Chapter 1161: Retreating Without a Fight

The flames were actually dozens of kilometers away, but Romier and Pratt knew that the outcome had been decided. This distance would take an army half a day, but it would only take a flash for powerful experts.

Romier hadn't imagined that the central army would arrive so quickly. He couldn't help but curse, "Doer, that useless idiot!"

Evernight had already shuffled their commander deployment in response to the Empire's attack. The force intercepting the central route was the weakest, but that was because the attacking army would suffer the greatest pressure. It was akin to cutting a path right through the middle of the Evernight army, and they would encounter a three-prong retaliation if the eastern and western routes didn't go well.

According to the current arrangements, the force sent to intercept Princess Haimi was the strongest, followed by the western route, and with the central route being the weakest. Almost all of the movable heavy cannons had been shipped to Whitetown in hopes of swiftly eliminating the blade that had stabbed into the heart of the Evernight territory.

Who would've thought that they would fail to take Whitetown after suffering such losses? Moreover, the central route had actually arrived even before the Empire's Princess Haimi.

Romier had no more time to curse Doer's inability. He stared fixedly at Caroline, calculating the difference in strength between them. Perhaps he might have a chance to destroy Whitetown before the central army experts arrived.

What he didn't expect was that Pratt would rush into the sky, saying, "Admit your loss, Romier."

"You!!" Romier almost went insane in anger. The fleeing Pratt had ruined their last chance just like that.

Pratt didn't just flee on his own. He issued the signal to retreat, upon which several arachne experts followed him away. Even though it made flight difficult for him, he grabbed his subordinates by the waist and flew off into the distance.

With the arachne experts scattering, the remaining soldiers' morale naturally collapsed. The surviving arachne warriors retreated out of the city, and the other dark race warriors also understood that things had gone south. Even the supervision unit didn't try to stop them.

Romier gnashed his teeth in anger, but all he could do was to issue the order to retreat. He himself turned about to retreat, but his vision was filled with a flash of lightning. Caroline's Thunderous Whip was descending upon him!

With a cold snort, Romier drew his blade to meet the whip.

Caroline went all out when she saw this, pushing the lightning glow to its extremes. But only at the moment of contact did she realize that the power behind Romier's sword was extremely weak. The weapon was lashed away by the whip, and a gap appeared in her overpowered attack. Romier made use of this gap to scuttle away, his figure flickering repeatedly until he was in the void.

Vampires were known for their speed. Now that Romier was fleeing at full speed, Caroline decided not to waste her energy on a target she couldn't catch. It seemed the injury Qianye had given him wasn't light at all. Otherwise, he wouldn't have sacrificed his blade to escape.

The remaining dark race forces receded like the tides and scattered in every direction. At this moment, the mercenaries had no strength left to chase after them. They didn't even have the energy to cheer.

Several older mercenaries stood dazed on the ruined landscape, gazing at the distant reinforcements. Their expressions were wooden and not at all cheerful. One of them turned back to glance at the nearby street intersection—among the corpses strewn about on the ground, there were enemy soldiers as well as Dark Flame mercenaries. Those he had known personally were lying there as well.

No matter where in the city one looked, those lying on the ground outnumbered those standing.

Qianye pushed a stone slab off of his head and stood up, almost falling down as his left leg buckled. He hadn't felt this kind of stabbing pain in quite a while, but he knew that he had broken his leg. This kind of injury would take almost a whole day to heal even in his bloodboil state.

Duke Romier's counterattack was indeed powerful. Qianye had managed to escape, but the price was a broken leg.

Qianye also knew that Romier wasn't having a good time, either. Even a duke couldn't easily take an upgraded Shot of Inception. Romier had used a secret art to suppress his injuries, hoping to clean up this battlefield as soon as possible. Doing that, however, would make his injuries worse later on. If there were no surprises, Duke Romier wouldn't be appearing again on the field anytime soon.

Qianye was slightly disappointed at Pratt's immediate escape, but Romier was the biggest target.

Song Zining arrived from a different direction and broke out in a grin after seeing Qianye's situation. "Wow! Who would've thought you'd be in such a miserable state one day?"

He hadn't even finished speaking when he turned pale and almost collapsed.

Qianye reached out to help him, heaving a sigh of relief as he gazed at the lingering violet flames in the distance.

Song Zining huffed and puffed as he stabilized his footing. "It's finally over!"

Qianye nodded.

Caroline appeared beside the two. Just as she was about to speak, Little Zhuji ran over with a cheer and pounced at Qianye and Song Zining!

The two were shocked out of their wits. How could they withstand the little girl's charge in their current state? One of them was entirely exhausted, while the other had a broken leg, both unable to dodge even if they wanted to. Ultimately, it was Caroline who reacted quickly and caught the little girl by the waist.

With a loud thud, Caroline took two steps back with Little Zhuji in her arms. The impact was this severe even in her peak state and full strength. Qianye might be okay, but Song Zining would have broken a couple of bones if he were in Caroline's shoes.

It seemed the little girl had accepted Caroline after some time together at the Martyr's Palace.

Song Zining said, "Caroline, please take Zhuji back to the Martyr's Palace. Please don't let anyone into the airship unless Qianye or I am there."

Caroline was startled. Qianye frowned slightly but didn't say anything.

Song Zining caught Qianye's change in expression. "The signal is indeed the Zhao clan's, but we still don't know whether it's the Zhao clan people who are coming. The Martyr's Palace is our only path out. We cannot take any chances."

"I understand." Qianye nodded.

Caroline took to the air with Little Zhuji in tow and went back to the Martyr's Palace. Biting her thumb, Zhuji gazed anxiously at Qianye and Song Zining, but she didn't throw a tantrum. It would seem that she had also sensed the tense atmosphere.

Caroline had just left when an indescribable aura covered the entirety of Whitetown. This aura was majestic, cryptic, and pure, but it was also suffused with the strong scent of blood and fire. It gave off a rather strange sensation, almost as though there were several incompatible auras merged into one entity.

After the aura swept through Whitetown, a certain silhouette appeared before Qianye and Song Zining. He simply stood there and became the center of all attention.

Song Zining's expression became unnatural, and he couldn't help but look down at the ground. His forehead was drenched in sweat as he said with a forced smile, "Fourth Young Noble arrived really fast."

It was, in fact, the number one expert of the Empire's younger generation, Zhao Jundu.

The man glanced at Song Zining and said indifferently, "There's no way someone of your ability can't tell that it would be me."

Song Zining shook his head. "I wouldn't dare divine you."

Zhao Jundu wasn't convinced. "You have your ways to know that it would be me."

Song Zining laughed wryly. "Well, you could say that."

Zhao Jundu glanced at Qianye. "It's good to be cautious, even if it's the Zhao clan."

These words came out of nowhere. No one could tell whether this was sarcasm after his exchange with Song Zining.

Song Zining looked increasingly tense until Zhao Jundu asked him, "Why are you so tense? Is there something you're hiding from me?" Only at this point did he realize that his emotions were clearly visible.

Song Zining shook his head immediately. "I've been with Qianye all this time, how can there be anything to hide? Besides, I've already moved to the neutral lands and don't really care about Imperial matters anymore. What can I even do?"

Zhao Jundu laughed coldly. "The Seventh Young Noble isn't just any ordinary person. I'm sure you can affect things in the Empire remotely."

Qianye saw the atmosphere was getting tense and decided to change the topic. "You're injured?"

"There's no way I wouldn't be, considering the rush." Zhao Jundu made light of the situation, but there was no way the battles would've been easy for him to arrive at Whitetown ahead of Princess Haimi.

"Qianye's leg is also injured, I'll go and find a doctor..."

Song Zining was just about to leave when two pillars of violet fire blocked his way. "Don't think about slipping away! Which doctor can act quicker than our recovery speed?"

Zhao Jundu examined Qianye's left leg while saying, "It's not so bad. Sit down and let it set, why are you standing there? That guy doesn't need your support."

Qianye simply sat down, feeling that it was better for him to remain silent. He then produced a bandage and dressed the external injury roughly.

Song Zining laughed wryly. "What do we do now?"

"Of course, we study the defensive layout."

"Defensive layout?" Song Zining had a bad feeling about it.

"There's an army numbering in the tens of thousands behind me, including a duke."

Qianye and Song Zining exchanged serious glances. Those overseeing a battle of this scale had to be a duke, so that wasn't strange—the problem was the number. One could see that something was up when each of the five fleets in the void was led by a duke.

The Empire only possessed a limited number of top experts, and most of them were needed to guard the mainland territories. With the holy war on hold, the strength of the Evernight forces had increased, and the Empire's disadvantage became even more evident.

Zhao Jundu broke into a laugh. "What's with that look? Not to mention a duke, we still have to fight all the same even if a prince drops in."

Song Zining whipped out a map, studied it for a bit, and then threw it away. Whitetown was little more than rubble at this point, and the original landscape couldn't even be referenced on the map anymore.

He found a clean stone slab and, using a long piece of charred wood as a pen, drew a simple map of the surroundings. He asked Zhao Jundu, "How many men do you have?"

"One thousand."

Song Zining and Qianye had never imagined that Zhao Jundu would bring such a small force. But it made sense after some thought—it was already an amazing feat for him to have pushed a thousand men forward at such speed. This also proved the high quality of Zhao clan soldiers.

Zhao Jundu added, "All in light gear."

This made things worse because it meant that the mercenaries wouldn't get the emergency supplies that they needed.

Song Zining didn't think too deeply about this. At this point in the fight, the Evernight forces were also exhausted, and it was hard to say how much fighting power they had left.

"Which duke is it?"

"Werewolf Duke Doer, a simpleton who specializes in melee combat. His gear isn't so good, either," Zhao Jundu replied.

"Is there no one to deal with him?"

"Duke Wei fought a couple of rounds with him. They're evenly matched with each sustaining some light injuries."

"Werewolf, huh? Maybe I can try dealing with him." Such melee enemies were Qianye's favorite because it was difficult for them to evade his Shot of Inception.

"He might not dare to enter the city," Zhao Jundu said indifferently.

The atmosphere was no longer tense as the three continued exchanging ideas about the defense. Since Zhao Jundu's central army had met up successfully with Dark Flame, the war on the void continent could be considered half-won. They only needed to occupy Whitetown to cut off the enemy's path of retreat. It would be lucky if twenty percent of the hundreds of thousands of Evernight soldiers could escape.