Romier and Pratt didn’t join the battle immediately. Instead, they just watched as their ground forces attacked the city frantically. With two dukes overseeing the battle, all the soldiers fought as though they were crazed.

The mercenaries felt heavy pressure. There was no escape under the present circumstances, and the only outcome was death if they failed to resist this wave. Considering their options, wasn’t it much better to die gloriously in battle? At this point, the survivors were all highly experienced and powerful mercenaries. They made use of every advantage they had, not missing any small opportunity to push back and bleed the enemy.

At the center of Whitetown, a certain building had changed owners several times. The mercenary gunfire from inside gradually became weak, then completely died out as a group of werewolves and vampires charged in. This building had long since turned into ruins and was covered in the corpses of dark race soldiers. After paying a steep price, the dark races finally captured this central bridgehead for their army.

If they could hold the central region, the mercenaries would be forced to separate. With that, the scales would tip in the dark races’ favor.

However, the Evernight soldiers had no time to cheer before they noticed something strange. Upon observing their surroundings, there seemed to be some extra objects in their vision. An experienced werewolf glanced at his feet reflexively and saw two grenades!

An explosion engulfed the entire building, the shockwaves and flying debris tearing the Evernight warriors into pieces. There was no blind angle to the explosion, and the smoke itself was enough to suffocate people to death. Who would’ve thought such a violent explosion could be produced by a gunpowder weapon? How terrifying would the intensity have to be to kill all the dark races inside?

Song Zining appeared quietly and gestured toward the street corner. A small group of mercenaries ran over and captured this point once again.

Just now, he had used his domain to hide a large number of grenades at the Evernight soldiers’ feet. He managed to kill off a group of elites with such a primitive method.

Qianye didn’t target the ordinary soldiers deliberately, only killing the unlucky ones who happened to be near him. His attention was entirely on the two Evernight experts in the air, trying to figure out who he should attack first.

After all, the power gap between the two parties was quite huge, and Qianye would only have one chance for a surprise attack.

Moments later, Qianye’s gaze locked onto Duke Romier. Pratt had already run back once, and that proved he had no intention of fighting Qianye to the death. If he could deal a heavy blow to Romier, Pratt would likely run away.

Qianye retracted his aura and merged into the battlefield.

Romier suddenly shivered in the air. Seeing Pratt glance at him with an odd expression, he said with a snort, “I was making preparations for combat. The time is right, let’s go down!”

With Pratt at his side, Romier naturally couldn’t show any weakness even though he felt a bit uneasy. He simply braced himself and entered the battlefield. The two dukes working together would have an overwhelming advantage over Qianye and Song Zining. The only thing they had to worry about was how much damage the desperate enemies would cause on the verge of death.

Pratt had other thoughts, but they naturally wouldn’t appear on his face.

Romier flew over the city at an altitude of several dozen meters, shooting out dark red clouds from time to time. This mist would cover an entire area and reap all life from it. Even the dark race soldiers would suffer injuries from the sanguine cloud if they were not vampires. The only solace was that it wouldn’t take their lives.

The cannon fodder, though, weren’t that lucky. A sanguine cloud immediately killed two mercenaries and a handful of servspiders who were just about to fight. Only a single arachne knight crawled out from the mist, but his right limbs had been injured by the falling wall. With his slave soldiers gone, his chances of survival were slim at best.

Pratt glanced at the scene but said nothing. As for what was going on in his mind, no one knew.

In the blink of an eye, Romier had carved out a path of death through Whitetown.

Several origin bullets blasted Romier, but how could these attacks injure him? All they did was reveal the shooters, who soon lost their lives to the sanguine cloud.

Romier sensed that something was wrong in one of the areas below, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He tossed a bloody cloud over just in case but noticed Pratt sneering at him from the side.

“What are you sniggering at?” Romier asked gloomily.

“The duke sure is cautious, you’re even afraid of ambushes from under the rubble. I should learn more from you regarding this ability.”

Romier only responded with a snort. He had forced Pratt back to the battlefield first, then made the man circle Whitetown with him. It was only natural that this arachne vice-duke would hold some resentment.

Pratt saw that Romier didn’t retort and decided to let things be since he had gained a slight advantage. The vampire duke wasn’t in a good mood, either, since the Mamon clan’s forces had suffered grave casualties. This was quite a hefty damage even for one of the twelve major vampire clans.

At this moment, sanguine clouds had covered the ruined city below. Qianye was crouching in a gap, peeking out of the building through a crevice. The lingering sanguine mist around his body sought to corrode him, but they would shrink away immediately after touching his skin.

Qianye pinched off some of the sanguine mist on a whim and noticed a peaceful aura from it. Turns out the cloud wasn't suppressed because of his dark golden blood energy, but rather they considered him one of their kind.

Qianye dragged over a nearby corpse and flipped it over. Inside of the man’s combat armor, he saw the symbol of a holy grail pouring blood, the insignia of the Mamon clan.

Qianye felt an inherent sense of familiarity from the Mamon blood energy, almost as though a small part of him came from it. After careful thought, he remembered that the purple blood energy inside his body was somewhat similar to the Mamon’s, except it was purer. William seemed to have mentioned once that the crystal, from which the purple blood energy stemmed, could produce another Nana. Didn’t that mean Nana was from the Mamon clan?

That was good news because Romier would be inherently careless about Qianye’s blood energy, and his dark golden blood energy was poisonous to all vampires. Qianye waited patiently, looking for the perfect opportunity to attack.

With two dukes suppressing the battlefield, even Song Zining could only stall for time despite appearing here and there to take back strategic positions.

The Evernight army quickly gained the advantage in Whitetown, occupying almost half of the city and pushing Dark Flame toward the underground tunnels. Once the entire battle was out of control, this underground base would become a coffin.

A group of demonkin warriors was exploring a half-destroyed building at this point. One of them kicked open the door to find an extremely beautiful girl, sitting there in clean clothes. The startled soldier forgot to fire immediately, but just as he was about to question her, the girl opened her mouth and blew gently in his direction.

The warrior felt his vision go dark as he collapsed to the ground. All his other comrades also fell down silently.

The invisible region of death spread out at a rapid pace, causing the Evernight soldiers around the building to collapse in droves. Outside the building, some of the stronger soldiers were able to struggle for a while, but they couldn’t even cry out—they could only glare in vain as they quickly lost their lives.

In the blink of an eye, the field of death had expanded to a hundred meters, and almost a thousand elite soldiers had turned into corpses.

Romier’s gaze suddenly shifted toward the expanding field of death. Just as he was turning around, his long hair moved even though there was no wind! Roaring frantically, the vampire duke immediately retreated and found a black feather in front of him! Qianye’s figure was just about to fade away in the distance.

Romier made a decision in the blink of an eye. His duke-grade reflexes and judgment told him to give up on evasion and focus all of his attention on defense. At the same time, he swiped at the air to produce a sanguine cloud where Qianye would appear.

The sanguine cloud contracted and slammed into Qianye’s body like countless iron rods. However, Qianye unleashed an explosive roar as he erupted with a terrifying force that exceeded even Romier's! The sanguine mist was thus scattered forcibly. Qianye turned pale and coughed up a mouthful of blood, but his figure flickered away and vanished.

At that moment, the faint black feather shot into Romier’s chest.

The duke froze up. It wasn’t just his movements, but even his expression was plastered, almost as though he had turned into a statue.

Pratt carefully maintained his distance and only stared at Romier’s current state. His eyes shifted about, and no one could tell what he was thinking.

Moments later, expression returned to Romier’s face. His eyes landed on Pratt for a moment, then at the field of death below. The area had expanded to a hundred and fifty meters before coming to a halt. All of the Evernight soldiers in the field had been reduced to corpses, including two counts.

Thousands of elites had been lost in the blink of an eye. This was an unbearable loss for the already injured Evernight army. There seemed to be no Dark Flame mercenaries inside the field, meaning that the losses were all on the Evernight side.

Compared to Qianye’s strike, Romier clearly felt more of a heartache about this sudden field of death.

The duke’s expression suddenly turned pale before returning to normalcy. An undisguisable smile appeared on Pratt’s face when he saw what had happened. He then turned toward the field of death as well.

Romier said all of a sudden, “The mercenaries are down to their last men, Qianye must be suffering as well. Throw in our last reserve force and take Whitetown!”

“Sire, this so-called reserve force is made up of our personal guards. They number less than a thousand even when added together.”

“That’s enough! Everyone, including non-essential airship crew, must join the battle!” Romier’s tone was strict.

Pratt didn’t agree. “Sire, those people are the final supporting pillars of our clans. Your status in the Mammon clan is already decided at this point, but I still want to advance in the future.”

“Are you avoiding battle!?”

Pratt pointed behind Romier with a smile. “Sire, you won’t win this fight!”

Feeling a sharp pain behind his neck, Romier turned back to find Caroline descending from the distant skies with her lightning whip. The duke’s eyes narrowed as he sized up Caroline. “I’ll deal with her! Pratt, you go down and kill Qianye and Song Zining!”

“Sire, will you be fine dealing with her alone?”

“Of course.” Romier was calm and collected. He knew Pratt might change his stance if he were to show some weakness. The arachne vice-duke had been observing his performance after taking the Shot of Inception. It was clear that he had evil intentions.

Not seeing any openings, Pratt bowed toward Romier and got ready to descend into the city. Qianye had taken a counterattack from Romier, and Song Zining was already exhausted from the prolonged battle. There wasn’t any major threat at this point.

It was at this time that a streak of flames shot up into the air and exploded. The blaze was suffused with a tinge of violet; this was Zhao Jundu’s signature color.