Chapter 202 - Breaking Into the Palace at Night
Liu Ming thought about the Black Spirit Group and the Third Marquis House and felt a great headache.
According to what Hu Chunniang said, this Third Marquis might be the backing of the Black Spirit Group. The entire Third Marquis House might be the base of the Black Spirit Group.
He had originally thought about sneaking into the house in order to investigate that secret, however, he could only put it on hold.
Although his strength is much stronger than a normal Late Perfection Spirit Apostle, he didn’t want to be discovered and be surrounded and attacked by over a dozen Black Spirit Messengers.
With this, he didn’t need to rush in going to the Third Marquis House and instead had to first verify that the disappearance of the previous Supervising Disciple of the Barbarian Ghost Sect.
As long as he could find evidence, he could wait until the reinforcement of the sect and then borrow the strength to sweep up the Black Spirit Group.
At that time, without the Black Spirit Group messing things up, he could easily enter the Third Marquis’ House.
Although Liu Ming had a plan in his heart, he still gave it a close thought to make sure that the plan didn’t have any major flaws. Then, he let out a light breath and put it behind his mind.
In the remaining time, he made a twisted his wrist and a thin white book appeared in his hands. The cover of the book had the words, ‘Thirteen Puppet Tricks’.
This was a basic puppet technique book that he had bought in the underground market. The knowledge within the book didn’t involve too complex techniques and were basic and useful techniques to control puppets.
Even people that had never practiced puppet techniques could easily start controlling puppets after reading the book.
Of course, these controlling techniques were not able to compare to Nine Enchantment Sect disciples and didn’t touch upon any other side of puppet techniques.
Those Nine Enchantment Sect disciples didn’t only need to learn how to control puppets but also had to know how to refine and strengthen their techniques. They even needed to know how to fix damaged puppets with the least amount of time.
However, Liu Ming knew the limitations of the book.
He had bought this book because the puppet techniques in the book were easy to learn and control puppet beasts….
Liu Ming flipped through page after page of book and an expression of thought surfaced on his face.
After an unknown amount of time, he closed the book in his hands. Then, he closed his eyes before shaking his sleeve to allow two light blue b.a.l.l.s roll out.
Liu Ming made a singled handed technique and opened his eyes to stare at the two b.a.l.l.s. He then pointed towards the two b.a.l.l.s.
“Pu, pu!”
The two b.a.l.l.s gave a tremble before it turned into a blur. With the blink of an eye, they turned into two blue wooden birds that each had four wings.
These were the two puppets that he had gained after killing the guest for the Ninth Prince.
Although these two wooden birds couldn’t compare to the puppet beasts that the Core Disciples of the Nine Enchantment Sect, they were still rare items among loose cultivators.
If he was able to control these with ease while fighting someone, he could add it as a flexible method to deal with enemies.
Of course, the most important part was that getting familiar with the technique wouldn’t take too many days.
In the following time, Liu Ming muttered things as his ten fingers lightly fluttered without stopping. The two blue wooden birds followed Liu Ming’s fingers and started to rise up shakily. Then, it started flying up and down in the sealed room.
In the next half month, Liu Ming learned alchemy under the guidance of Fan Baizi as he kept practicing and getting familiar with controlling techniques for the two wooden puppets.
Unknowingly, it came to the day for the royal family to honor their ancestors that Hu Chunniang talked about.
Although this woman said that he only needed to wait for the news, when Liu Ming thought about it some more, he quietly left the Immortal Dawn Mountain at noon.
For some reason, he felt that Hu Chunniang’s journey wouldn’t be successful and that he should prepare some methods to support her.
When he appeared near a tea house near the palace, he had already turned into a large and st.u.r.dy man that had a fearsome face.
Liu Ming drank a pot of tea as he waited in the tea house.
Xuanjing’s palace was placed quite cleverly. One side touched upon a large lake that was quite famous in Xuanjing, another side was next to the barracks for the Xuanjing inner guards, another side was the area where the various families of the royal family such as the princes lived and the last side was the side with the palace doors that faced the center of Xuanjing.
Liu Ming’s current place was on that side. The other three sides either had many restrictions or were guarded heavily.
If Hu Chunniang succeeded and needed to leave the palace, she would probably escape from this side.
Time went by slowly!
Liu Ming sat in the tea house and could even barely hear the commotion with the high walls of the palace. It seemed like the royal family’s ceremony had successfully started.
At this time, near the palace appeared team after team of patrolling armored guards.
Looks like because of the ceremony, the security of the entire palace had been beefed up.
Liu Ming tasted the tea without changing his expression and he took four hours to drink a single pot of tea.
When three pots of tea were drank up, the sky had completely darkened.
Liu Ming felt out a silver and placed it on the table as he left the tea house without any expressions.
After the time that it took to eat a meal, Liu Ming gave himself an Invisibility Glyph before appearing near an exit of a street not too far away from the tea house. He laid upon the wall as he watched the palace without moving.
After the commotion in the day, the palace seemed extremely quiet at night. Besides the occasional “bang bang” noise, there were no other noises.
Liu Ming wasn’t impatient after hearing this and stayed in the same place without saying anything.
After an unknown amount of time, a huge noise that roared across the earth came from the palace. Then, a clear noise came out as a shocking wave of Sword Qi came out from the center of the palace.
Immediately afterwards, the entire palace went into an uproar. Under bright lights and fires, countless guards surged out from various places in the palace. They all ran towards the place where the Sword Qi erupted.
Seeing this, Liu Ming’s eyes flashed and didn’t immediately act.
As a result, after a couple moments and waves of explosion sounds, a Sword Qi rose into the sky again in the palace. It was quite close to the walls of the palace.
Seeing this, Liu Ming moved without hesitation and moved towards the tall walls of the palace like a ghost.
His body moved and soundlessly appeared atop the high wall. His two eyes looked at the most chaotic region and found a white shadow coming towards the wall with two cold Sword Qis.
Besides the white shadow were over a dozen of cultivators that were of different levels and were using Pract.i.tioner Weapons to wildly attack the white shadow.
Although these attacks couldn’t break the defense of the white shadow, they still made it’s movement speed much slower and did not allow it to break out of the encirclement.
At this time, from far places, Gold Spirit Guests were urging clouds to come.
Seeing this, Liu Ming didn’t have any hesitation and moved, turning into a black shadow that ran straight to the middle of the battle.
At this time, all of the cultivators and guards were absorbed by the white shadow. They didn’t even notice that an unfamiliar person appear next to them.
Seeing this, Liu Ming was quite surprised and made hand techniques without another word. Then, sparks started to form in front of him as a scarlet fireball appeared out of nowhere. With a single turn, it became as big as a water jug as a searing heat emanated from it.
With this, the nearby cultivators all took notice.
One of them quickly turned around and after seeing the huge fireball in Liu Ming’s hands, he could not help but become shocked.
“Who are you, why have I not seen you before… Not good, this thief has a companion waiting.”
The person only asked two sentences before he realized the situation and started yelling.
However, at this time, Liu Ming’s wrist flicked as the large fireball made a humming sound to shoot towards the crowd of people.
With the warning, the other cultivators saw what was happening and could not continue to surround and attack the white shadow. They all shouted as they jumped backwards.
“Hong!”
The fireball exploded within the crowd and turned into raging flames that spread out in all directions. In addition, a fire cloud that was shaped similar to an mushroom rose up into the sky.
Two Gold Spirit Guests who moved slower than others were covered by the fire cloud, were instantly turned into dust after giving a blood curling scream. In addition, the dozen or so pract.i.tioner guards around them also did not avoid the same fate.
The white shadow too this opportunity to combine the two swords and actually turned into a huge Sword Qi that escaped from within the fire cloud and arrived next to Liu Ming.
“Junior Qian, go quickly. The palace has strong people of the Sea Race. I have been wounded by their ambush and must go to a quiet place to heal.” The white shadow was a woman who had a white bone mask. After seeing Liu Ming’s face clearly, she first paused before realizing something as she quickly said in a low voice.
It was Hu Chunniang’s voice.
However, once this girl said these two sentences, she gave a m.u.f.fled grunt as she opened her mouth and let out a mouthful of black blood which dyed most of her white dress red. Then, she stumbled before falling down.
“Sea Race!”
Liu Ming was shocked when he heard this but with a twist of his sleeve, he caught Hu Chunniang by her waist and with a pull, he pulled her into his embrace.
Hu Chunniang’s body was quiet soft without any resistance. It was obvious that they did not know anything anymore.
Liu Ming stomped without hesitation and flew outside of the walls of the palace like a bolt from a bow.
At this time, the Gold Spirit Guests that retreated quickly gave chase in anger.
However, Liu Ming, who had already taken the Levitation Gra.s.s, had speed that was much quicker than the normal person’s expectations. With a couple of blurs, he escaped out of the walls of the palace.
By the time the other Gold Spirit Guests chased to the palace walls, Liu Ming had already disappeared among the surrounding buildings.
Their faces could not help but look at each other!
“Immediately block the four doors. That intruder has already been wounded and cannot leave Xuanjing in the short term.” At this time, a cold voice sounded from behind them.
These Gold Spirit Guests were shocked and when they looked back, they saw a large man with blue hair and a purple beard who was looking at them coldly.
“Yes, Commander Qiu! We will immediately notify the guards of the four gates and lock them!” A pract.i.tioner guard that seemed to have quite a high standing immediately took one step forward as he responded.