Qianye, who had disappeared throughout the night, finally returned to the residence at dawn. This time, he had another head with him, and it belonged to the head of the Du family, Du Xiyuan. At this point, all clan lords who had opposed Qianye openly had become corpses, their family experts suffering grave casualties.

After his return, Qianye remained inside the city lord’s manor and never came out.

Meanwhile, in the ancient Totemic Castle. The Wolf King was gazing at the faint silhouette of the distant Tidehark. The cold, damp morning wind had long since drenched his long hair. The Wolf King hated this weather the most, but he had stood there for an entire morning today.

A trusted servant who had followed him for many years said, “Sire, we’ve already investigated the cause of last night’s fires. The new city lord, Qianye, has uprooted all of the Great Qin’s strongholds inside Tidehark. Additionally, he assaulted the Du family’s manor outside the city and slaughtered Du Xiyuan.”

The Wolf King said after some thought, “These slaps are quite resounding!”

The follower remained silent, attempting to fathom his master’s thoughts.

The Wolf King didn’t need the attendant to speak, either. He paced about a couple of times before issuing an order, “Prepare my warship and gather the finest warriors. I’m going to attack a pirate base!”

“A long-distance raid… on the pirates?”

There were numerous small floating islands in the void between the Empire and the neutral lands. The pirates who called such places home were few and scattered, usually the size of an airship’s crew, and they survived by robbing scattered transport ships. There was no need for the Wolf King to bring the castle’s elites to get rid of such pirates.

That being said, most of these void pirates were able to survive because they had the tacit approval of the various powers. They would be occasionally asked to deal with dirty work, and most importantly, they would serve as a buffer to invaders.

The Wolf King was going to attack these pirates with such fanfare? Wasn’t Qianye the more important target?

As this was an important decision, the follower braced himself and asked, “Great Chief, wouldn’t it be better to capture Qianye first?”

The Wolf King smiled spuriously. “Capture? For what reason? How? And who?”

The attendant was enlightened after a while. “You wish to have the heavenly monarch’s residence worry about this?”

The Wolf King laughed. “Qianye is a lone man with no attachments. He can attack or escape at will, making it very difficult to deal with him. Judging from his current momentum, it will take a divine champion to capture him. That old man from the heavenly monarch’s residence was reportedly injured in one shot. He must be scared witless by now and will definitely feign injury no matter how many experts or equipment they assign him. If I don’t leave quickly, that dirty work will surely fall on my head. Zhang Buzhou is still the master in name. It’ll make things awkward once the order arrives.”

The attendant was puzzled. “Are you still afraid of Qianye?”

The Wolf King laughed. “I’m not afraid, but that doesn’t mean I want to fight him! His shots are really quite painful.”

The attendant’s expression turned odd and his voice softened quite a bit. “That’s not like you, Great Chief.”

The Wolf King patted the attendant on the shoulder. “Not bad, you’re quite smart. I can send Qianye running if I take action, but I won’t be able to kill him at all. What’s the meaning of that? I’ll only be helping Zhang Buzhou solve a troublesome issue. The longer Qianye stays in Tidehark, the more of a slap it is to Zhang Buzhou’s face. I want to see how long he can endure, and whether his isolated cultivation was a success or not!”

“If Zhang Buzhou really exits isolation, he might not be satisfied with you.”

“If he does come out, the first thing he’ll do is attack Qianye, not cause trouble for me. Heh! And it’s not certain whether he’ll succeed.”

The attendant asked, “Why would you say that?”

The Wolf King said meaningfully, “You all don’t know Luo Bingfeng’s true strength, but Zhang Buzhou and I know all too well. Zhang Buzhou might not be Luo Bingfeng’s match without breaking through to the heavenly monarch realm! The most important link in that battle was an old man who blocked Luo Bingfeng’s final attack and injured him. This old man might still be in the neutral lands.”

This shocked the follower. “That’s impossible!”

The Wolf King said slowly, “There’s Song Zining in Southern Blue. That fellow has powerful connections in the Empire. There are a good number of shadows behind his back. We must always be careful around him. How could Qianye be so brazen without sufficient backing? His acquisition of the city lord title is already making Zhang Buzhou lower his head, and now, he’s adding a couple more slaps. Things are so abnormal that it makes one wonder.”

A flash of enlightenment came over the attendant. He punched his palm, saying, “I understand now! You must really leave immediately, else that old thing will make you into cannon fodder to sound out Qianye and Song Zining’s back up!”

The Wolf King laughed. “You finally understand!”

“There cannot be delays, I’ll make arrangements immediately.”

An hour after the attendant’s hurried departure, several warships flew up from Totemic Castle and vanished into the distance.”

A high-speed airship was flying toward the castle at this moment. An old man was gazing out from above deck.

“Eh? What is that? Bring binoculars!”

His subordinates passed him a pair of long-range binoculars. Several fierce-looking generals also peered into their scopes.

Eight airships were rising into the air above the Totemic Castle, slowly turning about in the air.

One of the generals said, “What are they doing grouping warships and transports together? Are they going to war? That’s just courting death.”

He hadn’t even finished speaking when yet another airship took to the air. The squadron in the sky had already fallen into formation at this point and was moving away at a snail’s pace. The final airship drove on with great effort, following the squadron at a leisurely pace.

This time, the generals’ eyes almost popped out. Why was such a ship in the fleet? The last airship was big, bloated, and slow, clearly a civilian cargo ship. But despite the distance, the generals could see that the warriors on the deck didn’t look like a cargo-ship crew.

Everyone was puzzled, but the old man said with a frown, “Full speed ahead! We must arrive at the Totemic Castle as soon as we can!”

The airship accelerated as it shot into the air above the castle where it issued a request to land. The castle was rather accommodating toward the guest, going so far as to issue a priority identity verification token.

But that was the extent of the airship port’s good service. There was still no landing signal or instruction after several minutes. Feeling rather strange, the generals looked down and saw that the port was in utter chaos. There were resources piled up everywhere, with goods of various qualities stored in uneven containers. There were servants moving them about hurriedly, but no single area had been cleared out.

As such, the airship circled about for an entire half-hour over the castle. Seeing no signs of improvement below, the old man finally jumped down into the small clearing below. “I’m an envoy of the heavenly monarch’s residence! Someone bring me to see the Wolf King!”

The busy workers came to a halt upon hearing his voice, but most of them just stared blankly at the old man. No one responded for a good while, even after three repeats, causing the elder’s face to turn ashen. These people were dressed like manual laborers, and there wasn’t even a group leader among them. It would be too embarrassing to pick a fight with them.

Besides, provoking the Wolf King wasn’t a fun thing to do, and even Zhang Buzhou would treat him with a degree of respect. The old man wouldn’t dare charge into Totemic Castle even if he had ten more galls. At his wit’s end, the old man ran out of the messy loading area and found a soldier at the fixed sentry post, whom he asked to relay his words.

This soldier looked strong but was slow of wit. His face was covered in black fur, like an immature wolf pup, and his speech was also incoherent. He refused to go into the castle no matter what.

After a while of dragging back and forth, a werewolf in servant’s clothing ran out from the main building and jogged over to the old man. “Sire Messenger, I truly deserve death for being late to welcome you! You saw it, right? The Wolf King just left for an expedition, and these clumsy idiots haven’t finished cleaning up.”

The old man was startled. He then dragged the attendant by the collar and asked, “What? The Wolf King isn’t here? Where did he go?”

The attendant replied with a calm smile, “He said he’s going on an expedition and left with the army. As for who he’s going to fight, that’s not something I’m allowed to know. The master has been planning this battle for half a month, but it took until today to get everything ready.”

The old man was livid. “You said the Wolf King just left?”

“His fleet took off just a while ago. Didn’t you see them during your arrival? Ah, your airship hasn’t landed yet. These bumbling idiots! I must whip them into shape.”

The attendant started roaring sternly, and moments later, a space had been cleared for the airship to land.

The old man’s expression was gloomy. Only when a few of his generals arrived did he look up at the attendant. “Who’s in charge of the castle now?”

The attendant replied hurriedly, “I was ordered to manage the castle affairs.”

The old man sized up the attendant. “Since that’s the case, I’ll trouble you to round up the warriors in the castle. I have orders from the heavenly monarch to mobilize a squad.”

The surprised attendant’s mouth fell open for a while. “This… is quite an important matter. May I be so bold as to ask whether I can see the heavenly monarch’s command seal?”

The old man passed the token over without further conversation.

The attendant studied the item for a good fifteen minutes, even activating the origin power signature inside. Only when a white light flashed past him did he smile satisfactorily and passed the token back. “This is indeed the heavenly monarch’s command token. Please wait a moment while I assemble the squad for you to pick.”

The attendant didn’t drag things out this time and walked away rather swiftly. Soon, a long siren blasted out from the castle as soldiers poured out from every direction and gathered outside.

During this time, the generals had more or less come to understand the situation. One of them said, “Sire, we might’ve made it if we had given chase a while ago. Why did you let that boy stall so long?”

Another person patted his chest. “With me at the helm, we can catch up even now!”

The old man said, “Chase? What then?”

One of the generals said with wide eyes, “Of course order him to turn back. Does he dare to ignore the heavenly monarch’s orders? That’s rebellion!”

The other generals agreed. “He’s just a dog to the heavenly monarch. What games can he play?”

The old man shook his head. “We are not the heavenly monarch. The Wolf King listens to the heavenly monarch, but not us. You had better remember that you don’t represent Zhang Buzhou. If the Wolf King is a dog, we are even inferior to a dog! Humph, chase after him? We’ll just be jumping to our deaths.”

“H-He… does he dare…” The generals were dumbfounded.

The old man snorted. “Who would dare point the finger at him if he killed us in the wilderness? Enough, let’s look at the squads.”

At this point, most of the soldiers had fallen into formation. The old man’s expression was ashen when he glanced at them.