Not far away, Mo Xiaosheng and the others who had been locked in combat with the woman surnamed Ye all let out quiet sighs, realizing that the situation was now beyond their control. They had underestimated Dragon Cave Mountain's true depth, believing it relied solely on restrictions and formations to kill the Xie Family members who had been the first to break in. Never had they imagined that even without those restrictions and formations, this small mountain was not something to be bullied at will.
Four peak experts at the third level of Return Void Stage exchanged glances, each reading the intent to retreat in the others' eyes.
There was no need for discussion. At their level of strength, a single glance could convey a wealth of information. All four feinted simultaneously, broke free of the woman surnamed Ye's entanglement, and shot outward in retreat.
With those four withdrawing, how could anyone else dare to linger? They naturally scrambled to flee as well.
Qian Tong and Fei Zhi Tu did not try to stop their respective opponents. Though they had lent Dragon Cave Mountain a hand this time, they had no intention of deliberately making enemies of those people. After all, the two of them represented Shadow Moon Hall and had many reservations. After a brief moment of thought, they simply allowed their opponents to withdraw unmolested.
Wei Guchang and Dong Xuan'er were in much the same situation. The two had only recently advanced to the first level of Return Void Stage, and their opponents were far from weak. With their enemies determined to leave, there was simply no way to hold them back.
The reason they had held on this long was only because their opponents had been pulling their punches, not truly going for the kill. Otherwise, given the numbers and skills of those enemies, by now the two of them would be dead at best, or gravely wounded at worst.
The invading forces retreated like a receding tide, dozens of Return Void Stage cultivators fleeing in haste. Aside from Yang Kai who used the Dragon Bone Sword to hold back a handful, only the Stone Puppet and the Artifact Spirit firebird managed to entangle a few of their own, preventing those enemies from escaping.
Yang Kai's brow furrowed, and a deep sense of helplessness welled up inside him.
If the enemy wanted to leave, he couldn't possibly stop every single one of them. Although he was furious that Dragon Cave Mountain had been invaded, the other side had paid a terrible price for it, and the result wasn't entirely unacceptable.
Moreover, if the fighting continued, Dragon Cave Mountain would inevitably suffer casualties.
He and the woman surnamed Ye were fine. He now had the Dragon Bone Sword, the Stone Puppet, the Artifact Spirit, and the Divine Tree, while the woman was someone whose abilities defied imagination. The only ones he needed to worry about were Chang Qi, Hao An, and the others. Even a rabbit will bite when cornered — if Chang Qi and Hao An were to fall here, that was something Yang Kai never wanted to see.
Yang Kai was willing to let the storm end here, but that didn't mean everyone else felt the same.
Just as those people were about to leave Dragon Cave Mountain's perimeter, the previously shattered Mountain Protection Grand Formation blazed with light and activated once more, blocking their path.
A flash of surprise passed through Mo Xiaosheng and the others' eyes, and then their expressions all turned cold and harsh.
Their retreat was only a temporary withdrawal to avoid the blade's edge — it didn't mean they truly feared Dragon Cave Mountain. For the other side to behave this way, putting on airs as though they weren't willing to let the matter rest, naturally made them lose face and filled them with fury.
"You want to leave? Dream on! Dragon Cave Mountain isn't a place you can come and go as you please!" A sharp, feminine shout rang out, its source seeming to shift constantly — perhaps at the edge of the horizon, perhaps right before one's eyes, impossible to pin down.
But there was no mistaking the voice. It was Yang Yan.
Yang Kai raised an eyebrow, utterly surprised, having no idea what Yang Yan intended to do now.
While Yang Kai was still stunned, the ground suddenly began to tremble, accompanied by a deep, resonant hum. Cracks spread across Dragon Cave Mountain's surface, one fissure after another. In the blink of an eye, the entire mountain became fragmented and broken.
Boom…
A tremendous roar erupted as a section of Dragon Cave Mountain's ground seemed to collapse inward, revealing an enormous pit. From within it, a colossal, pitch-black mass of metal slowly rose into view.
Once everyone could make out what this enormous object actually was, cries of astonishment rang out one after another. Every single person stood frozen with their jaws agape.
"Impossible!"
"A warship?"
"There's a warship here?"
Dragon Cave Mountain was destined to become the focal point of the entire Dark Star today. The shocks kept coming one after another — they had barely recovered from the sight of an ancient Sacred Spirit's remnant soul appearing, and now this inconceivable spectacle unfolded before them.
Beneath Dragon Cave Mountain, a warship had been hidden all along!
This warship looked quite different from those treasured by the great sects, primarily in its size. It didn't appear especially large — only a dozen-odd zhang in length, roughly a quarter the size of an ordinary warship. Its body was entirely elliptical, its design sleek and streamlined.
Yet this warship emanated a suffocating pressure that made one's heart clench. Facing it was even more uncomfortable than facing the True Dragon remnant soul moments ago.
A series of mechanical clicking sounds rang out as cylindrical protrusions — unmistakably cannon barrels — extended from the warship's underside. Everyone present was well-informed enough to know exactly what those were.
Crystal Cannons! Every warship carried them — lethal Artifacts, or one could simply call them weapons, powered by Sacred Crystals and devastating in their destructive force.
Under normal circumstances, a warship would rarely resort to firing its crystal cannons, because each use consumed a massive quantity of Sacred Crystals.
Typically, a warship would carry at most two or three crystal cannons, and they served as its most fearsome killing trump card.
Yet now, looking at this warship that was barely a dozen-odd zhang long, more than ten crystal cannons had extended from its underside in one go! Each one aimed in a different direction, but all of them pointed straight at the densest clusters of people.