In an instant, Yang Di felt as if he had been completely drained.
It wasn't just strength, but a core bond maintaining his soul and this burning land that was forcefully severed.
He could see the cracked Lord Core at the center of the twisted War Tree suddenly dim, and all the contained vast green energy, like an out-of-control river pouring backward, not into the ancient tree, but through a void spiritual connection, frantically surging into his own spiritual consciousness!
The enormous psychic power, like a brutal invader, slammed into his collapsing spiritual core, bringing a soul-tearing pain!
"Ahhhhh—!"
Yang Di screamed, his body convulsing under the energy impact.
At the same time, an unprecedented blinding green light burst from his brow!
An extremely weakened but violently amplified psychic signal—was frantically transmitted towards the Wood Elf Plane in the ethereal void!
"Found it!"
A trace of almost unconcealable ecstasy came from the Elder's thought!
However, just as the psychic beacon light reached its peak, Yang Di discovered with horror—he couldn't move!
It wasn't exhaustion, nor weakness, but an absolute confinement deeply rooted in his soul!
It was as if what he had opened was not a beacon, but a "lock" that locked his entire body!
Cold fear instantly froze his blood, deeper than all the despair he had felt before combined!
"No! Elder! I can't move! What…what's going on? The passage…" Yang Di screamed silently, terrified, from the depths of his soul.
"The passage?" The last thing that came from the Elder's thought was a bone-chilling, unconcealed disdain and mockery: "Idiot…this isn't a passage to receive you…this is a harvest mark…and coordinate positioning!"
The next moment! A sudden change occurred!
A dazzling pillar of light, indescribable in its color, deeper than green, more eerie than black, carrying energy far exceeding the tolerance limit of the plane barrier—suddenly tore open the gloomy mist and night sky above the Eight Mile River Twilight Realm!
This pillar of light did not come from the sky, but precisely penetrated the dimensional barrier, as if a large, irregular black hole was forcibly torn open in the space above their heads!
Like a spear of divine punishment, it ignored spatial distance and precisely enveloped the burning, twisted War Tree, which was still roaring and struggling under the Deherim Legion's long-range firepower!
Time seemed to freeze at this moment.
Where the light pillar swept, the War Tree's mountain-like wooden body, its gnarled and mutated root tumors, its frantically burning bark, and even the surrounding scorched earth within a certain range…were erased as if by an invisible giant hand!
There was no process, no resistance, only instantaneous disappearance!
The terrifying entity that was spewing flames and swinging its giant claws a second ago was gone without a trace the next second!
Even the large area of burning ruined ground where it stood was "dug" away, leaving behind a huge, smooth-edged, charred, bottomless pit!
Only the scattered embers and dust, stirred up by the powerful airflow, remained, like an elegy for this eerie disappearance!
The pillar of light appeared and vanished instantly, as if it had never existed.
The "black hole" that tore the sky also quickly closed, leaving only a deathly silence on the battlefield below.
In the Deherim Legion's formation, whether it was the cold commander Fatis, Lezalit who was scolding soldiers to round up prisoners, Bandak who was wiping sweat and fiddling with a ballista, or Bestour who had just fired a rocket, everyone froze the moment that pillar of light appeared.
It was a power far beyond human comprehension, carrying a chilling aura of plunder.
Shen Mu's pupils suddenly contracted, the playful mockery on his face instantly froze, turning into the deepest apprehension. The veins on the back of his hand, gripping the reins, bulged.
Even he was shocked by this sudden, unreasonable "harvest"!
And in the ruins at the edge of the light pillar's core…
Thud!
A dull sound broke the momentary silence.
Yang Di, covered in blood and like a broken rag doll, was not taken away by the pillar of light!
He felt the powerful binding force around him instantly release as the light pillar disappeared, but his body completely lost all support.
The vast psychic power that had been forcibly drawn into his body was like a drained flood, leaving behind only a vast, empty ruin and an unspeakable weakness, as well as the tearing pain in his limbs and bones.
He fell heavily, without any buffer, from the edge of the light pillar, a ten-meter high charred cliff!
"Pfft—" The violent impact with the ground made Yang Di's vision completely black, and his internal organs felt displaced.
He lay like a dying worm on the scorching ground, soaked in foul blood and charred ash, unable even to groan, only shallow, ragged breaths.
The smoke and dust slowly settled.
At the edge of Yang Di's blurred, unfocused, blood-stained vision, he saw—
Not far from where he fell, in a shallow pit almost buried by rubble, lay another bloody figure.
At the person's chest, a huge, horrific wound, clearly from a piercing weapon, was still slowly oozing thick, black blood.
That face, also covered in blood and as pale as a corpse, Yang Di would recognize until his death—
It was Zhang Bo, whose chest he had personally stabbed, and who should have died long ago!
Zhang Bo had clearly also been affected by the earth-shattering event, either thrown by the shockwave or hit by falling rocks, his breath as faint as a candle in the wind, yet miraculously…
He still had one last breath remaining.
One of Zhang Bo's eyes was crusted with blood, but the other was slightly open, a slit filled with infinite hollowness and the numbness of impending death, silently looking at Yang Di, who had fallen from mid-air and landed not far from him.
No hatred, no anger, not even much focus.
Just…he saw him.
The air twisted in the burning embers.
Two former core members of the Green Leaf Group, one completely drained and mercilessly abandoned after betrayal, falling heavily to the ground, dying.
The other abandoned after his master unhesitatingly pierced his heart, witnessing in despair the same fate befall the betrayer.
Separated by mere meters, on the burning wasteland of the apocalypse, under the cold, watchful gaze of the shocked and wary Deherim Legion, they both plunged into the boundless shadow of death.
Zhang Bo's weak, still-focused gaze became the last sight Yang Di saw before being swallowed by darkness.
And Yang Di's dog-like fall was deeply imprinted in the last shred of Zhang Bo's fading consciousness.
Only in the distance, the huge, deep pit left after the War Tree disappeared, like a hideous wound, silently told of the plunder that had just occurred, beyond mortal comprehension.
A deathly silence permeated the battlefield.
The shock left by the terrifying pillar of light that appeared out of nowhere and vanished just as suddenly, was like a heavy hammer striking the heart of every Deherim soldier.
The scattered embers and dust falling from the sky seemed to sing a silent elegy for this unearthly scene.
The edge of the huge pit was charred and shiny, smooth as a mirror, as if gnawed by an invisible giant maw, silently speaking of the horrifying fact that the War Tree and its foundation had been instantly harvested.
Holy Tree Steeds stomped uneasily in place, snorting.
Fatis, Bandak, Lezalit, Bestour, the relaxed and confident expressions on all the generals' faces had long since frozen and shattered, replaced by bone-deep horror and solemnity.
Even they, seasoned veterans who had seen countless battles and faced death many times, had never seen, or even imagined, such an unreasonable force that treated the material world as nothing!
Shen Mu's figure, seated on horseback, remained motionless, but in the depths of his pupils, the shock abruptly illuminated by the light pillar was like fire beneath ice, instantly flaring up then rapidly freezing into the deepest apprehension.
The knuckles of his fingers, gripping the reins, turned white from the excessive force, almost embedding into the tough leather.
That power…cold, precise, efficient, ruthless!
It wasn't for support, nor for revenge, it was merely for…plunder!
It clearly targeted and took away the War Tree, even taking a large portion of its surrounding material foundation!
This form of power, this absolute dominion over space and matter, already surpassed his understanding of the current world's rules.
"What…what the hell was that?!"
Bandak's voice broke the silence, hoarse and filled with lingering fear, as if he had narrowly escaped death. He stared intently at the huge, bottomless pit ahead, as if that black hole could reopen at any moment and swallow everything.
Cold sweat seeped from the seams of Lezalit's heavy armor; he used all his will to suppress the tremor in his voice: "Over-spec power…definitely not Wood Elves! No, it might even…not be from any plane or entity we know of!"
He had witnessed the power of mages, and the vastness of the undead scourge, but none possessed the characteristic of ignoring all physical rules and directly "erasing" the essence of a target.
"Lord!"
Bestour's voice carried the unique alertness of a Kujit, as he pointed towards the sky where the light pillar had vanished: "That 'hole'…that tearing sensation! It's definitely not as simple as opening a passage! We…"
"Alert! Maximum combat readiness!"
Shen Mu's icy voice, like an arctic wind, instantly cut off all the generals' shocked whispers.
All eyes, questioning, fearful, nervous, instantly converged on him.
Shen Mu's gaze, like the sharpest probe, had completely withdrawn from the initial shock, becoming sharp as a hawk, locked onto two spots outside the light pillar's covered area, yet at its edge—those two piles of "trash" lying in charred blood and debris.
One was at the bottom of the cliff at the edge of the deep pit.
Yang Di lay like a rag, covered in blood, his limbs strangely twisted, only faint and intermittent twitches indicating he still clung to his last breath.
In his only eye that could still focus, his pupils were dilated, filled with extreme blankness and the nihilism of being utterly abandoned.
The light pillar had taken away all his struggles, his proud trump card, and even his last connection to power as a lord, leaving behind only a fragile, drained husk.
The other, a little further away, was Zhang Bo, whose chest was a bloody mess.
He lay on his side in rubble and ash, the wound on his chest horrifying, with multiple bone injuries from being thrown by the explosion's shockwave.
His last shred of consciousness, like a candle in the wind, his vision blurred, happened to fall in the direction where Yang Di had fallen.
No anger, no resentment, only a dying emptiness. Yang Di's dog-like fall became the last blurry image he saw before his consciousness sank into darkness.
Irony!
Deadly irony!
One betrayed by himself, stabbed through the heart and abandoned.
The other, seen as a pawn and ruthlessly drained, then abandoned by the plane he served.
Two figures who once stirred up the winds and clouds of Eight Mile River, now at the end of their lives, separated by a small patch of burning ruins, silently witnessed each other's ultimate, most complete failure.
"Whoosh—"
A hot night wind swept through, carrying heavy scents of blood, char, and an indescribable, cold, empty sensation of spatial residue.
"My Lord?" Fatis asked in a low voice, his right hand still gripping his sword hilt, as the Holy Tree Knight Order's elites had quietly formed a tighter semi-circle at his silent command, completely shielding Shen Mu in the center.
The Holy Tree Knights' eyes were no longer wary of Wood Elves or undead, but solemnly scanned the sky, as if guarding against divine punishment that might descend again at any moment.
"Bandak!"
Shen Mu's voice regained absolute control, but it was colder and harder than before, like quenched cold iron.
"Here! My Lord!" Bandak straightened his back abruptly, trying to suppress the shock in his heart.
"Advance immediately! Thoroughly search the edge area of the light pillar, especially those two things!"
Shen Mu's chin lifted slightly, pointing in the direction of Yang Di and Zhang Bo, his tone devoid of any warmth: "Confirm if they still have a breath left! Especially Zhang Bo, who is lying in the pile of rubble! I want him alive! Even if he only has a trace of breath, keep him alive for me!"
"Understood!" Bandak replied.
He turned, his rough roar tearing through the silence: "Get those two bastards out for me! Medic! Bring your gear and follow!"
"Lezalit!"
"My Lord!"
"Maintain maximum alert! All ranged units, bows strung, ballistas loaded and ready! Do not attack towards the pit without my command!"
Shen Mu's orders were decisive: "Notify the reserve troops in the rear, especially all spellcaster units! Immediately move towards the core of the battlefield! I need them to conduct the most thorough detection and analysis of the residual energy from just now! Don't miss any clue!"
"Yes, Lord!"
"Bestour!" Shen Mu's gaze turned to the Kujit.
"My Lord! Bestour is always at your command!" Bestour saluted, pressing his hand to his chest.
"Your horse archers, expand your roving range by double! Closely monitor all space outside the village! If there are any abnormal distortions, light and shadow, or unknown energy fluctuations, no matter how slight, immediately fire a whistling arrow to warn! Remember, it's the highest level of warning!"
"As you command! My eyes and scimitar will clear all unknown threats for my Lord!" Bestour's eyes were sharp, and with a wave of his hand, the Kujit scattered like arrows released from a bowstring.
A series of commands, like cold gears instantly meshing, saw the Deherim war machine rapidly resume operation from its shock, but the atmosphere was entirely different. (End of Chapter)
