Li Ang dispersed the magic power seized by the Demon's Hand and saw Xiaomo's strange expression.

The beast-ear youth kicked the ground with his boots, scattering the ash-like ice shards. They were ground to a powdery consistency, spreading like flour, and quickly turning into ice water.

This was the extreme combination of a slash and a Water Elemental Attack. He immediately judged that this power level far exceeded his understanding and looked at Li Ang with an expression that said "take care."

Li Ang shook his head, pointed at the door, and gestured to go inside first.

Xiaomo flipped his hand, letting shadows slip into the keyhole, and with a casual pull, unlocked the door.

He didn't push the door open immediately but allowed the shadows to flow inside, forming a cover before slowly pushing the door open.

The three of them entered quietly and reached the high platform of the shipyard.

Upon entering, they discovered unusual things.

Beyond the standard shipyard structure, the interior of the Sky Flame Shipyard housed numerous sophisticated pieces of equipment mixed with facilities left by the Island Builder Civilization. Or rather, these buildings were deliberately constructed on the remnants.

The entire shipyard was filled with mechanical roars, all facilities were in full operation, and the hull of a battleship on the platform was already completed, entering the outfitting phase.

Xiaomo squinted: "That's—"

"An Imperial Battleship," Meluna said calmly.

Li Ang glanced at her charming face. Her calmness was not due to indifference or dismissiveness but was a prelude to slaughter, like wanting to crush an ant.

"It seems this is the Empire's and the Soul Apex's plan here," Li Ang said.

By orchestrating a so-called Double Eagles' Helm festival on the outside, bringing in an airship racing event, and claiming that the closure of twelve shipyards was for the preparation of small Flying Airships, they were actually having all factories produce battleships.

From Li Ang's perspective, he essentially concluded that the Empire was ready to have all the battleships in the shipyard take off at the same time, instantly creating a combat force for invasion.

You must admit, they had a pretty good idea. During the gap when the high-end combat forces stationed in the City of the Ship's Rudder were away, suddenly launching a fleet would easily seize the island.

And after that—

Li Ang pointed to a Dimensional Rift at the edge of the platform.

Within the rift, a white substance, akin to plaster, was writhing. Nearby, researchers in lab coats were using small blades and conduits to cut the white matter, extracting purple-black liquid from within.

This white mass must be the Annihilation Star Soul Jenoside.

Nearby were half-human-height transparent storage tanks filled with this purple-black flesh.

Some workers loaded these storage tanks onto nearby ships. Clearly, they were creating that kind of ship cannon capable of unleashing the Thunder of Annihilation on an Imperial Battleship.

After occupying the island, the Empire would use the island's inhabitants as hostages to prevent counterattacks from the guild and the Sky Knights. As long as they had the Power of the Annihilator and could hold out for a while, they could produce enough powerful battleships and even bring in more Annihilation Knights.

When that time comes, even if the City of the Ship's Rudder is recaptured, they likely already have a combat force independent of the Ignis Sky Realm, able to attempt internal-external cooperation from outside.

Building an armory outside the battlefield, a tactic known as "wild barracks strategy" in some real-time strategy games abbreviated as RTS, Li Ang hadn't expected the Empire to pull it off.

"What on earth is this thing, my god..."

Xiaomo was full of disgust; just seeing such anomalous stuff was nauseating, let alone considering what the Empire planned to do with it.

"Earlier, those Black Armored Knights were made using this substance."

"What? Damn! Isn't this faction reported to the guild?"

"I've already mentioned it."

During their meeting yesterday, Li Ang had only briefly talked about the Order Flame Corps' blockade against the Empire and hadn't told Xiaomo that the matter had already been reported to the president of the Knight Resolution Council, Sisyphus.

He roughly retold Sisyphus's plans in the Holy City to Xiaomo.

"The Order Flame Corps should have already gotten reinforcements, but we didn't anticipate that the Empire has space transmission abilities."

Whether Meluna or Meimei, their world's destruction also stemmed from the Empire's uprising. Without contrary mechanisms beyond common understanding, the Empire couldn't have beaten existing forces throughout Nebis and expanded madly.

"We must crush their conspiracy in the Holy City while it's still in the cradle." Xiaomo said seriously.

Li Ang nodded at him, noticing his expression change again.

Following the beast-ear youth's gaze, he saw an Imperial researcher approach an Annihilation Knight.

The Annihilation Knight removed his helmet; it was the first time Li Ang saw their appearance in a normal state.

In previous battles, due to their frenzied power, he had to exert full strength each time, borrowing Wendes's equipment for Storm attacks, using Elaphia's Flying Sword, even just yesterday—the aim was always to destroy them.

Their own Annihilation power was unstable and always caused self-twisting when killing them, so he had never seen how they usually looked.

In that moment, Li Ang understood why they needed the Divine Eye Helmet to move.

After removing the helmet, one could see purple-black flesh oozing from the junction of chest armor and helmet, piercing into the neck muscles of the knight. The Annihilator Flesh seemed to replace his blood vessels, forming black meridians under the skin that pulsed continually.

These black lines climbed up to their faces, completely twisting their features, leaving their eyes greyed—obviously blind now.