With great difficulty, Song Zining stood up with his spear as support and cried out, “The holy mountain! Attack the holy mountain!” He then hurled the silver spear out with all his might.
The silver spear erupted with light as it shot toward the Holy Mountain like a comet.
Luo Bingfeng’s expression changed drastically. “How dare you!?”
He flew after the silver spear and slashed at it. The weapon exploded into a giant ball of flames that covered the city lord within. Soon afterward, the flames dispersed into thousands of blazing streams that fell upon the holy mountain.
When Luo Bingfeng appeared once more, his robes had been awkwardly singed. However, he didn’t chase after Song Zining, but instead observed the falling flames. Only after seeing that there was no special power hidden within them did he heave a sigh of relief.
During this period, however, a mournful bugle cry reverberated through the skies.
Luo Bingfeng’s expression changed drastically when he saw Song Zining blowing hard on an exquisite silver bugle horn.
The blare burst out over hundreds of kilometers. The imperial formation began to change—Song Zining’s flagship raised a different war-banner as it charged straight at the holy mountain.
The meaning of this banner was different. It meant for all soldiers in the army to charge alongside the commander.
If even the commander was fearless of death, how could anyone else lag behind?
The entire army felt their blood boiling as they charged fearlessly toward the holy mountain.
The imperial warships in the air all moved out, raining down a hail of cannon fire to clear a path toward the target.
Song Zining was standing at the foot of the mountain. He had somehow produced a folding fan and extended it for use as a crutch on his arduous upward climb.
The imperial soldiers felt their blood ignite when they witnessed this scene, and their speed of advancement increased a fair bit.
The soldiers had forgotten to fear death, but the experts were a completely different scene. They gazed at Luo Bingfeng from afar without daring to take action.
Li Kuanglan sneered after shooting a glance at the crowd. He then reached a hand out to Ji Tianqing. “Give me!”
Ji Tianqing was startled. “Give you what?”
Li Kuanglan said impatiently, “Don’t think I don’t know you have a lot of medicines hidden on you. Give me something for healing, quick! Otherwise, I’m going to start searching.”
Ji Tianqing was surprised. “You’re mad! That’s Luo Bingfeng we’re talking about, this medicine won’t save you!”
Li Kuanglan moved like lightning, reaching into Ji Tianqing’s robes to fish out a vial of medicine. Then, without so much as looking at what it was, she injected it into the side of her neck.
The experts were stunned, and the few people who knew Ji Tianqing’s identity were even more astonished. Li Kuanglan reaching into her clothes could be considered extremely disrespectful—no matter how powerful Ji Tianqing was in martial arts, there was no way she could’ve escaped getting touched. Despite that, the latter didn’t really look angry, giving way to a lot of space for imagination. Were the two hostile powers going to make peace just like that?
Li Kuanglan flicked Cold Moon’s Embrace with a finger, bringing forth a rush of icy blue light. “I knew you were hiding the good stuff. Humph, with this dose of medicine, my chances of survival have increased by ten percent. It’s the Ji family’s money, so it’s fine to splurge.”
Ji Tianqing shouted, “That’s just ten percent! You will die!”
“All the better, you can have my share if that happens.”
Without waiting for Ji Tianqing to reply, Li Kuanglan took to the air and began looking for an opportunity to attack Luo Bingfeng.
Ji Tianqing didn’t follow immediately. Instead, she scanned the experts from the imperial clan and aristocratic families, and then pointed out a couple dozen people. “You guys better watch your back!”
Her silhouette suddenly flickered and appeared before an aristocratic family elder. A cold gleam flickered in her hand as she pressed a dagger as thin as a cicada’s wings against the old man’s throat. Ji Tianqing looked into the man’s eyes, saying, “Did you think you’ll live that much longer just because you’re hiding like a coward?”
The elder hadn’t even replied when Ji Tianqing moved her wrist, effectively cutting open the man’s throat. The old man’s expression was full of shock and terror as he clutched his throat. He tried to say something, but all he could muster were incoherent sounds. To an expert at his level, having the throat slit wasn’t a lethal injury. But now, his protective origin power would disperse immediately at the chest, preventing it from sealing the wound or stopping the hemorrhage.
He wanted to reach out and grab Ji Tianqing, but his strength left him like flowing water. He was completely empty in the blink of an eye.
Ji Tianqing’s figure flickered once more and vanished. No one could see where she was—she was apparently waiting for an opportunity to strike, but no one knew whether it was against Luo Bingfeng or the group of experts.
Recalling what she had said a while ago, the experts who had been pointed out by her understood that there was no turning this situation around if they didn’t go all out. The girl might not be able to deal with all of them at once, but she could easily pick them off one by one. As for who she would kill, it was fairly obvious. The elder whom she had killed just now was the one who had been pulling the Li elder back.
The experts began surrounding Luo Bingfeng in quick succession, knowing that there was no way out.
The holy mountain was covered in flames. Luo Bingfeng was like a demon, shooting out a torrent of sword radiance against the airships in the sky, with sparks flying everywhere. The imperial airships made no motion to retreat—after one side was too badly damaged, they would simply turn about and keep firing from the other side. At this point, a sudden explosion rang out in the air as one of the airships finally succumbed to the damage. With its kinetic chamber erupting in flames, the vessel started falling at a slanted angle.
A good number of crew members jumped ship, but only a couple of them were able to hover in the air. Most of the people fell to the ground with miserable screams.
The destruction of this airship gave Luo Bingfeng no relief. If anything, it caused him to become even more nervous instead. He charged toward the burning airship and, with a loud roar, fired hundreds of sword lights from his fingertips, dicing the blazing wreck into hundreds of small pieces. Then, with a wave of his sleeve, he blew what remained of the vessel far away.
The imperial commanding officers were all well trained, and they had also received prior instructions from Song Zining. Seeing this situation, how could they not realize that Luo Bingfeng didn’t want anyone to touch the holy mountain? As such, the warships directed their fire from the city lord to the holy mountain, bombarding it in a scattered pattern to make interception harder.
With the imperial experts joining the fight, Luo Bingfeng’s situation became clearly more dangerous. Those with good observation skills could see that Luo Bingfeng was investing most of his attention to intercepting the cannon fire.
If the city lord were to focus on one airship at a time, even the newest imperial models wouldn’t be able to withstand the onslaught. At the beginning of the fight, he had actually shot down one airship in a single move. If he were to keep up that kind of momentum, the entire imperial fleet would be destroyed in less than half a day’s time.
It was just that Luo Bingfeng would rather give up the advantage in battle than to let the holy mountain suffer more damage. He had no qualms despite knowing that this was a sure path to ruin.
The imperial generals couldn’t understand why a brilliant expert like Luo Bingfeng would turn stupid, but no one was going to refuse such an opportunity. They went all out with their attacks, afraid that the city lord would return to his senses and become that peerless expert from before.
