The Bai Family (Please vote to recommend!)

Lu Xuanqing was a shrewd woman with an exquisitely perceptive heart. Seeing Liu Xing's expression, she knew he disliked this topic and unobtrusively steered the conversation elsewhere.

Liu Xing was not petty and continued chatting and laughing with Lu Xuanqing. Seeing that it was getting late, he was about to get up and prepare dinner when he noticed her brow furrow before she looked up into the sky.

Startled, Liu Xing followed Lu Xuanqing's gaze and saw more than a dozen bright points glinting in the sunlight on the horizon, flying toward the hills at tremendous speed.

As an accomplished cultivator, Lu Xuanqing far surpassed Liu Xing in both the sensitivity of her six senses and the strength of her divine sense. Without the Spirit-Devouring Beast's help, Liu Xing's divine sense could not possibly reach a thousand miles away. It was therefore perfectly natural that Lu Xuanqing would notice something unusual in the sky before he did.

The points of light moved incredibly fast. In the blink of an eye, they reached the sky above the hills, then abruptly stopped, flashing with dazzling metallic brilliance in the sunlight.

Those dozen or so points of light were actually spaceships of various sizes. The smallest were only a little over ten meters long, the largest over a hundred, while the rest were roughly the same size as the one Lu Xuanqing had arrived in, around thirty to forty meters long.

In any case, more than a dozen spaceships gathered together were enough to constitute a small squadron.

Every ship had a silvery-white glacier emblem painted on its hull. Remembering how the Icehorn Giant Bear had nearly frozen all of Connors Star into a glacier not long ago, Liu Xing could not help sighing inwardly. Was I now at odds with everything related to ice? Judging by how menacingly these ships approached, surely they hadn't come all this way to sightsee?

Lu Xuanqing sighed just then and said quietly, "It really is the Bai Family! Their influence extends throughout dozens of nearby star systems. If any of the Heterodox Aristocratic Clans were to find this place, they would be the first."

Liu Xing knew nothing about this so-called Bai Family, but from Lu Xuanqing's tone, they must have been a very powerful force.

Just then, the bottom hatch of the largest spaceship hovering overhead suddenly opened, projecting a dazzling beam of light that enveloped the entire area where Liu Xing and Lu Xuanqing stood.

The beam had no destructive power, but it was intensely bright, like a powerful searchlight. Wherever it swept, even a single grain of sand had nowhere to hide.

Spaceships could travel at several times the speed of sound within an atmosphere. Now that these ships had locked onto them, escape was impossible.

After giving Liu Xing a reassuring look, Lu Xuanqing drew on her qi and called out, "May I ask whether you are the fleet of the Bai Family of the Northern Milky Way? We are disciples of the Heavenly Demon Sect in the Purple Ginseng Star System, recuperating on this planet due to unforeseen circumstances. As fellow cultivators, we ask that the Bai Family grant us some consideration!"

Lu Xuanqing did not speak loudly, but through her profound techniques, her voice rolled beneath the heavens like muffled thunder, with echoes even rebounding from the clouds to the ground.

Lu Xuanqing intended this as a show of strength. Although a cultivator of her ability could not defeat more than a dozen spaceships alone, taking her life would be no easy task for them either.

As for the Bai Family, they were one of the foremost great clans in the Cultivation World. Their ancestors had passed down a cultivation method called Profound Ice Qi, boundless in power and wondrous beyond compare.

Relying on this inherited cultivation method, the Bai Family produced several Nascent Soul Realm experts in every generation. Over more than a thousand years, their branches had spread and flourished, and they now controlled dozens of star systems.

Unlike the major cultivation sects, which remained behind closed doors in secluded cultivation, cultivation clans had maintained varying degrees of contact with the outside world since ancient times. In this era of cosmic expansion, with the barrier between the Cultivation World and the mortal world broken down, cultivation clans had penetrated mortal society more deeply and established greater influence than the major sects.

Take the Bai Family, for example. Several of their outer disciples held seats on the Galactic Federation Council, and one of their inner disciples even held the high office of Chief Superintendent of the North Galaxy Security Force.

Across the entire Northern Milky Way, although the Bai Family could not claim sole supremacy in the Cultivation World, calling them uncrowned emperors of the mortal world would be no exaggeration.

The Heavenly Demon Sect's headquarters also lay within the Northern Milky Way's regional boundaries. Though the sect had no close ties with the Bai Family, they were not enemies either.

Upon seeing the silvery-white glacier emblems on the ships, Lu Xuanqing knew the fleet belonged to the Bai Family. She promptly announced the Heavenly Demon Sect's name to give them reason for caution.

After all, the Heavenly Demon Sect was a major power among the demonic factions of the Cultivation World. However extensive the Bai Family's influence, they would not lightly offend it.

Just then, the beam projected by the largest spaceship withdrew, and a deep voice carrying a faint chill rang out. "Is the speaker Lu Xuanqing, inner disciple of the Heavenly Demon Sect? I am Bai Hengqiu of the Bai Family!"

The voice did not sound particularly loud to the ear. It was as though someone were speaking face-to-face with them, filled with an air of calm. Yet as it sounded, all the echoes caused by Lu Xuanqing's earlier call dissolved without a trace.

Clearly, the speaker's cultivation realm surpassed Lu Xuanqing's.

Hearing the name Bai Hengqiu, Lu Xuanqing could not help furrowing her brow. She knew she had encountered an extremely difficult opponent this time.

Bai Hengqiu was precisely the Bai Family inner disciple who served as Chief Superintendent of the Northern Milky Way. He was said to have entered the Golden Core Stage at forty and was an outstanding talent among the Bai Family's younger generation.

With the aim of tempering his heart through worldly involvement, Bai Hengqiu had taken an important position in mortal society as part of his own training.

But Bai Hengqiu was not merely exceptionally gifted in cultivation. His methods were even more ruthless and efficient. In less than ten years as Chief Superintendent, he had swept the space pirates of the Northern Milky Way clean away, earning tremendous prestige among the populace.

However, Bai Hengqiu treated the pirates he purged with extreme cruelty, never leaving survivors. He even employed the ancient practice of hanging some captured pirate leaders alive as a warning to others.

Thus, Bai Hengqiu also bore the nickname "Cold-Faced Killing God."

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