Thousands of warriors eventually gathered on the plaza and started falling into square formations. They were all well-equipped, uniformed, and rather impressive at a glance. The Wolf King’s army could be considered an elite force even in the entirety of the neutral lands.

However, the old man’s expression turned gloomier and gloomier. What he saw was the nonexistent origin power in these burly fellows. To be honest, they were all cannon fodder without a single proper expert among them.

Such a squad was no different from pieces of rotten meat with no skeleton to hold them together. No matter how many of them were here, even if their average rank was higher than the enemy, they would be easily routed by an expert-backed squad.

The generals possessed good eyesight as well and immediately noticed something fishy going on. Their expressions became uglier and uglier.

No amount of such cannon fodder could be of any use in a real fight. On the contrary, it would only increase risk for the generals who had to lead them.

As a lone wolf, Qianye could come and go at will without so much as glancing at these cannon fodder. He would only target champion-rank experts. Without officers forming attack and defense nodes, there was no way to weave a defensive line with these soldiers. They wouldn’t even serve as meat shields. These generals had been speaking down on the Wolf King, but they knew they couldn’t even take a single blow from Qianye.

Heading to Tidehark with an army of cannon fodder was impossible.

The old man knew these generals quite well, so he didn’t even bother talking about it. After a good while of silence, he said to the attendant, “You’ve seen the command. Mobilize three thousand soldiers to seal the west gate of Tidehark City.”

The servant looked surprised. “Seal the west gate?”

The old man snorted. “What, you want to seal all gates with this ragtag group?”

The attendant laughed. “That wasn’t my intention. I only felt that it’s… useless.”

“That’s not for you to decide. Perform the order immediately!” The old man’s voice was suffused with killing intent.

The attendant knew he couldn’t drag this out any longer, or the old man would kill him. There was no one in the castle who could contend with the old man right now, and besides, the Wolf King had no intention of going against Zhang Buzhou directly. Nodding, the servant left to issue the order.

After the attendant’s departure, one of the generals asked, “Sire, what can such trash even do?”

The old man revealed a sinister smile. “It’s a show of stance.”

“What stance?” The generals were puzzled.

“The Wolf King’s stance.”

A sizable commotion broke out in Tidehark when the Wolf King’s army sealed off the west gate. What disappointed people was that Qianye didn’t do anything about it. He remained sealed off inside the manor, seemingly intent on cultivating to the bitter end.

When night descended, those who were waiting to watch the show scattered in disappointment. Everyone could see that the squad at the gates was made up of cannon fodder, without even a single champion or higher rank fighter.

There was no strategic meaning to this kind of army as they could be routed in one charge. Their only value lay in the Wolf King’s banner flying above them. Attacking them was akin to attacking the Wolf King’s army.

It wasn’t surprising that Qianye would hold back; no one but an idiot would attack the three thousand soldiers outside the west gate. It wasn’t quite normal, however, that he wouldn’t even leave the manor. This meant that he had long since expected that the Wolf King wouldn’t really attack, that he didn’t even need to confirm it.

The city lord’s manor wasn’t calm under the twilight. Several men in black clothing jumped over the wall without alerting any of the guards, avoiding the sentry spots with great familiarity and finally arriving at the rear courtyard.

Qianye occupied a small compound in the northwestern part of the rear courtyard. There were no servants inside, and naturally, there were no guards, either. Apart from the occasional patrols, not even a bird would pass by this place.

Two cheerful city guards emerged from a nearby corridor and saw the crowd of black people before them. They gasped in shock, but someone from the other party made a familiar gesture and shook open a document.

The parchment paper was filled with small, dense letters that were barely legible, but that large seal representing the heavenly monarch was something everyone knew about.

The two city guards couldn’t help but exchange glances, but just as they were hesitating, the mysterious people passed by them and continued forward.

Inside the isolated room, Qianye slowly opened his eyes and glanced at the approaching men.

It was at this exact moment that the wall behind him burst open and a long, dark sword shot toward the back of his neck.

These invaders were decoys to attract Qianye’s attention while the real assassin was hiding behind his back all along!

The assassin was determined to kill with one stab, and the eerie dark blue sheen on the blade proved that it was coated in some strange poison.

Just as the sword’s tip was about to enter the back of Qianye’s head, his body leaned to the side and effectively evaded the blade. The two actions happened at almost the same time—it almost looked like Qianye was stretching his body after a long period of sitting, just as mortal peril was about to descend upon him.

The assassin wasn’t flustered after his certain kill had missed. A blue dagger appeared in his other hand, with which he stabbed at Qianye’s back.

The two were now locked into a melee stance. It would seem the angle of attack on the isolated chamber was calculated—the debris and furniture happened to restrict Qianye’s movements while the assailant’s attacks were designed to minimize any space for retaliation.

As expected, Qianye didn’t make any obvious movements after dodging the stab. The dagger stabbed through his clothes, robes, skin, and, with some difficulty, through his muscles.

The assassin didn’t have time to celebrate when he encountered sudden resistance, and the dagger refused to progress any further. He hadn’t even reached the bones at this point.

The assassin wanted to channel more strength but found that he was beyond weak and exhausted. He noticed, through the corner of his eyes, several blood-colored threads drifting through the air. And they were actually retracting into Qianye’s body along with the sparkling sanguine beads hanging at their tips.

Before he could make sense of this phenomenon, tiredness came over him and he fell into a deep sleep. The sleep came with great speed and was almost unstoppable. The assassin staggered and collapsed to the ground, never to move again.

Qianye stood up to stretch his body. The wound on his back was nowhere to be seen, and the poison was nothing to his ancient vampire constitution. There was some uncomfortable numbness when the blade entered his body, but everything was fine now.

Qianye picked up the two weapons and observed them for a while. He couldn’t help but laugh when he saw that they were both grade-six. “Wow, they’re really going all out.”

The assassin himself was a rank-sixteen expert who specialized in concealment and terrain utilization. Combining all of his skills into an assassination plan, he was able to erupt with great power and seek a one-hit kill. However, his own defense was nothing to write home about, and he couldn’t wear armor in order to maximize his stealth. Qianye’s Life Plunder took the man’s life immediately.

That person was extremely well-hidden and even Qianye didn’t know when he had entered the courtyard. He only sensed the attack as it was launched, at a distance even people like Du Yuan wouldn’t be able to react.

Reaching the peak of assassination techniques required serious training from a young age in addition to talents. It also involved considerable investment in resources. This person’s worth was far above the two grade-six weapons.

The heavenly monarch’s residence had mobilized quite a bit of resources for this attempt.

Qianye weighed the dark sword in his hand for a while. Then, with a single step, he appeared near the wall across and stabbed into it. The blade was extremely sharp and Qianye’s origin power was near invincible—the wall was like tofu as he punched through it. Every move of his sword would draw a stream of blood from the wall.

After several attacks, Qianye calmly opened the door and walked out into the corridor. There were four corpses collapsed near the wall of the isolation chamber, their skin suffused with a layer of dark blue. Those four people were struck in the waist and abdomen, but what really killed them was the poison.

Qianye picked off their face coverings and studied them one by one. He also found the document that had scared off the city guard; it was just an ordinary travel permit for the Eastern Sea. Without even looking at it carefully, he crushed the paper into powder, saying, “You guys are finally here.”

These infiltrators were only here to draw his attention and hide the true assassin. They seemed to have heard a muffled thud but everything was quiet when they arrived at the appointed place. It was as though what they had heard just now was a hallucination. The plan was for the four people to serve as back up assailants, but they hesitated when they received no further signal and were duly killed during that moment.

The four assassins were only there to serve as bait, but they were still champion-rank experts. Losing so many killers in one go would be a pain for the heavenly monarch’s residence.

Qianye walked around the four corpses and raised his voice, “Men!”

Two city guards rushed over, their faces pale when they saw the corpses on the ground. They fell to their knees and said repeatedly, “City Lord, we… we let them pass because we saw the heavenly monarch’s order. We really didn’t know they were assassins.”

“Rest assured, I don’t want to kill you yet. Bring more men and drag these corpses out, hang them outside the gates of the city lord’s manor. Oh, and there’s one more inside the room. Don’t miss him.”

The two guards then left with two corpses each in tow. In order to save their own lives, they didn’t hesitate to put in more effort.

Qianye watched their receding figures with a smile. These guards might not know the identity of the assassins, but there was no way these experts would be nameless pawns. He was certain some higher-ups in the city would recognize them. Displaying the corpses like this would be a great humiliation to Zhang Buzhou’s face.

Qianye left after the corpses were hanging outside the gates. He had done what he wanted to do in Tidehark, so there was no need to wait. He only needed to observe the subsequent power-struggle inside the city.

Song Zining was standing before his desk, gazing at the thick stack of diagrams in front of him. These were the designs for the latest airship, reportedly redrawn to adapt to the neutral lands. It could be considered a custom design.

Before this, the neutral land airships were mostly remodeled from old ships from the Empire and Evernight. They were barely passable in terms of performance. Fortunately, the special environment of the neutral lands punished the vessels from these two big factions, making them inferior to these remodeled airships.

However, the papers in front of Song Zining would become the first true model made for the neutral lands when produced. It would sweep away the current models immediately.

It was no easy feat to build a warship. The most important factor was Song Zining’s superalloy formula and the essential components made in the Empire. It would take all of that to build a warship.

Song Zining was no warship expert, but his many years of experience allowed him to see that the warship designs were flawed in actual practice. For instance, the dense web of hand-written notes were all places that needed modification.

After finally looking through all the diagrams, Song Zining stretched his body and rubbed his eyes. When he walked over to the mirror, he saw that his eyes were black and his blood vessels were visible.

It was at this time that a knock came from the door. “Sire, someone wishes to meet you. They claim to be from the Empire.”