Chapter 363: This is not war, this is a massacre (12)

Silver Sand Great Gobi.

The wind whistled, and sand dust flew across the sky.

Shush—

A squad of Sand Lizard scout knights was conducting routine patrol on the Gobi beach.

Although it was a patrol, they were chatting and laughing along the way, and sometimes someone burst out laughing.

It didn't look like a patrol, more like an outing.

Although the enemy was strong, possessing a fallen angel warrior, but there was only one of them, and within sight, besides Shitou there was only withered grass, and the enemy's figure could not be seen at all.

Therefore, the knights' morale remained relatively relaxed.

They were strolling leisurely when suddenly a 'boom—boom—boom' sound came from the distant sky, like thunder.

But strangely, the sky was clear blue, not a cloud in sight.

"What's going on? Where is the thunder coming from?"

"It doesn't sound like thunder, more like a whistling wind."

"Bullshit, there's no wind like that."

While they were wondering, someone suddenly pointed at the sky where the sound came from and said: "Look, what is that?"

The knights looked up and saw in the grayish sky, about three or four hundred meters high, a white line rapidly extending toward them.

"It looks like a fast‑growing white cloud."

"No, there seems to be something in front of the white cloud, like a monster bird emitting white smoke, but not quite—no wings, like a stick."

"What should we call this thing? A flying rod?"

"It's moving so fast, the sound is so loud."

"I say, are we just going to stare at it like this?"

This remark made everyone alert; they all turned around, wanting to run back to the camp to report.

But they were simply too slow.

Before the troop could turn around, the flying rod trailing white smoke had already arrived above their heads and whooshed past.

By the time they came to their senses, it was already far away, almost too small to see.

"How fast!"

"How can it be so fast! It feels faster than an angel flies!"

The scout knights looked at each other, still puzzled.

At that moment, the black dot suddenly plunged into the ground.

Instantly, the ground erupted with enormous clouds of dust, and at the same time the magic ring appeared with terrifying fluctuations, like a tsunami.

Immediately, the surface of the Gobi beach became as soft as water, and a ring of soil 'tsunami' spread outward in all directions.

"Oh no, it's the camp's position!"

"Enemy attack! It's an enemy attack!"

Only then did the sand lizard knights realize what was happening.

Hum—

At this moment, the magic ring storm arrived first.

It struck the sand lizard knights with a world‑destroying force.

The knights had no time to dodge, and there was nowhere to flee.

Crack—crack—crack—

The sand lizard knights' bodies instantly burst with blinding light, and a faint cold‑white light shield appeared.

Although this magical shield was inconspicuous, it blocked the magic ring storm for the sand lizard knights.

Boom—

The earth tsunami followed closely.

The surging ground directly smashed the sand lizards beneath the knights into pulp, and also flung the knights hundreds of meters into the air.

But the cold‑white light shield once again almost perfectly protected the sand lizard knights' lives.

When the storm subsided somewhat, the glow of the cold‑white light shield dimmed considerably, and the sand lizard knights fell back to the ground one after another.

A sand lizard knight immediately shouted excitedly: "It is the Supreme God's fate blessing, thank the Supreme God!"

The words had barely fallen when a horn sounded on the Gobi beach.

Wuuuuu—Wuuuuu—

The Gobi beach was filled with wind and sand, the magic ring trembled violently, but the horn's distant, desolate tone easily pierced through all the noise and reached the soul of every native warrior.

"It is the Supreme God's war horn!"

"Return to camp—return to camp immediately, prepare for battle!"

"Isn't the camp destroyed? Which camp should we return to?"

"The Supreme God's blessing will protect the warriors; there must be many survivors in the camp!"

The surviving sand lizard knights scrambled to their feet, slightly dazed, and rushed toward the camp.

At that moment, the sky actually produced wind and thunder again.

The warriors looked up and saw that many more white‑smoke‑trailing flying rods were coming from the sky, heading for the main legion camp at lightning speed.

Boom—boom—boom—

Thunder rumbled continuously from the direction of the legion camp, and at the same time many flames and rising dust could be seen.

Indeed, there were many survivors in the camp, for faint shouts could be heard.

Some were roaring, some were shouting orders, some were screaming.

Chaotic and messy, leaving people completely clueless and unable to gauge the enemy's position.

"What the hell is going on?!"

"Where exactly is the enemy?"

"How are we supposed to counterattack?!"

Everyone was shouting and asking, yet there was no answer at all.

In fact, each native warrior ran and shouted about like a headless fly,

As the sand lizard knights galloped wildly across the Gobi, they suddenly heard a strange sound from behind that they had never heard before.

Wooooo—wooooo—

The sound was deep and the ground trembled slightly, giving the feeling that a massive object was rapidly approaching from behind; the sand lizard knights turned back to investigate.

Behind them, dust filled the sky, obscuring everything, while the strange sound grew louder and the ground's tremors intensified.

"Supreme God, please guide us~~"

Someone involuntarily shouted a prayer, but received no response.

At that moment, dense explosions suddenly erupted among the sand lizard knights.

Flashing fire, high-speed jets of molten iron, and violent shockwaves struck the sand lizard knights with a speed and density far beyond human reaction limits.

The cold white light shield blessed by the Supreme God kept being triggered, emitting bursts of bright light.

Although it blocked the attacks for the sand lizard knights, the blessing's power was fiercely depleted, and the shield grew ever dimmer.

After holding on for just over ten seconds, even the Supreme God's blessing exhausted its power, and the shield went out completely.

The instant the shield faded, the sand lizard knight's body was torn apart by violent force into minced meat.

Soon after that squad of sand lizard knights fell, rows of massive Dawnbreak tanks formed a huge wedge-shaped assault array, roaring as they broke through the dust obstruction and surged across the Silver Sand Gobi at up to 150 kilometers per hour.

The tank legion was like a group of war beasts from a metallic world, mercilessly crushing over the corpses of native warriors.

Some native warriors still retained the Supreme God's blessing, and thus were violently shoved aside by the tanks.

After being shoved aside, various close-combat secondary weapons assailed them like a storm, instantly exhausting the blessing's power and pulverizing them into powder.

The main and secondary guns on the Dawnbreak tanks kept roaring.

One after another, high-explosive shells of great power fell like rain upon the native army's camp ahead.

In the sky, unmanned flamethrower aircraft continued to blaze a trail ahead, wildly bombing and disrupting the enemy's deployment.

Closely following them was a legion of tens of thousands of magma warriors, who coordinated with the Dawnbreak tank formation to clear out any native troops attempting to counterattack.

One moment the Gobi was peaceful; the next it had become a battlefield of utter destruction of iron and fire.

Behind the Dawnbreak tanks was the Dawn Guard battle group personally commanded by Luosen.

These days, Tilalin has served as bait, continually suborning Dawn Guards; she has now gathered about 200 of them, double the expected number.

The Natural Empire also went all-out producing Solar Essence, ultimately far exceeding its target, so that each Dawn Guard was loaded with roughly 100 grams of Solar Essence.

In particular, the Dawn Guard under Luosen's control was loaded with a full 2 kilograms of Solar Essence.

The Dawn Guard battalion followed discreetly behind the Natural Legion, conserving as much strength as possible for the later high-energy magic-ring battlefield.

At the same time.

In the astral void outside the lost plane, three squads of Void Gods drifted, observing the battlefield on the ground.

Before the battle began, some were still chatting; once it started, only silence remained.

The Void Gods vaguely knew the Natural Emperor would certainly not fight alone, but they never imagined his handiwork would be so immense.

The 'suns' exploding within the magic ring, the steel tanks screaming through the dust, and the incendiary weapons astonishing in speed, quantity, and power directly turned the ground battlefield into a sea of fire.

After a long silence, the War Lord Haigelte finally spoke.

"Obviously, this is a force of about a hundred thousand, and they have already begun to grasp high-level power."

The wilderness hunter Arnold's face was full of shock.

"This isn't war at all—it's a massacre."

"This is also absolutely not a battle we can intervene in."

Let alone intervening, even getting closer could endanger one's life.

After all, the sun is ravaging the mortal realm.

In the void, the Destruction Gods and Order Gods were also present, and at this moment they too were utterly silent.

After watching for over an hour, seeing the native forces utterly unable to counterattack, both major god clans departed the lost plane.

The Goddess of Love Margaret noticed and whispered, "Dear, should we leave too?"

The War Lord nodded slowly: "Regardless of the outcome, this struggle is already beyond our ability to intervene."

"What we must face next will surely be a tumultuous upheaval of the planar world."

"Let's go; we should hurry back and prepare for the changes."

Outside the Gate of Creation.

Xisailuo was staying in the protective pod of a special purple-gold Dawn Guard, with around three thousand Dawn Guard troops surrounding him.

He naturally had already sensed the opponent's offensive.

He watched the smoke-dust mushrooms continually 'growing' in the southern sky, felt the warriors' souls being extinguished at a terrifying speed, and also clearly sensed the iron-like force surging forward like a flood.

The unexpected situation caused Xisailuo's brows to furrow slightly.

"I really underestimated the Natural Emperor's power; he actually sent over a legion silently and without a sound."

The tremor of the Thread of Time allowed him to roughly estimate the legion's scale and strength.

A force of tens of thousands, moreover wielding low-tier high-energy weapons like fusion explosive nuclear bombs, already an extremely powerful force in mortal empires, yet in Xisailuo's eyes it was not much stronger than the native troops.

Had the Dawn Empire been at its peak, deploying merely a thousand-strong Dawn Guard legion would have easily crushed the opponent.

Unfortunately, the Dawn Empire has already fractured; the initial over-three-billion-strong corps of research scholars, the high-energy factories spread across the whole plane, and the million-strong Dawn Guard legions have all been utterly lost to the double ravages of war and time.

The Break Dawn Empire now couldn't even produce a single gram of Solar Essence, and the amount he had left was barely any, totaling less than 5 kilograms.

Cicero secretly resented: "If it weren't for Oletos (Note: the name of the last emperor) that fool using most of his power on the planar time stagnation, I wouldn't be in such a predicament now."

At that moment, a purple-and-silver Break Dawn Guard walked up beside him.

"Your Majesty, if this continues, the mortal legion will be completely worn out; please allow me to lead a Break Dawn Legion and crush that arrogant mortal legion into powder."

There were three such purple-and-silver Break Dawn Guards, appointed by Cicero as Break Dawn Chiliarchs, known as the Three Heroes of the Imperial Guard.

Each possessed twelve-ring power, they were battle mages personally cultivated by Cicero, and they were his three most trusted and strongest warriors.

But Cicero shook his head.

"There's no need to waste Solar Essence over this; let that arrogant emperor come before us, and then tell him what true high-energy war is!"

He paused, then said: "Three thousand Break Dawn Warriors are too many, unnecessary; collect their Solar Essence and redistribute it to five hundred warriors, ensuring each warrior can fight at full strength!"

This way, each Break Dawn Warrior could carry 5 grams of Solar Essence.

Of course, no matter how lacking in power, his own Break Dawn Guards would be loaded with 1 kilogram of Solar Essence, and his Three Holy of the Imperial Guard would each receive about 500 grams of power.

When issuing the order, Cicero felt a surge of envy.

"Ah~~~ a budding high-energy empire, a healthy plane untouched by high-energy war, young and full of vitality—truly a radiant pearl."

By contrast, the lost plane is riddled with holes and lifeless, with no prospect of development.

He secretly decided: "Once I defeat you, I will take over your empire and make it a cornerstone of my renewed greatness."

(End of chapter)