Chapter 783: The Collapse
The command center of the enemy coalition was located on a floating fortress behind the front lines of the quarantine zone. It was lined with dark pillars and illuminated by a three-dimensional projection in the center of the room. The projection displayed the entire battlefield in real-time using shifting motes of spiritual light.
A few hours ago, the atmosphere in this room had been one of triumphant satisfaction. The trap had worked flawlessly. Li Canghai, one of the immovable pillars of the defensive line was securely locked within the Temporal Dao Stone.
Now, the atmosphere was thick with dread.
Five supreme figures stood around the glowing array table. They were the leaders of this coalition. They were the leaders of their respective forces here but not the supreme leaders of the forces they originate from. Currently, they were watching what they thought was their invincible defensive line being turned to ash.
Supreme Admiral Erlong, the grand commander of the Fiend Sovereign Armada, slammed his armored fist onto the edge of the array table. It cracked under the force of his anger.
"Report!" Erlong roared, his crimson eyes wide with disbelief. "I want to know how our blockade was breached in a matter of seconds! Where is the third dreadnought division?"
An array master frantically manipulated the glowing spiritual nodes on the table. The projection shifted, zooming in on the Vanguard lines.
"They are gone, Supreme Admiral," the array master stammered. "The entire third division… they were eaten."
"Eaten?" Broodlord Xyxx hissed. The leader of the Star Eater Brood was a towering, multi-limbed insectoid creature whose chitinous armor clicked in agitation. “What are you talking about?"
The array master tapped a crystal. The projection flickered, replaying a recorded imprint from a destroyed scout ship.
The five leaders watched in stunned silence as an unknown general stepped off the bow of a sleek spirit vessel. They watched the man roar, his body expanding into an Abyssal Leviathan so massive it blotted out the distant light. They watched the beast unhinge its jaw and swallow hundreds of heavy crimson warships in a single and terrifying gulp.
"What in the name of the abyss is that?" Grandmaster Elen whispered. As the leader of the Silent Oblivion Sect, Elen was a man of logic and arrays. He was staring at the projection as if it had offended his very understanding of things. "That is not a known force that was coming. How is it moving with such speed?"
"I don't care how it is moving! I want it dead!" Erlong bellowed. "Redirect the Grand Annihilation Arrays! Have the seventh and eighth divisions lock onto that Leviathan and burn it to cinders!"
"We cannot, Admiral!" A tactical officer shouted from the back of the chamber. "The seventh and eighth divisions are currently engaged on the left flank! The Li Clan has arrived!"
The central projection shifted again, pulling back to show the massive, sweeping view of the battlefield. A wave of blinding white light was erasing the green icons representing the Nebula Scythe Vanguard.
"The Li Clan!" Elen muttered while rubbing his temples. "We knew they would come. They are Li Canghai's bloodline. We can handle them."
"Then why are my vanguard ships being slaughtered like livestock?!" Demanded Commander Sythe, a gaunt and shadowy figure draped in tattered green robes. "Look at the projection! This is clearly not just a force they gathered together to free him. This force is full of elites and powerhouses."
"They are fighting like they have nothing to lose," Erlong growled. "There are too many of them. The forces are at least double if not triple what we expected. Not only that, they are all far stronger than what we were expecting."
"Let them burn themselves out," Xyxx clicked his mandibles. "My Star Eater Brood numbers in the trillions. We will drown their avatars in bodies."
"You cannot drown what you cannot touch," a cold voice echoed from the darkest corner of the chamber.
The representative of the Shadowfiend Coalition stepped into the dim light. He was a shifting mass of dark smoke and lethal intent.
"My assassins have engaged the right flank," the Shadowfiend continued, his voice laced with uncharacteristic fear. "Zhan Tielan is leading the charge there."
A heavy silence fell over the leaders. Zhan Tielan was a name that commanded respect and terror. She was a demon of war.
"We expected her as well." Erlong said slowly. "She is his wife. Of course she would bring her personal legion.
"This is insane," Elen whispered. "The Li Clan and the Zhan Clan fighting at this level means they are using forces from the main branch. They despise each other's methodologies. Their only thin connection is the marriage between Li Canghai and Zhan Tielan. To see them coordinate forces of this magnitude... Canghai's influence is vast but it shouldn't be enough to unite their entire main branches for such a thing!"
"It doesn't matter," Erlong snarled. "Let them expend their energy on the flanks. The core of our formation is still intact. We will simply strike the center of their armada. If we destroy their command flagship, their coordination will collapse!"
"I already ordered the reserve fleets to strike their rear and center," Elen stated. "I deployed the Silent Oblivion suppression platforms to flank them. We will sever their communication networks and blind them."
The array master monitoring the rear guard swallowed hard. His hands were shaking as he looked up from his crystals.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"Grandmaster Elen," the array master squeaked. "The suppression platforms... they are gone."
"Gone? What do you mean gone? Did the Li Clan target them?"
"No, sir. They simply ceased to exist."
The projection crystal zoomed in on the top flank of the battlefield. The enemy leaders squinted at the display. There were no flashy explosions. There were just patches of the void where their ships and platforms used to be. Expanding bubbles of absolute nothingness were quietly erasing everything they touched.
The temperature in the command chamber dropped drastically. The spiritual lights flickering in the room dimmed.
The Shadowfiend representative recoiled. "Is that... that is void energy."
"Look at the energy signatures," Elen said. "Silent. Absolute. Erasing without a sound. It is him!"
"VoidClaw," Xyxx hissed. "Why is he participating in this rescue operation?! He never intervenes in wars!"
"The intelligence reports were wrong," Sythe spat as his green robes fluttered. "This isn't a rescue operation by two clans. This is a purge. VoidClaw has sneaked into the war and will kill us all!"
Panic, a raw and unfamiliar emotion to these predators, began to set in. To fight the Li Clan and the Zhan Clan was a brutal war. To fight this monsterious force that had gathered was suicide.
"We must retreat," Xyxx declared. "My brood will not be erased for this plan."
"We cannot retreat!" Erlong roared. "If we break the blockade now, the entire sector falls! We still have the Grand Annihilation Arrays! Target the center of their armada! Target the flagship! I don't care who is protecting it! Burn it down!"
The tactical officer scrambled to input the coordinates. "I will let the troops know! Firing upon the them to open a path to the flagship!"
The leaders watched the projection closely. They saw massive pillars of destructive Qi erupt from the Fiend Sovereign flagships. The beams tore through the void. But the beams never reached the center.
A wall of vessels shifted into place. They projected colossal golden turtle shells.
"What is that formation?!" Elen yelled, analyzing the arrays with wide eyes. "Those shields... They are overlapping defensive laws that shouldn't be compatible!"
The Grand Annihilation beams slammed into the golden shells. The enemy leaders waited for the inevitable shatter. The golden shells absorbed the light, hummed with a deep resonance and forcefully reflected the catastrophic damage outward in a scattered burst of refracted energy.
The Golden Shell Phalanx didn't even budge. They simply sat there like an immovable mountain floating in the dark void.
"They reflected it," Erlong whispered.
"Admiral Erlong," the tactical officer's voice was a flat monotone. "There are no matches in our records for such a formation or fleet."
The silence in the room was deafening.
"Check again!" Elen ordered.
"I have checked it against every known faction, sect, empire and rogue coalition in our records. But the universe is vast." The officer stated. "The Leviathan vanguard at the front... zero matches. The golden shield phalanx at the rear... zero matches. The center fleet maintaining the perimeter around the central flagship... zero matches as well."
"That is impossible," Sythe argued. "Forces of this caliber, armies capable of competing with the main branches of the Li and Zhan clans, cannot simply appear out of nowhere! An expert who can transform into a leviathan that powerful must leave a historical footprint! A general who commands shield arrays like that must have a name!"
"Look at their positioning," Elen said. His analytical mind was desperately trying to make sense of the madness. "The Leviathan is the spear. The Golden Shells are the shield. The ten unknown fleets are the perimeter. Who are they protecting?"
"The central flagship," Erlong noted.
"And whose forces are anchoring the space directly above the flagship?" Elen asked while pointing a trembling finger at the projection.
"VoidClaw! That damn being!" the Shadowfiend whispered from the darkness.
The realization hit the five leaders.
"They belong to him," Erlong breathed out as he stumbled back from the table. "The Leviathan. The Phalanx. The ten fleets. They must be his hidden legions. He was waiting till now to show his hand."
"It is the only logical explanation," Elen agreed. "Only a monster like VoidClaw could hide armies of such terrifying caliber in the shadows. He has been hoarding for eras, waiting for a moment to deploy them."
"But why today?" Xyxx hissed. "Why deploy the hidden forces now... just to save Li Canghai?!"
"Because we didn't just trap Li Canghai," Erlong realized as a cold sweat broke out across his forehead. "We triggered something else. Something we don't understand. We woke up a sleeping monster and he brought his hidden pantheon with him to slaughter us. Those fools making the decisions in our organizations have made a grave mistake and now we are paying the price!"
The projection table flashed violently. Red warning runes cascaded across every single crystal in the room.
"Supreme Admiral!" The array master screamed. "The blockade there is completely shattered! The enemy forces are not even slowing down! They are carving a path of devastation directly toward our command center!"
Erlong looked at the map. The allied forces were a meat grinder. It was a complete and undeniable overkill. There was no tactical brilliance required from the enemy. They were simply pushing forward with overwhelming power.
"We cannot win this," Elen stated. The Grandmaster of the Silent Oblivion Sect looked defeated. "No amount of strategy can overcome this force. If we stay, we die."
"If we run, we lose the sector," Sythe argued but his voice lacked conviction.
"We have already lost the sector!" Erlong roared, finally accepting the grim reality. He drew himself up. His crimson eyes flashing with a desperate and spiteful light.
"Pull back!" Erlong issued the final command. "Abandon the blockade at the front! Fall back and consolidate every single surviving force into a defensive ring around the Temporal Dao Stone bubble!"
Erlong glared at the glowing projection and watched the forces slowly advance through the debris of his ruined armies.
"Even if they slaughter us all here," Erlong sneered. A dark and venomous smile spread across his face. "They will never break that bubble. They cannot save him. We had already won the war the moment we trapped Li Canghai. Let VoidClaw and Zhan Tielan crash their invincible armies against the unstoppable flow of time. They will watch him rot to dust."
The enemy commanders nodded in grim agreement. They didn’t expect this to happen but they knew the result was the same nonetheless. They had already done their duty and won here as soon as they had trapped Li CangHai. They abandoned their original positions and began the chaotic retreat toward the glowing anomaly in the center of the void.
Outside the allied armada effortlessly crushed the fleeing stragglers. The path was cleared. The slaughter was absolute. The central flagship crested the final line of shattered debris. The ships hummed as it slowed its advance and came to a halt at the edge of the devastated warzone.
Hovering in the distance and casting a shimmering but distorted light over the blood-soaked void was the Temporal Dao Stone trap. Inside the massive bubble were the elite warriors and their ships. It was an eerie scene as they all hung perfectly motionless.