Star Dou Continent.
The imperial palace.
Dai Tianling slumped in his chair, his eyes bloodshot. Below him, every minister knelt on the floor, panicked and pale.
"Your Majesty! The surrounding towns have already fallen, and the Holy Spirit Cult is about to attack the imperial capital! We must leave!"
Dai Tianling stared blankly at those below him and murmured, "Star Dou, my Star Dou, to think it would perish in my hands..."
"I have failed my ancestors!"
Suddenly, Dai Tianling sprang from his throne and staggered over to the minister of foreign affairs. "R-right! Shrek-have Shrek's reinforcements arrived?"
"Y-your Majesty, not yet. There have been major developments within the Federation again recently. I suspect they have been held back by the Federation and have no time to spare for Star Dou..."
"Hahaha... hahahahaha!" Dai Tianling's knees buckled, and he fell to the floor, laughing madly. "Good, good, good! Heaven would see my Star Dou perish... hahahahahaha!"
He threw back his head and howled, utterly unaware that tears already covered his face. "Hatred... such hatred. I hate the Tang Sect for abandoning its ally, and I hate the Federation for driving me to my death..."
"In the end... it all became an illusion..."
"All for nothing..."
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"
Amid the ministers' calls, Dai Tianling slowly rose, his eyes red, yet carrying a trace of resolve to face death as though returning home.
"My ministers."
"The imperial capital has endured more than fifty large-scale wars. Their rights and wrongs, their twists and turns, are difficult to recount, but historians have all noted that it was upon this ancient battlefield that the rise and fall of so many dynasties was decided, one after another."
"That is why, since ancient times, there has been talk of claiming the cauldrons of sovereignty in Star Dou."
"I do not understand."
"Everyone is discussing Xiang Yu's entrapment at Gaixia, as though this ancient battlefield of Star Dou has doomed us to far more peril than fortune."
"Twenty years ago, I embarked upon my imperial path from Star Dou and began strengthening central authority. The begonia leaf was thus brought under a single rule. Wherever I and my army went, the people welcomed us wholeheartedly. Truly, the timing favored us in every way!"
"That scene of exuberant life, of all things surging forth, remains before my eyes. Twenty years later, could this place truly have become my burial ground?"
"However you look at it, His Eminence En Ci is still here, and Monster Academy is still here."
"The advantage is mine!"
"Your Majesty is most discerning!"
Telegram from Star Dou:
Esteemed Federation Council Chair, I, Dai Tianling, request your assistance. I implore the Federation to send troops into our territory so that we may strike down the Holy Spirit Cult together!
The blood-red setting sun filtered through the murky, sinister fog and fell upon the shattered land of Star Dou. No trace of ordinary life remained in the world, only boundless suffering and despair.
Among the broken walls and ruins strewn everywhere, there was no longer any sign of the passersby who had once laughed and hurried along, or the common folk who had worked and tilled the fields.
The once-bustling streets and lanes of villages and towns were now piled with bodies sprawled every which way. The old, the weak, women and children, young and able-bodied commoners-none had been spared.
Some lay tightly curled beneath collapsed roof beams, their hands shielding their heads in vain, their clothes torn apart by sinister power, flesh peeled back, their breathing long since stopped; some lay faceup in bloody mud, their eyes wide open and pupils hollow, the terror that had never left them even in death frozen in their eyes, dried tears of blood clinging to their sallow cheeks; countless other broken, dismembered bodies mingled with the rubble and shattered tiles, their features impossible to distinguish, leaving only dark-red blood soaking the earth, its foul stench piercing to the bone.
Those fortunate enough to survive the Holy Spirit Cult's slaughter were all barely clinging to life, no different from walking corpses.
The surviving children were the most glaring hollows in the world. Little ones of no more than five or six wore clothes tattered like loose wadding, their bare hands and feet covered in blood and dust, their tiny bodies trembling.
They had lost all their loved ones. Crouching beside their parents' cold bodies, they dared not cry aloud and could only bite their lips hard, their frail shoulders shaking ceaselessly. Their clear eyes brimmed with deathly silence, no longer holding any of the vitality and innocence children should have.
Some children clung to loved ones who had long since grown cold, their little hands stroking stiff cheeks again and again as they called softly over and over. Only the cold, blood-reeking wind howling past answered them.
The surviving women sat collapsed amid the ruins, their hair disheveled and faces haggard.
Some held infants who had long since stopped breathing, their fingertips brushing gently over their children's tender little faces. Their tears had long since run dry, leaving only numb emptiness, and they could not make even the slightest sound of a sob; others gazed at the devastation where every member of their family had perished and collapsed to the ground, utterly powerless, letting bloody mud stain their clothes. Every hope they had held in this life had been shattered in this catastrophe.
Across the entire land, there was no laughter, no birdsong. The only sounds were intermittent, faint breaths as tenuous as gossamer, and the cold wind's sobbing as it passed through the ruined walls.
No one buried the dead, no one helped the wounded, and no one lit cooking fires. The living were trapped in boundless despair, with nothing to lean on in life and nowhere to return to in death.
Star Dou Continent, once thriving with the bustle of everyday life, where countless people had lived in peace, had utterly become a purgatory for the living and a homeland for departed souls. Across a thousand miles of territory, the bereaved cried everywhere, and every inch lay steeped in sorrow.
"How tragic... how tragic..."
As the Federation's generals set foot on Star Dou Continent, Qian Gu Fenfeng let out a lament filled with sorrow for the world and pity for its people.
"The Demon Empress... she is unworthy of being born human!"
As he spoke, he helped up a person wandering the roadside. "Child, do not be afraid. I, Qian Gu Fenfeng, am here. Our Sun Moon Federation is here. We will surely restore a bright and clear world to you!"
"The Demon Empress... has already given herself cause to die!"
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