At the critical moment, Linken swung her palms together and caught the luminous feather in a clap.

A thunderous echo reverberated in the void as the feather was half destroyed, yet what remained of the spine still shot out of her palms and sunk into her chest.

Linken let out a muffled groan. Deathly pale, she was flung back several dozen meters before managing to find her footing. She said while glaring at Qianye, “Turns out the Demoness was really injured in your hands. I thought she was faking it at first. Where does your move come from?”

Qianye naturally wouldn’t tell her anything and only maintained his silence.

Linken’s eyes turned cold. “Fine, there’s no need to leave you alive if you’re not going to speak.”

She arrived before Qianye with a clear whistle, but she flashed back to her original position before she could even attack. The luminous wing behind Qianye lit up once more as his handgun began overflowing with light—a feather of light was vaguely starting to form.

Linken was now clear that there was no way to evade this feather after it was shot. The only thing she could do was to go against it head on. That shot just now had already injured her and the next one was bound to be even worse. This was a dangerous state to traverse the void in.

Seemingly knowing her thoughts, Qianye stood silently without firing the charged firearm.

Qianye was suddenly alarmed after seeing the look in Linken’s eyes. Without the slightest hesitation, he activated Intimidation once more and disabled Linken mid-air. Her protective demonic energy was reduced by thirty percent. Even though she was fairly prepared, the suppressive might of a void colossus wasn’t one she could contend with.

Having gained the advantage, Qianye immediately fired the Shot of Inception at Linken’s forehead.

This time, Linken crossed her arms in front of her head and curled into a spinning ball. Her legs struck the feather of light countless times during the spinning process, but the luminous projectile still entered her body in the end.

Linken stopped spinning and crashed down, but her body bounced back from the impact and flew hundreds of meters into the air. She looked down at Qianye from above with eyes full of anger.

Glancing at her location, Qianye smiled faintly. “You’ve finally discovered?”

Linken smiled coldly. “This ship is indeed mysterious and so is your control over it. The more powerful it is, however, the less you can hold onto it.”

“It won’t fall into your hands for sure.” Qianye smiled.

“Is that so?” Linken’s voice grew higher as she made to attack.

It was at this time that miserable screams arrived from the distance. Linken looked back to find a demonkin struggling desperately in the void, unable to endure the corrosion of the environment. His defensive demonic energy had collapsed, and his entire body was turning into a sinister-looking dried corpse.

Linken recognized this person as a fairly reliable subordinate of hers. It was just that his strength wasn’t sufficient to hold out for long in the void. He was unable to return to the airship after being flung out, and there was no expert to help him. In the end, he was fated to die and drift about in the void.

Taking a look around, she noticed hundreds of demonkin flailing about in the area. Most of them were at their limits and would follow in the previous demonkin’s footsteps very soon. After having her airship destroyed, Linken was so overcome by rage that she wanted nothing more than to kill Qianye. But this scene made it hard for her to remain indifferent.

She glared at Qianye once more. Realizing that she wouldn’t be able to take down this opponent immediately, she said with a cold snort, “We’ll see how long it takes for you to be able to use this move again.”

With that, she flew away, darting about to catch the drifting demonkin and sending them back to the airship.

Qianye secretly praised Linken’s decisiveness and foresight. He was indeed only capable of firing two Shots of Inception, so if Linken refused to leave, he would have to fight her physically. It was just that the demonkin would be greatly restricted while fighting on the Earth Dragon and—as the one in control—Qianye would gain a great advantage. This fight wouldn’t reach a conclusion for at least a couple of hours. Even if she could capture Qianye in the end, several hundred of her crew would’ve died by then.

Admiration was one thing, but Qianye wasn’t about to let her rescue her subordinates with ease. He immediately turned the Martyr’s Palace about and attacked the nearby lifeboat. The thirty-some demonkin inside were all injured and would surely lose their lives if struck.

Furious and shocked, Linken charged over with a loud scream. Her body was shrouded in demonic energy as she pushed the lifeboat several hundred meters away.

“Leave this place, everyone leave!” At Linken’s order, all lifeboats turned about rapidly and left for the adjacent airspace. Meanwhile, a number of warships jumped into the fray. Half of them distracted the Martyr’s Palace with constant fire, while the remainder drove toward the fragmented flagship to save the passengers.

Qianye ignored the buzzing ballista bolts and simply charged for Linken’s flagship. The beleaguerment of the demonkin warships couldn’t move the Martyr’s Palace at all. The airship was like a primordial colossus advancing steadily and crushing everything in its wake.

“No!” Linken screamed in pain. The Martyr’s Palace crashed headfirst into one of the airship segments, causing the surface to cave in with flames spouting out of the gaps. This segment of the vessel was home to the engine and fuel compartments—flames broke out immediately upon impact, followed by a series of violent explosions. It wasn't clear whether or not the crew inside could survive this ordeal.

Qianye naturally wouldn’t go easy on the demonkin. Letting even one of them go would mean an extra foe on future battlefields.

The nearby warships launched numerous small assault vehicles, which relied on their high speed and defensive prowess to crash through the defensive field and land on the Earth Dragon’s body. Over a dozen demonkin warriors emerged from these assault vehicles and circled around Qianye.

Landing ships were the primary means of gaining control of an enemy ship, especially when large enemy ships had lost the ability to defend themselves. If the Martyr’s Palace were to be completed, the countless cannons on its sides would be able to mow down these boarding airships. However, the only two ballistae on the palace had been destroyed, and this emboldened the enemy boarding parties.

Nonetheless, how could ordinary demonkin be Qianye’s match when even Linken couldn’t succeed? The demonkin general had still dispatched them anyway, which meant that they weren’t expected to return. If they could obtain the Martyr’s Palace with this suicidal assault, it would make up for the loss of Linken’s flagship many times over.

The crew aboard Linken’s flagship were far superior to their peers in terms of talent and status. In the eyes of the demonkin leaders, the ordinary sailors on her ship were more valuable than ordinary ship officers.

The demonkin warriors had Qianye surrounded in the blink of an eye. Before they could even attack, however, they felt their bodies sink down. It was as though they were carrying a giant, ten-thousand-kilogram rock; they could hardly take half a step forward. Soon, a meshwork of sanguineous threads appeared before their eyes—that was the last thing they saw before their vision went dark, their bodies fell limp, and they collapsed one after the other.

These demonkin elites couldn’t last even half a minute against the might of the Oceanic Domain and Life Plunder.

Qianye opened his eyes and sighed at the sight of all the corpses strewn across the floor. With the gradual regeneration of the Earth Dragon’s skeleton, all of Qianye’s powers also received an upgrade while on the Martyr’s Palace. Not to mention his domain, even the range of Life Plunder had increased by fifty meters. Those even remotely close to Qianye were destined to suffer.

After destroying all enemies on the ship, Qianye once again focused on controlling the Martyr’s Palace.

The Martyr’s Palace spun about and suddenly fired a bolt from its mouth, accurately striking down a demonkin warship. Apart from the earliest phases, the airship had never fired any form of ranged weaponry, so much so that the enemy had started neglecting this capability altogether.

Linken ordered all damaged airships to retreat and the intact vessels to enter a formation. The entire squadron then fell into a gradual retreat while peppering the head of the Earth Dragon with suppressive fire. At this point, the demonkin floating in the void had turned into corpses and were already beyond salvation. The flagship had also been destroyed completely.

Because they had Linken’s flagship and the journey itself was a long-distance expedition, the airships in their lineup were mostly geared toward speed and distance. They didn’t have any heavily armored battleships with heavy firepower. These high-speed vessels mostly relied on mist concealment for their defense. Now that Qianye had proven the ability useless, their weak points became grossly evident. A single ballista bolt would badly damage an airship and two would destroy it.

Despite bleeding inwardly, Linken had no choice but to order a retreat. She stood in the void with eyes full of fury. “Qianye, let’s see how fast you can recover. You only have half a day’s time. Any slower and you will die!”

“I’ll be waiting,” Qianye replied coldly.

Linken flew to the closest demonkin warship and drove away into the distance. Only when that airship had receded over the horizon did Qianye retract his gaze.

That wasn’t an empty threat. She was proving that she could recover from her injuries in half a day, at least up until she was capable of a fight. Meanwhile, Qianye had used up two Shots of Inception. If he couldn’t condense a new shot within half a day, he would be deprived of an ace with which to keep Linken in check. The outcome was destined to be quite miserable.

Qianye closed his eyes, and the Book of Darkness appeared in his consciousness. The demonkin warriors from just now had provided a vast amount of essence blood. All of them were elites, so despite their small numbers, the quality of the harvest was high. A few dozens of them was enough to fill him.

There was no essence blood in the Book of Darkness at the moment. A single thought of his activated an absorptive force in the book, which sucked away the essence blood in Qianye’s body. Only when he was almost empty did he stop the draw.

After absorbing the essence blood, the Book of Darkness produced a wisp of refined essence blood for his use. Soon, the left second feather on the Wings of Inception started to glow faintly as it absorbed the provided energy.