Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

Outside Chidu City, it’s the twenty-second day of the first lunar month.

The Qinglong Society's four-pronged encirclement has advanced to within thirty miles of Chidu's outskirts.

The large tent was pitched in a sheltered spot on a hillside, brightly lit inside, where the six hall masters gathered in front of a sand table. Li Chenzhou stood in the main seat, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on a small wooden plaque with a white lotus flag stuck in it on the sand table.

Bai Yujing was not present—the Second Dragon Head took the black halberd and returned to the main altar to settle it, accompanied by Ximen Chuixue and Ye Gucheng. The Third Dragon Head, Li Chenzhou, was in full charge of matters in the Southern Frontier.

"The three elders of the White Lotus Sect have already entered the city."

Chai Yuguan pointed to the direction of Chidu and tapped his fingertip on the edge of the sand table.

"The Red-Robed Dharma King transferred his last trump card from Wanfo Temple."

Three old guys at the seventh or eighth level of Grandmaster, plus the Red-Robed Dharma King himself at the initial ninth level—a tough nut to crack. Three dragon heads; if they launch a frontal assault, our casualties won't be small.

Li Chenzhou glanced at the densely packed city defense markings on the sand table. "A tough nut to crack? Then let's gnaw on it. Tomorrow morning, I'll launch a frontal assault."

He turned and scanned the tent. "Four dragon heads—"

Someone moved in the shadows in the corner of the tent.

Guan Qi walked out slowly, wearing a gray-blue cloth robe, with a thin face, and nothing hanging from his waist, as if he were going out to buy groceries.

The founder of the Misty Sky Alliance, the four dragon leaders who were at the mid-stage of the ninth level of the Grandmaster Realm, had been silently staying in the darkest corner. Now that he stepped into the light, everyone could see the faint smile on his lips.

"I will wait for them in the city."

Guan Qidao said, "When the frontal assault breaks through the city, the three elders of the White Lotus Sect and the Red-Clothed Dharma King will definitely retreat through the secret passage."

"I've already marked the exits of the secret passages—" He took out a thin piece of paper from his sleeve and casually spread it on the edge of the sand table. The paper depicted the intricate tunnel structure beneath the Crimson Capital Palace, with every fork and exit clearly marked. Everyone glanced at it and couldn't help but be secretly shocked—this tunnel drawing was even more detailed than that of the White Lotus Sect's own people.

Guan Qi pointed to a spot: "They ran into me when they came out."

Li Chenzhou nodded: "Then let's do it that way."

January 23rd, dawn.

Outside the north gate of Chidu, three thousand elite Qinglong Society soldiers stood in formation.

Li Chenzhou stood at the front of the formation, without any weapons.

He clasped his fists to his chest, his gaze calmly fixed on the dense ranks of Red Armored Archers and Talisman Masters atop the city walls.

The archers had been drawing their bows taut for half an hour, their arms trembling, the arrowheads gleaming coldly in the morning light. The talisman masters gathered on both sides of the city wall, their palms covered with a thick layer of talismans, each holding their breath and waiting for the red-robed Dharma King's command to cast their spells.

On the city wall, the red-robed Dharma King personally supervised the battle.

Today he wore a brand new crimson robe, the collar embroidered with a circle of white lotuses in gold thread. He stood high above, overlooking the three thousand members of the Azure Dragon Society arrayed below the city. He took a deep breath, his voice resounding throughout the surrounding area, and demanded:

"Li Chenzhou! Your Azure Dragon Society has seized imperial tombs and looted treasures, and now you're extending your reach into the Southern Frontier! My White Lotus Sect has no grudge against you—"

Li Chenzhou raised his hand, interrupting him. The gesture was as casual as stopping a talkative acquaintance on the street.

"No enmity whatsoever?" Li Chenzhou's voice wasn't loud, but it clearly pierced through the morning mist and the clamor above and below the city walls. Every word seemed to be spoken directly into everyone's ears. "You know better than I what the Wanfo Temple, which has supported you for hundreds of years, intends."

He slowly moved his right shoulder joint, and the joint made a slight "click" sound.

"You are not worthy of the title 'King of the South.' Today, I will remove it for you."

The words were spoken. A punch landed.

Li Chenzhou's fist energy blasted out from thirty feet away, the dark golden light drawing a straight trajectory in the morning mist, as thick as a bucket and as bright as lightning, accurately striking the center of the north gate of Chidu.

The iron gate, over two feet thick, caved inward from the middle, and the shrill sound of the iron shattering echoed across the surrounding area. Then, the entire gate exploded, shattering into hundreds of pieces of iron that scattered in all directions.

The archers lined up on the city wall were swept away by the aftershocks of the fist, staggered about, and the sounds of snapping bowstrings, falling men and horses, and screams mingled together. The talismans in the hands of the talisman masters were blown away by the shockwave before they could even be pasted, burning into clumps of charred ashes in mid-air.

Li Chenzhou lowered his fist and stepped forward.

"kill--"

Three thousand elite troops surged into the breach like a tidal wave. The sounds of rubbing armor, footsteps, and drawing weapons mingled together, like the first beating of a giant drum.

Although there were still more than 20,000 Red Armor Army soldiers in the city, Li Chenzhou broke through the city gate with a single punch—this shock was too direct, and the morale of the defending troops who witnessed this scene collapsed by more than half.

Some turned and ran, some threw down their bows and arrows and squatted against the wall, covering their heads, while many more were helpless in the street fighting and were cut down one by one by the elite Qinglong Society soldiers like wheat being harvested.

In April, Lei Sun, the master of the Hall of Four, used his Crimson Sand Palm to kill three captains in the streets and alleys. As the crimson sand flew, the palm wind swept along the walls, even scraping off a layer of red powder from the bricks and stones.

The puppets of the Third Hall Master, Xiaoyao Hou, infiltrated the center of the White Lotus Sect's missionary altar from the rooftop. These wooden puppets were as agile as living creatures, silently climbing over the eaves and vaulting through the windows, strangling all the leaders and followers in the altar.

In the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, the missionary altar was silent. Only a puppet carrying the head of the presiding believer walked out of the main gate. A few drops of blood were splattered on its wooden face, and the smile on its lips looked particularly eerie in the candlelight.

The Red-Robed Dharma King retreated into the royal palace deep within the capital city—a temporary palace city converted from the prefectural governor's office.

Three elders of the White Lotus Sect were already guarding the palace gate. All three were old men in gray robes and red shoes, their faces withered like ancient trees, but their auras combined to form a gray-white wall of energy that sealed the entire palace gate, preventing even a wisp of wind from seeping in through the cracks.

"Can we hold out?" The red-robed Dharma King stood in the highest pavilion of the palace, his expression shifting between light and shadow. His fingers gripped the railing tightly, his knuckles turning white.

The leading elder's voice was hoarse: "We must at least hold Li Chenzhou off for half an hour. Just a quarter of an hour—"

"Half a quarter of an hour?" the red-robed Dharma King interrupted him. "What can you do in half a quarter of an hour?"

"Enough for us to retreat through the secret passage to Wanfo Temple. Dharma King, as long as we're alive—"

Before the words were finished, a muffled rumble suddenly came from deep within the palace.

The sound was not like an explosion, nor like the clash of weapons, but more like something huge and heavy being torn apart from the inside, accompanied by the sound of bricks and soil shattering.

Then came a few short screams, which abruptly stopped at their highest point, as if someone had grabbed their throat, and then the depths of the palace fell silent again.

A deathly silence descended, and even the wind chimes hanging from the eaves of the attic stopped.

The red-robed Dharma King's expression changed drastically, and he abruptly turned to look at the rear of the palace: "Where is the secret passage?"

No one answered him. Because the secret door at the back of the palace, leading to the hidden passage, had been kicked open from the inside—the door flew three zhang away and crashed to the ground with a dull thud.

A middle-aged man with a thin face, dressed in a gray-blue cloth robe, walked slowly out of the door, his gait as leisurely as if he were taking a stroll in his own yard.

He held two white-haired heads in his hands, their gray beards stained with blood, swaying back and forth beside him.

Guan Qi.

The red-robed Dharma King's pupils suddenly contracted. He recognized the two heads—they were his two Grandmasters, elders of the seventh level.

When I entered the city last night, I bowed and paid my respects to him, saying, "Rest assured, Dharma King."

"Four dragon heads..."

The red-robed Dharma King's voice changed, like a bowstring stretched to its limit being suddenly plucked, "How did you get out of the secret passage?"

"Your three elders arranged for two groups to retreat separately, one group taking the secret passage and the other charging through the main gate of the palace. I dealt with the two who escaped through the secret passage first, and the remaining one—"

He raised his chin and pointed to the leading elder at the palace gate. The elder's face was deathly pale, and the gray-white aura around him fluctuated violently; his aura was already becoming unstable.

"—You'll have to deal with it yourself."

The leading elder suddenly roared, and the gray-white aura wall expanded abruptly. He swooped down on Guan Qi like a gray eagle spreading its wings.

Guan Qi stood still, neither dodging nor yielding. He raised his right hand, and a streak of bluish-gray energy swept through the air—it was so fast that the naked eye could only see a blur.

The elder's figure froze in mid-air, a fist-sized hole now visible in his chest. He looked down at the hole, his lips moved but no sound came out, and then he plummeted from mid-air like a kite with a broken string, crashing onto the steps and rolling several times, his gray robe covered in dust and blood.

The red-robed Dharma King fell silent. He leaped from the pavilion, his crimson robe billowing like a sail in mid-air. The aura of a Grandmaster at the initial ninth level exploded forth without reservation, filling the air with the scorching smell of burning.

He clasped his hands together, and a dark red ball of light condensed between them. Within the ball of light, countless tiny runes could be vaguely seen swirling and moving—the power of the "Buddha Seed" that Wanfo Temple had nurtured within him for a hundred years was now being fully unleashed by him.

The runes shone like red-hot iron filings, swirling endlessly within the sphere of light, radiating a suffocating sense of oppression.

Guan Qi squinted at the ball of light and suddenly smiled. The smile was deeper than before, carrying a genuine sense of amusement.

"The martial arts of Wanfo Temple? You really think you're part of the White Lotus Sect."

Instead of backing down, he stepped forward to meet him.

The legacy of the Misty Heaven Alliance transformed into a wisp of ethereal blue energy in his hands. He was like a thrown knife—no, a thrown sword, spear, hammer, halberd—neither of these nor of these.

Guan Qi's figure swept past the red-robed Dharma King, the bluish-gray and crimson colors intertwining once in mid-air.

"Bang--"

The red-robed Dharma King's dark red orb exploded, and the shockwave lifted rubble and broken wood in the palace courtyard three feet high, even knocking off some tiles from the distant palace walls.

Guan Qi was thrown back three zhang by the shockwave, his feet carving two deep furrows in the ground.

After regaining his balance, he looked down at the scorch marks on his robes—a patch of blackened fabric on his left shoulder, the edges still smoldering. He rubbed the edge of the scorch mark between his fingers and shook his head.

"At the initial stage of the ninth level, most of your skill comes from the initiation at Wanfo Temple; only about 30% was truly developed through your own practice."

He raised his hand again, and the bluish-gray aura condensed once more, this time thicker and heavier than before, like an impenetrable fog enveloping his entire right arm.

"Let me show you what a true mid-stage ninth level cultivator looks like."

After an incense stick had burned, the red-robed Dharma King knelt on one knee among the rubble in the palace courtyard.

The crimson robe was torn into shreds, barely hanging on his body, revealing more than ten wounds slashed by the qi beneath, each one deep enough to expose bone, with blood spreading along the cracks in the bricks, forming a small dark red puddle.

Blood streamed from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes remained fixed on Guan Qi, his lips moving as if chanting some incantation, or perhaps he was simply too pained to speak.

Guan Qi stood three zhang away from him, his gray robe torn in three places, yet his breathing remained steady. He looked down at the scorch mark on his left shoulder, then at the red-robed Dharma King's kneeling figure, and suddenly spoke:

"The three dragon leaders said they won't kill you."

The red-robed Dharma King suddenly looked up, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes.

Guan Qidao:

"I'll spare your life; someone wants to question you."

After he finished speaking, he turned and walked out, but stopped after taking two steps. He turned his head and threw down a sentence: "Zhao Ling has already taken over the Eighth County in the south."

The imperial troops haven't arrived yet, but the White Lotus Sect's name will be taken down today.

The red-robed Dharma King knelt amidst the rubble, his blood dripping from his tattered robes into the cracks between the bricks.

His gaze shifted from Guan Qi's retreating figure to the distant, crimson sky—the direction of the Seventh County, where firelight had illuminated the night for most of the night, with a lingering dark orange glow on the horizon. He swallowed hard, muttering to himself:

"Wanfo Temple... Liaochen..."

Master Liaochen. The old monk who picked him up from the mass grave, the master who taught him to read, passed on his skills, and planted the first "Buddha seed" between his forehead.

A hundred years of nurturing, a hundred years of indoctrination, Liao Chen's last words before leaving the temple were, "Go, there is a place for you in the south," and then not a single letter, word, or person ever came to ask him anything again.

A fierce glint flashed in his eyes, like a dying beast baring its fangs for the last time. But that fierceness was quickly swallowed by despair—the Wanfo Temple, which had nurtured him for a hundred years, had not sent a single soldier to the southern border when he truly needed help.

The White Lotus Sect was originally a discarded pawn.