At this moment, Zhou Qin felt the innate spiritual qi within his body slowly dissipating.

"This… is?"

As Zhou Qin was filled with doubt, Housekeeper Le's palm already struck, shocking him as he hurriedly channeled his innate spiritual qi to resist the coming strike.

"Pfft..."

The disparity in power and the abrupt change left him directly struck by Housekeeper Le's palm, sending him flying backward. After hitting the ground and rolling a distance, he spat out a mouthful of fresh blood. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Just as Zhou Qin struggled to get up, Housekeeper Le's figure suddenly appeared before him, crushing Zhou Qin's head with one foot.

From start to finish, Housekeeper Le only used the physical strength of his body, without employing the innate spiritual qi within.

Afterward, Housekeeper Le used the same method to deal with other officials.

Although the other officials vaguely felt something was amiss, faced with Housekeeper Le's sudden attack, their instincts drove them to defend themselves, a reflex of the body.

...

Celestial Prison.

Here were imprisoned all the lower-grade martial artists and above of the Da Song imperial family in Luonan.

From time to time, the cells echoed with the royal family's cursing, denouncing Lu Sheng as "rebellious and treacherous traitor."

These members of the imperial family, though holding no real power in the court, and merely titular positions, their bloodline destined them to be a step above the ministers, with a status higher than them.

Even in today's decline of imperial authority, the ministers outwardly treated them with respect and courtesy.

Even when Xu Guozhong was around, he wouldn't treat them like this, let alone imprison them in the Celestial Prison.

Moreover, each person was bound tightly with special ropes.

"Clang…"

At this moment, the door of the Celestial Prison opened, and a group of armored warriors hurriedly entered.

The royal family members who had been cursing all fell silent, lowering their heads.

"Prepare."

The leader of this group of armored warriors approached Prince Zhao Chu and Yue, speaking in a deep voice.

The armored warriors each raised their bows and arrows, aiming at the tightly bound Chu and Yue in the cell.

In the adjacent cell, the royal family witnessing this scene immediately cried out, "Outrageous, what are you planning to do?"

Chu and Yue also shouted deeply, "Insolence, I am of royal blood; is it Lu Sheng who sent you? Even if you want to kill me, you need a holy decree from His Majesty…"

However, as if not hearing Chu and Yue's words, the leader of the armored warriors waved his hand, "Release."

Dozens of arrows shot swiftly toward Chu and Yue.

Chu and Yue's expression changed drastically, desperately trying to circulate the inherent spiritual energy within, but the ropes binding him suppressed it, unable to shield himself, and soon he was shot into a porcupine.

After confirming Chu and Yue's death, an armored warrior opened the cell door and entered to untie the ropes from the corpse.

If one carefully sensed, they would discover strands of innate spiritual qi being drawn out from Chu and Yue's body.

These special ropes, once crafted, were soaked in the blood of martial artists, serving to suppress martial artists, with limited scope of suppression, ineffective against upper-grade martial artists.

People bound by special ropes could still operate and mobilize the inherent spiritual energy within, but under the ropes' suppression, they could not utilize or release it.

Just before Chu and Yue died, the innate spiritual qi within was in circulation, and after death, the body's functions were still maintained briefly, requiring some time to completely cease operation.

So after the ropes were untied, the innate spiritual qi was released, swirling around Chu and Yue's corpse, eventually being devoured little by little by the Soul Devouring Array, feeding back to the array core.

...

The disorderly imperial guards crowded the streets of Vermilion Bird Street, and Lv Xuan and Lu San ultimately failed to forward the ambush details within the city to the Chen Army. When they arrived, the vanguard squad of the Chen Army was already engaged with the ambushed Lu Army.

These imperial guards were deserters gathered by Housekeeper Le at the Prime Minister's Mansion, redirected to oppose the Chen Army.

The main force of the Chen Army, seeing this, immediately moved forward to assist.

"Boom boom boom…"

The sound of drums echoed as the sword and shield warriors of the Vine Armor Army hurried forth, personally led by Jiang Li. They held large shields and ring-headed sabers, following behind Jiang Li, who wielded a horse spear in one hand, advancing along the avenue.

Behind them were more numerous vine armor soldiers wielding long spears and the Chen Army. However, they did not all move forward, maintaining a distance of several dozen steps instead.

The street being only so wide, piling everyone in would be more harmful than beneficial, their role was to fill in gaps when the front suffered heavily or a gap emerged.

But with Jiang Li personally leading the charge, as a fourth-grade martial artist, with each swing of the horse spear, he could smash several, breaking bones, sending them flying for several meters.

The speed of the rain washing away was even slower than the speed of bloodshed, and when that rain touched the ground, turning into blood, dyeing the bluestone street red.

The enemy retreated step by step, the Chen Army pressed them closely.

At this moment, the earth suddenly shook, the tiles of the houses on the street sides vibrated off, shattering on the ground.

Then the earth cracked open, and water began flowing through the fissures, swallowing people whole. Comrades attempting to rescue were swallowed as the ground suddenly opened beneath their feet, both falling in together.

The sudden upheaval stunned both sides, leading them to mistakenly believe it was an earthquake.

Jiang Li initially thought so too, but soon he sensed a formless external force extracting the innate spiritual qi from within him.