Feng Yuan had naturally thought of this problem as well, but he didn’t have any good solution either. The other side was playing an open conspiracy—if they left it alone, the Anti-Divine Beast Runes were enough to cause considerable damage to Maomu City.
Although he had no idea what they were really trying to do, Feng Yuan was still a bit annoyed. He clearly didn’t want to get mixed up in this kind of crap, yet those guys kept treating him like some kind of imaginary archenemy.
"This part’s a bit tricky. Xiao Ji, don’t make a move—let the Fluffy Fire Wolfhound handle it. You just protect me."
After clearing out another wave of magic armor, Feng Yuan looked at the area bogged down in street fighting and felt a bit of a headache. Of course, calling it "street fighting" wasn’t quite accurate—this was actually the defensive fortifications Maomu City had set up near Liantang Town. Judging from the situation, those people shouldn’t have broken into the town proper.
Although defensive works could be rebuilt after being destroyed, as things stood Feng Yuan didn’t feel there was any need to wipe out these magic armors at the cost of sacrificing fortifications.
"Not that tricky."
Qiu Hanmo quickly analyzed the situation and issued another round of commands. Different Ultimate Moves were unleashed one after another, weaving into a special spiderweb-shaped Energy Net. The Energy Net instantly spread throughout the interior of the fortifications, wrapping around the magic armor. Unlike the previous brute-force destruction, this time the energy web instead overloaded them to destroy the magic armor.
"Could I trouble you to haul those things out of the position?"
Looking over at Feng Yuan, Qiu Hanmo spoke. He didn’t have the authority to just order Feng Yuan around. Seeing those paralyzed magic armors, Feng Yuan shrugged and didn’t refuse—this really wasn’t much trouble for him.
The Fluffy Fire Wolfhound and Xiao Ji were forcibly drafted as porters, and even Feng Yuan himself used Xiao Ji’s power to form special chains to drag those paralyzed magic armors out of the fortifications.
These things were only paralyzed, not completely destroyed. After he piled them together, Feng Yuan directly had Xiao Ji use Crimson Judgement to smash them. After a few rounds, seeing the huge new crater, Yang Hongzhi spoke to Feng Yuan speechlessly:
"For these things... we probably don’t need to go that far, right?"
"Just removing potential hazards. Anyway, the fight up there..."
Looking at Veronia, who was still battling away, Feng Yuan felt a bit of a headache. That thing was really tenacious. Veronia and the others could destroy a Rune with a single strike; at this point, the total number they’d broken was probably over a hundred. What on earth were the Imperial People doing?
"We don’t seem able to intervene. Han Mo is trying to find the person behind it, but according to him, that person is hiding very well."
Yang Hongzhi was just as troubled. As long as the battle in the sky didn’t end, it didn’t matter that things on the ground had already entered the clean‐up phase. Or rather, they all felt like that mass of magic armor existed just to give them something to do.
But how exactly were they so sure Veronia and the others were here?
Cha Mu Town, near the Fire Stronghold, He Nanqing hadn’t expected that group to be able to pinpoint the area near Yognot’s sleeping place so accurately. Of course, there was still some distance to the true sleeping ground, but the fact they’d probed all the way to the vicinity of the Fire Stronghold already proved their intelligence-gathering ability—and that was not good news.
Little Yognot could intervene to a limited extent, but it wasn’t the main body after all. Faced with that powerful Anti-Divine Beast Rune, it was inevitably struggling to keep up.
"Hey~ I’m here to help~"
Just as He Nanqing was pondering how to keep resisting the Twisted Beymod Phantom, Long Boduo’s voice rang out from the forest, with several Ghost-type Divine Beasts following close behind it.
Long Boduo charged in at the head of the group and delivered a fierce kick to the Bemod phantom. Netherworld breath frantically interfered with Bemod as it tried to use Time Power to counterattack. Before it could find a chance to strike back, the other Ghost-type Divine Beasts followed in and unleashed attacks in turn.
Ghost Power spread out, causing the surrounding plants to wither. He Nanqing didn’t react to this at all. In fact, if Long Boduo and the others hadn’t rushed over to support them, she probably wouldn’t have been able to hold on much longer.
She didn’t know the exact stacking level of the Anti-Divine Beast Runes, but she’d clearly seen that phantom constantly trying to solidify. Even if she didn’t understand what that meant, she instinctively tried to stop it.
If not for that, faced with a Bemod phantom with fully stacked layers, even Long Boduo and the others would likely have had a hard time gaining the upper hand quickly.
In Maomu City proper, thanks to the Shelter of the City of Death, the magic armor army hadn’t caused much of a stir. But even so, the Twisted Beymod Phantom was still tying them down.
"That thing... can Drudgeon really hold out alone?"
Staring at the sky where Magic Glare flashed continuously, Qi Chen was a bit worried. Drudgeon’s strength was indeed not on the same level as Veronia and the others.
"Have some faith in them. Besides, the way that thing is acting... is off."
Dou Yanlan spoke slowly. Although they didn’t know that other places were also under attack, she kept feeling that the phantom wasn’t going all out; instead, it seemed to be deliberately trying to draw their attention.
Were they trying to take the opportunity to sneak‐attack Maomu City? That didn’t seem very likely.
Dou Yanlan understood very well: with Feng Yuan here, those guys would find it very hard to wipe out Maomu City in one go. Or rather, they simply couldn’t withstand Feng Yuan’s retaliation.
So putting that aside—what else were they after? Just tying down Maomu City’s forces? But did they really have the spare capacity to assist in attacking other cities?
Although Dou Yanlan and the others hadn’t struggled much in the battle against the magic armor, that was because the Beastmasters within the city limits were generally high in strength and numerous.
On top of that, the magic armor army itself seemed designed just to stall them and wasn’t all that strong. Of course, there was an upside to that: it made the mass‐production cost cheap.
All in all, this attack didn’t give Dou Yanlan the same feeling as the previous open assaults that had aimed to annihilate Maomu City. It felt more like someone was deliberately giving them busywork.
Could it be...
She pulled out her phone and immediately checked the situation at the front line. Unfortunately, after that first major victory, updates on the front were no longer being reported in real time. That was normal too; after all, the United Army only had that single foothold at the moment. If they reported everything live, it would practically be begging for trouble.
"There’s no bad news coming from the United Army’s frontline base for now, and other information releases are normal. Judging by the timing of the battles, if they’d launched an attack at the first possible moment, something should have been reported back by now."
"Since there’s no news at all, their target probably isn’t the frontline base. So what is it?"
Frowning slightly, Dou Yanlan felt there were a lot of questions she couldn’t answer—especially after seeing online posts that other cities were also under attack.
Or rather, every city with a certain level of Combat Power had been hit by Anti-Divine Beast Runes to varying degrees, but just like Maomu City, none of those places seemed to be targeted for outright destruction.
Based on the descriptions and Feng Yuan’s earlier explanation, Dou Yanlan felt this operation had to be a joint effort across the entire The Imperial Timeline, because the sheer number of Anti-Divine Beast Runes involved was too great.
With such a massive diversionary operation, what exactly were they trying to do?
Back in Liantang Town, Veronia’s side was making rapid progress. After all, this was two Top-level Divine Beasts working together, and the Bemod phantom had been suppressed at an extremely low stack count the whole time. Seeing that the phantom was no longer growing more solid, Veronia deliberately paused and exchanged a glance with Tamur.
"Looks like it’s hit its limit."
"Wait."
Its body swayed lightly as a special field of space spread out from Tamur as the center. Other than Veronia, Feng Yuan, and Xiao Ji, no one else noticed what Tamur had done.
Looking up at Tamur, Feng Yuan muttered in some confusion,
"What’s it trying to do?"
He had just sensed a special space spreading out and covering everything around them. But since it was Tamur and the others making a move, Feng Yuan didn’t interfere.
Mirror Space? Doesn’t feel like it. At least the environment around them hadn’t been replaced by any fake Phantom scenery.
Unable to figure it out, Feng Yuan could only quietly watch Tamur and the others act. After all, aside from them, all the other battlefields had already been wrapped up, and Liantang Town showed no signs of further attacks for the time being.
"All right."
Once preparations were complete, Tamur, without bothering to explain, simply told Veronia she could move. Shooting Tamur a sidelong glance, Veronia gave a soft snort and had the Crystal Shine Dragon completely shatter the Bemod phantom, which was no longer stacking Runes.
At the exact moment the Bemod phantom was smashed, Tamur instantly focused its mind and pushed its perception to the limit. After a moment, it suddenly swung a claw; a Crystal Rose bloomed in the void, killing the white‐robed man who had been hiding in a special space.
"Just one person?"
Hearing this and sensing the white‐robed man’s corpse, Veronia looked toward Tamur with some doubt.

Comments

Loading...