As if the world intended to answer his question, all the abominations that were running around suddenly stopped. Then, uniformly, they looked up. Instantly, thousands of eyes—human, animal, reptile, snake, and many more—locked onto his position.

Surrounded by this sea of gazes, Liu Xing involuntarily gulped.

They were still weak; he could still kill them easily. Yet something had changed in those eyes, as if they'd suddenly regained human intelligence and held grudges against him.

Liu Xing took a deep breath and aimed his gun at the abomination that was sending signals. This creature seemed to have the ability to lead the others, an inconvenient quality he'd like to deal with here and now.

He infused his bullets with the Exploding Fist technique and pulled the trigger. The bullet flew through the air like a lightning bolt. Seeing this attack, his target crossed its wicked blade-arms into an X position on its chest. As it did so, several layers of blue barriers—as if the air had solidified and been painted blue—suddenly formed in front of it.

Seeing this barrier, Liu Xing's heart hammered in his chest. It was similar to the blue barrier the snake-limbed abomination had used.

When his bullet hit the barrier, an explosion occurred. The blue walls shattered into a million pieces, but the spirit beast itself remained unharmed.

It sent out another pulse, and as if that were a signal to attack, all the surrounding abominations began to scream at once, like an army charging its enemies. They moved in one direction and surged forward like a tsunami, soon climbing the base of the statue like ants crawling up table legs.

Looking around, Liu Xing tried to calm down. The hole to his consciousness rippled and almost ceased to exist, but he managed to center and stabilize his mind.

He aimed at the abomination with the giant eye for a head again and pulled the trigger twice.

The first bullet from his gun was a normal transparent variant, with the exploding variant chasing close behind.

As expected, sensing the bullets coming, the abomination crossed its wicked blades again. Three layers of blue barriers appeared before it. Its giant eye pulsed the air around it, and Liu Xing couldn't help but think that this pulse felt like a snort, as if it believed his attack couldn't harm it.

The transparent bullet pierced through the first barrier, creating a hole for the exploding bullet. It then pierced the second and third layers, landing right in the center of the giant eye and creating a hole that gushed red blood. The creature sent ripples of air around it, as if it were screaming, but before it could do anything, the second bullet followed the first one's path, passing the holes in the barriers, and hit it dead in the center of its eye.

The eye exploded like a popped balloon, and red blood sprayed in all directions, coating nearby abominations in a crimson mist. The boar face on its torso began screaming with a high-pitched sound, its eyes wide and terrified. The creature's massive body convulsed violently, its limbs thrashing wildly as if trying to fight an invisible enemy. Then, as suddenly as it began, the shriek cut off, and the monstrous being collapsed in a heap of twitching flesh and mangled limbs.

Liu Xing felt the six bullets infused with the abomination's beast core, and he nodded. While that spirit beast had looked tough and terrifying, in the end, it was weaker than him.

Looking down, Liu Xing saw more and more abominations climbing the statue. He'd thought that since the leader was dead, they would scatter again, but it seemed that wasn't the case. They were intent on climbing. From afar, the statue looked like it was being steadily encased by thousands of climbing ants.

Still, even while surrounded, a smile bloomed on his face. He finally had enough qi to break through to the seventh stage.

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"I think it's time for the next phase," Liu Xing mused.

Even though Liu Xing and Elder Yang Zhaoyan were the first to attack, they weren't the only ones who would attack the City of Suns. And even though he didn't know exactly how many abominations he had killed, it was certainly more than five hundred.

Now, he thought, the Yang clan would want some action too.

Deciding to give them a signal, Liu Xing jumped as high as possible. When gravity pulled him down, he summoned his shield and jumped even higher until he touched the clouds. He looked down at the sprawling city, seeing all the abominations flocking to the statue.

He absorbed the six bullets into his body, then into his consciousness. It would take time, and in the meantime, Liu Xing sent stable qi to his right gauntlet, created more and more qi bullets, and sending them to his gauntlet.

This signal would be flashy, and even Liu Xing couldn't help but smile, wondering how the Yang clan would react to this cool display. After all, while he always used his gauntlets, he'd never used them in front of the clan, even when he fought that abomination at the Yang clan's gate.

The statue was now fully encased with abominations. From toe to head, they clung to it, with more climbing on the backs of others, making the giant statue look like a swelling black pillar.

He inhaled deeply and sent more qi to his gauntlet, creating a giant ball of lightning as big as a barrel. He made it bigger and bigger until it obstructed his view. Then, with a spin, Liu Xing delivered a palm strike, and a giant white pillar descended from the sky. It was big and wide, emitting a bluish light that made the world, already bathed in morning sun, even brighter.

"Eat this!" Liu Xing shouted.

When the pillar hit the statue encased with abominations, it swallowed it whole. The parts not swallowed by light were cut and crumbled to dust. A thousand shrieks could be heard as the pillar of light descended, as if the heavens themselves were smiting the abominations. A huge rumbling reverberated through the City of Suns, humming for at least ten seconds before it settled.

When the pillar of light vanished, the statue was destroyed, reduced to mere dust. The abominations climbing it had also turned to dust. Even the ground where the statue had stood now bore a wide hole from the attack.

Liu Xing smiled fiercely. Qi filled his seventh lock more and more.

***

Yang Jinyan stood atop a flowery hill near the City of Suns. Several hills over, there was a mound of dirt, indicating where his sister had buried their nanny. While he wasn't as fond of her as his sister was—who even claimed the nanny as her grandmother—he nonetheless still thought of her as part of his family. Seeing that mound of dirt made him clench his fist. That foolish brother would pay!

Behind Yang Jinyan, fifty members of his clan stood calmly, ranging from Lock Opening to Core Splitting realm. It was a pitiful force compared to the former Twelve Sun Army, but still the best he had.

As he stood, his face was a mask of confidence, but inwardly he wondered why he'd agreed to Liu Xing's plan. Sure, it made sense. Culling the abominations would weaken his opponents, regardless of their intentions. But to do that meant fighting tens of thousands cultivators with only fifty people, which seemed impossible.

Yang Jinyan took a deep breath, forcing himself to center his mind. They'd chosen this plan because, despite appearances, it was possible to execute. He'd already sent scouts to the City of Suns, and their reports offered a glimmer of hope. While all the abominations were cultivators, not all of them were strong. Initial probing also suggested they weren't too intelligent. This meant his small force could, in reality, cull a significant number of them. Guerrilla warfare was preferred, but even a frontal attack wasn't entirely hopeless.

It was just that there would be complications along the way, and these uncertainties ate away at his heart and made him anxious.

This operation was actually a way to spend their time as they waited for reinforcements, which would arrive four days from now. Quite a long time, but it would have to be enough.

His private chat with Elder Yang Zhaoyan had concluded that if a master of formations tried to modify the Royal Barrier, it would be finished in twelve hours at most. But since twelve hours had already passed and the modified Royal Barrier hadn't been deployed yet, it meant the person working on it wasn't a master and needed more time.

Moreover, the snake-limbed spirit beasts, who even now were still stealing bloodlines from his empire, would converge on the capital. Liu Xing suspected they would start the sacrifice once they arrived, and Yang Jinyan was inclined to agree with him.

In conclusion, they had several days to cull the enemy, and Yang Jinyan intended to cull as many as he could without losing a single man.

"Hong'er," he called.

Hong'er walked to his right. She was the strongest among them and would be the spearhead of their formation until they met up with Liu Xing.