Qing Ting hesitated for a split second before erupting with power, rushing toward the Azureclad Duke as a hazy streak of azure light.

  Lu Yun jumped with shock at her explosion of strength—she was only a little bit weaker than the Bloodclad Duke!

  “The geniuses of the Hongmeng are as numerous as carp teeming in the river, alright. If it wasn’t for two lifetimes’ worth of supplemental dao, I wouldn’t be able to kick up even a splash here,” he muttered to himself. “It looks like someone is purposefully building up the reputations of the Azureclad, Purpleclad, Bloodclad, and Crimsonclad Dukes. They’re meant to lead the cultivators of the realm.”


  The four dukes had been bestowed with titles entirely too similar to each other. Their strength was also similar at peak half step kings. It was impossible that this was just happenstance.

  As for the venerated enforcer, that was purely an accident. The little fox had learned from Lu Qing that the enforcer was their martial grandson. Lu Yun didn’t know where he’d learned Dragonrise, but Lu Qing wouldn’t be wrong.

  ……


  Nearly thirty kings fought each other in the air and hordes of ghosts filled the land below. The latter steadily increased in number until it was impossible to kill them all. Cloudexit was sustaining extraordinary losses—a million cultivators died from the moment Bloodclad left the city to Lu Yun killing the ghost king.

  Of course, the ghosts suffered a hundred times more casualties than the cultivators, but that didn’t mean anything to them. New armies gathered in Starspace Region and rolled over everything in their path to Cloudexit City. The stunning geniuses visiting from other regions began to die.

  “Bastards!” Purpleclad suddenly howled. “What are you eighteen pieces of trash doing?! Just ten first and second step ghost kings are incapacitating eighteen of you! You’re worse than trash, hurry up and kill them!”


  He knew what they were concerned about and why they spent every second guarding against each other. The kings wanted to prevent the ghost king hidden among the group from killing the rest of them.

  However, the cultivators beneath them were using their lives to stop the ghostly army while the eighteen kings cowered and dithered! Purpleclad was mad with rage.

  Expressions darkened on the eighteen kings. They were indeed hesitant to use their full force and couldn’t trust those by their side, but Purpleclad’s insult made even Earthmartial itch to slap him to death. The Purpleclad Duke was once renowned throughout the Hongmeng and the disciple of the Starspace King. But the Starspace King was dead now, so how dare a genius not yet a king raise his voice at them?!

  “Those eighteen kings are all living beings and not ghosts.” Lu Yun quickly scanned them with the Spectral Eye. “Is that ghost king the same kind of existence as the Meteorite King?”


  The Meteorite King had been half of a ghost king and half of a cultivator, which meant that Lu Yun could only detect the half that was alive. If there was a ghost king among the eighteen, then it was someone who’d fully converted into a cultivator—like the Moon King.

  “How many existences like that are there in the Hongmeng?”


  Clang!

  A crisp collision sounded by his ear, something had halted one of his downward strokes.

  “Die!” A raspy, indistinct voice growled as a ghastly pale face suddenly appeared in front of him. It raised a blade suffused with ghostly qi and smashed it down on Lu Yun.

  “What kind of blade is that to block Stellar Light Magneticus?!” Lu Yun raised a brow and shifted a meter to the left, evading the blow by the skin of his teeth.

  Rumble.

  The sword formation behind him swayed, almost broken by the attack.

  Lu Yun looked behind him to see a white-haired man, pale as a sheet and dressed in white robes, appear where he’d been seconds ago. Black ghostly qi wafted around him and eyes lacking pupils stared fixedly at the human.

  Lu Yun’s attention, however, was on the blade in his hands. It was an uncommonly heavy sword with a snarling ghost face embedded in the hilt; it’d been this ghost-headed blade that’d blocked the Stellar Light Magneticus. Its edge still gleamed threateningly without any chips.

  “Don’t you dare die, Li Zhen!” Lu Yun suddenly called out. “Your daddy here is gonna get a good blade for you. We’ll go again when we’re done with all these ghostly rats!”


  He jumped into the air and slashed forward with Dragonrise. Recovering on the ground, Bloodclad jerked his head up with shock when he sensed the move.

  “It’s the Dragonrise technique! How is that possible?? Is he Dusksnow Morningstar? No, he’s neither the genius nor the venerated enforcer. Who is he?!” Jaw dropping with incredulity, Bloodclad stared dumbly at the ferocious Lu Yun.

  Li Zhen was in the thick of things with his broken weapon; he hadn’t remained in the safety of Lu Yun’s formation. It was because of this that Lu Yun found himself liking the fellow. He knew when to bend, but also wasn’t a coward afraid to die.

  After the first battalion left the city, Bloodclad had been the first to follow, then Li Zhen.

  “Alright!” Li Zhen shouted back. “That ghost-headed blade’s mine! Since you broke my weapon, it’s only right that you pay me back with one!”


  He roared with laughter as his broken blade flared with light. Unfurling like a snowy white lotus, the brilliance blasted in every direction.

  Lu Yun made a decisive second move and marshaled another strike while Dragonrise was in the air—Dragonsoar!

  His sword as a dragon, it could not be stopped as it crashed down on the white-haired ghost. Though the ghost possessed a wondrous weapon, it couldn’t deploy all of the blade’s power as it was only a half step king.

  Dragonsoar was more powerful than Dragonrise as it contained the meaning of Lu Yun’s fire of order.

  Boom!

  Silver sword light exploded in the air. The white-haired ghost shrieked with anguish before it vanished from existence.

  “Catch!” Lu Yun kicked the blade to Li Zhen.

  “Hahaha, nice blade, wonderful weapon!” Li Zhen put away his broken blade when he got the new one and infused his energy into the ghost-headed blade. Wails of agony echoed from the blade when the energy came in contact with a terrifyingly powerful will.

  “You want to take over my mind instead? DIE!!”


  BOOM.

  Li Zhen flared with an enormous streak of blade light and pulverized the will in the blade.

  “Hahaha!! Ghostly scum, come meet your deaths!” Brandishing his newly claimed weapon, Li Zhen charged and sank into the boundless ghostly armies.

  “Danger!!” someone roared on the city walls. “The Demonward Formation is about to break, the ghosts will pour into the city! City Lord! Your Eminence Earthmartial! Please return with due haste!”


  Craaaack.

  Fissures crawled over the golden light of the formation as the golden light lost its hold over the ghosts.