Ye Liuyun put on a show of assigning guard duties to everyone.

By then, a few of the powerhouses had already sensed the poison inside them and shouted a warning. Instantly every expert in the hall turned their gaze inward—and discovered they were all poisoned.

They immediately produced antidote pills, swallowed them, sat cross-legged, and began detoxifying on the spot.

Ye Liuyun watched their insides with his golden pupils. Two of the elders’ pills were actually working. He struck at once, launching a soul attack to enslave those two elders first.

But the moment he acted, two other experts sensed it. Their eyes snapped open, yet they saw no soul soul form.

“Mr. Yu Rong, why did you launch a soul attack?” one demanded aloud.

Every poisoned elder turned to stare at Ye Liuyun.

He answered smoothly, “Those two are less poisoned and their pills are effective. I’m checking whether their souls have been seized.”

The two newly enslaved elders nodded cooperatively at the others.

Still suspicious, the questioner pressed, “Then has Mr. Yu Rong himself been poisoned?”

Ye Liuyun replied openly, “I truly haven’t. If you don’t believe me, examine my soul whenever you like.”

His candor didn’t cow the man.

“In that case, forgive my offense!”

The expert released both of his soul avatars at once—he feared a single one might not be enough if Yu Rong proved hostile.

The moment the two souls rushed into Ye Liuyun’s sea of consciousness, he branded them with slave seals and sent them straight back.

Ye Liuyun’s expression never changed. “Well? Are you satisfied?”

The man flushed and apologized.

Seeing that, the others dropped their doubts and hurriedly asked the two detoxifying elders how they’d done it. But their pills differed, and neither had spares; the rest could only suppress the toxin with raw spiritual power.

The poison spread with frightening speed. Soon one expert’s core was tainted; he could no longer channel energy.

One by one the others collapsed. Ye Liuyun seized the moment to plant slave seals on several still-strong warriors, then walked over and cured them.

His blatant actions naturally drew attention.

He even detoxified the man who had probed his soul, then grinned wickedly. “Nice performance—our little act fooled them all.”

“Mr. Yu Rong?”

“You’re the one who poisoned us?”

Ye Liuyun kept smiling. “That’s right. I poisoned you. So what are you going to do about it?”

Some elders were already sending voice transmissions to their clans.

Ye Liuyun didn’t care; he casually slammed a palm into one poisoned expert, killing him on the spot.

“Fight him to the death!”

A powerhouse roared, sending his soul straight into Ye Liuyun’s sea of consciousness. The rest who hadn’t been cured followed suit, hurling their souls after him.

Ye Liuyun feigned panic—until every invading soul was inside. Then he laughed. One by one he fully detoxified the experts he intended to subjugate and swept them into his spatial world.

He burned every last corpse of the fallen powerhouses to ash, preventing any toxin from spreading

Then he shot straight toward the planet’s core, ready to claim the entire world. At the same time, his two avatars finished off the remaining elders and raced to the core as well, helping him haul the planet away

One avatar threw on an invisibility cloak, tucked everyone else inside a pocket dimension, and used spatial force to vanish in an instant

Far off, the fleeing disciples suddenly saw their world blink out of existence—and then caught a glimpse of a figure in elder robes vanish into thin air. They froze, not knowing what to do

Before long, several top Fan elders arrived, but the planet was already gone. They assumed Fan Yurong, Fan Yuzeng, and Fan Xin had colluded to slaughter every powerhouse and steal the world, so they spent all their efforts hunting those three. Ye Liuyun remained completely untouched

After pocketing the planet, Ye Liuyun handed it over to Yu’er and the other women to manage. The entire surface was carpeted with medicinal herbs—far more than he had ever stockpiled. Yu’er’s group would need to recruit an army of workers just to keep up with the planting

It was a colossal windfall; the herbs were worth more than all of the He family’s mineral planets combined

Fan Yurong, Fan Yuqian, and the other strong ones were drafted into his elite corps for future battles. Fan Yurong, Fan Xin, and anyone else too weak were simply executed—no point wasting resources on them 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Their personal stashes were stripped clean; Ye Liuyun left them nothing

Fan Cheng, still on his way back to his herb base, received Ye Liuyun’s order to wait where he was

Ye Liuyun overtook him at full speed, shoved him into the spatial world, and killed him on the spot. He couldn’t risk the Fan clan tracing Fan Cheng’s visit to Fan Xin and exposing his identity. The ordinary herbs under Fan Cheng’s control were abandoned without regret

With Fan Cheng dealt with, Ye Liuyun changed his appearance once more and vanished, letting He Yunzhang guide him toward the Chen family

His Thousand Illusions technique shifted so fluidly that neither the He nor the Fan clan could track him; each assumed a traitor lurked within its own ranks

To save face, the great clans kept silent, quietly dispatching experts and disciples to hunt the supposed turncoats

On the road, Ye Liuyun—just to be safe—used Soul Scour to erase every captive’s memory of how they’d been controlled and what he and his companions looked like. All they could recall was the face he wore now, and that he was their master. Even if they were later seized, no suspicion would fall on him

With his spatial power upgraded, he tore through the void far faster; a journey that once took three or four days now took less than one. He was out of the Fan clan’s search radius in no time

He could probably catch up to a Spirit-Cat warship now—perhaps even cross an entire star system in a single day

A few days later he reached the planet housing the Chen family and began gathering intelligence on their renowned weapon-refining master

After several days of inquiries, he realized he would have to infiltrate the Chen estate itself. The famous smiths were perpetually busy and almost never stepped outside; waiting around would get him nowhere.