"Thank you for sparing me, Honoured One."
"Mmm. Stand back."
The scene of Jacob approaching the cloaked Kate and then bowing in gratitude made it clear that the two were connected.
"You damn unfilial son! You're a disgrace to our ancestors!" roared Anders of the Wright family.
He felt ashamed to have his own son betray the family, but he didn't dare make a move with Kate watching them.
"Calm down, Anders. In his own foolish way, he is also acting for the sake of the family. This way the family will be in good shape regardless of how this conflict ends."
Jacob couldn't believe the words that came from Head Elder James, yet they made him even more impressed and frightened by the old man.
"If there's anyone we should be blaming, it's the person who failed to take adequate measures to prevent this scenario."
At those words, everyone's eyes turned to Rizer, who snorted in displeasure.
"This is likely Hansley's work. This person must have rescued him while your dear junior tricked us into gathering here. If we had only killed him like I suggested—"
"What? You dare insinuate that we are the reason—"
In the middle of a Blaze Union elder's response, Kate sighed and threw out a punch. The gale from that fist smashed the elder's head into bits and reminded everyone of how dire their situation was.
"I'm not here to listen to you people pass around blame. Since you're so reluctant to do it yourselves, I'll just make the decision for you."
"Block!"
Within seconds of Cruz's warning, Kate made her next move.
"Rapid Gale Fist."
Kate unleashed a barrage of punches that each sent forth powerful bursts of wind capable of shattering body parts. With everyone using their best defensive techniques and artifacts, only two of them died. They knew that holding out would only lead to their eventual deaths, so after exchanging glances they had the same idea.
"Scatter!"
The group of traitors and invaders tried to escape in separate directions, but Kate was prepared for this as well. After barely taking ten steps, the runners found themselves blocked by an invisible wall of wind, and Kate took the chance to finish them off.
"Giant's Breath."
Kate created a tall ring of wind around herself and Jacob and pushed it towards the invisible dome that surrounded everyone else. The ring quickly pushed them up against the dome and slowly ground their bodies. The men tried their hardest to resist, but Kate was a genius with combat power that surpassed her cultivation realm, so there was little they could do against her in their suppressed states. Once the dome of wind was coloured red in the blood of her enemies, Kate cancelled the spells and looked to the sky.
"I'm done here. The rest is up to you."
Around the same time that the suppression array activated inside the martial academy, the battle between Mayor Henry and Elder Lut began to favour one side. Mayor Henry had managed to hold off Elder Lut at first, but despite possessing superior power thanks to being inside the city, the mayor was at a disadvantage due to Elder Lut skilfully parrying and evading his moves.
"You may have great strength, but it means little if you can't use it well."
Mayor Henry knew that he would lose if the battle continued as it was, but he valorously kept fighting. Elder Lut scoffed at the mayor's bravery and strategically pressured him while waiting for an opportunity. After reflecting the mayor's lightning spell back at him, Elder Lut discovered a gap in Mayor Henry's defence and pounced at it.
"Face my wrath!"
Before Mayor Henry could respond, a giant molten rock was hurled at him. There was no time to intercept the spell, but he watched it with a smile on his face. When the spell was just a few feet away, Elder Lut felt his cultivation being suppressed, and the spell lost its form. He quickly tried to move back, but Mayor Henry refused to let him go easily.
"Capture him!"
Suddenly, grey ropes of light erupted from the ground and chased after Elder Lut. Elder Lut tried to escape them, but the ropes of light surpassed him in speed, so his resistance didn't last long. Once the first rope caught him, the rest soon followed and wrapped around his limbs and waist. The ropes didn't affect small movements, but Elder Lut could no longer leave the city and escape the fate of having his cultivation drop to the Soul Realm.
"Damn it! So this is your trump card, Henry!"
"Who can say? Regardless, you can be at ease. I'll ensure that the rest of your gang follow you to the afterlife."
Just like the martial academy, there was also a suppression array in place that could affect all of Cyrus, but the core of the array was quite apparent as it rapidly drew in nature energy while active, so Mayor Henry didn't want to activate it until the lingering threats inside the city had been dealt with. Once Elder Lut's cultivation was suppressed, Mayor Henry didn't waste many words before smiting him with a powerful lightning spell. Against the weakened Lut, this strike was enough to turn his body into a burnt corpse.
"No!"
"Lord Lut!"
The members of the Blaze Union cried at the sight of Elder Lut's corpse hovering in the sky, but the two remaining union leaders only maintained grim expressions. Though he had slain Elder Lut, Mayor Cyrus found the situation less than ideal because he had predicted that at least one of the other two union leaders would have tried to stop him. The suppression array was a powerful threat, but maintaining it over the city consumed vast resources, so the Blaze Union could regain its advantage by simply waiting. Of course, there would likely be reinforcements from other cities if they stayed for too long, but Mayor Cyrus wanted to finish these threats here rather than allow them the chance to regroup and attack again.
As he considered how to taunt the union leaders, Mayor Cyrus sensed a change in Elder Lut's corpse. He was about to closely examine it with his spiritual sense when a sudden blast of fire knocked him out of the city. It was an attack comparable to a late Sky Realm expert's full-powered strike, so even with the blessing of the city, Mayor Cyrus' barrier was easily broken.
"I must admit, you might have ended me had you been more thorough with my murder."
Surprisingly, shortly after Mayor Cyrus was struck, Elder Lut's corpse swiftly reverted to a healthy body, and his cultivation had even improved to the sixth level of the Sky Realm as he flew out of the city. This was the effect of the Reviving Phoenix Art, one of the forbidden methods passed down in the Lava Stream Sect. In his youth, Elder Lut had been fortunate enough to obtain a drop of young phoenix blood in a secret world, which enabled him to practise this technique that had become useless in the hands of the sect. Practising this art also required one to regularly drink the blood of evolved beasts related to the phoenix, but in exchange the user could revive from near death with the possibility of an increase in their cultivation. If Mayor Cyrus had cut off his head, then there would be nothing he could do, but thanks to his carelessness, Elder Lut was able to send him outside the city and escape from the mayor's trap.
Elder Lut also hoped that his strike would at least severely wound the mayor, but when he and the other union leaders went to see him, the old man was still well. This was due to a gift that Shui had left with the mayor before leaving the city. The gift was an array gem embedded with a tier 4 protection array, and though it could only be used once, it saved Mayor Cyrus' life. This array gem was expensive to make and required someone to have a cultivation at least in the Earth Realm, so the mayor was the only one Shui had given it to.
"It seems my debt to him grows even greater."
"So you managed to survive my attack? No matter. Now that we're outside the city, your defeat is inevitable."
As Elder Lut and the other two union leaders surrounded him, Mayor Cyrus knew that he was in a dire position. If they were inside the city, then he still had a way to defeat all three of them, but without the city's support he was just an old man in the early Sky Realm. Even so, he stood his ground and desperately sought a path to victory.