At this moment, countless residents of Mingdu saw the bizarre yet dazzling sigil in the night sky. Some cried out in alarm, some were curious, but most looked utterly confused, having no idea what it meant.
In the luxury penthouse atop the Mingdu Grand Hotel, the group from Shrek Academy sat together discussing the upcoming Soul Master Tournament.
Suddenly, the pillar of crimson light outside drew everyone's attention. They all stood and moved to the windows, gazes solemn as they looked up at the night sky.
"The Antimatter Legion—how terrifying."
Sparkle's voice carried a hint of mockery, but beneath it was a barely perceptible wariness.
As the Masked Fool, she knew this mark of annihilation all too well.
Its appearance in Mingdu meant the iron hooves of the Antimatter Legion were right at the doorstep.
Besides Sparkle, Jing Yuan and Qingque immediately recognized this symbol of destruction as well.
Qingque's face went instantly pale, the corners of her mouth drooping as she wailed inwardly, "We're done for, we're so done. This is definitely the great ill-omen foretold! That's the Antimatter Legion! Sitting at the same table as Abundance's abominations! With my scrawny arms and legs, I probably can't even beat the lowest grunt. Thankfully, General Jing Yuan is here…"
She sneaked a glance at Jing Yuan beside her, eyes full of relief. Good thing there's a big thigh to cling to—time to slack off.
Jing Yuan's expression was uncommonly grave. He stared at the burning tower sigil in the sky, brows tightly knit. To him, the legion itself wasn't the frightening part; the real threat was the person commanding it from the shadows.
"Antimatter Legion? What's that supposed to be?"
Ma Xiaotao and the others looked baffled and turned their eyes to Jing Yuan and Qingque.
They knew better than to ask Sparkle—she was unlikely to give a straight answer. Jing Yuan was more reliable.
"Hey, why aren't you asking me? Why only those two?"
Sparkle immediately protested, hands on hips and cheeks puffed, looking every bit the neglected child.
"Out of the way, you little brat. We don't have time to mess around with you!"
Ma Xiaotao shot her a glare, the gravity in her eyes deepening.
She could keenly sense that ever since that red light appeared, the whole atmosphere of Mingdu had grown oppressive; a premonition of doom was creeping over her heart.
"A disaster that brings only destruction and cataclysm."
Jing Yuan's voice was low and firm. "Prepare yourselves. This land is likely about to face an unprecedented calamity."
"How interesting. Looks like someone doesn't want to follow the script."
Sparkle patted her chest, feigning fear, though excitement flickered in her eyes.
"I, Sparkle, didn't think they'd make a move this fast!"
"Revelation—!"
Jeanne suddenly clutched her forehead, her body trembling uncontrollably as her face went paper-white.
In her mind, shattered visions surged like a tide: Mingdu reduced to a charred wasteland, ruins strewn with dried blood, tens of millions of corpses piled layer upon layer in every corner of the city. The once-bustling streets had become a living hell; under a blood-red setting sun, only deathly silence spread.
That marrow-deep despair and wailing seemed to cross time and space, striking straight at her soul.
"Weina, get your people ready. The slaughter is about to begin."
Feixiao's gaze turned razor-sharp, the very air around her seeming to congeal under her aura.
That onrushing breath of destruction from afar, icy with death and surging with violent energy, set her blood boiling.
She had a faint premonition that tonight she might encounter some old acquaintances.
"This sort of pure destruction isn't beautiful at all."
Vita lightly knit her brows, the languor in her eyes vanishing, replaced by an icy chill.
The debut she had painstakingly scripted hadn't yet had a chance to begin before this sudden upheaval wrecked it.
Worse still, this kind of destruction devoid of all aesthetic was not her idea of fun.
"Wh-what is that, Saber?!"
Nan Qiuqiu tilted her head up at the eerie, burning tower in the sky, her small face filled with confusion and unease. Instinctively, she grabbed Artoria's sleeve.
"Master, be careful!"
Artoria's voice held a grave note. In an instant, her attire transformed into silver-white armor, radiant light flowing across its surface. The shape of the wind-veiled Excalibur already shimmered faintly in her hand.
"My instincts tell me something extremely dangerous is approaching. Prepare for battle!"
Her eyes were solemn. The prickling crisis, like countless fine needles piercing her skin, pushed her into maximum alert by reflex.
It felt exactly the same as when she had faced the strongest foes on the battlefield.
"Battle? This is Mingdu!" Nan Qiuqiu's eyes went wide with disbelief.
She wasn't alone. Nan Shushu and other disciples of Earth Dragon Sect were equally baffled and shocked, unable to comprehend why a battle would suddenly erupt in the heart of prosperous Mingdu.
When Lu Jingming received the emergency message from Ju Zi, his heart had already skipped a beat. Seeing the glaring sigil of annihilation in the sky, he understood instantly.
He raised his right hand at once and called, in a deep voice, "Buer!"
A soft green light flashed as a white-haired, green-eyed goddess appeared quietly, surrounded by a faint aura of nature.
She looked at the sigil in the sky and nodded, face grave. "I know what to do."
Before the words faded, her figure scattered into countless motes of light, dissolving into the air like a drop of water merging into the sea.
"What's going on?"
Gu Yue, Zhang Lexuan, and the others looked at one another, bewildered, having no clue what that eerie signal in the sky meant.
"I still underestimated that Lord Ravager."
Lu Jingming rubbed his brow, tone carrying a helpless grumble. "You really can't use common sense to guess how she thinks."
Celenova disdained playing at any Holy Grail War. She wanted to steamroll everything.
And with the Sun–Moon Empire's covert assistance, she had laid her groundwork long ago. As of now, she truly did have the power to sweep all aside.
What unnerved him most was that Celenova completely disregarded the lives of her allies—Mingdu still had over ten million citizens of the Sun–Moon Empire!
Wang Qiu'er and the others were still trying to make sense of the sudden chaos, attempting to piece things together.
Suddenly, a humming that seemed to tear at the soul resounded across Mingdu.
The sound was low and vast, like billions of stars dying at once—bearing the chaos of creation and the deathly silence that ends all things—boring into everyone's ears.
Next came a hair-raising sight—the space over all of Mingdu cracked like glass struck by a hammer, laced with a spiderweb of pitch-black fissures.
Countless spatial rifts of varying size appeared out of thin air, spreading in every direction. Darkness that devoured all light seeped from within, while unstable sparks crackled along the edges.
Rumble—
Buildings near the rifts twisted as if torn by invisible hands, then collapsed in an instant into piles of rubble.
Some were cleaved cleanly in half by a rift, the severed surface smooth as a mirror.
On the streets, civilians who hadn't yet understood what was happening were slaughtered in an instant.
A few unlucky passersby stood in the path of a spreading rift; without any warning, their bodies were torn into multiple pieces. Blood and viscera splattered everywhere—a gruesome sight.
"Ah—!"
"What's happening?!"
"What are those monsters?!"
"They're killing people! Run!"
Piercing screams, panicked shouts, despairing curses, and heart-rending cries for help… In an instant, all of Mingdu seemed tossed into boiling oil and exploded into chaos.
From the pitch-black rifts, silhouettes steeped in annihilating aura slowly stepped forth.
They came in many forms: some like twisted shadows, others like coagulations of pure negative energy, radiating a chilling deathly stillness.
The moment they entered Mingdu, they began a frenzied, indiscriminate massacre and destruction—punching through walls, stomping civilians flat; wherever they passed, only ruins and corpses remained.
Hundreds of powerful figures streaked into the sky from all directions—strongmen of major factions or guardians of Mingdu.
When they saw the endless tide of horrors pouring from the rifts, disbelief and terror were written on every face.
"They're Voidsoldiers! It really is the Antimatter Legion!"
Feixiao stood tall atop a high-rise roof, posture straight as a pine.
She swiftly drew and loosed; a radiant arrow condensed with boundless power formed in an instant and streaked across the sky like a meteor.
Mid-flight, the arrow split into a rain of falling stars, precisely pouring down over a sector packed with Voidsoldiers, exploding with dazzling light and immense impact.
The meteor-shower of light crashed down and blossomed into sheets of radiance among the ranks of the Voidsoldiers.
Countless Voidsoldiers were torn to pieces amidst light and flame, dissipating into wisps of black negative particles. But this loss was a mere drop in the bucket against the Antimatter Legion surging ceaselessly from the rifts.
More Voidsoldiers trampled forward over their comrades' remains, black figures flooding the streets like a tide. Wherever they went, brick and stone melted and life fell silent.
"Damn it!"
High above, Starry Sky Douluo Ye Yulin blazed with interwoven gold and silver light, coalescing into two enormous sun-and-moon discs above his head.
The discs spun rapidly, spewing billions of razor-edged rays that cascaded like a waterfall.
Where the light rain struck the Voidsoldiers, waves of energy rippled out—yet the black figures merely shuddered, strange patterns surfacing across their bodies as they absorbed most of the energy.
Ye Yulin's face went ashen. These monsters' energy resistance far exceeded expectations.
"Xu Tiannan! What the hell are you playing at!"
Jing Hongchen hovered in midair, eyes bloodshot as he watched the Antimatter Legion butcher at will below.
He recognized these monsters. They were clearly the secret war-weapons Xu Tiannan had been researching—so why were they turned against Mingdu?
He snapped his head toward the imperial palace, eyes full of suspicion and fury.
"What are you waiting for? Protect the civilians—hold the city!" Ye Yulin's roar cracked like thunder, snapping the Sun–Moon Empire's stunned experts back to their senses.
They jolted awake and dove from the sky—Soul Sages formed defensive arrays to shield the panicking populace, while Soul Douluo unleashed their strongest techniques, bombarding clusters of Voidsoldiers. For a time, the sky over Mingdu wove with the light of countless soul skills.
Lu Jingming's spear swept in an arc, black-red disintegration lightning reducing a humanoid armored Voidsoldier to particles, yet his frown only deepened.
Over a hundred Trampers had converged on them, each with Soul King–level combat power and coordinated as though sharing one mind.
"Xu Tiannan won't just watch Mingdu be destroyed…" His fingertip rubbed the Black Abyss White Flower.
"Unless he's been controlled—or… this was within his expectations?"
Bang!
Wang Qiu'er's Golden Dragon Spear pierced a Trampers's head, the force at the tip shredding its core.
She drew back the spear and watched the remains quickly vanish, pretty face grim. "These grunts are insanely tough and hit hard. At this rate, we'll run dry on soul power."
All around, Trampers flooded the streets like ants, one wave driven back only for another to follow.
Farther out, towering centaur-like Trampler units—over a dozen meters tall—advanced at a steady pace.
Their upper bodies were clad in heavy armor; their lower halves were bone-plated equine forms, giant bows glowing with a ghostly wind-element light.
One Trampler drew and loosed: violent wind-element condensed in an instant into a spear several 3 meters long, shrieking as it shot toward a residential building.
In a heartbeat, the building was annihilated by wind. Fortunately, its occupants had already fled.
Elder Ling Canghai of the Wind Sword Sect flashed to the Trampler's side, the aura of an eight-ring Soul Douluo erupting.
His sword turned into a streak of cyan light as he unleashed a wind-imbued sword aura with all his might.
When the sword aura struck the Trampler's body, it left only a pale scratch across its heavy armor.
"How is that possible?"
Ling Canghai's pupils shrank—this sword could hew through iron city walls, yet it couldn't even damage the thing's exoskeletal armor.
"Elder, fall back!"
Even before the warning finished, the Trampler turned its cold helm, its right arm wreathed with a visible vortex of wind blades.
It slashed down; a wind cleave tens of meters long tore through the air, gouging a snarling trench wherever it passed.
"Martial Soul True Body—Riftwind!"
Ling Canghai roared. His soul rings and sword fused into a cyan greatsword tens of meters long, interposed before him.
Boom—The impact was deafening. The wind blade set the giant sword quaking violently. Ling Canghai spat blood and was blasted back, smashing half a building apart with his landing.
He stared at the massive scar carved across the street and felt a bone-deep chill. "That strike already reached Titled Douluo levels!"