An explosive shout erupted amidst the mercenaries, “Why have you all stopped? What’s going on?”

A tall, fierce champion pushed his way through the crowds. Towering over three meters tall, he was extremely well-built and a single arm of his was larger than an ordinary person’s thigh. His sinister-looking armor was as thick as a palm, with large spikes jutting out of his shoulders, elbows, and knees.

His aura was toward the chaotic side, tainted with wisps of black arachnid energy. It turned out that he was a hybrid between a human and an arachne. Apparently, his giant frame—brought about by his arachne bloodline—had facilitated his cultivation, allowing him to reach the rank-fifteen that he was now. Compared to the black-armored champion, he was superior both in terms of defense and power.

Qianye still remained unfazed even as this giant of a man made his appearance.

The man’s narrowed eyes almost seemed to spew out lightning. “I’m Wildthunder w.a.n.g Zhan of Stormwind Fury, who are you? Were you the one who killed all my brothers here?”

Qianye finally opened his eyes. Ignoring the second question, he replied, “Qianye.”

w.a.n.g Zhan broke into a frown. “Qianye? Aren’t you that Zhao Ye?”

“Come, if you want to fight, what’s with all the nonsense?”

As a man of short temper, how could w.a.n.g Zhan take this provocation lying down? He strode forward with a thunderous roar, his heavy steps causing the ground to tremble slightly.

Qianye finally stood up, whisked East Peak out, and charged forth. The forward surge was so fast that he had accelerated to a blur within seconds. He arrived in front of w.a.n.g Zhan in the blink of an eye and rammed into him!

The m.u.f.fled thud that followed caused both the natives and mercenaries to cringe.

Following the collision, Qianye remained motionless while his opponent was sent flying backward. It was at this time that a scarlet glow erupted from East Peak—a flaming radiance slashed down and cut w.a.n.g Zhan into two, armor and all!

How could this be? Everyone from Stormwind Fury was flabbergasted and could hardly believe their eyes. w.a.n.g Zhan’s strength was already evident from the thickness of his armor. How could this tank-like warrior be cut through in one slash?

Qianye stood straight, still holding his sword, and exhaled a breath of white mist. And in front of him, the two halves of w.a.n.g Zhan’s corpse slowly fell to the ground.

“You’ll pay for Elder Brother’s life!”

Another fierce warrior jumped out of the crowd. He charged forward urgently, knocking away many Stormwind Fury warriors along the way. This man wasn’t as tall as his brother, but he was also close to three meters and clad in heavy armor. It was obvious at a glance that this was also a defense-oriented warrior. Such soldiers were almost unbeatable on the battlefield as heavy weapons were more useful than small blades.

Qianye sneered, having seen through the man’s intent.

This person’s combat strength was actually inferior. The reason he had rushed out so urgently was because he thought Qianye would be exhausted after killing w.a.n.g Zhan. He wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h this contribution.

His line of thought wasn’t wrong. After all, Qianye’s cultivation was limited and he made no effort to hide his three origin vortices. It was already a miracle that he could kill w.a.n.g Zhan instantly, but that was likely by using some kind of secret treasure. This level of secret treasure usually involved a steep price, draining the user after a single activation and, more often than not, leaving them in a half-disabled state. This kind of advantage had to be taken!

This man looked coa.r.s.e on the surface but was scheming at heart. His strategy wasn’t really wrong, but just like his brother, he neither knew the name Qianye nor who he really was. After all, the empire was far from the neutral lands, a different world on which these people might not once set foot in their lives. No matter how famous Qianye was in the empire, the people here wouldn’t know him unless he was at the level of heavenly monarchs and clan lords.

Qianye activated his blood core again, driving auric flame blood to every part of his body and bathing his muscles in golden fire.

The power of his fire-forged physique was pushed to the max. His origin vortices also sped up their revolution, delivering the power of Venus Dawn to East Peak without reservation—the countless near-substantial crystals in his origin power formed tiny sharp blades. Qianye erupted in a loud roar as the enemy arrived in front of him, activating his domain and slas.h.i.+ng down with East Peak!

Qianye’s powerful physique, his pure origin power, and that heavy sword—the three of them together made this slash indefensible!

Shocked out of his wits, that person raised his hammer horizontally to block this slash. However, Qianye didn’t even pay any attention to this movement and merely maintained his slash. East Peak descended as usual and cut both man and hammer into two.

All the soldiers gasped in astonishment, but there were desperate people everywhere—this was proven by two more champions who started charging toward Qianye. These people were weaker than the previous ones, but Qianye had already killed two people, so they felt that they would stand a chance by working together and perhaps earn this contribution.

With a long whistle, Qianye’s figure flickered and East Peak slashed out twice, cutting the two incoming enemies into half.

Actually, there was one more champion who wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h this merit, but he was a bit slower than the other two. He had just pa.s.sed the formation when they were killed and ended up becoming the lucky one. Seeing the fate of his two comrades, he could hardly suppress the fear in his heart. He gasped. “How could this be? T-This isn’t reasonable!”

No matter who went up—regardless of their cultivation or combat technique—Qianye would cut them down in one, unreasonable slash.

A mournful bugle cry rang out behind the Stormwind Fury ranks; this was the call to charge. The front row soldiers were hesitating since they didn’t wish to throw their lives away. However, the back row troops were moving forward, so they had little choice whether they were willing or not.

Qianye stood there with sword in hand, completely ignoring the incoming army. If numbers were of any use, heavenly monarchs and dark monarchs wouldn’t have such transcendent positions.

The commander of Stormwind Fury also understood this. Nonetheless, Qianye was no heavenly monarch, so he would undoubtedly grow tired and exhausted at one point. They were planning to use the lives of ordinary soldiers to whittle away at Qianye and attack only when he was worn out. They had no lack of money, anyway, and could hire as many mercenaries as they wanted.

The troops hadn’t even arrived when countless bullets began whistling over. Standing in the rain of projectiles, Qianye merely waved his hands briefly, swatting away the bullets coming for his face and eyes. As for those aimed at other parts of his body, he couldn’t be bothered with them.

In the blink of an eye, a pitter-patter of origin flames erupted on Qianye’s body. There was no telling how many bullets had struck his body, but his silhouette stood tall amidst the raging blaze.

Little Zhuji climbed onto Qianye’s shoulder again at one point. She glanced about excitedly, saying, “We’re about to fight!”

“Yes,” Qianye replied.

“Why do we have to wait for them to come? We waited so long just now.”

“Because we’re going to kill our way back head-on, we’ll kill as many of them as they come.”

Little Zhuji felt puzzled. “Why? Aren’t we supposed to go from behind when hunting?”

Qianye was fairly patient with this little girl. “That’s when dealing with prey, now we’re only fighting some insects. There’s no need to waste energy when we can just crush them.”

“I see.” It seemed like the girl only half-understood. “I also want to crush them!”

“Okay, let’s do it together.”

The tide of soldiers arrived, drowning Qianye and Zhuji in the blink of an eye. Gado was anxious, but they had already left for the distance and wouldn’t make it even if they charged back at full speed. He took a deep breath, his eyes bloodshot and his throat bulging. Apparently, he was planning to unleash his ultimate move.

In truth, there weren’t a lot of native troops remaining, and they were completely outmatched against Stormwind Fury. They would’ve been utterly defeated if Qianye hadn’t interfered before. Despite the dire situation and knowing that he would be throwing his life away, Gado still charged back to the rescue.

Zhuji waved her little hand at the big warrior from atop Qianye’s shoulder, making a certain gesture. Having been with the girl for some time, Gado knew that she was telling him not to come. He came to an abrupt halt and the roar he was acc.u.mulating became stuck in his chest.

Whether it was Zhuji or Qianye, neither of them felt that the Stormwind Fury army was a problem. Under such circ.u.mstances, Gado felt hesitant and didn’t dare to charge over. He would definitely go to their rescue if Zhuji and Qianye were in trouble, but if they were confident in dealing with the enemy, Gado wasn’t going to throw his men’s lives away.

But how were they going to fight such a large army?

At this moment, it looked like the soldiers around Qianye were being pressed upon by a mountain. They became one segment shorter, and then half of them collapsed to the ground, unable to move. That was indeed his domain power in action, but Gado still looked worried. The vast oceanic domain wasn’t without its weaknesses.

At this moment, a feminine but authoritative voice rang out on the battlefield, “Charge! His domain won’t last long, it’ll grow weaker as more people go in.”

Gado’s heart almost jumped out of his chest. As expected, there were capable people in Stormwind Fury who could see through the weakness of Qianye’s domain. The power of his oceanic domain was related to his cultivation and had a maximum capacity to it. The more the people sharing the pressure, the less each individual person would suffer. Additionally, Qianye’s consumption would increase as more people charged into it.

Qianye’s expression remained calm as he maintained the domain’s power, crus.h.i.+ng all who came in without restraint. But his blood core’s movement had sped up and his energy was being sapped up at a rapid pace; he wouldn’t be able to keep going much longer. Nonetheless, Qianye had Life Plunder and backup energy from the Book of Darkness.

Just as Qianye was about to use Life Plunder, little Zhuji opened her mouth and spat out a stream of faint green energy. The wisp of green traveled dozens of meters and, following a spin of Zhuji’s body, spread out in a large area around her.

Qianye felt his scalp go somewhat numb, a sign of exceptional danger. This feeling seemed to be coming from the green energy Zhuji had spat out. What exactly was this thing? Even the current Qianye was actually feeling danger from it.

At this point, a black hue came over the faces of all Stormwind Fury mercenaries within range, and they collapsed silently. The heavily injured soldiers who had been suppressed by the domain had long since stopped breathing.

In the blink of an eye, the entire battlefield became devoid of life.