Chapter 782: Apocalyptic Vision

The first wave of attack arrived at the darkest moment before dawn.

It was not a ground charge.

It was the sky.

The energy node hovering in the distance, like an azure‑blue star, suddenly brightened.

Immediately, countless tiny "raindrops" burning with blue fire spewed from the node, tracing arcs and falling toward Ying Tian City's walls.

That was not rain.

It was highly compressed, unstable Yuneng liquid droplets.

"Yuneng fire rain! Dodge!"

A shrill alarm echoed across the walls.

But there was nowhere to hide.

The raindrops fell, igniting anything they touched.

Brick and stone surfaces erupted with icy blue flames, quickly eating through the surface.

Wooden scaffolds and arrow towers instantly caught fire, the flames an eerie blue, extremely hard to extinguish, and they gave off toxic smoke that caused dizziness.

Even more deadly, some of the fire rain fell on crowded areas.

Soldiers contaminated by it didn't even have time to scream; their bodies began to rapidly crystallize and disintegrate from the point of contact, turning into a puddle steaming with blue smoke, a mixture of flesh and crystal dust.

The city walls fell into sudden chaos.

"Stay calm! Bury it with sand! Aim the generator array at the airborne node to interfere!"

Xu Da's roar steadied some ranks amid the chaos.

Huang Guang, wielding the Energy Neutralization Generator, surged upward, colliding with the falling fire rain and exploding in midair into brief gold‑blue halos that neutralized part of the threat.

But the nodes were many and scattered, and Huang Guang could not cover them all.

Almost as the fire rain fell.

The ground trembled.

Those several shadowy masses, each as huge as a small hill, moved to the edge of the cannons' effective range.

In the dawn's dim light, their forms finally became clear——

They were indescribable creations.

They seemed to be a brutal patchwork of features from dozens of elephants, earth dragons, and some deep‑sea monster.

Beneath their bloated bodies, covered in heavy plate‑like crystal armor, lay dozens of pairs of short, powerful limbs.

They had no obvious head, only a huge maw split open on the front of the trunk, filled with spinning serrated teeth.

On their backs they carried, not traditional siege engines,

but living organisms.

Clusters of pulsating organic tissue, like huge tumors, dotted with holes covered their backs.

At that moment, those holes contracted and expanded, emitting a low, bellows‑like howl.

Then——

Boom! Boom! Boom!

One after another, diameters exceeding five feet, wrapped in slime and azure‑blue flame, the "living cannonballs" spewed from those tumors, arcing through the sky and slamming into the walls!

These were not stone shot.

In flight they could even slightly adjust their trajectory, and on impact they were not just a simple strike.

Rather, they exploded and splattered, releasing large clumps of sticky mist with extreme corrosive and mental‑pollution effects.

A stretch of wall near Chaoyang Gate was hit in succession by three living cannonballs.

Brick and stone corroded, the parapet collapsed, and the artillery deployed there—along with its crew—vanished into the rising blue‑green toxic mist.

Nearby, the energy generator's light flickered wildly, then overloaded and died out.

A huge gap appeared in the spreading toxic mist.

"Plug the gap! Firearms squad, advance and seal the passage!"

"Suicide squad, grab thunderclap bombs and fire‑oil tanks, prepare for a counter‑charge!"

Xu Da's eyes turned red.

He knew they absolutely could not let the enemy pour through the breach.

The fighting quickly devolved into a brutal tug‑of‑war at the Chaoyang Gate gap.

Ming‑army soldiers, braving the toxic fog, used their bodies and any scrap they could find to block the gap, forming a death line of firearms and spears.

The Qing army drove forward masses of low‑rank battle slaves and a few tough heavy‑units, heedless of casualties.

Corpses were quickly piled into a new low wall, blood and melted bodily fluids mixing and flowing across the ground.

But this was only the front.

"Your Majesty! Inside the western Jinchuan Gate, the ground has softened anomalously—suggesting large‑scale movement underground!"

"Report! Blue mist is bubbling from many wells in the city; those who drink it go mad, vomit, and show crystal‑dust sickness!"

"Urgent report from the Investigation of Things Institute! Yuneng pollution levels in the air and water are rising rapidly, and ordinary purification methods have little effect!"

Bad news came from all directions.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not leave the observation platform.

From here he could see the whole situation.

He saw the bitter struggle at Chaoyang Gate, and saw other wall sections also under pressure.

He saw inside the city, the once‑orderly neighborhoods beginning to show columns of smoke and disturbances.

He saw farther out, on the Yangtze River's surface, the navy's warships battling mutant creatures that had risen from the water—like gigantic octopuses fused with skeletons—while cannon fire boomed.

The sweet and foul smell in the air, tinged with metallic rust and a faint rot, grew stronger.

Even the sky seemed shrouded in an ominous, pale blue filter.

This is no ordinary siege.

This is systematic environmental transformation and the extermination of life.

The Iron Crow Army's aim seems not merely to seize Ying Tian.

But to erase the Ming dynasty and its civilization here, replacing it with their cold, twisted dark-energy ecology.

"Liu Ji." Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly spoke.

Liu Ji, who had been standing silently at his side, fingers flying in calculation and cold sweat beading on his forehead, shuddered violently.

"I am here."

"How much has the Investigation of Things Institute deduced about the nature of dark energy?"

Liu Ji's lips twitched; fear, confusion, and a glimmer of near‑desperate understanding flashed in his eyes.

"Your Majesty… based on the fragmentary reports from the Chen dynasty and our observations, we can only infer that this is not naturally occurring; it seems driven by a 'will,' eroding all things, altering their nature… almost, almost…"

He struggled to utter that word.

"... almost the poison of the Heavenly Way."

"Heavenly Way?" Zhu Yuanzhang chewed the word, a cold smile flickering.

"If this is the Heavenly Way, then I shall defy it."

He turned and looked at Liu Ji.

"I don't care what method you use."

"You have twelve shichen."

"Find the weakness of this 'poison,' or at least a way to slow its spread within the city."

"Otherwise…"

He gazed at the black smoke rising inside the city, symbols of chaos and death.

"No need for the Qing troops to breach the walls; Ying Tian will rot from within on its own."

Liu Ji bowed deeply, then stumbled away in hurried steps, his back slightly hunched.

Zhu Yuanzhang's gaze turned back to the outside.

The enormous living siege unit, after firing a volley, began to creep forward slowly, as if to draw nearer for a deadlier strike.

The dark-energy nodes in the air began to gather light once again.

And on the ground, the endless ranks of silent war slaves and mutated beast surges began to advance, ready to launch a total assault once the wall defenses were utterly weakened.

This is the very picture of apocalypse.

One side is a cold, efficient, step‑by‑step destruction program.

The other side is a blazing, shouting ember of civilization struggling in desperation.

"Xu Da." Zhu Yuanzhang said to the orderly at his side.

"Tell him I authorize him to use the Flame Dragon."

The orderly trembled all over.

"The Flame Dragon" plan, the Investigation of Things Institute's most extreme and uncontrollable theoretical weapon—mixing large quantities of purified strange‑iron powder with specially formulated gunpowder, launching it via a gigantic launcher into enemy concentrations, then detonating it with a powerful momentum pulse to provoke a wide‑range dark‑energy backlash explosion. But its range is extremely short, and it may severely affect the area around the launch point.

This is practically a mutual‑annihilation tactic.

"Go quickly." Zhu Yuanzhang's tone allowed no objection.

The order was issued.

On a specially cleared square behind Chaoyang Gate, a huge, crude device made of steel frames and copper coils was slowly pushed toward the front line.

Everyone kept their distance from it.

Only the death‑squad operating team, faces grim, began the final loading and calibration.

The dark‑blue light outside the city grew ever more intense.

The horn of the total assault seemed about to sound at any moment.

Ying Tian City, like the last lighthouse in a storm, its light flickered but had not yet gone out.

Yet beyond that halo, darkness and cold lay within reach.