Yet now, Mingdou had been transformed into a purgatory, with war sweeping across the city, but Phantylia remained inactive, hidden deep behind the scenes.
Celenova, too, only continuously dispatched her seemingly endless Antimatter Legion for a savage massacre. Aside from her sudden sneak attack on Feixiao earlier, she had made no other major moves herself.
"What exactly are they... waiting for? Or, what are they preparing for?"
Lu Jingming frowned, realizing something was wrong.
He had previously speculated that Celenova intended to use the Antimatter Legion to destroy Mingdou and harvest a massive amount of life and negative emotion, thereby absorbing enormous negative energy to enhance her strength.
But now, it seemed that energy absorption was perhaps only the most superficial, secondary goal. Their true, deeper scheme was likely to use this colossal battlefield and the gathering of countless powerhouses to firmly pin down virtually all of the Douluo Continent's top combat strength here.
At this moment, Mingdou was like a huge quagmire vortex, having gathered at least 70% of the Douluo Continent's visible elite forces.
The Sea God's Pavilion elders of Shrek Academy, the top powerhouses of the Body Sect, the elite Soul Engineers of the Mingdu Hall, the Title Douluo of the Heavenly Soul and Star Luo Empires, plus the forces deployed by Haiyuan City, and the various Servants summoned by the Holy Grail War.
The core fighting forces and highest-tier military power of almost every major faction were trapped within this burning siege, checking and consuming one another.
This strange situation points to two major possibilities.
The first is an attempt to achieve ultimate victory in a single move: wiping out the core resistance of Douluo Star here.
If they could successfully eliminate these top powerhouses, the entire planet would lack sufficient strength to effectively resist the Antimatter Legion's advance, and ultimate destruction would be certain.
The second is the classic "lure the tiger out of the mountains" strategy.
With the top powerhouses and main forces of the major factions deeply mired in the giant war quagmire of Mingdou, their home bases, vital cities, and places of inheritance are bound to be unprecedentedly vulnerable.
This offers the enemy the perfect opportunity to execute truly deadly plans.
"It looks like it's 99% a lure."
Lu Jingming analyzed calmly while simultaneously manipulating the colossal, hundreds-of-meters-tall wooden giant to once again condense an earth-shattering fist, brutally smashing the still-struggling Titan Giant Ape into an even deeper pit.
A flash of understanding crossed his eyes, and his thinking became crystal clear—since it was basically confirmed that Xu Tianran's Servant was Phantylia, and this Lord of Extinction, who is most skilled at stirring up trouble, remained unseen, the answer was simple.
Either she was still waiting in the dark for the perfect moment, or... she wasn't in Mingdou at all.
Lu Jingming leaned toward the latter.
Phantylia has always delighted in manipulating human hearts and fate, excelling at guiding mortals toward self-destruction and dragging civilizations into eternal perdition.
Xu Tianran's current actions—decisively abandoning his Mingdou foundation, ruthlessly sacrificing millions of citizens, making a devil's bargain... were undoubtedly a step-by-step march toward the most thorough self-destruction.
If his Servant truly was Phantylia, all these abnormal, frantic actions made complete sense. They must have been induced and pushed by Phantylia.
By the basic rules of the Holy Grail War, the existence of the Master, Xu Tianran, is the foundation for the Servant Phantylia's manifestation and her most obvious weakness.
With Phantylia's intelligence and deep cunning, she would never overlook this fatal flaw; she must have made preparations.
So, where is she now? And what is she doing?
Suddenly, a previously overlooked keyword flashed through Lu Jingming's mind like lightning.
He thought of the only thing on this planet that could attract a being like Phantylia, perhaps even help her break free from the Holy Grail's restrictions and completely shed her Servant form.
His expression abruptly changed.
"The Plane Core, or rather... the materialized 'life' of this world—the Golden Tree!"
He couldn't help but lick his slightly dry lips, a sense of helplessness and self-reproach rising in his heart.
He had still underestimated these incredibly cunning Lords of Extinction, who have lived for untold ages.
Whether it was Celenova or Phantylia, their goal from the very beginning was likely not the Holy Grail, which seemingly grants wishes and materializes memories.
With their pride as Aeon of Destruction Emissaries, they wouldn't trust such an unknown object. They only believe in the absolute power they possess.
Therefore, they must have been plotting to use their own methods, leveraging some unique characteristic or treasure of this world, to break free from the Holy Grail's shackles, completely shed their Servant status, and thereby more fully pursue their path of destruction in this universe.
From the start, the greedy and dangerous sights of these two Lords of Extinction were never truly focused on the "farce" of the Holy Grail War, but rather on a more distant and fundamental goal.
"Contending with these Lords of Extinction really is a constant surprise. You never know what they'll do next... Interesting."
A flicker of excitement, mixed with caution, passed through Lu Jingming's eyes.
The danger and troublemaking capabilities of these agents of destruction from the Honkai universe were certainly living up to their reputation.
If not for his own possession of special Authority of Reality, allowing him to constantly break conventions, summon aid, and deploy combat power far exceeding the current world's level, he might genuinely be at risk of capsizing in the trap set by the combined efforts of the two Lords of Extinction.
Given Phantylia's essence as a Lord of Extinction, once she successfully seizes this world's Golden Tree and uses the Douluo Star's Plane Core to reconstruct a perfect physical body, she could immediately recover and stably exert the terrifying combat power of a Tier 1 God.
If given more time to fully absorb the massive negative energy generated by the war and destruction in Mingdou and across the continent, and to carry out more acts of annihilation, her power could quickly climb to the level of a God-King without any bottleneck.
Forget a God-King, even if Phantylia only recovered to the Tier 1 God level, with the God Realm currently preoccupied with other matters, she alone would be enough to easily destroy the entire Douluo Continent, spreading devastation to every corner of the world.
And if both Phantylia and Celenova achieve their goals and successfully destroy the entire Douluo Continent, the immense energy generated by the complete annihilation of a planet would be enough for Celenova to advance as well, causing her strength to skyrocket.
They might even use this opportunity to forcibly open the black hole passage connecting to the "Tomb of the Gods," absorbing the virtually inexhaustible death and negative energy accumulated there over countless eons, truly transforming into the cosmic darkness that devours light, bringing utter, irreversible, ultimate destruction to this universe.
In short, if Lu Jingming failed here, even if the two Lords of Extinction were only Memory Constructs, the chain reaction they set off would be enough, like tipping the first domino, to ultimately lead to the complete collapse of this universe.
True powerhouses, even without their full bodies descending and being restricted from the vast majority of their power, always find a unique way to grow stronger that is suitable for the current world, and they resolutely adhere to their pure and extreme ideologies.
Lu Jingming could clearly envision the apocalyptic scene if he failed this time: the Antimatter Legion running rampant across the entire universe, countless stars consecutively extinguishing in desperate destruction.
"My apologies, big guy."
Lu Jingming lowered his head, looking calmly at the Titan Giant Ape in the deep pit that was still roaring defiantly and struggling to rise. His tone was indifferent but carried a hint of killing intent.
"While we have no personal feud, and I rather admire your backbone... regretfully, our positions differ. For the sake of my plan, I have no choice but to ask you... to die here."
He no longer had the time to continue wrestling with this thick-skinned Titan Giant Ape.
In his hand, the strange Holy Spear, perfectly fused from the two Martial Souls, Abyssal Flower, began to hum deeply.
The ultimate black of Disintegration and the pure white of Creation flowed and intertwined on the spear shaft like two entwined dragons, finally transforming into a stark black-and-white stream of light that contained the dual ultimate laws of annihilation and birth.
"Roar—!"
The Titan Giant Ape abruptly raised its head, its massive pupils already veined with crazed bloodshot lines. It stared fiercely at Lu Jingming, who was suspended mid-air.
Even after being repeatedly suppressed and crushed into the ground by the colossal wooden figure and continuously eroded of its Soul Power and vitality by the Domain of Withering, leaving it covered in injuries and utterly battered, it still revealed its most ferocious and unyielding expression, screaming with its last ounce of strength: "Come on, kid! If you've got the guts, try it! It won't be that easy to kill your Titan Grandpa!"
In its view, being a Rank 98 Super Douluo and a fierce beast, its physical body was incomparably formidable, its brute strength enough to shake mountains and earth, and its defense was top-tier.
Even with its status significantly degraded, it was definitely not something a youngster who hadn't even reached the Title Douluo level could easily kill. It still had the capital for one last desperate struggle.
"Declaration—"
Lu Jingming's expression became incredibly detached and sacred. He softly recited the Incantation to release the Holy Spear's true power.
"I am the Black that devours all, I am the White that births all. I was born before Creation, I exist after Annihilation!"
The Holy Spear in his hand, trembling with increasing intensity, slowly rose, its black-and-white tip aimed steadily at the mountain-like great ape in the deep pit.
"Abyssal Flower • First Rated Output—Holy Spear, Bloom!"
The instant the words fell, an extreme, pitch-black light that seemed capable of swallowing all light and matter violently surged from the spear tip.
Where the light passed, the air was instantly decomposed into its most basic particles. Dust and moisture vanished into thin air. Even the stable space itself rippled with intense distortion, as if being forcibly torn apart by this terrifying power of disintegration.
This black light of ultimate erasure was faster than thought.
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
I handpick only the finest and most captivating novels for you. Don't forget to check out my other novels!
p@treon HongMengZi