“You!” Xu Hao’s body trembled involuntarily, realizing his guess was correct. These two weren’t here to save him but to ignite a war between the two great families!
Calling out Cao Yuhua to release him at the Cao family compound, defeating Cao Zheng and Cao Shi, killing Cao Yuhua, and wiping out everyone below the Martial King realm in the Cao family, all of this was to create a misunderstanding and provoke a war between the Xu and Cao families.
To think that someone in this region would dare to target both great families!
And their methods were so ruthless!
At this thought, Xu Hao felt his heart shudder.
After the Cao family in City No. 5 was nearly wiped out, they would surely be enraged and declare war on the Xu family.
A direct confrontation between such massive families would undoubtedly result in heavy losses. Either the Xu or Cao family could face decline or even extinction.
After all, this region wasn’t just home to the Xu and Cao families; there was also the Lu family. If both families suffered mutual destruction or if the Xu family were defeated, the Lu family would certainly seize the opportunity to strike.
He never imagined that the flames of war between the two families would be sparked through him, becoming someone else’s fuse.
“You’re from the Lu family!!” Xu Hao suddenly shouted in shock and anger. Who else but the Lu family would want the Cao family to fight to the death?
“Uh…” Lin Xiao paused, then laughed, “You guessed right!”
With that, he took out a skeletal palm. After all, Xu Hao was a Second-Tier Martial Venerable, and Lin Xiao figured he could still be useful when practicing the Immortal Skeleton Technique.
“What, what are you doing?” Seeing the skeletal palm appear, Xu Hao grew terrified.
“Killing to silence, of course.”
With that, Lin Xiao activated the skeletal palm, striking toward Xu Hao. He infused a portion of his power into the palm, and a surge of white mist poured out, a wave of sinister white energy flooding toward Xu Hao’s body.
“No!!”
Feeling the terrifying aura of death, Xu Hao screamed in horror, but his voice cut off as soon as it emerged. His entire body was instantly corroded into a skeleton.
“Why do you need so many skeletons, you freak?” Mei Tianmo, standing nearby, said in slight shock, finding the attack disturbingly sinister.
“They have their uses.”
Lin Xiao chuckled, collecting Xu Hao’s skeletal remains. While doing so, he also took Xu Hao’s storage ring and briefly probed it with his divine sense.
To his disappointment, aside from some Martial King essence pills and low-level techniques, there was little of value in Xu Hao’s storage ring.
“Let’s go to Cao Family City No. 4 and see how the two families react,” Lin Xiao said calmly, looking toward the northwest.
The first step of causing trouble for the Cao family was a success. After the “near annihilation” attack on City No. 5, it would be hard for the two families not to clash.
Once the Cao family engaged in conflict, they would likely have no time to bother with smaller places like Ling Family City.
Choosing to head to Cao Family City No. 4 was also the best way to lie low. Who would suspect that those who nearly destroyed the Cao family would head straight to their City No. 4 next?
City No. 4 was located thousands of miles northwest of City No. 5. The previous day at the tavern, Lin Xiao had already familiarized himself with the locations of the Cao family cities.
After Mei Tianmo boarded the Xu Sky Phoenix Wings, Lin Xiao infused a batch of elixirs into it, speeding toward Cao Family City No. 4 at a tremendous pace.
This way, they could easily slip into the city before news from City No. 5 arrived.
In about an hour, Lin Xiao and Mei Tianmo reached Cao Family City No. 4.
City No. 4 was even larger than City No. 5, bustling with activity. After sneaking in, Lin Xiao and Mei Tianmo changed their appearances, donning white robes and cloaks to conceal their faces, a stark contrast to their previous black attire and masks.
Many people in the city wore cloaks, making it difficult for the Cao family to track them down even if they investigated.
At the time of their infiltration, no news from City No. 5 had reached City No. 4, as no one could match their speed.
As the two headed toward an inn, the streets suddenly buzzed with activity, with crowds surging toward a massive auction house nearby.
“The Wanxiang Pavilion auction is about to start, heh, they’ve been hyping up the Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill for a while now. I bet people from the Xu and Lu families have already snuck in. It’s going to be lively.”
“The Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill has a seventy percent chance of creating a Seventh-Tier Martial Lord. Which family wouldn’t be tempted? The three great families only have two or three Seventh-Tier Martial Lords each. Adding one could massively boost a family’s strength.”
“True, but the Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill is just a spectacle for us. Not only can we not afford it, but without reaching the Martial Lord realm, it’s useless even if we got it.”
“With the hype around the Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill, Wanxiang Pavilion will surely auction off plenty of other items. We might even snag a treasure or two.”…
The murmurs reached Lin Xiao’s ears, and upon hearing about the Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill, he couldn’t help but be astonished.
The Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill was a sixth-grade mid-tier elixir, capable of allowing Martial Lords below the Fifth Tier to break through two tiers with minimal side effects and impurities, which could be purged with some cultivation.
For any Martial Lord below the Fifth Tier, it was an immense temptation.
Once, the Heaven-Swallowing Spirit Emperor had refined such a pill, and his version guaranteed a breakthrough of two tiers for those below the Fifth-Tier Martial Lord, unlike the seventy percent chance mentioned here.
Of course, a seventy percent chance was still remarkably high, and the spirit controller who refined this pill was likely quite extraordinary.
The main ingredient for the Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill was the Dragon Saliva Herb, an extremely rare material, with several auxiliary ingredients that were also incredibly difficult to find, even more so than those for the Heavenly Spiral Linked Lord Pill, which was similarly potent but harder to come by.
Its grade and efficacy were naturally higher than the Heavenly Spiral Linked Lord Pill, which could only help early-tier Martial Lords break through two tiers and required years to refine.
Back then, Mo Xiang had relied on the Heavenly Spiral Linked Lord Pill to break through two tiers, taking a full three years.
The Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill, however, was said to break through the mid-heavens, allowing any Martial Lord below the Fifth-Tier Heavenly Realm to advance two tiers in just one or two months, far surpassing the Heavenly Spiral Linked Lord Pill.
Such a pill could drive Martial Lords below the Fifth Tier into a frenzy.
Many Martial Lords struggled to break through even one tier in their lifetime, sometimes never advancing further.
With a shortcut like the Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill, they would seize it at any cost.
For great families like the Cao, Xu, and Lu, who had several Martial Lords below the Fifth Tier, refining this pill could likely produce an additional Seventh-Tier Martial Lord.
This would greatly enhance the family’s strength, and any family would pay a steep price to acquire it.
Lin Xiao hadn’t expected that Cao Family City No. 4 would be preparing to auction a Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill.
Beside him, Mei Tianmo’s eyes lit up, his expression eager as he turned to Lin Xiao and asked, “Can we buy the Dragon Saliva Mid-Heaven Pill?”
