The heavens were pitch-black, and the vast sea was dark and gloomy. Borne and propelled by the violent storm, churning, turbid waves reared up into towering breakers tens of thousands of feet high, bridging sea and sky in a colossal surge.
In the deepest gloom, shrouded in the unseen, it seemed as if a giant serpent danced wildly and a flood dragon rose onto the land.
A magnificent yet savage silhouette faintly emerged.
Countless merfolk screeched in exhilaration, shouting, dancing, and gesturing wildly, bearing witness to the ruin bestowed upon them by their Holy Lord.
The earth-shattering tsunami swallowed everything in its shadow; for a fleeting moment, darkness consumed Luo Island whole.
Yet in that very instant, a speck of glimmering light surfaced from Ji Jue's fingertip.
So minuscule a point, yet it swelled abruptly at a speed beyond imagining, ballooning in an instant to a terrifying scale akin to a blazing sun.
Immediately after, the brilliance of that blazing sun began to collapse inward, contracting until it condensed once more into a single dot.
Then, yet another brutal expansion began anew!
Just like that—expand, contract, expand, then contract again... Within the span of a single breath, it cycled nine times.
Inconceivably fast.
What followed was the agonizing wail of the spiritus reserves. Right beneath Lou Feng's eyes, a massive array of shunt circuits burned to cinders, unable to bear the load.
A supply of spiritus ample enough for all of Luo Island to squander over decades plummeted by a full third in an instant!
Such violent siphoning and consumption—
In this fleeting split second, the tsunami had not even advanced a single foot.
Meanwhile, Ji Jue's fingertip tapped forward with effortless ease.
And so, before the murky, sky-spanning tidal surge, a speck of flickering light drifted away with the wind.
Like a drunkard, it swayed, stumbled, and tottered, tracing an awkward, crooked arc through midair.
Deceptively slow yet blindingly swift, with every flicker, it seemed to teleport forward across kilometers of empty air.
Clearly so dim, yet in this moment, everything between heaven and earth was reduced to its background foil.
Just like that, without a sound, it plunged into the oceanic tide.
Vanished.
Everything was gone!
The earth-shattering surge and that flickering gleam vanished in the snap of a finger, leaving not a trace behind.
Whether it was the terrifying wave linking sea and sky, the iron clouds hanging overhead, the sneering silhouette of the Azure Jiao within the gloom, or even... the smiles across the onlookers' faces.
Dead silence.
Amidst that dead silence, only a strand of light flashed and faded—like dew, like lightning, like a dream or an illusion.
The colossal tide shuddered for an instant as a terrifying void rapidly expanded from its core. The enormous tsunami dispersed like dust and vanished like smoke, dragging the countless herds trapped within along into oblivion.
The tsunami that had seemed invincible only moments ago now crumbled like a toy sandcastle built by children on the beach, collapsing at the faintest puff of breath.
There was not even a sound, no deafening roar, no blinding flash.
Pure annihilation manifested beneath that single speck of faint light.
Like the cleave of a sword, it effortlessly slew the natural disaster before it even had a chance to collapse, diffusing into a pale mist that blanketed the space between sea and sky.
Zhanlu!
"Now do you understand why I wouldn't let you cross him?"
In the conference room of the Dancheng Association, Peñarosa turned back with an indifferent expression, glancing at Callisto, who was drenched in cold sweat. "Could your Dancheng block a strike like this?
"You should count your blessings that my family mediated between you two before things reached a point of irreconcilable enmity. If you ever had the guts to stand as his adversary, the family would back you fully to be the alliance leader of the Seven Cities, without a second thought."
Callisto held his breath, saying nothing.
Far away in Yamen, the Chosen Overseer felt his vision go dark, gasping for air.
At this moment, the Seven Cities were not the only ones plunged into dead silence; down in the oceanic abyss, the Tyrant froze stiff on the spot, as though plunged into a cave of ice.
Bathed in cold sweat, he felt as if he had just brushed past death and narrowly survived.
*Damn it, vicious! Too sinister! You're going to be the death of me! How could he still be hiding a move like this?!*
*By just a hair... just a hair...*
*...I would have gone head-to-head with that craftsman on Luo Island!*
In fact, not only the others, even Ji Jue himself froze. Suppressing the urge to drop his jaw, he listened in disbelief to the thrilled trill echoing from Zhanlu.
*Is it really that absurd?*
*This kid has been with me for so long, and it's really been suffering in silence... So after consuming all those natural disasters and undergoing transmutation and refinement for so long, it never even got to unleash its full power before, huh?*
Well, back then, the family simply lacked the means.
Had he tried this move half a month ago, before even reaching the halfway mark, he would have blown up, his body torn to shreds and reduced to ash.
Even now, his Regeneration form had stalled in overload. While it looked intact on the outside, its durability had plummeted by over ninety-eight percent.
Three-Phase Alchemy was currently running in overdrive on emergency repairs.
Just the coolant boiled away by the waste heat had already drained half a warehouse.
In the end, the crux still lay in his own control!
Just like the Lou clan's Bright as the Sun and Stars.
Once raw parameters inflated beyond a certain threshold, what mattered far more than sheer numerical magnitude was the skill and method required to ensure that every ounce of that power was delivered squarely onto the target!
In the past, Ji Jue's strength had fallen short. But now, the presence of the Foundation of Chixiao pushed his already absurdly exaggerated control to an unimaginable level.
The so-called "Heaven and Earth Unite in Force"!
Throughout the entire process, Ji Jue had felt neither strain nor exhaustion. Advancing through each phase and harnessing every subtle ripple of aftershocks felt effortlessly fluid, as ideal as operating inside an enclosed laboratory supported by countless precision instruments—free from incidental waste and completely devoid of outside interference.
With seamless grace, he siphoned off a full third of Luo Island's spiritus reserves, smoothly completed Zhanlu's transmutation, and delivered the final fruition to his designated target.
Everything unfolded naturally and flawlessly.
Chixiao!
Even if the active skill of Heavenly Constitution could not yet be used, the passive properties of the Foundation of Chixiao had already begun to show their might!
Inscribed Mandate, Golden Code and Jade Precept, and Centennial Authority—stacking the buffs of these three Blessings alone was enough to multiply any Celestial Chosen's control several times over, not to mention Chixiao's exalted independent multiplier...
Dominion of Tianyuan, kid!
Such a terrifying and awe-inspiring display instantly crushed the suffocating pressure brought by the tsunami. Unfortunately, it failed to make the enemy back down.
Anyone with half a brain would be figuring out how to slack off, paddle water, and observe from the sidelines right now. Sadly, the merfolk had low intelligence, while the Sea Locusts simply had no brains at all.
Seeing the ruin granted by their Holy Lord nullified, hordes of merfolk priests flew into a frenzy, furiously blowing their horns to summon their tribesmen to march upon Luo Island.
The rising steam instead served as a boon to the attackers. Under the Blessing bestowed by the Azure Jiao, countless man-eating herds soared into midair, blotting out the sky.
In any case, once the Blightwind blew, the herds were far too plentiful to ever finish eating, and their masters felt no heartbreak if they were wiped out. What was more, legions of Sea Locusts crazed with starvation were mingled among them, converging from all directions like a pitch-black tide to swallow Luo Island whole.
*Go ahead and kill! If you can wipe them all out, then color us impressed!*
This time, as though having long prepared a countermeasure against Luo Island, the fractured dark clouds in the sky gathered once more the instant the Veil rose again.
Amid the horns and incitement of the priests, bolts of lightning crashed down, tearing through the fragile Veil with unstoppable force. Vast plumes of mist surged, repeatedly scattered by howling gales and thunderclaps, lingering meek, helpless, and pathetic among Luo Island's buildings, unable to coalesce into form.
Brilliantly lit, Luo Island stood shorn of all defenses, fully exposed beneath the boundless swarm of Sea Locusts and herds. The black tide drew closer, closer, and closer still.
Right until buildings and streets were within arm's reach, until rainwater on the ground and cracks in the walls were clearly visible.
Only then came a sharp, metallic click.
Immediately followed by... a metal storm surpassing torrential rain, soaring into the heavens!
Beneath cracked walls, fully mounted machine guns spat tongues of flame, tearing away their flimsy camouflage to unleash savage firepower upon anything daring to cross into their firing range.
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands.
The endless streams of machine guns produced around the clock by Luo Island's assembly lines over the past days and the mountains of ammunition stacked high in the storehouses had finally found their purpose.
Like overconfident no-name punks who drank a bit too much, hopped on motorcycles, and charged straight into a Federation military base... firepower even more terrifying than that erupted from Luo Island.
At every vantage point, every transit hub, even from an unassuming truck on the roof of a parking garage, machine gun mounts rose steadily into place.
The firepower was terrifying enough to look like an expired-ammo clearance sale—buy one jin, get five jin free. The density was so suffocating that folks from the Mid-Continent would have wept tears of gratitude, having never experienced such luxury in their entire lives... The Federation and the Empire were truly full of conscience after all.
Locked and guided by the Paradise system, more than four thousand machine gun turrets across Luo Island fired at full blast. Even without the auto-aim assistance of the Path of Conquest, the servers' massive calculations every second rendered every incoming trajectory and flight variation crystal clear.
Once the complex parameters were unraveled with effortless clarity, only one task remained:
Blast them all to hell!
Nor was it merely this monotonous, nor this plain. The moment the surrounding merfolk tribes entered firing range, false hills and camouflages atop the low mountain in the center of Luo Island shattered and exploded completely, revealing sixteen dark, cavernous silos that sent chills down one's spine.
Spurting flames, stout rockets surged from within like shooting stars. Drawing blunt, straightforward arcs across the night sky, they plunged headlong into the massed swarms of Sea Locusts and merfolk gathered over the sea... or burst midair.
Sowing countless "tiny" seeds.
Immediately after, agonizing plumes of flame rose like colossal trees above the sea, towering high into the heavens!
Solid phlogiston in vast quantities, combined with refined white phosphorus, thermite, other accelerants, and the dregs left over from Zhanlu's feeding, had been meticulously formulated, finally triggering the anticipated chemical reaction.
Flames danced wildly like thick felt blankets, spreading out layer upon layer over the pitch-black sea.
The heavens were scorched scarlet by the raging fire, and the sea turned to a purgatory amidst the dance of searing heat. In the boiling roars, wretched shrieks rang out incessantly as throngs of merfolk and Sea Locusts in the water thrashed, rolled, and convulsed, unable to extinguish the flames clinging to their flesh...
Hell.
A genuine Gate of Hell had opened.
Chapter 754