At this moment, countless residents of Mingdou saw the bizarre and brilliant pattern in the night sky. Some cried out in surprise, some were curious, but most were utterly bewildered, having no idea what it represented.
In the luxury penthouse atop the Mingdou Grand Hotel, the Shrek Academy contingent was gathered, discussing the upcoming Soul Master Tournament.
Suddenly, the soaring red light outside the window caught everyone's attention. They rose and rushed to the window, gazing solemnly at the night sky.
"Oh dear, the Antimatter Legion. How terribly frightening!"
Sparkle's voice held a trace of mockery, yet also an imperceptible wariness. As a Masked Fool, she was all too familiar with this symbol of Destruction.
The appearance of this mark in Mingdou meant the Antimatter Legion's iron hooves were right at their doorstep.
Aside from Sparkle, Jing Yuan and Qingque instantly recognized the symbol of Destruction.
Qingque's face instantly went pale, her mouth drooping as she wailed inwardly: "It's over, it's over! This is definitely the extremely ominous sign mentioned in my divination! That's the Antimatter Legion! Sitting at the same table as the Abundance's remnants! With my tiny arms and legs, I probably can't even defeat the lowest-level Void. Thankfully, General Jing Yuan is here..."
She secretly glanced at Jing Yuan beside her, her eyes filled with relief. Thank goodness there was a strong shoulder to lean on; she could slack off.
Jing Yuan's expression was unusually grave. He stared at the burning tower pattern in the night sky, his brow deeply furrowed. For him, the Antimatter Legion itself wasn't terrifying; the real concern was the mastermind commanding the legion.
"The Antimatter Legion? What is that?"
Ma Xiaotao and others were puzzled, turning their gazes towards Jing Yuan and Qingque. They knew that asking Sparkle wouldn't yield a serious answer; Jing Yuan was more reliable.
"Hey, why aren't you asking me? Why only the two of them?"
Sparkle immediately cried out in dissatisfaction, hands on her hips, cheeks puffed out, looking neglected.
"Shoo! You little girl, we don't have time for your antics now!"
Ma Xiaotao glared at her impatiently, the solemnity in her eyes deepening. She could keenly sense that the atmosphere of the entire Mingdou had become oppressive since the red light appeared. A premonition of disaster spread in her heart.
"A group of disasters that only bring ruin and calamity," Jing Yuan's voice was low and firm. "Prepare yourselves. This land is likely to face an unprecedented ordeal."
"How interesting. It seems someone doesn't want to follow the script."
Sparkle patted her chest, feigning fear, but a flicker of excitement danced in her eyes.
"I, Sparkle, never expected them to move this quickly!"
"Revelation...!"
Jeanne d'Arc suddenly clutched her forehead, her body trembling uncontrollably, her face instantly turning ghostly white.
Fragmented images rushed into her mind like a tide: Mingdou turned into a charred ruin, dry blood stains covered the broken walls, tens of millions of corpses were stacked high in every corner of the city, the once prosperous streets had become a living hell, and under the bloody setting sun, only dead silence spread.
That bone-deep despair and wailing seemed to transcend space and time, striking directly at her soul.
"Little Wei Na, have your people ready. The slaughter is about to begin."
Feixiao's eyes suddenly sharpened, the air around her seemingly freezing due to her aura. The aura of Destruction howling from afar, bringing cold stillness and wild energy, made her blood boil.
She had a vague premonition that tonight, she might encounter some "old acquaintances."
"This kind of pure Destruction isn't beautiful at all."
Vita lightly furrowed her brows. The laziness in her eyes instantly vanished, replaced by an icy chill. Her carefully devised entrance script was completely ruined by this sudden change.
What she couldn't tolerate more was that this purely aesthetic-less destruction was not her preferred entertainment.
"W-What is that? Saber!"
Nan Qiuqiu tilted her head, looking at the strange burning tower in the night sky, her small face filled with confusion and unease, instinctively grabbing Artoria's sleeve.
"Master, be careful!"
Artoria's voice carried a hint of gravity. Her clothes instantly switched to silver-white armor, brilliant light flowing across it, and the vague outline of the Sword of Promised Victory (Excalibur), hidden by the wind element, emerged in her hand.
"My Instinct tells me that something extremely dangerous is approaching. Prepare for battle!"
Her gaze was serious. The sense of crisis stinging her skin felt like countless fine needles, instinctively forcing her into maximum alert. This feeling was exactly the same as when she faced her strongest enemies on the battlefield back then.
"Battle? This is Mingdou!" Nan Qiuqiu's eyes widened, her face full of disbelief.
Not just her, but Nan Shuishui and the other Earth Dragon Sect disciples were also bewildered and shocked, completely unable to understand why they would suddenly face battle in the heart of the prosperous Mingdou.
When Lu Jingming received the urgent message from Ju Zi, his heart sank, and seeing the dazzling totem of Destruction in the night sky, he instantly understood everything.
He immediately raised his right hand and called out in a deep voice: "Greater Lord Rukkhadevata"
A soft green light flashed, and the white-haired, green-eyed Goddess quietly appeared, surrounded by a faint natural aura.
She looked at the pattern in the night sky and nodded solemnly: "I understand what needs to be done."
Before her words faded, her figure dissolved into countless specks of light, vanishing into the air, like a drop of water merging into the sea.
"What's going on?"
Gu Yue, Zhang Lexuan, and others exchanged glances, their eyes filled with confusion, completely unaware of what the bizarre signal in the sky meant.
"Tsk, I still underestimated this Lord of Destruction (Celenova)."
Lu Jingming rubbed his temples, his tone a mix of helplessness and complaint. "I really shouldn't try to measure her thinking with common sense."
Celenova disdained playing the game of the Holy Grail War; she wanted to sweep everything aside directly.
Yet, with the covert assistance of the Sun Moon Empire, she had already set up her scheme, and now, she truly possessed the strength to sweep everything away.
What shocked him even more was that Celenova completely disregarded the fate of her allies—Mingdou still had tens of millions of Sun Moon Empire citizens!
Wang Qiu'er and others were still perplexed by the sudden change, trying to make sense of the situation.
Suddenly, a resonant hum, capable of tearing the soul, echoed throughout Mingdou.
The sound was deep and vast, like a billion stars simultaneously collapsing, carrying the chaos of the universe's beginning and the dead silence of its end, burrowing into everyone's ears.
Following that, a chilling sight appeared—the space over the entire Mingdou became covered in a web of dark, black fissures, like a piece of glass struck hard.
Countless spatial rifts of varying sizes appeared out of thin air, spreading in all directions. The rifts radiated darkness that swallowed all light, their edges flickering with unstable energy sparks.
"Boom—"
Some buildings near the rifts, as if torn by an invisible giant hand, instantly warped and collapsed with a loud crash, turning into rubble.
Even worse, some were directly sliced in half by the spatial rifts, the cut edges smooth as glass.
On the streets, the citizens who hadn't figured out what was happening instantly became casualties.
Several unlucky pedestrians who happened to be in the path of the spreading rifts were torn into several pieces without warning, blood and organs splattering across the ground—a scene too gruesome to behold.
"Ah—!"
"What's happening?!"
"What are those monsters?!"
"They're killing people! Run!"
Sharp screams, terrified shouts, desperate curses, heart-wrenching pleas for help... In an instant, the entire Mingdou exploded, as if dumped into a pot of boiling oil.
From the pitch-black spatial rifts, figures emanating a dense aura of Destruction slowly emerged.
They varied in form: some looked like twisted shadows, while others seemed to be condensed from pure negative energy, exuding cold stillness.
The moment these figures stepped into Mingdou, they began a frenzied, indiscriminate massacre and destruction—smashing walls with their fists, crushing pedestrians underfoot. In their wake, only ruins and corpses remained.
Hundreds of powerful figures instantly soared from various locations into the sky; they were the powerhouses of major forces or the guardians of Mingdou.
When they clearly saw the terrifying entities surging continuously from the spatial rifts, shock and disbelief were etched on every face.
"They are Voids! It truly is the Antimatter Legion!"
Feixiao stood tall and straight atop a tall building.
She quickly drew her bow and notched an arrow. A light arrow, condensed with immense power, instantly formed, streaking across the sky like a meteor with a sharp tearing sound.
The light arrow suddenly split mid-flight, turning into a rain of meteors that accurately rained down on a cluster of Voids, erupting in brilliant light and powerful impact.
The meteor-like light arrows crashed down, exploding into a shower of light amidst the Void clusters.
Countless Voids were torn to shreds in the light and flames, dissolving into tendrils of dark negative particles that vanished into the air. But this loss was merely a drop in the ocean for the Antimatter Legion, which continued to pour out of the spatial rifts.
More Voids advanced over the remains of their comrades, their dark figures flooding the streets like a tide. Wherever they passed, bricks dissolved, and life was extinguished.
"Bastards!"
High in the sky, Starry Sky Douluo Ye Yulin's gold and silver light surged, forming two giant sun and moon discs suspended above her head.
The discs spun rapidly, spewing forth countless sharp light rays that cascaded down like a waterfall.
The light rays slammed into the Void clusters, erupting in waves of energy. Yet, the dark figures merely trembled slightly, strange markings appearing on their surfaces, absorbing the majority of the energy.
Ye Yulin's face was ashen. The energy resistance of these monsters far exceeded her estimation.
"Xu Tianran! What in the hell are you doing!"
Jing Hongchen hovered in mid-air, his eyes splitting with fury as he looked at the rampant Antimatter Legion below.
He recognized these monsters; they were clearly the war weapons Xu Tianran had been secretly researching. But why were they suddenly attacking Mingdou?
He whipped his head around, looking towards the Imperial Palace, his eyes filled with suspicion and rage.
"What are you waiting for? Protect the civilians, defend Mingdou!" Ye Yulin's angry shout boomed like thunder, awakening the stunned Sun Moon Empire powerhouses.
The crowd snapped out of their daze, quickly unleashing their soul power and charging down from the sky. Soul Sages formed defensive lines to protect the panicking citizens, while Soul Douluo condensed their strongest soul skills, bombarding the dense clusters of Voids. For a moment, a net of various soul skill lights interwoven across the Mingdou sky.
Lu Jingming swung his spear, the black-and-red Disintegration Lightning grinding an armored humanoid Void—a Reaver—into particles, but his frown deepened.
The Reavers surrounding them had reached over a hundred, each possessing the combat power of a Soul King, and they coordinated as flawlessly as a single entity.
"Xu Tianran wouldn't sit by and watch Mingdou be destroyed..." He rubbed the Black Abyss White Flower with his fingertips.
"Unless he's also being controlled, or... this was within his expectations?"
"Bang!"
Wang Qiu'er's Golden Dragon Spear pierced the head of a Reaver, the explosive power at the tip shattering its core.
She pulled the spear back, looking at the rapidly dissipating remains, her beautiful face grim: "These grunt soldiers have ridiculously strong defense and attack power. If this continues, our soul power will eventually be depleted."
Looking out, the Reavers surged onto the streets like an ant swarm, one wave after another.
Further away, colossal Tramplers in centaur form, standing over a dozen meters tall, advanced slowly.
Their upper bodies were covered in heavy armor, their lower bodies were bone-covered horse torsos, and the giant bows in their hands glowed with the eerie light of the wind element.
One Trampler drew its bow, and violent wind elemental energy instantly condensed into a spear several meters long, which shot towards a residential building with a shrill tearing sound.
The savage wind energy instantly annihilated the entire residential building. Fortunately, the residents inside had already fled.
Ling Canghai, an Elder of the Wind Sword Sect, instantly appeared beside the Trampler. The aura of an Eight-Ring Soul Douluo erupted.
The long sword in his hand turned into a cyan stream of light, unleashing a full-strength Sword Qi imbued with the wind attribute.
The moment the Sword Qi collided with the Trampler's body, it only left a shallow white mark on the heavy armor.
"How is that possible?"
Ling Canghai's pupils contracted—that one sword strike was enough to cleave open a steel city wall, yet it couldn't even damage the opponent's exoskeleton armor.
"Elder, retreat quickly!"
The cries of the Wind Sword Sect disciples had not yet finished when the Trampler turned its cold head, its right arm wrapped in a visible vortex of wind blades.
It savagely swung its arm down, and a wind slash several dozen meters long tore through the air. Where it passed, the ground cracked into monstrous ravines.
"Soul Avatar: Rending Wind!"
Ling Canghai roared, his soul rings merging with his long sword, transforming into a cyan greatsword several dozen meters long to block the attack.
"Boom—" The collision was deafening. The greatsword violently trembled under the wind blade slash. Ling Canghai spat out a mouthful of blood and was sent flying backward, along with his sword, crashing through half a building.
He stared at the huge fissure spanning the street, a bone-deep chill flooding his heart: "The power of that strike has reached the Titled Douluo level!"
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