Chapter 134

Chapter 134: Breaking the Situation

Half an hour later, Lin Ze had gathered all the clan’s Pill Masters at Zhou Garden, bringing along a vast quantity of medicinal ingredients.

"Worthy son-in-law, how goes it?"

He entered the manor’s main hall and asked Zhou Luo, who was pretending to study the poison.

"Father-in-law, another half an hour should suffice," Zhou Luo answered deliberately.

"Good. Try to work as quickly as possible. The city has plunged into total chaos," Lin Ze exhaled a long sigh of relief.

After Lin Xuanfeng had transferred most cultivators from the Law Enforcement Hall, the mere two guard squads left behind were utterly incapable of stopping the rampage of the Hehuan Sect disciples.

In just this short half hour, many family businesses had been affected.

Smaller ones were completely looted. Larger establishments, like the auction house, were still guarded by family cultivators, but they wouldn’t hold out for much longer.

Outside the main hall, the other Pill Masters were talking amongst themselves.

"Do you really think Zhou Luo can devise the antidote?"

"In my opinion, unlikely. This toxicity is too bizarre."

"I actually think he can. Back at the spiritual mine, I noticed his extraordinary talent in this area."

"You mean he has an aptitude for poison making?"

"Pill refining and poison making are intrinsically linked. The clan currently has no poison master, hence our limitations whenever poisoning occurs. I think we should cultivate such talent."

…

The group of Pill Masters held differing views.

When Lin Ze emerged, they immediately fell silent.

"Tenth Elder, how is it?" An old man stepped forward to inquire.

"It requires another half-hour. Prepare yourselves. Immediately after he figures it out, we begin refining," Lin Ze instructed.

Elsewhere, Lin Zhi Shou and the others, ambushed, were not faring well.

The sudden attack, aided by a traitor within, had caused severe casualties.

Over a dozen family cultivators had perished instantly. The survivors were still locked in desperate combat.

The battlefield had now descended from the sky to the ground.

The massive flying boat, besieged by Hehuan Sect disciples, could barely hold its own. It had lost motive power.

The family’s young disciples huddled in the center of the deck, trembling like leaves.

Most were below the fifth layer of Qi Refinement. The few capable of fighting had never witnessed such scenes and entirely lacked the courage to engage.

In contrast, the Hehuan Sect disciples showed a rising battle spirit, holding the advantage.

High above, Liu Fu Chen battled fiercely against Lin Zhi Shou and Lin Guang Ming.

He laughed wildly, his longsword dancing like a swimming dragon, its techniques incredibly subtle, forcing them back relentlessly.

"Cease this futile struggle," he declared, confidence etched upon his aged face.

Silent, the two unleashed wave after wave of spiritual energy without reserve.

They were well aware that if all the young disciples on the flying boat were captured, the Lin Family would suffer a devastating blow.

The family would likely be unable to recover for a hundred years.

The only reassurance for Lin Zhi Shou was that his two disciples, Zhou Luo and Lin Xin, hadn’t followed them.

On the ground, Lin Family cultivators continued to fall. Of the original several dozen guards, only a third remained.

Yet retreat was impossible; they could only resist with their lives.

Their sole hope now was for the family’s reinforcements to arrive quickly.

…

At the Lin Family residence,

in less than half an hour, Zhou Luo announced he had identified the crucial issue and instructed everyone to begin pill refining.

These words astonished all the Pill Masters present.

They swarmed him with questions about the antidote’s principles and how he had discovered the solution.

Zhou Luo had long prepared his explanation.

Once he had roughly clarified the matter, Lin Ze urged them to start refining immediately.

Conservatively estimating, at least six hundred people in the Lin Family were poisoned. With over a dozen Pill Masters present, each needed to produce at least sixty potions.

Fortunately, this antidote was a mid-grade potion; had it been top-grade, the workload would have been even greater.

A quarter of an hour later, the first batch of antidotes was completed.

Zhou Luo immediately administered them to his wife and children, witnessing immediate effects.

This delighted everyone.

Lin Ze hastily took the remaining antidotes and distributed them among the family cultivators.

Restoring the family’s combat strength was now an urgent priority.

In Maple Leaf City,

the usually bustling streets lay in complete disarray.

Cultivators among the common folk hid inside their homes, not daring to venture out.

Only disciples of the Hehuan Sect roamed freely through the chaos.

Before the Lin Family auction house, a middle-aged man glared coldly at a faintly glowing formation.

This man was Wang Tong, Liu Fu Chen’s eldest disciple and Zhao Yuan’s Senior Brother.

He had once been a collateral descendant of the Wang Family, fortuitously noticed and taken as a disciple by Liu Fu Chen.

Through the Hehuan Sect’s techniques of absorbing yin to supplement yang, he had advanced to Qi Refinement seventh level.

"Work faster," Wang Tong commanded sternly.

"Steward Wang, rest assured, this formation can hold for at most the time it takes to drink a cup of tea," a nearby disciple reassured him.

"A cup of tea isn’t brief enough. Changes could occur if we’re late," Wang Tong countered.

"Haven’t the Lin Family activated their guardian formation? Even if they wished to send support, they can’t," the disciple responded with a laugh.

Once the Lin Family’s guardian formation activated, it would isolate the inside from the outside, making escape impossible for those within.

For this very reason, during the last invasion by the Hehuan Sect, Seventh Elder Lin Guangping had been trapped and suffered severe injuries.

Now, with the Lin Family at high alert, believing the Hehuan Sect was launching a large-scale attack, they immediately activated the guardian formation.

But unexpectedly, it was only a few of the sect’s disciples wreaking havoc.

“They will soon realize the truth,” said Wang Tong.

To intimidate the Lin Family, they had continuously created huge disturbances, feigning a full-scale mobilization.

Yet such deception couldn’t last long.

Once discovered by the Lin Family, these intruders wouldn’t escape unscathed.

“Young Steward Wang, something terrible has happened!”

Just then, an urgent voice rang out.

A flying shuttle streaked across the sky, and a panicked man leapt from it.

“The Lin Family has deactivated the guardian formation,” he gasped fearfully.

Wang Tong’s face paled. “So soon?”

By his estimate, the Lin Family shouldn’t have caught on this quickly.

When Hehuan Sect fully attacked Maple Leaf City last time, the enemy had only shut down the formation after nearly a full day.

“Unknown. But a large group of guards has rushed out and is heading here,” the man reported.

“A large group? Have they already concocted the antidote?”

Wang Tong frowned deeply, staring at the dimmed formation light, his expression conflicted.

This auction house was one of the Lin Family’s most vital assets—seizing it could yield immense cultivation resources.

“Life is more important. Let’s retreat,” Wang Tong gritted his teeth and decided.

This raid was secondary; his master’s plan was paramount.

Meanwhile, as more and more antidotes were successfully brewed, the nearly paralyzed Lin Family began to regain order.

The family cultivators who had taken the antidote first swiftly recovered their combat strength.

Concurrently, the family elders realized this Hehuan Sect assault was likely a feint.

After deactivating the formation, no mass of Hehuan Sect disciples appeared—not even experts at the eighth level of Qi Refinement or higher emerged.

The remaining elders immediately mobilized and poured out of the family compound.

Noticing the Lin Family’s countermove, the Hehuan Sect disciples scattered in panic and stampeded out of the city.