novelraw Chapter 443: Snowpeak Fortress Cluster (1)
Chapter 443: Snowpeak Fortress Cluster (1)
"Break!"
Wang Mingyuan, suspended mid-air, clenched his right fist. Vast white spiritual energy instantly condensed at his knuckles, forming a constantly rotating, compressing vortex of energy.
He threw a direct punch.
The space along the path of his fist distorted slightly.
The thick ice wall that had just solidified shattered inch by inch upon contact with this intensely concentrated spiritual energy vortex.
The momentum of the punch did not diminish, smashing viciously into the head of the Frigid Breath Exhaler.
"BOOM!!!"
The giant whale-like monster's head snapped backward violently, its hard crystalline skin and skull emitting cracking sounds.
Its massive body was sent tumbling backward by this punch containing terrifying force, crashing heavily into the sea and sending towering plumes of spray skyward. Its aura instantly withered.
With effortless ease, he had forced back one and severely wounded another.Wang Mingyuan's mastery of spiritual energy had reached a sublime state, seamlessly blending offense and defense in unpredictable ways.
Yet, there was no joy on his face.
Suspended in mid-air, white spiritual energy enveloped him like a halo. His gaze grew even more solemn as he looked deep into the mist.
"This is only the beginning... greater troubles lie ahead."
...
Time flowed with painful difficulty amidst blood and fire.
In the blink of an eye, this war concerning the nation's fate had raged for ten full days.
Ten days, in the long river of history, was but the snap of a finger.
But for Daxia, caught in this great calamity, these ten days felt as long and cruel as a century.
The four border fronts endured unimaginable pressure every single day.
Countless soldiers stained the battlefields with their blood, their bones buried along the frontiers.
One after another, fortresses once deemed impregnable became battered and broken under repeated assaults, their defensive works destroyed layer by layer.
And on this tenth day, the Mist side launched the most ferocious wave of attacks since the war began.
This time, it was the real deal, a general offensive with the true intent of shattering Daxia's defensive lines in one fell swoop.
East, south, west, north—in every major direction, the energy readings transmitted by the monitoring spirit arrays instantly maxed out.
The mist churned violently.
One after another, enormous figures radiating the terrifying aura of Calamity-level emerged from the depths of the mist, revealing their hideous silhouettes.
Their numbers far exceeded any previous assault!
Outside the eastern Raging Waves Fortress.
The defensive line that Wang Mingyuan and others had painstakingly maintained.
Was torn open by a massive breach, courtesy of three newly appeared deep-sea behemoths acting in concert, seawater and monsters pouring in.
At the southern Iron Wall Fortress, after General Shi Potian repelled the first wave of powerful enemies, five Mist Creatures of varying forms but all possessing Calamity-level strength now appeared simultaneously, launching fierce assaults from different directions.
Large sections of the fortress walls collapsed under the frenzied attacks.
On the western Gobi defense line, multiple strongpoints lost contact at the same time, their signals completely jammed, plunging them into dead silence.
Emergency! Emergency! All fronts in a state of emergency!
One after another, blood-red dots representing fortresses that had fallen or were on the verge of collapse lit up glaringly on the main map in the Command Center, and their number was still increasing.
The list of fallen Ocean Realm and Calamity-level powerhouses was being updated every moment.
Daxia's defensive lines were already on the brink of collapse.
The war had entered its most critical, climactic phase.
Black City, inside the training chamber.
The encrypted communicator on Su Zhan's wrist began to vibrate intensely and continuously.
Li Su's urgent voice came through: "Mr. Su Zhan! Supreme Council emergency order!
The northern Snowpeak Fortress Cluster defensive line is on the verge of collapse!
Confirmed at least seven Calamity-level Mist Creatures are coordinating their assault, among them suspected presence of a Calamity-level mid-stage entity!
The northern warzone is severely lacking in Ocean Realm powerhouses. Two Ocean Realm cultivators have been confirmed fallen, one is severely wounded and combat ineffective. The breach in the defensive line is expanding rapidly!
You are ordered to proceed to the northern Snowpeak Fortress Cluster immediately. Spare no cost to stabilize the defensive line and eliminate high-threat Calamity-level targets!
This order, priority level, highest!"
Su Zhan's eyes, closed for ten days, snapped open at this moment.
His gaze burned with boiling battle intent.
"Finally... my turn!"
Su Zhan slowly rose to his feet. The aura around him was no longer concealed in the slightest. The terrifying pressure of Ocean Realm Fourth Stage and Calamity Fourth Stage swept through the entire training chamber like a storm.
The north... that would be his battlefield!
Su Zhan transformed into a streak of light, shooting skyward, then streaking with explosive speed towards Daxia's northern border, towards that most bitterly cold and most critically endangered battlefield.
...
Daxia's Northern Border, the Snowpeak Fortress Cluster.
This was one of Daxia's most bitterly cold border lines.
Perpetually snow-covered, with winds sharp as knives.
The undulating, towering mountain ranges should have been a natural barrier.
But now, this silver-clad world was stained with crimson.
The Snowpeak Fortress Cluster was not a single fortress, but a defensive system consisting of one main city, Sky Pillar, and seven surrounding fortresses, guarding several key passages leading into the northern hinterlands.
This massive defensive system was already riddled with holes, teetering on the brink.
"BOOM—!!!"
Explosions blossomed continuously on the pristine snowy ground, melting the snow.
The once majestic fortress walls were now riddled with massive gaps and deep claw marks, their runes dim, their spiritual light faint.
Bitingly cold winds, carrying the smell of gunpowder, howled through the broken battlements.
"Hold! Hold the line, all of you! Behind us are hundreds of millions of northern border civilians!"
An old general who had lost an arm stood on a broken section of the outermost wall of the main city, Sky Pillar, roaring hoarsely, his voice pitifully weak in the gale.
Intense spiritual energy fluctuations surrounded him, clearly marking him as Ocean Realm, but they were now exceptionally chaotic, a clear sign he was at the end of his rope.
As far as the eye could see, below the walls, surged a tide of Mist Creatures.
Most were adapted to the northern border's severe cold, clad in thick carapaces.
Some moved with wind-like swiftness across the snow.
Others could spew frigid breath.
Low-level ice-plains wolf-like monsters, beasts as large as moving snowdrifts, flying units that circled overhead hurling ice spikes...
They were endless.
Trampling over the corpses of their kin and the defenders, they madly assaulted the teetering defensive line.
But what had truly plunged the Snowpeak Fortress Cluster into desperate straits were those seven nightmare-like figures.
Directly in front of the main city, Sky Pillar.
A Frost Giant Ape, its size comparable to a small hill, was swinging fists covered in solid ice. Each impact caused the city wall to tremble violently, large patches of defensive runes extinguishing with each blow.
It roared skyward, the freezing air it exhaled instantly freezing dozens of defenders who couldn't dodge in time into ice sculptures.
Which then shattered into a skyful of ice crystals with the next wave of attacks.
Above a fortress on the flank.
A Blizzard Eagle, its wings spread wide enough to blot out the sky, circled, beating its wings to stir up blizzards laced with ice blades.
Not only did this severely disrupt the defenders' vision and movement, but those sharp ice blades could easily slice through the defenses of low-level Awakened individuals, causing widespread casualties.
Lurking in the shadows at the edges of the battlefield were the other five Calamity-level existences.
An Ice Burrow Spider, shaped like a giant spider, spewing viscous ice webs.
A Burrowing Ice Worm, tunneling beneath the snow like a giant worm.
A thirty-meter-tall Ice Golem, completely constructed from ten-thousand-year ice.
And two Mist Specters, their forms flickering and elusive, as if condensed from shadow.
Seven Calamity-level creatures!
Among them, the aura radiating from the Frost Giant Ape and the Ice Golem had clearly reached Calamity-level mid-stage.