As for the demons' sudden killing stroke.

Zheng Qian was plainly still shaken by it.

This crowd were clearly seasoned. From the moment she struck to the moment the moonlight split the old sparrow-demon's body, in that short space, they had not only kept their footing but had come up with so vicious a stratagem, and acted on it without hesitation.

What startled her more was this.

The young sparrow that had made the ambush had a thin aura, but judging by that one claw its demon body was frighteningly strong, and it did not look like the other Gold-Fire Sparrows either.

Close.

Thank heaven for Shen Yi.

First he had supplied the crucial intelligence that gave her the first move and let her cripple a fourth-layer old sparrow-demon; then he had struck in time to stop the young one's ambush.

That was seasoned conduct — better than anything she could have managed, and she could not have said by how much.

No wonder he was a cultivator who had cut his way out of a place where the lineage was severed.

No wonder he had never much minded her orders. Shen Yi had probably had a detailed plan from the start, and being an outsider had not felt free to say much — so he had gone on prompting her sidelong instead.

Remembering how sharply she had spoken to him a moment ago, Zheng Qian found herself unaccountably flushed.

At the thought she rounded on the old sparrow-demon.

And turned every part of that embarrassed fury into the Dao-method working between her fingers.

Moonlight gathered across the sky again, giving off a keen and cutting air.

The whole four-storey Dao Palace blazed in that instant.

"Fellow Daoist Shen, there's something wrong with that young sparrow. Hold it for me. Once I've cut down this old thing I'll come and help you at once!"

Zheng Qian called it out, and the Dao-method left her fingertips.

At the same time, under Liu Qianyun's watch, Yan Wencheng began laying his formation with a practised hand, formation-objects flying out of his storage treasure…