Chapter 686: KILL

The sky was pierced by a massive fireball hurtling at astonishing speed through the territory of the Gulesh Clan.

Its tail of blood-red Hellfire left a long, wave-like plume of black smoke trailing across the heavens.

On the ground, Land Naga raised their heads, watching the fireball pass overhead with awe and relief.

The light was blinding.

Finally, the fireball reached its destination—the heavily guarded Priest Palace.

The exquisite dome, crafted from hundreds of stained-glass panels depicting constellations, shattered like thin paper upon impact.

Colorful shards rained down like hail.

In the next instant, the expanding flame surged into a violent explosion, shattering the surrounding Shi Zhu and reducing the ornate reliefs to dust in an instant.

A massive cloud of dust rose from the palace's center.

The startled Naga soldiers, after a brief shock, snapped to action, ignoring the dust coating their bodies, and rushed toward the palace's core.

Footsteps came pouring in from all directions.

As the thick smoke gradually cleared, the soldiers stared in shock at a deep pit, roughly ten feet in diameter, still smoking at its edge.

From within the pit, a tall man, smoking and radiating terrifyingly strong energy, slowly rose to his feet.

Rod grinned, his villainous aura fully unleashed:

"Where are the priests of the Gulesh Clan?"

"Who are you?!"

Crackling—

Blue plasma exploded on the spot, and Rod vanished in an instant.

All the Naga soldiers realized in horror that he had already appeared before them, one hand gripping the leader's skull from the earlier question.

Lifted high.

Couldn't lift her—Naga, including their tails, stood four or five meters tall; even if Rod raised her to his full height, she still wouldn't leave the ground.

The Naga's beauty was exceptional; even this minor leader would rank as above average in the human world.

But that didn't stop Rod from killing.

Boom!

Her head exploded like a watermelon, blood and brain matter spraying outward, splattering the faces of all nearby Naga soldiers.

Heh.

Capturing the leader first is good—but Rod didn't mind killing a few first, to create a scene of mountains of corpses and rivers of blood to terrify them.

Watching the Naga's beautiful or elegant faces twist further in terror.

Rod burst into laughter, unleashing his 【Fear Aura】, instantly shattering their morale and courage.

They froze like prey confronted by a monstrous beast.

He felt no pity, swinging his longsword—four or five heads rolled to the ground.

"Outlaw! How dare you?!"

A Naga officer roared, charging forward in a flash.

"Finally, someone worth talking to."

Rod didn't retreat as the officer charged; he spun and delivered a sweeping back kick.

His long leg's heel struck the side of her skull mid-air with perfect precision, instantly nullifying her momentum, sending her crashing like a cannonball into the adjacent wall.

Boom—the falling plaster and decorations rained down upon her.

Of course, he held back.

The skill 【Silver Hoof Shatter Rock】, shared from Miss Xiao Ke, was a passive ability granting all his kicks 【Armor Piercing】 and 【Shockwave】 effects.

Here, only the 【Shockwave】 was activated—and it was enough to leave a seventh-tier beginner reeling.

"Can you speak for them? Surrender. Submit to the Braal Clan."

Rod cut straight to the point.

"Bullshit! Even if I die, I won't answer to some outsider!"

"You've got some spine."

Rod stepped on her head, pressing down slowly but firmly—her cheeks began to deform.

The Naga officer beneath his foot panicked instantly, her bravado crumbling.

"The High Priest already contacted reinforcements! They're on their way back now—if you leave now, we might pretend this never happened!"

"Reinforcements? Good, good—I've been waiting for your experts."

Rod ignored the wounded officer, kicked the overturned high-backed chair upright, and sat down with casual authority.

Tally peered out from the shadows, half her small head visible: "Someone's coming."

"I know."

Rod raised his hand and fired a high-output Repulsion Technique toward the shattered dome, laced with countless ice blades from Judian's Ice Blade Domain.

An umbrella-shaped blast surged upward, turning the already broken dome into a honeycomb, revealing patches of bright sky.

The stressed dome collapsed with a thunderous crash.

Immediately, beams of light pierced the dim palace—six powerful figures appeared high above, looking down at Rod.

One was a Land Naga dressed in desert style; the other five were three humans and two with other races' features, but all wore hard, insect-like masks obscuring their faces.

The wounded officer on the ground, seeing them, beamed with joy, then glared at Rod with hatred and triumph:

"It's too late for you to run now, brat—I'll slice your flesh off piece by piece, then let you watch yourself dry into jerky before you die!"

The Land Naga High Priest above glared furiously at Rod, who had wrecked the palace.

His staff pointed downward: "That man. I entrust him to you."

However, two full seconds passed after the words fell, yet no one answered.

She turned her head in confusion.

She saw that the Campbell family members wearing thick insect masks had their faces obscured, but from the necks exposed to the air, she saw skin that had turned deathly pale at some unknown time, along with dense beads of sweat pouring down.

There was even a feeling as if facing a great enemy.

Sweat?

Jing Mo is hot, but would five top experts, each at the eighth tier, fear the heat?

Rod, of course, recognized those standard insect masks and smiled: "Campbell?"

The moment the words fell, the five Campbell members in insect masks did not look back; they turned and fled at great speed.

"Not... my lord?"

The Naga priestess was utterly stunned.

The severely wounded Naga general widened her serpent eyes: five eighth-tiers, seeing this man, dared not fight and turned to flee?

Boom!

The high-backed chair beneath him rippled and tore like asphalt under high heat, while Rod's body outline blurred, edges glowing with a pale halo, leaving behind only an afterimage.

【Moon Shadow Step】!

The black-and-gold Devotion Body Sword sliced across the neck of one of the Campbell members; the surging spiritual power instantly came to a dead halt.

Without looking back, he sharply pointed his left index finger backward.

Pale white spiritual lines instantly surpassed the distance, drilling into the back of the fastest fleeing person; his entire body stiffened, and he was thus bound and immobilized.

【Moon's Curse Bind】!

At the same time, the purple gravity magic, vast as the sea, instantly formed a huge purple light sphere in midair.

【Gravity Well】 crashed down with a boom; the purple magic, with an excessively powerful range and force, suddenly contracted, and everyone in midair was dragged and pulled into the Gravity Well centered on Rod!

The sky suddenly grew dim.

The desert's brilliance was covered by dense dark clouds, and a pale, illusory moonlight had somehow already hung high overhead.

The next moment, a silver-white fire pillar with a two-meter radius crashed down like a giant beam!

The cylindrical flames struck precisely into the center of the 【Gravity Well】, exploding into deafening silver flames the instant they hit the ground.

【Miss Lu Ka's Moonfire Technique】!

The eerie cold-colored flames, the boiling moonlight, like an execution pillar connecting heaven and earth, scorched the air within range into visible, distorted ripples.

The human silhouette, collapsed into a charcoal outline within the moonfire, fell to the ground with the wind and sand.

The Naga general curled on the ground was unaffected; she watched Rod step slowly out from the churning, boiling moonfire, her eyes bulging with rage.

(End of this chapter)