Another flock of dragons shot out of Zhang Lie's left arm, swallowing the skies and portending disaster for the invading forces, large swathes of which were caught by the dragons' bombardment.

This time, there was no demonic tree general to block the attack, and half the fleeing invaders were destroyed with this one blow.

"Fight! Get these invaders—don't let even one escape!"

"For our brothers who have perished in battle!"

"It's time for the humans to strike back! Avenge the dead!"

Perhaps the hunters of Qi might not be able to defeat the invaders head-on, but they could certainly pile on them now with Zhang Lie's support. With the assistance of Team Zenith, who had likewise rushed back following Zhang Lie, the hunters of Qi slaughtered the invaders to the last.

As they stepped over the invaders' bodies, they cried out, "Zhang Lie's invincible! Qi will never fall!"

"Zhang Lie's invincible! Qi will never fall!"

"Zhang Lie's invincible! Qi will never fall!"

Hovering above the battlefield, Zhang Lie activated his peak-grade moonlight wyrm soulshard. Whitey appeared with a faint gleam and flew over the battlefield, consuming the souls of the dead that floated into the air. As it did so, its body solidified, and it seemed far less ghostly than before.

Xiao Zhengyang sighed in relief as he hobbled toward Zhang Lie. "It's only because you rushed back in time that Qi was saved. I'm a useless governor, aren't I? All I could do was stand there and watch as invaders tore my city apart."

Zhang Lie shook his head. "It would have been easy for you to repel the invaders if you were uninjured."

Xiao Zhengyang couldn't help but feel a throbbing pain in his chest as he glanced at the dead. After the two invasions, at least forty percent of the hunters of Qi had suffered some injury or another.

When the hunters of Qi saw Zhang Lie walking toward them, they thanked him profusely. Without his reappearance, Qi would have fallen, and they would likely all have been taken captive.

"How's the situation in the sura's capital?"

Zhang Lie shrugged. "Everything proceeded very smoothly."

"Good, good."

"I intend on installing a teleportation array in the sura capital."

Xiao Zhengyang frowned. "Do you intend on making that sura kingdom human territory?"

"Isn't that a good idea?"

"It's far too dangerous."

"Unless we demonstrate that mankind is strong enough to fend off these invaders, what happened today will happen over and over again."

One alien race alone might not have been able to invade Qi, but multiple had allied together against the humans. Zhang Lie's eyes turned sharp. "The alien races all think that we can be bullied, so we have to show them with our actions that times have changed."

As the three thousand hunters returned from the sura king's capital, Zhang Lie commanded, "Hunters of Qi, defend the perimeter! Team Zenith, follow me!"

"What's going on with Qi now?"

"Surely they've fallen—Zhang Lie left with all the battle-ready hunters! With just the wounded and elderly left in Qi, how could they repel the alien invaders?"

"I'm not asking about Zhang Lie, but rather the state of Qi!"

"How could Zhang Lie act so recklessly? He left with so many hunters despite the fact that the walls of Qi were destroyed after the first invasion! Why wouldn't he remain in Qi to defend it?!"

It seemed that those who had praised Zhang Lie for his decisive counter-invasion of the territory of the sura were nowhere to be seen, replaced instead by those who denounced his rash actions.

Just one mistake was enough to sway public opinion; in the eyes of many, given what had occurred, Zhang Lie was the main culprit behind the downfall of Qi, but they hadn't considered that Qi would have fallen long before that had Zhang Lie not shown up in the first place.

"Everything would have been just fine if he had defended Qi, but he just had to invade the sura! It's true that he succeeded, but now Qi is gone!"

"And how many people were killed in the aftermath? Yes, he might have saved ten thousand humans, but how many hunters in Qi were lost because of the invasion? Furthermore, with the teleportation apparatus in Qi destroyed, all the possessions of the hunters in Qi will be irretrievable! Zhang Lie was far too rash. He didn't consider the consequences properly before acting, and now all of humanity will suffer as a result!"

Suddenly, someone replied, "Delete all your posts now, and I'll pretend I haven't seen anything."

"What do you mean? Can't I criticize an idiot for his actions?"

"Have you considered that the person who might be revealed as an idiot because of these posts is you? Go look at the most recent updates on the situation in Qi."

"Wasn't Qi destroyed?"

"No, Qi's perfectly fine!"

[The hero of Qi returns to save the day, repelling the alien invaders and rescuing Qi from certain doom!]

"Really?! How did Zhang Lie make it back in time?"

"Wasn't Zhang Lie in the sura's capital?"

"Just how could he have traversed such great distances so rapidly?"

Many refused to believe what they read. Zhang Lie was certainly strong enough to repel the alien invaders on his own, but the capital of the sura was far from Qi. How had Zhang Lie made it back in time?

"As a lucky survivor who witnessed Zhang Lie's fight, let me explain things. Just as the invaders were about to take Qi once and for all, the hero of Qi entered the fray like a god of death, sending hundreds of black dragons flocking into the sky and killing swathes of invaders.

A gigantic treeman rose up from the ground, the general of the invading forces, but he died within three blows from Zhang Lie. As the invaders fled, we chased after them and slaughtered them to the last."

"Zhang Lie's invincible! Qi will never fall!"

"Zhang Lie's invincible! Qi will never fall!"

"Zhang Lie's invincible! Qi will never fall!"

The descriptions that the Qi survivors were posting of that battle made many a hunter regret that they hadn't witnessed Zhang Lie's fight for themselves.

Someone asked, "Right, what's the hero of Qi doing now?"

"He's slaughtering the alien races!"

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Hundred Dragons Soaring]!" Zhang Lie punched forward with his left arm, sending a torrent of dragons flooding outward.

The dragons' cries sounded like peals of thunder as they swooped down on the battlefield, destroying the walls of the enemy city.

"Charge forward!" Zhang Lie yelled. The members of Team Zenith and the special forces troops rushed into the enemy city and began yet another counter-invasion against those races that had dared to target the humans.