A tremendous boom erupted without warning in the Underground Base, tearing apart its former tranquility.
The deafening blast swept through the underground chambers with a powerful shock wave, and all of Illustrious Virtue Hall began to shudder in agony.
A Level 7 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell had slipped past the guards' inspections, been brought into the Underground Base, and been brazenly detonated.
Or perhaps the guards had died before they even had a chance to inspect it.
Fixed Soul Cannon Shells were so powerful that their manufacture and research had to take place in special testing areas reinforced with multiple layers of protection. Fortunately, Illustrious Virtue Hall's internal defenses were exceptionally strong, and several additional defensive layers had been installed after the Body Sect's last attack. A single Level 7 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell was still far from enough to destroy the entire Underground Base.
However, the culprit who detonated this shell seemed intimately familiar with Illustrious Virtue Hall's layout. They had deliberately chosen a poorly defended weak point, displaying the terrifying destructive power of fixed-installation soul tools almost to perfection.
Compared with the Body Sect's assault from outside, this direct detonation at an internal weak point had caused even greater destruction.
These were unusual times, and most of Illustrious Virtue Hall's senior researchers and students were away from the Underground Base. Among those who remained, however, only a tiny handful had sensed the danger and activated Invincible Shields at the instant of the explosion. Most of those absorbed in their work had been reduced to ash in a heartbeat.
Scattered metal fragments clattered together in a piercing cacophony. The scene of devastation was every bit as horrific as the aftermath of the Body Sect's attack years ago, if not worse.
There was less blatant bloodshed, but more acrid smoke.