A destructive torrent slammed into the Immortal Dynasty's territory!
Viscous Strange Mist devoured stars, and distorted Strange Shadows shrieked and churned within the mist sea, pouring down with malice that sought to annihilate everything.
Just as this filthy torrent was about to engulf the frontier Star Domain, the Da Qian Immortal Dynasty's massive Formation, which had been dormant for thirty years, moved!
Deep within the star sea, countless colossal battleships had already formed their ranks. Their hulls were as cold as profound iron, their decks covered in dense Formation patterns, and their muzzles were chillingly arrayed. At this moment, all muzzles simultaneously lit up, converging into a sea of destructive light that covered the entire galaxy!
The Qianyuan Emperor stood atop the Imperial Palace, his Nine-Dragon Imperial Robe fluttering in the wind, his eyes beneath the Flat-Sky Crown as cold as ten thousand years of ice. He pressed his hand down in the Void Realm.
"Boom—!!!"
Billions of ship cannons roared in unison!
Trillions of scorching beams of destructive light tore through the Void Realm polluted by the Strange Mist! The energy torrent was like a breached star river, carrying thirty years of accumulated slaughter and wrath, slamming head-on into that inflowing strange white mist.
Wherever the light beams passed, space collapsed inch by inch!
The viscous Strange Mist was instantly vaporized and torn apart! Countless distorted Strange Shadows in the torrent, without even time to shriek, turned into ashes in the extreme light and heat. The massive Deva Race vanguard army was forcibly pierced through and shredded!
The sea of light poured forth, continuously bombarding!
The Immortal Dynasty's fleet Formation was like a silent behemoth, its gun fire relentless, round after round of salvos causing the inflowing strange white torrent to halt.
At the edge of the pierced opening, the Strange Mist violently churned and retreated, revealing the shattered Deva Race remnants behind it.
From deep within the Strange Mist, a chilling shriek that froze the Soul could be heard.
The Immortal Dynasty fleet's salvo, with an unstoppable momentum, heavily damaged the Deva Race army's vanguard, tearing open a gruesome corner of the death torrent!
However, the shredded Strange Mist did not disperse. The viscous, strange white dense mist, as if possessing a living will, suddenly contracted inward and condensed! Countless distorted Strange Shadows shrieked, dissolved, and reassembled within the mist, quickly forming "nests"-like structures composed of writhing limbs and foul energy.
These "nests" were covered in wrinkled holes and emitted a nauseating, decaying aura. Like floating islands, they slowly but steadily advanced, enduring the residual energy turbulence from the ship cannons.
"Saturation coverage! Shatter those abominations!" the Commander-in-Chief roared from the fleet flagship, the "Heavenly Peak."
Billions of ship cannons fired again in unison. Beams of destructive light, like a reversing star river, fiercely slammed into those writhing "nests."
This time, the light beams could not easily penetrate. The viscous, constantly flowing layer of Strange Mist on the surface of the nests seemed to possess peculiar absorption and deflection properties, dispersing, weakening, and devouring the violent energy impact!
Violent explosions erupted on the surface of the nests, tearing open huge wounds, with foul viscous fluid and shattered limbs splattering. But deep within the wounds, large amounts of writhing tissue quickly filled in, and the entire nest structure violently vibrated and rapidly healed, without disintegrating!
"Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff…"
On the surface of those "nests" that had been riddled with holes, countless wrinkled holes suddenly expanded, like giant spore sacs bursting! In an instant, countless strange white "spores" the size of fists, like billions of locusts, were frantically ejected by the pressure accumulated inside the nests!
These spores were extremely fast, ignoring energy turbulence, their trajectories erratic, like deathly snowflakes, overwhelmingly covering the massive Immortal Dynasty fleet!
"Enemy attack! Unknown projectiles! Quantity… uncountable!!!" The detection Formation emitted a piercing alarm.
"Close-range firepower! Full power!" Captains of all ranks roared.
Along the ship's sides, at the base of the turrets, and around the bridge, all close-range turrets, cutting beams, and defensive Formations activated instantly! Dense beams of light and energy fields intertwined into a net of death, frantically strangling the approaching spores.
"Chirp, chirp, chirp… Splat, splat, splat…"
Most of the spores were blown apart in mid-air, exploding into clumps of viscous, strange white mist emitting a decaying odor. However, the number of spores was simply too vast, too dense! Like pouring rain, there were always some that slipped through the firepower net!
"Thud! Splish!"
A spore struck the thick psionic shield of the "Wave Breaker" heavy cruiser. It did not explode but clung tightly like a leech! Its strange white surface quickly secreted a viscous liquid with a faint green glow, and the shield's energy was visibly eroded and dimmed at a rapid pace! Immediately after, the spore's outer shell softened and ruptured, and countless strange white "mycelia," thin as hair and emitting faint mental pollution, frantically drilled into the shield's energy structure like living creatures!
"Warning! Port shield energy being eroded by unknown biomass, decay rate abnormal! Unable to clear!" Inside the bridge, the Cultivator responsible for the shield was pale, his hand gestures flashing wildly, yet he could not stop the mycelia from spreading and taking root in the energy flow.
"Boom!" Another spore struck the side armor of the "Ocean Stabilizer" battleship, which had not activated its auxiliary shield! The hard alloy armor emitted a grating, corrosive sound, and the area covered by the viscous fluid rapidly softened and discolored.
After the spore ruptured, more mycelia drilled into the metal crevices, growing and infiltrating frantically into the ship's interior!
The warships hit by the spores were like ships infected with a terrible plague: their defensive Formations overloaded and failed; their armor was corroded and its strength plummeted; and even more terrifying, the mycelia that drilled into the ship's interior frantically absorbed the internal Qi flow of the warships, even attempting to invade the core of the control Formation!
Infected areas on the metal surface would show eerie strange white veins, pulsating like blood vessels, emitting a decaying aura originating from the same source as the external Strange Mist.
"Abandon ship! Containment failure! They… they are growing inside the ship! Ah—!" From a frigate heavily covered in spores, a desperate shriek came through the internal communication channel, immediately replaced by chaotic static and bone-chilling chewing sounds.
The entire warship's power core suddenly erupted with an abnormal strange white light, then completely lost control, dragging thick smoke and escaping Strange Mist, tilting and crashing into the allied fleet Formation!
"Damn it! It's parasitic infection! All warships, increase distance! Prioritize firepower to clear attached spores! For infected areas, physical cutting isolation! Those that cannot be isolated… self-destruct!" The Commander-in-Chief roared, giving a decisive, iron-blooded order.
The fleet Formation was forced to spread out, and firepower was dispersed.
A portion of the gun fire had to be redirected to clear spores attached to allied ship hulls and spreading mycelia, greatly reducing efficiency. Meanwhile, the Deva Race's "nests" took the opportunity to accelerate their advance, with more spore sacs being generated and ejected. From deep within the churning Strange Mist, countless Deva Race individuals of various forms and emitting stronger auras, like vultures waiting for carrion, began to gather under the cover of spore clouds and corrupted warships, launching a deadly counterattack!
The star sea battlefield, the situation rapidly deteriorated. The Immortal Dynasty fleet's proud steel bastion was being slowly eroded and disintegrated by this strange, malicious, and inescapable spore tactic! The cold metal warships, under the erosion of Deva Race biological technology, were turning into mobile coffins and new sources of pollution!
Just as the fleet's Formation showed signs of disorder, from the deepest part of the churning Strange Mist, a terrifying will that froze the Soul suddenly descended.
All the "nests" ejecting spores simultaneously pulsed violently, and the spore stream they spewed out suddenly increased tenfold! And behind the endless strange white spore torrent, the outline of a "giant tree" so vast it obscured stars, forcibly formed by the Fusion of countless nests and writhing limbs, slowly appeared within the dense mist! It was like a pulsating, rotting giant heart, each pulse releasing massive amounts of strange white spores and a terrifying surge of mental pollution!
At this critical juncture—
"Buzz—!"
Deep within the Da Qian Immortal Dynasty's heartland, countless dormant starports, massive orbital shipyards, and even Void Realm rifts obscured by Formations, suddenly lit up with billions of points of cold light!
Those were not stars, but the light of ignited engine nozzles!
Thirty years of accumulated massive war reserves, at this moment, completely erupted!
"Reinforcements! It's the main fleet!!!" A roar of relief erupted from the verge of collapse in the vanguard fleet.
A steel torrent, far exceeding the vanguard in scale and seemingly endless, slammed into the battlefield, continuously flowing.
Ships! Endless Spirit Ships!
Battleships floated like mountains, their heavy armor adorned with newly carved, profound Formation patterns specifically designed to counter Strange Mist corrosion; cruiser groups were like swarms of steel bees, their dense close-range turrets already warmed up, emitting a destructive, eerie glow;
Destroyers were as fast as lightning, weaving and patrolling through the gaps in the main force; and there were even unprecedented colossal fortress ships, like mobile war stars, with layers of gigantic cannon muzzles on their hulls slowly turning, locking onto the sky-obscuring Strange Tree!
"Target, Strange Tree core! Saturation salvo! Fire!!!" The Supreme Commander issued a cold, emotionless command, yet one imbued with the will of trillions of Cultivators, instantly permeating all warships!
"Boom, rumble, rumble—!!!"
This salvo far surpassed the scale and power of the vanguard fleet! Trillions of immensely thick beams of destructive light converged into a scorching white torrent capable of melting through a star river! They were no longer dispersed attacks, but precise, concentrated, and with the will to crush everything, they fiercely slammed into the pulsating Strange Tree core!
The viscous, energy-absorbing and deflecting mist layer on the Strange Tree's surface was instantly torn apart and vaporized like paper in the face of this overwhelming concentrated firepower! The terrifying scorching white beams directly penetrated deep into the Strange Tree's writhing trunk!
"Screech—!!!"
A piercing wail, transcending physical space and originating from the Dao level, resounded in the Sea of Consciousness of all living beings! The Strange Tree's massive trunk was forcibly pierced through, creating a colossal void with a diameter comparable to a star! The countless writhing limbs and strange white eyeballs forming the trunk instantly carbonized and disintegrated in the extreme light and heat! The spewing spore stream abruptly ceased, replaced by foul, lava-like fluid gushing from the wound!
The Strange Tree, heavily damaged!
Following the fleet torrent was a stream of light that obscured the star sea!
Thunderfire incinerated spores, giant hammers shattered nests, and Formations sealed the Void Realm! Thirty years of preparing for war, thirty years of resource pouring, now erupted with chilling power! The remaining frontier fleet, as if injected with a stimulant, unleashed its final frenzy, attacking from both inside and out!
The unstoppable advance of the Strange Mist torrent was forcibly halted!
The Strange Tree, heavily damaged by the fleet's main cannons, twisted frantically, attempting to heal its wounds, but the scorching white energy torrent continuously washed over the wound, preventing its regeneration. Countless Deva Race individuals clinging to it were divided and annihilated by the Spirit Ship army in the chaos.
Deprived of the Strange Tree core's command and continuous spore support, the charging Deva Race army fell into unprecedented chaos, like a venomous snake with its head severed, its offensive abruptly halted!
"Push them back!" The flagship's command was cold as iron.
The main fleet's Formation shifted, forming a massive arc-shaped encirclement, continuously pouring gun fire, advancing step by step like a moving steel Great Wall!
Wherever it passed, the remaining Strange Mist nests were crushed, and the scattered Deva Race were vaporized. The Cultivator army followed closely, sweeping the battlefield like a comb, thoroughly annihilating any that slipped through the net.
The star sea battlefield, the situation instantly reversed! That inflowing death torrent was forcibly pushed back by the Da Qian Immortal Dynasty's thirty years of accumulated war torrent, with unmatched steel and will!
At the shattered boundary wall opening, the surging Strange Mist was firmly suppressed outside. Inside the Immortal Dynasty's territory, only the burning Strange Tree remnants, floating metal fragments, and countless twisted Deva Race corpses remained, recounting the previous ferocity and the current… temporary victory!
Atop the Imperial Palace, the Qianyuan Emperor's gaze grew even colder as he stared through the crystal screen beyond the boundary wall opening—into the depths of the silent Strange Mist.
The terrifying shadow did not dissipate with the destruction of the Strange Tree's illusory form; instead, it accelerated its convergence and expansion! A mental pressure hundreds, thousands of times stronger than before, like an invisible millstone, began to grind the Divine Souls of all living beings on the front line!
The warship shields rippled violently, and Cultivators with weaker cultivation turned pale, their heads throbbing.
"The real… is coming." The Sword Cultivator Ancestor's voice carried an unprecedented solemnity, his face grim.
The Kushan Buddhist Lord chanted scriptures, but his Buddha light seemed somewhat dim, resisting the pervasive, invasive will.
"Roar!"
An indescribable roar, transcending the limits of hearing, exploded directly within the Origin of all beings with "consciousness"! The entire Da Qian Immortal Dynasty, trillions of stars, seemed to tremble with this roar!
Outside the boundary wall opening, the churning Strange Mist suddenly parted to both sides! An existence that could not be measured by "size" slowly revealed the tip of its iceberg!
It was not comparable to the previously destroyed Strange Tree; it was the "Root"! It was the "Origin"! It was the ultimate form nurtured by the Strange Mist itself! Its main trunk was gnarled and twisted, as if countless corpses of rotting giant Dragons were forcibly twisted together, flowing with viscous, dark, murky fluid that exuded the aura of the Dao's decline.
The moment this "Strange Tree Ontology" descended, time on the entire battlefield seemed to freeze!
The residual Strange Mist, temporarily suppressed near the boundary wall opening by the main fleet, was infused with a violent vitality, instantly boiling and expanding! Its viscosity increased a hundredfold, and its color changed from strange white to a heart-stopping dark, murky hue!
The scattered Deva Race remnants, shattered nest fragments, and even the out-of-control Immortal Dynasty warship wreckage infected by spores, were all forcibly absorbed, dissolved, and reassembled by this foul Strange Mist! One after another, "stitched monstrosities" comparable in size to small stars, forcibly pieced together from metal wreckage and corrupted flesh, roared and rose in the murky Strange Mist. (End of Chapter)
