If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

The fireball struck the crowd first.

It was no longer the fist-sized flame that once lit up the training ground, but a fireball the size of a washbasin, its entire body blazing white.

The fireball, trailing a long tail of flame, crashed into the ground where the warriors had just landed and exploded with a deafening roar, scattering debris and sparks everywhere.

Next came the Ice Spike spell, where hundreds of fine ice needles condensed in the air, gleaming with a blinding cold light under the rising sun, and rained down like a downpour.

Then came the Vine Technique, where dozens of dark green vines, as thick as a child's arm, burst forth from the cracks in the ground.

The vines wrapped around the martial artists' ankles, calves, and waists, their dense barbs piercing the skin as they tightened frantically.

There's also the earthen wall technique; the Black Armor Army doesn't use earthen walls for defense.

Instead, they simply ripped the earthen wall off the warriors' feet, lifting them into the air and causing them to lose their balance, exposing them to the fireballs and ice spikes from their companions behind them.

Or perhaps earthen walls appeared beneath their feet, hindering their movement.

The Blood Refining Realm warriors were caught off guard by this combination of spells.

Although they returned from the valley, their scouts discovered the methods of cultivating magic.

They had some understanding of magic, but after all, they spent far less time reciting scriptures than these black-armored soldiers who cultivated day after day, and their magical power was far inferior.

They tried to imitate them by making hand seals and casting spells, managing to conjure a few fireballs to retaliate, but the size and temperature of those fireballs were simply not on the same level as those fired by the Black Armor Army.

They could use their magic to create a protective aura around their bodies, but that aura would burst like a soap bubble after only a few breaths under the bombardment of dense spells.

At this point, these people had no choice but to rely solely on their physical strength to withstand the attack.

The fireball exploded on his body, his robes instantly turned to ashes, and his skin sizzled as it burned.

The ice picks struck my body, piercing my muscles and spreading cold air, freezing the area around the wounds until they turned bluish-purple.

The vines climbed up, and they could break off a few with brute force, but they couldn't break free from the ever-growing roots that kept sprouting from the ground.

A martial artist roared and leaped up from the ground, over the shield wall, trying to rush into the gate of the Marquis's mansion and capture Su Mingyue.

His movements were so fast that he left only a blurry afterimage in mid-air.

But just as he was about to cross the shield wall, he was forcefully pushed back by an invisible wall of air.

It was a spiritual energy shield created by the combined efforts of dozens of black-armored soldiers.

A faint light rippled across the shield like water, and no matter how hard the warrior punched the shield with both fists, it only created a few ripples before being bounced back.

Before he could even roll over and land, dozens of spears gleaming with a cold light shot out from behind the shield wall, instantly piercing him through.

The battle didn't last long. These Blood Refining Realm warriors were far stronger than ordinary soldiers, but they weren't facing ordinary soldiers.

The Black Armor Army has been practicing magic for more than half a year since Zhou Ming started teaching them.

They weren't fighting alone; instead, they were arrayed according to established rules, and each attack was methodical and orderly.

The front row releases spells, while the back row gathers mana. Once the front row's mana is depleted, they automatically retreat, and the back row seamlessly takes over, maintaining consistent firepower and defensive strength.

The thirty-odd martial artists were like a pack of tigers trapped in a cage in the face of such magic.

Each one, taken individually, is the king of beasts, but under the pressure of dense spell coverage and layers of shield walls, they are vulnerable.

Their space for movement was squeezed smaller and smaller until they were crammed together, with no room to maneuver.

The last one to fall was the elderly man with gray hair and beard.

He was forced to kneel on the steps in front of the Marquis's mansion by ice spikes piercing his knees. A large, charred hole was blasted open in his chest by a fireball, and blood from the corner of his mouth flowed down his gray beard.

He raised his head, staring intently at the figure in black armor and wielding a silver spear above the steps. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but only managed a few muffled hoarse sounds before collapsing to the ground, lifeless.

The long street returned to silence. The cobblestone pavement was covered with charred bullet holes and water stains from melted icicles, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of burnt flesh and the rusty stench of blood.

Su Mingyue slowly lowered the silver spear in her hand, her gaze sweeping over the corpses lying haphazardly on the steps.

More than thirty Blood Refining Realm martial artists were all killed.

Su Mingyue calmly looked at the corpses lying haphazardly below the steps.

Her expression was unusually calm, as if the corpses of the thirty-odd Blood Refining Realm warriors beneath her feet were nothing more than crushed withered leaves.

She turned her head slightly and said to Dongmei, who was also dressed in black armor beside her, "Go, leave no one behind."

Dongmei clasped her hands in acceptance of the order and led a troop of black-armored soldiers away, heading towards the east of the city.

That was where the mansions of these martial arts families gathered.

Su Mingyue turned around, handed the silver spear to Chunlan, and said to the dumbfounded Su Yongning behind her:

"Father, let's go inside and talk."

Su Yongning stood there, his lips moving several times.

He had just rushed back from the North and hadn't even had time to change out of his dusty cloak when he witnessed this bloody scene.

He instinctively opened his mouth, his gaze sweeping over the corpses scattered on the ground, over the charred bullet holes and the still unmelted icicle fragments.

The blood and mud that clung to the boots of the black-armored soldiers finally settled on Su Mingyue's calm, almost indifferent face.

He wanted to say something, but the words got stuck in his throat.

What could he possibly say?

These people came to cause trouble for her daughter, but her daughter just struck first before they could.

He had emerged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood, and was already accustomed to this bloody slaughter.

To his astonishment, Su Mingyue's Black Armor Army had become so powerful.

After a long silence, he finally hummed in agreement and turned to walk into the Marquis's residence.

Zhou Ming sat cross-legged in the cave in the western mountains, taking in all of this with his divine sense.

He was not surprised by Su Mingyue's ruthlessness; this young lady had charged into battle with her sword in front of all the young masters of noble families in the city at the Xishan Poetry Gathering.

He ordered the corpses to be burned to create a wall of fire at Qingyun Pass, and watched Yuwen Shuo hang himself from the roof beam without changing his expression when Shun Ning City fell.

She has never been one to show mercy.

What truly surprised him was the magic used by the Black Armor Army.

The fireball spell changed from a fist-sized flame to an explosive fireball capable of shattering bluestone slabs.

The Ice Spike spell changed from a sparse barrage of ice needles to a torrential downpour of area-of-effect attacks.

The combination of the Vine Technique and the Earth Wall Technique is exquisite to the finest degree.

These techniques were only simplified versions, extremely basic, when he taught them to his soldiers.

However, the Black Armor Army has increased their power several times over in the past six months.

This world exerts a strong suppression on cultivators' spells. Even as a Nascent Soul cultivator, his spells are not very powerful enough to be effective in this world.

Yet these warriors who cultivated the Scripture of Salvation were able to unleash such power with their magic even when suppressed.

This must have surprised him.

It seems that there is indeed strength in numbers.

If a thousand people study the same technique at the same time, each person will encounter different problems, gain different insights, and try different improvements through repeated practice.

The combined experience of a thousand people, after being selected and integrated by military instructors, resulted in a manual of techniques that far surpassed the simplified version he originally left behind.

He silently kept this discovery in mind, withdrew his divine sense, closed his eyes again, and continued to comprehend the array jade slips in his storage ring that he had not yet fully digested.