"Oh really? If there had been a Quasi-emperor standing guard at the east gate, with fully operational killing formations that had been functioning for millions of years, would you be able to succeed so easily?" Ye Qingyu's voice rang out.

A young man in white slowly walked toward the city walls from a distance.

The burly Commander Sun Yi stood behind him, clad in linen robes and accompanied by several dozen experts who had been secretly stationed at the defenses of the city. These men were all trusted generals of Commander Sun Yi; after Sun Yi had been tricked and captured, they had also been locked up, but Ye Qingyu had rescued them all.

In fact, it had been a while since Ye Qingyu had arrived on the scene.

However, he wasn't there to watch Little Nine show off its prowess and act dumb. He first went in search of Commander Sun Yi who had been locked up in a secret chamber at the foot of the city wall, then he secretly deactivated all the protective formations, and covertly stopped all the present Quasi-emperors from acting. This was why Little Nine had been able to conquer the east gate of Royal City. It wouldn't have been such an easy feat otherwise. This was Royal City, the heart of the Guardians camp that ruled over the entire Dark Realm and had been in operation for countless years. Why would it be so loosely guarded?

"Huh? Human Pet, I'm not bragging. You should stand up and take notice of my talents. Even if you hadn't secretly helped me, I'd be able to take them down with my own efforts," it said.

The pair of silver metallic wings behind it produced a series of mechanical and metallic clinks, then transformed into a large silver cannon. There were several odd components along the middle part of the large silver cannon that resembled a formation and flickered with a dark blue light that struck fear down people's hearts.

The silly dog hefted this large silver cannon on its shoulders, lifted the visor from its helmet, and laughed arrogantly as it said, "Did you just see that? Haha, this is a nebulstage destructive neutron cannon. It would be able to destroy a Quasi-emperor in a single move. Hahaha, this is comparable to an Emperor weapon. I can conquer the heavens with this large cannon. Woof hahaha!"

"Nebulstage destructive neutron cannons would only be a threat to Quasi-emperors. It is a little far-fetched to claim that is destructive. Quasi-emperors are not wooden targets, do you think that they'd just sit there and let you hit them?" Ye Qingyu said huffily.

He had a very good understanding of the situation since he had maintained communications with [The Beginning] and [Quasi-emperor Xiaofei] via optical brains.

They had managed to avoid the detection of the sovereign-level experts and had kept up to date with everything happening at the Luoshen Ridge and the Fire Province.

Ever since they had connected the Fire Province and Luoshen Ridge, [The Beginning's] optical brain network had easily captured the Fire Province and with the support of [Quasi-emperor Xiaofei], the entire Fire Province had become the entire information base for the ancient optical brain. In a short moment, the ancient earth civilization released an unbelievable splendor. The basic facilities and order of civilization had been restored; many weapons of war that had been destroyed in the previous incarnation of civilization had also reappeared in this world.

Little Nine who had always loved new toys reveled in this development and asked [The Beginning] to customize many new weapons for itself. It even insisted on changing the appearance of part of the large robot army—one that would play an important part in Ye Qingyu's plans, into large white dogs.

Ye Qingyu didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

According to [The Beginning], there were many advantages in having robots that adopted the appearance of dogs. For example, beast-shaped robots would make better killing machines on the battlefield, as compared to those human-shaped, and would have an easier time carrying weapons. Thus, Ye Qingyu could only agree to Little Nine's ludicrous request in the end.

This was the story of how the Heavenly Dog Army came to be.

Nonetheless, Ye Qingyu was very satisfied with the combat strength that the Heavenly Dog Army displayed at this time. The robots from the older civilization on earth possessed powerful calculation and deduction abilities, completely devoid of the emotions that most intelligent creatures had, so they would absolutely adhere to the orders given to them. They were strong, fearless and worked very well together, so they would definitely not make any mistakes.

More importantly, based on the information [The Beginning] had sent over, the Dark Realm contained large amounts of minerals that were useless to martial artists of the formation martial way, but they were highly treasured to those from the earth civilization. They would extract large amounts and could find endless uses for it. The production line that was saved within the [The Beginning's] s.h.i.+p could churn out large armies of robots in a short amount of time if it were to be fully activated.

The Heavenly Dog Army was only a small portion of the robot army that had been produced.

"So what? I'll eat a Quasi-emperor whole should I ever encounter one of them," Little Nine grew enraged when it realized that its bragging had not achieved the intended effect, then opened its mouth and growled. Immediately, an incredibly powerful energy wave spread out from its body. This was the true power from the formation martial world and it surged like a mighty wave. Little Nine's power had already surged to peak ninth-step Quasi-emperor and its violent aura swept across the surroundings.

This was Little Nine's true prowess.

Ye Qingyu laughed as he lept up on Little Nine's back and gently stroked its white fur. It was a long time since they had last met and to be honest, he missed seeing this silly creature. They had kept each other company back at White Deer Academy and he had thought of it as its relative. This creature wasn't very reliable, but they had still gone through thick and thin together.

"Oh oh oh..." Little Nine let out a series of low growls and it luxuriated in Ye Qingyu's touch. It said, "Not bad. It has been a long time since we last met, but I must say that your ma.s.sage techniques haven't deteriorated at all. I'm very pleased since it shows that you must have missed me!"

Ye Qingyu didn't bicker with it and only said after he had stroked its fur a little longer, "Alright. Focus on your job first and we'll speak more after this matter is settled."

Then, he introduced Commander Su Yi and the rest to Little Nine and said, "I want you to listen to this commander and co-operate with [The Beginning]. Take down the rest of the city walls along Royal City in the shortest possible time. You mustn't let down your guard since it is possible that sovereign-level experts might attack."

Little Nine huffed in annoyance and expressed its displeasure at having to be under someone else's command. It understood the significance of this battle, so although it was extremely reluctant to do so, it could only listen to Ye Qingyu's orders.

In the distance, the silver wars.h.i.+p was churning out batches and batches of combat robots as if laying eggs. However, these combat robots no longer looked like white dogs but rather, they were of varying shapes and sizes with a larger proportion of human-shaped robots. Each differently shaped robot would serve a different purpose.

In the blink of an eye, an army of nearly five hundred thousand robots had been released.

At the same time, Sun Yi had quickly regained control of the soldiers stationed by the east gate. He had always commanded a high level of authority in the military and the east gate was an area that he had been in charge of for several decades, so he had personally groomed a large number of soldiers stationed there. After he got rid of Xuan Tian and his men, he regained control of the army effortlessly.

Ye Qingyu had agreed to this plan via optical brain transmissions between himself, [Quasi-emperor Xiaofei] and [The Beginning] before his return to Royal City. He would use the east gate as the breakthrough point to gain control of the rest of the city and cripple the defenses of Royal City, so that he could slowly get rid of the rest of the rebels and the bloodthirsty n.o.blemen.

He continued to issue a series of commands.

Ye Qingyu received a report from [The Beginning] that they had lost two hundred and thirty combat robots from the Heavenly Dog Army and the destroyed robots were all of a rather low-level, being the initial prototypes of the combat robots. One hundred and ten combat robots could be repaired and at least two hours would be required to perform the repair job.

Ye Qingyu found the loss rate of the combat army completely acceptable.

The initial prototype models were as strong as Saint realm experts from the formation martial way, but three initial prototype robots working together could hold their own against a Great Saint realm expert. In other words, they could form the main force of an army.

The earth's civilization was terrifying in this aspect.

Their weaknesses were very obvious as well, since the most powerful combat robot that the earth's civilization could produce was only as strong as a martial artist of a fake Emperor cultivation. Furthermore, it was impossible to ma.s.s-produce these robots. They would definitely be defeated if they faced off against a Martial Emperor and this was probably one of the main reasons why the earth's civilization had been unable to revert their fate, to be annihilated and reborn.

Soon, the battle began.

[Quasi-emperor Xiaofei] continued to stand guard over the Fire Province and the white-boned war beast Little Ten maintained order at Luoshen Ridge. Still, if Commander Sun Yi and [The Beginning] were to join forces, it wouldn't be difficult to overcome the defenses of Royal City.

Ye Qingyu quietly observed the area for some time and only relaxed when he noticed that no sovereign-level expert was jumping into the battlefield.

He moved and headed inside Royal City.

At the Sun clan ancestral home.

A fierce battle was still being fought.

Since the internal turmoil broke out within Royal City, the Sun clan's ancestral home was the place where the battle was the most intense. Ye Qingyu had only managed to become a Martial Emperor because he had the full support of the Sun clan, and thus, when the coup against the new Emperor happened, the Sun clan became the target of all the other forces, especially the Sky-reaching clan, the Dark Feather clan and the Lofty Mountain clan that had suffered great losses because of Ye Qingyu, and wanted to exact vengeance on the Sun clan.

These major clans also led the soldiers who attacked the Sun clan.

Obviously, there was another important reason for their actions. This was a reason that only the true top-level figures of Royal City were aware of—several sovereigns felt that the old ancestor of the Sun clan had made a mistake by supporting a minor n.o.bleman from a foreign land to become an Emperor, resulting in the group of sovereigns suffering great losses. Thus, they thought that the Sun clan should bear responsibility for this mistake.

Moreover, the old ancestor of the Sun clan was not always aligned to the interests of the group of sovereigns and seemed to stick out like a sore thumb. The group of sovereigns had already tricked the old ancestor once and forced him to ascend to the maximum level of his Martial Emperor cultivation, exhausting his lifespan. He didn't have much time left in him which was why the group of sovereigns no longer considered him a threat, allowing him to live out the rest of his life until his dying breath. No one expected that he would suddenly groom a powerful killing G.o.d, Ye Qingyu, who then proceeded to overturn the order at Royal City. The group of sovereigns were livid and secretly tried to stir up even more trouble, hoping to use the Sky-reaching clan and the other clans to kill the old ancestor of the Sun clan.

The Sun clan was already on its last legs when Ye Qingyu finally arrived and everyone from the Sun clan had already retreated into the damaged ancestral temple, using the last of their strength to guard it.