A few dozen kilometers outside the city.
Sangis stood on a crooked boulder dug out of the ground, holding one hand on the trunk of a crooked-necked tree next to it, and holding his collar with the other hand.
Her carriage had stopped behind her, and the driver was still in the carriage. His face was pale and his hands were still shaking, but at least he didn't run away.
Surrounded by residents who had been evacuated from Valerilus City, dense crowds crowded into the open spaces on both sides of the official road.
Some people were crying, some were talking in low voices, and some were holding their children and looking up at the city in the distance that was covered with black tentacles, their faces expressionless.
Her lips pursed into a thin line.
Just now, those black tentacles growing out of the palace suddenly disappeared. Instead of slowly retracting, they all retracted into the ground in an instant as if they were drawn away by something.
The residents of the city thought the disaster was over. Some were cheering, some were hugging, and some were kneeling on the ground to pray. Then the sky changed color.
It didn't change slowly. It was like someone poured a bucket of paint on the sky. Starting from the eastern skyline, a dark red light band spread quickly, dyeing the entire sky an ominous color, like solidified blood.
Those disappeared black tentacles emerged from the ground again, more numerous, thicker, and longer than before.
They burst out of the ground at the same time from every corner of the city, overturning buildings, tearing apart roads, and engulfing those who had not had time to escape.
Even from such a long distance, Sangis could feel the ground shaking.
That kind of shaking was not the kind of continuous shaking that makes one stand unsteady like an earthquake, but a heartbeat-like pulsation produced when something huge hit the ground in the distance.
The city was soon covered by tentacles, and those once glorious buildings - palaces, churches, and parliament halls, entangled by black tentacles, were like ancient trees swallowed up by vines, disappearing from sight little by little.
In the end, even the tallest spire of the bell tower was swallowed up. The copper statue on the spire reflected the moonlight at the last moment, and then was engulfed in black and disappeared.
"What... is that?" the coachman's voice came from the front, not loud, as if he was asking himself.
Nuoyaji was sitting in the carriage, lifting the curtain, looking at the city that was being engulfed in black, and was stunned. His pupils shrank, his breathing stagnated, and his fingers unconsciously tightened on the fabric of the curtain.
How is that possible? His mind was frantically reviewing the memories of his previous life. In his previous life, he saw that thing for the first time more than ten years later.
At that time, the empire had been destroyed, Civilization had collapsed, and humans were struggling to survive in the cracks between demons and monsters.
On the way to escape, he had seen the outline of that thing from a distance, the Evil God that dragged the entire continent into the abyss, destroyed several kingdoms, and turned countless creatures into dust, the real culprit of the destruction of the world.
It shouldn't appear here, it shouldn't appear at this point in time.
According to his memory, Evil God was not too strong when it first appeared.
Apart from being more difficult to kill and having more creatures, it is not very aggressive.
It was only later that he gradually became unstoppable, after defeating ancient beings one after another and absorbing their energy.
At this point in time, He should still be in the "development stage", and his strength is probably at the level that several gods can suppress him together.
But now - Nuoyaji looked at the city that was completely engulfed by black tentacles, and looked at the black-red light that covered the entire sky.
His strength is far stronger than the same period in his previous life.
This is not right.
Nuoyaji's pupils shrank, by the way, where are the gods?
Karelia Empire, Imperial City Starry Vault City.
Tower Mage King Medici stood on the edge of the pit, with hundreds of Tower Mage Corps members behind him.
They were wearing uniform white robes, holding staffs, and the mage badges on their chests glowed light blue in the moonlight.
Their expressions varied, some were calm, some were nervous, some were pale, but no one backed away.
Most of the residents of the empire have been evacuated outside the city, and only they and the monsters who stood up from the black matter are left in this area.
The black substance covered most of the pit's ground, like a thick, slowly creeping swamp.
Then, from the surface of the swamp, packages began to bulge. Those packages rose up from the swamp, getting higher and higher, and becoming more and more bulging, as if something was pushing up hard from below.
Then they cracked - black, viscous liquid gushes out from the cracks, and in the center of the liquid stand black, humanoid figures covered with purple crystals. One, two...
They stood up from the swamp and shook their bodies, as if they were adapting to this strange world.
Then they raised their smooth, faceless faces with only a triangular amethyst crystal, and looked at the mages at the edge of the pit.
"What... is that?" A young mage couldn't help but ask.
Medici's face was stern. His brows were frowned tightly and his lips were pursed into a line, but his hand was steady and the dark blue light at the tip of the staff was stable.
"Don't be afraid." His voice was not loud, but his calmness, which he had trained in Tower Mage Corps for decades and could be heard by everyone without the need for amplification magic, calmed the restless hearts of the young mages behind him. "Use your magic to stop these monsters!"
No one hesitated, no one stepped back. Hundreds of mages raised their staffs at the same time and started chanting at the same time.
The air was filled with fluctuations of magic power, and lights of various colors lit up from the tip of the staff, illuminating the entire night sky as if it were daytime.
Some mages cast defensive spells, erecting walls of light on the edges of the pits to block the spread of black matter. Some mages used offensive spells, using fireballs, thunder and lightning, and beams of light to attack the black monsters crawling toward the edges of the pits from different directions at the same time.
Some are auxiliary spells that provide shields, acceleration, and strength increases to companions.
Although they usually have some conflicts due to different camps, and the reformists and conservatives quarrel in the Grand Council, but now, behind them are the people of the empire, and they must unite at this time!
United Kingdom of Victoria, West Sea Iron Anchor Port.
Marshal Reinhardt stood on the high ground at the port, with thousands of soldiers from the Third Army behind him.
Their guns were already aimed at the black material rising from the sea.
The black material surged up from the bottom of the sea, spreading a thick, rolling black liquid layer on the sea surface.
From the black liquid layer, huge monsters comparable in size to Archon Mech began to emerge.
Their bodies seem to be pieced together from countless pieces of broken armor, with sharp edges and corners, and their joints are inlaid with purple crystals.
They climbed up from the sea, clasped their thick limbs on the beach, and pushed inland step by step.
"All of them!" Reinhardt's voice spread throughout the entire position through amplification magic, "The enemy is approaching! Get ready for battle! Align your artillery to the three o'clock direction! Fire!"
Dozens of artillery fired at the same time. The muzzle flashes lit up the night sky, and the shells drew arcs in the black screen and landed in the ranks of the black monsters.
The explosion was deafening, and the shock wave lifted the black material on the sea several meters high. The smoke cleared, and the monsters were still moving forward.
There were a few more cracks on their bodies, and purple liquid seeped out from the cracks, but their speed did not slow down and their pace was not chaotic.
They are still moving forward.
Reinhardt's face was very serious. "Continue."
Kingdom of Shengjunxi, southeastern border.
Black reptiles emerged from the ground. Not one or two, nor a hundred or two hundred, but a dense, tide-like swarm of black insects that covered the entire horizon.
They are not big in size, the smallest ones are only as long as a human arm, and the largest ones are no more than the size of a horse.
But there were so many of them that when the soldiers stood on the city wall and looked down, they would feel that the whole land was moving.
There were so many arrows and stones fired from the city wall that they were just a drop in the bucket in front of the insect swarm.
A reptile quickly climbed up the city wall, its six curved, barbed legs dug into the stone crevices, and its body quickly climbed up the vertical wall like a gecko.
Its mouth is round, with several rings of fine, needle-like teeth growing inward.
A young soldier raised his bow and arrow and shot an arrow at the reptile's head.
The arrow hit its head, bounced off its carapace, tilted to the side, and fell. The reptile didn't even pause and continued to climb up.
The soldier shot another arrow, but it bounced away again. His hands were shaking, not because of fear, but because of weakness.
He didn't know what else he could do or what weapons he could use to deal with these monsters.
Other soldiers on the city wall were doing the same thing, shooting arrows and throwing stones, but the number of those reptiles did not decrease. The space on the city wall became more and more crowded, and the defense line was about to be unable to hold up.
"Has the Empire's support arrived?"
"How is that possible! No matter how fast it is, it will take several hours to arrive!"
"What should we do!"
The reptiles were getting closer and closer. The soldiers could already see the fine, wriggling teeth in their mouths.
Then--there was light.
Silver light fell from the sky, piercing the black sky like a meteor, dragging a long, silver-white tail flame, falling straight from the sky, and smashing into the center of the insect swarm.
Boom - The silver ball of light exploded on the ground, and the shock wave spread from the point of impact to all directions, knocking away all the reptiles within a radius of tens of meters.
Those reptiles that were hit head-on by the shock wave were shattered before they flew out, with black carapace fragments and dark purple blood flying in the air, like a sudden, black, foul-smelling rainstorm.
The smoke slowly dissipated.
In the center of the swarm of insects, in the deep, smoking pit blasted by the silver ball of light, a white horse jumped up from the pit.
Its mane glowed silvery white in the moonlight, and its hooves drew an arc in mid-air. When it landed, it crushed the head of a reptile that jumped from the side and trampled its body into the soil.
The knight's arm was raised, and the silver-white spear drew an arc in the night sky.
The light on the tip of the gun was like a ignited star, shining out of the darkness and illuminating the surrounding night sky.
Holy Radiance Knight--Pegasus, a legendary strongman who has been famous for a long time.
The silver-white figure rushed into the black insect swarm. Every time the spear thrust out, a reptile's body would be penetrated; every time the war horse collided, several reptiles would be trampled to pieces.
Silver-white light lit up on his armor, dispersing the darkness within several meters of the surrounding area.
The four hooves of the war horse went from jogging to running fast, from fast to extremely fast, and rushed towards the reptiles that were still pouring out of the black material.
The silvery white light dragged out a long light trail behind him, like a meteor flying on the ground.
"Holy Radiance Knight!" Someone on the city wall recognized him, his voice filled with the ecstasy of surviving a disaster.
"Hold the city wall!" the commander's voice came!
The young soldier stared with his mouth open as the silver-white figure darted left and right in the black torrent, watching him cut down the monsters that had just made them despair like wheat.
The war spread across the land, from Karelia in the east to Saint Junxi in the west, from Vostok in the north to Victoria in the south, from the big cities with their names marked on the map to the small border villages that can't even be found on the map.
Civilization's borders are being compressed, frontiers are being bulldozed, and defense lines are being torn apart bit by bit...
Later people called it, "First World War".