"Fall back, fall back!!!"
Amid the scorching blast of heat, the badly wounded captain braced his shattered greatshield and roared.
But faster than him were the Steel Soldiers charging through the flames and burning winds. The immortal soldiers forged from alloy trampled through the fire and surged forward with a howl.
They crossed the corridor strewn with corpses.
In an instant, they were within arm's reach!
Then the iron hand opened, and the captain rose into the air as though weightless, pinned in place by the Soul Ability known as the Levitation Field.
Force-field manipulation.
It formed a narrow domain around the user and counterattacked all matter that entered it—including, but not limited to, high temperatures, bullets, and shockwaves.
Its nearly universal defensive power and terrifying suppression on the battlefield instantly blocked the torrential barrage of bullets, sending countless red-hot, warped shell casings silently falling to the ground.
Then, a shrill howl that tore through the air burst forth from behind the Steel Soldiers.
Swiftness for acceleration, explosions for destruction, Levitation Fields for defense, emotional impact for interference, metal deformation manipulation for constructing fortifications...
The Steel Soldiers needed no treatment. Until they were destroyed, they maintained precise and flawless coordination, advancing layer by layer, pressing deep into City Hall.
Defying the suppression of the ritual, they accelerated their assault once more—
But they soon lost themselves amid countless forks and branching paths.
Like a maze.
On the upper level, the Ascender maintaining the maze was already exhausted to the point of death.
"Hurry. I can't hold on much longer."
His skin kept splitting apart, while the maze matrix etched into it visibly contracted and dimmed.
"Three minutes will be enough... Where's Wild Grass?"
Ai Qing turned back to ask the engineer, "After all this time, there should be results by