Volume 13 Chapter 9: Repercussions
The color of night began to surround Jadefall City, surrounding Sanskrit Passage and the yellow sands behind it.
More and more unsteadily hobbling giant white elephants and Divine Elephant Army soldiers gathered behind a sandy dune where sand was fiercely blown by the wind, where continuous whimpering noises sounded from the grinding of metal and sand.
While fleeing here, apart from a few Divine Elephant Army soldiers who lost their sense of direction or encountered something else unexpected, unable to rendezvous here, the over thousand remaining Divine Elephant Army soldiers all gathered here fine and well.
However, most of the White Divine Elephants died during their escape process.
The only ones who could reach this place now were three hundred mature giant elephants and a hundred or so young elephants.
These three hundred mature giant elephants and hundred young elephants were only able to survive until now purely through luck. The poison Green Luan Academy used should be a compound poison, separately placed in the cornmeal and maize. The more they were mixed, the stronger the medicinal effects. The young elephants only ate cornmeal, so the amount of poison they ingested wasn't too great, all of them able to survive. Meanwhile, these three hundred mature divine elephants also suffered a bit less poison than the other divine elephants, so they could last until now.
Out of the more than thousand and couple hundred divine elephants, only this amount survived. Despite this being the case, these three hundred or so mature White Divine Elephants still collapsed with sad cries from time to time, pink bloody suds spraying out like fountains from their mouths and trunks. Who knew how many of these three hundred mature White Divine Elephants would survive in the end, how many could stick it through.
This process continued. Sad cries sounded one after another, the expressions of all of these Divine Elephant Army soldiers becoming more and more gloomy. Constantly hearing these quiet sad cries, many of them finally couldn't control themselves, starting to cry as well, sounds of wailing echoing through this place, even covering the sounds of the rustling sand.
The Divine Elephant Army was finished.
The Divine Elephant Army's strength and pride completely came from these White Divine Elephants.
Now that they lost these divine elephant mountains who had enough strength to overturn a corner tower, what were these thousand or so Divine Elephant Army soldiers worth now? They could at most count as a heavy armored infantry army, or some infantry who lost their mounts.
The collapse of their usual arrogance and confidence made these Divine Elephant Army soldiers completely fall apart, feeling like they already didn't have anything left.
Cries of pain continuously echoed about. If there wasn't the golden armor and patterns on their bodies, others who saw them definitely wouldn't be able to imagine that these were previously the powerful Divine Elephant Army who didn't even respect the past Jadefall City Army.
"What are you all crying for? Even death isn't anything to be that scared of."
A fierce shout sounded within the heart tearing lung-splitting howling and wailing. The patterns on the golden armor the young officer who spoke wore were clearly more exquisite, vaguely flowing with some vital energy fluctuations. The instant he spoke, the golden armor's runes released faint buddhist radiance, illuminating his pale but exceptionally fierce face. He was Fan Mingning, the Deputy Commander of the Divine Elephant Army. When Lin Xi and the others came to attack, he wanted to remain at Fan Shaohuang's side, but was sent away by Fan Shaohuang's orders.
"Even if all of these mature giant elephants all died, these hundred or so young elephants should be able to hold on, able to survive."
"All of you should not forget that in the very beginning, our Divine Elephant Army also only had a hundred or so divine elephants."
Fan Mingning knew that he couldn't show weakness right now, so his expression became more and more calm, becoming more and more ice-cold and expressionless. "Our Divine Elephant Army still hasn't completely died out, we still have a hundred or so young elephants at worst. We still have the means to make a comeback."
"But..." Someone spoke out.
However, he was immediately coldly interrupted. "I know what you want to say. Without the support of military equipment, even without food, you all are wondering if we can continue living. However, do not forget that despair will only make you all die even more directly. Do not forget that we aren't far from the lush and abundant Jadefall City. In a situation where most of the divine elephants have died, finding a place to hide ourselves and continue living isn't that hard."
"Even the Xiyi people could continue living, we are still more powerful than Xiyi's people. Moreover, in the future, we will become stronger, so why can't we continue living?"
The rustling of the sand dune gradually became quiet.
All of the Divine Elephant Army soldiers became quiet. Then, they began to examine the conditions of the divine elephants who were still alive, starting to rest, waiting for following orders.
Fan Mingning also sat down quietly, starting to rest.
While looking at the sand in front of him, he knew that it was already completely impossible for the finished Divine Elephant Army to make a comeback. It was because the reason why the Divine Elephant Army could become powerful before, develop so greatly, was because of Tangcang's support, because Tangcang needed the Divine Elephant Army to threaten Yunqin. However now, their Divine Elephant Army was not only Green Luan Academy and most of Yunqin people's enemies, they were also Tangcang's enemy.
Right now, Fan Mingning still couldn't understand the true meaning behind Fan Shaohuang not letting him get revenge. He only silently thought that if this Divine Elephant Army still had a meaning left for its existence, then it was to get revenge for their commander, get revenge for all of their divine elephant companions who were killed.
...
Deep in the night, a pigeon flew into Central Continent City.
This pigeon flew around the northwestern corner of this world's most majestic city in an extremely practiced manner, descending towards a certain street.
However, this already extremely weary pigeon immediately felt extremely bewildered and helpless.
The place it arrived at should be a secluded small courtyard, and then the people in this small courtyard would immediately give it the best water and food, allowing it to rest here.
It also vaguely understood that the thing attached to its leg should be extremely useful for this person, or else the people here definitely wouldn't show it the most enthusiastic welcome and care.
However, now, this quiet small courtyard already became ruined walls and debris, already becoming a scorched land.
This mentally and physically worn out pigeon who was powerless to fly further landed on a scorched black broken wall, waiting there.
Within its small brain, it thought that since the thing on its leg was extremely useful for the person inside, even if this place was destroyed, the one here would still come from time to time, this way, it could still receive the best treatment.
However, it waited for a long time, waited until it was even more tired, to the extent where it couldn't even adjust its body, yet there was still no one who appeared before it.
After spending another day and night here, this pigeon who still didn't receive care from anyone finally died.
Its corpse rotted in a completely forgotten corner of Yunqin Empire. That secret report it carried on its leg also fell into the cracks of the scorched walls, washed by rain, buried under dust, ultimately completely disappearing from this world.
What this pigeon thought about the item bound to its leg actually wasn't mistaken. What it had on its leg was indeed an important secret message for all of Yunqin, or even the entire world. However, what it never expected was that while flying towards Central Continent City, Central Continent City already welcomed a new age, many people declined with the old age, passing away with the arrival of the new age.
Within some of the chaos, many people or structures attached to different powers died or disappeared. It was just like when a tsunami swept over, many small boats that were originally unrelated would also suffer catastrophic disaster.
The falling out the emperor had with Jiang Family, and then the hostility with Zhong Family and many other influential families threw all of Central Continent City into chaos. Many people died, many structures were destroyed, to the extent where it was impossible to even figure out which side's people did it. Within an extremely short amount of time, before Yunqin's midsummer completely passed, only a bit of autumn feeling spreading through Yunqin, the repercussions of the battle between the emperor and the nine elders were already quickly revealed.
Even when Jiang Yanzhi suffered an assassination, the other influential families still exercised restraint, suspecting that it wasn't done by the emperor, feeling that the first countermeasures were to first force Wen Xuanshu off his position. Who would have thought that the emperor would actually ignore the empire to this extent, completely going mad... It was precisely because no one expected the emperor to actually risk the dangers of all of Yunqin being caught up in danger and doing crazy things that all of the influential families suffered losses in their response. That was why later on, Immortal Academy who had countless connections completely didn't think the flames would reach their own Zhong Family, thus leading to them being caught unprepared, suffering disastrous losses.
However, the strength of these influential families, as well as the influence towards Yunqin and Central Continent City naturally wasn't as simple as the Sacred Experts and other cultivators on the surface.
Even Huang Family who withdrew on their own first, falling apart under the emperor's previous pressuring, as well as Jiang Family who suffered a bloody purge even now had the ability to carry out a secret plan, working together to capture all of Jadefall City.
Zhong Family suddenly suffered from unforeseen changes, experiencing the encirclement and attack of Central Continent Guards and Central Continent Imperial City, but many important figures in Zhong Family still managed to escape Central Continent Imperial City.
During all these years, the influence of these influential families who supported Yunqin was spread all over the royal court. Purging the influence of these influential families was also equivalent to completely eradicating some originally perfect royal court organizations.
Central Continent Imperial City and Yunqin's royal court were like countless tightly connected gears to begin with. However, under the collapse of these influential families, as well as a series of counterattacks afterwards, regardless of whether it was the various sectors' structure on the surface and in the dark, they all suffered serious damage. There were some sectors' departments whose entire structures were pulled up by the roots. The most crucial thing was that many of the individuals at crucial positions who relayed information died. This not only prevented these departments from operating properly again for some time, there were also many secrets, connections, and even some dispatched individuals that were completely cut off and isolated following the sudden deaths of these important figures.
Within two weeks or so of time, the structures of various sectors already completely entered a paralyzed state, to the extent where some couldn't be restored at all.
Regardless of whether it was the royal court or the private deployment of influential figures, they all suddenly experienced countless blockages and fracturing.
Even if it was the most simple order released from the Imperial City to Central Continent's military, there might be many unexpected things that would happen, to the extent where sometimes, it might even be hard for a military order to reach the high ranking military officers it needed to reach. Because of the complete rupturing of some segments within the hierarchy, some secret reports that originally should have been quickly delivered into the hands of some influential figures would be completely disconnected from those figures, unable to reach their hands for quite some time....
It was already late into the night, but several Martial Sector's high ranking officials instead rushed into the Imperial Palace on their palanquins, urgently wishing to meet the emperor.