In an instant, the five Ghost Sovereigns, who had been eyeing each other fiercely and seemed ready to kill, suddenly stopped and all turned to look at me.
"Get out of the way!" The five of them shouted at me almost in perfect unison.
At that moment, I noticed a faint blue barrier surrounding me, and then, to my surprise, I started to float, drifting toward Basil Bertram, Yuna Ji, and Vivian Ouyang.
"Can you three please stop fighting?"
Yuna Ji was already inside a cage made of branches, stabbing a blade into Vivian Ouyang's neck. Beneath the cage, thick green vines wrapped tightly around the two, pulsing and swelling as if they were water pipes.
Basil Bertram watched them with excitement, a vicious gleam in his eyes.
"Basil Bertram, please, stop fighting!"
I kept trying to persuade them, but none of the three listened. Then I drifted over to John Chou and Redmond. The two of them were locked in a brutal brawl—fists and kicks flying, each trying to beat the other down.
But it was clear Redmond had the upper hand. No matter how powerful John Chou's punches were, when they landed on Redmond's flaming body, they simply passed through him, causing no real harm.
"Everyone, stand down." At last, Old Man Naylor stepped forward.
The sky cleared once more, and I let out a breath of relief. But those Blue Wraiths who hadn’t managed to escape were still whimpering, their cries of pain and anguish echoing through the air.
"Noah! Noah..." Redmond shouted, his voice booming. After a long moment, only the Blue Wraith called Noah Grimm emerged.
"Boss, the brothers are pretty banged up. How are things on your end?"
Noah Grimm was panting heavily. His black suit was torn and tattered, his face marked by several bloody wounds.
"What happened?"
Suddenly, the sounds from outside flooded in—a cacophony of battle cries. The five Ghost Sovereigns drifted out one after another.
"Hold your fire!" Redmond bellowed. We rushed out in a hurry, and as soon as we passed through the city gates, the streets and buildings outside had completely changed—ruined and shattered, with several tall structures in the distance already collapsed.
Everywhere I looked, Blue Wraiths with fierce, predatory eyes squared off against one another, wielding all manner of weapons. Not far away, I spotted Rotface—the grotesque ghost—with a cleaver jammed into his skull and an arrow sticking out of his gut.
Vivian Gale, the Blue Wraith, looked battered too. She and the bespectacled female ghost from Basil Bertram’s crew clung to each other. The knife she always carried was broken, and the shattered blade lay stabbed into the ground beside her.
All around, the fighting continued in every form imaginable. At one point, I saw a ghost whose entire head had been pressed into the dirt by another, while a third stood over them, shoving a severed head into the fallen ghost’s body.