Chapter 160: Attack on Mingde Hall! Searching for the Snow Empress
At that exact moment...
Hearing Du Busi's final arrangements, a fleeting shadow of disappointment crossed Long Aotian's eyes. His jaw tightened slightly, suppressing the urge to protest. As the chief disciple nurtured by the Body Sect for years, his loyalty and discipline overrode his personal desires. He bowed deeply toward Du Busi, accepting the command without a single word of complaint, and stepped back into the shadows of the hall.
Missing the chance to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with Liu Yuan gnawed at him, but the mountain gate required a steadfast guardian. He would not fail his sect.
Meanwhile, Liu Yuan and a handpicked cadre of elites slipped out of the Body Sect under the heavy veil of night, led personally by Du Busi. It was a small strike force, yet every individual present represented the absolute pinnacle of the sect's martial might.
Flanking Du Busi—a terrifying Level 98 Super Douluo—were six elders, none possessing a cultivation base lower than the Soul Douluo realm. Despite having the lowest soul power rank in the entire formation, Liu Yuan was positioned at the very center of the vanguard. It was a silent, obvious declaration of the immense value Du Busi placed on his raw combat prowess.
They moved like phantoms. Traveling at breakneck speeds, the strike force bypassed the heavily guarded checkpoints of major cities. using the Body Sect's esoteric soul power concealment techniques, they erased their tracks entirely. The wind howled past them as they crossed more than half of the Heavenly Soul Empire in a mere matter of days, finally arriving at the borders of their target: the capital of the Sun Moon Empire, Mingdu.
Night had just draped its inky canvas over the world. Standing atop a high, craggy slope on the outskirts of Mingdu, Liu Yuan looked down through the pale, silvery illumination of the crescent moon.
The sprawling metropolis before his eyes was alien, a stark contrast to the traditional architecture of the original three Douluo nations. Even in the dead of night, Mingdu did not sleep. It pulsed with a cold, sterile metallic gleam. Forests of towering steel-and-glass structures pierced the skyline, arranged in rigid, geometric perfection. This was the beating heart of a highly advanced soul tool civilization, a mechanical beast breathing smog and neon.
Along the colossal, reinforced city walls, dense arrays of soul tool detectors swept the darkness. Crimson beams of infrared light crisscrossed through the air like the glowing, sweeping tentacles of a colossal metallic kraken. They swept the perimeter with mechanical vigilance, calibrated to detect the slightest ripple of soul power within a radius of dozens of miles.
"So this is Mingdu... the mechanical heart of the Sun Moon Empire," Liu Yuan murmured, his voice barely carrying over the wind. A deep, captivating purple light flowed within his Double Pupils, analyzing the complex web of energy below.
Du Busi stepped slowly to Liu Yuan's side. In the gloom, the sect master's broad, hulking physique resembled an immovable iron tower. He stared down at the blindingly lit core of the city, a feral, predatory glint igniting in his ancient eyes.
"Take one more step forward, and we enter the densest, most lethal soul tool defense network on the entire continent," Du Busi stated, his voice a low rumble. He withdrew his gaze and raised a massive hand, gesturing for the six elders waiting in the shadows to gather.
"Listen closely. I will lay out the operation."
The elders formed a tight circle, their expressions hardening into masks of absolute focus. Liu Yuan pushed the captivating sight of the city from his mind, tuning his senses entirely to his master's words.
Du Busi extended a thick, calloused finger, tracing a glowing circle of soul power directly into the empty air. "Mingde Hall sits in the absolute center of Mingdu's hinterland. Its defensive arrays are nothing short of psychotic."
"If we attempt a brute-force frontal assault, we might slaughter our way inside, but retreating in one piece would be a fool's dream. The attrition would bleed us dry."
"Therefore, the crux of this operation relies on misdirection. We make a deafening noise in the east to strike the west."
He tapped the glowing map. "The deployment is as follows. I will personally lead Elder Liu, Elder Chen, and two others to launch the opening salvo."
"Our target is not Mingde Hall. We are hitting the core soul tool energy warehouses and the primary power supply hubs lining the outer rings of Mingdu. We will employ the most catastrophic, violent means at our disposal to shatter their infrastructure. We will paint the sky with their burning warehouses, creating the absolute certainty that a massive, overwhelming enemy force is invading the capital."
Du Busi shifted his piercing gaze toward Elder Li, Elder Ke, and finally, Liu Yuan. His tone dropped, sharpening into a lethal edge. "Once the fires burn high enough, the panic will force Jing Hongchen, Kong Deming, and the rest of their high-level lapdogs out of their fortified turtle shell to provide support."
"That is your cue. Elder Li, Elder Ke, and Liu Yuan, you three will slip into the interior of Mingde Hall. The moment their heavy hitters leave, their internal defenses will experience a brief, critical vacuum. You will exploit that window. Wreak absolute havoc, tear their labs apart, and secure the strategic resources I specified."
"Liu Yuan, your raw cultivation is the lowest among us," Du Busi said, stepping closer. His massive hand clamped down heavily onto Liu Yuan's shoulder, his voice shifting to a private, compressed thread of soul power directed straight into the youth's ears. "If the situation turns sour, do not let your pride anchor you to a losing battle. Break contact and evacuate immediately. Am I understood?"
"Understood, Master," Liu Yuan replied, his voice a calm, even baseline.
"Good! Since there are no objections, we move on my mark! In exactly half an hour, I will set the Northern District ablaze!" Du Busi barked. In the next heartbeat, his towering figure dissolved into a streaking comet of dark green light, tearing through the vast night sky. Four terrifying Titled Douluo auras flared briefly before shooting after him, vanishing into the gloom.
Left behind on the ridge, Elder Li, Elder Ke, and Liu Yuan instantly suffocated their auras. Melding into the shadows like formless phantoms, the trio descended the slope, slipping silently toward the outer defensive perimeter of Mingdu.
The thirty minutes bled away in tense, suffocating silence.
Just as the three of them pressed their backs against the cold, metallic alloy of Mingdu's towering outer wall, the northern horizon violently ruptured. A blinding, apocalyptic flash of dark green light swallowed the stars.
BOOM!!!
An devastating shockwave tore through the air, vibrating the very ground beneath their boots despite being dozens of miles away. A colossal, churning mushroom cloud of emerald fire and pulverized steel clawed its way into the heavens. Du Busi had made his grand entrance.
The Super Douluo had not held back a single ounce of his monstrous power. His opening strike was the apocalyptic signature technique of a Body Douluo, instantly obliterating three massive soul tool artillery positions in the northern sector and sending thousands of tons of reinforced metal raining down from the sky.
A split second later, a chain reaction of catastrophic explosions detonated across the outer rings. Violent shockwaves of soul power ripped through the atmosphere as the other elders unleashed their payloads. The previously sterile, quiet metropolis of Mingdu instantly boiled over into absolute pandemonium.
Shrill, ear-piercing sirens shrieked across the city, layering over one another in a deafening cacophony. The sweeping red beams of the soul tool detectors snapped away from their patrol routes, converging frantically toward the blazing northern district like a swarm of enraged hornets.
Crouched in the suffocating darkness, Liu Yuan narrowed his eyes. Through the chaos, he tracked several terrifyingly dense auras erupting from the heart of the city, rising directly from Mingde Hall. Leading the charge was a rotund figure wreathed in a blinding, oppressive golden-red light. Even from this distance, the sheer density of the aura was suffocating. It was none other than the Hall Master of Mingde Hall, Jing Hongchen.
Trailing closely behind that golden-red sun were several other auras, each as vast and unfathomable as the deep ocean. These were the apex Class 9 Soul Engineers of the Sun Moon Empire, thoroughly enraged by the sheer audacity of Du Busi's brazen assault on their capital.
"They swallowed the bait," Elder Li rasped, his eyes burning with soaring battle intent. "Jing Hongchen and Kong Deming have been drawn out. Liu Yuan, it's time! The door to Mingde Hall is wide open!"
"Move," Liu Yuan ordered, wasting no breath on pleasantries.
The pitch-black fifth soul ring beneath his feet pulsed with an abyssal light. In his eyes, the deep Double Pupils rapidly split and overlapped, radiating a terrifying spatial distortion.
Elder Li and Elder Ke watched in stunned silence. Instead of searching for a compromised ventilation shaft, a sewage grate, or a blind spot in the wall's defenses, Liu Yuan simply raised his hand. His fingers curled, and he slashed his hand downward through the empty air.
The fabric of reality tore open without a single sound. A jagged spatial rift, standing over two meters tall, yawned open, revealing the swirling void within. Without a moment's hesitation, Liu Yuan stepped straight into the tear.
"Elders, keep up!" his voice echoed from the void.
Harnessing the absolute spatial dominance of his Double Pupils, Liu Yuan bypassed the physical world entirely. The trio bypassed the hundreds of meters of reinforced alloy, defensive barriers, and hyper-sensitive soul tool detectors. When they stepped out of the rift, they were already standing deep inside the sterile, mechanical underground corridors of Mingde Hall.
"We split up here, as agreed," Elder Li whispered, his gaze sweeping the metallic hallway. "Maximize the collateral damage. Draw every internal guard away from the central vaults." He exchanged a firm nod with Elder Ke before turning his intense gaze back to the youth.
"Liu Yuan, watch your back!"
"Rest assured, Elder. I know what I am doing."
With a synchronized blur of motion, Elder Li and Elder Ke vanished down opposite ends of the corridor. Within seconds, the muffled sounds of destruction echoed through the facility. Thick, violent surges of soul power erupted down the halls as the two elders began systematically pulverizing the delicate, priceless soul tool machinery in the adjacent core laboratories.
Left alone in the center of the spacious alloy corridor, Liu Yuan listened to the distant, rhythmic thud of explosions and the wailing of internal alarms. Yet, amidst the rising chaos, his expression settled into a mask of absolute, chilling calm.
He let his eyelids flutter shut. Deep within his Spiritual Sea, a deep, ancient energy stirred. The divine sense of the slumbering necromancer, Electrolux, instantly unfurled like an invisible net.
Nourished and stabilized by the Life Gold, Electrolux's divine sense was ethereal and untraceable. It drifted through the facility like a phantom breeze, effortlessly slipping past the dense arrays of soul tool traps, laser grids, and pressure plates, sinking deeper and deeper into the subterranean abyss of Mingde Hall.
'Old Yi,'Liu Yuan called out within his mind, his mental voice sharp and focused.'Can you pinpoint the aura of the Snow Empress I described to you?'
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