The moment Qianye raised his gun, however, Liu Zhongyuan’s hair stood on end. “No!!!” He screamed with a terrified expression and fled!

For better or worse, he was still a divine champion who could travel hundreds of meters with a single thought. Almost no one saw how the Royal Tutor had fled; just like how no one had seen how he had appeared.

However, Qianye appeared a dozen or so meters in front of Liu Zhongyuan, his wings unfurled as he aimed a handgun at the man’s forehead.

Liu Zhongyuan was shocked out of his wits. The long blade in his hand danced like a dragon as he slashed at Qianye’s waist, sweeping past the target’s torso with a ten-meter sword radiance.

Qianye’s silhouette dispersed like bubbles when the light receded, leaving only a black feather of light flying slowly toward him. The feather wasn’t fast, but Liu Zhongyuan looked as though he was facing the reaper’s scythe. He couldn’t move no matter how hard he tried, and in the end, the feather sank right into his chest.

Crying out loudly, the Royal Tutor came to a sudden stop before slowly looking backward.

Qianye stepped through the air with East Peak trembling ever so slightly in his hand. At this point, Liu Zhongyuan stopped running and, instead, charged madly at Qianye. The long sword slashed Qianye with the momentum of a tempest, filling the area with afterimages and flashes of light. Qianye made no motion to evade and actually fought the man head-on with East Peak in hand!

His attacks were as fast as lightning and as heavy as a mountain. Every hack, slash, and sweep was bold and decisive, shaking Liu Zhongyuan each time his attacks were struck away. In the blink of an eye, he had fallen into a bad disadvantage.

All the spectators were flabbergasted. They had never imagined that their godlike Royal Tutor would lose so quickly and so badly in a fight against Qianye. How could a divine champion lose in a contest of origin power?

All of a sudden, Liu Zhongyuan’s two-meter sword flew into the air with a thunderous boom. Qianye brushed past him in the blink of an eye and appeared a hundred meters away.

The Royal Tutor remained frozen in the air. Moments later, he crashed headfirst into the ground, his white robes stained with dirt.

A group of white-robed disciples swarmed over, but all of them stopped at the same time as they got close. Liu Zhongyuan lay prone on the ground, not moving in the slightest as a puddle of blood expanded from underneath.

One of the disciples cried out, “I’ll fight it out with you!”

He charged at Qianye with a loud roar but was slapped dozens of meters away with a casual swing. The sword in that disciple’s grasp was now a mass of scrap metal, and the man could no longer clamber up.

There were still a hundred white-robed disciples. Someone cried out, “We’re greater in number, let’s fight it out with him and avenge the Royal Tutor!”

The call to action was vehement, but the response was fairly lackluster and no one actually charged out. Glancing at one another, then at the immobile Liu Zhongyuan, the group slowly edged backward.

Now that their hot blood had receded, they realized that even Liu Zhongyuan couldn’t last very long against Qianye. The Royal Tutor had fled immediately as the battle began but still failed to escape. No matter how big their group was, they would only be throwing their lives away if they fought Qianye.

An imposing voice suddenly echoed on the walls of the Royal Capital, “Royal Guard, heed my orders, open fire and destroy the rebel!”

The generals immediately realized that it was the Second Prince. He had been amassing power for a good while, so the soldiers reacted immediately upon his orders. The turret on the capital wall opened, and the ballista inside took aim at Qianye’s position.

Following a loud boom, Qianye remained perfectly fine, but that turret collapsed all of a sudden. Its top part was blasted away, leaving only half a wreckage.

The battlecruiser in the air was stirred, aiming its smoking cannon at another turret. The guards on the turret scattered in a panic, with one even jumping off the tower directly. This kind of flustered escape led to no good outcome. That person fell straight to the ground instead of onto the city wall, screaming as one of his legs was bent out of shape.

Soon afterward, a ball of flames erupted from that cannon tower, and the violent explosion sent wreckage and corpses flying in all directions.

There was also retaliatory fire from the capital. Two giant ballista bolts were blasted toward the battlecruiser and stabbed into the armor plate. But the airship, having learned its lesson at Expansive, remained at a high enough altitude to weaken the projectiles. These solid bolts were an old design that was at least three generations behind the Empire’s and posed little threat if they couldn’t explode after stabbing into the armor.

Without any more natural enemies, the battlecruiser bore down from above and destroyed the turrets one after the other.

Seeing that the situation was dire, the Second Prince issued constant orders in his exasperation, commanding the Royal Guard to attack the enemies. It was at this time that he heard a voice in his ears, “Kneel!”

Before he could figure out who it was, a pressure akin to the oceans descended abruptly! The Second Prince fell to his knees with a thud. None of his followers remained standing, either.

Nan Ruohuai walked through the struggling men and arrived before the second prince. Looking down at his enemy, he sighed. “Who would’ve thought I would see second brother kneeling in front of me one day?”

The Second Prince only recognized Nan Ruohuai after a while. He shouted fiercely, “So it’s you! How are you still standing?”

The Second Prince couldn’t stand up no matter how hard he tried. His body would become heavier as he exerted himself, up to the point where even keeping his back straight was a strain. If even he was in such a state, it was only natural that his attendants would have it even worse. The weaker ones saw their bones crushed, coughing up blood as the fragments pierced through their innards.

As an experienced person, the Second Prince realized that this was the power of a domain, and an extremely terrifying one at that. Within it, those under the champion realm were no better than ants. Yet, why was this Nan Ruohuai still standing?

Nan Ruohuai approached the second prince and whispered, “That’s a secret. Since you want to know, I can tell you…”

The Second Prince never heard clearly what he was saying. His eyes went wide, pointing furiously at Nan Ruohuai as the gushing blood drowned out the words in his mouth.

The Second Prince spasmed a couple of times before his expression slackened. Nan Ruohuai took a step back, allowing the corpse to fall to the ground. At that moment, those with sharp eyes noticed that there was a dagger in the Second Prince’s chest. Needless to say, that dagger had to be Nan Ruohuai’s.

In the blink of an eye, everyone felt as though they were in a dream and that nothing was real. The Royal Tutor they worshipped was lying on the ground, and the Second Prince—the one they had already considered their future king—was dead. Just like that, he had died to the blade of a prince whose name people didn’t even know.

Was Zheng to be handed to such trash?

Nan Ruohuai wiped his hand with a clean handkerchief, looking around as though he wasn’t quite satisfied yet. He crouched down and drew the Second Prince’s sword, stabbing several other men with the grace of a breeze.

These people didn’t even know Nan Ruohuai, but the latter had long since memorized their appearance. These were the Second Prince’s trusted aides, left and right-hand men who hailed from his maternal lineage. Knowing that it would be too difficult to convince them, Nan Ruohuai decided to eliminate them while they could not retaliate.

After killing several men, Nan Ruohuai’s sword arm was trembling. His eyes, however, were sparkling brightly, proving that it wasn’t fear that he felt toward bloodshed. He glanced around briefly and started roaming the crowd with his sword, killing a dozen more people before he was satisfied. He then tossed away the blood-stained blade and bowed deeply at Qianye. “Uncle, it’s done.”

Qianye was watching with folded arms, observing each of Nan Ruohuai’s actions and even his expressions. Hearing what Nan Ruohuai said, Qianye retracted his domain power.

Those crouching people shot up as the tremendous pressure was lifted, flailing their limbs about as they fell down again.

Nan Ruohuai stood quietly. Although he was standing in a group of enemies, that calm demeanor of his frightened everyone and prevented them from taking any reckless actions.

The prince raised his voice. “The traitor Liu Zhongyuan has been slain, and the Second Prince has fallen while attempting to seize the throne. All of you were threatened into following them, so everything shall be written off if you submit now. How long are you going to wait before kneeling!?”

The people had just begun to exchange glances when someone fell to his knees, crying, “Your Majesty.”

Delighted, Nan Ruohuai went to help that person up and asked him about his background. With someone taking the lead, the others threw away their hesitation and started to kneel. Some of them were unwilling, but they looked at the battlecruiser and then at Qianye who was standing there like a demonic god. The situation had changed, and there was no choice but to follow everyone in kneeling. Toward the end, only ten or so people remained on their feet.

Nan Ruohuai’s killing intent soared. He pointed at those people and roared, “Stubborn people! Men, seize them!”

Those who had just submitted were eager to contribute. They swarmed over immediately and restrained the dozen or so men, who started spewing profanities in their unwillingness. Nan Ruohuai shot a meaningful glance, which some intelligent people picked up. They smashed the prisoners’ teeth with the hilts of their sword and stuffed mud into their mouths to block them.

Nan Ruohuai turned around and picked out a handful of Royal Guard commanders from the crowd. “Your group will head out with the current unit, take down the four gates of the Royal Capital. If you cannot control them all at the same time, simply concentrate your advantage and occupy one of them. As for the others, this king will quell the rebellion in one strike and retake the nation!”

Everyone affirmed their orders. Just as they were expecting Nan Ruohuai to assail the palace, he ran over to Qianye and said respectfully, “What do you think?”

“Go ahead with what you think is correct,” Qianye replied.

Delighted, Nan Ruohuai hastily formed a number of squads with the men at hand, assigning them to the front, rear, mid, and flanks. He was actually assuming a military formation as he charged through the eastern gate and toward the palace.

Qianye stood with his arms behind his back, gazing as the crowd departed.

Song Hui was standing beside him all this time. She finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. “He’s a vicious and fickle lowlife! Why are you raising him to this position?”

“He’s quite capable, saving me quite a bit of trouble. Besides, aren’t they all the same?”

Song Hui was surprised. “How can they be the same?”

Qianye replied, “I don’t want Zheng, anyway. I only want its resources. It doesn’t matter who sits on the throne as long as I get a steady supply.”

“Didn’t you come here to claim territory?”

“I can take that from the dark races.”