High Martial Arts: Slay enemies to become stronger, forge invincibility from billions of corpses.

The sky over the Cloud Hidden Continent is completely different from that of the Thunderous Continent.

The clouds over Thunder Continent are grayish-purple, and the lightning is dense and violent.

The clouds over the Cloud Hidden Continent are silvery-white, floating high in the sky like a thin veil. The lightning is fine and quiet, more like a continuous release of static electricity than a thunderstorm.

The density of electrical charge in the air was much lower than on Thunder Continent, but the humidity was higher, and there was a damp smell when you breathed it.

The main city, Cloud Hidden City, is located directly in front of the portal exit. The city walls are made of silver-patterned lightning-struck stone, a specialty of the Cloud Hidden Continent, and gleam softly under the reflection of the silvery-white clouds.

The city walls were densely packed with soldiers, their armor reflecting a silver light, like a layer of silver scales growing on the walls.

The defenders on the city walls had clearly received news of the city's collapse, but had not yet made full preparations for defense.

Although the psionic cannons on the city wall were charged, the defenders' formation was scattered, officers were running around on the city wall shouting something, and gunners were frantically adjusting the angle of the cannons.

Soldiers were hastily assembled everywhere, their armor askew, and some were even carrying psionic cores onto the city walls.

This shows that they were caught off guard.

They probably didn't expect that the Punisher would arrive at their main city gates through the portal just two hours after the Royal City battle ended.

On the highest tower of the city wall, a fat man from the Thunder Clan, dressed in the official robes of the Cloud Hidden City garrison commander, was shouting into a communicator.

His voice was amplified through the sound-amplifying array on the city wall, spreading throughout the entire square.

Song Chen could hear it clearly even at the exit of the teleportation portal.

"Rebels? No, no, no, what rebels? We are not rebels."

"We are the victims. Lei Yuan oppressed us for over ten thousand years. We were forced to rebel."

Before he finished speaking, the city gate suddenly opened a crack.

A messenger squeezed out from the crack in the city gate, holding a white flag and running desperately toward the teleportation portal.

Halfway there, the messenger knelt down and held a scroll of surrender document above his head with both hands.

"Lei Feng, the city lord of Yunyin City, on behalf of all the city-states of the Yunyin Continent, unconditionally surrenders to the Heavenly Punishment Envoy."

"I implore you, sir, to restrain your men and prevent them from harming the people of the city."

City lord Lei Feng leaned half his body out from the tower, wiping his sweat as he shouted, "My lord, we surrender! We are willing to hand over all of Lei Mo's assets in the Hidden Cloud Continent and pay war reparations."

At this moment, Lei Yuan stepped forward: "Surrender is not accepted."

He pressed down on the surrender document handed to him by the messenger, and then tore the document in half in front of the messenger.

The shredded pieces of white paper fell onto the silver-gray stone pavement, were blown by the wind, and drifted into the moat.

The messenger froze, his hand holding the white flag hanging in mid-air.

Lei Feng, the city garrison commander on the city wall, was also stunned. He probably considered a million possibilities: the envoy of punishment accepts the surrender, the envoy of punishment proposes harsh conditions, or the envoy of punishment refuses to surrender and continues the siege.

But he never expected that the one who refused to surrender was not the Punisher himself, but the Star Lord Lei Yuan, whom he had served for thousands of years.

Lei Feng's fear instantly turned into rage. Standing atop the tower, he pointed at Lei Yuan and roared, "Lei Yuan, are you insane? Are you going to watch Cloud Hidden City be slaughtered? We can't even surrender?"

Lei Yuan did not answer him, but stepped back and stood behind Song Chen again, lowered his head and said, "My lord, the rebels have surrendered today, but they will rebel again tomorrow. Only by eliminating them at the root can we achieve long-term stability."

Song Chen glanced at him. Lei Yuan spoke with a respectful expression and a sincere tone.

Song Chen could see through Lei Yuan's thoughts: if they accepted the surrender now, the strength of the Cloud Hidden Continent would be basically preserved.

After Song Chen leaves Leiming Star, it won't take more than a few hundred years for Yunyin Continent to recover its vitality. If another Lei Mo appears then, it will be a huge problem.

But if we use Song Chen's sword to cripple Yunyin City, just like in the royal city, Song Chen single-handedly cut through a million rebels.

Once the main rebel forces in the east, south, and north of the city are completely destroyed, Lei Yuan only needs to follow up and clean up the mess. Then, the Cloud Hidden Continent will not be able to challenge the status of the main continent for tens of thousands of years.

Although Song Chen knew, she acquiesced.

Lei Yuan wanted to use someone else to do his dirty work. He also needed kill points. The garrison of Yunyin City numbered at least a million. Killing them would give him at least 10 billion kill points.

Each gets what they need; a win-win situation.

Whether Lei Yuan massacres the city or not is a matter for the Lei Ming clan to decide.

He was neither the star lord of the Thunder Clan nor a righteous messenger sent by the Alliance to uphold justice.

He was merely a disciplinary messenger, tasked with ending the internal strife and restoring the ability to repay debts by any means necessary.

As long as Leimingxing repays the money on time, the alliance will not interfere with the details in between.

He drew his Heavenly Blade and walked towards the city gate.

"Your star lord does not accept surrender, and there's nothing I can do. Let's fight."

The psionic cannons of Cloud Hidden City opened fire immediately.

Although the gunners on the city wall were terrified, their extreme fear drove them to fight desperately.

Hundreds of psionic cannons fired simultaneously, spewing out lightning elemental energy projectiles that wove a vast blue-white fire net across the sky. Each projectile that landed created a crater hundreds of meters in diameter.

But no matter how many shells you have, it's all for nothing if you can't hit the target.

Before the first shell landed, Song Chen activated his Void Shuttle, his figure flashing continuously amidst the barrage of fire, each time appearing at a different location on the city wall.

His first appearance was on the eastern section of the city wall, where he cleaved thirty psionic cannons side by side in two with a single strike. The ammunition depot behind the cannons was also detonated, and the fireball from the explosion soared into the air, illuminating half of the city wall as if it were daytime.

His second appearance was on the western section of the city wall, where thirty-six lightning dragons released by the Star Core Thunder Prison swept across the top of the city wall.

Wherever it passed, fortifications collapsed, gunners were swallowed by the thunder dragon, and their screams were drowned out by the thunder.

The third time he appeared, he was above the main gate of the city wall. He cleaved down from mid-air with the Star-Splitting Slash, hitting the gate squarely and creating a huge gap in the gate.

The city's defenders rushed toward the breach in an attempt to plug it.

The Cloud Hidden City's Imperial Guards are elite, all of them at least at the fifth rank, and they wear uniform silver scale armor. They form a three-layered, dense defensive formation behind the breach.

The first layer of soldiers held up shields, the second layer held up spears, and the archers on the third layer had already drawn their bows.

But instead of a ground attack, they were met with a golden blade of light descending from the sky.

The blade's edge pierced through the gap and went straight into the center of the defensive array, piercing through the three layers of defense like three pieces of paper stacked together.

The shield shattered, the spear broke, and the archer's bow was sent flying by the aftershock of the blade before he could even loosen his grip.

The defensive line behind the breach collapsed instantly.

Lei Yuan led six generals through the breach and charged in. They didn't need to confront the main force of the defenders head-on, as Song Chen had already broken through the city wall defenses. All they had to do was clear out the remnants of Song Chen's troops.

Lei Yuan stood atop the highest point of the city wall, looking down at the fleeing Cloud Hidden City defenders, and expressionlessly uttered a single word: "Kill."

Then he glanced at Song Chen.

Song Chen was at the main gate of the city wall, chasing down the last organized resistance force of the defending army, the Thunder Leopard Guard of Yunyin City. All members were at the sixth level, with a number of about 10,000. They were the personal guards of the city garrison commander Lei Feng.