Two crimson beams, so blinding they nearly tore through the clouds, thundered from the cannon muzzles of the Federation's strategic fortress suspended above the Star Luo Continent.
The two God-Slaying Level Fixed Soul Cannon Shells-Heaven-Destroying Earth-Destroying and Heaven-Swallowing Earth-Devouring-trailed flaming tails that burned across ten thousand miles, pierced the atmosphere, and smashed into the heartland of the Star Luo Continent in an instant.
The first explosion brought no ordinary roar. First, the entire land abruptly sank, and a ring of dark-purple destructive shock waves spread violently outward from the point of impact.
Mountains crumbled like clay sculptures, rivers vaporized in an instant, and scalding waves of soul power swept across a thousand miles. The savage destructive force of Heaven-Destroying Earth-Destroying tore through the rock strata, splitting the earth into bottomless ravines from which magma surged.
Immediately afterward, Heaven-Swallowing Earth-Devouring detonated. A pitch-black devouring field suddenly unfurled, dragging all the surrounding earth, stones, trees, and ruined walls inward and annihilating them, while fine, spiderweb-like cracks rippled through space.
The instant the catastrophe descended, the people nearby did not even have time to cry out.
The common people, who were clearing rubble and barely scraping by, first caught sight of that apocalyptic blaze on the horizon. The earth immediately shook violently, the beams and pillars of houses snapped with sharp cracks, and roof tiles fell like rain.
Panic swept through the streets and alleys like a plague in an instant. Men froze where they stood, staring at the black-and-red columns of smoke shooting into the distant sky, the blood in their bodies all but frozen; women instinctively clutched their children tightly to their chests, covering their terrified, screaming mouths as tears streamed down uncontrollably. Some collapsed beside the streets, their legs weak, even their strength to flee drained away by despair; others fled, screaming, yet did not know where to run-within ten thousand miles, nowhere lay beyond the lingering might of these God-Slaying Level soul weapons.
The guerrilla fighters gazed at that column of destructive smoke, their hands trembling around their Soul Tool Guns, the grief and fury filling their hearts turning into a helpless chill. Villagers in distant settlements fell to their knees, some wailing in prayer, others staring numbly at the overturned mountains and rivers.
There were no horns, no warning.
Two God-Slaying shells fell, and despair swallowed the entire Star Luo Continent like an ocean tide. Streams of refugees fled aimlessly into the distance, their wails, screams, and broken sobs mingling into a heavy dirge upon the shaking earth.
The shock waves swept through village after village and town after town, carrying scorching gales with them. Shattered stones flew everywhere, and everyone clearly realized that a calamity that would swallow them whole had already fallen upon their heads.
They could only curl up, could only cling to one another, could only futilely cover their children's eyes and passively await the catastrophe's arrival. Their anger had nowhere to go, their pleas went unheard, and fate had not asked their wishes before destruction arrived on schedule. That helplessness, which pierced deep into the marrow, shrouded every ordinary life along with the rolling heat waves.
"Why... why?"
"Why is fate so unfair to me?!"
He knew-he, Yu Xiaogang, knew-that he could not stop this disaster, just as he could not stop the destruction of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
Even if he ran with all his strength, before that destructive power capable of leveling a thousand miles of mountains and rivers, he was no more than a speck of dust that the heat waves would scatter.
Tears welled up without warning, yet he could not let out a loud wail, only broken, choking gasps.
He clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms, but that pain did nothing to suppress the despair spreading through his heart. Fury, fear, and unwillingness all clogged his throat at once, yet he could do nothing. He could neither stop the cannon fire descending from the sky nor avenge his family anymore.
The wind drew steadily nearer, carrying a scorching breath, and broken stones rolled along the streets. The boy slowly sank amid the shattered rubble, gazing into the distance at that rising mushroom cloud of destruction that blotted out the daylight.
All his hopes, every thought of living on, cooled little by little at that moment. He could only watch helplessly and quietly await the catastrophe's arrival before him, so insignificant that he had never possessed even the slightest room to resist.
He had fled all the way from the Federation to Star Dou, and the bitterness of that journey defied telling.
It was precisely the longing for revenge deep in his heart that had sustained him as he pressed onward.
All of this was a joke.
Human strength had its limits.
Yu Xiaogang stared hollowly at the dawn on the horizon. He had once believed it was the first light of victory.
It could truly be said:
Tears choked his mournful cries, buried amid the rubble,
His body, like frail grass, left to the wind's buffeting.
He gazed until his eyes failed-where were his kin and friends?
An armful of desolation faced the evening smoke.
"Federation Television Station · Star Luo Continent New Year bulletin:
Today is the first day of the first month of the Federation calendar. The new year has arrived, and we hereby wish all the people of the continent joy with their families and happy reunions."
"Federation disaster relief troops are currently settling displaced people, allocating supplies, making emergency road repairs, and advancing postwar reconstruction across the region. The pain remains, but the hope of survival has never been extinguished.
The Federation wishes the people of the Star Luo Empire strength to endure their suffering and patiently await peace's return to their mountains and rivers.
Reported by the Federation Television Station."
"Such delicious... such delicious blood food!"
The Ghost Emperor looked at the devastation before him. "That Qian Gu Fenfeng really ought to serve as a supreme elder of the Holy Spirit Cult." With that, he began slaughtering the surviving people.
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