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"Is the Flaming Sun Array activated?" Ziyue hurriedly asked.

"Yes..." Shen Qi quickly responded, feeling a sudden surge of relief in his heart.

Previously, he doubted the necessity, viewing it as an over-cautious waste of resources, but now he saw it as a stroke of luck that the Array had been activated.

Otherwise, with the fog sweeping over, all ships would lose contact, and without the Array’s protection, they would be breached in an instant!

As expected, the next moment brought a cacophony of tragic screams and collisions from outside the main ship!

But the Flaming Sun Array was the number one lethal formation researched by the Jiangnan Dragon Palace Academy.

It contained the power of flames and was imbued with the Strange Fire Chen Qing had drawn from a Demon Statue—a power unmatched.

Giant waves a hundred zhang high would evaporate instantly upon contact, and several Flood Dragons would burn to ashes as soon as they approached.

Since the disturbances of the Northern Demons began, Jiangnan has been using this Formation to hold the Northern Sea.

Not once have the Giant Pythons that infiltrated from underground been able to get close to the Array.

This Formation was impervious to attack from any angle, verified time and again.

However, inside this tried-and-tested Array, Shen Qi felt uneasy.

The desolate screams outside were just too numerous!

The dense and abject cries, so close at hand, were chilling to hear, as if the enemies were unrelentingly sacrificing their lives to extinguish the flames outside.

Though Shen Qi’s own realm had not improved much, his expertise in the study of Arrays was no less than that of the academy’s top students.

He knew that the Flaming Sun Array wouldn’t weaken from slaughtering spirits.

With the White Crystal inside the ship still plentiful, even a thousand Flood Dragons would not exhaust their resources. Would it?

If lives could outlast resources, would the higher-ups bother going through the trouble of refining White Crystals?

In chaotic times, nothing is cheaper than life.

Yet the enemy persists in this manner. What could be the purpose?

Ziyue also approached the bow of the ship slowly.

At this point, the dense fog had enveloped them, veiling the outside scene completely.

They could only conjecture by the heart-wrenching screams that the Aquatic Race was using their lives to launch a fierce siege.

Soldiers inside, ready for battle, were set on edge by these chilling cries.

They were not afraid of fighting, but this reckless charge, this momentum... was frightening!

"There’s a problem..." Ziyue approached and said.

Invisible from the outside and deliberately drawing their attention with such a display, Ziyue was certain that this was not a meaningless death.

Even if the Nanhai family had multiplied enough after their revival and cooperated with the Nanhai Dragon King, they would still guard cautiously against the Aquatic Race.

Chen Baifeng was a cautious man; he wouldn’t be sloppy on such a big issue.

Plus, there was not enough Blood Crystal Stone.

With casualties being unavoidable in the fierce attack on Nanhai City, even with powerful forces behind them, generating new troops out of thin air was not possible—some things still need to comply with the rules.

"So what is the situation now?" Shen Qi looked outside, his brow deeply furrowed.

"This fog aims to isolate us from the other ships. There were a total of fifteen ships this time; it was my oversight not to consider such fog-based isolation tactics..."

In fact, this kind of Mist Magic Array appeared quite often in the Dragon Palace Replica, but the Human Race’s military tactics rarely address such situations.

The reason is simple—humans seldom engage in naval battles, and Ziyue, not having a military background, struggled to fully comprehend and employ historical human battles.

Now, she regretted not bringing military veterans like Tian Heng and Xu Hu; it was a significant disadvantage.

Separating from the other ships presented a clearer opportunity to target her own, concentrating a significant force. Yet, even so, to breach the Flaming Sun Array in this manner seemed unfeasible. What exactly was the enemy’s strategy?

As she pondered, she acutely sensed the temperature around them dropping.

In theory, once the Flaming Sun Array is activated, even if the fire element concentrates on the formation, it should still cause the temperature inside to rise and activate the fire element within the ship, but.

.. Lady Ziyue could clearly feel that the fire element inside the ship seemed to have disappeared.

The coldness around her was a very familiar kind of bone-piercing chill, one that seemed eerily familiar. Where had she encountered this chill before?

She couldn’t recall at the moment.

It seemed like she had experienced it before, and for quite a long time, but the deeper she tried to think, the more she felt like falling asleep, which frightened her into jolting awake!

She immediately understood that she couldn’t afford to ponder deeply, as her tendency towards deep meditation and sleep had severely affected her already. If she dwelled on it, her body might instinctively return to that state, leaving her with no ability to fight back.

Now she was certain that she was the target of all this!

Her memories were inexplicably loosening, and the enemy had calculated that she would delve into them, thus draining her energy, while the familiar sensation around her made her very sure that she had encountered this adversary long ago!

"Lady Ziyue?" Shen Qi also felt that something was off and was about to turn and discuss with Ziyue when his heart suddenly sank.

Who is this?

It was still the very spot where Ziyue had stood just moments ago, but now there was a woman standing there, her body draped in snow-white hair, emanating a bone-chilling coldness. She did not seem startling at first glance, but a closer observation could send shivers down one’s spine.

It was as if something terrifying was about to be born.

"Milady...?"

The clothes on her body and the remaining traces of a familiar aura convinced Shen Qi that this was Ziyue, yet the terrifying aura also made him feel like something had taken over all that was Ziyue.

Ziyue lifted her head, her eyes still the purple they once were, but now they were so darkened they looked uncannily black. Just one glimpse was enough to make Shen Qi feel like his blood was about to freeze.

"Shen Qi... escape!" Ziyue managed to utter just this.

Without any hesitation, Shen Qi used a technique to speed away backward, while Ziyue herself remained motionless, though a sinister smile played on her lips.

Having waited for so long... finally, the time has come...

Her cold voice echoed again, identical to Ziyue’s, but the feeling it conveyed was worlds apart. Shen Qi, having already reached the stern of the ship in an instant, felt as though he hadn’t put any distance between them at all, because the voice seemed to whisper right next to his ear...

What on earth... is this?

No... I can’t die here, there are children from the academy on board, and over ten thousand warriors of the Warrior Army, I still have a chance, I still have...

As this thought took hold, the next instant he found himself paralyzed on the spot.

What confronted him was that familiar yet terrifying face, deathly pale, bearing a ghastly smile he had never seen before!

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"What is that aura?"

Liu Yu, who was watching from afar through layers of mist, could feel the terrible chill, a bone-chilling cold he had never encountered in his lifetime, despite seeing many relics. He had the immediate urge to activate the Flying Star and flee.

"You haven’t encountered this before?" King of Qin suddenly laughed, "Haven’t you spent so much time with her? How is it... that you’ve never seen this before?"