Reinforcements

Boom! Half of Feng Laixian's face split open. His teeth broke loose one after another, piercing through his left cheek like bullets and bursting one of his eyeballs along the way. At the same time, his entire body was sent flying sideways, his neck snapping and cracking with brittle fractures. Even so, he did not forget to retaliate against Yu Xian; four or five tails thrust toward Yu Xian all at once. Yu Xian only had time to defend against attacks from one side and couldn't parry the tails from the other, but right at that moment, a bullet pierced straight through Feng Laixian's tail, neutralizing the danger. Boom! Another tremendous crash resounded. Feng Laixian's massive frame slammed into a building in the distance. The five-story structure broke apart instantly on impact; the third floor split open, and the top two stories plummeted toward the ground, triggering violent tremors. "Strike while he's down!" Yu Xian pursued decisively, sprinting toward the building's ruins. Meanwhile, Nora, having found a suitable sniping spot, was lining up her sights. Her rifle was also wrapped in a rain cover; though the rain had stopped, she hadn't taken it off. Resting the sniper rifle on a windowsill, she watched intently through the billowing dust. Yu Xian charged into the dust. Needing no aim at all, he cleanly threw a punch straight into the collapsed building. The ground shuddered instantly, a three-meter fist crater stamping into the earth. The surrounding dust was blown away by the gale of his punch. Feng Laixian, however, had curled his body into a ball, shielding himself behind his tails. His tails could split and freely expand or contract. Once lengthened and divided, the sphere they formed measured a full five meters in diameter. "Target acquired." Nora pulled the trigger. A bullet shot from the barrel, spinning at high speed as it flew toward its mark. "Can't give him time to recover." Yu Xian clenched his fist, preparing to strike again, but a sudden jolt seized his heart. Instinctively dodging to the side, he felt a bullet miss him, neatly punching through the ruins in front. *Nora's bullet?* Yu Xian realized what had happened and immediately looked behind him, understanding that Nora had fallen under an effect. Since Nora hadn't consumed a Contract Gem, she had been affected by Feng Laixian's Cognitive Distortion. Right now, she was surely mistaking him for Feng Laixian and attacking. "Not good!" Another bullet came flying at him. Yu Xian ducked hastily. The round grazed past the top of his head, directly obliterating a distant tree. With Nora's bullets, the greater the distance, the more devastating their power. At this range, Yu Xian was certain a single hit would gravely injure him, and that would spell disaster. From that punch at the Castellan Manor, he was already sure Feng Laixian possessed tremendous self-healing abilities. Only by unleashing an uninterrupted assault—injuring him faster than his self-healing could keep up—could they truly kill him. This should have been the perfect opportunity, but unfortunately, Nora had been compromised. Right now, Yu Xian barely had time to dodge Nora's bullets, let alone attack Feng Laixian. Even so, he was confident Niman and Zhang Buyao had to be rushing to Nora's location, and the issue would be resolved soon. …… On the other side, Zhang Buyao and Niman were indeed rushing in Nora's direction. They actually had walkie-talkies, but as soon as they tried using them, they discovered the signal was jammed. This cast a shadow over their hearts, leaving them with an ominous foreboding. When they reached a two-meter-wide alleyway, the ground suddenly rippled and shook like waves. "Watch out, enemy attack!" Niman immediately retreated, while Zhang Buyao sprang into the air, leaping onto an adjacent roof. "How dare you ambush the great castellan of Mingzhu City? Let's see what you really are." A middle-aged man emerged riding a wave of earth, his gaze locked onto Zhang Buyao. Shi Jun, captain of the Castellan Manor Guard, possessed the ability "Sea of Earth." He could expend physical stamina to liquefy the earth, and then consume mental energy to manipulate the liquefied ground. "Concealing your tracks is a good habit—remember to hide better in your next reincarnation!" The moment Shi Jun appeared, Niman smiled faintly. Appearing behind him without making a sound, she ended his life in a single strike. Her blade was not only a high-grade weapon tempered through countless refinnings, but also coated in over ten lethal poisons that compounded each other, making the venom all the more virulent. Because Inconspicuous was active, Shi Jun hadn't noticed Niman at all, believing Zhang Buyao was his sole enemy—which was why Niman was able to close in and dispatch him in an instant. "Captain!" Shi Jun hadn't come alone; he had brought a teammate with him. Seeing Shi Jun drop dead so abruptly, the other manor guard cried out in terror. The problem was that he saw no sign of an attacker, so he naturally assumed it was Zhang Buyao's doing. After recovering from the shock, he gave Zhang Buyao a wide-eyed glance, turned on his heel, and fled in panic. Niman, however, wasn't about to let any potential threat slip away. Pulling a revolver from her lower back, she emptied the cylinder right at the man. She had thought the strike was foolproof, but it failed completely against Shi Jun's teammate. Black armor materialized across the guard's body, deflecting all the bullets with a flurry of metallic clinks, and he bolted even faster. "Forget it." Niman reloaded as she walked. Right now, nothing was more important than reaching Nora. …… At the patrol headquarters. Margaret walked into the hall, and the surrounding Tianchang Foxes all turned their gazes toward her. "Your king is under attack. If you don't want your king to perish here and now, I suggest you go reinforce him at once," Margaret said quietly, looking at the Tianchang Foxes. Margaret didn't actually know what a Tianchang Fox was, nor did she understand why Yu Xian and the others were trying to kill Feng Laixian, but she knew the members of the patrol all answered to Feng Laixian's orders. The chaos in Mingzhu City lately was in truth because Feng Laixian had lost all interest in governing the city, his entire heart set on escaping this cage. When the beam above is crooked, the ones below lean—naturally, the subordinate Tianchang Foxes had grown slack and taken to neglecting their duties. Margaret had been watching in secret all along. She recognized Yu Xian and wanted nothing more than to kill him the moment he appeared here, but she lacked the strength, whereas Yu Xian was terrifyingly powerful. At first, she pinned her hopes on Feng Laixian, but Feng Laixian seemed unable to win, leaving her with no choice but to scurry about gathering reinforcements. Now she no longer thought about killing Yu Xian, only about keeping Feng Laixian alive. After all, Feng Laixian was her only hope of escaping this world. As for Yu Xian and the others, she was certain that if she dared show her face, she would be dead without question. Originally, Yu Xian and his group had been trying to leave Helick's Great Trove, and she had been among those stalling him. Empathizing with that perspective, she knew that if someone blocked her own path to survival, she would want nothing more than to see them dead, to eat their flesh and drink their blood. The Tianchang Foxes of the patrol fell silent for a moment. Then, several noticeably burlier Tianchang Foxes swiftly departed the headquarters, while Margaret was kept under guard by another Tianchang Fox. They were mainly worried this might be a ruse to draw the tiger away from the mountain. Margaret naturally raised no objections; she hadn't wanted to go near the battlefield anyway. Besides, those were the only factions she knew of that were loyal to Feng Laixian. Now that all the reinforcements had been rallied, she had done everything she could, and all that remained was to await the outcome.