"Yang Ying roared: 'Wide-Area Psychic Storm!'"

Crackling! Rumbling!

In an instant, thunder raged, and beneath a single clap of thunder, the area spanning a thousand li was entirely engulfed in lightning!

Millions of lightning bolts drilled out of the void, hurtling down upon the soldiers, chariots, fighters, automatic weapons, robots, and all manner of armament belonging to the Kusta army.

Eggshell-like defense shields flared into existence, desperately resisting the lightning's assault. Simultaneously, every weapon system began charging, unleashing fire upon Yang Ying and Blade.

Only moments passed before those with thin protection suffered utter annihilation—the cannon-fodder robots, and the Kusta soldiers clad only in powered armor.

The individual defense shields were easily shattered by the lightning, and countless electric serpents wrapped around their bodies. One chain was enough to ensnare dozens, electrocuting them until they were charred outside and tender within. Some unlucky few were struck directly by particularly thick bolts, their flesh and blood vaporizing in an instant—blood, organs, muscle—all turning into red gas, leaving behind nothing but carbonized skeletons.

However, a vast contingent of armored and air units managed to hold their ground, weathering the Wide-Area Psychic Storm!

Yang Ying was not surprised by this; it was precisely what he had foreseen. His Wide-Area Psychic Storm used a single psychic eruption as a primer to release all the accumulated positive and negative electrical charges within the atmosphere across a thousand li. A planet's atmosphere generally accumulates charge, as does the surface, and these two reservoirs often hold opposite polarities, turning the atmosphere and the ground into a colossal capacitor storing endless electrical energy.

All Yang Ying needed to do was pierce the channel between the positive and negative charges, allowing them to react naturally, thus generating the catastrophic discharge that formed the devastating Wide-Area Psychic Storm.

Still, an army numbering in the hundreds of millions, possessing countless energy cores and high-output engines, commanded a terrifying total energy reserve. To survive this initial Wide-Area Psychic Storm was, in a way, to be expected.

"Hold fast! Do not fear them! Full power! Full army engagement! Kusta warriors, show your valor!" Kalagunis shouted, unleashing a violent flame from both hands. It coalesced into a massive hammer, and he strode forward, appearing before Yang Ying, swinging the hammer down.

"A mere violent flame, I have already seen through it. Break for me!" Yang Ying’s gaze pierced through the hammer’s impending complex maneuvers. He brought his hands together, drawing a Sword of Lightning from his left palm, and swept it forward. The edge accurately struck the head of the hammer.

Boom!

With a thunderous explosion, the hammer head was cleaved apart by the single sword stroke!

Like the detonation of tens of thousands of tons of explosives, the rampant violent flames shot out in all directions. Defenses, vegetation, soil, weaponry, soldiers—everything combustible and non-combustible—erupted into fire.

"Take this!" Feroe whipped out a long green lash. The tail split, one becoming ten, ten becoming a hundred, instantly transforming into a hundred living, agile whips that coiled inward towards Blade from every direction.

"Pathetic. Not even as good as the violent flame. Do you truly think you can withstand my thunder? Begone!" Blade pushed out with both hands, and a heaven-shaking roar sounded as dozens of colossal bolts of lightning domineeringly smashed through every green whip. A torrent of potent electricity surged towards Feroe.

Feroe instantly felt an aura of destruction bearing down on him. Though he recalled Blade’s promise not to take his life, he dared not linger, flashing away just in time to evade the massive strike.

Boom!

Dozens of giant lightning bolts slammed into the ground simultaneously. Electric sparks raged everywhere, and a mushroom cloud began to rise.

Kalagunis projected a telepathic message skyward: "Attention all units! Adjust targeting parameters. Point all muzzles toward coordinate 3. Blade, prepare to fire on my command... Fire!"

The sky suddenly lit up with blinding brilliance. The main cannons of the Kusta fleet opened fire. Particle beams, uranium energy lances—a veritable storm of projectiles—rained down upon the surface, seemingly unconcerned about their own ground forces.

And those ground troops behaved like zealots, utterly disregarding their own safety, employing every means possible to attack Yang Ying and Blade.

Innumerable missiles danced across the sky, and dense beams of light occupied every scrap of space, forming an almost impenetrable net, leaving virtually nowhere to stand.

Cannon-fodder robots swarmed forward in droves, only to shatter in droves. Fighters launched suicidal attacks, slamming without hesitation into their targets. The Kusta army advanced with the momentum to utterly erase this entire continent.

Yang Ying looked around. He saw himself locked onto by over ten million targets, a deluge of attacks bearing down on him. However, he knew clearly that the main threat came from the fleet in the sky; their bombardment power far surpassed the combined might of the ground forces.

At the very moment the full assault began, Kalagunis and Feroe retreated several kilometers.

Before withdrawing, Kalagunis expended nearly all his strength, using the violent flame to forge a cage, which he cast over Yang Ying. The crimson flames on the cage solidified as if physical, the scorching energy warping space and emitting dangerous fluctuations.

Feroe unleashed his most prized spell. This Level Four entity, possessing green skin and hair like vines, specialized in plant-based magic, his energy manifesting as green light. After several engagements with him, Blade had deciphered the structure of the green root energy, finding that it adhered to the laws of plant growth, possessing pores and subtle applications.

At this moment, Feroe transformed his green whip into a massive plant net, seemingly woven from the sturdiest ancient vines. Blade instantly recognized that this net existed between energy and matter, possessing the dual characteristics of both. Even a maximum-power high-frequency blade or a light-saber could not cut through it.

The full-power moves from the two Level Four entities were designed solely to delay Yang Ying and Blade from dodging—even for a fraction of a second—to allow the army's firepower to strike them.

Their coordination with the army was so seamless because the Kusta forces were permeated with Kalagunis’s disciples, along with countless awakened Kusta natives, making it effortlessly easy for Kalagunis to direct the troops.

"Kalagunis, your timing was excellent. If you could have halted us for a single instant, the army's firepower would have inflicted severe damage upon us. But I see further than you do. These preparations were foreseen long ago. What use are they now?"

The moment Kalagunis threw the violent flame cage and Feroe cast the vine net, Yang Ying had already reacted, condensing immense electrical power in his hands. He formed a Spear of Lightning and hurled it towards the violent flame cage. Blade, too, threw an identical Spear of Lightning, targeting the vine net.

The spells cast with the full effort of Kalagunis and Feroe were surpassed by Yang Ying using only half his strength.

The two Spears of Lightning collided with the violent flame cage and the vine net, respectively. The resulting electrical explosions instantly shattered the cage and tore the vines apart. Yang Ying and Blade seized the opportunity, flashed forward, and sped out of the Kusta army's effective attack range.

It happened in less time than it takes to blink: from the Kusta army opening fire until Yang Ying and Blade launched their Spears of Lightning, broke the encirclement, and escaped, only a blink had passed.

The Kusta fleet had not fired at maximum capacity; unleashing the full power of a million warships could turn the entire planet into a sieve—the destructive potential was too immense. Furthermore, Kalagunis was still on the surface, and Yang Ying and Blade were not planning on letting him depart easily, meaning the Kusta fleet was somewhat hesitant.

"Coordinate Stronghold Assist, ten times firepower, fire."

Kalagunis showed no concern for whether the planet would be destroyed. He cared only about surviving this day. During the preceding exchange, he had communicated with Feroe and learned of the events at Tibuz’s Home after his departure. Kalagunis now knew that if he could survive today and prevent Yang Ying and Blade from killing him, he would secure five hundred years of safety. This would give him ample room to maneuver, perhaps finding a new path to survival within five centuries so that even then, Yang Ying and Blade could not eliminate him.

Another wave of overwhelming beam bombardment descended, its power surpassing even Yang Ying’s Wide-Area Psychic Storm. The number of ships firing this time was ten times greater than before; last time it was a thousand vessels, but now, over ten thousand were engaged.

Reviewing the numerous battles recorded among the various races in the Orion Arm, it is known that some Level Four entities could engage a thousand warships alone, annihilate the enemy fleet, and retreat unharmed.

However, no Level Four entity had ever undertaken a confrontation against ten thousand warships simultaneously; the title of 'Ten Thousand Ship Adversary' had yet to be conferred upon anyone.

The saturation bombardment from ten thousand warships was extraordinary, its destructive power horrifying. Tens of thousands of incredibly brilliant beams, condensed with infinite energy, descended from the heavens, bringing boundless destruction that shook the very foundations of the entire continent.

A magnitude twelve earthquake fractured the continent. Tectonic plates shattered, mountains subsided, lakes evaporated, and hideous fissures webbed the surface as the earth groaned in agony. Magma erupted like fountains from beneath the ground.

As this barrage was unleashed, every land vehicle in the entire Kusta ground army transformed instantly into aerial units, and any units incapable of transformation activated their thrusters, lifting off the fracturing surface.

Neither Yang Ying nor Blade were directly struck by this bombardment, but Yang Ying could not help but admire Kalagunis’s grandiose gesture.

Beihu Star was the territory of the Flyn. More accurately, it was the territory of the rebels. Billions of Flyn people, still living under the rule of the Flyn Republic, inhabited this planet.

The Kusta natives had always respected the status of the Flyn Republic, yet Kalagunis unleashed such a devastating bombardment upon Beihu Star, the capital of the Flyn Republic, utterly disregarding the casualties among the Flyn people. This was truly the characteristic of a ruthless overlord.

But this was not unexpected; if Kalagunis did not care about the lives of his own people, why would he care about the Flyn?

The result of this bombardment was not confined to this single continent. Soon, the chain reaction would manifest: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions—destructive natural disasters far beyond human comprehension—were likely to plunge the planet into an ice age. Ninety percent of the Flyn people on Beihu Star might perish as a result.