Chapter 3957 — The Death of Meng Jueming

So this time, to ensure that nothing could possibly go wrong, Wei Zhao had to give it everything he had. If it were possible, let alone twenty-three true qi bombs, even two hundred and thirty would have been no trouble at all.

Yet judging by the scene before him, the power of those twenty-three true qi bombs had not only successfully triggered the mine collapse he had anticipated—it had been more than sufficient, in fact; one might even say the power had gone too far, far beyond anything Wei Zhao had imagined.

"Hm?" In the midst of the chaos, Wei Zhao suddenly noticed a spirit jade hurtling out from beside him, punching clean through a stone pillar five meters thick in the mine shaft. Its terrifying penetration and lethality were enough to set a man's scalp crawling.

Spirit jade was exceedingly hard, its hardness far above that of ordinary rock. In normal times it might pose no problem at all, but now it was undoubtedly a lethal weapon.

The mining district was naturally rich in spiritual energy. Even here in the No. 10 dead mining district, countless spirit jades lay buried deep behind the stone walls, and the density of spiritual energy was beyond question. And in such an enclosed space, dense with spiritual energy, this was nothing short of a natural super-giant spiritual energy bomb.

From all the signs, under the detonation of Wei Zhao's twenty-three true qi bombs, this super-giant spiritual energy bomb had already begun to show signs of being set off.

Once it truly came to that—a massive explosion of spiritual energy within the mine—with its unparalleled speed, combined with the hardness and penetrating force of the spirit jade, every piece of jade in this place would become a weapon of mass slaughter. Even a Golden Core expert would have no hope of escaping unscathed.

Wei Zhao was startled out of his wits. There was no time to think further; by sheer instinct for self-preservation, he erupted true qi from every pore of his body and, at an astonishing speed that surpassed his utmost limits, shot through the air like a cannonball toward the mine passage.

At that very moment, Meng Jueming was also struggling for his life with all his might. But because he stood much closer to the cavern wall than Wei Zhao, and his speed was nowhere near as swift, he was swallowed by the cascade of flying rocks in the blink of an eye.

Originally, according to Wei Zhao's plan, the force of the mine collapse alone might not have been enough to bury Meng Jueming. The collapse was only a pretext; he had intended to take advantage of the chaos to strike Meng Jueming a fatal blow. There were only two guards, after all—amid the confusion, so long as he struck fast enough, it would not be difficult to do it without anyone being the wiser.

But now there was no need for that. From the look of things, if he did not flee for his life with everything he had, even Wei Zhao himself might end up buried here. Ever since the first spirit jade had come hurtling out, the situation had gone far beyond his control.

"Damn it! I'm still going to take up the post of Third Pavilion Master—how could I die in a hellhole like this..." Amid the flying rocks, Meng Jueming's eyes were bloodshot and his whole body drenched in blood. Screaming hoarsely, he fought desperately to catch up with Wei Zhao.

Unfortunately, before he could finish his words, a piece of spirit jade suddenly punched through his back and out his chest, piercing his heart without the slightest doubt. In an instant, Meng Jueming had no heartbeat—or to be precise, no heart.

Right after that, countless more rocks, mingled with that dreaded spirit jade, came howling through every part of his body. Meng Jueming was torn to pieces in an instant, dead beyond any shadow of a doubt.

With nothing but the status of senior disciple and novice steward of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, he had nonetheless woven a vast web of connections, and even forced out the Third Pavilion Master, Lu Bianren, to take his place. Meng Jueming, in the eyes of the newcomers a figure of boundless power, had died a violent death just like that.

He had striven so long, and the thing he dreamed of had been within his grasp—yet in the end, he never lived to take up the post of Third Pavilion Master. Engulfed by the flying rocks, Meng Jueming had still not closed his eyes. Within those blank, lifeless pupils lingered a dense resentment and unwillingness; he died with his eyes wide open.

"Phew!" Wei Zhao caught sight of this from the corner of his eye and let out a long breath of stale air. Though events had unfolded beyond all expectation, so long as Meng Jueming was successfully buried here, all was well.

After all, this man knew the flaw in his identity, and he still held solid evidence in his hands. The threat was too great—he had to die.

Yet no sooner had Wei Zhao relaxed slightly than a tremendous force struck him from behind. Even though his whole body was wrapped in an immensely powerful protective true qi, under that blow he could not help but violently spew a mouthful of blood.

Wei Zhao glanced behind him and counted himself fortunate. This time he had been hit by a slab of stone; had it been sharper fragments with greater penetrating power, or worse still, spirit jade, then even if he did not die, he would have been left half-crippled.

The impact of the stone slab had dealt Wei Zhao no light injury, but it had one benefit: it sped up his flight, and at the same time gave him a shield at his back, able to block a good many flying rocks and spare him further grave injury.

"A mine... a mine collapse? No way!" Only at this moment did the two guards not far from the mine passage entrance realize that something was terribly wrong, and both of them turned ashen with horror.

Their faces white with fright, they watched helplessly as the torrent of rocks, mingled with spirit jade bombs, drew nearer and nearer. They knew full well that staying here meant certain death, yet their legs felt as though filled with lead, completely refusing to obey.

Just as the two were about to be swallowed by the rocks of the collapse, a figure suddenly crashed into them, and all three went tumbling into the mine shaft together, barely escaping with their lives.

At the same time, the other mining districts were also rumbling and shaking. Though they did not suffer a large-scale collapse like the No. 10 district, rocks kept falling from the mine ceilings—the harbinger of a chain-reaction mine disaster.

In an instant, panic seized every mining district. In the face of a mine disaster, even powerful cultivators could not necessarily guarantee their own survival. Mine disasters had been few in number throughout history, but each one had claimed no small number of lives.

No one was willing to be the unlucky victim of a mine disaster. Amid a flurry of panicked cries, everyone scrambled frantically for the exits, and the entire Spirit Jade Hall was plunged into enormous panic.

This day was destined to go down in the annals of history. Not only the Spirit Jade Hall—even the whole of the Threefold Pavilion was shaken.

Mine disasters of an ordinary scale were already rarely seen; a collapse of this magnitude was a once-in-a-millennium event. It was impossible for the Threefold Pavilion not to be shaken.

After the incident, the Council of Elders responded at once, assigning elders specifically to rush to the Spirit Jade Hall and ordering the Hall to assist them in handling the aftermath. At the same time, the Law Enforcement Hall intervened to investigate the causes of the incident.

By dawn the next day, the Council of Elders had obtained the statistics on casualties and losses, along with the preliminary investigation report from the Law Enforcement Hall. For a moment, all the great magnates could only stare at one another in silence. (To be continued...)