Inside the cavernous hall.
"Master!"
The colossal visage looked upon the fake Heavenly Hegemon with absolute devotion. "These are all the landmarks I have collected and preserved over the eons."
Accompanying his earnest words, countless dense clusters of hazy light manifested from all directions, drifting endlessly in the void.
Indeed, these tiny clusters, shimmering like shattered starlight, were every single one a Space-time Landmark.
Counted in full, their numbers eclipsed every single atom contained within an entire observable universe.
The total sum of these landmarks was precisely one Googol.
"Excellent. All in one go, saving me a great deal of effort."
The fake Heavenly Hegemon smiled with satisfaction and swept his hand, claiming every last landmark in an instant.
Turning back toward the colossal visage hanging reverently above the hall, he instructed: "From now on, go about your normal work, your daily routine, your usual graft. When I need you, I will summon you."
"By your will!" Kakimi answered subserviently.
HUM——
Space fluctuated, and the fake Heavenly Hegemon was instantly swallowed by a swirling gray vortex, vanishing from the palace.
In the very next split second, he transitioned through the Real Number Channel, returning to the Non-Static Global-Inflation 3D Universe where Seraphine resided.
"Good."
Seraphine casually accepted the infinite clusters of light offered respectfully by the fake Heavenly Hegemon, remarking serenely, "With this, the harvest of the various Source Rules can officially begin."
With a single impulse of her will, one Googol of Divine Projections instantly shot forth from her colossal body, a form as vast as the cosmos itself, disappearing into the gray vortexes materializing all around.
Each of these Divine Projections, equipped with at least an [Immortal Soul], [Potential Infinity Vitality], and distinct embedded systems, would traverse the Real Number Channel to reach every corner of 6D space, slip into the High-Level Realm of Phantasm, cross the tributaries of the Creeping Sea, and journey toward distant, uncharted Swarms.
Across infinite distances and the severed causal ties separating the Swarms, even her true body could only maintain shared cognition, perception, and memory channels with these projections.
Beyond that informational link, direct intervention was impossible.
Yet given Seraphine's disposition and potential, paired with the myriad cheat tools granted to every projection, rising to dominance across various Swarms would be trivial.
Still, Seraphine understood that harvesting the Source Rules from so many Swarms would not happen overnight; it would inevitably take immense time.
But patience was something she never lacked.
Whether ten thousand years, a hundred million years, or far longer eons, Seraphine would wait in absolute silence.
In the meantime, constrained by the seven Eternal-level sovereigns of the String race and the looming threat of numerous String Gods and String Ancestors, the ever-cautious Seraphine would never manifest her true body in 6D space.
In short, from this moment forth, she would enter a state of true dormancy.
"Step by step... Once I achieve the realm of Universal Venerable, even the String race will be nothing but withered bones beneath my feet."
Amidst the shifting currents of her thoughts, Seraphine's boundless body instantly collapsed inward.
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE——
As the cosmos shuddered violently, her form, dwarfing even the Matter Sea, shrank in a flash into a hazy flickering point 10^10^38 times smaller than the Planck scale, burrowing straight into the soul depths of the fake Heavenly Hegemon standing reverently nearby.
...
The night was pitch-black, as if the firmament had been torn asunder.
Amidst the endless gloom, torrential rain poured down and thunder roared across the skies.
In the dead of this downpour, two laborers in bamboo hats and straw raincoats carried an emaciated corpse, wading step by heavy step through the mud toward the depths of the curtain of rain.
Exhausted from the long haul, one of them couldn't resist grumbling, "With rain pouring like this, why couldn't we wait till it cleared before dragging him out?"
The other frowned and snapped in a low voice, "Shut your mouth. This guy starved and froze to death, no family, penniless. If we don't dump him at the burial grounds immediately and leave him rotting in town, a corpse mutation is guaranteed."
At the mention of a corpse mutation, the first laborer shivered, swallowing any further complaint.
Trudging on for half an incense stick's time, as the downpour thinned and the thunder faded, they finally hauled the body through the deep mud and reached the desolate burial grounds.
Beneath the shroud of night.
Weeds choked the burial ground, and crooked gravestones leaned askew in bleak desolation.
WHOOSH——
A biting, damp wind snaked through the derelict graves, parting waist-high patches of dark gray weeds and kicking up the smell of decaying leaves and mud.
Jagged, grotesque trees swayed in the wind with eerie rustles, like the muffled weeping of unsettled spirits.
Utterly spent, the two men paid no heed to the gloom of the graveyard; scanning around, they spotted an unmarked shallow pit, dumped the body in with a thud, unslung their iron spades, and silently shoveled earth to bury him.
CRACK!!
A sudden flash of lightning rent the sky, illuminating half the graveyard.
In that brief glare, the foot-deep pit revealed a corpse in coarse homespun clothes; though his face and neck were mottled a lifeless purple-white, his features appeared honest and gentle, belonging to a youth barely twenty-three or twenty-four, in the very prime of his years.
For reasons unknown, his young life had been cut short, left to be buried carelessly on a stormy night in this potter's field, a pitiful, tragic end.
Another half incense stick later, the rain finally ceased, the mud pit was filled over, and a modest mound of fresh earth took its place.
Catching their breath, the two laborers cautiously produced three incense sticks each from their robes.
Striking a flint to light them, they bent down and planted the incense into the muddy edge of the fresh mound.
"Heaven bless your soul~"
Cupping their hands toward the earthen mound, they muttered prayers: "Ah, Calamitas, poor fool... you spent half your life half-mad and destitute, but at least you got a patch of dirt to rest in at the end. That's a blessing in itself.
In your next life, reincarnate into a wealthy home. Or just come back as cattle or swine, anything is better than being a destitute peasant suffering endlessly in this mortal realm."
Done with their rites, the two turned and hurried off into the howling, gloomy wind.
Leaving behind only the solitary grave in utter desolation.
Two hours passed.
Faint morning light spilled across the horizon as dawn approached.
Right at that moment, an intangible, shimmering streak of light materialized high in the heavens.
The very instant it appeared, the streak of light plunged straight down from the sky, piercing directly into the small earthen grave below.
HUM——
Instantly, the lifeless corpse beneath the mound began to violently twitch.
Then, amidst the churning of disturbed earth, the corpse slowly crawled out from the grave.
HISSS——
Emerging from the earth, the corpse tilted its face up and drew in a deep, violent breath of air.
With that intake of living vitality, the dense deathly qi clinging to the body swiftly dissipated.
The purple-blue livor mortis spots across its face, neck, hands, and ankles miraculously faded until they vanished entirely.
Having drawn in enough boundless vitality from the world, this dead body...
No, this living soul reborn from death abruptly snapped open its eyes, exhaling a bolt of murky violet-black death qi that shot over a thousand meters, cleanly snapping a young willow tree in two.
BANG!
CRACKLE CRACKLE CRACKLE——
Glancing at the snapped trunk tumbling a hundred meters away, Seraphine (Projection), having purged every trace of deathly qi from the vessel, silently assessed the body's internal state:
"Severe malnutrition. Zero food or water intake for roughly half a month. Traces of martial arts training. Minor dormant active energy inside.
However, due to extreme dehydration and starvation, the muscles and sinews are severely atrophied and necrotic, leaving that active energy in a state of deep stagnation.
The heart, lungs, liver, and spleen all exhibit severe organ failure.
Ah... what kept him alive for so long without food or water was actually a sheer obsession? An obsession that seeped deep into his blood and bone marrow.
The essence of that obsession... 'I will achieve immortality!'"
CRACK——
A sudden crack of thunder tore across the horizon.
"A mere mortal's obsession, yet potent enough to warp physical reality and conjure vitality from nothingness to sustain bodily functions. The effect was minimal, but impressive nonetheless."
In the dark of night, Seraphine chuckled softly, "Intriguing. It seems this Desolate Ancient Swarm leans heavily toward idealism."
In fact, fragmented records regarding this Swarm existed within the Heavenly Hegemon's memories.
For instance, the fundamental building blocks of all matter and phenomena across its infinite space-time were neither elementary particles nor atoms and molecules.
Rather, they were a primordial essence transcending void and substance, scale and mass... [Origin Qi].
Boundless matter, myriad living beings, and infinite worlds were all woven from limitless Origin Qi spanning countless affinities: metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, sun, moon, and beyond.
"This body is on the verge of total collapse; time for a restoration."
Having assessed the vessel's condition, Seraphine unreservedly unleashed the [Immortal Soul] and [Potential Infinity Vitality] encapsulated within her Divine Projection.
WHOOSH——
Instantly, an outrageous surge of vitality erupted like an explosion from every fiber of the body.
THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP——
Amidst the surging of blood and the rapid swelling of muscles, every negative condition plaguing this new physical vessel of Seraphine (Projection) was purged into nothingness in an instant.
Simultaneously, the shattered remnant soul clinging to the necrotic skull was restored from nothingness back to its pristine state.
Except that its core consciousness and mind were now completely overwritten and replaced by Seraphine (Projection).
Once finished, she began integrating and reading through the residual memories left within the body.
According to those memories, this body was originally named [Calamitas], a native of a village on the outskirts of Black Soil Town.
Both of his parents had succumbed to sudden illness and died during his early childhood.
To survive, he had no choice but to herd cattle for a local landlord in exchange for grain and lodging.
By the time he turned twelve, the landlord's wife, begrudging his growing appetite, fabricated an excuse to throw him out onto the streets.
From then on, Calamitas drifted around Black Soil Town, scraping together a meager living by doing odd jobs and gathering firewood in the mountains.
That very year, while gathering wood deep in the mountains, he was ambushed by a vicious bear.
At the precipice of death, an elder riding a flying sword descended from the heavens, slaying the beast with a single swing and pulling him from the jaws of death.
In that transcendent moment, Calamitas was struck with awe, frantically shouting, "Immortal master, please take me as your disciple!" as he dropped to his knees to kowtow.
The elder uttered not a word; with a casual wave of his sleeve, he swept the boy up on a gust of wind, sending him soaring effortlessly over a hundred miles away.
Clearly, the immortal elder had zero intention of taking a disciple.
But Calamitas refused to give up.
He longed to take the elder as his master and become an immortal himself, riding a sword through the high heavens.
After all, who in their youth, having witnessed a true immortal with their own eyes, wouldn't dream of walking the path of cultivation and piercing the blue vault with a single sword?
And so that year, Calamitas abandoned his chores and dropped his woodcutter's axe, pouring his entire soul into the grand pursuit of seeking an immortal master.
Risking life and limb, he ventured into the perilous depths of the mountains encircling Black Soil Town dozens of times, all for a second glimpse of the immortal elder.
Finally, on his sixteenth expedition, as he was once again attacked by beasts, the old immortal descended.
Slaying the beast with a flick of his hand, the elder didn't bother with pleasantries, bluntly stating that Calamitas was utterly devoid of spiritual roots, an uncarvable stone destined never to step through the gates of cultivation.
With that, the elder vanished into thin air, leaving a parting warning for Calamitas never to seek him again, declaring he would not save him a third time.
Yet Calamitas still refused to resign himself to fate.
He firmly believed that somewhere in this mortal world, a way must exist for him to achieve immortality.
From the age of thirteen, as if possessed by an inner demon, Calamitas dedicated every waking thought and shred of energy to seeking immortals.
Leaving Black Soil Town behind, he stumbled out into the wider world.
For ten grueling years, his footprints marked bustling towns, remote villages, famous peaks, ancient ruins, desolate wastelands, and untamed wilderness.
He was scammed, beaten, sold into servitude, rescued, and hunted down.
In the martial world, Calamitas even gained a modest degree of fame.
A reputation for pure madness, of course.
Yet in the end, having circled the world only to return to Black Soil Town, Calamitas possessed nothing to show for those ten years beyond the basic "Tiger Boxing" he had picked up from a minor martial arts hall and his reputation as a madman across multiple regions.
Even during the final fortnight of his life, battered by exhaustion and afflicted with multiple severe illnesses, Calamitas still never gave up on seeking immortals.
He simply no longer possessed the strength to do anything about it.
And so, filled with endless regret, Calamitas finally starved to death in a desolate, abandoned temple tucked away in a forgotten corner of Black Soil Town.
"In short: terrible talent compounded by rotten luck."
Mobilizing the trace amount of active energy within the vessel, Seraphine slowly raised her hand. "This energy... is likely called True Qi."
ROAR!
A resonant tiger's roar suddenly burst from her palm, piercing through the damp, chilly air ahead.
"Actually, Calamitas's talent wasn't entirely hopeless."
Seraphine slowly lowered her hand. "It's just that... all his potential was channeled entirely into mortal martial arts."
Indeed, according to Calamitas's memories, among the myriad martial sects across this land, not a single master had ever cultivated True Qi; every last one of them was only capable of producing internal force that could not be projected outside the body.
Yet Calamitas, relying solely on a rudimentary "Tiger Boxing" manual barely better than flashy theatrics, had somehow forcibly manifested True Qi.
It was just pitifully weak, amounting to a mere ten years of cultivation power.
And that was despite his obsession, having barely invested any real time or energy into dedicated training.
Had Calamitas abandoned his fixation back then and poured his soul into martial arts, he likely would have carved a bloody path through the mortal world years ago, unified all the sects under heaven, and perhaps even ascended through martial prowess alone.
For Seraphine, however, none of this made any difference.
In her eyes, mortal martial arts boiled down to two simple categories:
Type 1: zero special effects, just punching, kicking, and swinging blades;
Type 2: full special effects, blasting enemies with wild, multi-colored light shows of red, blue, yellow, and green.
"Since I'm here, I might as well settle in."
Looking up at the dawning sky, Seraphine chuckled softly, "New place, new name.
From this day forth, I am... Calamitas.
Hmm, next step is to head into Black Soil Town and track down the local gazetteer to check for records on immortals, demons, evil spirits, and the like.
This body's memories seem to hold faint traces of such things, albeit rather hazy."
Having thoroughly unraveled the esoteric mysteries behind [Infinite Attributes],
Seraphine had mastered the craft of custom-building systems from scratch.
Stripping away the superficial aesthetics, the ultimate core of any system was simply channeling the power of the Essential Realm to intervene in the phenomena of the Phenomenal Realm.
As for whether systems could only modify attributes?
The answer was an unequivocal no.
In Seraphine's eyes at least, system design allowed for an infinite variety of playstyles.
It all boiled down to personal imagination and adapting to local conditions.
Every domain naturally demanded a system tailored to its native reality.
For the Desolate Ancient Swarm, for instance, Seraphine straightforwardly configured a system that targeted a specific internal energy pool and multiplied it a thousandfold daily.
Namely, the [Infinite Cultivation] system.
And under this system's amplification, Seraphine... or rather, Calamitas,
Saw her cultivation base explode in a single instant from a mere ten years of True Qi to a monumental ten thousand years.
And so...
BOOM!!
A majestic, earth-shattering pressure violently erupted from Calamitas's body, accompanied by the thunderous, savage roar of a tiger as it swept across a thousand-meter perimeter.
In a fraction of a second, the hundreds of tombstones, burial mounds, brushwood, boulders, trees, and the entire graveyard within that radius detonated in a series of deafening, ear-splitting crashes before being forcefully pulverized by this outrageous True Qi domain into a completely flat, grayish-black expanse of crushed ground.
As for Calamitas, standing at the epicenter of this artificial plain measuring a thousand meters, her physical form and countenance had undergone a radical metamorphosis.
First, her height surged from below a modest one-point-seven meters straight past two meters tall, towering over ordinary mortals.
Her frame inflated like an overblown balloon from an emaciated, sickly husk into a mountain of churning muscle, cast as if from solid bronze and iron.
As a result, Calamitas's upper garments disintegrated entirely into dust, while her lower pants were shredded by the expanding bulk down to the knees.
The vast swaths of skin bared by her ruined clothes shifted from sickly, pale green into a deep, wild bronze saturated with sheer vitality.
But Calamitas's face underwent an even more drastic mutation.
Slowly lifting her head, the tough crimson-bronze skin beneath was stripped of every ounce of fat, revealing dense bundles of thick, striated muscle fibers.
Under the crushing tightness of these dense, rope-like sinews, Calamitas's once-honest, rustic features lost all softness in an instant, hardening into a cold, ruthless, and maniacally savage visage that was utterly inhuman.
Furthermore, across her broad back, as imposing as a cliffside of solid bedrock, interlocking tiers of knotted muscles coalesced into the twisted, ferocious contours of a demonic face.
Finally, Calamitas's eyes mutated into predatory, crystalline violet-azure tiger pupils projecting foot-long beams of eerie jade light.
SWOOSH——
A sinister wind howled, whipping the shoulder-length, blood-red hair erupting from her scalp into wild disarray.
Viewed from afar, Calamitas radiated an overwhelming aura of bloodlust, savagery, and sheer tyrannical malevolence.
Far more demon than human.
More precisely, like an ancient tiger spirit manifested into flesh.
HISSS——
From a wide maw lined with razor-sharp teeth, Calamitas exhaled a plume of scorching steam: "The cultivation base is sufficient and the physique looks sharp enough, but the quality of this power is far too crude."
Indeed, a towering skyscraper must rise from solid foundations.
How strong could a physique truly become when forged from True Qi cultivated off a rudimentary "Tiger Boxing" manual?
And so, after a moment's contemplation, Calamitas drew upon her peerless martial comprehension to deduce and create the "Fierce Tiger Heart" from the foundation of "Tiger Boxing" within a single breath.
In the span of another breath, using this heart technique as a foundation, she evolved it into an upgraded version, "White Tiger Astral".
Within yet another breath, building upon this Astral, she deduced its supreme iteration, "White Empress Holy Fist".
This served as the foundational [Cultivation Method].
Its concrete [Combat Arts] comprised the Three Slayings and Three Calamities.
The Three Slayings: Raging Rivers, Overturning Mountains, Severing Firmament.
The Three Calamities: Red Dust, Defying Heavens, Collapsing Eons.
After establishing the "White Empress Holy Fist", Calamitas ceased any further upgrades to the art.
Because to her, mortal martial arts were mere toys; so long as they served their purpose, that was enough.
Upgrading them further offered little practical value.
Besides, if martial arts ever proved insufficient, upgrading them on the spot would never be too late.
What she truly wanted was to track down those so-called immortal cultivators.
She would use the evolutionary path of [Immortal Cultivation] as an incision point to dissect and analyze the operational rules governing this space-time.
And from that core, reach deep to grasp the axiomatic Source Rule that governed the infinite rules and space-times across the entire Desolate Ancient Swarm.
Meanwhile, with the upgrade of her martial heart technique, the ten thousand years of True Qi within Calamitas rapidly compressed in terms of [Quantity] down to a hundred years of True Qi.
Yet this did not mean she had weakened in the slightest.
Because in terms of [Quality], the White Empress True Qi outclassed the crude tiger-shaped True Qi by countless leagues.
Everything ten thousand years of tiger True Qi could accomplish and every range it could affect, a hundred years of White Empress True Qi could achieve just as easily, and execute far better.
Cultivation years had never represented everything.
Meanwhile, having upgraded her martial technique to the "White Empress Holy Fist",
Calamitas slowly sat down cross-legged.
Simultaneously, deafening roars of a tiger began echoing through the pale white morning mist.
The sound grew progressively louder and more terrifying.
Before long, a mountain-sized White Tiger with a formidable, muscular frame and gleaming fur materialized from illusion into reality around Calamitas, prowling in slow circles about her form with glaring eyes and thunderous roars.
ROAR!!
The tiger's roar resounded like rolling thunder.
It shook the surrounding atmosphere like turbulent ocean waves, crashing violently in all directions.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH——
After fierce gales howled and droned for several minutes, Calamitas snapped her eyes open.
BOOM!!!
Instantly, a torrent of pure yang, supremely unyielding True Qi rocketed straight into the heavens from the crown of her head, sweeping through the firmament.
HOWL!!!
Tangible echoes of countless tiger roars shook the eight wildernesses.
Had anyone been present, they would have seen all things between heaven and earth seemingly vanish.
Leaving only a radiant, supremely divine White Tiger lying indolently yet imposingly at the absolute center of the world.
Its boundless, blazing aura completely swept away the damp, gloomy chill choking the surrounding plains for thousands of meters in a single stroke.
Several specters and evil spirits drifting within range were erased in agonizing shrieks, powerless to resist.
Such was the miraculous phenomenon birthed when martial arts reached an unfathomable realm, deeply warping physical reality.
CRACK CRACK CRACK!
Driven by the brand-new cultivation method, Calamitas's already imposing build swelled once more, her overall height exploding to a terrifying two-point-six or two-point-seven meters.
Alongside her growing stature, dense patterns of brilliant golden tattoos etched themselves across her arms, chest, back, shoulders, and neck.
These intricate golden glyphs crisscrossed and crawled over Calamitas's shoulders, neck, arms, chest, and abdomen, forming abstract, divine motifs.
Casting her entire presence in the grand, tyrannical majesty of an invincible saint.
These were the Blazing Yang Golden Scripts, manifested only when White Empress True Qi was cultivated to the absolute pinnacle.
The yang energy radiating from these scripts was so concentrated that ordinary ghosts and fiends would spontaneously combust merely from catching a glimpse of them.
Speaking of spirits.
Calamitas sensed that in this world, all manner of vicious ghosts, monstrosities, and sinister fiends materialized with astonishing ease.
Compared to this place, the spawn rate of supernatural entities across the infinite space-times of the String Swarm was utterly negligible next to that of the Desolate Ancient Swarm.
After all, the foundational building blocks of reality across the String Swarm's various space-times were physical micro-particles defined by explicit physical properties.
Its so-called Heavenly Daos and Great Daos were essentially just governing laws and parameters anchored to those fundamental particles.
But the Desolate Ancient Swarm was fundamentally different; its fabric contained far higher proportions of idealism, making the manifestation of ghostly entities vastly more common.
While these specters lacked raw combative power, they remained exceedingly troublesome and lethal to ordinary mortals.
"This is likely a hallmark of an Idealistic World."
Looking up at the sun rising slowly in the east, Calamitas murmured under her breath, "The moment the sun rises, all manner of ghosts and sprites burrow deep underground, clearly terrified of the light. This... is likely an elemental counter on a conceptual level."
Though it bore the name Sun, she had no reason to believe this world's sun had anything to do with nuclear fusion.
Nor did she assume spirits feared sunlight because of ultraviolet radiation.
Calamitas leaned toward the reality that these evil entities recoiled from things like Primordial Yang Qi, Solar True Fire, and Supreme Yang Force interwoven within the rays.
Or perhaps what terrified them was simply the raw concept of [The Sun].
Through her heightened senses, Calamitas could distinctly perceive every movement and subtle shift across a perimeter of several thousand meters.
Yet even within this modest range, nightfall brought forth at least a double-digit number of lingering spirits.
While most of these entities drifted aimlessly in place, several possessed overt, violent malice.
Some lurked inside dry wells, clung to tree shadows, hid within abandoned huts, or darted erratically across the night sky.
Any mortal crossing paths with these would be dead without exception.
"Hmm, time to head into Black Soil Town and satisfy some curiosity."
Blinking her crystalline violet-azure tiger pupils with their blooming crimson cores, Calamitas retracted her projected White Empress True Qi, turned on her heel, and strode forward in long, purposeful strides.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG——
As she broke into a full sprint, the vast earth rumbled with thunderous roars.
The air surrounding her form was violently displaced by her absurd velocity and monstrous force, erupting into a deafening, ceaseless barrage of sonic booms.
But Calamitas paid it zero mind, charging across the terrain like a living fiend descended upon the mortal world, bounding straight toward Black Soil Town dozens of miles away.
...
By now, early morning had settled in.
Warm, brilliant sunlight broke through the heavy cloud layer, illuminating the boundless earth.
Beneath the morning rays, the damp, chilly gloom that had cloaked the post-rain wilderness all night slowly burned away.
Swept by gentle breezes, vast stretches of lush grass rolled like ocean waves, shedding the morning fog to reveal a vibrant, emerald expanse teeming with life.
Wildlife across the plains stirred awake; birds chirped merrily in the canopy, while small game darted through the underbrush.
Along the winding hills in the distance, a murmuring stream wound down through the woods with pleasant babbling currents, merging into a mountain waterfall that cascaded three thousand feet down into a winding river below.
"Junior Sister, don't be angry~"
A dashing young swordsman in black martial robes smiled playfully at the cold, jade-faced beauty in a pristine white dress beside him. "Look at this breathtaking scenery, as utterly exquisite as your own countenance..."
"Bah!"
The white-robed maiden scoffed, turning her head away. "Shameless rogue. Who asked for your sweet talk?"
Right as the two were trading playful glances, a boundless, terrifying wave of murderous bloodlust crashed down upon them like a tidal surge.
The swordsman, the maiden, the babbling stream, the birds and wildlife, and even the emerald plain itself froze in an instant, silent and stiff, as if struck dead on the spot.
In the very next instant, a blurred silhouette tore across the distant horizon, dragging a towering wall of shockwaves in its wake.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
Beneath the figure's violent stomps, the solid earth bucked and rolled like ocean swells, sending geysers of mud and soil erupting skyward from far to near.
Her velocity was absurdly fast.
One blink she was at the edge of the sky; the next, she was right in front of their eyes.
Paralyzed by the aura, the swordsman and maiden watched in helpless horror as the sandstorm-like colossus bore down upon them, their bodies refusing to twitch a single inch despite their desperate will to dodge.
And so, amidst a world-shaking blast of kinetic thunder, the young martial couple was obliterated upon impact by the charging shadow, pulverized into a cloud of red mist with not a single bone fragment left behind.
A tragic calamity, the two had merely come out to admire the scenery, only to be erased by a sudden, unforeseen disaster.
This unstoppable figure was Calamitas, charging headlong toward Black Soil Town.
During her thundering sprint, every obstacle standing in her path, whether human, beast, forest, or mountain cliff, was ignored without swerving a fraction of an inch, rammed straight through and smashed into dust.
She had descended upon this Swarm on serious business; she had neither the time nor the inclination to care about anyone's plight.