Great Defeat of the Allied Army

Outside the perimeter of the encampment, signs of disturbed earth grew increasingly dense.

Beneath one of the watchtowers, the ground suddenly collapsed, revealing a hole half a person wide.

A black shadow swept silently out of the hole, moving with such speed that the sentry on the tower remained completely unaware.

The shadow crawled along the ground, scaled the wooden ladder of the watchtower, covered the sentry's mouth with one hand, and drew a dagger across the side of his neck with the other.

The sentry's body twitched twice before slumping down limply.

The shadow gently propped the corpse against the tower pillar; from a distance, the sentry merely looked as if he were standing there asleep.

This scene played out simultaneously at over a dozen watchtowers around the camp's perimeter.

Some sentries had their throats slit, others had their necks snapped, and some were struck in the back of the head by silver needles, losing consciousness without even a groan.

The outer eyes and ears had been cleared.

On the ground, those collapsed holes grew larger and larger.

First the size of a fist, then the size of a bowl, and finally expanding enough for a person to crawl through.

One after another, black shadows emerged from the holes in a steady stream, vanishing silently into the encampment.

Their objectives varied.

Some headed straight for the camp gates, preparing to open them from the inside to receive the Heavenly Strategy Army waiting outside.

Some crept toward the grain and supply stores, preparing to set them ablaze.

More still drew their weapons and crept toward the direction of the central command tent.

Their target was the high-ranking generals of the coalition.

Inside the central command tent, the council had not yet concluded.

"How much longer can the grain supplies last?" Helge asked.

"Over half a month," Kundera replied. "The supplies brought by Balaque are sufficient; they are enough to feed an army of four hundred and fifty thousand for twenty days."

Helge nodded. "That is enough. Within half a month, Heaven Dou City will surely fall."

Before his words had even faded—

A muffled sound suddenly came from outside the tent.

The noise was not loud, but it was extremely heavy, as if something were rolling beneath the earth.

Immediately following, the ground began to tremble slightly, and the teacups on the table swayed, emitting a faint clinking sound.

Helge's expression changed abruptly. "Underground—!"

He stood up violently, his level eighty-three Soul Douluo soul power erupting to its full extent as his martial soul manifested behind him.

But his reaction was still half a beat too slow.

The ground in the very center of the central command tent exploded.

Gravel, dirt, and fragments of tent fabric flew in all directions.

A pitch-black steel behemoth burst forth from the earth.

Its torso unfolded in mid-air, its curled form instantly stretching into a giant steel drill wheel over ten meters in diameter.

The spiral drill rotated at high speed, the wind pressure it generated shredding the surrounding tables, chairs, maps, and candlesticks.

BOOM—!

A deafening roar shook the entire coalition camp.

The central command tent was reduced to nothing in an instant, the shattered fabric and wooden frames blown away to crash into the surrounding tents.

The generals inside were knocked to the ground by the shockwave; several were struck in the head by flying debris, blood streaming down their faces.

Earth-Breaking Three landed steadily, its pitch-black scales shimmering with a cold, eerie light in the firelight.

Its drill slowly came to a halt, and its eight-segmented torso reconfigured, returning to the form of that steel behemoth that made city defenses tremble.

Xiaomeng leaped down from its back, the Qiuli Sword unsheathed.

The cold, clear sword light carved a silver-white arc through the night sky.

An ink-wash-colored domain erupted from her as the center—Colorless World.

Within a hundred-meter radius, the speed of all movement plummeted by ninety percent.

Helge's face turned deathly pale.

His martial soul had barely manifested before it was suppressed by the domain, nearly freezing in place.

He desperately circulated his soul power, attempting to break free, but it was useless.

The domain felt like an invisible mountain pressing down on him, making even the act of lifting an arm require his full strength.

He did not even see Xiaomeng's movement.

A flash of sword light struck the back of his head.

Helge's vision went black, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.

The guards nearby could barely move within the Colorless World domain, forced to watch helplessly as their marshal collapsed to the ground.

Earth-Breaking Three did not remain idle.

It spun violently in place, its eight-segmented torso shifting once more to curl into a rolling wheel of slaughter.

The high-speed rotating blades shredded the generals and guards who failed to flee in time.

The camp surrounding the central command tent instantly transformed into an Asura field.

As the Colorless World faded away.

The nobles inside the tent shrieked and scattered in every direction.

Xue Ye was shielded by his guards as he rushed toward the tent exit, while Kundera retreated desperately, surrounded by his personal retinue.

However, a more terrifying turn of events unfolded—

"Ah—!"

A scream erupted from the side of the tent.

A certain count was drawing his sword to command the defense when his own personal soldier stabbed a blade through his lower back.

The count's eyes widened in disbelief as he turned, only to see a face devoid of expression.

"You... you..."

The soldier withdrew the blade and struck again, slashing the count across the neck.

The count fell, blood spraying three feet high.

"The guards have turned traitor—!"

"Watch out for those beside you!"

The tent erupted into total chaos.

The nobles could no longer distinguish friend from foe; some drew blades on their comrades, some scrambled for the exits, and others fell to their knees to beg for mercy.

In the confusion, two more nobles had their throats slit from behind by their own guards.

Xue Ye was shoved out of the tent by his desperate guards, and as he looked back, he saw Kundera being chased and hacked at by a guard wielding a blade.

It was only because a personal bodyguard died blocking a strike that he managed to escape in such a wretched state.

"Go! Run!" Kundera's face was ashen as he sprinted toward the edge of the camp, flanked by his guards.

Xue Ye, his expression filled with terror, fled in the opposite direction.

At that moment, the ink-wash domain expanded once more.

Under a flash of sword light, both Xue Ye and Kundera rolled their eyes back and collapsed into unconsciousness.

The surrounding nobles were all slaughtered without exception.

There was no use in letting vermin survive.

Outside the tents, the various camps of the Noble Allied Army detonated simultaneously.

Boom! Boom! Boom—

Chain explosions sent flames soaring, painting half the night sky red.

In the scout camp, an assassin decapitated the deputy commander and stood at the tent entrance, holding the head aloft while shouting:

"The Heavenly Strategy Army has broken through! The marshal is dead! Run!"

Within the right flank of the Noble Allied Army, dozens of assassins hidden in various tents struck at once.

Explosions rang out one after another, fires broke out everywhere, and thick smoke billowed into the air.

Soldiers jolted awake from their sleep, only to emerge from their tents into a scene of hell.

The direction of the central command was ablaze, and the supply camp was engulfed in roaring flames.

People were shouting that the "Heavenly Strategy Army has broken through."

"The marshal is dead."

"The central command tent has been blown up."

No one knew which pieces of information were true.

No one knew if the person standing next to them was a comrade or an assassin.

Panic spread like a plague.

The sound of a flute descended from the sky.

Snow Maiden rode the Ice Crystal Phoenix, soaring five hundred meters directly above the allied camp.

The fifty-thousand-year-old Ice Crystal Phoenix had a wingspan exceeding fifteen meters; its body was icy blue, and fine ice crystals drifted from its wings, making it look like a goddess of snow and ice descending in the night.

With the Blue Sea Tide-Rising Flute pressed to her lips, she closed her eyes and blew the first note.

Low-level spirit masters and ordinary soldiers began to feel dizzy, their heartbeats accelerating.

Some clutched their heads and rolled on the ground, some began to babble incoherently, and some even hacked madly at their own comrades.

The sound of the flute was laced with false commands, echoing in everyone's ears like the whispers of demons.

"Retreat! Retreat to the north!"

"The Heavenly Strategy Army is attacking from the south!"

"Xue Ye has already fled!"

The soldiers completely lost their ability to judge.

They did not know where the enemy was, where to run, or whether those beside them were friend or foe.

Fear dominated everything.

The long-range firepower of the Heavenly Strategy Army arrived one after another.

Three kilometers away, hundreds of Hundred-Battle City-Breaking Crossbows fired simultaneously.

Giant crossbow bolts carrying high-explosive warheads tore through the night sky, trailing orange-red exhaust flames, and landed precisely on the coalition's flank encampment.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The explosions tore the camp fences into fragments, and flames soared into the sky.

Each high-explosive shell covered a radius of dozens of meters, swallowing tents, supply wagons, and soldiers alike.

In the mountain forest to the right of the coalition, twenty thousand heavy cavalry on Horned Scale Horse were ready and waiting.

The three thousand cavalry in the front row charged out first, raised their heavy crossbows at a distance of one thousand meters, and fired in a simultaneous volley.

Twang, twang, twang, twang...

Crossbow bolts poured down like a torrential rain.

The noble private armies on the coalition's left flank had not yet recovered from the explosions when they were pierced through their armor by the bolts, falling in swathes as their corpses piled into mounds.

The three thousand cavalry advanced to a distance of four hundred meters and quickly switched to the Zhuge Repeating Crossbow.

Thousands of Zhuge Repeating Crossbows pulled their triggers at once, each firing sixteen bolts in a single volley.

Tens of thousands of arrows wove a net of death in the air, descending overwhelmingly upon the heads of the retreating coalition soldiers.

In the first round, the front line of retreating soldiers fell in swathes.

In the second round, the reserves attempting to regroup were pierced through.

After three volleys, the coalition vanguard completely vanished.

The ground was densely packed with crossbow bolts, corpses were piled into mountains, and blood flowed like a river.

After closing in on the enemy, they stowed their crossbows and drew three-zhang-long refined steel halberds.

The cavalry formed a wedge formation, thrusting straight into the heart of the enemy army.

The Horned Scale Horse sprinted at full speed, the halberds using the momentum of the horses to pierce through the chests of the enemies and toss their corpses into the air.

They charged through without stopping or lingering, turning around to charge and slaughter again.

The regular cavalry flanked from both sides, cutting the scattered coalition forces into several small segments.

Once the small groups of enemy troops were surrounded, the cavalry used their halberds to impale, their sabers to hack, and their iron hammers to crush, swiftly annihilating them.

This was a one-sided massacre.

Seeing that black torrent of steel crushing toward them, the last of the coalition soldiers' courage completely dissipated.

Some threw down their weapons and turned to run, some knelt to surrender, and some huddled on the ground, shivering while clutching their heads.

The army of four hundred and fifty thousand, under the pincer attack from inside and out, completely collapsed in less than two hours.

The marshals and commanders were all captured.

A large number of nobles were slaughtered!

The flames soaring outside Heaven Dou City also attracted the attention of many secret agents.

They all headed there in shock and uncertainty to explore the information.

Yet, they were followed by personnel from the Net, who played the role of the oriole behind the mantis, knocking them unconscious with a single blow and dragging them away.