"Sect Master Nan, please lead your disciples through as quickly as possible."
Zhang Lexuan stepped forward slowly, pointing to the colossal spatial gate that shimmered with a water-like blue halo, her tone steady.
"This place is ultimately dangerous. The situation is growing more chaotic, and no one can predict what will happen next. Transferring to a safe zone quickly is the best strategy."
This spatial gate, akin to a miracle, was a masterpiece constructed by Herta by leveraging his partial control over the Aetherium (Thousand Realms Monopole) authority.
Any location previously marked and recorded with precise spatial coordinates by the Aetherium could be instantly transported to through this gate, virtually ignoring distance.
While maintaining a spatial passage of this scale consumed a massive, almost oceanic amount of energy, such consumption was entirely within the acceptable limits for Haiyuan City, which had successfully researched and deployed an efficient Honkai Energy Reactor.
Before the Earth Dragon Sect contingent arrived, Zhang Lexuan had already used her excellent organizational skills to safely send away the large number of civilian survivors gathered at the stronghold.
Now, only a handful of people remained at this temporary camp. Most were powerhouses who had voluntarily stayed behind, responsible for guarding the spatial gate's final operation and ready to intercept any approaching Antimatter Honkai Beasts.
With the Snow Empress and Ice Empress—two powerhouses controlling Ultimate Ice—sitting at the center, this stronghold could temporarily be considered safe, as long as the terrifying Lord of Destruction, Celenova, didn't personally intervene.
But everyone knew this safety was fragile and short-lived, like a false calm before a storm.
The current relative peace was only because the brutal fighting in the core areas, such as the Imperial Palace ruins and the deep crater battlefield, had drawn most of the Antimatter Legion's attention.
The moment the situation on the main battlefield shifted, or if Celenova suddenly directed her gaze here, this temporary refuge could instantly become an even more brutal new battlefield.
"Thank you, Miss Zhang. Thank you, Haiyuan City, for extending a helping hand."
Nan Shuishui looked at the stable spatial gate, her expression genuinely grateful, and she gave a solemn bow.
Had Haiyuan City not offered assistance at this moment, she truly didn't know how she could lead the scarred disciples of the Earth Dragon Sect to survive in this hellscape.
She clearly remembered that at the beginning of the chaos, many sects and factions had tried to use their own strength to force their way out of Mingdu, only to be mercilessly suppressed in the open areas outside the city by the Sun Moon Empire's Soul Tool Engineer corps, who had been ambushed there for a long time. Those sect teams, who were not weak in power, weren't even able to cause a ripple before being completely annihilated.
Even the combined forces of the powerful Body Sect Aetherium and the Heaven Soul Empire, after paying a huge price to break through the Mingdu city walls, met with destructive resistance.
In the end, they paid the painful price of one Titled Douluo Elder perishing on the spot and were forced to retreat back into Mingdu in utter disarray. Only by circling through the ruins and struggling for survival did they luckily find this stronghold established by Haiyuan City.
Nan Shuishui's gaze instinctively turned to a nearby sight, where Princess Xu Jiujiu of the Star Luo Empire was softly comforting the pale-faced Princess Wei Na of the Heaven Soul Empire.
The surviving members of the Body Sect and the Heaven Soul Empire were all wounded, their clothes tattered, their expressions full of sorrow and exhaustion. Their morale was at an absolute low point.
Poison Douluo Du Busi was not here—the short-tempered Body Sect Master had gone alone to the Imperial Palace's core area at the very start of the palace battle, attempting the almost impossible decapitation strike to assassinate Xu Tianran.
Meanwhile, the main Body Sect force, led by several veteran Titled Douluo Elders, was escorting Princess Wei Na in an attempt to forcibly break out of Mingdu.
But as soon as they charged out of the city gate, they ran headlong into the Soul Tool Engineer corps that had been completely corrupted and mentally assimilated by the force of Destruction. Among them were even Beast King-level Soul Tool Engineer corps like the 'Imperial Dragon' and 'Evil Monarch'.
The Soul Tool Engineers formed tight, highly efficient Soul Tool battle formations, coordinated with arrays of fixed-type Soul Tools controlled by several Rank 9 Soul Tool Engineers. The overwhelming saturation attack proved too much for the Body Sect team, which lacked the absolute combat power of the Limit Douluo Du Busi.
If not for a fiercely resolute Body Sect Titled Douluo Elder who decisively charged into the enemy formation at the last moment and detonated his Soul Core, forcibly blasting open a gap in the Soul Tool Engineers' iron-clad formation at the cost of his own destruction, it would be unknown if they could have even made it back to Mingdu alive.
What was more despairing was that their original plan was not such a reckless forcible breakout.
They had originally planned to retreat quietly from deep underground using a specialized drilling Soul Tool.
Yet, even this secretive action was precisely tracked by the Soul Tool Engineer corps fiercely guarding outside the city.
The entire Mingdu, including the surrounding airspace and underground, was under the omnipresent surveillance and 'Harmony' network coverage of Celenova.
Even the energy fluctuations and metal structure of a drilling Soul Tool hidden a thousand meters below ground could not escape detection.
The detonation of just one pre-buried Rank 8 Fissure Soul Cannon shell produced a terrifying seismic wave that violently forced the Body Sect members, along with their Soul Tool, out from deep underground.
Exposed in the open, they instantly fell into the heavy encirclement of the Soul Tool Engineer corps. In the end, they could only fight to the death, relying on the formidable physique and secret techniques of their Body Martial Souls, to carve out a slim thread of survival and retreat back into the city in disarray.
Thinking of this, Nan Shuishui couldn't help but sigh deeply, the relief of surviving intertwined with worry for the future.
She no longer hesitated, tightly held her daughter Nan Qiuqiu's hand, and led the Earth Dragon Sect disciples toward the spatial gate that represented a chance at life. To have survived and reached this point in the cataclysmic disaster sweeping across Mingdu was a fortunate blessing amidst tragedy
The instant Nan Qiuqiu was pulled into the blue light screen by her mother, she felt a slight mental blur, as if she were gently enveloped by a warm, invisible force. Her sense of time and space briefly became vague and swirling.
In the next second, a fresh, slightly salty sea breeze rushed toward her, completely driving away the nauseating smell of gunpowder and blood from Mingdu.
She subconsciously opened her eyes.
What greeted her was no longer ruined walls and burning debris, but the neat ranks of Haiyuan City's Golden Guard soldiers, standing ready for battle.
They wore uniform, glossy black Soul Tool armor that glowed with a cold luster, and held finely crafted, fully charged Soul Tool firearms. Their eyes were sharp as eagles, guarding the spatial gate exit area tightly, their demeanor both imposing and reassuring.
Behind them, the enormous, majestic spatial gate was still slowly operating, emitting a stable and comforting hum.
The faint blue light screen, like flowing crystal, softly reflected the faces of those who had just escaped danger, their expressions still etched with shock.
Not far away was the vast, endless ocean, blue as a gem.
The salty breeze rushed in, and the white waves happily slapped the shore rocks, making a rhythmic "hush-hush" sound, creating a world of difference from the dead, oppressive atmosphere of Mingdu.
She subconsciously turned around and saw the vague, modern silhouette of a magnificent city in the distance.
Skyscrapers stood tall, their glass walls reflecting a dazzling light in the sun. She could even see a few sleek, cloud-piercing skyscraper complexes.
Compared to Mingdu, this city was equally prosperous and advanced, but it exuded a purer, more futuristic aura of modern technology.
"So... so amazing..."
Nan Qiuqiu couldn't help but cover her mouth, letting out a gasp of utter disbelief.
In just the blink of an eye, as if only experiencing a brief moment of dizziness, they had crossed a distance of thousands of kilometers from the war-torn, hellish ruins of Mingdu to arrive at Haiyuan City.
She clearly remembered that when the Earth Dragon Sect had set out from Long City to attend the tournament in Mingdu, it had taken them over a month of bumpy travel even in the best carriages.
Even if the distance from Long City to Mingdu was greater than that from Haiyuan City to Mingdu, the efficiency gap between this spatial teleportation and ordinary means of transport was the difference between heaven and earth—a dimension-crushing strike.
Even the most advanced, fastest flying Soul Tools would take at least several days of non-stop flight to travel at full speed from Haiyuan City to Mingdu.
Yet, this magical spatial gate could truly achieve instant arrival, turning an impossible distance into a thoroughfare.
Standing beside her, Nan Shuishui's face was also filled with shock and incredulity.
Even as a powerhouse who had reached the Titled Douluo level, she had never truly touched upon such profound spatial power.
That was an obscure domain that only Super Douluo above Rank 95 could barely sense, and only Limit Douluo after Rank 98 could initially control.
But even a Limit Douluo could never carry so many people for such a long-distance, large-scale spatial transfer in one go.
The total amount of Soul Power and the precision of mental control required already surpassed the limits that an individual Soul Master could bear.
Not to mention Haiyuan City's ability to effortlessly transfer tens of thousands of powerless civilians safely and stably from the distant Mingdu to this location.
This earth-shattering feat completely overturned all her decades of understanding of the development of Soul Tool technology.
This super-era spatial technology, which even bordered on the miraculous, caused a violent shock in the hearts of all the powerhouses present from the major sects and top academies, instilling in them an unprecedented awe and fear.
With such terrifying strategic projection capability, Haiyuan City could practically achieve "arrive in the morning, strike in the evening," completely disregarding the immense time cost and complex terrain obstacles of troop deployment in traditional warfare. In any future conflict, this was undoubtedly a crushing, unsolvable strategic advantage.
Nan Shuishui privately felt a wave of relief.
Fortunately, the Earth Dragon Sect had established a relatively close relationship with Haiyuan City early on due to the Ten Thousand Year Profound Ice Marrow and the Ice Extreme Divine Crystal. Their interests were tied together, making them a partial ally.
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