about the Xiahou family and no longer believed the Xiahou family could lead them out of their predicament. In their subconscious, they had harbored thoughts of switching sides.
If the Carefree Marquis hadn't told everyone that the Xiahou Ancestor would return soon, how could they have kept their composure and continued fighting desperately for the Xiahou family?
What they were fighting for was nothing more than hope — a chance.
But the Xiahou Ancestor had promised to return, yet his figure was nowhere to be seen. This eroded their patience day by day.
By the fifth and sixth days, even the Xiahou family's two most loyal factions had fallen into complete despair. When despair spread, the Xiahou family's defense system showed fatal cracks.
In contrast, the Sacred Land's attacks came in wave after wave, each stronger than the last.
By the sixth day, the Tian family's confidence finally shattered. The Tian family's leaders secretly made a bold decision — to defect at the critical moment, abandon their positions, and welcome the Sacred Land army in.
The area the Tian family was responsible for, while not a particularly critical stronghold, nonetheless dealt a fatal blow to the Xiahou family fortress's defenses once the gap was opened.
The army surged in like a tidal wave. The formations the Xiahou family relied on developed gap after gap, gradually approaching total collapse.
Once the Tian family defected, the Yun Lang Sect wasn't about to fall behind. Since they had already reached a dead end, why should they be buried along with the Xiahou family?
The Sacred Land had long declared that as long as they surrendered, only the Imperial Family and the Xiahou family — the two chief culprits — would be executed.
In other words, as long as they surrendered, everything they had done before might be written off entirely.
With this, the Xiahou family suddenly became a commander without an army. And the family's own conviction was crumbling alongside everything else.
Once the Sacred Land army poured in, it truly had the momentum of a wind sweeping away scattered clouds.
Sweeping through, sweeping through!
The Carefree Marquis, virtually without any psychological preparation, was suddenly facing the Sacred Land's three Sacred Masters.
On top of that, there were the Zhouguang Sect Master and the Beigong family patriarch — these top-tier Heavenly Position powerhouses of the Divine Capital.
Watching batches upon batches of the family's powerhouses being cut down like wheat, the Carefree Marquis's heart bled. He knew that the Xiahou family's fate was sealed.