Chapter 269

On the other side of the spatial rift was a vast plane revered by the local natives as the "Sacred Continent."

The civilization ruling this continent was primarily a strange intelligent species—they possessed long, sharp limbs like mantises, were covered in fine, tough scales like lizards, walked upright, and called themselves "Holy Servants."

In the myths passed down through generations of Holy Servants, it was the Creator God who used his supreme divine sickle to split chaos, giving rise to this sacred land.

They were born with an affinity for wind elements and could wield the power of the gale, and legend had it that the Creator God could even use the power of the wind to open doors to other worlds.

Although the Creator God had long since disappeared, the ultimate proof of his existence—that "World Gate" connecting to other realms—remained, becoming the core of faith and the source of power for the entire Sacred Continent.

In the long river of time, the Sacred Continent had experienced several expeditions from foreign worlds.

Relying on the Holy Servant clan's powerful individual combat strength, profound application of wind rules, and a desperate numerical advantage, all invaders eventually returned in defeat, becoming nourishment for the continent.

It was precisely by devouring the resources of these foreign worlds that, after the Creator God faded away, the Sacred Continent successively gave birth to four new gods: the Blade God who presided over cutting and sharpness, the Gale God who ruled the atmosphere and flow, the Sudden Blade God who mastered speed and surprise attacks, and the Wind Spirit God who symbolized wind spirits and change.

The four gods established four great empires named after their divine titles around the World Gate left by the Creator God, jointly ruling this continent.

The Holy Servants revered these four gods as the "Holy Gods."

And beneath the Holy Gods, those powerful existences whose strength had reached the pinnacle, only one step away from igniting divine fire and ascending to godhood, were revered as "Holy Spirits."

Blade Empire, in a private training ground belonging to a peak Holy Spirit.

Sharp sword winds tore through the air, emitting sharp whistles.

This was a Holy Spirit practicing martial arts; the bone blades extending from the outside of his arms turned into phantoms difficult to capture with the naked eye, each strike pulling the surrounding wind power, forming countless fine and deadly airflow vortices.

His sword technique had reached the pinnacle, worthy of being the peak embodiment of the Holy Servant clan's sword path.

After a moment, the Holy Spirit slowly withdrew his stance, and the blade-like limbs retracted into his arm armor.

An elderly Holy Servant hurried over, his face full of irrepressible anger: "Brother! The empire's high-level officials just decided that this time's fifty-year 'World Gate Festival' will be hosted by our lineage!"

As a Holy Spirit, he held a lofty status in the empire, possessing the authority to build cities and even vassal states.

This Holy Servant who came to report the news was the younger brother of the Holy Spirit before him.

Although he was more than ten years younger, due to limited talent, his appearance actually looked more aged.

The Sacred Continent had discovered four foreign worlds available for conquest, and the World Gate opened once every ten years, connecting to one of them in turn.

Each time it opened, a force possessing a Holy Spirit would take the lead to plunder resources.

Every opening was a feast.

However, when the four worlds had each been cycled through once, that is, every fifty years, a "Festival" would arrive.

In the year of the festival, the World Gate would not only fail to open, but would need to undergo "rest" according to the oracles of the four gods, supposedly to repair the damage accumulated from frequent openings.

For ordinary Holy Servants, this was a carnival holiday.

But for the force designated to host the festival, it meant huge losses—not only could they not participate in the plunder, but they also had to pay out of their own pockets to cover massive amounts of rare resources used to "reinforce" the World Gate.

The anger of this elderly Holy Servant stemmed from this.

The elderly Holy Servant's tone was excited: "They clearly cannot stand to see you, brother, go further! You are already the most top-tier existence among all Holy Spirits; if you could obtain the gains from a few more foreign world conquests, perhaps—"

He lowered his voice, carrying expectation and unwillingness: "Perhaps you could condense a divine personality and become the fifth Holy God! This is absolutely something the four great empires, and even those four Majesties, are unwilling to see!"

Before he finished speaking, the Holy Spirit before him had approached like a ghost, and a palm covered in fine scales gently covered his mouth.

The Holy Spirit shook his head, his eyes deep and calm.

Long years of tempering had long since allowed him to see through the treacherous power struggles.

"Speak carefully. The power of the gods is not something you or I can recklessly speculate about." He released his hand, his tone indifferent.

"The more the high-level officials act like this, the more it shows they are wary. No matter, for me, ordinary resources are of little help. Let them be proud for these ten years. In the next ten years, we will plot for other worlds."

Upon hearing this, the elderly Holy Servant took a deep breath, forcibly suppressed his anger, and nodded in agreement.

Following the order, dozens of cities under this Holy Spirit's command were quickly mobilized.

A massive army began to assemble, marching toward the World Gate at the center of the continent, where the four great empires met.

Not only them, but the entire Sacred Continent, hundreds of millions of Holy Servants and tens of thousands of Holy Spirits, surged there from all directions to participate in this fifty-year festival.

Even if they couldn't plunder this year, the four Holy Gods would descend in person.

This alone was enough to make all Holy Spirits have to go and pay their respects.

Half a year later, World Gate Altar.

The huge altar was located in the center of the plain, surrounded by a sea of Holy Servants.

The noise, prayers, and praises shook the sky and earth.

As the ceremony proceeded, in the sky, four huge cloud vortices like storm eyes rotated slowly, emitting suffocating divine power.

Seeing this, all the living beings present became even more excited and noisy—that represented the gaze of the four Holy Gods already cast here.

Above the altar, the originally empty space began to twist, and a subtle black crack appeared quietly, then spread and expanded to both sides like a living thing!

Eventually, it turned into a huge black rift spanning the sky and earth, and then stabilized.

It formed a perfect, circular pitch-black hole of immeasurable diameter.

According to convention, the scene of the foreign world should appear in the hole at this time.

But this year was the year of the festival, and there was only a deep, void darkness behind the hole, meaning the passage had not truly opened.

That peak Holy Spirit, with his brother who still looked somewhat depressed, directed his subordinates to transport mountains of rare materials onto the altar.

Only waiting for the four gods to give the order and the ceremony to start, these resources would turn into the power to consolidate the World Gate.

Just at the moment when a Holy God's divine sense was about to announce the official start of the festival.

A sudden change occurred!

The center of the circular hole, which should have been void and dark, suddenly rippled violently like the surface of water!

The next moment, a huge fist covered in flowing black metal suddenly reached out from the depths of the hole!

Following that, a second one!

Two giant hands grabbed the edge of the hole, as if to forcibly pry this "door" open.

Under the dull gaze of hundreds of millions of Holy Servants, two giant humanoid creatures, as huge as mountains, covered in black flowing metal-like skin, with ghostly blue flames burning in their eyes, stepped out of the World Gate!

They exuded a cold, chaotic, and terrifying aura that was completely out of place with the Sacred Continent.

On top of the head of the leading black giant, a figure casually reached out to touch the slight spatial scars left on his body from forcibly crossing the unstable passage; those scars healed rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

He looked up, scanning the Holy Servant legion like a vast ocean below, as well as the four storm vortices in the sky representing the gods, and a cold arc curled at the corner of his mouth.

"Is this the other world?" Jie Ming's voice was not loud, but it clearly spread around the silenced altar, "What a—grand welcome party."

Following his exclamation, the black giant under his feet roared silently toward the sky.

The flames in its eyes surged instantly, like lit signal fires, declaring that the expedition of the wizard civilization had officially begun its bloody prelude on this "sacred" land.

1 quantity of time traced back to a few minutes before the spatial gate was completely opened.

On the airspace plane side, the wizard legion with the floating city as its core stood ready.

Energy brilliance circulated on countless wizarding instruments and war golems, and a murderous aura permeated the air.

Even the Tier 7 Wizard Dionysius Spencer could not predict what kind of world was behind the door at this moment—except for this rift forcibly pried open, there had been no contact between the two planes before.

Jie Ming stood in a relatively forward position in the formation, his eyes fixed on the spatial passage that was gradually evolving from an irregular rift into a perfect circle.

Deep in his pupils, runes flickered slightly, analyzing the changes in the spatial structure.

"So that's how it is," he thought to himself, a previous guess overturned; he had originally thought this was just a natural spatial distortion formed by the extreme enrichment of wind elements in the airspace plane, and such passages were not rare in the multiverse.

But the circular passage before him, which was tending toward stability and had a regular shape, clearly bore strong traces of human carving!

"This is not a rift; this is a 'door'!" Jie Ming immediately realized the severity of the problem.

A natural rift meant the other side might have just discovered this place and perhaps chose to hide temporarily due to lack of strength.

But a man-made spatial gate indicated that the civilization behind the door was highly likely to have mastered the technology of cross-plane navigation, and its strength was unfathomable!

Recalling that no native intelligent civilization had been discovered in the airspace plane to date, the builder of this gate undoubtedly came from the other side.

In this way, the danger level of the other side soared instantly in his heart.

Jie Ming retreated slightly without changing his expression, shielding other wizards in front of him.

Just at this moment, Dionysius Spencer's clear and calm voice came from the top of the floating city, echoing in the ears of every wizard: "Spatial fluctuations have reached their peak; the passage stability has entered a short window period! Vanguard Legion, attack!"