Li Yaozu’s eyes gleamed with sudden realization. “The Si Family stronghold was empty because they stripped it bare. The real treasure isn’t on the mountain—it’s right there, on that boat. Do we take them down?”

Wang Longyou’s expression was grave as he weighed the risks. “We failed to exterminate the Gu Family completely, and a Foundation Establishment survivor escaped. That is a future threat we can ill afford. For the long-term safety of our clans, I agree with Fellow Daoist Li. We cannot allow another enemy to slip through the net.”

“Then we kill them,” Wang Hao said coldly, wasting no words as he summoned his flying sword. “We strike hard, loot quickly, and vanish.”

As the yellow flying boat soared over the mountain ridge, a kaleidoscope of lethal spells and spiritual lights erupted from the ambush site below, surging toward the Si Family vessel with menacing momentum.

Si Zhijie jumped in fright. He frantically formed hand seals to accelerate the boat, but it was too late to evade completely. Several high-powered spells slammed into the stern. The protective wards shattered, and the force of the explosion instantly obliterated several Qi Refining clansmen, turning them into a bloody mist.

The flying boat, its hull breached and stabilizers ruined, listed violently and began to plummet from the sky.

Si Zhijie stomped his foot, summoning a flying sword to catch himself in mid-air. With a wave of his sleeve, he used his spiritual power to grab the few clansmen nearest to him, stabilizing their fall.

The other Foundation Establishment elder, Si Zhiheng, managed to save two disciples. However, the suddenness of the ambush had been devastating; over half of their clansmen were either blown apart in the initial volley or fell to their deaths when the boat capsized.

Wang Yanzhi was too heavily injured to join the fray, and Wang Hao had not yet recovered his full strength. The tactical division was swift: Wang Longyou and Li Yaozu, the strongest among them, moved to engage Si Zhijie, who was at the seventh layer of Foundation Establishment. Wang Hao and Li Derong targeted Si Zhiheng, who was only at the third layer.

The enemy was reduced to two Foundation Establishment cultivators and seven Qi Refining juniors. The ambushers numbered seventeen, including four Foundation Establishment experts. The advantage of surprise and numbers was overwhelming.

Before Si Zhijie and his group could even find their footing on the ground, the second wave of attacks arrived.

Si Zhijie’s face went pale. First-tier Magical Artifacts were manageable, but if a Second-Tier Spirit Weapon connected, they would be dead or crippled instantly.

In this moment of crisis, Si Zhijie spat out a mouthful of blood essence onto a white Jade Ruyi scepter. He raised it high, and the artifact emitted a shimmering dome of light that enveloped the survivors.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of thunderous explosions shook the earth. The light dome trembled violently and thinned to a translucent film, but it held, blocking the first barrage.

Si Zhijie hurriedly touched down on the solid ground. His Qi Refining juniors could not fly, and maintaining flight while defending a group would drain his Qi too quickly. If the enemy launched another volley while he was airborne, he would be defenseless.

As the smoke cleared, Wang Hao and the others revealed themselves, stepping out from their concealment.

Si Zhijie took one look at their faces and felt his heart plummet into an icy abyss. A bitter taste of despair rose in his throat. He recognized them immediately—cultivators from Green Bull Market. He had thought he was escaping the tiger’s den, only to run straight into a pack of wolves.

Li Yaozu didn’t waste breath on villainous monologues. He flicked his wrist, and a talisman crackling with purple electricity shot into the sky.

It was a Second-Tier High-Grade Lightning Strike Talisman. Facing a late-stage Foundation Establishment expert like Si Zhijie, Li Yaozu dared not hold anything back. He opened with his strongest hand.

The talisman burned to ash in mid-air, replaced by a deafening roar of thunder. A dark storm cloud, hundreds of feet wide, materialized directly above the Si Family’s position. Arcs of lightning danced within the gloom, power brewing for a catastrophic strike.

Crack!

A thick bolt of blue lightning tore through the air, striking straight at Si Zhijie.

Simultaneously, Wang Longyou condensed his Qi into blooming Red Lotus Fires, hurling them forward. Wang Hao and the others unleashed a torrent of Magical Artifacts and spell lights, a flood of destruction aimed at the cornered Si Family.

Si Zhijie, despite his fear, was a veteran of the late Foundation Establishment stage. Seeing that the strongest enemy was only at the sixth layer, he forced himself to remain calm. He poured more energy into the Jade Ruyi to reinforce the shield, then retrieved a black, bell-shaped Magical Artifact. He tossed it upward, where it expanded to cover his group, adding a second layer of defense.

Boom!

The lightning struck. The colorful spells slammed home.

The Jade Ruyi’s light shield shattered instantly, but the black bell held firm. The attacks drummed against its surface, producing deep, dull dong, dong sounds that reverberated in the chests of everyone nearby. The bell remained completely unmoved.

But Wang Hao’s group did not stop. Their attacks were relentless, a continuous bombardment designed to break the enemy’s spirit and defenses.

The storm cloud above churned, preparing another lightning strike.

Finally, after a sharp, discordant ring, the bell reached its limit. A hairline fracture appeared on its surface, spreading rapidly like a spiderweb.

With a pained expression, Si Zhijie recalled the damaged artifact before it was destroyed completely. Without the bell’s protection, the remaining Si Family juniors turned paper-white. Panic overtook reason, and their survival instincts screamed at them to run.

It was a fatal mistake. Staying near Si Zhijie offered a slim chance of survival; fleeing in the open against four Foundation Establishment experts was suicide.

Wang Hao saw the movement and slapped the Spirit Beast Bag at his waist.

“Yaya, go!”

With a piercing cry, the Thunder Duck shot out, its body wreathed in electric arcs.

In his last battle, Wang Hao had been overconfident, holding back his pets and trump cards, which had resulted in him being injured and his spiritual power sealed. He would not make the same mistake twice. He would not give these enemies a sliver of a chance.

Zap! Crackle!

Thunder roared, drowning out the brief, shrill screams of the fleeing disciples. Bolts of lightning turned the runners into charred corpses mid-stride.

The remaining Qi Refining juniors froze, their legs trembling, all thoughts of escape extinguished.

“A Second-Tier Mid-Grade Spirit Beast…” Si Zhijie’s eyes filled with despair. He turned to Si Zhiheng. “Take the others and go. I will hold them back. The Si Family cannot end here, not in my hands!”

Si Zhijie knew the truth: if they stood and fought, they would all die. While he had hidden some of the clan’s bloodline elsewhere, the elite disciples—the future of the family—were all here. If they perished, the Si Family would effectively cease to exist, its remnants swallowed by rivals or reduced to wandering loose cultivators.

He may have been a ruthless schemer who climbed to power over the backs of his kin, but he genuinely wanted his family to prosper.

He slammed a green sphere onto the ground at his feet.

Poof!

A massive cloud of green poisonous gas erupted, instantly swallowing their figures and obscuring the battlefield.

“Poison! Do not get close!” Wang Hao shouted a warning.

Losing visual contact, the group’s attacks lost their precision. They fired blind volleys into the green fog, but the spells vanished like mud sinking into the sea, producing no audible effect.

Li Derong frowned. He pulled a talisman from his sleeve. “Protect yourselves. I will blow this filth away!”

It was a Gale Talisman. Though only Second-Tier Low-Grade, it was the perfect counter to a smoke screen.

The talisman flashed, and a howling wind erupted. A tornado, dozens of feet high, materialized and tore toward the poison cloud. It churned the earth, ripping up sand and stones, and sucked the toxic fog into its vortex, hurling it high into the atmosphere.

“Go! The future of the Si Family rests on you!”

Seeing his cover blown, Si Zhijie gritted his teeth, his face twisting in desperation. “Leave now, or it will be too late!”

Even if the individual enemies weren’t stronger than him, their numbers would grind him to dust.

“Patriarch! You cannot hold them alone!” Si Zhiheng’s face was set in a mask of grim determination. “I will stay with you. I am a Foundation Establishment cultivator; they will never let me leave alive regardless!”

Si Zhijie saw the resolve in his eyes. He wasted no more time arguing. He unhooked three Storage Bags from his belt and thrust them into the hands of the three surviving Qi Refining disciples.

“Whoever escapes is the next Patriarch. Go!”

The three disciples grabbed the bags, bowed deeply with tears in their eyes, and turned to sprint toward the edge of the dissipating fog.

As they broke cover, they slapped Flight Escape Talismans onto their legs, bursting forward with unnatural speed.

Si Zhijie and Si Zhiheng exchanged a final glance, a silent pact of death. Roaring with defiance, they charged straight at Wang Hao and the others, their Magical Artifacts blazing with suicidal power.

Wang Hao chuckled coldly, watching the desperate charge. “Trying to leave now? A bit late for that.”

He summoned Xiaobai, the white tiger, from his beast bag.

“Yaya, take Xiaobai and hunt down the three runners. And be careful—don’t destroy the Storage Bags.”

A Second-Tier Flight Escape Talisman could carry a cultivator a few hundred miles at most. But against Yaya, a flying Second-Tier Mid-Grade Spirit Beast, they might as well be crawling.

Yaya let out a sharp cry of acknowledgment, grabbed Xiaobai, and shot into the sky like a streak of lightning, chasing down the last hope of the Si Family.