Chapter Eighty-Two: The Destruction Bomb

A brief encounter saw humanity, relying on advanced technological weaponry from the rear, annihilate the Dark Realm's fifty-thousand-strong vanguard legion, denying the enemy even a chance to touch the city walls.

Within Rejection North City, cries and cheers thundered to the heavens.

Standing atop the ramparts, Yang Fan gazed out, his heart surging with indescribable excitement. Beside him, Li Xianyi was equally stirred; though he had entered the ruins for quite some time and fought in countless battles, such a large-scale engagement was unprecedented.

It seemed simple enough: a salvo of missiles shattered the shields conjured by the enemy cultivators, followed by a sweeping barrage of laser cannons. Yet, when such a heart-stirring scene unfolded before their eyes, no one could remain unmoved, no one could escape its awe.

Humanity was not powerless; though technological weapons could not venture too close to the boundary, their long-range destructive force far exceeded that of the cultivators.

Across from Rejection North City, dense fog shrouded the other half of the ruins. Gazing forward from the city, countless corpses and swathes of scorched earth foretold the outbreak of war between two worlds; all that lay before them was the price extracted by conflict.

Whether human or from the Dark Realm, once one stepped onto the edge of the ruins at this moment, there was no turning away.

At this time, behind the human passage of the ruins, vast numbers of soldiers from the five great passages of Huaxia began to enter. Teams from the cultivation academies gathered as well. From all corners of the land, the academies assembled here; armies from every direction stood ready for battle.

No heart was calm among those present. Anxiety, fear, unease, excitement, terror—all mingled together, but above all was a sense of guardianship for the land behind them, and a deep yearning for families whose whereabouts were unknown.

The armies marched into the passage in succession; soldiers and cultivators alike glanced back at their homeland with boundless longing before plunging into the war of two worlds.

Everyone knew that once they set foot in the passage, whether they could ever return home was no longer within their control.

Yet even so, among the hundreds of thousands gathered at the passage, not a single Huaxia warrior shrank back.

...

On the ruins' frontlines, the air was filled with the roar of artillery.

The Dark Realm army advanced beneath thick shields, enduring bombardment and missile strikes.

Lasers fired again! In an instant, forty towering figures soared into the sky, their bodies surging with power, formidable pressure gathering before them.

These forty individuals forcibly withstood several beams of laser.

Xiao Deyi stood atop the ramparts, gazing intently at the ten figures in the air, his brows tightly knit. Forty experts at the eighth-grade sovereign realm... such an array...

As the lasers began to fade, Xiao Deyi instructed those beside him, "Notify the rear, increase the firepower. The quantum energy cannons won't do—bring me something stronger! Thirty eighth-grade, nine ninth-grade, one tenth-grade... Very well, since they dare to take the field, I want them all left behind!"

Soon, as the Dark Realm's follow-up forces neared ten miles from Rejection North City, a streak of fire tore across the sky from the city's rear.

Almost instantaneously, it reached the airspace above the advancing legion.

The forty Dark Realm experts, who had just withstood the quantum energy cannons, felt their hair stand on end.

A tremendous sense of danger welled up in their hearts.

At the front, the tenth-grade Martial Emperor of the Dark Realm roared furiously, while the nine ninth-grade Martial Kings behind him radiated power that shook the heavens.

At the rear of the legion, King Yu, Master of Radiance, and King Huang Yue's expressions changed drastically.

The force unleashed was overwhelming, its power almost matching a blow from an eleventh-grade expert.

As these three erupted with energy, preparing to rescue the forward legion, not far from Rejection North City, a pressure that seemed to cover the world emerged, coalescing into a towering blade that soared to the city ramparts in an instant.

Li Tian, clad in white, with white hair, stood at the very front of the ramparts, his pressure surging endlessly. His aura locked firmly onto the three figures at Broken North City.

A domineering, earth-shattering presence dispelled the energy the three had just gathered.

Yu Tian's face shifted; he grunted angrily. The three's energy paused, then suddenly burst forth, severing Li Tian's lock upon them.

A clash between four eleventh-grade experts occurred in a flash—but in that instant, something transpired that made the three at Broken North City turn pale.

The sky seemed to burn with rootless fire, glowing red. As the tenth-grade Martial Emperor's roar faded into a whimper, dozens of severed limbs and mangled bodies rained down from the sky.

The annihilation shell—recently developed technological weaponry—wielded destructive power nearly equivalent to a full-force strike from an eleventh-grade expert, rivaling the might of nuclear arms.

Of the forty Dark Realm experts, including one tenth-grade, nine ninth-grade, and thirty eighth-grade, such a configuration represented a substantial loss for the Dark Realm, even after years of accumulation. The aftermath of the shell surely claimed countless cultivators of the first to fifth grade below, not to mention innumerable ordinary soldiers.

Li Tian gazed into the distance, his eyes seeing the shifting heavens, his gaze piercing the shroud of darkness to reach Broken North City's ramparts.

There, the three great experts bristled with fury, backed by twelve tenth-grade Martial Emperors eager to leap into action.

Even the dark canopy could not fully contain the eruption of their energies.

At this moment, powerful auras surged from behind Rejection North City, pushing back against the Dark Realm's oppressive pressure.

Suddenly, the sky twisted, and six figures sped toward Rejection North City at unimaginable speed, followed by masses of troops.

When these experts joined Li Tian, Xiao Deyi's face brightened, the earlier gloom swept away.

Their own experts had arrived, and the situation was stable; no longer did Xiao Deyi stand alone at Broken North City, a solitary tenth-grade facing three eleventh-grade and thirteen tenth-grade enemies, bereft of safety.

Now, everything was different—Li Tian, an eleventh-grade human expert, had arrived, accompanied by six tenth-grade Martial Emperors. Though they were still outnumbered, at least he was no longer fighting alone.

...

Yang Fan stood some distance from the central city wall, but Li Tian's towering blade light was so dazzling it could not be missed.

Yang Fan was filled with awe; he never expected his nominal master to be so formidable. Such power surely placed him above the tenth grade—perhaps even the eleventh. Indeed, when the enemy's energy swept past earlier, Yang Fan had felt as insignificant as an ant. Now that Li Tian had arrived, that feeling vanished completely.

Turning back, he saw Li Tian in white robes, a vision of an immortal descended to the mortal world. If not for the surrounding devastation, such a figure would be most at home amidst beautiful mountains and waters.