Only now did Yaxiu have the spare time to observe the interior of the fortress.
Though called a fortress, it felt more like a miniature world or secret realm. He couldn't hear the slightest stir from the Forgotten Ones outside; the interior formed an isolated world of its own.
However, the architectural style of the fortress was extraordinarily chaotic. In the sky hung a City in the Clouds; in the distance lay lightning-clad mountains, lightning-struck forests, and woods of skeletal bone. Even among the cities alone, Yaxiu could distinguish three starkly different styles: steam machinery, molten iron castles, and dark spires.
At a glance, it looked as though buildings from countless different places had all been thrown into a single stew pot.
Yaxiu even spotted brilliant nightscapes of fiery trees and silver blossoms. He instantly realized that this fortress was a mishmash of every sorcerer base in the Hell of Phantasms cobbled together. After all, once the war began, this was the only safe place left. Whether the Hell demigods were willing or not, they had no choice but to relocate their entire life's fortunes here.
Yet among the array of bizarre structures, the two colossal guillotines at the fortress's center remained the most eye-catching. The one on the left was gigantic, seemingly built to execute colossal beasts; the one on the right, while somewhat smaller, possessed thirty-three blades, capable of executing thirty-three people at once.
More importantly, both guillotines were in constant operation.
Giant beasts with burlap sacks over their heads and clueless mortals were being executed endlessly by the two guillotines like items on an assembly line. Beneath the guillotines lay a bottomless pool of blood. Even from afar, Yaxiu caught an overpowering, pungent stench of blood... How long had these guillotines been operating? Why were they executing these creatures?
"Ha, of course Blood Moon came up with something like this again," Dead Frenzy chuckled.
"What is that?"
"A masterpiece of the necromancy faction, thoroughly converting all life into pure conceptual resources. Down below that blood pool, gods are constantly being born. Sacrificing lives to summon gods... very much in the bloody style of the ancient savage eras," Dead Frenzy said. "The left one executes Void Realm creatures; the right one executes dead souls. Now that even demigods can barely survive, the Void Realm creature clans that depended on them are naturally the first to go under the knife. I imagine the vast majority of Void Realm creatures in Hell have already been wiped out.
"You didn't see a single dead soul on your way here, not because Hell had none, but because Ouroboros has digested them all. In Hell, dead souls are the greatest resource. They move about across Hell according to certain patterns, and their activities effectively catalyze resource generation, so demigods generally leave them alone... But seeing that the entirety of Hell is about to fall, the demigods have hardened their hearts, sending all remaining souls to the guillotines. At the cost of scattering their souls to nothingness, they exchange them for gods to join the battlefield."
Yaxiu drew in a sharp breath.
Indeed. Now that even demigods hung on the brink of death, all lives below the level of demigods were prices they could afford to pay. Whether dead souls or Void Realm creatures, demigods had kept them only for growth and development. But when there might not even be a future, they might as well squeeze out every last drop of value to buy a glimmer of hope.
Now, even demigods had to risk their lives to activate the River of Flowing Gold nodes, and the Forgotten Ones were their guillotine. Inside and outside the fortress, it was essentially the same: living beings struggling to find a final way out.
By now, no living thing could escape this war. This was the final destination chosen by the Six Hells.
"Take me to see the supreme leader here," Yaxiu said, looking at the sweating demigods before him. "Where is he?"
The demigods exchanged uncertain glances.
Yaxiu said calmly, "Do you still have time to squander? Every second sooner I see him might add another chance of preserving this fortress."
Yenifa made up her mind and spoke up: "The fortress is currently led jointly by five councilors. They're inside the City in the Clouds."
Five councilors... Yaxiu looked toward the City in the Clouds. Just as he prepared to fly over, a violent rumble shook the fortress realm with such force that even Yaxiu nearly tumbled over. When they regained their senses, they saw a terrifying, colossal crack tear across the sky. Through the rift, they could see the outside world and strange shards falling inward. From a distance, the shards constantly flickered between black and white, as though a gargantuan mirror had shattered outside.
"Impossible! That's impossible!" Yenifa was stunned. "Didn't we already activate the River of Flowing Gold nodes... How could this still happen..."
Yaxiu looked at Dead Frenzy beside him. She explained, "Those shards are the wreckage of 'Daybreak Morning Star.' Daybreak Morning Star has collapsed."
The Hell demigods had charged out with fatalistic resolve to activate the River of Flowing Gold nodes precisely to prolong the killing secret realms' endurance. While Yaxiu was helping activate nodes, other Hell demigods had also activated their respective nodes. Theoretically, the killing secret realms should have been able to keep functioning for a good while, and Dead Frenzy had said they could hold out for several more days. Why had the situation collapsed all of a sudden?
But soon, Yaxiu saw the reason.
As the sky continued to tear apart, the Hell demigods saw that although hundreds of thousands of Forgotten Ones were still attacking outside the killing secret realms, they were no longer the protagonists of the battlefield.
A colossal entity spanning hundreds of kilometers in length and width lay sprawled outside the fortress. Compared to it, the killing secret realms seemed like fragile foam, and the demigod sorcerers tiny as ants. It was so immensely massive that it seemed about to burst the heavens and earth apart. Merely laying eyes upon it made the Hell demigods hold their breath, chills racing down their spines.
It was difficult to describe its appearance. It was composed of eight enormous white wings, with an eyeball embedded on every single feather. Four of the eight wings were spread out in the shape of a cross, while the other four were intertwined. Each eyeball seemed to have a mind of its own, blinking and closing at varying frequencies. Looking at it for just a couple seconds made Yaxiu feel dizzy and nauseous, his mind boiling and his sensory input tangling like dozens of knotted shoelaces!
This was not the first time he had seen a creature of this form... Rose used to have several dolls with similarly bizarre and grotesque appearances.
"Ouroboros." Dead Frenzy didn't even notice the cigarette slipping from her fingers. Staring at the supreme, colossal entity outside, she murmured softly, "It... has arrived.
"After resisting for a month, it's finally lost its patience," she said. "It has come to bestow Hell with an impartial end.
"Yaxiu, you really picked... the worst possible time to show up."
The tens of millions of eyeballs across the eight-winged creature shifted in unison toward the killing secret realm "Doll Paradise." In the past, any Forgotten One that stepped into the paradise would slowly turn into a new doll. Now, under the eight-winged creature's gaze, bright red blood wept from the eyes of every doll. The paradise quietly unraveled, allowing the Forgotten Ones to march straight through unhindered.
It hadn't unraveled the killing secret realm through some technique... it had simply crushed a finite realm with infinite power!
Yaxiu had once seen a question asking why the final boss never went all out against the protagonist, claiming it was foolish to give the hero room to grow, and so forth. The present situation felt just like an ultimate enemy that was supposed to appear only at the very end suddenly going all out against a beginner in the starter village. Up until a moment ago, the Hell demigods could still hold their ground against the Forgotten Ones, but the moment the eight-winged creature appeared, it effortlessly smashed the defensive line of secret realms they took such pride in.
The disparity was so vast that all resistance became laughable. What could they do?
Just as that same despairing question haunted every heart, someone had already provided an answer. Yaxiu saw a sorcerer bolt out of the fortress and draw the killing secret realm "Worlds Apart" into his Temple of Sorcery.
Weren't killing secret realms unable to be placed inside a Temple of Sorcery? What was he doing...? Before Yaxiu could ponder the question, he saw the sorcerer raise both hands, lifting with deliberate, staggering weight a domain suspended between illusion and reality.
At the same time, Yaxiu heard in the wind a demon playing a violin, children praying, villains roaring, and maidens singing hymns. All good and evil, all truth and falsehood, seemed to take tangible form at this moment. They converged into that illusory domain, turning into its light and darkness, air and water, earth and sea, sun, moon, and stars, fish and fowl, beasts and insects.
The ethereal kingdom gradually transformed into a real world.
The battlefield ground to an eerie standstill. Everyone raised their heads to watch, even the Forgotten Ones. A swirl of emotions surged in the hearts of the Hell demigods—astonishment, envy, yearning, bafflement, jealousy... but in the end, it all hardened into cold fury.
"Raising the Kingdom of Heaven," Dead Frenzy sneered. "He wants to flee to Heaven."
Chapter 1224