"What?" The Peng King’s expression changed drastically. He grabbed Han Xiao. "Say that again!"
Lu Feng’s eyes turned sharp.
Han Xiao was lifted into the air. His face was pale, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. "The Royal Court has suffered catastrophic losses. Three of the five Royal Guard Commanders are dead, and seven of the twelve Deputy Commanders have fallen in battle. Furthermore, the Moonlight Spirit... the Moonlight Spirit..."
"What happened to the Moonlight Spirit? Was it stolen?!" With every word Han Xiao spoke, the Peng King’s face darkened. By the end, the veins on his arms were bulging as he demanded answers.
"Peng King!" The Profound Turtle King hastily reached out, forcefully prying the Peng King’s hand open. Han Xiao fell to the ground, gasping heavily for air. He had nearly been crushed to death.
But a bitter look merely crossed Han Xiao’s face. "The Moonlight Spirit wasn’t stolen, but..."
Before the others could even begin to relax, Han Xiao finished in an almost despairing tone, "It has been entangled by Fog Ashes!"
Lu Feng furrowed his brow, while the Profound Turtle King’s face twitched. He sighed helplessly, "Such a risk... what a risk..."
"Damn it! Damn it all!" The Peng King panicked entirely. He roared in fury, "Zhou Lingtian and the Long River Family are truly brazen beyond belief! Let’s go back—I am going to kill him!"
Right at that moment, the Star River Throne hovering beside them suddenly erupted with blinding light. It expanded outward, forming a starlight barrier that completely enveloped the entire mothership.
Their expressions shifted in shock. Looking out through the porthole, they saw a towering phantom standing outside—it was the projection of the Bronze Ancient King.
Simultaneously, alarms blared. Except for the mothership, which was protected by the Star River Throne, all the other warships shattered into pieces, exploding in a chain reaction of magnificent destruction.
"You don’t want to let us leave? How arrogant!" Lu Feng’s expression turned grim, and he immediately moved toward the Star River Throne.
"Now is not the time to fight. This is the Bronze Sect’s territory," the Profound Turtle King said deeply. "If the three of us are bogged down here, even the Star River Throne will be left behind."
Using the Star River Throne did not come without a price. Meanwhile, the Bronze Sect currently had no lingering worries and could easily afford a prolonged battle of attrition.
The Peng King gritted his teeth. The pollution of the Moonlight Spirit was already an unbearable blow to the Royal Court. If they lost the Star River Throne here on top of that...
"Qing Cang, this matter is concluded. Why stir up further conflict?" The Profound Turtle King’s mental fluctuations broadcasted far into the distance.
"Do you think you can come and go from my Bronze Sect as you please?" Qing Cang stood behind a barrier, entirely unyielding.
The Profound Turtle King fell silent. His posture became even more hunched as he spoke in a low voice, "Peng King, prepare to escape with the mothership. I will do my best to hold them off."
He walked toward the Star River Throne and slowly sat down.
In an instant, black runes surged outside the mothership like a tide, condensing in the void into the outline of a turtle’s shell. It gradually solidified into a giant carapace that fully encapsulated the ship.
The Peng King took a deep breath, resting one hand on the Star River Throne. A torrent of pale gold flooded out from beneath his feet, gradually submerging the surroundings. Every rivet and every piece of armor was cast in a pale golden halo.
"What a massive turtle shell," Su Chen remarked from afar, a strange gleam in his eyes.
The bronze phantom showed no emotion. It simply pointed a finger, and the Star Universe was sliced open by an invisible scalpel. The surrounding starry sky abruptly distorted like a torn projection screen.
Countless tiny fissures spread out as binary data code of zeros and ones leaked from the rifts, gradually seeping into the black shell. The carapace suddenly began to tremble violently.
"Go!"
The Profound Turtle, sitting upon the Star River Throne, roared to the heavens. Faint sounds of CRACKING and SNAPPING echoed from within his body. His wizened skin fractured like porcelain, revealing the flesh and bone beneath.
Just as the giant shell shattered, the golden stream of light finally engulfed the entire mothership. With a slight shudder, the ship vanished completely. The Star Universe fell silent, leaving only the Flowing Light of the fragmented shell to drift slowly down.
"In the end, it still takes an old fossil to clean up the mess," Qing Cang said flatly, watching the Royal Court’s mothership disappear.
He Chengying hesitated before speaking, "The Profound Turtle King had no other choice."
He could clearly sense that the Profound Turtle King had indeed held back. Qing Cang remained expressionless—the bonds between the older generation had nothing to do with him, and it wasn’t as if the Profound Turtle King was friends with his own master anyway.
***
"This is sending me back to the Sacrificial Land..."
In an unknown and ethereal space, Taixuan Tianyi was enveloped in a ball of purple flame, shuttling through the gap between reality and the Nether Realm.
"The Spirit of Sun didn’t use a sacrificial receiving method, so it’s taking a bit longer."
It had been a while since he emerged from the Flame Fire, and he had yet to arrive back at the Sacrificial Land. However, this transit also gave Taixuan Tianyi ample time to adjust his mindset.
"The Dust Star Sea... the place where the Saint Monarch fell must be quite close to the Dust Star Sea for those six Moonlights to have discovered it." Taixuan Tianyi’s expression fluctuated uncertainly. "That place is no longer exclusive to the Taixuan family. I fear we have no hope of ever laying hands on it again."
He thought of the man who called himself Taixuan Hong. He didn’t quite believe the man was actually a surviving bloodline of the Taixuan family. But the man’s insistence left him somewhat suspicious, and he planned to carefully question his clan’s elders upon his return.
He needed to see if it was possible that a Taixuan descendant had been left behind. If not, they would have to figure out how to deal with the impostor. The Taixuan family had been hunted down over a long period because of this fallen land, declining to their current state. It would be utterly senseless to continue keeping secrets for outsiders now.
"I’ll discuss it when I return..."
Thinking of this, Taixuan Tianyi couldn’t help but sigh. He had entered carrying the hopes of his entire clan, yet emerged stripped of his very qualification to be a Chosen One.
"So be it..."
As his thoughts settled, light appeared before his eyes. The purple flames brought him down onto the sacrificial altar.
However, when his vision cleared, his face drastically changed.
Unlike when he left, the area outside the sacrificial altar was now heavily surrounded by rank upon rank of soldiers in pale golden armor, their metal plating engraved with coiling, pure white Celestial Dragons.