Ma Moxi rushed the two guards from behind. He plunged a golden knife into the head of the first ghoul while the other hand swung a golden sword and beheaded his companion.

The ghouls went down. Now, Ma Moxi was free to do anything in this engine room.

He took his time and checked if any protection array or a killing array had been placed to protect the engines.

Fortunately, nothing of the sort had been placed in the room. After all, it required a high maintenance cost to upkeep the array for a long time.

As greedy as he was, Ma Moxi stored the essence cores in his spatial rings. Then, he turned to the engine, which was now running on backup energy.

‘Even if they run out of fuel, any ship crew can always come here to refuel them. I guess I should do as Miaomiao told me…’

At long last, Ma Moxi decided to follow Cao Mao’s instructions. He dropped rocks and small metal chips into the engine turbines and slashed them with his enhanced sword once. Then, he used his favorite stealth skill, Heaven and Earth Escape, to get out of the ship.

As soon as Ma Moxi got out, the engines emitted black smoke, and the propeller formation of the flying battleship stopped functioning.

The ship had no choice but to follow the laws of physics, falling to earth thanks to gravity.

The development immediately attracted the attention of the group of pursuers. They stopped searching for Ma Moxi on another ship and looked at the falling warship.

The leader of the group sent an emergency call to Zhang Rang right away.

However, before the squad leader could finish reporting what he had found, all ghouls from the rest of the reserved warships, including the falling battleship, howled. All 4th-stage and weaker ghouls gathered on the deck, preparing for battle. As for the stronger ghouls and other undead warriors that could fly, they leaped off the ships and flew toward Xuan City.

Furthermore, the surviving three warships’ engines roared and lowered the altitude, heading toward the city at full speed as if the ship captains wanted to kamikaze the warships.

…

Liu Bian grudgingly glared at the falling ship. Grinding his teeth, he sent his order to all of his ghouls and undead warriors.

‘Ghoul Unit, kill everyone! Vampire Unit, hide in the shadow and pick off the stray cultivators! Death Knights, retreat to my warship and wait for the aftermath!’

Liu Bian had planned to sacrifice his human soldiers first in the battle, so he could resurrect them as undead warriors later on. As for the undead troops, he had brought them here to clean up corpses in the aftermath as their main source of food was human flesh.

Unfortunately, someone had sabotaged his secret units, which he had been nurturing.

The prince was enraged. He had already been angry because of the mural hoax, and now, someone had ruined his plan.

Liu Bian had had enough. He needed to vent or he wouldn’t be able to sleep soundly today.

…

BOOM

The city’s protective barrier was finally destroyed.

Qiang Han was helpless against the bombardment since he had never prepared any weapon against several flying warships at once. In desperation, he made a phone call to his elder brother, who had been in hiding.

However, Qiang Sui didn’t pick up the phone.

Qiang Han didn’t give up. He texted Qiang Sui, “The city is under attack. We need your help!”

After the text had been sent, Qiang Han could only pray that Qiang Sui would read it and rush toward Xuan City soon. Otherwise, the city might fall within 10 minutes if the other nascent soul experts chose not to help him fight against the prince.

“XU LANYING, XIA DUN, SUN WENTAI, ZHANG JUNYI, ZHAO BAO! WE NEED YOUR HELP! PLEASE PROTECT OUR CITY, AND WE WILL BE IN YOUR DEBT!”

Qiang Han cried out, hoping to get the attention of the hiding experts in the auction house.

The desperate cry was not in vain. Xia Dun flew toward him with several 5th-stage cyclops from his clan.

Without bothering to hide his identity, Xia Dun transformed into a 3-meter green giant with one eye. Moreover, he was equipped with a 5-meter long immoral-grade saber and a heaven-grade chainmail gear, which could change its size depending on the user’s physique.

The giant cyclops with a coif and chainmail suit looked terrifying from the perspective of human cultivators. Moreover, his domain presence intimidated everyone in the city.

Xia Dun glanced at Qiang Han, “Remember your promise, Qiang Han. You owe me a favor.”

A favor for cultivators was like an unspoken agreement that they would do anything to repay the debt, including accepting one’s demand from the debt owner. After today’s event, Xia Dun could order Qiang Han to do anything, even surrendering his granddaughter if he had one.

“Y-Yes. Thank you, Great Demon Lord! T-That’s right. The enemy of my enemy is my friend! The Cyclops Clan will always be our ally!”

“Ha! That’s funny. Where did you learn that?”

“Umm, someone from a vampire clan? His name is Mao Miaomiao, though. Isn’t he a part of your clan?”

“… That’s interesting. Mao Miaomiao, eh?”

Xia Dun grinned. He found Cao Mao interesting, and he planned to have a chat with him in the future. Right now though, he had an unfinished business with Liu Bian.

Xia Dun turned to the flying warships before him, “Playtime is over, young prince. Surrender or die!”

The cyclops waved his giant saber once, but 100 wind blades flew toward the warships and the flying cultivators from the imperial clan.

The crescent wind blades all had the same size as Xia Dun’s 5-meter long saber. However, as they flew further, they got bigger.

By the time that they traveled a hundred meters, their sizes reached 50 meters, and they were still growing.

The cultivators dodged the oncoming wind blades with ease since they were slow. Even the warships managed to get away from the wind blade’s trajectory.

Everybody laughed at Xia Dun’s attack. They thought that he was a trashy nascent soul expert with a weak domain attack.

Ironically, before anyone could jeer at the cyclops, the wind blades suddenly detonated after missing their target. Each wind blade created 10 more invisible crescent blades with the size of Xia Dun’s saber.

90% of the 5th-stage cultivators near the warships couldn’t dodge this attack. They were cut into several pieces.

All warships were also slashed by the wind blades, but they only caused exterior damage to the hulls. They weren’t enough to cleave the ships in half.

Still, many core pillar cultivators managed to blink away from the wind blade detonation. They also charged at Xia Dun and Qiang Han, planning to counterattack.

Unfortunately for them, the first attack had not ended yet. The missed wind blades detonated again and created 100 smaller wind cutters.

These tiny invisible blades were even faster than the previous ones. This time, they slashed through the core pillar experts at a light speed.

None of them had realized that the wind blade was Xia Dun’s signature attack, Chasing Wind Firework. As long as his opponent kept dodging his attacks and they were within his domain, the wind blades would continuously detonate and scatter into smaller ones to chase his targets until they died.

The only way to survive this attack was to clash with the wind blades head-on. Of course, they would have to overcome Xia Dun’s Wind Element Qi, Storm Element Qi, and his Dao of Slashing.

From the surviving six core pillar experts, four turned into pieces of flesh. The other two managed to react on time and parried the wind cutters with their weapons. However, the impact destroyed their swords and knocked them flying like a rag doll.

After taking down the small fries, Xia Dun turned toward Liu Bian’s flagship. He gathered his Storm element Qi and concentrated his Dao of Slashing into the immortal-grade saber.

The sentient saber cackled in delight. Its spiritual body manifested and floated behind Xia Dun.

A transparent soul of a general with a large saber crossed his arms, gazing at the enemies of Xia Dun. He grinned.

[Remember, Mr. Cyclops, feed me human souls after this.]

Xia Dun chuckled, “I know.”

As soon as he said that, he sent the second Chasing Wind Firework at the warship, where Liu Bian was at!

BOOM

The Chasing Wind Firework’s first wind blade hit something in front of the warship, and it didn’t detonate into smaller blades. The explosion just now was from someone else’s ability, which canceled Xia Dun’s skill.

Xia Dun’s face changed as he sensed that his domain was being pushed back by another nascent soul cultivator’s domain. Moreover, his opponent’s domain was eating away his domain sense as if they were parasites.

Zhang Rang was flying in front of the warship. Nine core pillar eunuchs also floated behind Zhang Rang, forming an odd human formation.

By Zhang Rang’s sides, two white-haired generals in dark imperial armor, one middle-stage nascent soul and one peak-stage core pillar, were also standing by, looking for an opening.

Zhang Rang cupped his fist and bowed politely, “Demon Lord, the prince has stated that he would amend your crime, and he would overlook today’s incident if you could stay out of our business. We’re here to destroy the Tang Merchant Guild and the Qiang Clan for tricking the crown prince to buy a fake piece of mural.”

Xia Dun grinned, “So, it was fake? Someone had just told us that it was real.”

“If it was real, we wouldn’t have attacked the city, no?”

“Indeed.”

Xia Dun didn’t tell Zhang Rang that someone had spread rumors that Liu Bian had the real time-and-space mural. Since he didn’t plan to let Liu Bian leave here alive, he had no reason to befriend them.

The cyclops got serious. He summoned his nascent soul and merged his dao avatar with it.

Xia Dun’s cyclops appearance changed into a human general in blue plate armor. He had the same appearance as his fake human form, but he looked older. He also had a scar on his left eye.

Zhang Rang squinted his eyes and glared at Xia Dun’s new appearance. He remembered this person had bravely challenged Immortal Fengxian despite being a core pillar expert a few hundred years ago. However, the guy should have died in that battle, but he reappeared here.

“I see. I understand everything. Xia Dun, no, General Xiahou, you are supposed to fight for humans, not the demons! This is your last chance for redemption. Surrender to us, and we’ll forgive what you’ve done, including what you did in the previous war!”

Xia Dun scoffed, “I don’t work for the likes of Liu! MEN, KILL ALL THOSE SISSIES AND GET ME LIU BIAN’S HEAD!”

All 5th-stage cyclops roared and activated their element Qi. They fearlessly charged at the nearest warship and ignored the presence of several 6th-stage cultivators.