Everyone's heart tightened, their gazes instantly drawn by her fingertip to converge on the center of that vortex of destruction.
Atop the mountain, where blazing red magma and scalding molten metal intertwined and gushed, a dazzling speck of golden light suddenly tore through the thick smoke and flames. Like a scrap of metal flung from a furnace by immense force, or a golden meteor streaking against the sky, it flew out.
It was the Level 9 Invincible Shield Chen Ping had activated!
Its light flickered violently under the battering of chaotic energy currents and dense metal fragments, yet not a single crack appeared as it protected Chen Ping and was blasted out of the explosion's central zone.
After all, this Invincible Shield was a treasure theoretically capable of withstanding even a blow from a god. Even though Metal Storm, a Level 9 Fixed-Installation Shell, was more destructive in this environment than an ordinary Level 9 Fixed-Installation Shell, it still could not harm Chen Ping in the slightest.
Of course, the fact that the explosion's terrifying power could not harm the shield within the Invincible Shield did not mean Chen Ping was uninjured.
Through the translucent golden barrier, everyone clearly saw Chen Ping curled up inside, his eyes rolled back and blood streaming from a gash in his forehead.
Clearly, the instant the shell's shock wave blasted the Invincible Shield away, the tremendous acceleration had slammed his head against its inner wall. It was this lethal collision that had rendered him completely unconscious.
Caught in the explosion's aftershocks, the shield traced a high parabola in an utterly ungainly, uncontrolled flight.
First, it shot upward to an altitude of a thousand meters, briefly lingering beneath a sky stained dark red by smoke and flames. Then it traced a parabola toward the Star