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--- Chapter 542 ---
"Sir! Emergency! One of the Godslayer Missiles, Armageddon, has been detected entering the Eastern Front!"
Inside the Federal Speaker's office, an aide slammed the door open, drenched in cold sweat while screaming in sheer panic.
"WHAT?!"
The Speaker rose to his feet. At the same time, urgent high-priority alerts flashed across the monitors of every top military command center on the Douluo Star.
One of the nation's ultimate strategic deterrence weapons—a Godslayer Missile—had been launched toward Glorybound City!
It was so sudden that no one had time to reverse the launch sequence.
We were talking about a Godslayer Missile!
A Rank 12 strategic weapon of mass destruction engineered two thousand years ago by the Federation—a weapon whose mere theoretical capability to murder Divine Beings had stalled the Federation's technological progression for a millennium due to extreme resource strain.
Even today, with modern manufacturing, reproducing these weapons was practically impossible. The rare materials and high-level clearances were no longer viable.
Only three such warheads remained in existence on the entire planet.
Yet, somehow, a bypass protocol had authorized the deployment of one of these weapons of mass destruction directly onto an active, populated battlefield without prior council approval!
Far away at Spirit Pagoda Headquarters, Qiangu Dongfeng calmly stood by his tinted window, watching the live feed tracking the Armageddon as it cut through the upper atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.
His face remained completely devoid of emotion, but deep within his eyes, a gnawing, toxic malice simmered.
"Han Tianyi... you're down there as well," Qiangu Dongfeng gently tapped his fingers against the glass as he watched his elder helping the military hold off the ocean beast tide. "I can only say you are deeply unfortunate to be caught in the crossfire."
"If you survive this blast... I will compensate you heavily."
"And if you don't... I will ensure your grandson, Han Yuan, lives a life of luxury and prestige, believing his grandfather died a glorious hero of the Spirit Pagoda."
"You are a necessary sacrifice to tear Shrek Academy down from its foundations!"
...
Two seconds before impact.
The Armageddon warhead tore through the heavy storm cloud layer, its jet-black hull entering everyone's spiritual perception.
"W-WHAT IS THAT?!" Long Yeyue, who had been bombarding the silver mecha alongside Ancestor Tang Hao, suddenly felt an icy shockwave of pure terror paralyze her spine.
It wasn't just her.
Every Title Douluo and powerhouse from the Tang Alliance turned their heads toward the sky, staring in horror at the incoming, pitch-black warhead.
Tang Hao roared, cursing the sky. "It's that cursed creation of the Sun Moon Federation again!"
"Not good! The explosion of a Godslayer Missile isn't something we can withstand head-on!" Mo Yin shouted urgently. "We won't perish, but the blast force will injure us!"
"Da Ming, Er Ming! RETREAT IMMEDIATELY!"
Yet, Xu Deming had no intent of letting his prey leave. Since someone had handed him such a perfect gift, he intended to maximize its casualty rate.
"HAHAHAHA! Tang Hao! Do you honestly believe you can run?! Let me tell you something, YOU CANNOT!" Xu Deming's laughter echoed through the ocean as a translucent, azure energy screen erupted outward from the silver mecha.
The screen acted like a rapidly expanding spatial barrier, locking down the surrounding airspace in a split second. Within moments, only a few narrow gaps remained for escape.
Faced with annihilation, Long Yeyue's survival instinct overwhelmed her honor. Grabbing onto the shoulder of an allied Tang Alliance Title Douluo, she violently hurled him backward into the closing spatial barrier, using the recoil to fling herself through the remaining narrow gap!
"NOOOOO—!" The sacrificed Title Douluo screamed in agony as the high-membrane disintegrated his body in a flash of arc lightning.
A fraction of a second later, the Armageddon decisively struck the center of the domain.
Long Yeyue tumbled onto the distant shoreline, turning back just in time to watch the missile detonate with a blinding, violet explosion.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Tang Hao's horrified roar got instantly drowned out by the tearing of space.
SWOOSH—!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
Upon detonation, Armageddon radiated a growing vortex of dark purple energy, disintegrating every molecule in its path.
The spatial vortex didn't merely destroy matter—it consumed the energy of everything it vaporized, growing in size and intensity.
Tang Hao, already suffering from Heavy Particle decay in his veins, was caught directly in the center, and his divine body was torn apart by the relentless gravitational storm.
Mo Yin, Da Ming, and Er Ming fared no better.
Under normal circumstances, their divine bodies and abilities could have mitigated the damage of the explosion. But after a long battle against Xu Deming's silver mecha, their divine energy and stamina were almost drained and their physical bodies heavily fractured.
Several miles away, Long Yeyue collapsed onto her knees, her hot chest heaving violently as she stared at the swirling purple inferno that had swallowed her allies.
"No... no... I wasn't wrong..." She stammered, her hands trembling as horror and guilt clawed at her mind. "I... I just wanted to survive!"
Unfortunately for Long Yeyue, her act of blatant cowardice was recorded from multiple angles. She hadn't just fled—she had actively sacrificed a fellow Title Douluo to save her own skin.
Up in the lunar base, Xu Deming ensured every single feed was captured in high-definition 4K video. He would archive this footage into the public record—a textbook example of Shrek's moral rot for future generations to study.
"Hmm, my mecha's primary energy shield is degrading as well... It seems Rank 12 Spirit Missiles still hold considerable merit," Xu Deming mused, watching his God-Slaying Mecha's primary energy core drain rapidly to absorb the impact.
Of course, Xu Deming remained entirely unbothered.
This remote-controlled mecha was merely an early prototype equipped with 67 experimental core reactors—the final version would be infinitely more terrifying.
To make the performance convincing to the global observers, he allowed the silver mecha to take superficial damage, intentionally letting its outer armor fracture before the energy barrier collapsed.
Then, the contained implosion shook the planet within a thousand-mile radius.
The heat and shockwave instantly eradicated the remaining marine beast tide. Miles away, Han Tianyi gritted his teeth as the super-hot shockwave slammed into his mental barrier, blasting him backward through the air until he crashed hard into a cliffside.
Cough!
Han Tianyi spat out a mouthful of blood, wiping his bloody mouth with a trembling hand. His 4-word Battle Armor had completely buckled under the shock, proving just how terrifying a Rank 12 strategic weapon truly was.
Even his spiritual force at the Divine Origin Realm had been heavily injured just to manifest a physical mental shield strong enough to survive the aftershock.
Fortunately, before the shockwave hit him, Han Tianyi had managed to gather several high-value treasures from the dead marine spirit beasts, storing them safely in his spatial ring.
While he couldn't inspect them yet, several 100,000-year spirit bones, and even a few ferocious-level ones, were guaranteed, securing a massive foundation for his grandson, Han Yuan.
"So... that is the power of a Rank 12 Godslayer Missile," Han Tianyi slowly murmured, staring ahead at the wasteland.
A thousand miles of blue ocean had been completely erased, transformed into a smoldering, desolate crater of steam and dried seabed in the blink of an eye.
He turned his gaze toward Glorybound City, noting with slight relief that the city itself remained intact—shielded by the mysterious, high-tech barrier Xu Deming had deployed earlier.
As he adjusted his breathing, he sensed an object plummeting toward his position.
BANG!
A heavily damaged crimson wolf-shaped mecha crashed onto the shore a few dozen meters away. The cockpit hissed open, revealing General Dong Zian coughing up blood, his face pale with grief.
"General! Are you alright?" Han Tianyi hurried over, recognizing the officer immediately.
Dong Zian breathed heavily, clutching his bruised chest. "I-I am alive..."
He slammed his fist onto the side of his cockpit, his voice breaking. "But my men... at least several hundred of my pilots were vaporized in that blast!"
Han Tianyi's eyes dimmed slightly, letting out a soft sigh. "Too many unthinkable events have transpired today..."
"Divine Beings, an Ocean Beast Tide, the Mechanical Demon... and now a Rank 12 Godslayer Missile."
Placing a reassuring hand on the general's shoulder, Han Tianyi pulled him back from the brink of despair. "General, do not lose yourself to grief now. There are still survivors who need our help."
Dong Zian was a veteran general. He gritted his teeth together and forced his emotions down, taking a deep breath. "You're right..."
Looking at Han Tianyi with newfound respect, Dong Zian couldn't help but nod calmly. "Illusory Brain Douluo... thank you. I owe you."
Han Tianyi offered a faint smile. "Let us search the perimeter for survivors."
"There might be some of your men as well."
"Understood!" Dong Zian's divine mecha had suffered heavy damage, so he could only fly normally. Side by side, the two powerhouses took to the sky, flying back toward the edge of the smoldering crater.