"A question remains. What should we do now?" Yang Jinyan said. "The answer is this." He stood up and flared his qi. His face contorted with a mix of calm and fury. "I, Yang Jinyan, vow to slaughter our enemies! They killed my father, our sect leader, our elders, and our people. I want them to pay!"

Hearing this, the Yang clan members nodded, their faces growing cold. Yang Jinyan's words seemed to resonate with them. Even Elder Yang Zhaoyan and Yang Liangyu nodded in approval.

"But how?" Yang Jinyan added. "This is how. First, we have to swallow our pride and ask for help. The only one we can turn to is the Purple Moon Sect, and fortunately, we have a member of this sect in our midst. Second, we must confront our enemy. If Wei Yi is killed, their plan will come to a halt. Elder," Yang Jinyan turned to the elder, "You are our strongest cultivator. Do you have a way to kill him?"

The elder was silent for a moment, then nodded. "I have a few tricks up my sleeve."

"Then it's decided. We will fight! I want all of you in this meeting hall to go home and prepare. I'll create a strategy to achieve all of this, and when the time comes, I want all of you to answer my call."

And with that, the meeting ended. Liu Xing had thought the prince would reveal his plan to everyone, but it seemed he was wrong.

As people began filing out of the meeting hall, Liu Xing sat with his eyes closed.

"So, the Yang clan decides to fight," he muttered.

He then took stock of their enemies. First was Wei Yi, second was Yang Lihuo, then the people transformed into abominations—the army, the Hei clan, the Wu clan, some cultivators from the Yang clan, and the civilians. Liu Xing doubted that the abomination he fought was the strongest. He suspected the abominations transformed from Sun Refining cultivators would be far more fearsome.

Then there were the snake-limbed spirit beasts and the worms. Liu Xing suspected they would all converge on the capital sooner or later.

Next, he counted their allies. The strongest was Elder Yang Zhaoyan. There was the prince and his two remaining guards, and then the Core Splitting cultivators and Lock Opening cultivators from the Yang clan, as well as himself.

When he opened his eyes, only he, the prince, and the elder remained in the meeting hall. The two of them were now sitting behind a circular table, the food and tea still untouched. They looked at Liu Xing as if they were waiting for him.

Liu Xing stood up, walked toward them, and sat in one of the chairs.

"Prince Yang Jinyan," Liu Xing began, "do you intend to kill your clan members?"

Hearing this, Prince Yang Jinyan grimaced while the elder sipped his tea. His expression gave Liu Xing the answer. But soon, he controlled his expression, looking calm once more.

"I need to instill confidence in my clan members. To project that I have control over the situation."

Liu Xing nodded. He understood the intention. "But if I can see through your false confidence, then surely others will as well."

"You're a bit special," the elder said, sipping his tea. "You're our ally, but still an outsider. While there might be doubt in their hearts, my clan members will believe the prince since even I am backing him."

Blind trust, then. "Still, what do we need to do?"

"I didn't completely lie," the prince said. "The first thing we need to do is contact the Purple Moon Sect. You really don't have a method to contact your sect?"

Liu Xing shook his head. "Not immediately, at least. I could go to a neighboring country and contact my sect from there. But the travel time from here to there, as well as waiting for reinforcements from Purple Moon Sect, would take time."

"Any estimate?" The prince asked, his eyes boring into Liu Xing.

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Liu Xing pinched his chin and thought for a moment. He actually didn't know the closest country to the Twelve Sun Empire aside from Mystic Moon City. Assuming the neighboring countries are the same distance as Mystic Moon City, he'd need several days to arrive. Then they'd need to wait. And since the scale of this disaster was so large, they'd need a group of strong cultivators. Preferably a group of inner disciples led by an elder. Since there were fewer inner disciples than outer disciples, Liu Xing assumed that his request for reinforcements would take some time to be processed, even under urgent circumstances.

"A week and a half, at the fastest," Liu Xing said. "But come to think of it, I don't need to go to the neighboring country myself to ask for reinforcements. I just need a way to communicate with them."

While he couldn't contact Purple Moon Sect from the Twelve Sun Empire, that didn't mean the empire was isolated. They probably had a way to contact neighboring countries, and then Liu Xing could ask for reinforcements from here.

"We have several neighbors," said Prince Yang Jinyan. "They are all hostile. But I think if you're the one who asked them, they might comply."

"That's not guaranteed," the elder said. "After all, they would like to see us destroyed. And even then, it would still take a long time for reinforcements from the Purple Moon Sect to arrive. Probably a week." The elder set his cup of tea down on the table.

"Still better than doing nothing," the prince said.

"Alright then," Liu Xing nodded. This plan is exactly his backup plan. "How can I communicate with them?"

"The least hostile neighbor is the Tang Dynasty. Quite a formidable force," the elder said. "The Wang clan in our empire has quite a strong connection with them. I've even heard rumors about them sheltering a bastard prince of the Tang dynasty. They must have a method to communicate with them. Is there another choice, prince?"

"As far as I know, the most important people lived in the capital, and all of them have been transformed into spirit beasts. The Silky Merchant Group, the Hei clan, and Wu clan," he said these clan names with contempt. "I think the Li clan also has connections with the Tang dynasty, although probably not as strong as the Wang clan."

"Do you have any allies?" Liu Xing asked. There was no way the Twelve Sun Empire was completely isolated with only enemies.

"Several," the prince nodded. "But all of them are weaker than us. They're all Base tier." The prince's lips formed a bitter smile. "Actually, Yang Liangyu was planned to be married off to the Red Rock Nation. There was even an ambassador in the capital. But alas, this plan is ruined now. The same goes for Yang Lihuo, though instead of a nation, we planned to marry him to a powerful clan," the prince paused for a moment, "from the Burning World sect."

Liu Xing's eyebrows rose. The five great sects were hostile to each other, and hearing that one of the vassal empires under Purple Moon Sect was attempting to make a connection to another great sect could be seen as a form of betrayal.

"I assume this plan is also ruined?"

"Yes," the prince said simply, and the elder nodded.

"So, the plan is to communicate with the Wang clan and ask for help from the Tang Dynasty, as well as use them to communicate with the Purple Moon Sect," Liu Xing summarized.

"Yes," the prince nodded. "Now, let's talk about what we need to do as we wait for reinforcements."

"The wise thing to do is evacuate our clan members," the elder said. "In case we're annihilated, our sect can start over."

It was a grim way to think about the situation, but it was nonetheless wise.

The prince agreed with the elder, but he said he didn't want to evacuate all of the clan members, to create the illusion that he still had control over the situation.

The elder didn't oppose him, and Liu Xing pressed his lips together. He didn't offer his opinion on this, since he was still an outsider, and the affairs of the Yang clan were not his to decide.

The prince said he would discreetly order one of his bodyguards to direct several talented children, their mothers, as well as to bring several treasures and the cultivation scriptures and techniques.

As they discussed where and how to evacuate them, Liu Xing's mind tried to find another way to improve the situation. What the prince said in the meeting was true. If they killed Wei Yi, then the sacrifice would not happen. There was a small chance Yang Lihuo would know how to perform the sacrifice, and in that case, they'd need to kill both of them. But to do so, they'd need to go to the center of the capital, possibly fighting their way through abominations at the Lock Opening, Core Splitting, and even Sun Refining realm.

So, he thought of a way to stop the sacrifice and came up with one other possibility.

"All right, I'll order her, then. She'll be pissed, but she'll carry out my order without fail," the prince said, and the elder nodded.

Sensing their conversation about how to evacuate some of their clansmen was winding down, Liu Xing proposed his idea.

The idea was simple: since Yang Lihuo and Wei Yi had already transformed everyone in the City of Suns into spirit beasts and planned to sacrifice them, Liu Xing proposed a solution: what if they killed the spirit beasts before the sacrifice could take place? Even if they couldn't kill all of them, reducing the number of spirit beasts would still make a difference.

"You want to cull the spirit beasts," Prince Yang Jinyan said.

"Yes," Liu Xing nodded simply.

"And do you plan to take part in the culling yourself?" the prince asked.

"Of course."

"Do you intend to kill yourself?" The prince asked.