The Gap

Zhao Siliang, the Branch Sect Master of the Jiuxiao Domain? In the Nine Cauldrons Sect, a figure like this was equivalent to a high-ranking regional official, carrying more weight than an ordinary elder and rivaling a hall master who held a key post in the main sect. Such figures were already considered part of the Nine Cauldrons Sect's true inner leadership. For a moment, the gazes of several vice captains and the rest of the bridge staff all fell upon Captain Qiao Man. As for Qiao Man... Sensing the divine mind that had transmitted this message, he pondered for a moment before sneering, "Hmph, I don't believe they have the guts!" However, considering certain extreme contingencies... He added, "Besides, I don't believe the strength of a petty domain like Jiuxiao can pose any threat to our sky-patrol warship." With that, he rose to his feet, his powerful divine mind blanketing the entire warship. "Pass down my orders! Maximize the output of all defensive arrays, sensing arrays, auxiliary arrays, interception arrays, and deflection arrays! Then, full speed ahead! I want us arriving at Longxiang City within three minutes! At the same time, bring the offensive grand arrays to full power. Tell the sword cultivators and spell cultivators to stand ready—upon reaching Longxiang City, breach their city-protecting grand array within one minute!" "Yes, sir!" The heads of each array and department acknowledged the order. Immediately, they bustled into full motion, executing the captain's commands. "Captain... what about this Zhao Siliang..." "No need to pay him any heed." Qiao Man chuckled faintly. "They cannot afford the consequences of striking at a sky-patrol warship of our Wuji Astral Palace! Nor can they afford the price of provoking a third-generation warship!" ... Meanwhile, in a command center within the branch sect's grand hall arranged with numerous divine mind reception and conversion arrays. Through the precise reconnaissance of the Heavenly Palace cultivators, seeing that the sky-patrol warship remained completely indifferent and had instead ramped up all array outputs to their limits, Zhao Siliang felt an irrepressible rage burning in his eyes. Sheer arrogance. The Wuji Astral Palace truly did not take the Nine Cauldrons Sect seriously in the slightest! Such blatant contempt. It was nothing short of treating the territorial sovereignty of the Nine Cauldrons Sect as nonexistent. "Sect Master, Hall Master Zhao He asks whether to order the attack." Disciples walking the path of spirit refining turned their gazes toward Zhao Siliang one after another. As for the other vice sect masters and hall masters, they had all returned to their respective posts to deal with this massive crisis. "Wuji Astral Palace!" Zhao Siliang stared fixedly at the virtual projection of the warship before him. "Sect Master, do we strike or not?" "Sect Master, in another minute, this sky-patrol warship will enter a densely populated residential area. By then, whether we strike or not, the energy fluctuations generated will completely destroy the residential areas below that lack array protection..." "We must seize every second! According to our estimates, it will take ten to fifteen minutes to break through the sky-patrol warship's defensive arrays, while they... will reach Longxiang City in three minutes and take at most three minutes to breach Longxiang City's defensive array, leaving the entire city exposed to the warship's assault!" Piece after piece of urgent intelligence arrived swiftly before Zhao Siliang. Everyone was waiting for this Sect Master to make his decision. And he... Though hesitation had crossed his mind, recalling the contributions the Zixiao Institute had made to the Jiuxiao Domain, recalling the importance of that First Seat of Zixiao, and recalling the words spoken by the Sect Master... Finally, his resolve hardened! "Strike!" He slammed his hand onto the table. "Pass down my order! Strike!" He stood tall, flames seemingly blazing in his eyes. "Shoot down that sky-patrol warship!" The moment the order was issued, the minds of many disciples in the command center seemed to freeze for half a second. In the next instant, everyone sprang into frenzied action. Waves of divine mind radiated continuously from these disciples. The order from Sect Master Zhao Siliang was instantly relayed to every corner. "Strike!" "By the Sect Master's order! Sword cultivators of the Magic-Breaking Array, commence attack!" "Command confirmed. Spell cultivators in the Yin-Yang Lihuo Array, unleash your spells! Target: the Wuji Astral Palace sky-patrol warship. Coordinates transmitted..." "Origin Spirit seniors in the Origin Spirit Thought Array, please be prepared. Array waves are about to activate. Cooperate with the array's power to launch a divine mind shockwave and shatter the information black zone!" ... As the orders arrived, in Longxiang City, the target of the sky-patrol warship, thirty-six Foundation Establishment spell cultivators acted in unison, releasing a divine ability spell that in ancient times had belonged solely to Nascent Soul cultivators—Annihilation Purple Light! Purple light filled the sky, generating an unprecedented annihilation reaction under the amplification of the Yin-Yang Lihuo Array. In the process of mutual annihilation between yin and yang energies, a terrifying, unprecedented power was unleashed, carrying a brilliance that not even Great Sun True Fire could rival. Like a divine sword rending the firmament, it swept across the void, guided by the divine minds of Origin Spirit cultivators, blasting straight toward the sky-patrol warship a thousand li away. Simultaneously, from another direction, forty-nine great sword cultivators joined forces to cast their life-bound flying swords. Combining with the array, the flying swords seemed to fuse into a single towering, colossal sword spanning over a thousand meters. Crackling with booming thunder and lightning, the giant sword followed hard on the heels of the sky-tearing Annihilation Purple Light, piercing through a thousand li of sky toward the Wuji Astral Palace's sky-patrol warship. And as these two waves of attacks were about to arrive, the divine minds of multiple Origin Spirit Great Cultivators surged like a tempest, smashing directly into the information black zone sustained by the sky-patrol warship. However, whether sword light or spells, even as the amplification arrays spun to full power, the sky-patrol warship's perception and reconnaissance systems had already detected them in advance, rapidly relaying the information to the bridge. "Captain, the Jiuxiao Domain is launching an attack." Receiving the report, Qiao Man seemed somewhat shocked, somewhat astonished, and then consumed with fury... "What brazen audacity! They actually dare to attack our sky-patrol warship!" He growled, a ferocious glint surfacing in his enraged eyes. "Then don't blame me. Pass my order... Our warship is under attack. All departments, enter wartime mode, intercept with full power... and prepare for counterattack!" As his command was given, the Origin Spirit realm cultivators of the Wuji Astral Palace aboard the warship methodically manned their respective arrays. Inlaying array after array, they fused their divine mind powers into a unified torrent. Before long, an equally violent storm of divine mind swept out in a fan shape, colliding head-on with the divine mind assault of the Nine Cauldrons Sect's Origin Spirit realm cultivators. Even though divine mind was invisible and formless, the clash still sent ripples visible to the naked eye rolling across the void. As if something on a microscopic level had been disrupted, across hundreds of li around, tens of thousands of faint electrical sparks continuously crackled into existence, turning this region into a sea of weak electricity. Yet before this sea of weak electricity could subside, the thousand-meter giant sword unleashed by the combined force of the forty-nine great sword cultivators arrived in a thunderous strike. However... Countless streams of light and spells flashed from the sky-patrol warship, rapidly shaking the thousand-meter blade into violent instability. Immediately following, dozens of sword beams, bolstered by the power of the warship's arrays, shot forth from the vessel. Guided by Origin Spirit Great Cultivators, they traversed hundreds of li with precise, blistering speed, slamming into those fluctuating nodes at dozens of times the speed of sound and instantly shattering the thousand-meter colossal sword. The formation formed by the flying swords collapsed in an instant. Although the Annihilation Purple Light, spanning dozens to over a hundred meters in diameter, pierced through the void right after, similar beams of light shot out from the sky-patrol warship, relentlessly draining its energy. By the time the Annihilation Purple Light successfully struck the sky-patrol warship, less than a tenth of its power remained. Though the detonating energy formed visible white atmospheric shock rings that tore apart all surrounding clouds... it failed to break even a single array on the sky-patrol warship. This result caused the atmosphere across the battlefield to freeze slightly. The Nine Cauldrons Sect's attacks were either intercepted in advance or depleted to less than a tenth of their strength after being disrupted. On the sky-patrol warship... Not a single array had been breached. And the defensive arrays of the sky-patrol warship were layered one after another... There were at least thirty layers! "How can it be this strong..." "Third-generation flying swords! What they're using are at least third-generation Treasure Weapon-grade flying swords! The sword cultivators tasked with assault and array-breaking can't even get close to the sky-patrol warship!" "Even when the spell cultivators chose the concentrated destructive power of Annihilation Purple Light, they still couldn't do a thing against the warship's arrays..." "How can we possibly win this!?" Even though the cultivators of the Nine Cauldrons Sect had long known there was a massive gap between them and the Wuji Astral Palace, they never imagined the disparity would be so vast. The results demonstrated by the first clash left many feeling a profound sense of despair. Aboard the sky-patrol warship, Qiao Man was clearly very pleased with this outcome. "A pile of scrap metal—how could it possibly contend against our most advanced flying swords, our most formidable arrays, and our most elite cultivators?" The captain sneered, then ordered, "Send a transmission to them. Inform them that the purpose of our trip is that a shameless thief stole advanced technology from our Wuji Astral Palace, which is why we entered Nine Cauldrons Sect territory. We have no intention of destroying the Jiuxiao Domain; once we take that thief away, we will naturally depart. If the people of the Jiuxiao branch sect continue to stubbornly resist and attack our warship like mantises trying to stop a chariot, we will launch a full-scale counterattack." The adjutant paused slightly. They were issuing a proclamation after all? Yet Qiao Man offered no explanation. They had already issued their warning. Moreover, it was the Nine Cauldrons Sect that struck first. Refraining from immediate retaliation and merely intercepting was already showing immense restraint. If the Nine Cauldrons Sect dared to persist in attacking, they would simply wipe out the branch sect of this domain. And if they really handed over the person... then don't blame them for sending people to take over each city's arrays to conduct inspections and see whether any other "thieves" existed. ... The order was quickly transmitted to the branch sect. When Zhao Siliang saw that their first salvo of attacks had failed to pierce even a single layer of the sky-patrol warship's arrays... he, too, was plunged into profound shock. Not just him. Even Yaoguang, protected by layers of arrays in the heart of Longxiang City, felt an unspeakable suffocation when he witnessed this scene through cultivators wielding modified Zixiao Type 12 flying swords who happened to be in the combat zone. At this moment, he finally understood just how vast the gap was between the Nine Cauldrons Sect and a paramount sect of this world like the Wuji Astral Palace.