The duel of the Yafik people was sacred and solemn. Aodao's challenge to Penghua immediately alarmed all the noble dignitaries supporting Fuya Ming.

Peng Hua had just grasped the scimitar, not even having time to warm it in his hand, when the three Grand Dukes of the Fuya Ming faction, along with over a hundred nobles of varying ranks, rushed to the base.

Because of their advanced technology, the populace of the Yafik Kingdom prioritized spiritual and cultural cultivation over carnal desires, resulting in their noble class always being sparse in number. Aodao’s father, the majestic Grand Duke Jinlihua, though merely a middle-aged man by Earth reckoning at ** years old, currently only had Aodao as his sole heir.

The mere prospect of the sole heir of a Grand Duke issuing a challenge for a duel made the already sacred and solemn occasion even more weighty.

"Is it really necessary?" Gu Xiechen stood beneath a large tree at the base, sighing upwards in exasperation.

A patch of dense, luxuriant flowerbeds within the base rose ten meters high, floating away under the direction of several soldiers. A circular platform, one hundred meters in diameter, slowly emerged from the earth. Illuminated by the artificial sunlight, the alloy-forged platform emitted a mysterious purplish-azure glow. The platform was further etched with intricate lines forming a cryptic pattern, creating an imposing, inviolable aura of killing intent.

"The Death Platform!" Aodao, his face bruised and swollen, swung his scimitar as he climbed the two-meter-high round stage via a ladder. He violently brandished the blade and roared, "Sacred Death Platform! Coward who only resorts to sneak attacks, do you dare ascend and fight me to the death? If I fail, my blood will drench your entire body; if I win, I will cleave off your head and nail it to the wall, right next to the head of the Canine-horned Deer I hunted last year!"

"Take him out?" Penghua glanced at Gu Xiechen and signaled with a gesture.

Gu Xiechen sank into thought. He looked at the more than one hundred nobles standing to the side, clad in luxurious white robes, their expressions grave, trembling slightly from tension. Slowly, he raised his right thumb, deliberately turned his finger downward, and viciously slashed it against the ground.

Nodding heavily, Penghua slowly climbed the ladder onto the round platform, his mouth curling into a sinister smile toward Aodao, who was dozens of meters away.

Fuya Ming had approached Gu Xiechen at some point, and she asked in a low voice, "Can I trust your strength?"

Gu Xiechen met the gaze of Fuya Ming’s eyes, which shone like black pearls, and replied in an equally low tone, "If you are not afraid of my strength, then you can trust me!"

With a cool laugh, Fuya Ming brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and gritted her teeth fiercely, "Then, take out Aodao and those three old fellows! I've had enough of them!" Reaching into her pocket, Fuya Ming pulled out a thumb-sized, perfect dodecagonal gold coin and tossed it to Gu Xiechen. "Taking them out is your advance payment for me; this Star Alliance gold coin is also my advance payment to you... Forgive me, in my heart, this group of decaying nobles is only worth this much!"

He snatched the coin, still warm from Fuya Ming's touch, and lightly weighed it. The coin felt substantial; though only the size of a Federal one-unit auxiliary coin, its weight was at least ten times that of a coin pressed from Federal pure steel. The gold coin shimmered with an alluring purplish-gold light, clearly indicating it was a precious metal unknown on Earth. Jingling the coin lightly between his fingers, Gu Xiechen smiled, asking, "Then, do you need me to eliminate the rest of those nobles as well?"

"Can you?" Fuya Ming looked at Gu Xiechen and just smiled.

"Let's try," Gu Xiechen shrugged, squinting at the group of nobles whose expressions had grown increasingly severe.

Sighing softly, Fuya Ming suddenly stated flatly, "Since I was thirteen, I understood that the Yafik Kingdom has no driving force left for development—it will either decay to extinction or be reborn. Therefore, these nobles, whether they support me or the faction of Prince Daogen, they all must be purged."

Fuya Ming uttered a sentence completely contrary to the prevailing sentiment of the Yafik Kingdom: "Only iron and blood can save Yafik."

Looking in surprise at the suddenly murderous Fuya Ming, Gu Xiechen found himself liking this beautiful, tall girl more and more. As for blood and flesh, the Yafik Kingdom had three hundred million citizens who could serve as soldiers; as for iron, Gu Xiechen, being an arms dealer, was never afraid of selling too much weaponry! He had plenty of iron to provide to the Yafik Kingdom!

A match made in heaven?! A strange thought suddenly surfaced from the bottom of his heart, and Gu Xiechen shivered, instinctively stepping aside.

On the Death Platform, Penghua approached the solemn Aodao with a playful grin, rocking his hips wantonly to provoke him: "Most dearest Lord Aodao, you call for a duel over a trifle. Is it truly necessary? Why is this? Why, after all? Life is so beautiful, the world so wonderful, with countless beauties waiting for your affection. Why must you insist on this final fight?"

Aodao quickly glanced towards Fuya Ming. He slowly drew his scimitar, assumed a pose of arrogant handsomeness with his head held high, and sneered coldly, "You insulted me in front of the Princess, which is an insult to the Jinlihua family, an insult to all Yafik nobility, and an insult to all Yafik citizens!"

He gave the gleaming, semi-transparent scimitar a swift slash and roared, "For dignity, for honor, one of us must die here!"

A stout, fair-skinned old man, surrounded by nobles, clapped vigorously and cheered, "Well said, my son! The Jinlihua family is proud of you! You are the most outstanding swordsman in the Yafik Kingdom! Teach this low-born country bumpkin a lesson! Teach him well! Show him your most brilliant swordsmanship!"

With an elegant bow toward the old man despite his bruised and swollen head, Aodao made the scimitar whistle in his hand, producing a dazzling flurry of blade-work.

"Be careful, country boy. My swordsmanship won second prize in the Sword Dance Competition at the First Art Academy of the Star Alliance—the best result ever achieved in the Yafik Kingdom!" Aodao looked down on Penghua with arrogance.

"You have a term for 'country boy' here too? Hmm, all crows are black, indeed, and all living people share the same virtue." Penghua sighed deeply. He sobered his expression, looking sternly at Aodao, and shouted, "Then, remember my name. My name is, 'Your Father'..." When I kill you, you can call out my name!"

For the two words "Your Father," Penghua used the common language of the Federation.

"'Your Father'? 'Your Father'?" Aodao repeated the words loudly, then gave a dismissive, cold laugh: "What a vulgar name!"

Penghua immediately burst into laughter, clutching his stomach and sitting down on the ground, even tossing his scimitar aside.

Ducat’s face turned pale with suppressed emotion. He shook his head helplessly and muttered in a low voice, "Rogue, scoundrel!"

Sighing deeply, Gu Xiechen forced a bitter smile. "From this, one can see how important it is to master a foreign language. Poor child!" He piously made the sign of the cross on his chest.

Aodao, not understanding why Penghua was laughing so hard his body went limp, furiously swung his scimitar and charged toward him, shouting, "Draw your blade and fight like a noble!"

"Roar!" A wave of brutal, violent killing intent suddenly surged out from Penghua. The invisible aura swept across the entire base, causing all the Yafik nobles and regular soldiers present to instantly collapse onto their knees. They felt like pitiful white mice suddenly encountering a hungry, ferocious dragon. That terrifying presence enveloped their entire bodies, their entire souls, every single cell, leaving them trembling on the ground, their minds utterly blank—they couldn't even recall their own names.

Fuya Ming's condition was far better than her subjects', but her small face was frightfully pale. She had never witnessed a peerless fiend like Penghua!

Instinctively grabbing Gu Xiechen's hand, Fuya Ming's sharp nails dug painfully into his flesh. "Too terrifying, too terrifying! Is... is he a powerful one?" Her eyes were filled with excitement, her body trembling minutely, yet an unprecedented spiritual energy suddenly burst forth from within her; her face seemed to glow.

"He... counts as a powerful one, perhaps," Gu Xiechen nodded slowly.

Aodao, who was charging toward Penghua with his blade raised, collided head-on with the killing aura Penghua emitted. His body instantly stiffened, standing stock-still on the Death Platform like a large wooden stake. The pupils of his eyes suddenly dilated to ten times their normal size; fear, boundless fear, utterly dominated his body and soul. Just from this impact of the aura, ninety-nine percent of Aodao's vital energy drained from his body, leaving only an empty shell standing on the platform.

Penghua sprang from the platform like a startled fierce tiger. He grabbed Aodao's shoulder, violently swung him up, and then slammed him heavily back onto the platform.

Smash—like an egg dropped from a skyscraper, Aodao’s body instantly disintegrated. Blood and gore sprayed hundreds of meters away, spattering bloodstains across nearly half the base. Penghua, his hands dripping with thick blood, roared to the sky, laughing with unrestrained arrogance and utter wickedness. This was the true Penghua, the personal disciple of the First Lord of the Nine Hells, the Corpse Emperor!

With a deep blood-red glint in his eyes, Penghua slowly pulled open his trouser belt, fumbled inside his underwear for a moment, and slowly pulled out a cigar, stuffing it into his mouth. Ducat’s expression suddenly changed. He remembered the cigar he had shared with Penghua on the Primordial-level warship; it seemed Penghua had also retrieved it from below his waistband! Ducat’s face turned ashen, and he suddenly felt an impulse to rush onto the Death Platform and tear Penghua to pieces.