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Book 7, Chapter 35: Blaze of Glory

The Meteor Formation advanced unrelentingly, like an unstoppable tidal wave.

A large number of cultivators unleashed a constant barrage of attacks, causing waves of flying swords to descend from the sky and generate a terrifying flow of sword Qi that threatened to destroy everything in its path.

“AH!!!”

Countless Harpy soldiers fell to the vicious onslaught of swords.

“Despicable!” Eternal Night couldn’t help but curse the humans when he saw this.

Even so, he was not exactly surprised in his heart.

This was war, after all.

There was no such thing as light or darkness on the battlefield — there was only victory and defeat.

Despicable?

Yes, Su Chen had in fact violated their agreement and laid an ambush for them ahead right in front of Skywild Plains. This was quite despicable, but hadn’t Eternal Night done the same thing? Throwing a Desolate Beast at the humans was not exactly honorable, and neither was destroying their Origin Formation and stabbing them in the back after their battle was finished.

And Eternal Night didn’t really believe that Su Chen’s actions made him despicable. Eternal Night was just venting his anger and hatred.

He hated that he had assumed that the humans would take advantage of the extra time after their fierce battle to recover.

He hated that he was wrong.

The humans hadn’t rested at all.

They had continued moving after slaughtering the giant eagle and prepared an ambush for the Harpies.

At this point, they had used this tactic twice over the course of this war. Shockingly, they had managed to succeed both times.

“Activate the defensive barriers!” Eternal Night immediately commanded.

They had learned from their previous mistakes, and Sky City no longer traveled at its top speed anymore. Instead, they had reserved enough energy to activate their barriers. In theory, they should have been able to immediately activate their barrier.

But nothing happened even after Eternal Night gave the command.

Eternal Night was taken aback, and a trace of unease surfaced in his heart.

Suddenly, he spotted a Harpy flying towards him at top speed. Even more shockingly, that Harpy was burning his vitality to maximize his speed. He virtually tumbled out of the air as he yelled, “The core has stopped supplying energy, and the barrier cannot be activated!”

As soon as the Harpy gave his report, he fainted.

Eternal Night’s heart trembled. The possibility that he feared the most had come to pass.

He whirled around and yelled to Red Dew Flower, “You organize the Mother Goddess Sect and prepare a counterattack. I will go to the core. Su Chen must be there!”

As Eternal Night flew over, he pulled out his transmission box. “Skyleap, how are things going over on your end?”

Lonely Skyleap’s voice replied from the box, “Your Majesty, the humans are invading at full force, and the core is not supplying us with any energy either. The barrier is not going up!”

“But we are still flying, right? This means that the energy supplied by the core hasn’t completely been stopped yet! Pass along my orders — stop flying and reallocate all of our energy to our defensive systems,” Eternal Night hurriedly said.

“That still won’t be enough to fully support our defenses.”

“We can do without the first and second lines. Retreat to the third,” Eternal Night said. At this moment, he could not afford even a moment of indecision, which was why he had directly given the order to pull back from the first two lines. Sky City’s defenses were not particularly deep, which was why they only had three layers of defenses. In other words, they were already on their last line of defense.

And they still had to think of a way to repel the vicious human invaders as well.

Lonely Skyleap replied, “You know that, if we divert the energy from the movement systems into our defenses, then we will not be able to leave, right?”

Eternal Night paused for a brief moment before steadfastly replying, “We are not going to flee.”

This simple statement was filled with boundless heroism and determination.

Lonely Skyleap could only sigh. “Understood. We will fight for Your Majesty until the very end!”

Then, Sky City suddenly lurched to a halt.

As it stopped all movement, a barrier surrounding Sky City’s innermost region shimmered into appearance.

This small and transparent barrier completely stopped the human army’s advance. At the same time, the Sun-Shattering Cannons began to aim and fire at the humans from behind the barrier’s protection.

Even though Sky City had already abandoned its two outermost layers of defense, its third and final line of defense was more than enough to keep the human armies completely at bay.

This was where the real battle would take place.

The human’s Meteor Formation and the Harpies’ Sun-Shattering Cannons continued to blast away at each other as Arcana Techniques and Origin Skills crisscrossed in the sky. Brilliant rays of light scattered everywhere.

And sprays of blood tainted the brilliant display of lights.

By now, Eternal Night had already arrived at Sky City’s core region.

As soon as he arrived, he noticed that there were no Harpies in the general area.

Eternal Night frowned at the implications and stepped inside.

He didn’t believe that his soldiers would desert or run from battle. This only left one other possible outcome: all of the soldiers inside had been killed.

Even though he didn’t want to admit this, it was the most likely.

The further in Eternal Night went, the stronger this intuition became.

The metallic scent of blood was virtually assaulting his senses. Even though he hadn’t yet seen exactly what had happened, he could easily imagine the gruesome scene that would soon greet his eyes.

Eternal Night rounded a corner and entered a vast, open room. The scene that he saw was exactly what he feared.

A mountain of corpses.

Thousands of Harpy corpses were piled up in a corner. The pile was so tall that it almost reached the ceiling.

And on top of that pile of corpses sat a lone person.

Su Chen.

He was resting his chin on his hand, as if he was pondering something deep in thought.

When Su Chen saw Eternal Night and his subordinates enter, his eyes lit up as he said, “You’re finally here.”

Eternal Night ignored him and instead focused on the pile of corpses in the room.

After a long time, he spoke. “I stationed 3214 guards here, along with 456 Craftsmen and Metalskins. Are they all dead?”

Su Chen shrugged helplessly. “They were all very loyal. I had no other choice.”

“Bastard!” shouted one of the generals beside Eternal Night, outraged by Su Chen’s casual demeanor.

Eternal Night, however, calmly replied, “They were all good kids.”

Su Chen nodded in agreement. “I agree. They were extremely loyal to the Harpies, and even those Craftsmen had their own principles. I told them to stop Sark’s Nucleus from channeling any more energy to the city, but they refused. I don’t really understand how Sark’s Nucleus works, and I couldn’t stand the thought of destroying it. Thus, I had no choice but to sit here and watch it continue supplying you with energy...... Otherwise, you wouldn’t have even been able to activate your third line of defense.”

Eternal Night calmly listened to Su Chen. “So you not only want to destroy the Harpies, but you also want to also claim Sky City in the process?”

“This city is quite valuable. I hope to give it a new life with a new master,” Su Chen replied coolly.

Eternal Night nodded. “It is very valuable, but that doesn’t mean that it’s invincible.”

“But it’s still capable of dealing with some of the more powerful enemies, such as Desolate Beasts or gods.”

“Gods?” Upon hearing this, a glimmer of light finally flickered across Eternal Night’s eyes. “So you also know about them, and you also want to deal with them?”

“Yes,” Su Chen said with a nod, before asking with some interest, “You’re also calling them gods? Could it be that......”

Eternal Night was just about to respond when one of the Harpy generals standing beside him could no longer hold himself back. He rushed forwards as he savagely yelled out, “Die, Su Chen! Heaven’s Execution Lightning Blade!”

A giant sword formed out of lightning slashed out at Su Chen.

Su Chen calmly raised his hand and grabbed the lightning blade with his empty palm. The lightning ran across his arm and over his body, but he was not wounded in any way. It was almost as if Su Chen was playing with the lightning; to some degree, this was true, as it assumed various animal-shaped forms under his control.

Eventually, he settled on the form of a bird. He calmly stroked the bird’s head as he spoke. “I thought that the Harpies worshipped the Mother Goddess. Shouldn’t you be celebrating her return?”

Eternal Night seemed to not have noticed his subordinate’s attack as he replied, “It’s fine to worship gods who are far away. However, if they come too close, their might will be too much for us to bear.”

The general that had just attacked roared as he unleashed another powerful Arcana Technique.

At that same instant, however, Su Chen flicked his hand. The lightning bird flew forwards, slamming into the general’s chest. Even though the general had erected a barrier to protect himself, the lightning bird still blasted a giant hole in the general’s chest. It was as if the barrier hadn’t even existed in the first place.

Su Chen chuckled. “Who could have anticipated that two mortal enemies would actually have the same ultimate goal in mind?”

Eternal Night coldly laughed in response. “But you will not spare us because of just this, right?”

Su Chen nodded seriously. “Yes. We are not of the same race, so we will never be able to fully see eye-to-eye. Even if we make an alliance, we will continue to suspect each others’ sincerity and only end up holding each other back. If that’s the case, then it’d be much better to simply eliminate you, take Sky City for ourselves, and use your resources to nourish our armies. Ten years’ worth of time is enough for the Boundless Sect to produce tens of thousands of Spirit Burning Realm cultivators, thousands of Thought Manifestation Realm cultivators, and hundreds of Ultimate Emperor Realm cultivators.”

“Ten years.” Eternal Night’s gaze dimmed faintly. “So we only have ten years before the Barrier comes down?”

“That’s right!”

“Are you sure?”

“That old Dreamrealm guy said so himself.”

“The Lord of the Dreamrealm.” Upon hearing this, all of Eternal Night’s suspicions washed away. “The Lord of the Dreamrealm is the only god that is allowed to maintain a close connection with this world. His illusions can directly descend into this world and harvest resources here. Of course, he cannot actually kill anyone. However, once the Barrier comes down, everything will change. The Lord of the Dreamrealm will be the most terrifying god that we face out of all of them. We must kill him first!”

“You make it sound easy. He is still a god, after all. I doubt that we can kill him just like that,” Su Chen said as he shook his head.

Eternal Night waved his hand, and the generals standing behind him rushed towards Su Chen simultaneously.

Eternal Night, however, continued conversing with Su Chen. “So why would you fight if you don’t even have any confidence of winning?”

Su Chen countered, “Do you need to be reassured of victory before fighting a battle? If so, then what are your subordinates doing? Do they think that they can kill me?”

Su Chen calmly raised his hand. A Sumeru Void appeared around them, bringing Eternal Night’s dozen or so generals and Arcana Masters to a sudden stop. All of a sudden, it was hard for them to even revolve the energy in their body, as Su Chen had restricted the entire area, making it impossible for them to do anything. He had effectively cut off the very source of their strength.

The difference in strength between the two sides was simply far too great.

And as Su Chen’s strength increased, this gap had only grown larger and larger. Now, it was a terrifyingly great chasm.

Eternal Night observed all this happen expressionlessly. “Your strength astounds me, Su Chen. But you’re right — true heroes don’t only fight battles that they know they can win. Even if you know that you will lose, you will fight until the end. And we are no exception.”

He strode forward gallantly. “Let us use this battle as the Harpies’ final blaze of glory!”