Chapter 449: Chapter 446: Mo Qi’s Grand Gift (Part 1)

"Hmph. If I weren’t trying to avoid dragging the entire Huangfu Family into this, I wouldn’t be in such a wretched state!"

Huangfu Zhong was on a special mission. Besides this Treasure Tower Immortal Artifact, his mysterious superior had given him other means to use.

However, to do so without exposing his mission, he would have no choice but to let the Huangfu Family take the blame.

At that point, the Huangfu Family would be branded as traitors to the Hall of Envoys and hunted across the Immortal Realm.

Huangfu Zhong might not care about the lives of some of his clansmen, but he cared deeply for the family as a whole.

He was not about to let the Huangfu Family be destroyed on his watch.

So, even though he wanted to kill the Pig Emperor with every fiber of his being, he could only grit his teeth and endure, not daring to act.

’I’ll just treat this as a trial to temper my mind.’ Huangfu Zhong took a deep breath, trying his best to calm down.

He tried to empty his mind to lessen the torture of the Pig Emperor’s song, treating the ordeal as a form of cultivation.

However, Huangfu Zhong lasted less than fifteen minutes before he couldn’t take it anymore.

’Emptying my mind? Cultivation?’

’It’s all pointless in the face of the Pig Emperor’s song!’

Even when he emptied his mind, the Pig Emperor’s voice would follow the trail of his soul right into his Sea of Consciousness, leaving him with nowhere to hide and no way to escape.

’Cultivation?’

’How can I cultivate when I can’t even quiet my own heart?’

"AHHH!"

Huangfu Zhong clutched his head and screamed. He felt like he was being driven insane.

’If I stay here any longer, even if I don’t die, I’ll go completely mad!’

Huangfu Zhong’s first instinct was that fleeing was the best option, but the last sliver of his rationality made him abandon the thought.

’No! Huangfu Yu can’t die! If he dies, the entire plan will go up in smoke. No one can withstand the wrath of that great personage!’

’Just a little longer! I have to take Huangfu Yu with me, no matter what!’

Just as Huangfu Zhong was making this difficult decision amid his torment, a message arrived from the Huangfu Family’s main encampment, an immense distance away.

"Ancestor, this is terrible! The one from Beast Mountain has unleashed a Beast Tide! They want to annihilate the Huangfu Family!"

Huangfu Zhong froze, his first reaction one of disbelief.

Like Cold Cicada Valley, Beast Mountain was another power strong enough to challenge the Hall of Envoys.

They were a group of Beast Tamers with powerful and uncanny abilities, commanding hundreds of millions of Demon Beasts, including a considerable number of Immortal-level Spirit Beasts.

If Beast Mountain were to mobilize all of its hundreds of millions of Demon Beasts, it would form a Beast Tide of cataclysmic proportions.

If they were willing to pay any price, they even had the power to sweep through the entire West District of the Hall of Envoys.

’Impossible! Why would Beast Mountain want to destroy the Huangfu Family? How dare they!’

Beast Mountain had also been assigned a mission by that mysterious personage. Because of this, Huangfu Zhong had met their leader, and the two were on excellent personal terms.

He even knew Beast Mountain’s greatest secret: its leader wasn’t human, but an incredibly powerful Seventh-level Spirit Beast!

On this continent, humans and the Demon Race had long been mortal enemies.

Except for tamed beasts or the weak Demon Beasts born in human territory, any encounter between a human and a Demon Beast would inevitably end in a fight to the death.

Therefore, Beast Mountain and the Huangfu Family were, for all intents and purposes, in the same boat.

’If they’re on our side, why would Beast Mountain unleash a Beast Tide against the Huangfu Family?’

Huangfu Zhong couldn’t make any sense of it.

"Ancestor, it’s the absolute truth! The Huangfu Family is already surrounded by the Beast Tide. The Mountain Protection Array is on the verge of collapse. It won’t hold for much longer."

Patriarch Huangfu’s urgent voice came through the Communication Talisman again.

Huangfu Zhong knew the Patriarch wouldn’t lie about something like this. He immediately replied, "Do you know why?"

"Recently, the Beast Mountain leader’s most beloved heir was visiting the Huangfu Family. Somehow, he wandered into the family’s forbidden zone and was obliterated by the arrays there. Now, the leader of Beast Mountain wants the Huangfu Family to pay the blood debt in blood."

Huangfu Zhong felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. He was utterly dumbfounded.

He knew exactly what the death of the Beast Mountain leader’s most beloved heir signified.

Just like Huangfu Yu, the Beast Mountain leader’s child was a crucial component of the plan laid out by the mysterious personage.

Now that the heir was dead, setting aside the pain of losing a child, the leader of Beast Mountain would surely face severe punishment from the mysterious personage—he might even be executed.

No wonder he was so furious.

’But then again,’ he thought, ’if he was just a guest, why would he break into the family’s forbidden zone?’

Besides, the family’s forbidden zone was divided into outer and inner sections. The outer section mostly consisted of non-lethal Trapping Arrays and Puzzle Arrays.

Only by trespassing into the inner section would someone trigger a Killing Array.

’The entire forbidden zone is heavily guarded, inside and out. How did someone get into the inner section without being discovered?’

’It makes no sense at all!’

"Ancestor, what should we do?"

Huangfu Zhong had no time to think—his own situation didn’t allow for it.

"Go to the family treasury. I left a set for a Grand Defense Array in there. Deploy it immediately. That should hold them off for a few days. We’ll sort everything else out when I get back."

Patriarch Huangfu sighed and said weakly, "Ancestor, you may not know this, but the treasury was robbed a few days ago. It was almost completely cleaned out."

Huangfu Zhong nearly coughed up a mouthful of blood.

’The family treasury was robbed?!’

’You fucking useless Patriarch! What do you even do?!’

’I’ve only been gone a few days, and you’ve already let all this shit happen!’

’Could things possibly get any more ridiculous?’

Just then, a massive explosion boomed through the Communication Talisman, followed by the deafening roars of Demon Beasts and the tragic screams of his clansmen.

"Oh no, the Mountain Protection Array is broken! Ancestor, I—" Patriarch Huangfu cried out, but before he could finish, a massive hand seized him by the neck and twisted his head clean off.

"What’s wrong? What happened? Say something!" Huangfu Zhong roared frantically into the Communication Talisman.

"No need to shout. He’s already dead." A familiar, gruff voice sounded in Huangfu Zhong’s ear.

Huangfu Zhong fell silent for a moment. He clearly recognized the voice of its owner: the leader of Beast Mountain.

"Why are you doing this? Give me a reason!" Huangfu Zhong demanded.

"Huangfu Zhong, you treacherous snake, stop the act! Do you not have the guts to admit what you’ve done? Let me tell you, from this day forward, there will be no Huangfu Family in the Hall of Envoys!" The gruff voice seethed with towering rage.

"You..."

Enraged, Huangfu Zhong was about to say more, but the sound of something shattering came from the other end of the Communication Talisman.

The leader of Beast Mountain had no desire to waste his breath and had simply destroyed the talisman.

’It’s over!’

Huangfu Zhong’s mind went blank. He knew the personality of Beast Mountain’s leader all too well. The Huangfu Family was going to be wiped out.

He slumped to the ground, his spirit completely broken.

Already tormented to the brink of madness by the Pig Emperor’s song, he now felt an unbearable, irrepressible urge to lash out.

"It seems you’ve received my gift. How do you like it? Are you satisfied?"

At some point, Mo Qi had stopped shelling peanuts and walked up to Huangfu Zhong’s Treasure Tower, a faint smile on his face as he watched him.