Gu Xiechen chuckled, the might of the Boshan Crown proving no small thing. Though a defensive artifact for the Mortal Lord tier, its offensive power was terrifyingly potent. Yet, since it wasn't a treasure he had forged himself, controlling it felt stiff and lacked fluidity. Injecting his true essence into the Boshan Crown left him feeling somewhat weak and depleted. The artifact's rank was simply too high for his current cultivation level. The Boshan Crown could only serve as an emergency measure, not Gu Xiechen’s optimal choice.

“I still need to forge a set of natal artifacts for myself,” Gu Xiechen affirmed this realization once more.

With a gesture, the Boshan Crown dissolved into a plume of white mist that shot skyward. Dozens of small, milky-white orbs sprayed out like rain from the crown, causing the nearby battleships to rock violently. Through the transparent alloy viewports of the bridge, Gu Xiechen clearly saw the deathly pale faces of the officers and crew inside the command centers of more than a dozen nearby vessels.

“Haha.” With a burst of laughter, Gu Xiechen shook his head. The three 'Zan Xing Mang' embedded in his topknot transformed into three star-threads, each as thick as a water bucket and stretching a thousand meters long, erupting toward the heavens. These three threads were composed of countless tiny, polygonal blue lights, each point radiating a chilling cold. They were incredibly sturdy, immensely heavy, and razor-sharp; not merely flesh, but even a small mountain would be pulverized if caught in their vortex.

His thoughts shifted with his will, and Gu Xiechen’s eyes locked onto one battleship that was slowly turning to aim its main cannon directly at him.

The three star-threads slipped through space silently, reaching the battleship in a flash. Like three massive serrated wheels, the threads spun furiously around the vessel, akin to billions of carnivorous ants swarming a plump, tender piglet. The battleship held on for barely a thousandth of a moment before bursting into a great shower of sparks scattering into the void.

Gu Xiechen let out a light chuckle, gently fanning the Floating Cloud Fan. Three streaks of deep azure starlight danced and circled around him, resembling three living, colossal dragons. Coupled with the constant barrage of massive bursts of energy erupting from the mountain-shaped white mist above his head, which sent surrounding warships tumbling chaotically through space, his entire demeanor was truly like that of an immortal descending to the mortal realm.

“I’m head over heels for him!” Inside the cockpit of the Great Falcon, Jin pressed both hands fiercely against her chest. Her pair of uniquely beautiful, mesmerizing eyes were flooded with pink, undulating ripples of water.

“Ahem, ahem!” Fuya Ming, visible on the light screen, coughed lightly, a hint of jealousy lacing the sound. She offered a non sequitur reminder: “Jin, Lord Xiechen is my ally.”

“Oh, an ally? He’s not a bed partner, so it doesn’t matter.” Jin tilted her head, gazing at Gu Xiechen’s ethereal yet awe-inspiring figure on the screen. A wave of heat surged from the depths of her bones, making her whole body feel like it was melting. “Hee hee, if he’s just an ally, even if he were your husband, Fuya sister, if I asked you to share half, would you give him to me?”

“So handsome!” Jin propped her chin in her hands, staring foolishly at Gu Xiechen.

“This woman is doomed,” Fuya Ming muttered inwardly, gnashing her teeth in frustration. She cursed under her breath, “Damn girl, have you gone mad?”

Yet, watching Jin in such a state stirred a sour, unpleasant feeling in Fuya Ming’s heart. “If I had known Lord Xiechen possessed such formidable power, why would I have asked this girl for help? Wasn’t it just to share the research achievements of Yafike? A Star-Ranked Grand Venerable—even if I offered him half the kingdom, it would be worth it.”

Fuya Ming suddenly flushed crimson. Offering half the kingdom to Gu Xiechen? That thought carried a strong ambiguity. According to Yafike tradition, the Queen’s husband automatically ascended to the rank of a non-hereditary Prince, and in name, he possessed half the ownership rights of the Yafike Kingdom. The implication was indeed ambiguous.

The four leaders of the Bloodfang Mercenary Group screamed in panic over the communication channel; they were utterly stunned by Gu Xiechen, who seemed as mighty as a deity. A terrifying realization dawned simultaneously in all their minds: a Seven-Star Grand Venerable. The supreme existence theoretically postulated by the Star Alliance Mediator Council.

It must be a Seven-Star Grand Venerable, a powerhouse capable of fighting battleships. He is absolutely a Seven-Star Grand Venerable!

The four commanders descended into chaos. One screamed desperately for all cannons to fire on Gu Xiechen; another shouted for everyone to abandon ship and escape via lifeboats; a third roared maniacally for all battleships to initiate immediate warp jump procedures; and the fourth simply yelled for everyone to abandon their vessels and fight Gu Xiechen to the death!

If the four leaders, who headed this expedition, were this disorganized, their subordinates could only imagine the state they were in. All the Awakened from the Bloodfang Mercenary Group were running about frantically inside the battleships, unsure of what they should even be doing. The officers and soldiers from the three kingdoms, no longer caring about maintaining appearances to save face for their respective royal houses, were hurriedly piloting their warships, desperate to flee this cursed location and distance themselves from the terrifying entity that was Gu Xiechen.

It was too late; the Four Heavenly Kings of the Mo Family had already arrived.

The natal artifacts, newly reforged, seemed no weaker in power than the originals. Mo Liqing unfurled the Azure Cloud Sword in his hand, and instantly, water, fire, earth, and wind danced across the battlefield, a tempest of violent winds, raging flames, black stones, and poisonous water mixed with thick, rolling smoke that blanketed the entire fleet. Every single second, hundreds of thousands of massive stones, propelled by the gale, engulfed by fire, and carried by the poison water, slammed against the energy shields of the battleships. Perhaps due to Mo Liqing's current state of reduced power, these attacks couldn't directly shatter the shields. However, the constant battering caused the shields to tremble violently, and the energy shield generators on the vessels emitted a scorched, burnt smell from overheating.

Mo Lihong roared as he charged in. He unfurled the Primordial Chaos Umbrella, and immediately, the void became utter chaos, twisting all surrounding energy into a thick slurry. Over a hundred battleships, engines running at maximum capacity as they blindly began their warp jump sequence, suddenly lost their precise spatial coordinates. Their half-materialized hulls were twisted by the infinite void, instantly turning into streaks of white light that merged into the boundless energy torrent of subspace. All other battleships found their radars and navigation instruments completely useless; hundreds of vessels collided with each other in their desperate flight.

Mo Lihai hummed a carefree, rustic tune, casually plucking the strings of a white jade pipa in his hand. Circles of visible sound waves—thousands of colors constantly shifting between cyan, red, white, and blue—poured forth from the pipa strings. Water, fire, earth, and wind howled forth, but far more terrifying was the effect on the personnel inside the battleships. Regardless of whether they were ordinary soldiers or powerful Awakened, whether they were common humans or members of alien races with far greater physical stature, they all collapsed onto the deck, clutching their ears or auditory organs, twisting and struggling in agony.

Mo Lishou took the simplest approach. Wielding a twenty-four-segmented three-edged general’s whip, he began smashing indiscriminately into one battleship. His divine might and brute force rapidly cracked the vessel’s armor. Simultaneously solidifying beside him, the Flower Fox Zhao Xing joyfully burrowed into the ruptured ship. With a single opening of its maw, a beam of white light enveloped every living being inside the vessel, sucking them into its mouth to be devoured at leisure.

Then came Xin Jia and the more than five hundred others rushing to the scene. They promptly erected the Heaven-and-Earth Net Grand Array, and a purple-gold mist instantly enveloped the entire fleet.

However, this was vastly different from the Heaven-and-Earth Net Array used back on Earth. Xin Jia and the others’ cultivation levels had advanced significantly. The boundless divine chains and the various magical artifacts used within the formation were either innate treasures or genuine immortal artifacts. The power of this grand array was at least a hundred times stronger than when it imprisoned the Withered Bone Divine Monarch!

Countless chains, as thick as sea bowls and shimmering with brilliant golden light, locked onto every battleship. Lightning surged along the chains, striking the hulls. Could the Demon-Slaying Heavenly Thunder summoned by the Heaven-and-Earth Net Array compare to mundane lightning? Not only were these heavenly thunders thousands of times more potent than earthly bolts, but the mysterious energies they contained were what made them truly terrifying.

The heavy armor of a Level One battleship could easily withstand the assault of an ordinary thundercloud storm, but facing the bombardment of the Demon-Slaying Heavenly Thunder, the electrical energy passed through the defenses unimpeded, striking directly into the ships and searing every life form inside into charcoal. From the Awakened to the ordinary officers and crew, not a single living soul remained aboard the vessels—except for the four most powerful commanders.

A small, sleek lifeboat was ejected silently from the stern of a super-giant vessel eight kilometers long. The lifeboat’s engines were shut down, relying solely on the ship’s ejection power to escape into the pitch-black cosmos at a speed of two kilometers per second.

In a high-tech battlefield, such an escape method would undoubtedly be effective. Radar waves would struggle to detect the movement of such a small lifeboat, only a few meters in length.

But when facing cultivators, such trivial tricks born of high technology were utterly useless.

Gu Xiechen’s spiritual sense locked tightly onto that tiny lifeboat. He chuckled softly, sweeping his voluminous sleeve through the air. The Waterfall Sleeve transformed into a beam of white light several miles wide, sweeping out with the dull roar of a tsunami. The small lifeboat was caught in the white light, instantly spinning wildly like a piece of paper in a whirlwind, and was brought back before Gu Xiechen by the sweep of his sleeve.

Looking through the narrow viewport of the lifeboat at the four leaders of the Bloodfang Mercenary Group huddled together in the cockpit, Gu Xiechen displayed an exceedingly gentle smile.

“Gentlemen, do not be afraid. You injured my brothers, but you did leave them alive. Coupled with the number of people you killed, the anger in my heart has somewhat subsided.”

“Actually, I am a merchant. An honest merchant.”

“Come, let’s strike a deal. Hmm, how much do you think your lives are worth?”

Gu Xiechen smiled with the utmost affability, but to the four commanders, he appeared as a demon that had just leaped out of hell.

In the universe, how could such a terrifying existence be possible?

A fleet comprised of three thousand Level One battleships!

Three thousand Level One battleships! Not practice models!

Terrifying, utterly terrifying. Is this something a mortal can achieve?

Even a top-tier Six-Star Venerable can only handle three or five Level One battleships simultaneously. How many did this man single-handedly destroy?

Is this a level achievable by human effort?

Shivering, the dark-skinned commander offered Gu Xiechen a fawning smile: “Of course, we merchants love doing business with people like you. You see, how much are we worth?”

Gu Xiechen tilted his head, pondering for a moment, a slight smile playing on his lips. He waved his sleeve, knocking the four men unconscious.

“How much are you worth? Hehe. Haven’t you heard of a type of merchant called a skinning profiteer? You haven’t seen one before, have you?”

Gu Xiechen laughed heartily.