With bell-like booms echoing one after another, the defensive magic arrays carved into Threehill City's walls shattered in succession, breaking faster and faster.
When the final barrier cracked like glass, the entire mountain city began shaking violently. The walls built along the mountainside fractured in half, and half the peak toppled amid deafening roars.
Massive boulders carrying towers rolled down, crushing buildings along the way into ruins.
A pure beam of holy light suddenly burst through the smoke and dust, enveloping the entire peak. But this radiance lasted only a few breaths before vanishing after another muffled boom.
In the distance, Xenophon and another blood-clan duke—who had just crushed Alama's reinforcements—reined in their mounts.
The pigfolk duke squinted toward Threehill City. "Was that Prince Visarius's contingency plan?"
"No," the blood-clan duke recalled the blood canopy that had appeared in the sky not long ago. "It should be something His Majesty brought."
Just then, the dust cloud rising from Threehill City suddenly began rolling toward their position.
Xenophon snorted twice through his pig snout and gripped his battle axe, still stained with fresh blood. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Here it comes!"
A distorted figure charged forward at speeds exceeding visual capture.
The blood-clan duke barely managed to raise both arms in the critical moment. Vast blood instantly condensed into an enormous dark-red blood shield before the army.
BOOM—!
The blood shield didn't last even an instant. The figure smashed straight through it, and the splattering blood crystals shot backward like bullets, killing swathes of demon soldiers.
The figure passed through the blood shield and crashed directly into the blood-clan duke. He didn't even have time to show a shocked expression before exploding into a cloud of blood mist like a water bag struck by a siege hammer.
The figure slammed heavily into the ground.
The earth trembled violently as if struck by a meteor. A ring-shaped shockwave carried shattered stone in a radiating spread. Every demon soldier within dozens of meters was torn apart by this massive impact.
Xenophon was blown away by the blast wave, his thick pig hide torn open in countless gashes by the shockwave.
He rolled clumsily to his feet, unable to believe what he was seeing. "What is this thing?!"
The figure slowly stood up from the crater.
Its original human outline had long vanished. The broken shell was propped up by surging azure flames from within, swelling to over two meters tall. Its head had been replaced by erupting energy, with facial features completely unrecognizable.
To Xenophon, this thing before him looked nothing like a human—more like some kind of deadly elemental creature.
"ROAR—!"
An inhuman roar made the air surge in layers.
Xenophon activated all his trump cards without hesitation. [War Rage] made his muscles balloon explosively. [Bloodlust] dyed both eyes solid red. [Ancestral Totem] condensed six blood-colored halos behind him.
He gripped his old partner "Slaughterer" with both hands, the axe blade turning crimson as it trembled.
Then his world stopped.
That azure figure had somehow already appeared nose-to-nose with him.
Xenophon didn't even see the movement—he only felt a chill in his chest.
Looking down, only a massive empty void remained in the center of his bloated body.
The battle axe was still raised high in the air. All the burst skill glows dimmed one by one.
"Impos... sible..."
The instant death of both commanders directly shattered the demon army's will to fight.
Soldiers scattered in all directions like frightened beasts. And that burning figure didn't stop, unleashing slaughter upon them.
In truth, the demon soldiers weren't entirely without hope of survival.
Wrath, having no detection skills whatsoever, relied entirely on primitive vision to track targets, which left fleeing survivors a sliver of hope.
Mages casting invisibility spells successfully merged into the air; scouts wearing camouflage nets pressed against rock walls or even burrowed into corpse piles could easily deceive her.
Of course, these evasion methods were full of risk—getting hit by wide-area damage while hiding was perfectly normal.
Moreover, as long as one broke away from the main force and fled far enough, survival was possible. To kill as many lives as possible, Wrath's attacks always targeted areas where demons concentrated.
When the entire demon army was completely scattered into sporadic fleeing small units, the figure finally turned direction, lunging toward the final target—Alama's retreating remnant forces.
Lin Jun figured that stone tablet he'd sunk to the lake bottom could probably come in handy.
Give it to Pink Puchi—her dad would need it soon enough.
Lin Jun had pretty much figured out Wrath's situation: her soul was burning.
From humans to demons, from worthless commoners to powerhouses like the Sword Saint, Lin Jun had tasted countless souls and witnessed countless deaths.
Whether hacked to death by blades, eaten by monsters, burned, drowned, or corroded—no matter how miserably they died, it never seemed to affect the soul.
When intelligent beings died, as their bodies disappeared, their souls would break free of constraints and merge into the world.
But the destruction of a soul... this was truly Lin Jun's first time witnessing it.
Even so, the power Wrath erupted with was still absurdly excessive—truly soul fission.
Looking purely at her panel attributes, Wrath had already surpassed the Emperor and was still rising with ever-increasing magnitude.
Of course, from [Truth Vision]'s perspective, her "fuel" wasn't much left either.
But dealing with Alama was probably enough.
Glancing at Pink Puchi still being shuttled through the tunnels like a cocoon, Lin Jun made his move.
[Kin Maker]
On the ambushed battlefield, a mana vortex suddenly erupted. Countless fallen Puchi remains and surface mycelium were swept up into it.
At the same time, Number Four—who had been complaining that Pink Puchi's legs weren't flexible enough and moved too slowly through the tunnels, requiring constant pushing—suddenly went stiff-legged and still.
Lin Jun extracted its soul and stuffed it into the forming giant-beast Puchi.
When the mana vortex dissipated, the enormous Puchi crashed thunderously to the ground.
Pu—chi—
Suddenly switched to a new mushroom body, Number Four looked around blankly, finding everything had become exceptionally tiny.
"Don't space out! Stop her!" The scene of Wrath moving at high speed was transmitted directly into Number Four's consciousness.
"This power... this size! No problem, Mycelial Lord!"
Puchis didn't seem to be among Wrath's attack targets. Even though the giant-beast Puchi was so conspicuous, she still intended to pass straight through beside its feet.
Wrath's speed was alarmingly fast. Number Four had to continuously use detection skills to barely capture her trajectory.
Though speed couldn't keep up, Number Four had absolute size advantage!
Four mycelial tentacles spread side by side like a giant wall, sweeping horizontally toward Wrath.
"Fly away for me, hahaha!"
Naive Number Four had yet to realize what kind of existence it faced.
The instant that tiny figure collided with the four giant tentacles, only a muffled boom was heard as the tentacles exploded.
And Wrath finally turned her attention to the giant-beast Puchi that had attacked her.
Number Four stared dumbly at its severed tentacles, momentarily doubting whether these tentacles were made of paper.
Lin Jun: Plan successful.
(End of Chapter)
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