It suddenly thrashed violently, and countless dark red balls of light erupted forth, hurtling directly toward the exit of the abyssal passageway. At the same time, a pair of massive bat wings spread open on its back, stretching to a wingspan of over 200 meters. It flapped its wings vigorously and abruptly flew toward the exit of the passageway.
"Put the defense system into overdrive!" the vice-commander commanded without any hesitation, but at the same time, his heart had completely sunk.
It was undoubtedly the case that this gargantuan being definitely wasn't a normal abyssal creature. At the very least, he had never seen an abyssal creature like this before, and that indicated that this was very likely one of the 108 abyssal emperors. Furthermore, this was not just a projection; its actual body had descended upon this place! Each abyssal emperor was at least as powerful as a Hyper Douluo, and they possessed bodies far more powerful than those of humans.
Violent explosions erupted, transforming everything down below into a fiery red color. The balls of light released by the Six-clawed Demon Emperor were all targeted by soul lasers, and its massive body also crashed into the oncoming soul lasers.
Soul lasers and soul cannon blasts fell upon it before exploding into balls of fire, turning its body bright red, and also instantly hampering its upward momentum as it made its ascent. However, it was also managing to shield the abyssal creatures behind it from most of the oncoming attacks, and vast hordes of abyssal creatures quickly rose up from around it.
"Use the high explosive bombs!" the vice-commander of the Iron Will Corps quickly commanded.
Balls of scorching white light exploded down below, encompassing the entire abyssal passageway. The Six-clawed Demon Emperor was indeed very powerful, but in the face of such concentrated barrages of attacks, even it was only able to last less than 20 seconds before its massive body plummeted downward to evade a large number of soul lasers and soul cannon blasts.
The vice-commander of the Iron Will Corps heaved a long sigh of relief. The defensive measures that had been set up here hadn't gone to waste; this defensive line had been created with the intention of targeting demigods. Now, he could only hope that reinforcements could arrive on the scene as soon as possible! After all, the energy reserves were limited, and only with a sufficient supply of energy could the defensive line continue to unleash such enormous bursts of power output.
Looking on at the streams of black energy that were being absorbed back into the abyssal passageway, there was no sense of achievement whatsoever in the vice-corps commander's heart. The biggest problem that had plagued the Blood God Legion was the inability to truly destroy these abyssal creatures.
If they could actually destroy these beings, then the power of the entire abyssal plane would've been significantly worn down during the past 6,000 years.
Right at this moment, groups of Blood God Legion soldiers appeared in the distance, along with all types of equipment and machinery. They quickly began to get to work, replacing the batteries, replenishing energy, and taking over the defensive positions littered all around the passageway. More soul cannons were being set up, and more soldiers joined in on the defensive efforts as one mecha after another surrounded the exit of the main passageway, forming a strict formation that was ready to plunge into battle at any moment.
"What's the situation like?" A massive mecha descended from above before arriving beside the vice-corps commander.
The vice-corps commander finally heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing this man, and he replied, "We've managed to hold them off for now, but more than four battalions worth of our brothers have fallen."
"What?" Ma Shan was stunned to hear this. The emergency sirens immediately made him realize that an abyssal tide had most likely struck as only abyssal tides could trigger such loud sirens. However, never did he think that things would be this serious. This was roughly equivalent to the total number of Blood God Legion soldiers who had fallen during the past century!
One had to realize that all of the Blood God Legion soldiers are elites among elites, and the fact that so many of them had perished in such a short time was making his heart throb with pain. Furthermore, the main units guarding the passageway at this point in time came from none other than his Iron Will Corps!
"Those bastards!" Ma Shan roared in a furious voice.
The vice-corps commander was clearly quite familiar with Ma Shan's short temper, and he hurriedly said, "Commander, now's not the time to be letting out emotions get the better of us! The situation on this occasion was very bizarre. For some reason, these abyssal creatures came from the seal in the main passageway; something like this has never happened in the past 6,000 years! It was exactly because of this that we were completely caught off guard, and many of the brothers had to self-detonate to keep the enemies at bay. Let's guard the exit to the best of our ability and wait for the legion commander and the Blood Gods to get here."
Ma Shan's aura was clearly a little unstable. He had a fiery temper, but he was very good to his subordinates and was a respected and revered figure among the troops of the Iron Will Corps. However, close to a third of his brothers had fallen here; how could he continue to remain calm?
"I'll kill these bastards!" Ma Shan raised a hand and removed the massive mace that was attached to his mecha's back. It was quite clear that the vice-corps commander wasn't going to be able to stop him.
Right at this moment, a figure suddenly appeared beside him. This was a human who wasn't in a mecha, and he immediately grabbed onto the shoulder of Ma Shan's mecha. The huge black mecha instantly faltered in mid-air and was unable to rush forward.
"Calm down, you idiot! Now's not the time for you to lose your cool. This situation is indeed very bizarre; your top priority now is to command your troops." The deep voice seemed to possess some kind of magical quality that instantly made Ma Shan calm down.
"Legion Commander, you have to avenge our brothers!" Ma Shan's voice was trembling as he spoke, not from grief, but from extreme rage instead.
Zhang Huanyun nodded before patting Ma Shan's mecha. "Go and command your brothers; there will come a time for you to fight these abyssal creatures to your heart's content."
"Yes!" Ma Shan yelled before retreating with his vice-corps commander.
Zhang Huanyun was in his usual military uniform complete with his shimmering general epaulets, and with his arrival, it naturally became his duty to command all of the Blood God Legion troops present. Following his arrival, the defensive line also clearly became more organized and less chaotic. Even the emotions of all of the soldiers present had become a lot more stable.
This was the effect of Zhang Huanyun's charisma. He had been at the Blood God Legion for over 60 years, and he was the psychological pillar of the entire legion. It was exactly due to the fact that he was the legion commander that the Blood God Legion had developed such a high level of cohesion, making it the most powerful it had ever been during the past 6,000 years.
Following the retreat of the Six-clawed Demon Emperor, the charging abyssal creatures were forced to fall back a little, and Zhang Huanyun began to issue a series of commands, following which the offensive output from the soul lasers and soul cannons also lessened.
They had to conserve energy!
More and more defensive equipment of all types were delivered to the scene before quickly being set up.
During the past 6,000 years, the Blood God Legion had done countless preparatory work to guard against the abyssal plane, and this included everything that had been set up within the abyssal passageway.
Aside from the original defensive forts, there were also many foundational structures that had been erected. As soon as the defensive soul tools arrived on the scene, they were able to be integrated with these foundational structures to complete a large-scale defensive fort.
Groups of soldiers were quickly split up before getting into position without requiring any instructions from Zhang Huanyun himself.
A series of figures also quickly began to approach him.
Blood One appeared soundlessly beside Zhang Huanyun with his brows tightly furrowed, and even without an explanation from Zhang Huanyun, he could tell that there was something amiss about this situation.
The current situation was completely unexpected to them. The last abyssal tide had only just concluded not long ago; how could the abyssal plane be unleashing another full-frontal assault so soon? Through the surveillance devices, they had already ascertained the situation here before arriving on the scene, so they knew that the situation was very bad.
The main issue was that they had no idea why these abyssal creatures were emerging from the main passageway. If they couldn't remedy that issue, then more and more abyssal creatures were going to emerge from the main passageway in relentless waves.
No matter how much energy reserves they had, it was always going to be completely exhausted at some point.
Abyssal creatures couldn't actually be killed; their energy could constantly be recycled, which meant that there was no end to them.
With the legion's energy reserves, Zhang Huanyun was confident that they could keep the abyssal creatures at bay for three months with no issues. But what would happen after those three months?
Furthermore, this attack was completely different from previous abyssal tides, and the main difference was that an abyssal emperor had appeared. Among the 108 abyssal emperors, the Six-clawed Demon Emperor was ranked quite low, but the issue was that it had appeared here in its true form. This would've been impossible in the branch passageways.
6,000 years ago, the human race had set up this seal in the main passageway specifically to keep the 108 abyssal emperors from crossing over to this world. As long as none of those emperors appeared, the Blood God Legion and the Blood God Battalion's powers were more than enough to take care of all of the other abyssal creatures.
However, now that a Six-clawed Demon Emperor had appeared, were there going to be even more powerful abyssal emperors to follow? They didn't know just exactly how powerful the abyssal emperors were, and against enemies of a certain power level, soul laser and soul cannons simply failed to pose much of a threat.
"Should we request for assistance from the federation and request reinforcements from the Spirit Pagoda and the Battle God Hall?" Blood One asked.