The declaration from the Peacock Sacred Mountain spread through every channel across the entire human domain within three days, sending massive shockwaves through the region.
The Myriad Longevity Pill—the hottest topic of recent times—once again became the focal point of every major power across the human domain.
Pill Fire City was no exception.
The moment the news reached them, Pill Fire City was caught completely off guard. They had already been quietly laying out a series of countermeasures, preparing to strike back by accusing the Peacock Sacred Mountain of stealing the Myriad Longevity Pill recipe, thereby undermining the prestige of the Glazed Royal City.
However, before those plans could even be set in motion, the Peacock Sacred Mountain had preemptively struck, shattering their arrangements in one fell swoop.
Both Pill Fire City and the Indestructible Heavenly Capital were furious.
Within Pill Fire City, the Grand City Master—Emperor Pill Extreme—was holding an audience with the alchemy representative from the Indestructible Heavenly Capital. Emperor Pill Extreme was a powerhouse who, in every regard, was in no way inferior to the Peacock Great Emperor.
This time, the Indestructible Heavenly Capital's alchemy representative was none other than their top-tier Pill King. The elder was over a thousand years old, the most senior and most powerful Pill King in the Indestructible Heavenly Capital. His name was Shi Yangshu.
Yet even the most senior Pill King of the Indestructible Heavenly Capital had to observe the courtesies of a junior before the Grand City Master of Pill Fire City.
After all, Emperor Pill Extreme was one of the absolute pinnacle powerhouses of the Upper Eight Domains. Famous for thousands of years, whether in reputation or standing among the titans of the Upper Eight Domains, almost no one could claim to firmly surpass him.
"Your Majesty, I never expected the Glazed Royal City to be so shameless. Not only did they destroy our Indestructible Heavenly Capital's business, but they also want to claim the Myriad Longevity Pill recipe for themselves. Their ambitions are enormous," Pill King Shi complained, lacing his words with a hint of provocation.
Emperor Pill Extreme offered a faint smile. How could he fail to see through Shi Yangshu's petty little scheme?
Yet the Emperor remained perfectly composed and simply asked, "Tell me in detail how your Indestructible Heavenly Capital obtained the Myriad Longevity Pill from the Myriad Phenomena Domain. I must know the exact channel through which the Glazed Royal City acquired their Myriad Longevity Pill. If we cannot figure that out, we will be in a very passive position."
Before Emperor Pill Extreme, Shi Yangshu truly had no room to play clever. Whether he liked it or not, he obediently recounted the entire process.
Fortunately, such acts of plunder were hardly rare in the martial world. After listening, Emperor Pill Extreme merely offered an inscrutable smile.
"I hear your Indestructible Heavenly Capital still hasn't captured the remnants of the Dangian Palace?" Emperor Pill Extreme suddenly asked.
Shi Yangshu was startled but nodded. "The Dangian Palace remnants are extremely cunning. Given enough time, we will definitely round them up!"
Emperor Pill Extreme smiled lightly, his tone flat and detached. "I'm afraid your Indestructible Heavenly Capital won't get the chance."
"Your Majesty, what do you mean?" Shi Yangshu was somewhat taken aback.
"Obviously, the remnants of the Dangian Palace have already been absorbed by the Glazed Royal City. To be precise, they were taken in by the Peacock Sacred Mountain." Though Emperor Pill Extreme had not witnessed it firsthand, his words were spoken with such certainty that no one could question them.
Everything he said and did carried a unique authority—as if every word that left his lips was absolute truth, leaving others no room for doubt.
Shi Yangshu was rendered speechless, his throat bobbing as he swallowed dryly several times. He forced a bitter smile. "Could it be that after all our chasing and blocking, the Dangian Palace monsters still managed to escape to the Glazed Royal City?"
The "monsters" he referred to, of course, meant Jiang Chen.
Emperor Pill Extreme smiled faintly. "So this is the competence of your Indestructible Heavenly Capital? You create a mess and can't even clean up after yourselves. You didn't offer it up earlier, and you didn't offer it up later. Only when you were backed into a corner did you think to present the Myriad Longevity Pill. Do you realize that it was precisely because of your stupidity that the situation has deteriorated to this point?"
As Emperor Pill Extreme spoke, his tone grew noticeably harsher.
He scolded them as one would a misbehaving child, and Shi Yangshu didn't dare talk back, only smiling bitterly and shaking his head. He knew that everything Emperor Pill Extreme said was the plain truth.
If they had offered the Myriad Longevity Pill recipe to Pill Fire City from the very beginning, the situation would never have deteriorated this far.
Initially, they had feared Pill Fire City—that colossal entity—worried that once they handed it over, Pill Fire City would swallow them whole. So they hadn't even dared to test the waters in Pill Fire City's market, choosing instead to test the waters in the Glazed Royal City first.
Who could have predicted that they would stumble and fall in the Glazed Royal City?
Hit by the Peacock Sacred Mountain's relentless combination of blows, the Indestructible Heavenly Capital was suddenly thrown onto the defensive. Left with no other option, they thought to ally with Pill Fire City, hoping to use the enormous profits of the Myriad Longevity Pill to climb aboard its great ship.
It was a fine scheme on paper, but unfortunately, the Peacock Sacred Mountain's follow-up move had thrown Pill Fire City into a passive position as well.
If Pill Fire City were to step forward now, they had already lost the initiative. On the grounds of reasoning alone, their position would be untenable.
They couldn't very well jump out and declare the recipe theirs the moment someone else had just announced their sovereignty over the Myriad Longevity Pill. That would be far too transparently reactive.
The outside world would inevitably wonder: if Pill Fire City truly had the recipe, why didn't you announce it earlier? Why announce it only after the Peacock Sacred Mountain made their declaration?
It would be glaringly obvious that they were simply trying to stir up trouble.
This was Pill Fire City's greatest vulnerability at the moment. But passivity was one thing—expecting them to give up the enormous profits of the Myriad Longevity Pill was clearly unrealistic.
Moreover, the party that had obtained the Myriad Longevity Pill recipe was none other than the Glazed Royal City—the very opponent Pill Fire City least wanted to see in this position.
If any other power had obtained the Myriad Longevity Pill, it would have some impact on Pill Fire City, but over time, those effects could gradually be neutralized. They had countless methods at their disposal to dismantle those negative consequences.