Just as Dukaate Holsom’s spearhead army was on the verge of being annihilated by the combined forces of the three factions, a deep, long howl suddenly rang out from the highest peak on the southwest side of the valley.

Dukaate Holsom stood there with a contingent of high-ranking Roman officers. Piles of Zakla Crystals were stacked beside him; he was incessantly drawing energy from them to generate more armed robots. As the muffled howl issued from a hazy, near-transparent shadow beside him, Dukaate Holsom gritted his teeth and stabbed a high-pressure gas needle into his own neck.

The potion surged rapidly into his bloodstream, frantically spurring Dukaate Holsom’s potential, squeezing every last drop of vitality from his body. His nearly depleted spiritual power suddenly surged, quickly restoring him to its peak state—and it continued to rise. His tall, robust frame began to shrivel like a collapsing apple, yet the fluctuations of spiritual power emanating from within him grew ever stronger. Gradually, the intensity of his spiritual power multiplied several times over his peak, reaching the very limits his body could bear.

“Hmph!”

With a muffled grunt, the small mountain of Zakla Crystals piled beside Dukaate Holsom disintegrated simultaneously, the vast energy within the crystals instantly drawn into his body.

The surrounding armed robots also disintegrated at once, streams of white light continuously flowing back into Dukaate Holsom.

“Great Master, your will is the target of our destruction!”

A dull electronic voice sounded. A thick, meter-wide shaft of white light shot out from between Dukaate Holsom’s eyebrows, soaring toward the sky. It tore the air in a radius of several hundred meters to shreds, and torrents of gale-force winds spewed out of that turbulent mass of air, gradually revealing the vague shapes of colossal machinery taking form within the light.

Thirty Destroyer Giant Robots that Dukaate Holsom had once summoned.

Twenty metal spiders, each over eight meters tall, laden with various explosives.

Ten metal behemoths, each fifteen meters long—three multi-headed tigers, three multi-headed leopards, and four multi-headed wolves. When the massive jaws of these beasts opened, one could see high-energy cannon barrels as thick as a meter inside.

The last entity to take shape was an absolute behemoth—a warship approximately two hundred and fifty meters in length! This vessel possessed no energy shields, no sturdy defensive armor, and no aft engines for rapid flight. It only had four plasma levitation engines mounted beneath the hull to hover in the air, and a dense swarm of gun barrels. This thing barely qualified as a warship; it was a single-use weapon platform designed for devastating ground strikes.

Thump-thump-thump-thump. The Destroyer robots, metal spiders, and metal behemoths slammed heavily onto the ground. The Destroyers’ massive muzzles began to charge, the metal spiders started wildly scattering bombs in all directions, and the metal beasts charged directly toward the nearest Church encampment.

All the cannons on the sky-borne warship began to emit faint electrical sparks. The air in the valley became heavily charged with free electrons; everyone’s hair and body fuzz crackled with electricity, and the slightest movement caused tiny electric sparks to leap between their hair and clothing.

The three factions within the valley fell into utter chaos. Little Daoist Zhang shrieked, “Brothers, scatter! This… this is cheating! Even a Realm Master shouldn’t be allowed to cheat like this!”

The members of the Asian Daoist Alliance immediately utilized their techniques to flee in all directions. Some burrowed into the earth, others phased into the cliff faces, and still others merged with trees and vines—but not a single one departed via the open sky.

The black mist of the Pantheon of Gods shuddered violently, clearly overwhelmed by the psychological shock of the warship hanging high above them. But soon, streams of black mist seeped into the ground, or shadowy figures bolted rapidly up the cliffs to scatter and flee. Furthermore, tens of thousands of bats, crows, owls, and other birds scattered into the air in panicked flight.

The faces of the Church personnel were as ashen as if they had just swallowed a pound of purgative beans. The Asian Daoist Alliance had their Daoist magic, and the Pantheon of Gods had various bizarre sorceries to allow them to slip away smoothly. Only the Church, despite their might, found their unique Divine Art system lacking any decent means of escape. Every campaign the Church waged ended either with the enemy utterly destroyed or themselves utterly annihilated; their engagements were always starkly binary, with no second outcome possible.

Seeing the other two factions fleeing, Andre’s mouth twitched as he roared, “This is the Lord’s test! Let these despicable wretches escape! We shall use the power bestowed upon us by the Lord to utterly destroy these wicked Romans!” Taking a deep breath, Andre pulled a white scroll, a foot and a half long, from his sleeve—its axis made of gold, its surface of some unknown woven fabric. A white light, gentle as white jade, enveloped the scroll, radiating a comforting, warm power.

A High-Grade Divine Art Scroll. Gu Xiechen stood beside Andre, and he saw a small emblem branded onto the scroll’s golden axis: a wing inlaid with white crystal. Clearly, the wing bore nine distinct, visible feathers.

A Ninth-Rank Divine Art Scroll!

Gu Xiechen’s eyes widened in horror. A Ninth-Rank Divine Art corresponded to the power level of a Mercury-rank fighter in the Earth Federation system. Of course, because it was rendered as a scroll, the power unleashed by a Ninth-Rank Divine Art Scroll could only reach the peak of Venus-rank, but even that was a terrifying force capable of obliterating a small city. Looking at the warship in the sky that had forsaken all defense, and then at the scroll in Andre’s hand, Gu Xiechen’s heart settled instantly.

With a few creaks, the ten metal behemoths had already crashed into the Church ranks. Dozens of Church Knights were crushed into pulp without any chance to resist. Dozens of Silver Puppets descended and became entangled with the beasts, the heavy metallic clashes deafening the ears. The tumbling metal giants flattened another dozen nearby Knights, throwing the Church ranks into disarray.

The moment Andre produced the Divine Art Scroll, Little Daoist Zhang was frantically working with the young Daoist nun behind him to retract their Sword Formation. The black mist of the Pantheon of Gods dispersed, and Popibi, along with two other robed, unknown figures, were hastily recalling the slivers of spiritual energy attached to the Realm Puppets they had unleashed.

It was at this precise moment that a hazy, near-transparent phantom shot down from the highest peak in the southwest like a bolt of sharp lightning.

Sharp, blade-like mental shockwaves, powerful as the raging ocean tide, surged forth. The young Daoist nun took the brunt of the assault—a mental impact so sharp it seemed perfectly integrated with the surrounding nature yet brutally piercing. She was grievously wounded, blood erupting from all seven of her orifices. With a miserable scream, she collapsed. Three hundred and fifty-nine of the three hundred and sixty flying swords rapidly descending from the sky exploded with a bang; only one bronze sword fell crookedly to the ground, embedding itself deep into a rock face.

The phantom rapidly sped toward the young Daoist nun. Ru Hua and Little Daoist Zhang simultaneously moved to intercept it.

Even with Gu Xiechen’s eyesight, he couldn’t discern exactly what the phantom did. Everyone only saw Ru Hua and Little Daoist Zhang spit blood and fly backward. Little Daoist Zhang merely coughed up blood, but Ru Hua, moving a step faster than him, was nearly dismembered. Large and small gashes, deep enough to expose bone, opened hideously across Ru Hua’s body, and instead of blood, viscous, inky-black miasma constantly jetted out from the wounds.

The young Daoist nun struggled to raise her upper body, but an even stronger mental impact struck her face. With another agonizing cry, a jet of blood shot from both of her eyes this time.

The phantom distorted as it lunged toward the young Daoist nun. In a mere flash, dozens of blood columns erupted from her body simultaneously, the thickest one spewing directly from her heart region.

The heavily injured Little Daoist Zhang screamed frantically, “Junior Sister!”

Ru Hua, whose arms were nearly ripped from her body, charged to the young Daoist nun’s side. A dense corpse aura enveloped the nun’s profusely bleeding form. A completely black banner erupted from within Ru Hua. The banner swayed a few times in the wind, and layers of earth and sand from beneath the ground rolled up to envelop Ru Hua, Little Daoist Zhang, and the young Daoist nun. In an instant, the three of them vanished underground.

Popibi and the other two robed figures, who were currently retracting their spiritual energy, saw the phantom hurtling toward them and immediately chanted an incantation, transforming into three plumes of black smoke, attempting to drill into the ground. Nearly a hundred small demons, thousands of Death Knights, and Skeleton Soldiers instantly disintegrated. The black energy released by these crumbling Realm Puppets formed into writhing venomous snakes, lunging to intercept the phantom.

A terrifying mental shockwave struck, and the black snakes disintegrated into wisps of smoke drifting away.

The phantom flashed past the black smoke representing the three figures and reached their location. A sickly green ray swept across the three plumes of smoke. A screeching cry rose dramatically, and large amounts of blood sprayed from the black smoke. Popibi’s hoarse, unpleasant voice echoed across the entire valley: “Whoever you are, I curse you in the name of the countless demons of Hell! The Pantheon of Gods will not let you go, nor will the Temple of Misfortune! I curse you with my blood, my flesh, and my soul! Calamity is coming, it must descend upon you!”

A spray of blood merged with the scattered black smoke, and a twisted, dark-green rune condensed in the air. The rune shot toward the phantom with lightning speed.

The phantom destroyed the black smoke representing Popibi and the other two, failing to kill them as they were quick enough to flee, but severely wounding their bodies and souls. The phantom had not anticipated that Popibi, even while gravely wounded, would expend a significant amount of his essence, vitality, and even his soul’s origin to cast the cruelest curse of the Pantheon of Gods’ Temple of Misfortune—the ‘Curse of Misfortune’!

Caught completely off guard, the twisted, dark-green rune lightly adhered itself to the phantom, merging into its body without any resistance.

The phantom cursed filthily in Roman tongue.

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