Chapter 84: The Apocalypse Descends

At the same time.

In the Bureau Chief's office of the East China Headquarters.

Yue Beishan stood before a map with a troubled expression, a red marker in his hand.

This was a map of all of Huaguo, encompassing every city in the country, large and small—seven hundred in total.

Yet at this moment, red X's had been marked across the names of several cities on the map.

The communicator in the office kept ringing.

Every time he hung up, Yue Beishan would mark a red X over another city name on the map.

As the number of red X's grew, his expression grew darker than ever before.

"What exactly is the God Assembly trying to do? They've been hiding beneath the surface for so long, and now they've come out in full force… Have they gone mad?!"

Over the years, the Spirit Suppression Bureau had been hunting the God Assembly like rats in the street, keeping them on the back foot.

If the Bureau had only been able to locate their headquarters, they would have long since sent experts to wipe them out in one sweep. But now… these rats had actually come out into the open on their own, and everything about it felt wrong.

Even though Huaguo's situation was currently in chaos,

it would only take a day or two to completely crush this large-scale attack.

Yet the price the God Assembly would have to pay was at least ninety percent casualties among their members.

What on earth were they after, paying such a steep cost?

On top of that, Li Xiaotian's defection from headquarters left Yue Beishan's thoughts even more tangled.

The news that a Vice Cult Master had appeared in Tianyun Shi had indeed made him suspect the God Assembly was making such a massive move just to kill Jiang Qin, but he quickly dismissed that possibility.

If all they wanted was to kill Jiang Qin, there was no need to launch attacks across the entire country.

What exactly were these rats plotting…

Time rewinds one hour earlier.

Tianyun Shi.

The city where Jiang Qin had lived for eighteen years was now dying.

Ten Otherworld Rifts appeared simultaneously on the city's outskirts, slowly opening like ten vertical pupils.

No one knew how they had appeared—the patrolling Zhenling Bureau Investigators only managed to see a pillar of blood-red light shoot skyward, then the ground cracked inch by inch and the air trembled.

Ferocious beast roars echoed out from the rifts.

By the time the first Fierce Beast charged out, the City Defense Army's spirit-energy cannons hadn't even finished charging.

The defending soldiers retreated in terror.

"Impossible… how could so many Otherworld Rifts appear at once!"

It was a Fourth-tier Iron-Scaled Rhino. Its towering thirty-meter body slammed into the city wall, and an entire section collapsed like paper. The soldiers on the wall didn't even have time to scream before they were buried beneath rubble and steel.

Then the Fierce Beasts came pouring out.

Third-tier, Fourth-tier—blanketing the sky and earth.

They poured from the ten rifts like floodwaters bursting a dam, surging toward this defenseless city.

The City Defense Army collapsed almost immediately.

A full City Defense battalion—two hundred men—couldn't last even three minutes against ten Fourth-tier Fierce Beasts. The captain was finally bitten in half at the waist by a Blood-Striped Leopard; his upper body flew three meters, and when it hit the ground his eyes were still open.

The Blood-Striped Leopard lowered its head and crushed his skull in one bite.

The Tianyun Spirit Suppression Bureau had mobilized the moment the alarm sounded.

"Hold them! Buy time for the civilians to evacuate!"

Xu Anguo's voice exploded through the comms channel.

"Bureau Chief! The West District has fallen!"

"The East District too—"

One voice after another vanished from the comms channel.

Every abrupt cut-off meant another Investigator had died.

Xu Anguo didn't look back. He couldn't look back.

Behind him, over a million civilians in the city were still fleeing for their lives. Every extra second he held on meant a few more lives saved—even though, against the tide of beasts flooding the sky, his meager strength couldn't stir so much as a ripple.

A peak Fourth-tier Shadow Mantis swept past his side.

A headless corpse collapsed into a pool of blood.

West District of Tianyun Shi.

This was where Jiang Qin had grown up.

The old residential buildings, the narrow alleyways, the noodle shop on the street corner where he'd eaten for over a decade.

But now the noodle shop's sign lay on the ground, snapped in half beneath the foot of an Iron-Scaled Rhino.

Old Zhou, the noodle shop owner, hid behind the counter, clutching his five-year-old granddaughter.

The footsteps of the Fierce Beasts drew closer and closer; the floor and walls were shaking.

The little girl trembled all over with fear. Old Zhou clamped his hand over her mouth, bit his own lip until it bled, and stared fixedly at the doorway.

Finally, the footsteps stopped.

Just as Old Zhou exhaled in relief, thinking they'd escaped,

the next second, the ceiling of the noodle shop was smashed away by a beast's claw!

A towering bear-type Fierce Beast lowered its head. Upon spotting the grandfather and granddaughter, the corners of its mouth curled up as drops of blood dripped down, as if to say, "Found you!"

Screams echoed through the district.

On the city's main thoroughfare.

The evacuating crowds surged toward the gate on the other side like a tide.

The elderly, children, mothers clutching infants, men still in their pajamas.

No one was keeping order, because the ones who kept order were already dead.

The crowd was shoving, trampling, screaming.

An elderly man who fell was trampled by a dozen pairs of feet, and never stood up again.

A Blaze Bird dove down from the sky.

Its wingspan exceeded twenty meters, and every beat of its wings sent up a wave of searing heat.

It swept over the heads of the crowd, its sharp claws snatching up three people, then released them mid-air.

The three screamed as they fell, crashing into the crowd and splashing out a spray of blood.

The Blaze Bird circled once, then flew back again.

In the crowd, some knelt and kowtowed. Some threw the jewelry and money from their bodies into the sky. Some clutched their children and ducked into the roadside shops.

But none of it was any use.

Fierce Beasts don't recognize money, don't recognize kneeling, don't recognize pleas for mercy — they only recognize one thing — endless slaughter!

Three hours later.

Tianyun Shi fell silent.

Not the quiet of night, but an empty, tomb-like silence.

The streets were covered in corpses everywhere, some whole, some not.

Blood seeped out from beneath the piles of corpses, gathering into thin streams, flowing into the sewers, flowing into the drainage ditches, flowing into every inch of this city's land.

Fierce Beasts still roamed the streets.

In an alley, three Wind Wolves were dividing up a corpse.

They tore open its belly, and the innards spilled across the ground.

One Wind Wolf raised its head, a length of intestine dangling from its mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed.

From afar came the wail of an infant.

Very brief, then cut short.

A few Carrion Crows took flight from a streetlamp, heading toward the direction the crying had come from.

The setting sun shone in through the Rift, falling on the empty streets.

Corpses everywhere, blood everywhere, severed limbs everywhere.

No crying, no screams, no one speaking.

Only the sound of Fierce Beasts chewing and Carrion Crows beating their wings.

Tianyun Shi died in the dusk.

And at the edge of the city, those ten Otherworld Rifts still remained.

They hung silently in mid-air, like ten vertical pupils, watching over this land that had already died.

Deep within the Rifts, more Fierce Beasts churned, surging out without end.

On the tallest clock tower of Tianyun Shi, a group of black-robed figures watched this apocalyptic scene.

They were not the least bit moved; their faces were full of excitement and fanaticism. They cared nothing for human lives — they only cared whether doing this could earn them more rewards from the Divine Lord!

Screams still rang out sporadically through the city — Fierce Beasts hunting down the residents who had hidden themselves.

Suddenly, a layer of dark clouds shrouded the sky.

Two figures abruptly appeared above the city, standing in mid-air. Though they had rushed over the moment they received the news, they were still one step too late in the end.

Jiang Qin looked at Tianyun Shi's current state, his fists unconsciously clenching tight.

Scene after scene of memories flashed through his mind — a past he could never return to.

The city that held his countless memories was now riddled with wounds!

His gaze turned toward the black-robed figures clustered on the clock tower, bloodshot veins spreading through his pupils.

His voice exploded like thunder.

"You..."

"Ten thousand deaths cannot atone for this!!!"