Crack—boom!
As though a god had torn open a boundless icefield in the Void, the Burden Bearer's colossal bone claws plunged into the Main Tower's outer wall!
The instant his claws tightened, vast sheets of jade-like crystal armor burst outward like shattered porcelain. The core supports beneath lay exposed; millions of biomechanical tendons snapped with thunderous cracks, and an entire side of the tower collapsed inward under his sheer divine strength, leaving a pit too deep to see the bottom!
Hum—!
The Main Tower's internal defense array was driven to the brink of overload.
Countless destructive crystal lances, thick as heavenly swords, shot from the ruins. A storm of searing beams slammed into the Burden Bearer's Bone Shields!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Amid the blinding flames, a shield over a thousand meters thick along the Burden Bearer's neck lost more than half its edges. Scalding bone dust swirled through the high-energy storm. Yet the ancient being who had survived since the God War did not even blink. His twelve majestic shields locked inward, and the giant claws gripping the tower did not retreat. With a roar of muscle, they drove another layer deeper, more ruthless and resolute than before!
Below, rows of supporting legs rooted themselves in the ground, sheltering the Divine Body's wounded surface beneath bone armor.
Not one more drop of Father God's blood would be taken!
Deep within the Main Tower, the cracks across the Architect's pallid face twisted and spasmed uncontrollably.
It pressed a trembling crystal palm to the console, trying to summon counterattacks from the outlying nests. But the only responses were silence, shrill alarms announcing fallen fortresses, and the raging clamor of the Fourth Calamity.
One component went dark.
A second component went dark.
Within seconds, the once-radiant control matrix dimmed piece by piece, until