Star Trace Gate

Chapter 961 The Wang Family, Reduced to Abandoned Pawns, Potato Unleashes His Sword

North Tower, Teleportation Array Number One.

Wang Anquan, his wife Zhuzhu, Ruyue, and Cheng Yuan, along with thirty experts who had been brought out of the prisoner-of-war camp, used the precious materials Ruyue had provided to repair the great formation. It took them a little over two hours to completely repair the great formation.

Once everything was settled, Wang Anquan finally felt completely at ease. Now, all he needed to do was wait for Yu Tiange to arrive with her family, and then they could teleport away from Beifeng Town as quickly as possible. If things went even more smoothly, the gray-robed woman from Fulong Pavilion would also rescue her eldest son, Wenping, and then he would have no more worries.

However, what he didn't expect was that right after the great formation was repaired, Ruyue burned a talisman, summoning the phantom of a spirit pigeon to fly towards the town's mansion, and looked at him with an extremely cold expression.

Looking into her exposed eyes, Wang Anquan felt a chill run down his spine, and then asked, "When will Yu Tiange arrive?"

Outside the teleportation array, the moonlight was dim. Ruyue stood not far away and said in a cold voice, "He won't come to the number one teleportation array."

Upon hearing this, Wang Anquan was completely dumbfounded: "Wh...what do you mean?"

“Although Brother Yu won’t be coming, your close relatives will arrive soon.” Ruyue looked at him without a trace of pity or sympathy in her eyes, and spoke the coldest words with a 38-degree angle: “It will take about half an hour to fully revive the teleportation array, and the commotion will be huge, which will inevitably arouse the suspicion of the military officers in the city. Therefore, it is unrealistic for everyone to teleport away at the same time. Furthermore, if everyone leaves, the teleportation array will be left unprotected and will inevitably be destroyed by the monk soldiers, so that the cultivators of the Heavenly Capital Divine Court will not be able to arrive in time to retake the city.”

"Therefore, the Divine Court has decided that the eight of us will take Jiuzhi and leave first... while you will hold the prisoners in the banquet hall and find a way to release all the prisoners in the Nanshan Illusion. After that, you will stay here to fight and maneuver with the garrison. You only need to hold out for about half an hour until the teleportation array is fully activated, and then Tiandu can send thousands of cultivators to reinforce you at once."

"Remember, you once surrendered to Tianzhao Temple, and only by fighting to the death here can you wash away the shame of your betrayal."

"No need to thank us. Brother Yu is kind-hearted and naturally thought of this opportunity for you long ago...!" Ruyue spoke with righteous indignation, her words perfectly coherent and without the slightest flaw.

Upon hearing this, Wang Anquan's mind went blank, and a chill ran through him.

He had considered that Yu Tiange might play tricks, and he had also considered that he might have to act as a stepping stone or a scout in some matters, but he never expected that Yu Tiange could be so ruthless as to use the blood and bones of his entire clan to reopen the gates of Beifeng Town.

He stared at Ruyue in disbelief, his face deathly pale, his lips twitching as he said, "We...we only retrieved one hundred prisoners from the Nanshan Illusion, and then ordered these one hundred men to split into three groups to repair the great formations. Each formation only had about thirty men...and they were all prisoners who had been tortured for almost a month. Even if we include my closest relatives, we only had less than two hundred men. How could we possibly hold out to guard the great formations for even half an hour?! What difference is there between what you're doing and sending us to our deaths?"

Upon hearing this, Ruyue immediately retorted, "We originally intended for you to receive three hundred people, and to select the highest-ranking ones... but you refused. You only cared about the gains and losses and safety of your own family... you've made a mess of your own situation!"

"Bullshit! Are you blind?! Jia Yuan clearly had suspicions, can't you see that? I need to take three hundred people, and you still won't be able to escape the Nanshan Illusion!" Wang Anquan completely broke down, cursing angrily, "You're using me and then discarding me, it's shameless betrayal...!"

"If anyone's betrayed, it was your entire family who betrayed the Divine Court and the local people first." Ruyue stared at him, saying each word slowly and deliberately, "Wang Anquan, if you want your son Wenping to live, you must do as I say. If you stay here now and use the prisoners you hold to your advantage, ordering the Martial Monks' Mansion to remain still, then you might still have a sliver of hope. But if you all flee, attracting the attention of the people in the city, who will then send reinforcements, then you need to think carefully... Do you really think all those elderly, weak, women, and children in your family can escape?"

"There's no point in saying more now," Ruyue threatened again. "If you can hold out for half an hour until the reinforcements from Tiandu arrive, you can wash away the shame of betraying your country and meet your son in Tiandu."

As soon as she finished speaking, Ruyue turned to look at her close friend Cheng Yuan and whispered, "Let's go!"

"Whizzing……!"

The two didn't even look at Wang Anquan and the others again, but decisively abandoned them there, and then left side by side.

Under the dim moonlight, Wang Anquan stared blankly at the newly repaired teleportation array, his eyes vacant and helpless.

He finally understood why Yu Tiange acted so recklessly and always adhered to the principle of quick attack and quick retreat, never calculating how difficult it would be for so many people to leave Beifeng Town safely and escape from under the noses of 12,000 monk soldiers, and how much meticulous planning and preparation it would require.

To put it bluntly, from the moment he devised this plan, he never considered the safety of the entire Wang family, and he always treated Wang Anquan as cannon fodder, as a pawn to be sacrificed. If you look at it from this perspective, and only consider the forces already revealed in the game, you'll find that Yu Tiange's plan actually has a pretty high success rate.

There were only eight of them. If they could successfully subdue the dozen or so monk-soldiers and obtain their seals and orders, and then maintain control for about two hours without any incidents being missed, they could escape as quickly as possible. They had no burdens left, and no need to worry about the lives of others; their only concern was to scheme and plot against them whenever possible.

This is why Yu Tiange held onto Wen Ping so cautiously, because he knew very well that this was the ultimate bargaining chip that could lead Wang Anquan by the nose. Moreover, his repeated emphasis on having Wang Anquan bring out three hundred people was actually to repair the great formation as quickly as possible, shorten the repair time by two to three hours, and have a certain numerical advantage in the desperate battle to protect the great formation.

Once the great formation is successfully repaired, the more than one hundred members of the Wang family will have to face the half-hour when the great formation is fully restored.

This half hour is the most crucial, and the one that will determine life and death. The grand formation isn't fully activated, so it can't teleport over two hundred people at once. They can't leave, and having revealed their true intentions by following Yu Tiange in his uprising, they're trapped with no choice but to stay here and fight desperately.

As for Yu Tiange's side, since there were only eight of them, they were able to forcibly teleport away as soon as the great formation was activated.

In doing so, he essentially presented Wang Anquan with an unsolvable problem, forcing him into a desperate situation where he had to fight to the death. Only by fighting to the death, only by holding out for half an hour, would the Divine Court's reinforcements arrive, and only then could the Wang family survive.

This plan was undeniably vicious and ingenious.

However, this plan is only made from Yu Tiange's current perspective and position, and cannot cover all unexpected people and events.

In the cold wind, Wang Anquan had figured everything out, and felt extremely desolate and desperate.

Beside him, Hao Ming, who had been rescued from the prisoner-of-war camp, watched Ruyue and the other woman leave, gritting his teeth and cursing, "What place in this divine court is worth being loyal to?! Damn it, we made the right choice surrendering...!"

"Brother, I've ruined you." Wang Anquan replied with immense guilt, "I... I was so damn naive."

“Brother, there’s no point in saying this now. The brothers came with you already prepared to die.” Hao Ming, a veteran of countless battles, said with a clear mind, “The great formation hasn’t fully recovered, so we can’t leave… We can only fight again and pray for a glimmer of hope that we can wait for the arrival of the Divine Court’s reinforcements.”

Upon hearing this, Wang Anquan turned around abruptly and made a decisive decision: "Immediately activate the teleportation array and put it into a state of recovery. Once the array shines with a heaven-piercing light, send as many people as possible. The brothers in the prisoner-of-war camp go first, and the elderly, weak, women, and children in my family go first...!"

"it is good!"

Standing in the cold wind, everyone nodded in agreement with resolute expressions.

……

In the garrison compound, Tianhan and Beishan didn't care about Jiuzhi's condition at all, because Yu Tiange had given clear instructions that the eldest prince of the Divine Court only wanted to know the shocking information that Jiuzhi had found out from the Divine Monk's Mansion, and was not really concerned about this person.

Therefore, to them, Jiuzhi could also be a pawn to be discarded. If he could be saved alive, they would save him alive; if not, they would take him back dead. After all, there were many top-level experts of the Yin-Yang system in the Divine Court. As long as Jiuzhi's three souls and seven spirits were preserved, the Taoists could question his soul, which would be considered a "perfect" completion of their task.

After Tianhan and Beishan broke into the underground chamber, they instantly interrupted Jiuzhi's focused state of mind and caused the Gu poison to backfire, causing him to vomit several mouthfuls of blood.

The monk Kuzhi awoke from his excruciating pain and asked incredulously, "Who...who are you?!"

"The people from the Divine Court have come to rescue you. No need to ask any more questions, just come with us." Tian Han stepped forward directly.

Jiuzhi's face was deathly pale, his body reeked of decay, and he looked utterly wretched as he asked, "Where is Wang Anquan...?"

“He has also turned against us and has decided to take the Wang family to cover our retreat. You don’t need to worry too much, come with us.” Tian Han reached out and pulled him without any room for argument.

Upon hearing that Wang Anquan had returned, Jiuzhi finally stood up with the other's help, saying, "I...I'm in terrible shape, I need to hurry, I need to hurry...!"

"Come on, I have some pills to stabilize your soul, you can take them on the way." Without saying another word, Tianhan and the other pulled Jiuzhi away from the underground chamber.

After the three reached the ground, Tian Han turned to Wang Boshan, who was in charge, and said, "Wang Anquan has decided to stay at the No. 1 formation to fight to the death so that the formation can be fully revived and reinforcements from the Divine Court can be brought in. He asked me to inform you that you can have the entire clan split into two groups to support the No. 1 and No. 2 formations... to protect the safety of the formation's core. Also, you can take the prisoners from the banquet hall to the formation area to deal with the monk soldiers who might come. You'll have to figure out how to deal with them yourselves, but if you can't hold out for even half an hour, your situation will be dangerous...!"

Upon hearing this, Wang Boshan's face turned extremely cold as he cursed, "Damn it, you're not planning to take us away?!"

"This is Wang Anquan's idea, go ask him. But you have to hurry... otherwise, once the light of the great formation flashes, the soldiers and generals of the Martial Monk's Mansion might notice." Tian Han said succinctly before immediately leading Jiu Zhi to flee outside the garrison.

……

Inside the inner palace, in a private room.

Upon noticing that the crimson sphere of magic had completely lost its luster, Wang Tudou immediately flicked his fingers, drawing out black soul threads, and said in a low, urgent voice, "The blood energy in the underground chamber has been exhausted, and the Blood Soul Orb is now dull and lifeless. This means that someone has broken in, unleashed divine power, and forcibly taken Jiuzhi away. But the exact number is unknown. Now, listen to my instructions…!"

"The two pawns will scout ahead to gather information. I need the exact number of pawns, the possible number of reinforcements, their escape route, and the positions of the patrolling soldiers around them to prevent any potential threats. The general will stay behind and wait for the two pawns to get a clear picture of the situation before taking command and being the first to enter the fray, facing the enemy head-on, fighting and retreating. The cavalry will follow the general and, after the pawns provide their route, will decide where to ambush the enemy. They must act quickly, keep the illusion setup simple, and ensure the offensive weapons within are sharp. Since the number and quality of the enemy are currently unknown, the chariot will carry two cannons, only responsible for instant entry and exit. After sending the cannons away, there is no need to engage in direct combat. If an ambush fails, everyone must retreat immediately and look for another opportunity. Do not linger in battle. There are too many hidden forces in North Wind Town. We absolutely cannot risk our lives only to end up working for others."