The aftershocks were spreading.
Just as the Archduke had said.
The fragment wailed and trembled. Caught between the opposing pulls of two giants, cracks split across it, yet it somehow maintained its stability—though it was now the focus of both sides' struggle, it had strangely become a safety valve keeping them from erupting into total conflict.
Once the chessboard shattered, nothing would remain but all-out war.
Neither the Continuance Institute nor the Archduke wanted this gamble to end so hastily.
Yet within the fragment, blazing light surged.
The tide of destruction continued to spread.
Devouring everything.
Wastelands, earth, oceans, hills, burrows... from the heavens above to the Yellow Springs below, this mournful fall reached everywhere.
Whether Hell or the Present Realm, all were shrouded in the same destruction.
Before the remnants of the Russian Union, countless barriers rose and fell beneath the torrent's assault. Cracks split through the walls, but new iron ramparts unfolded once more before the Holy Temple Knights.
Within the raging current, the massive fortress was like a small boat amid wind and waves. In the violent upheaval, everyone lay prone on the ground, trembling as they raised their heads to stare at the barriers that kept cracking apart.
Farther away were outposts gradually going out like candles in the wind, along with temples and buildings swept into the torrent and reduced completely to ash...
More, more things were vanishing.
For one brief instant, Huai Shi thought he was truly going to die this time.
Yet the blazing light of destruction did not swallow him in an instant.
In that fleeting moment, he only had time to see a figure blocking his path. The aged woman spread her ten arms, gradually peeling away amid the gale and blazing light.
But when she turned back one last time,