Bringing The Farm To Live In Another World - Chapter 16233

Chapter 16231: The Disappearance

In the Divine Kingdom, aristocratic families are divided into large and small families. Small families generally refer to those that cannot hold official positions in the Divine Kingdom, but possess the status of ‘clerks’ in small cities, and have at least two royal-level experts within the family. Such families are considered a type of aristocratic family, but can only survive by attaching themselves to large families. Within the Aristocratic Family Alliance, they are considered out of reach.

The criteria for a large family are actually quite easy to determine: the family must be able to establish itself in a medium-sized city, have at least one royal-level expert, and someone in the family must hold an official position in the kingdom.

Of course, there are also internal rankings within large families. If a family only has one royal-level expert and holds only a minor official position in the Divine Kingdom, such a family can only be considered the lowest-ranking among large families. When the Aristocratic Family Alliance holds meetings, such families usually only have the right to listen in and do not have the right to express their opinions.

Within the Aristocratic Alliance, the truly powerful families possess immense strength. Some families even control entire cities—not necessarily because everyone in the city belongs to that family, but because no other major families reside there. Even smaller families are dependent on them, and many of the city’s industries are linked to them. Each family must have at least twenty Kingdom-level experts and hold a high position within the Divine Kingdom. This is the standard for a major family, and only such families are qualified to voice their opinions at Aristocratic Alliance meetings. Previously,

the Myriad Laws Divine Sect only dealt with the smaller families, leaving the major families untouched, even those with only one Kingdom-level expert. This is why the major families within the Aristocratic Alliance didn’t unite to cause trouble for the Myriad Laws Divine Sect. While the five major families were furious, they weren’t truly ready to fight the Myriad Laws Divine Sect to the death.

For the powerful families, smaller families were not even considered their own. They genuinely didn’t treat them as family. Their only reason for supporting these smaller families was to exploit them and control the smaller towns, thus giving them leverage against the royal family.

A key reason these powerful families accepted the smaller families was that they couldn’t allow them to side with the royal family. If they didn’t accept them, the smaller families would align with the royal family, strengthening the royal family and weakening their own. Therefore, they allowed the smaller families to join their alliance of powerful families. Since they had no say in the matter, this way they could prevent the smaller families from siding with the royal family—a win-win situation.

This is why, when the Myriad Laws Divine Sect wiped out the smaller families, the five major families, while angry, didn’t necessarily want to fight the Myriad Laws Divine Sect to the death.

This time, Xu Ying and his group weren’t targeting the smaller families, but rather the larger ones—not even the weakest. They needed to select several powerful families, and then eliminate them all. The reaction of the five major families would then be quite entertaining.

After careful consideration, Xu Ying and his group decided to target two powerful families residing in Xingyang City. Xingyang City was a medium-sized city, home to two powerful families: the Xing family and the Zhan family. These two families controlled the entire city. Besides these two families, there were several smaller families, but they were all dependent on the Xing and Zhan families.

The Xing and Zhan families are allies and in-laws. They had conflicts in the past, even reaching a point of life-or-death struggle. However, an event occurred that caused them to put aside their hatred: a sect attacked them, nearly annihilating them. Both families suffered heavy losses, almost losing their status as major clans. The reason for this devastating defeat was that their fierce fighting gave others an opportunity.

Since then, both families have learned their lesson. They stopped fighting and instead began intermarrying. After years of recovery, their strength is now considerable. Each family has over twenty kingdom-level experts, and they control almost half of the city’s industries, as well as many outside the city. Although there are a few smaller families in the city, they all depend on them for survival. The position of city lord in Xingyang City is rotated between the two families, making Xingyang City essentially their territory. Gongliang Juewen was aware of this situation, but he was powerless to change it.

The infiltration of powerful families into various cities was silent and stealthy, so even Gongliang Juewen couldn’t prevent it, especially since those families had already gained considerable influence by the time he became emperor.

Xingyang City was also quite tense. They used to have the Temple of Ten Thousand Laws, but after their conflict with the Ten Thousand Laws Sect, the temple was completely deserted; all the members of the sect had left, so it was practically nonexistent.

Even so, they were still very tense. However, they believed that the Ten Thousand Laws Sect wouldn’t attack them this time, because they assumed the sect’s primary target was the five major families. Therefore, while they were tense and had strengthened their vigilance, they weren’t overly anxious, and while they had increased precautions, they hadn’t reached the point of monitoring everyone entering the city.

However, they were unaware that members of the Blood Slaughter Sect already existed in Xingyang City. These were all independent cultivators who had infiltrated the city long ago and had been living there for a considerable time. They performed tasks and lived like ordinary independent cultivators, so even if the Xing and Zhan families monitored the entire city and watched every new face entering, they wouldn’t discover anything, because the Blood Slaughter Sect disciples were already in the city.

The day was the same as before. When night fell, the city gates of Xingyang City closed, everyone returned to their residences, and the streets were empty; no one dared to wander outside anymore.

Previously, there was no curfew in Xingyang City. However, after the Xing and Zhan families participated in the operation against the Myriad Laws Cult, they implemented a curfew in Xingyang City. Therefore, now, no one can be seen outside Xingyang City at night. Anyone who dares to act outside will be executed on the spot. Rogue cultivators dare not provoke the two families, so naturally, there is no one outside.

At Hai hour (9-11 PM), Xingyang City was already quiet. Suddenly, countless men in black appeared in the city. After their arrival, they immediately surrounded several areas. These men in black were numerous, and they appeared suddenly and silently. Although the city had defensive formations, they did not react at all. Even after they surrounded those areas, the people inside did not react at all, because they had no idea they were surrounded.

The next moment, a slight energy fluctuation suddenly appeared in the areas surrounded by the men in black. Then, the men in black rushed into the surrounded areas, all of which were the territory of the Xing and Zhan families within the city, including the city lord’s mansion.

However, when the men in black entered their encirclement, nothing seemed to change; it was as if the men in black had simply vanished as they had appeared.

But this wasn’t the case. The men in black hadn’t disappeared. The reason they appeared to have vanished was because those areas were shrouded in an illusion array. In other words, those areas were completely covered by the illusion array, making it impossible for outsiders to see what was happening.

More than an hour later, the men in black reappeared. They then removed the illusion array and disappeared from the city. The rogue cultivators and ordinary people in the city had no idea what had happened. They heard no sound; everything seemed like an ordinary night.

The next morning, when the independent cultivators in the city awoke, they suddenly discovered that many shops were closed, no one was coming or going from the city lord’s mansion, and no one was coming or going from the various powerful families. It seemed that everyone in charge of the city had vanished in an instant.

The cultivators panicked. They immediately inquired about the situation, and when they finally mustered their courage and entered the Xing family’s gate, they saw a tall stone tablet standing in the Xing family’s square. On that tablet, written in blood, were the words ‘The Fate of Powerful Families’!

Upon seeing these words, the cultivators turned pale with fright. They immediately left the Xing family compound, and many others fled the city. They knew that the Xing family, the Zhan family, and all the smaller families in the city were wiped out; not a single one had survived. If they remained in the city, they didn’t know when they would be arrested and interrogated, and they might not even know how they died.

He knew perfectly well that if those powerful families really went berserk, they would be utterly unreasonable. In their eyes, these people were probably less than ants; killing them would be too easy. So all the rogue cultivators fled.

Most of the rogue cultivators fled, and all the members of the powerful families in the city, whether large or small, vanished, leaving only ordinary people. Xingyang City suddenly became empty, and the ordinary people in the city panicked. Their livelihoods depended entirely on the powerful families, big and small. Now that all those families had disappeared, their lives were in jeopardy, how could they not panic?