Free Web NovelChapter 553: Chapter 474: River of Light
The moment the command was issued.
Jeming’s consciousness completed the final connection with the control core of twelve giant cannons.
He "felt" that he simultaneously possessed twelve additional "bodies," each one being a metal giant pillar thirty meters long and three meters in diameter, intricately engraved with over seven million precise runes, and greedily extracting vast amounts of energy from the temporary Elemental Pool reserves at the base of the fortress.
Then, he directed the "gaze" of these "bodies" beyond the line on the sandbox, towards the airspace where the red lights were most concentrated.
Target.
Precision aiming at any individual was not needed.
It only required covering that area.
"Launch."
Jeming softly said in his consciousness.
Outside Fortress No. 7.
The twelve turrets positioned around different directions of the fortress simultaneously emitted a deep humming sound akin to the awakening of a giant beast.
The multi-layer armor plates on top of the turrets slid open to the sides, revealing the bottomless launch wells beneath.
Inside the wells, blinding white light began to coalesce.
This was not ordinary light; it was forcibly stripped of its "energy attributes," returning to the most original "Fire Element" high-density elemental aggregate.
Where this light reached, signs of melting began to appear on the inner walls of the metal turrets, and arcs of electricity ionized in the air.
Recharging.
Afterward...
Twelve pure white beams, each over five meters in diameter, erupted from the turret muzzles.
The beams did not shoot into the sky but rather blasted forward at a slight downward angle towards the "line" 120 kilometers ahead.
Simultaneously, other turrets on the metal fortress, and even turrets on other fortresses, also launched attacks.
These beams began to diffuse and merge during their flight.
By the time they reached the target airspace, countless beams had merged into a destruction light river, over three kilometers wide, composed purely of "decomposition" and "purification" laws.
Everything swept by the light river was "simplified."
Whether it was the curse ripples of the Chaos Secret Sect or the annihilation beams of the Tower of Annihilation, they lost distinctiveness before the more fundamental decomposition laws, transforming into freely roaming elemental energy.
Even space itself was briefly "ironed flat" with all its wrinkles and fluctuations.
And the unlucky wizards who happened to be within the coverage range of the light river...
From Third Level to Fifth Level, their bodies vaporized in the white light before they could even scream, and their soul fragments were swept into the elemental chaos and shattered.
Sixth Level wizards, their shields melting like thin ice in the sunlight, their flesh beginning to disintegrate at the molecular level.
Only those who reacted fastest and immediately used their life-saving trump cards barely escaped the river’s range, but they were severely injured and near death.
Among the nearly hundred Seventh Level Wizards who charged at the forefront, over a dozen were caught by the river’s edge, unable to dodge.
One Chaos Secret Sect Tier Seven Wizard had half of his body engulfed by the white light.
He roared frantically, his body erupting with dense blood-colored mist in an attempt to resist, but the mist was "purified" into harmless vapor the moment it touched the white light.
His right arm, right shoulder, and part of his chest disappeared silently and seamlessly like pencil marks erased by a rubber.
He staggered back, his remaining left eye filled with shock, anger, and fear.
If he hadn’t decisively abandoned that part of his body and used the "Pain Transfer" curse to distribute the damage to his cannon fodder units, he might have fallen in that instant.
The light river lasted for three seconds.
After three seconds, the energy was depleted, and the white light vanished.
What remained was a "blank zone" spanning three kilometers wide, over 1,500 kilometers long, with an immeasurable height.
Within the zone, the sky at the edge was an unusually pure blue, because all clouds, dust, and energy residue had been purified.
And at the highest point of this sky, the faint spectacle of "another layer" of space could be seen.
That was the chaotic void revealed transiently by the powerful attack having wiped out the plane’s barriers.
On the ground, a molten trench appeared, hundreds of meters deep, its edges as smooth as a mirror.
This shot forcibly interrupted the pursuit.
Chaos Secret Sect and Tower of Annihilation wizards all halted at the trench.
They hovered in mid-air, staring at the demarcation line carved into the land as if by a giant pen, their expressions extremely grave.
Far beyond the trench, through the not yet completely dissipated energy afterglow, they finally saw the setup on the Nolun Workshop’s side.
On the desolate earth, for every few dozen kilometers, stood pitch-black metal fortresses.
The surfaces of the fortresses shimmered with rune glows, their turret tops slowly adjusting angles.
And in the vast airspace between these fortresses was a cannon fodder legion almost covering the entire view.
And, suspended at the very forefront of the cannon fodder legion, was that shadow army oozing an overwhelming sense of dread...
On the side of the Chaos Secret Sect, the Corrupt Throat Modikeyan slowly flew to the front of the formation.
His bloodshot eyes bore into the fortress cluster in the distance, his pupils rapidly flickering with countless data streams like calculating flashes.
Soon, he reached his conclusion.
"Ultra-large composite defense array... using those metal fortresses as nodes, the energy circuit connection has initially been completed."
His voice was hoarse and low, seething with suppressed anger.
"Though not yet perfected, the defense strength might only be thirty percent of the design value... but it’s still a troublesome turtle shell."
Modikeyan spat vigorously, sending a few drops of pus-blood spraying from his rotten lips.
"The number of Alchemy Wizards in Nolun Workshop... it’s far too many!"
This was his greatest concern.
With the fate line contaminated, making it impossible to see the enemy’s specific movements, their only strategy was to press the entire force after the curse attacks ended, striving to crush the opposing side with absolute numerical advantage before they established a complete defense system.
But just being delayed by the vanguard legion for less than ten minutes...
The opposing side had already completed the main construction of over a hundred fortresses and initially linked the array network between them!
"But since we are here..."
Modikeyan took a deep breath, an act that caused his chest cavity to make a sound like a pair of bellows wheezing.
He slowly raised his rotten right hand and waved it forward.
"We can’t retreat so easily."
The order spread through the entire army instantly via the mental network.
"All units..."
"Cannon fodder legion, release!"
"First wave attack, begin!"
The moment the command was issued.
On the side of the Chaos Secret Sect and Tower of Annihilation alliance army, the endless black tide began to boil.
Billions of cannon fodder units were unleashed by the wizards, surging like a swarm rushing out of nests, roaring, bellowing, transforming into torrents charging toward the trench plowed by the light cannons, headed for the lines of Nolun Workshop waiting beyond.
The sky was completely obscured.
The earth wails under the crush of billions of tons of mass.
War was entering its bloodiest phase.
