That great cry was clear and resonant, piercing the very clouds.
All of the Li family's descendants had already fled to a safe distance.
They stared in unison, their eyes fixed on the sky above the city.
The Old Ancestor had descended time and time again, but this was the first time they had ever heard such a sound of agony from him.
At that moment, all of the Li family's spirit tablets rose into the air—a sign that the Old Ancestor was losing control of his power!
The minds of the Li family's descendants went blank. Even those far outside the borders of the Duravia Trade Prefecture felt a tremor in their souls, and all turned to look in the same direction.
Li Dalong, Xu Cuihua, Li Yaozu... every one of them stood frozen in place, their bodies trembling as they stared at the Old Ancestor's back.
"That's..."
The White Qilin stared ahead in horror as the Li family's Old Ancestor began to radiate a brilliant white light.
His Divine Soul had been observing the events behind them, and he had seen everything: he had seen the Old Ancestor tear open his own chest and stuff those cubes inside his body!
And now, the Li family's Old Ancestor's aura was gone. His Divine Soul had been completely obliterated, yet his body and his spiritual power continued to move on a final, desperate instinct!
The Old Ancestor of the Li family crashed down upon the city's great formation!
He landed on one knee, his spiritual power erupting from his body. He held two longspears, burning away all of his remaining Qi and Blood.
His hands moved like phantoms, the two longspears striking the center of the formation in a mad frenzy.
It was like a primitive man on a frozen lake, desperately chipping away at the thick ice with nothing but a stone.
His body seemed to be driven by a single thought.
Just a little harder. A little deeper. Even a fraction more could increase the chances of breaking the formation.
"Aaaah!!!"
The roar continued, a sound born from the body's primal instinct in its final, frenzied moments.
The blizzard itself seemed to grow more violent in response.
Everyone present stared at the Old Ancestor of the Li family.
The scene would be forever seared into their minds.
In the blizzard of that long winter, a figure perpetually shrouded in black mist stood upon an impassable chasm, striking at it with frantic desperation.
He let out a roar that was the roar of the long winter itself, the roar of the blizzard, a sound that carried all the way back to Eternal Sun Prefecture, back to the Azure Cloud Region, back to… the Li family!
At that moment, the bodies of the Li family members trembled as they drew their Dharma Treasures and Spirit Artifacts. Veins bulged on their skin as they stared, deathly, at the distant city.
The entire city had been swallowed by a blinding white light, and they could no longer see the Old Ancestor's figure.
But they knew what they had to do.
Whether the Old Ancestor had broken through the city's defenses or not, they had to charge back.
They had to charge back to the city their Old Ancestor had sacrificed everything to open!
A shockwave erupted from the city's center, blasting the falling snow outward until the world was nothing but a pale, white void.
The wave of force washed over them, whipping up the hair of the Li family and their many allies, but it could not hide the resolute look in their eyes.
...
"BOOM!"
The sound of the explosion echoed as the shockwave rolled out for an unknown distance.
A second sun had risen over the Duravia Trade Prefecture.
Throughout the vast lands of the prefecture, countless battlefields had been opened. Yet at this moment, both warring factions held their breath.
The people of Azure Cloud turned as one, looking in the direction of Prince Qian's Mansion.
They knew, then, that the Li family had reached their destination.
Though they were all in different places, they were not fighting alone. Across the lands of the Duravia Trade Prefecture, cultivators from their homeland were all fighting with everything they had.
Perhaps, in that moment, everyone was doing the exact same thing: looking toward the source of that dazzling white light.
And then, they resumed the bloody battle.
Meanwhile.
The roar of a great movement caught the attention of the people in the Azure Cloud Region—the sound of countless spirit arks flying through the sky and cultivators riding their swords.
It was the vast and mighty Azure Cloud Army!
Young cultivators from every clan and sect followed silently behind them.
They did so because, in the past few days, they had discovered something that left them with complex feelings.
It seemed that on the very same day, as if by some unspoken agreement, all the elder cultivators of the Azure Cloud Region had vanished without a trace.
With the relationship between the Eternal Sun Prefecture and the Duravia Trade Prefecture deteriorating over the years, they began to suspect a grim possibility.
Those old bastards... It's as if they thought we were all cowards, sneaking off to the Duravia Trade Prefecture without us.
Damn it.
We may not have lived through those magnificent, turbulent eras, but we are no cowards!
Li Yunbing stood at the prow of the lead spirit ark. In all his years as the hegemon of the Azure Cloud Region, in all his years of leading its army, this was the first time he had ever mobilized the troops without a single word, the first time without a formal call to arms.
But as the spirit arks of the Azure Cloud Region slowly advanced, their numbers grew.
The thirty thousand soldiers of the Azure Cloud Army permanently stationed at the border were joined by more, their ranks swelling in silence until they formed a torrent of troops that stretched beyond the horizon.
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