However, another clan lord shook his head. “A combined attack is easy to say, but that’s a fierce character we’re talking about. This kind of loss isn’t something our small families can bear.”

These words resonated with a lot of people.

A trembling old man sighed. “I’ve lived here for over a hundred years. This city, these people, these families have never changed before. It was the same when Heavenly Monarch Zhang arrived, and no different when the Wolf King came. With this Qianye’s arrival, however, the Zhu family was immediately wiped out. This time, there’s no telling which family will suffer the same fate.”

The Zhu family was a minor family with sufficient status to attend this meeting, but the previous battle had deprived them of their clan lord, elders, and almost all their experts. Although their servants and descendants were still alive, they could no longer maintain their status.

All the elders at the scene offered words of sorrow and blame.

Xue Fulun frowned slightly but said nothing, while the Wang family’s grand elder continued to berate Qianye’s rudeness and barbarism.

After a round of clamor, an elder finally asked the key question, “What are we going to do about the Wolf King’s command?”

A diverse flood of confused opinions appeared—some were of a mind to obey the powerful Wolf King, while others wanted to go the extra mile and assail Southern Blue. There were also people who felt that Qianye shouldn’t be provoked and that they should drag this matter on until the situation was clear.

After a long episode of back and forth, there wasn’t a single family willing to oppose the Wolf King.

These elders were all opinionated and obstinate with no intention of yielding. Hence, the discussion soon turned into a fight. This was about the usual time for the Xue and Wang families to express their stance, and normally, there would be an outcome whenever Xue Fulun spoke up.

But for some reason, Xue Fulun remained completely silent today, and it seemed like there would be no outcome no matter how fiercely they argued. The Wang family grand elder wanted to hunt Qianye down, but he failed to convince everyone.

As clever as he was, he understood that there was a fair gap between his family and the Xue in everyone’s eyes. On the other hand, the Zhu family’s near-annihilation had frightened all of the smaller families, and no one was willing to fight to the death with Qianye.

Thus, night fell upon the city and the tea party dispersed without a conclusion. This was quite a common occurrence, actually, with eight out of ten tea gatherings passing in such a manner.

One day and night passed by before Southern Blue appeared once again in Qianye’s vision. The guard on the city wall had also discovered the approaching caravan. The ballista turret gradually turned around and took cautious aim at the motorcade.

Things could be considered safe at this point, so Qianye soared into the air and flew toward the city without wasting more time.

Recognizing Qianye, the sharp sentry below slapped down the other soldier who was trying to aim at the flying target. “Are you blind? Can’t you see that it’s Sire Qianye!?”

Qianye paid no heed to the short interlude below and merely rushed on.

The Dark Flame headquarters had transformed once more during this short while. Under Ji Tianqing’s threats and rewards, the owners of the nearby courtyards moved away obediently. They had no choice, either, because Ji Tianqing had constructed two cannon turrets right off the bat. The feeling of being observed from above and constantly aimed at by cannons wasn’t great.

The new Dark Flame headquarters became half the size of the city lord manor following this integration. Guan Zhongliu came to observe the place secretly but left with an ashen face. Despite his anger, he was still able to control himself and avoid responding to Ji Tianqing’s provocations.

The latter was only in charge of planning, while the actual coordination, dispatch, and construction work were done by Song Zining. Fortunately, the seventh young master had numerous talented subordinates, and the members of the Ningyuan group were far more skilled than the neutral-land riff-raffs. Within days, all of the plans had turned into blueprints, and the supply channels had been established for large scale construction.

Things progressed quickly once the building had begun. Song Zining had no intention of letting the thousands of Dark Flame members remain idle. Everyone was given a set of instruments and turned into temporary construction workers.

This kind of manual labor was an embarrassment to these mercenaries, but with Miss Ji Tianqing around, these people understood that being alive was actually more important.

At this point, a good chunk of Southern Blue had turned into a construction site as mercenary groups of all sizes engaged in relocation and renovation. The space that came from their move was left for the construction of potential firearms and airship parts factories.

Qianye circled around but couldn’t find Song Zining, so he simply returned to the headquarters to stock up on ammunition. After resupplying, he made ready to leave Southern Blue once again.

Just as he was flying over the city walls, a lasso suddenly flew up from below and latched onto Qianye’s feet. This ambush arrived so suddenly that Qianye actually couldn’t evade.

The cord was then pulled down violently, dragging Qianye’s body along with it. The latter wasn’t afraid at all—he simply followed the force since he wanted to see who was brave enough to ambush him inside Southern Blue.

“Bang!” Qianye smashed down like a cannonball, and his feet sunk half a meter into the ground. The nearby people swayed and staggered due to the intense vibrations.

However, there was nothing on the other end of the rope as the assailant had long since vanished. Qianye had no clue how this person had attacked or how she had vanished.

It was at this time that the skin on Qianye’s shoulder shuddered with an odd sensation. Unmoved, Qianye circulated and covered his shoulder with blood energy.

A fair hand appeared out of nowhere and landed on Qianye’s shoulder, followed by Ji Tianqing’s voice, “Officer, are you leaving again? How come you didn’t bring me… Ah!!!”

Her hand pulled back immediately after striking his shoulder, almost as though she had just touched a red-hot piece of iron.

Ji Tianqing glanced at her hand to find a patch of black on her exquisite white palm. The skin there had been charred black, and she could feel waves of burning pain coming from it, so much so that she couldn’t help blowing on it.

“Ouch, ouch! How can you do this to me!?” Ji Tianqing’s eyes became watery, almost as though she would start crying the next moment. She blew on her hand and shook it several times but to no avail. She thus pouted her lips and stretched her hand toward Qianye.

“This… how can this be?” Qianye hadn’t imagined things would turn out this way. This was the first time he had used his dark golden blood energy for protection. In the past, he would only send a wisp of blood energy into the enemy’s body.

He had only planned to let Ji Tianqing suffer a bit, but charring her entire palm seemed somewhat overboard. What he couldn’t understand was how could his dark golden blood energy—no matter how powerful it was—hurt someone of Ji Tianqing’s cultivation? Up until this point, he still couldn’t see through her cultivation or rank.

It almost seemed like her cultivation level depended on her mood. If she wanted to show three origin vortices, he would see three; or five if she wanted to show five. She could even produce a couple of divine champion origin crystals for Qianye to see.

Qianye could at least tell that she was a divine champion. Since he couldn’t tell the exact level, he decided it best to stop guessing.

Now that her hand was truly charred, Qianye had no other choice but to take her hand close to his mouth and blow lightly on the injury. The wisps of dark golden blood energy lingering on her hand were drawn away by Qianye’s breath, returning to his body obediently.

If these blood energy strands weren’t taken back or cleared away, they would go on to burn her entire right hand.

Her injury was nine parts resolved after the retraction of the blood energy, leaving only flesh wounds that would heal in a couple of hours.

Qianye was thinking about letting go when Ji Tianqing said, “That’s all?”

“Ah, yeah… that’s all, I guess?” Her odd expression made Qianye doubt his judgment for the first time. He activated the Eye of Truth and scanned her injuries with his perception, heaving a sigh of relief to find that there wasn’t any leftover blood energy.

Ji Tianqing waved her hand in front of Qianye and said, “Doesn’t feel better at all!”

Qianye was startled. “This… you’ll have to rely on yourself for that.”

With Ji Tianqing’s cultivation, this small injury would vanish in a matter of minutes if she would just circulate her secret healing arts. Her physical parameters naturally weren’t as powerful as Qianye’s, but the power and miraculous effects of her secret arts were far above him. He simply refused to believe that she couldn’t heal herself.

However, Ji Tianqing moved her hand in front of his face. Not to mention using a secret art, she wouldn’t even use her origin power to initiate healing.

Feeling quite helpless, Qianye had no choice but to use the most primitive method to heal her. He fished out his military knife and scraped away the charred parts over the new flesh before blowing a mouthful of Venus Dawn energy onto it.

Venus Dawn was almost the peak of all daybreak origin power and was highly beneficial to the growth of the human body. The flesh on Ji Tianqing’s palm began growing back at a visible pace until it was good as new, but even then, the Venus Dawn hadn’t been used up.

Qianye knew at a glance that Ji Tianqing hadn’t used her own origin power at all and was no stronger than an ordinary person at this point. Without the support of her own origin power, the effect of Qianye’s Venus Dawn would need to be restrained. Otherwise, rapid regeneration would only lead to necrosis.

“Tianqing, you need to activate your origin power.”

“How do I do that?” Ji Tianqing glanced at Qianye with wide eyes, almost as though she didn’t understand anything.

“You need to… ah, I’ll just do it myself.”

Feeling helpless, he brought out a bandage and dressed her hand. One would be hard-pressed to see this kind of primitive healing method on a champion-level expert since their bodies had already gone through an all-round upgrade and origin power was the foundation for everything. Even heavy injuries would heal as long as they had enough origin power. Some powerful healing medicines were deemed panaceas because they served to replenish vast amounts of origin power.

Ji Tianqing looked at her bandaged hand with great interest.

Qianye stood up, saying, “Your wounds are fine now, I should leave.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll tell you when I return.”

“Where are you going?” Ji Tianqing asked repeatedly.

The look in her large, radiant eyes told Qianye that he wouldn’t be able to leave the city without satisfying her curiosity. “I’m going to Tidehark to rescue someone.”

“Big city, rescue, I like! Go on, be more specific.”

“This isn’t a joke, I’m going to the city lord’s weapons factory. I heard this person is Zhang Buzhou’s trusted aide and a divine champion.”

“A firearms place overseen by an expert, that’s even better! I like it. I’m coming along, it’s settled!”