I have added this story to my Patreon. You can support me and read the 40 latest and advanced chapters there. It also fed and motivate me to write more chapters!
Free Members will get 10 Chapters Ahead of the schedule on Patreon!!!
Link: Patreon.com/AVRKingsTL
—------------------—
... Emperor Xue Ye collapsed onto his throne, seeming to age ten years in an instant. His lips trembled, but he couldn't utter a single word.
Yu Xiaogang released his grip on Emperor Xue Ye, staggering back a step, the color draining completely from his face. All his calculations, all his strategies, appeared so pale and ridiculous in the face of such incomprehensible power and control.
Tang San's tightly clenched fist slowly relaxed, a deep sense of powerlessness sweeping over him. The gap he had originally perceived now seemed like the difference between a firefly and the bright moon!
Morale collapse? It was more than just morale!
At this moment, even the core pillars of the Empire, their beliefs, began to waver.
What kind of monster did the Spirit Empire possess?!
Just as the Heaven Dou Imperial Palace was shrouded in despair and helplessness, and everyone's minds were reeling—
Boom!!!
An indescribable, terrifying pressure, seemingly originating from the soul level, swept across the entire Heaven Dou City like a physical tsunami, without warning!
The sky seemed to darken at that moment, not due to dark clouds blocking the sun, but covered by an ineffable, suffocating dark red malevolent aura!
"It's... it's here again!!" The messenger who had just finished reporting was the first to sense this familiar and terrifying aura, letting out a heart-rending shriek, collapsing onto the ground, fouling himself in terror.
Almost simultaneously, a more chaotic and terrified clamor erupted outside the hall, cries, screams, and the sounds of running mixing together, as if the apocalypse had arrived!
"Reporting—!!!" Another guard stumbled and crawled into the hall, his face ghastly pale, his voice distorted: "Your... Your Majesty! Outside the city! Outside the city!! That bloody giant... It... It has reached Heaven Dou City!! It's right outside the city!!!"
"What?!"
At this moment, everyone was agitated, including the nearly exhausted Emperor Xue Ye, who was forced to straighten his body by a sudden chill.
"Let's go look!" Tang Xiao roared, transforming into a streak of light and rushing out of the main hall first.
Tang San, Yu Xiaogang, and the others followed closely, and Emperor Xue Ye was helped by his attendants, stumbling out after them.
The group surged out of the Imperial Palace and ascended to an outdoor high platform.
This was already one of the highest points in Heaven Dou City, offering a wide view.
However, there was no need to deliberately strain their eyes—
Because that figure was simply too immense!
Just outside Heaven Dou City's magnificent city walls, which stood a hundred meters tall and were reputed never to fall, a giant resembling a bloody mountain stood silently.
The city walls of Heaven Dou City were already massive, but in front of this blood-colored giant, which was at least five hundred meters high, they appeared as small and fragile as building blocks stacked by a child!
The giant was wrapped in a tangible dark red slaughter aura; its mere existence caused the entire sky to twist and the light to dim.
The equally enormous blood-colored spear in its hand pointed diagonally toward the ground, and the faint dark glow circulating around the spear tip caused everyone's souls to tremble.
The millions of residents in the entirety of Heaven Dou City could clearly see this demon god, seemingly descended from hell, simply by looking up!
Panic spread like a visible plague. The crowds in the streets ran and screamed like headless flies; some collapsed onto the ground, some knelt and prayed, and most looked up at the giant, their eyes filled with pure, unthinking terror and despair.
The once bustling and noisy Imperial Capital now resembled a ghost realm.
Amidst this extreme chaos and terror, that cold, emotionless voice, which resonated directly in the mind of every person, reappeared, exactly the same as the one heard earlier that morning at Jialing Pass:
[All persons in the city gate area, and within one li adjacent to the city walls, evacuate within the time it takes an incense stick to burn.]
The voice was not loud, yet it carried an absolute, unquestionable will, clearly reaching every corner of the city.
"Run!!!"
"Get away from the wall quickly!"
This time, no urging was needed; driven by instinct, people let out even more desperate screams, frantically surging toward the inner city, away from the walls!
On the Imperial Palace high platform, Emperor Xue Ye looked at the hellish scene below, watching the giant that seemed ready to drop its spear of judgment at any moment. He choked, suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, and completely passed out.
Yu Xiaogang and Tang San, among others, watched this entire spectacle with ghastly pale faces.
They could do nothing.
Stop it? With what? Attack? How was that different from suicide? They could only watch helplessly as the dignity of the Empire, the defense line of the Empire, melted away like snow under the sun before that absolute power.
The time it takes an incense stick to burn slowly passed in immense agony.
When the last bit of incense ash fell.
The bloody giant moved.
It slowly raised the blood-colored spear in its hand, which seemed capable of piercing the sky.
This time, the spear tip was no longer purely blood-red, but began to gather a profound, dark purple energy that seemed capable of devouring all light!
The energy was not violently leaking out; instead, it was extremely contained, compressed at the spear tip, radiating a wave of destruction—more terrifying than the pure slaughter aura before!
There was no earth-shattering momentum, no violent energy storm, only a suffocating silence.
Then, under the gaze of countless despairing eyes, the giant held the spear and, seemingly casually, lightly drew it downwards across the massive city wall that had protected Heaven Dou Imperial City for nearly a thousand years.
There was no sound.
Or rather, the sound was directly annihilated by the extreme power of destruction.
The dark purple light swept silently across the supposedly indestructible city wall, like a hot knife cutting through butter.
The next moment—
The magnificent city wall, thousands of meters long and a hundred meters high, along with its defensive structures, instantly fractured in the middle, as if gnawed by an invisible behemoth, revealing a terrifying, immense gap with edges as smooth as a mirror!
There was no explosion, no flying debris, and no rampaging energy aftermath.
Only complete, absolute... disappearance.
The destroyed section of the wall was instantly reduced to the finest dust, annihilated into nothingness.
Extreme destruction brought about extreme "quiet."
The entire Heaven Dou City fell into a silence deeper and more deathly than the panic before.
Everyone stared blankly at the massive gap, looking at the view of the wilderness outside the city that had previously been blocked by the wall, their minds completely blank.
On the Imperial Palace high platform, Tang San watched the huge gap, watching the bloody giant slowly begin to turn transparent and finally dissipate into the air, his body turning cold.
For the first time, he clearly realized what kind of existence he was facing.
That was no longer power within the scope of humanity.
That was... Divine Punishment!
... Moon Pavilion.
Inside this building, which symbolized the noble etiquette and elegance of the Heaven Dou Empire, there was now a deathly silence. The panic and clamor outside seemed to be isolated by the high walls, but the fear permeating the air could not be dispelled.
Tang Yuehua stood alone by the window, her slender fingers tightly gripping the window frame, her knuckles white from the effort.
She stared blankly at the spot outside the city where the bloody giant had just dissipated, and at the huge, smooth, terrifying gap in the city wall, as if it had been erased by a god.
Her mind was blank, with only the world-destroying scene replaying repeatedly in her thoughts.
Until a calm voice sounded behind her, breaking the suffocating silence.
"Long time no see."
Tang Yuehua's delicate body trembled violently, and she turned around like a startled rabbit. When she clearly saw the face of the person who had arrived, her pupils suddenly contracted, and her face was filled with disbelief.
"Xuan... Ming?" Her voice was dry, carrying a hint of a tremor.
The Xuan Ming before her was completely different from the sharp, yet reserved youth who had studied etiquette at the Moon Pavilion several years ago.
She wanted to ask so many things—whether the giant just now was him, what all of this was for, what he had experienced over the years... Thousands of words caught in her throat, ultimately turning into a choked sob.
Ignoring everything else, she suddenly rushed forward and tightly hugged Xuan Ming, as if grasping a life raft, or perhaps just confirming his existence.
Xuan Ming paused slightly, not pushing her away, simply allowing her to hold him, feeling the slight tremor in her body.
After a long time, Tang Yuehua's agitated emotions finally managed to calm down. She released Xuan Ming, stepped back, and tidied her slightly disheveled appearance, though the shock in her eyes had not yet faded. She looked up and asked cautiously, testing the waters: "Just now... the one outside the city... was that related to you?"
"Yes." Xuan Ming did not conceal it, admitting directly, "It was me."
After reaching rank ninety-nine, his slaughter battle soul could reach five hundred meters by absorbing the energy of heaven and earth. If he unleashed his full power, it could even exceed a thousand meters.
Perhaps size is meaningless to a god-level existence, but to mortals, this sheer size itself is despair.