Heavy panting echoed through the valley.
Before anyone could react, Lu Mingwang lunged forward, grabbed Mo Bei by the collar, and drove a heavy punch into his right cheek.
Mo Bei did not dodge.
He crashed to the ground in a heap.
Lu Mingwang was beside himself with rage. His perpetually sunny smile had vanished completely. "I could understand you defecting to the Shenchuan Family, but you actually dared to join the Eternal Church?!"
"Do you have any idea how anti-human they are? How many people they killed in Night Spirit City ten years ago!"
Li Yunyao's eyes flickered.
Zhou Ye clenched his fists.
The wounds the Eternal Church had inflicted on Night Spirit City ran far too deep.
Ten years ago, they had still been young, but they had been old enough to remember.
All they remembered was a massive incident that had killed hundreds of thousands across Night Spirit City. Even Sky City had nearly been caught up in it.
Only when the Chief Captain of the Dawn Blade intervened and slew the Eternal Church's Bishop had it finally been brought to an end.
It had been a vast sacrificial ritual, an attempt to use hundreds of thousands of lives to summon what they called a Deity.
That disaster had been permanently sealed in the Dawn Blade's archives. That day was known as the Great Dark Day.
"Ptoo..."
Mo Bei spat out a mouthful of blood and climbed to his feet.
He fell silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled faintly. Taking a playing card from his pocket, he flicked it away.
The card skimmed past Lu Mingwang's ear, sliced through the air, and buried itself in a tree trunk.
Someone saw that it was Spade 9.
Then.
His whole body tipped backward.
He spread his arms.
As