Malta City was lit with luminous stones and magic lanterns and many people could still be seen on the market streets. Everything was calm and as usual.

In the city lord’s mansion, however, the situation was completely different.

Save for the guards, everyone else was busily storing their things and rushing towards the mansion’s private teleportation formation with anxious looks on their faces.

Upon arriving at the teleportation formation and seeing the Matriarch of their Zen family, Zenovia Zen, standing there, looking perfectly calm, their anxiety and fear ebbed away quite a bit.

"Do not panic and patiently wait." Zenovia said and continued activating the formation. While she looked calm outwardly, inwardly, she was burning with anxiety, fear and helpless anger.

Just a few minutes ago, she had received a message from the Beast Emperor Hall telling the Zen family to evacuate as soon as possible as powerful enemies were heading their way to destroy them.

This news was too sudden and caught her completely off guard.

While she immediately burst into action by sending an emergency message to her family members and rushing over to activate the teleportation formation, she was filled with worry about her family’s survival because not only could this private teleportation formation had the capacity to teleport just 30 people, it could only be activated merely three times with the resources available in their family.

This meant only ninety out of over three hundred members of her family would be sent away while the rest would have to rely on their luck to survive.

Given the nature of the message she received, she knew unless they had heaven defying luck, none of those who left behind would survive. This made her incredibly helpless and furious.

Why did this calamity befell her family when her family had done nothing wrong?

She knew the answer—it wasn’t because they were a vassal force of the Beast Emperor Hall, but because they were weak. If they were strong enough to deal a lethal blow to the incoming enemies, they wouldn’t have dared to target them just because they were Beast Emperor Hall’s vassal force.

Why had the Beast Emperor Hall not alerted them sooner?

She also knew the answer to this question. It was most likely because they had just found out or... they had all but given up on the Zen family.

If it was before she consulted with her family’s ancestor and looked into the Beast Emperor Hall, she would have thought it was former because the Hall wasn’t strong enough to keep their surveillance up and running under their enemies’ suppression, however, she now knew despite everyone believing the Hall had become a lot weaker and was barely holding onto the title of ’Emperor Power’, it was still very strong with multiple Monarchs at the helm.

A power that had multiple monarchs wasn’t easy to suppress to the point that it wouldn’t be aware of happenings in its own territory.

This was why, she believed the Beast Emperor Hall her family was so loyal to, had forsaken them and this filled her with indignation and helpless anger.

She raised her head and looked at the man floating above the mansion. It was her ancestor. She wanted to blame him but seeing how grave and heartbroken he looked, she could only sigh in her heart.

Weng!

The teleportation formation was activated.

She swept her gaze across the crowd of people—everyone wanted to be the first to step onto the formation and leave to safety.

Unfortunately...

She clenched her jaws and pointed at the three King Mages, "You guys, take a group of children and elderly and step into the formation."

The selected kings’ expression tightened. Though they didn’t know that this formation could be activated just three times, they knew not everyone could leave through it.

This meant the chances were that save for the ones they selected, everyone else wouldn’t be able to leave.

"Be quick. We don’t have time to waste." Zenovia urged.

The three kings looked at one another, seeing the conflicted emotions in each other’s eyes.

They almost simultaneously released their aura and covered several people in it.

’Hm?’ Zenovia’s eyes gleamed and Ancestor Zen couldn’t help but take another look at the three kings.

Among the twenty seven people they chose, not one was their immediate family member. What more, twenty were children, who had yet to embark on the magic cultivation path but were the most talented ones. And the remaining seven were their parents, grandparents or guardian figures.

Zenovia gave them a deep look and was about to tell them to step into the teleportation formation when the latter seven stepped back and said, "We can go later. Please take more of the children."

Zenovia’s heart trembled. While she disapproved of her ancestor’s choice to remain Beast Emperor Hall’s subordinate, she had to admit he taught the family really well. At this juncture, no one was being selfish.

"Stop fussing and come with us." One of the three kings rebuked and stepped into the formation with the children. The seven elders hesitated for a moment before following their lead.

A moment later, the formation rumbled and they vanished from the place.

Without wasting any time, Zenovia poured more resources into the formation nodes to keep the formation running and pointed at remaining two kings and a peak Five Star mage and asked them to select another twenty seven people.

Soon, another thirty people had vanished.

Just as Zenovia poured more resources into the formation nodes and selected another three people, a sense of oppression blanketed Malta City.

Boom!

Ancestor Zen’s expression hardened and without hesitation, he released his aura at full force while circulating his mana to the limit as he rushed away.

At the same time, his voice sounded in Zenovia’s mind, [You go with the third group. Under your guidance, the Zen family will flourish once again. Take care, child.]

Zenovia stared into the distance where over a dozen people had appeared, their aura blasting off with full force and because of this, she could tell most of them were Emperors and the weakest seemed as powerful as her ancestor.

The act of her ancestor rushing towards them was no different from a moth flying towards a raging flame. Her heart clenched but she didn’t waste time. Immediately, she swept thirty people with her mana and placed them in the teleportation formation before activating it.

Weng!

As the spatial fluctuations appeared on the formation, she turned to the remaining members of her family and said, "I’m sorry. I failed you all."

Everyone’s faces were pale. They could see all of them were going to die. Some of them were panicking but no one blamed her.

Instead, a middle-aged man, who was a High-Stage Five Star mage, laughed, "Haha, you didn’t fail us, Matriarch... no, let me call what I used to—my little niece. You led the family really well. I doubt anyone else, including the ancestor would have done nearly as well. So do not feel guilty."

After a pause, with his reddening eyes filled with guilt, he said, "Let us be selfish one last time and ask you to lead us to fight for our lives."

"Hmm—" Zenovia had just nodded when a pained cry resounded followed by an explosion.

"Argh~!"

Boom!

Zenovia’s pupils constricted and her blood ran blood—her ancestor had fallen.

The next moment....

Rumble!

An Emperor appeared above the mansion and pointed downwards. Immediately, a raging inferno appeared above him and began raining down on the mansion.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

One after another, all buildings were destroyed and the clueless maids and servants of the mansion were killed.

In the end, the largest inferno rained down upon the area Zenovia and others were at.

BOOOM!