The Dawn of the New World

Jin Wang was standing by the window staring out into the dark night when Hao Xuan came up behind him. He turned to face him and frowned.

"Where's the cat and the octopus?"

"Eating. Too much trouble to drag them away right now. It's fine," Hao Xuan waved his hand in displeasure, he really didn't want to talk about it and Jin Wang took the hint so he pointed towards the window.

"Looks like there's quite a few of them this time."

Hao Xuan walked closer to the window and peered outwards. It was completely dark and there was nothing visible even with the occasional lightning strikes. He looked at Jin Wang with a confused expression.

"I don't see anything..."

"Oh I forgot, my bad. Here," Jin Wang tapped his spirit band and a connection was created with Hao Xuan's. It was a request for access to the ship's internal system, already accepted and being offered to Hao Xuan. When he clicked accept, a hologram was projected above the watch.

It showed three ships of the exact same model and around them were more than 50 smaller vessels. They were less than 1/10th in size but their numbers more than made up for it.

"Are all these pirates?"

"Yeah."

That projection was currently being shown to every individual that was synced up with the ship's internal systems. All of that data was being sent to their spirit bands in real-time. The little ships kept circling around the three big ones, firing energy blasts in the same 5 spots.

"These spots are where the barrier is the weakest. Once there is a hole in the barrier they will usually send in the armed pirates to pillage and take away whatever they can."

Hao Xuan nodded. He looked left and right but there was no one other than them standing in the entire hallway.

"Where are Alte and the others?"

"They are bodyguards. Where do you think? by her side of course."

"So what's the plan then? What do we do?"

"Not much we can do until they come over here," Jin Wang shrugged.

"So we just wait for them?"

"More or less."

*Pheeew*

Just as Hao Xuan was about to make another comment, something whizzed past their window, yet Hao Xuan was quick enough to catch a glimpse of it. It was a ship, only about 80 meters in size. There weren't any weapons on it and it looked like a transport vessel that was carrying a lot of people.

"Damn, that was fast!"

Hao Xuan, whose reflexes were fast enough to catch a bullet with bare hands like it was nothing, could barely see that thing.

"Yeah, that was probably one of the Sky-grade transport ships judging by the speed, others aren't that fast."

"Sky grade?" Hao Xuan frowned, he didn't remember much about the classification of equipment.

"Yeah, how the hell do you still not know this? It goes Mortal, Earth, Sky, Saint, and so on. Sky grade ships need at least a Profound realm expert to power them," Jin Wang explained with an annoyed expression. This information was relatively common, especially for cultivators. There was no excuse not to know something as simple as this.

"Fuck off. I don't use things like that so how would I know?" Hao Xuan slapped the back of Jin Wang's head and quickly jumped back before he could retaliate.

*BOOOM*

The lights dimmed for an instant as the entire ship shook. Hao Xuan's hearts almost jumped out of his chest. They were hundreds of thousands of feet above ground. Falling from such a height would not even leave him with a complete corpse, that is if he wasn't eaten by beasts before that.

He instinctively grabbed ahold of the railing.

"I don't like heights," Hao Xuan mumbled to himself.

*BOOOM*

Another explosion came from their left and the sound of glass shattering came. Jin Wang's expression turned serious.

"The barrier broke, come on let's go!"

They ran through the now empty hallways at full speed and appeared at the site of the explosion within a couple of minutes. There were 30 or so other people already there, staring at the giant hole in the side of the ship.

All of them were dressed in the same jumpsuit as Jin Wang. But what caught Hao Xuan's eye was not their attire but some of the weapons they were holding.

Guns! Guns and pistols! Well, not the exact models Hao Xuan remembered back from earth but they were pretty similar. Both one and two-handed guns were in the hands of each of these 30 individuals or tucked along their waists.

Hao Xuan inched closer to Jin Wang and inquired in a low voice, "What are they using? Are those pistols?"

Jin Wang looked back at him with a raised eyebrow, "What's a pistol? Those are Qi channelers. They are ranged weapons and like their name suggests, they directly convert Qi from a cultivator's body into deadly energy that is then shot through those cutters and can blast things apart."

"Does a fair bit of damage but doesn't require any skills to use. So organizations hire low-level cultivators and give them these things to use in case of emergencies. They might look good but won't stand a chance against an experienced fighter," Jin Wang explained.

*BANG*

The ship's hull suddenly bent inwards. With a few more similar impacts it would break open. Jin Wang patted Hao Xuan's shoulder.

"Anyways, careful when they come through. The pirates will try to spread out as quickly as possible, stop them by any means necessary."

*BANG*