188: The Song family's wrath sent their warships ablaze.

Between heaven and earth, all sounds were silent.

The aftermath of the divine spear that pierced Song Tieshan exploded, leaving behind streaks of pitch-black spatial cracks in the air, which were slowly and stubbornly healing themselves.

Inside Qingzhou City, the mountain-shaking, tsunami-like fervent cheers gradually subsided after lasting for more than ten breaths.

Following the ecstasy of surviving the catastrophe, came an even more suffocating tension.

Everyone's gaze was fixed firmly on the sky.

There, the heaven burning tower ship floated quietly, purple flames burning on its hull.

Driven by its master's fury, the flames violently expanded and contracted; every pulsation caused ripples in the space below, emanating an ominous and sinister aura.

Above the tower ship, there was dead silence.

The thirty Ziyang Battle Guards, whose Killing Intent soared to the heavens, were all frozen in place, their faces displaying an unprecedented dullness and confusion.

They were the sharpest blades of the Ziyang Song Family, Golden Core Great Perfection Cultivators who had climbed out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

They had witnessed the fall of Nascent Soul Cultivators, and had even personally participated in great battles surrounding and killing Late Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators.

But they had never seen a death so absurd, so swift, so... unreasonable!

A Great Late Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, protected by his own fourth-order High Grade Magic Treasure, instantly killed by a City-Protecting Grand Formation with a single spear strike?

Were they listening to a story, or dreaming?!

“Tieshan...”

Song Qingyun stared blankly at the empty western sky, where not a single trace of Song Tieshan remained.

His lips trembled, his eyes were bloodshot, and his mind was blank and buzzing.

He could not accept it.

That brother, with whom he had bickered his entire life, yet whose back he could confidently entrust on the battlefield—was he just gone?

Dead beneath a broken Formation whose name he couldn't even recall?

“TIE—SHAN—!!!”

A roar of ultimate grief and indignation, almost shattering eardrums, exploded from the bow of the heaven burning tower ship!

Song Xuanyi's lean, old face was completely twisted by rage and humiliation, veins bulging like ferocious venomous snakes across his forehead and neck.

His eyes were blood-red, fiercely gouging the azure-robed figure who still stood with hands clasped behind his back atop the pavilion below.

Disgrace!

This was a monumental humiliation he had never suffered in his entire life!

His Ziyang Song Family, standing tall in Zhongzhou for thousands of years, was a true Third-Rank Top Aristocratic Family! When had they ever endured such an insult!

He, Song Xuanyi, had lived for fifteen hundred years, with one foot already stepping into the Soul Transformation Realm! When had he ever been so openly slapped in the face!

Today, he personally led the Family elites, commanding a fifth-order war Magic Treasure, grandly descending upon this barren, godforsaken wilderness of the Southern Borders.

He had thought it would be an easy, crushing victory.

A slaughter where the cat played with the mouse!

The result?

The battle had just begun, and a Nascent Soul General under his command was blasted to death right in front of him by a City-Protecting Grand Formation!

Even his remains and spoils of war were collected right before his eyes!

This was no longer just a slap in the face.

This was using a red-hot iron whip to fiercely shred Song Xuanyi's old face and tear down the dignity of the Ziyang Song Family!

“You! Little! Beast!”

Song Xuanyi pointed at Shen Yuanmo below, his withered finger trembling violently.

“I want you dead!!”

“I want these ants filling the city to pay the most tragic price for your foolish actions!!”

“I will uproot your Shen Family, leaving not even a chicken or a dog behind!!”

“I will extract your Divine Soul and burn it with Ziyang True Fire for ten thousand years, leaving you unable to live or die!!”

He had completely gone mad.

Forget capturing the leader first, forget slow torture—he wanted none of it now!

All he wanted now was to use the most violent, most direct, and most unreasonable power.

To completely erase the city below, and the azure-robed figure who had made him lose face, from this world!

“Song Qingyun!” Song Xuanyi roared until his voice was hoarse.

“Old Ancestor! Your subordinate is here!” Song Qingyun jolted awake from his grief and quickly bowed.

“You continue to preside over the Battle Formation! Spare no expense, blast open that turtle shell for me!”

“Yes!”

A look of grim determination flashed in Song Qingyun's eyes. He once again controlled the hundred-zhang-tall Flame Giant, wielding a massive flaming sword, launching an even more frenzied assault on the City-Protecting Barrier.

Meanwhile, Song Xuanyi suddenly turned around.

His turbid and manic old eyes fixed fiercely on the core Control Center of the heaven burning tower ship.

In his eyes, a determined madness ignited!

He intended to use the ultimate killer move of this fifth-order war Magic Treasure, utilizing near-Soul Transformation power to refine this Grand Formation and everything within it to ashes!

Even if... the cost was sacrificing the Origin he needed to break through to the Soul Transformation Realm!

He would stop at nothing!

Pfft!

Song Xuanyi suddenly bit the tip of his tongue.

A mouthful of Essence Blood, containing his Half-step Soul Transformation Origin power and shimmering with streaks of purple-gold light, transformed into a blood arrow and was violently spat out by him!

The blood arrow pierced the air and shot with extreme precision into the slowly pulsating, heart-like Purple Crystal Core at the center of the ship's hull!

“With my blood!”

“Blood Sacrifice the Tower Ship!”

“Heaven Burning Realm Refining—ACTIVATE!!!”

Song Xuanyi used his last shred of sanity to let out a hysterical roar!

Buzz—!!!

The thousands-of-zhang-long heaven burning tower ship violently shook after absorbing Song Xuanyi's Essence Blood of Origin!

Countless profound Formation Patterns lit up one by one on the hull, emitting an overwhelmed hum!

In that instant, the fiercely burning purple flames seemed to have been doused with endless fuel!

They violently surged!

Ten times! A hundred times!

The purple flames were no longer simple fire, but had transformed into true... Heaven Burning Purple Flames, viscous like magma and laced with the aura of the Law of Destruction!

The endless Heaven Burning Purple Flames, like a boundless sea of fire suspended upside down in the sky, roared down from the firmament!

Without target!

Without blind spots!

This sea of purple flames completely submerged the entire Qingzhou City, along with the Great Five Elements Cycle Array that enveloped the whole city!

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!

A grating scorching sound echoed through the clouds, as if it intended to burn through and strip the Divine Soul directly from the skull!

The air was instantly sucked dry and ignited!

The earth cracked, charred, and vitrified at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Even space itself was twisted inch by inch by this terrifying high temperature, letting out a groan of being overwhelmed!

The City-Protecting Barrier, which had originally flowed with brilliant light, was being furiously scorched by this endless sea of fire, causing its surface Five-Colored Divine Light to melt and dim at an alarming rate!

The Dao Rhyme of the Five Elements circulating on the barrier was being forcibly ground down and decomposed!

The Grand Formation's energy reserves poured out wildly, like a floodgate had been opened!

Inside the city, all the Cultivators felt as if they had been thrown into a giant Pill Furnace.

The pervasive heat penetrated the Formation and the Body-Protecting Protective Aura, directly scorching their Physical Bodies and Divine Souls!

“Ah—!”

A Foundation Establishment Early Stage Cultivator screamed, his Body-Protecting Protective Aura instantly shattered, his skin rapidly withered and charred, and he frothed at the mouth, directly knocked unconscious by the heat wave!

Such scenes were constantly playing out throughout the city.

Even the Golden Core True Persons in the city were red-faced and sweating profusely, desperately circulating their Magical Power just to barely resist the invasion of the terrifying heat wave! Their Magical Power was being consumed at a frightening rate.

“It's over...”

Shen Qiming and the others despairingly gazed at the purple sea of destruction above their heads.

They could clearly feel that the fourth-order spirit vein, which served as the Foundation of the Formation, was violently trembling and wailing deep underground, like a Dragon being roasted over a fire, liable to be “boiled alive” at any moment by the terrifying high temperature!

Song Xuanyi wasn't trying to forcibly smash open the Formation!

He was using this most unreasonable method to boil the rivers dry, Burn Mountains and Cook Spiritual Veins!

He intended to completely burn away the Foundation of their Grand Formation!

Once the Spiritual Vein was destroyed, the Grand Formation would break without attack!

This was the true Open Conspiracy!

This was the truly despair-inducing terror that a Half-step Soul Transformation Cultivator, combined with a fifth-order war Magic Treasure, could unleash!

Shen Qiming looked towards the top of the pavilion, at the azure-robed figure who still stood straight as a pine, his eyes filled only with endless worry and bitterness.

“Yuan Mo...”

Atop the pavilion, a trace of solemnity finally appeared on Shen Yuanmo's face.

The fierce wind whipped his robes and long hair, making them snap loudly.

He sensed the terrifying rate at which the Grand Formation's energy was being consumed, and the abnormal restlessness and wailing of the underground Spiritual Vein.

He clearly judged that, given the current reserves of the Spiritual Vein, they could only hold out for half an hour at most!

Resisting head-on was a dead end.

This Heaven Burning Realm Refining was no longer a simple energy attack.

It was a simulation of a trace of true Soul Transformation Domain power, catalyzed by the Essence Blood of Origin from a Half-step Soul Transformation Cultivator, driving the fifth-order war Magic Treasure!

Continuous Law suppression and refinement!

“Burning his Origin and Blood Sacrificing his Magic Treasure, just to satisfy a moment's rage...”

Shen Yuanmo raised his head, his gaze piercing through the boundless purple sea of fire, staring directly at the ferocious old face twisted by madness behind the flames.

“An Old Monster who has lived for fifteen hundred years, yet his Heart-Nature is so fragile.”

There was no fear or retreat in his eyes.

Instead, they erupted with a burst of light that was equally mad, yet incredibly cold!

“You want to compete with me on attrition?”

“Then let's see.”

“Who can outlast whom!”