Help, I'm Going to Be Killed! (5,000, First Update)

Just when everyone thought the incident in the Awak Domain had come to an end,

a natural disaster—or rather, a man-made calamity—descended.

The first thing to appear at the far end of the sky was natural Origin Matter gathering like a whirlpool. A visible spiritual energy field trembled as it surged together and rubbed against itself, spawning lightning across the heavens.

The destructive vortex of energy completely altered the surrounding weather—at high noon, the brilliant sunlight itself became exceedingly dim. Before that excessively dazzling sphere of light, even sunlight was scarcely any different from shadow.

And at the very center of that sphere, a deep-blue pillar of lightning that pierced heaven and earth slanted down toward the ruins of Avak Central Laboratory.

Buildings, forests, and hills shattered soundlessly before that surging destructive lightning. Ordinary structures without Origin Matter shields or related spiritual energy field defenses were no different from crackers beneath a hydraulic press when faced with an attack from a Fourth Energy Level powerhouse.

The lightning tore countless arcs through the sky, indiscriminately striking every target in that airspace. Its true target had already been swallowed by light and utterly destroyed.

There was not even a shockwave—everything collapsed beneath the sheer force of matter-shattering. What remained at the center of the Awak Domain was no longer Grand Duke Solin's secret laboratory, but a crimson-gold lake roiling with violent waves of magma.

Clearly, Blazing Flame Lands felt that it had been played for a fool by Grand Duke Solin and the Empire.

They had provided the technology and obtained the results, only to encounter an unforeseen accident when they were about to reap the harvest—Avak Laboratory had been completely destroyed. Not only had the final result of the Dead River Project been stolen, even the most valuable researchers, those who