Apart from the surprised gasp at the sight of splattering blood, the young man could only watch in a daze as Qianye shattered the remaining three guards with a punch each. He even forgot to breathe. None of his subordinates could escape Qianye no matter how quickly they reacted, whether they had fled, counterattacked, or drawn their blade. No matter where they were struck, they would explode into a sanguine mist.

By the time those powerful guards had fallen, the young man was covered in blood from head to toe. Although it was his subordinate’s blood, one could see that the man was shocked out of his wits.

“Ah! Ahhhhh!” Only then did the young man react and break out into a scream, all the while patting the pieces of flesh off of his body.

The man’s origin power became unstable from the extreme fright; unable to control it, he fell headfirst to the ground. Falling from a height of several dozen meters would hurt even a champion.

The roof of a building below burst open as an old man rushed to the sky. With a wave of his hand, he caught the young man in a wave of origin power that brought him gently to the ground. The old man’s figure appeared in front of Qianye with a flicker, roaring furiously, “Young Man, how can you be so ruthless?”

Qianye looked at the old man. “How could someone with four such guards not have a true expert protecting him. It’s just that you’re so calm that it surprised me somewhat.”

Qianye was actually mocking the old man, who was in no way calm. He simply had no time to rescue the four guards as they were destroyed with a single punch each. In addition to the shock, the old man was also quite terrified later on. If Qianye had punched the young man, his flesh and blood would be drifting in the air as well.

Ashen-faced, the old man’s momentum rose continuously. He broke into laughter at the extremes of rage, saying, “Good, good! You Imperials are definitely experienced and extraordinary! People who grew up in this small place have no other talent… except killing!”

Qianye didn’t attack immediately. He merely replied with a cold smile, “Since I can return, those who entered with me can do so as well. Do you dare kill me? Aren’t you afraid that the Imperial army will march over and flatten that so-called power behind you?”

The old man’s expression changed slightly. “The last time was an exception. These are the neutral lands, not a place you can rampage as you wish!”

Qianye laughed. “The one stopping the outsiders is the Throne of Blood. Your words only serve to mock Zhang Buzhou, that man’s been hiding behind the vampire’s back despite claiming to be a heavenly monarch.”

The old man was livid. “How dare you address Heavenly Monarch Zhang by his name? You’re courting death!”

Without further words, the elder raised his palm like a blade and chopped down from over a dozen meters away! A sharp beam of brilliance thus descended upon Qianye.

For a divine champion, a dozen meters was no different from point-blank range. This palm strike traveled with the speed of lightning, arriving above Qianye’s forehead in mere moments!

Just as he was thinking he had succeeded, Qianye’s figure blurred out and vanished from the spot. The attack had missed.

Spatial Flash was Qianye’s famed technique now, so the old man seemed to have come prepared for it. He scanned the area with his powerful divine-champion perception, controlling everything within a hundred meters in the blink of an eye. He soon realized that Qianye was standing less than thirty meters away from him.

Just thirty meters!

The old man sneered inwardly, but he was more furious than anything else. He was enraged that Qianye would dare appear near him so carelessly. Did this boy think his opponent had no melee powers? Or did he think there could be no fatal attacks?

The old man’s heart was filled with killing intent as he gazed at Qianye. Several streams of blade radiance appeared in his hand as he made ready to go all out and kill Qianye.

Just as he was about to launch the blade radiance, he suddenly noticed his figure reflected in Qianye’s eyes.

The old man’s figure paused ever so slightly, almost like a cart driving over a stone. However, this negligible moment of delay filled his heart with caution. The old man was just about to flee when a dark luminous feather tore through the air!

“Why is it black? That’s not what I heard…” This thought flickered through the old man’s mind as he watched the feather enter his chest.

The Shot of Inception was Qianye’s trademark killing move, one that had heavily injured the Wolf King. It was no longer a secret among the top experts of the neutral lands.

The old man wasn’t alarmed after being struck by the Shot of Inception. Instead, he raised his origin power output to protect his vitals, hoping to forcefully exhaust the energy from the Shot of Inception.

The old man wasn’t weaker than the Wolf King, so he felt that he could use the same method to endure the injury. He only needed a single opportunity to pounce forward and kill Qianye. He needed to let this young man know that the divine champion threshold was a boundary between very different worlds.

But his expression changed drastically when his vitality started to drain away. “How can this be!?”

The speed of loss was so great that it had far exceeded his expectations. Life flowed out of him with the momentum of a raging wave, and soon, he was almost half drained! His aura declined rapidly and was no longer at the divine champion realm after a while.

And even then, the power of the shot wasn’t entirely gone.

It was at this moment that another feather began to form inside Qianye’s origin gun!

The old man screamed wretchedly. His silhouette vanished, reappeared, and vanished again. Just like that, he flickered three times, and each took him several hundred meters away. The elder was over two kilometers away after three movements. There, he turned and fled without even looking back, or saving that young man from before.

Qianye was surprised. After a moment of astonishment, he shook his head and muttered to himself, “Wow, that works too…”

The old man’s movement arts looked quite a bit similar to Spatial Flash. Covering a couple kilometers in three flashes, one could even consider it the king of escape techniques. However, it couldn’t compare to Spatial Flash at all in terms of variation and power, since it had to be used three times, each taking him a few hundred meters.

Even so, the old man still caught Qianye off-guard and managed to escape. This was the first time Qianye realized how frustrating it must’ve been for the enemies facing him.

The old man had seen through the situation immediately and escaped the moment he found that things weren’t quite right, never allowing Qianye to fire a second shot. Rather than say he was swift, one could say he was cowardly. But had that not been the case, there was no way he could have dodged the second Shot of Inception, and it was very likely that he would die in Qianye’s hands.

Qianye shook his head. Suppressing the sense of regret, he scanned the entire city.

This gaze woke up all the experts of Southern Blue and sent everything into chaos. Some wanted to sneak away, some wanted to hide, and some others retracted their auras in an attempt to blend in with the ordinary crowd.

Several figures flew over to Qianye’s side and bowed. “Sire, you’re finally back.”

Qianye saw that these people were rather familiar. There were mercenary leaders from Dark Flame and two managers Song Zining had brought with him, one in charge of merchants and the other in charge of the workshops. It was strange that they would be able to move freely. At the very least, it meant that they weren’t under any limitation or torment.

Now, this was a problem.

The middle-aged man in charge of the merchants seemed to have noticed Qianye’s thoughts. “Young Master Zining told us that the journey would be perilous. He said that if he wasn’t back soon and the Imperial army had withdrawn, we should submit temporarily against enemies we couldn’t handle. Anyone taking over the city would need us to ensure the workshops were operating smoothly.”

“So it’s Zining’s instruction.” Qianye finally realized things.

Song Zining had always been crafty, and would always leave a contingency plan. Those plotting against him had to have problems with both their brain and their luck.

“You lot, immediately reorganize Dark Flame and capture all outsiders. Kill whoever resists,” Qianye said calmly.

With stern expressions, the group left to accomplish their missions.

Qianye stood in the air just like that. Having blasted four experts into smithereens and sent a divine champion running, his might was at its peak. Those who so much as saw his shadow would not dare to have thoughts they shouldn’t have.

Qianye saw a sneaky shadow through the corner of his eyes. He patted Little Zhuji, saying, “Oh, go and capture him.”

That person had changed his clothes, but origin power couldn’t be disguised. He was like a bright lamp in Qianye’s True Sight and simply couldn’t escape notice.

Little Zhuji never got the chance to fight. Cheering loudly, she swooped down immediately toward her prey.

Qianye was astonished. “Hold back a bit, don’t kill him!”

But he was a bit too late. All he heard was a loud rumble as Zhuji smashed into the ground like a comet. The shockwaves spread out in every direction, toppling all buildings within several dozen meters in radius.

The man was quite nimble and actually managed to dodge Zhuji’s attack, causing her to crash into the ground. However, he couldn’t even smile after the maneuver—the shockwaves from the smash were so intense that they sent him flying through several nearby walls.

Although his cultivation wasn’t low, the deep impact caused him to cough up blood and left him somewhat listless. He wanted to continue running, but Zhuji’s voice rang out behind him, “Aha, got you! You wanna run!?”

She caught the man by his leg and lifted him up, flinging him around randomly like a human club. He lost consciousness in just a few swings and never moved again.

Little Zhuji felt something was wrong. “Ah, dead? I-I haven’t even started playing!”