Chapter 732: Gouyu Awakens

The Sikou Clan would not go down the path of mutual destruction unless they were backed into their final corner, and this, to some extent, gave Jiang Chen's side a bit of room to work with.

Drawing on the memories of both his past and present lives, Jiang Chen's foundation in formations was rock-solid. Setting up a formation posed no challenge for him whatsoever.

The hard part was ensuring a single, decisive strike.

Breaking the seals required hitting the mark on the first attempt. If the initial strike failed and alerted the person controlling the seals, the situation would spiral out of control. If that controller flew into a rage and simply killed the captives, the result would be an irreversible regret.

So, until he was fully confident, Jiang Chen would not act rashly.

Time ticked away, day by day.

Seven days later, after layer upon layer of meticulous deduction and verification, Jiang Chen settled on his formation.

This formation, owing to the presence of the Danxiao formation flags, was all the more refined and rigorous.

"Everyone, I've done everything in my power. Whether this succeeds or fails, I hope you won't blame me," Jiang Chen murmured silently to himself.

By this point, he had truly given it his all.

The formation was divided into sixty-four streams of power by Jiang Chen. Once activated, all sixty-four would fire simultaneously.

Over fifty of them targeted fellow disciples from the Dangqian Palace, and the remaining ten were drawn from among the slaves—Jiang Chen had hand-picked ten of the stronger ones, each at least at the Earth Saint realm, with a few even at the Heavenly Saint realm.

"Miss Huang'er, I'm beginning."

At the formation's core, Jiang Chen nodded toward Huang'er standing outside, then initiated the sequence.

The formation hummed to life. Sixty-four beams of light, like shooting stars, lanced toward the sixty-four individuals within the array. The instant the light flashed, countless formation runes swarmed through the void like tadpoles.

Boom!

The streams of light pierced into the sea of qi of all sixty-four people.

"Success or failure—everything hinges on this moment!" Jiang Chen gritted his teeth, his hands weaving seal after seal as the light grew thicker and the power surged stronger.

Each slave shrouded in the light had their sea of qi laid bare before Jiang Chen like individual nebulae. And surrounding each sea of qi was a dense layer of restrictions, woven as tightly as a spider's web.

These were the seals encasing their seas of qi!

"Break—break for me!"

Jiang Chen bellowed, pushing the formation to its absolute limit. The light slammed into the seal-restrictions surrounding each sea of qi, erupting in blinding arcs like bolts of lightning.

Zzzzzz!

Piercing, crackling sounds filled the air.

One breath. Two breaths…

Only three breaths had passed, yet it felt as though an eternity had stretched by.

Crack, crack, crack, crack…

Then came a delightful cascade of shattering sounds. The seals around the slaves' seas of qi, struck by the formation's power, were torn apart like sheets of fabric.

Riiip!

Every last seal shattered completely!

After that, the formation's glow dimmed, and the entire array slowly wound down. Jiang Chen was drenched in sweat, but his eyes blazed with elation.

"It worked!"

Outside the formation, Huang'er's face lit up with joy. She hurried inside and asked with concern, "Young Master Jiang, are you all right?"

"I'm fine. This formation drained too much energy—I'm a bit fatigued, but my foundation isn't affected." Jiang Chen did a quick internal check. Aside from the heavy consumption of his spiritual sense, there was nothing wrong.

This formation was extremely advanced and came with an enormous cost. Under normal circumstances, it was far beyond what a Human Saint realm cultivator could hope to control—in fact, even a Saint realm cultivator might not qualify to manipulate it.

If Jiang Chen hadn't possessed his unique advantages across multiple fronts, this formation would have been completely beyond him.

…

At the very instant the formation shattered the seals, Sikou Nan—far away in the Sikou Clan's stronghold—jolted violently, jolting straight out of his meditation.

He had sensed that the unsealing talismans under his control had spontaneously collapsed!

It was the dead of night. Sikou Nan had been sitting cross-legged in meditation, which was precisely the opening Jiang Chen had exploited. By the time Sikou Nan reacted, the unsealing talismans he controlled had already crumbled.

He pulled them out—all reduced to shattered fragments. A single sweep with his spiritual sense told him that a total of sixty-four unsealing talismans had been destroyed.

Sikou Nan's face drained of color, and curses spilled from his lips: "Bastard! Bastard!"

He knew that the destruction of the unsealing talismans meant the seals on all sixty-four individuals had been broken by someone. And the method used to crack those seals was extraordinarily sophisticated!

Whether it was the timing or the technique itself, both had been executed to absolute perfection—leaving him, Sikou Nan, without even the time to react.