"Assassins! Assassins!"
"Save the prince!"
"Your Highness!"
The hall instantly dissolved into chaos.
The guards stationed outside rushed in, and the concealed Dingjia divine generals revealed themselves one after another. Gold and silver radiance blazed through the hall, blades, spears, swords, and halberds interlacing like a forest.
Yet to everyone's surprise, there was no sign of any assassin. Only a few civil officials remained, some having knocked over tables and chairs, others slumped nearby, huddling in speechless terror.
"General Zhuo, what happened?" The commander of the guards on duty looked toward the personal guard at the front of the hall, an expert charged with protecting Prince Yi at close quarters.
General Zhuo stood wooden as a stunned chicken, his face equally bewildered. His lips moved. "I... I don't know either..."
He had seen nothing at all before Prince Yi's head burst apart. Such a bizarre incident simply defied reason.
Within just a few days, Prince Yi's unexpected death plunged Pingzhou Prefecture into chaos, leaving it like a host of dragons without a head.
The government troops under Hu Ze's Avatar and the army of the Flat Hill Demon Kingdom arrived in time to prevent the man-made calamity that might otherwise have followed.
But with Prince Yi dead, the major military commanders under him attacked one another, vying for power and profit. A few quick-witted men even looted the treasury and fled beforehand, much to Li Chen's regret.
Not only had those men brought chaos and losses to Screen Prefecture, they had also diminished the wealth he should have seized!
For the moment, however, he could not attend to everything. He could only begin where he had room to act, drawing on the Great General's prestige to muster the Imperial Court's troops and strike in every direction.
Next came another round