High above the heavens, more than a hundred sword cultivators escorted ten large flying vessels as they cut through the sea of clouds. The sword cultivators flying around the vessels glanced at a city passing beneath them and began talking among themselves.

"What the hell, are they not fighting?"

"Was that city we just passed for real? They did not even activate their defensive array. Do they really think we are here for sightseeing?" 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Hall Master, what is going on?"

Some of them were genuinely puzzled. The Xuanming Sect gave off the feeling of having completely given up.

"What is going on?" Lou Yuyu then understood immediately and let out a cold laugh. "They are scared, that's what's going on! They don't dare to fight."

Clearly, the Xuanming Sect had already received news of the recent battle between the Nine Cauldrons Sect and the Great Sun Sword Sect.

"Hall Master, I am sensing several ongoing incidents in the city below. People are targeting and abusing survivors of the Artifact Sect," a primordial psyche cultivator suddenly said.

"Then what are we waiting for?! There is no need for mercy toward beasts who have lost their humanity! Kill!" Lou Yuyu issued the order without hesitation. "Primordial psyche cultivators, guide me! I will personally lead a small squad down there!"

"Yes!" The primordial psyche cultivators who received the order quickly marked the locations of the ongoing atrocities.

At once, Lou Yuyu and more than a dozen great sword cultivators stepped forward and plunged straight toward the sites of the incidents.

Inside a shop that had already been smashed to pieces, dozens of Xuanming Sect body cultivators with ferocious looks on their faces were dragging a family of eight out of the cellar where they had been hiding.

One of them, seemingly the head of the household, tried to resist, only to be crippled on the spot. His arms and legs were broken, and he could do nothing but watch his elderly parents, his wife, his daughter, and his son being brutally dragged out. Gasoline was quickly splashed over his parents.

One person rushed forward with a source of fire, his face twisted with savagery. "All of this is ours. Everything here belongs to us. You dare come to our land and make money off us! You all deserve to die!"

"Stop... Stop..." The man with shattered limbs struggled desperately, only to be pinned down by the foot of another powerful body cultivator.

"Kill them all and take our things back!" Another high-tier body cultivator directed the scene with grim efficiency.

"No!" the middle-aged man let out a cry of utter despair as the Xuanming Sect man holding the fire drew closer to the bloodied, immobile elderly couple

In the next instant, sword light tore through the air. A streak of sword qi pierced through the body cultivator's head at an unimaginable speed, blasting his skull into a mist of blood. The sight caused the ferocious, crazed crowd from the Xuanming Sect to freeze for a moment.

Immediately after, a figure descended from the sky, his gaze falling directly on the struggling middle-aged man. "Are you one of our Nine Cauldrons Sect?"

The man had never truly considered himself one of the Nine Cauldrons Sect, but at that moment, faced with the question, he nodded frantically. "I am. I am. I am from the Nine Cauldrons Sect..."

"Good." The sword cultivator nodded slightly.

As he formed a sword with his fingers, a streak of sword light shot forward like a roaming dragon, plunging into all the Xuanming Sect's body cultivators. The average strength of those body cultivators was only at the Third or Fourth Heavenly Realm. How could they possibly resist?

Wherever the sword light passed, the heads of the Xuanming Sect body cultivators burst apart like watermelons struck by sniper bullets, exploding one after another. The speed was so fast that none of them had the slightest chance to resist. Seeing this, the surrounding members of the Xuanming Sect scattered and fled in panic.

The leading high-tier body cultivator roared in fury, "You are from the Nine Cauldrons Sect?! How dare you run wild on the territory of the Xuanming Sect?! You are digging your own grave!"

He flung out an object that shot a dazzling beam of light straight into the sky. Sword light flashed, and the high-tier body cultivator met the same fate as the others, with his head blasted apart in mid-air.

With a brief sweep of his psychic consciousness, Lou Yuyu sensed more body cultivators rushing over upon seeing the signal, and he let out a cold snort. "As expected, this was organized and premeditated."

He immediately issued orders to those around him. "Have the primordial psyche cultivators use psychic thought to cover the entire city and guide the sword cultivators in launching attacks. Anyone drawn in by the signal is to be killed without mercy!"

"Yes!" The great cultivators acknowledged the order.

As the primordial psyche cultivators swept their psychic thought downward, covering a radius of over five hundred kilometers and marking one target after another, and thousands of sword qi attacks immediately shot out from the sword cultivators.

Sword cultivators tended to exhaust themselves after a dozen exchanges because they were unleashing their strongest attacks, displaying power far beyond what their current realms should have been able to wield. Naturally, the consumption was immense.

But now they were merely cleaning up body cultivators that were mostly at the third or fourth realm, with the strongest enemies being maybe at the eighth realm. It was a one-sided massacre. Each great sword cultivator effortlessly condensed thousands upon thousands of strands of sword qi.

The sword qi flowed like threads, and under the guidance of the primordial psyche cultivators, the sword cultivators slaughtered every enemy drawn in by the distress signal. In an instant, most of the city was covered in blood, corpses strewn everywhere.

During this time, some star lords, as well as Foundation Building sword cultivators and spell cultivators, flew into a rage and tried to stop the slaughter. But for the Xuanming Sect, having three to five great cultivators stationed in a city was already the limit. And they were almost always only first- or second-tier great cultivators.

Faced with sword cultivators from elite battle institutes, all at least at the third tier and organized to form sword arrays, their fate was no different from that of ordinary cultivators. The moment they showed themselves, they were met with the concentrated fire of a dozen life-bound flying swords.

After a single round, not even scraps remained. None of this required Lou Yuyu’s attention. He had already descended beside the middle-aged man whose limbs had been shattered and had fed him a pill.

He then said, "I will take you back to the Nine Cauldrons Sect. Are you willing to return?"

"Yes, yes, we are willing," the middle-aged man answered hurriedly.

The Xuanming Sect’s exclusion, plundering, and slaughter of the survivors of the Artifact Sect had lasted for more than a month, and in recent days it had only grown worse. His entire family had been living in constant fear. Now that he heard they could return to the Nine Cauldrons Sect, the middle-aged man was so overwhelmed with joy that he nearly burst into tears.

At once, Lou Yuyu activated his true origin, lifted the group into the air, and brought them aboard a large flying vessel hovering above the city. Once there, the accompanying staff naturally assigned them some rooms so they could rest.

Watching all this, the middle-aged man felt both deeply moved and rather confused. After a long moment, he seemed to think of something and asked a staff member beside him, "We are... just leaving the flying vessel here. Will there be any danger?"

"Danger?" The staff member smiled. "You mean whether the Xuanming Sect will attack us? Don't worry. They won't dare. As long as they dare to come, the seniors of the Azure Edge Institute and the Divine Might Institute will leave none alive."

"This..."

"Do you think we would have brought the flying vessel here if we were not confident? We recently achieved a major victory in the East Sea. First, we wiped out more than three hundred of the Xuanming Sect’s most elite great cultivators. Then, on another front, we severely punished those troublemakers from the Great Sun Sword Sect and even destroyed one of their Sky Patrol Warships. How could the Xuanming Sect still find the courage to resist?" The staff member said proudly.

"Wiped out more than three hundred elite great cultivators of the Xuanming Sect and destroyed a Sky Patrol Warship of the Great Sun Sword Sect?" Hearing this, the middle-aged man felt as though he were dreaming.

Any sect would loudly proclaim its own strength while belittling its enemies. The Xuanming Sect was no exception. Not only had it portrayed itself as able to stand shoulder to shoulder with major powers like the Great Sun Sword Sect and the First Yang Sect, but it had also plastered the Nine Cauldrons Sect with labels of backwardness, weakness, and decay, as if the Nine Cauldrons Sect would collapse the moment the Xuanming Sect exerted a little effort.

Because of this, what the staff member said felt as though the very order of the world had been overturned. Is the Nine Cauldrons Sect really this powerful?

Moments later, this doubt was shattered by ironclad reality. The Nine Cauldrons Sect’s large flying vessels had already sailed straight into the Xuanming Sect’s home turf, yet the Xuanming Sect wasn't even pretending to resist. The question of whether the Nine Cauldrons Sect was strong or not had already been answered.

Thinking of this, the middle-aged man took a deep breath and could not help but begin to look forward to the wonderful life that awaited him upon returning to the Nine Cauldrons Sect.

***

On the other side, after Lou Yuyu returned the flying vessel, he immediately instructed one of the primordial psyche cultivators of his battle institute, "Connect to the Xuanming Sect’s Void Psychic World and issue an announcement. Any Xuanming Sect member who dares to persecute members of the Nine Cauldrons Sect by violent means is to be executed on sight!"

After that, he paused and added, "Collect some of the footage from what happened in this city and release it. Let them clearly see the Nine Cauldrons Sect’s resolve. Be careful with the selection. It must achieve a deterrent effect without harming the sect’s image."

"Understood!" The primordial psyche cultivator immediately acknowledged the orders and quickly got to work.

Soon, the announcement was sent directly into the Xuanming Sect’s Void Psychic World. As the message spread, accompanied by images of the overwhelming power of the Nine Cauldrons Sect, the entire Xuanming Sect was thrown into an uproar.

Only at this moment did the people of the Xuanming Sect realize that, because of their rampant killing, they had already drawn the Nine Cauldrons Sect’s forces to their very gates! There were even sword cultivators from the Nine Cauldrons Sect’s battle institutes openly slaughtering people inside Xuanming Sect cities!

For a time, terror spread rapidly among everyone in the Xuanming Sect. War had arrived! And it had arrived with terrifying speed! So fast that it had already ended before they even realized when it had begun. Yes, it had ended.

Anyone in the Xuanming Sect with even a little insight could guess that the sect had suffered a crushing defeat. Otherwise, it would never have allowed Nine Cauldrons Sect sword cultivators to directly enter its home.

This situation clearly meant that the Xuanming Sect no longer possessed the strength to block the Nine Cauldrons Sect and could only allow it to act without restraint within its territory. Under such circumstances, panic spread rapidly throughout the Xuanming Sect.

Looting, smashing, arson, and even murder gradually spiraled out of control and swept toward other members of the Xuanming Sect itself. The entire sect felt as though it had fallen into complete chaos.

Not long after these messages were released, Ma Hong, the Warfare Hall Master, arrived alone before the fleet of flying vessels led by Lou Yuyu, bringing with him the Xuanming Sect’s sincerity in seeking reconciliation with the Nine Cauldrons Sect.