"The puppets... the explosion at the Heavenly Light Sect, the puppets..."
Outside the Mountain, the thunder continued to rage.
Li Kuanghua and the Azure Cloud group were still locked in a tense standoff with the numerous Tian Xing avatars led by Lai Teng. But now, Lai Teng stared at Li Kuanghua with utter horror, for he had already perceived everything that was unfolding back in Eternal Sun Prefecture!
A dense, swarming mass of puppets was scattering from Qilin Mountain, fleeing in every possible direction.
Upon the bodies of those puppets, every single one of them was adorned with the feathers of the "caged birds"; their forms were imbued with the auras of those thousand-plus geniuses.
Moreover, not even the Divinity Transformation avatars of Tian Xing could divine anything from this; they could only track the puppets by relying on the geniuses' auras.
It was obvious that the Li family had long prepared for this plan. But... faced with these innumerable puppets, how could they possibly be caught?
The escape of those thousand-plus geniuses was now a foregone conclusion!
In that brief span of time, a cold sweat had already drenched Lai Teng's back, and he was certain that the same was true for the numerous Tian Xing avatars beside him.
"You didn't rescue Li Yaotie."
Lai Teng stared at Li Kuanghua in the distance.
"Your true objective," he said, unaware that his own voice was trembling, "was to use Ye Xiu's Divinity Transformation tribulation as a massive diversion—to draw our attention and lull our vigilance. Every hour, every moment, was of the utmost importance to you. Then, under that cover, you infiltrated the Heavenly Light Sect, stole the puppets from the Puppet Hall, and sent them hurtling towards Eternal Sun Prefecture."
"And immediately following that, these puppets were imbued with the auras of those geniuses, creating a massive decoy to enable their true escape!"
"Hahaha... a masterful plan, Li family! A masterful plan indeed!"
Lai Teng drew a deep breath. He suddenly understood why, in a place like Azure Cloud Region, both the local people and even the Wu Clan had feared the Li family to this very day.
His voice turned grave. "I am very curious about one thing, however," he said. "Given such a vast distance, how did you manage to transport those puppets all the way to Eternal Sun Prefecture?"
Upon hearing this, a flicker of joy crossed the faces of the Azure Cloud group, even though they did not know the specifics of what Lai Teng was referring to.
However, they could clearly sense the impotent fury in Lai Teng's voice at that moment!
So it turned out that they were not the only ones fighting here! In other places, other members of the Li family were also engaged in battle with Venerable Tian Xing!
"My friends," one of them said, a note of apology in their voice, "our apologies."
Li Kuanghua bowed deeply towards her numerous fellow Daoists from Azure Cloud.
"We..." she said, her voice heavy with the admission, "...were merely one part of the overall plan."
"Hahaha!" The Heavenly Star Sword Saint roared with laughter. "Kuanghua, you underestimate me far too much! I can still distinguish between the greater good and matters of principle. Besides," he added, "are you not also here, fighting this battle right alongside the rest of us?"
Upon hearing his words, the rest of the Azure Cloud group all nodded in agreement, with knowing smiles on their faces.
Li Kuanghua's own ferocity in this battle had been second to none among them. And look at her now—the young lass who had once loved nothing more than to shout and make a racket had been reduced to a broken and battered wreck of a body.
Seeing the look in her companions' eyes, a sense of guilt still lingered in Li Kuanghua's own.
This was the clan's plan. They knew with perfect clarity that no matter how they fought against the avatars of Venerable Tian Xing, the end result would only be to make the remaining avatars even more powerful.
They could have, originally, dedicated all their strength to protecting Ye Xiu.
At the very least, the Old Ancestor could have come to lend his aid, and those puppets could have been transported here to fight alongside them. Yet, all these resources were instead used to rescue those other geniuses.
Even she had not known the most precise details of the clan's plan; her Master Ye Xiu's breakthrough had simply been too abrupt.
She took a deep breath, clenching her left fist, and addressed the group in a firm, resolute voice. "My friends, I apologize. But please, rest assured—I, Li Kuanghua, am still here with you. I will face the enemy alongside you all, until... the very last moment!"
In an instant, every single person nodded solemnly, their gazes fixed once more upon the numerous Tian Xing avatars in the sky.
Li Kuanghua looked directly at Lai Teng; she could feel his rage.
It was obvious now: the avatars in Eternal Sun Prefecture had suffered a major setback, yet the avatars here in the Imperial Capital would never let them off the hook.
She couldn't help but say in a cold tone, "Lai Teng, if you leave now, you might still have a chance to live."
"Hahaha!"
Lai Teng's laughter died, his face suddenly suffused with a dark gloom. He truly wanted to flee; he could use the setback in Eternal Sun Prefecture as an excuse to slip away for good.
In any case, Li Kuanghua was, at the very least, genuinely capable of dragging him down with her into mutual destruction.
But that Cheng Lingwu, however, appeared once more in a flash.
It was unclear whether his undying intent was to extinguish the Li family, or perhaps to extinguish Lai Teng himself. With a cold snort, he interjected.
"Leave?" he sneered at Li Kuanghua. "How utterly laughable! Do you genuinely believe that just because of some incident in Eternal Sun Prefecture, you are now in a position to boss around Lai Teng? You have changed nothing. At the very least... your own predicament remains utterly unchangeable!"
From among the Azure Cloud group, Liu Wuhuan stepped forward and scoffed, "General Wang Jinhu is on his way. What sort of grudge could you possibly hold against Lai Teng, to be so eager to send him to his death?"
...
Lai Teng remained silent, offering no rebuttal.
It was Cheng Lingwu who responded, his expression full of mockery.
"Wang Jinhu?" he sneered. "And you truly believe he can even make it here?"
"What?!!"
The hearts of everyone in the Azure Cloud group skipped a beat.
That Cheng Lingwu merely stared at the people from the Azure Cloud Region as if they were already dead men. Subsequently, he turned to Lai Teng, whose expression was dark and uncertain, and said, "General Lai Teng, I have already given my assurance that neither the Heavenly Light Sect nor anyone from the Grand Tutor's faction will be able to interfere in this matter. It is time for you to do your duty."
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