Angela’s slender body quivered slightly, the white feathers on the two wings on her back dimmed, looking utterly drab, like chicken feathers scalded by boiling water.

Penghua clutched Angela's body tightly, his two three-inch-long fangs deeply embedded in her neck, ravenously draining the vital essence blood from her body. A faint, bloody light occasionally flickered across the silver fangs. Each flicker caused Angela’s body to jerk uncontrollably, and the feathers on her wings dulled a little more.

Yan Jiang, also a disciple of the Nine Nether Dao and currently in the form of a Jiangshi, cradled another shapely two-winged angel in a nearby corner, likewise drawing sustenance from the angel's vital essence. Yan Jiang’s two fangs were the color of ancient reddish bronze, and the aura emanating from them was far more savage and flamboyant than Penghua’s, which remained restrained and low-key.

Gu Xiechen, clad in a Taoist robe, sat cross-legged on a sofa opposite them, softly reciting from a scroll of the Huang Ting Jing.

Angela’s body suddenly began to tremble violently, and she let out a sharp, piercing scream that sounded like shattering glass.

Gu Xiechen viciously slammed the Huang Ting Jing scroll onto Penghua’s head, sharply admonishing, "Leave her one breath! The person who paid a hefty price for these wants living angels, don't go and kill them!"

With a low sigh, Penghua and Yan Jiang unwillingly dropped the two angels, whose life force was nearly extinguished, onto the floor. Yan Jiang let out a satisfied burp, sat down cross-legged, and began to digest the vital essence blood he had just absorbed. Soon, a hazy red glow enveloped his body. Penghua, meanwhile, took out a pristine white handkerchief and meticulously wiped his two silver fangs clean before retracting the long teeth and smiling at Gu Xiechen.

"These angels really aren't durable. It hasn't even been a full year, and we've already drained them of their vital essence blood," Penghua grumbled. "And I even went out of my way to pick a female angel. By rights, since they bleed quite a bit every month, their rate of vital essence recovery should be many times better than the male angels. Why are they still so easily drained?"

Gu Xiechen snorted coldly, lowered his gaze back to the scripture, and didn't bother addressing Penghua’s nonsense. Even the most powerful angels, when subjected to his persistent draining day after day, would be sucked into hollow shells—even the legendary Six-Winged Angels—let alone a mere two-winged angel like Angela.

The South Heaven Gate heavy-duty battleship, spanning twelve hundred meters long and shaped like a flattened cigar, pointed and flat at the bow, wide and broad amidships, tore through the sky, leaving a kilometer-long trail of blue flame. Under the escort of twelve North Heaven Gate battleships, each nine hundred meters long, it majestically pierced the clouds and roared down toward a solitary island in the North Atlantic.

The South Heaven Gate heavy-duty battleship and the North Heaven Gate battleships were new classes of warships manufactured by the Hadar Defense Corporation's shipyard during the nearly year-long period of Gu Xiechen's secluded cultivation. They were presented by Hadar Defense to compete for the Federal Military's procurement quotas for warships. The comprehensive combat capability of a single North Heaven Gate battleship was equivalent to fifteen to twenty of the Federation’s old-model First-Class warships, while the South Heaven Gate heavy-duty battleship was equivalent to forty of those old ships.

This was the fruitful result of Gu Xiechen’s painstaking efforts in poaching talent and exchanging information, scheming and building up his own foundation, combined with the special alloy data he had risked life and limb to obtain on Planet Heaven. According to feedback from the Hadar Defense Corporation's intelligence department, the technical standards of the South Heaven Gate and North Heaven Gate battleships were more than five percent superior to the new warships launched by other major military consortiums.

The colossal fleet hovered less than a hundred meters above the island, its shadow almost entirely engulfing the landmass. Hundreds of large-caliber cannon muzzles extended simultaneously from the hull, their dark openings flickering with a faint, eerie blue electrical light. The powerful energy field charged the rocks, trees, and soil of the island heavily. As the sea wind blew past, long arcs of electrical sparks, hundreds of meters in length, continuously erupted from the formations of rock and wood, making the island seem as if it had been thrown into hell and was blazing fiercely in molten rock.

Three purely white, old-model First-Class battleships, each over six hundred meters long, rose from the island, unwilling to be outmatched, hovering silently in a standoff against Gu Xiechen’s fleet. However, these three ships were far inferior to the giants Gu Xiechen had brought, whether in length or volume; they looked like three kindergarten children standing before a squad of towering strongmen, radiating a sense of desolate vulnerability.

The two sides remained in a tense standoff for over ten minutes, maintaining absolute radio silence. Finally, one of the white warships flashed a light signal.

The South Heaven Gate heavy-duty battleship slowly descended, setting down on the western side of the island. Its enormous hull crushed the small hills beneath it directly into the ground; this single vessel seemed to completely fill the entire island. One of the opposing white warships landed as well, and the bay doors of both ships opened almost simultaneously.

Standing at the threshold of his hatch, Gu Xiechen casually tossed the Huang Ting Jing aside and opened his arms wide toward Andre, who stood hundreds of meters away, exuding warmth. "Ha, Bishop Andre! I am so thrilled to see you here! Hmm, shall we embrace?"

Andre on the opposite side gazed darkly and uncertainly at the massive South Heaven Gate heavy-duty battleship. This was no longer a warship in the conventional sense; it was clearly a mountain! He coughed dryly several times before nodding with a forced, artificial smile, "It is a pleasure to see you too, esteemed Lord Gu Xiechen. Enough pleasantries—where are our people?"

A squad of Knights of the Holy See, clad in silver armor, emerged from the battleship and slowly advanced toward Gu Xiechen's position. They were closely followed by a contingent of medics in white robes, their gear bristling with various emergency medical supplies, and they even towed dozens of medical pods.

Shrugging helplessly, Gu Xiechen shook his head.

A troop of steel warriors, each about three meters tall, marched out with heavy steps. Each one carried a pale-faced Cold Winged Angel whose back wings were utterly faded. A large-caliber anti-aircraft cannon was slung over the shoulder of each steel warrior, its muzzle pointed casually toward the Knights of the Holy See opposite them.

This was the Hercules-444 Single-Man Combat Armor, Hadar Defense Corporation’s latest release, not yet available on the market. This armor extensively utilized the special alloy detailed in the Second Bamboo Slip, offering more than ten times the comprehensive combat capability of the Hercules-1. Soldiers wearing this armor could directly confront old-model heavy tanks. In essence, every soldier clad in the Hercules-444 combat armor was a humanoid heavy tank.

There were two hundred Knights of the Holy See on the opposing side, while Gu Xiechen had deployed six hundred warriors. The six hundred steel warriors, standing roughly three meters tall, towered over the two hundred frail Knights of the Holy See, once again crushing the morale of the Vatican's contingent.

Andre's face flushed green with anger. He glared fiercely at Gu Xiechen and hissed in a low voice, "Very well, return our people!"

The Knights of the Holy See reached out to receive the angels, who barely had a breath left, but the warriors holding the angels simultaneously retreated a step.

Gu Xiechen burst into laughter. "Your Excellency, Bishop, have you forgotten something?"

Furious, Andre shot Gu Xiechen a venomous glare and then waved his hand without a word. One hundred colossal transport ships slowly descended from the high altitude, settling gently onto the nearby sea surface. He roared at Gu Xiechen, "Here is what you demanded: refined rare metal Lü and partially polished Zakkra energy crystals!"

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Andre finally managed to suppress the rage bubbling within him, cursing, "You pack of kidnapping extortionists!"

Gu Xiechen shook his head with feigned helplessness, smiling softly. "Kidnapping and extortion? Can you really blame us? If they hadn't harbored treacherous intentions toward us, how could things have escalated to this point?"

One year ago, Angela and several dozen other two-winged angels plotted an ambush against the Hunting Fleet just as it returned from Pluto, but they never imagined that five of the Nine Great Lords of the Nine Nether Dao would be aboard the fleet.

The group of angels was captured on the spot. Afterward, the Vatican sent over a dozen official documents to the Asian Dao Alliance, demanding the return of these angels, who had supposedly stumbled into some misunderstanding with Gu Xiechen.

However, at that time, the high command of the Dao Alliance was guarding Laojun Valley, and absolutely no one paid attention to the Vatican. After a series of exchanges, a Dao Alliance elder capable of making decisions finally emerged from Laojun Valley, casually granting Gu Xiechen full authority over the matter before hastily returning to his seclusion. Gu Xiechen’s nature as a businessman immediately came to the fore: the Vatican could have the angels back, but only in exchange for a massive amount of resources!

This single transaction cut the Vatican to the quick. Yet, these were dozens of two-winged angels—future mainstays of the Church. Even knowing that Gu Xiechen was making an exorbitant demand, they had no choice but to accept.

A large contingent of Hadar Defense company soldiers poured into the hundred colossal transport ships. They quickly inventoried the amounts of metal Lü and Zakkra energy crystals within, deploying numerous engineering robots specifically to check if any remote detonation devices had been planted within the vessels.

After three hours of inventory and inspection, the signal confirming everything was normal finally came back.

Only then did Gu Xiechen smile at Andre and gesture to hand over the nearly lifeless angels to the opposing side. It was a pity that these angels had fallen into the hands of Penghua and the others. If they had been handed to the disciples of the Righteous Path, it would have been nothing more than draining a little vital essence to refine elixirs or medicine, or plucking a few feathers to forge magical artifacts. Fortunately, angels possessed extremely strong self-healing abilities, so these minor injuries wouldn't have amounted to much.

But the disciples of the Evil Path, like Penghua, were entirely different. Penghua had gleefully absorbed their vital essence to enhance his own cultivation—this was a relatively orthodox evil cultivation method. Disciples from a few truly perverse sects employed various methods on these angels that were so horrific that even Gu Xiechen found them unwatchable, nearly wringing the angels out like dry sawdust.

They extracted the angels' vast, pure spiritual power to enhance their own divine sense cultivation; they engaged in yin-yang unions with the angels to purify their own magical power; and they used the angels' physical bodies as furnaces to nurture various poisonous insects and evil sprites. Nearly a year spent in such conditions was hell for these angels—perhaps even worse than entering true hell!

Watching the contingent of Knights of the Holy See escorting the barely-breathing angels back, Gu Xiechen couldn't help but feel a twinge of unease.

Hurriedly offering Andre a perfunctory greeting, Gu Xiechen swiftly led his fleet away.

Not long after, Andre's furious roar echoed across the island: "Gu Xiechen, just you wait!"

The angels who had been returned were utterly hollowed out; essentially, only their skeletal forms remained. Some, including Angela, were driven insane. Andre had absolutely no idea how he could report the condition of such individuals to his superiors, even after getting them back to the Church.

Enraged, Andre loudly chanted the holy name of the Heavenly Lord and summoned a beam of holy light, several kilometers thick, descending from the high heavens and instantly reducing the entire island to ash.

Inside the command module of the South Heaven Gate heavy-duty battleship, Gu Xiechen watched the gigantic column of holy light through the viewport and instinctively rubbed his nose.

"Andre's power has progressed so quickly!"

Looking at the thirty-odd blinking light spots on a screen beside him, Gu Xiechen let out a cold laugh.

Those were the thirty-odd old-model First-Class warships the Vatican had stationed in orbit, and they were now rapidly moving away from the area.

"Andre, we shall see!"

"I still remember the debt from a year ago!"