A great battle was about to erupt.
From Dongyang City's side, countless Soul Guidance Rays tore across the sky. Fixed Soul Cannon Shells, each like a small sun, soared into the air and fell among the Sea Soul Beasts, tearing through their bodies and blasting them into chunks of flesh.
The Sea Soul Beasts refused to be outdone.
They unleashed a torrent of Soul Skills against Dongyang City's walls. Even the massive Soul Tool Shield formed by combining the city's linked Soul Tool positions reached its load limit within seconds under hundreds upon hundreds of long-range Soul Skill attacks.
After just three waves of attacks, the Soul Tool Shield was completely breached, and the linked Soul Tool positions shut down from the overload.
The Sea Soul Beasts suffered devastating losses under the Soul Tool attacks of Dongyang City's defenders.
On Dongyang City's side, the Sea Soul Beasts' seemingly endless long-range Soul Skills likewise left cries of anguish everywhere. A corpse lay every three steps along the walls, and countless defending soldiers were wiped out outright by powerful Soul Skills.
The stench of blood, death and slaughter soared into the heavens, staining the sky above Dongyang City an ominous shade of red.
Without anyone noticing, the domain of Red and White Colliding Calamities had already enveloped the entire battlefield.
This was the moment Ming Zhao had been waiting for. He needed a vast war to gather enough fresh flesh and souls to help his cultivation break through once more.
Because the Sea Soul Beasts had Lijing, a mermaid princess at the level of a two-hundred-thousand-year Ferocious Beast, Ming Zhao kept the disturbance to a minimum after deploying the domain of Red and White Colliding Calamities.
Amid the brutal siege, Soul Power fluctuations were in utter disorder, and Ming Zhao deliberately concealed his movements. As a result, even Lijing, a Mental Attribute Soul Beast at the Ferocious Beast realm, failed to detect his presence.
No one knew the Mermaid Clan's methods better than Li Ya, a mermaid princess with a golden bloodline. She actively interfered with Lijing's senses to help Ming Zhao, creating a perfect environment for him to reap his harvest.
Vast quantities of flesh and souls were sucked away and devoured in the shadows, where no one noticed.
Hidden in another corner, well away from the battle at the front, Ming Zhao wore a particularly bloody smile.
He had known it: a beast tide was the apocalypse for ants, but a feast for the strong.
On this brutal battlefield, a veritable meat grinder, countless humans and Soul Beasts died every second. After their deaths, everything from their physical flesh and Soul Power to their spiritual souls and resentment was, to Ming Zhao, the finest, most nourishing food of pure yin.
At this feast, Ming Zhao's hundred ghosts, who were reaping lives from the shadows, rapidly grew stronger at a rate visible to the naked eye.
The strength of the hundred ghosts had never been fixed.
It was affected not only by the strength they had possessed as living beings before death, but also by how they were nurtured afterward.
With the flesh supplied by this battle, all the hundred ghosts under Ming Zhao's command improved to varying degrees. Even the weakest now possessed the strength of a Soul Emperor.
Before this, the strength of Ming Zhao's hundred ghosts had varied wildly. The strongest ghost had come as a gift from Shrek and possessed Soul Saint-level cultivation, while the weakest had barely reached Soul Ancestor.
Now, he could summon a hundred-strong legion with strength at or above the Soul Emperor level at any time!
An undying, indestructible legion of ghosts!
And the battle had yet to end. As losses mounted on both sides, Dongyang City's forces and the Sea Soul Beasts alike had fought until their eyes turned red!
Her eyes bloodshot, Lijing joined forces with the hundred-thousand-year shrimp soldiers and crab generals to use the Sea Soul Beasts' traditional art of water control, summoning a wave nearly a hundred meters high to crash down on Dongyang City.
Standing atop the city wall, the lord of Dongyang City, his eyes already filled with despair, twisted his face and ordered the city's level-eight Fixed Soul Cannon Shell, comparable to a Titled Douluo's full-force strike, fired at Lijing.
Lijing felt that too many Sea Soul Beasts had died. The people of the Ice Sea should not have died so meaninglessly.
Soul Engineers were a strong counter to Soul Beasts.
There were many types of Soul Masters, but few possessed powerful long-range attack Soul Skills.
Soul Engineers, however, could pull out a multitude of long-range attack Soul Tools at will. They could also use Milk Bottles to assist themselves, reducing their consumption when using Soul Tools. A large group of Soul Engineers joining forces on the battlefield was simply the harshest father to those short-armed idiots.
Rather than send low-level Soul Beasts to their deaths, Lijing chose to summon a tsunami to destroy Dongyang City in a single wave.
That was also why she had not acted immediately, but only after large numbers of Sea Soul Beasts had died. It was not that she had been unwilling to act.
To drive a wave nearly a hundred meters high against the city, even with the cooperation of the hundred-thousand-year shrimp soldiers and crab generals, Lijing had needed to retreat into the deep sea to gather its force, pushing the waves all the way toward the coastline. Only as it approached Dongyang City could it grow to nearly a hundred meters high.
The lord of Dongyang City also knew that the city could never withstand a wave a hundred meters high.
Even a ten-meter wave could, under extreme circumstances, inflict severe damage on a heavy cruise ship.
A wave nearly a hundred meters high was like a row of buildings more than thirty stories tall sweeping toward them.
Such a terrifying tsunami was enough to bury Dongyang City completely. It was an attack with might akin to that of heaven itself; even a Titled Douluo would have had to retreat from its edge.
There were no Titled Douluo among them, and Dongyang City's linked Soul Tool positions had shut down. Even the soldiers and Soul Masters defending the city had fallen to their lowest state because of the frenzied fighting.
Not only was everyone wounded, but they had also expended vast amounts of Soul Power.
They could no longer escape.
"Since death is inescapable, let these beasts see the power of humanity!" Standing atop the city wall, the lord of Dongyang City let out one final, hoarse roar.
"All troops, hear my command! Fire every shell!!!"
"Yes, city lord!" The soldiers, ready to face death, loaded Fixed Soul Cannon Shells into the guns and pressed the firing buttons with resolute determination.
The Soul Masters who still had strength to spare picked up their fallen comrades' weapons and fired Soul Guidance Rays, laughing as they attacked.
An army driven by grief was bound to win.
In the moment before death, little fear remained in their hearts. Though a few spineless cowards, scared out of their wits, cried for their mothers and fathers, far more wanted to strike the invaders with the heaviest possible counterattack in this final moment.
Hundreds of shells soared into the air once more.
They ranged from level three to level eight. The four shells at the very center of the sky gave off the strongest presences: Dongyang City's only level-eight shell and three level-seven shells.
At last.
The tsunami struck Dongyang City's walls, smashing the thick ramparts like dead wood. The city lord, standing atop the wall, was swept away by the wave along with the soldiers beside him, smiles on their faces.
And their desperate counterattack in the final moment of their lives-the hundred-plus Fixed Soul Cannon Shells of varying levels-fell among the Sea Soul Beasts.
Lijing, who had expended an enormous amount to create the tsunami, had no way to dodge. She could only watch as the shells rained down from the sky, barely managing to cast a few more layers of defensive shields around herself.
A dazzling light flared.
The next second, a mushroom cloud soared skyward. A tremendous shock wave, carrying scalding water vapor, swept everything nearby into a storm of destruction.