"Your Holiness, the spies planted by the Heaven Dou Empire have obtained intelligence on Sky City."
Bibi Dong gave him a cold look. "Speak."
Seeing her icy attitude, whether feigned or genuine, Xue Qinghe took a deep breath and said, "Sky City consists of seven floating islands. The Teleportation Stele takes you to the main island. Only members of Gold Level or higher can travel to the other islands.
"All patrols within Sky City consist of Iron Golems. These machines are almost as powerful as Soul Emperors specializing in both the Defense System and Power Attack System. We estimate that there are at least a hundred of them.
"More importantly, after sacrificing dozens of spies, we obtained a piece of intelligence that left us in despair: these Iron Golems can be mass-produced.
"Every week, more Iron Golems are transported from the secondary islands to the main island on a type of mount called a 'Music Soul.'"
"This... we can't fight that." The master of a small sect spoke up. "A hundred Soul Emperor Level golems, and they can make them in batches... even if we throw every bit of strength we can muster at them, how many could we destroy? And then what? They'll just make another batch. Every person we lose is one fewer on our side. What are we supposed to throw into that pit?"
After saying this, he swiftly swept his gaze over the others in the hall, as though searching for agreement.
No one immediately answered him, but in a corner, representatives of one or two other small factions were also unconsciously exchanging glances, their expressions much like the middle-aged man's.
Bibi Dong's gaze settled on the middle-aged man. Her voice was quiet. "You want to withdraw?"
The middle-aged man's Adam's apple bobbed. The blunt question