V4C35: The Siege, Part 3

Name:Path of the Ascendant Author:Oculus
Perhaps they truly did possess that ability, but in the eyes of the warriors and guards at that moment, this was the undeniable truth. The defences were there, the power of the sixth realm combined with a series of inscriptions of five and six-star quality were present, and they were only facing those in the fifth realm at most.

They shouldn’t necessarily be able to win and outright defeat the Greats in this encounter, as great as that would be, but surely they would be capable of beating them back without a significant degree of effort? That alone gave them the courage to act and persist in the defence, and thus every single inscription and array that had been installed in that region were activated. Some were offensive, others were defensive, some would slow the people within their area of effect down, and other yet would make the flow of planar energy less stable.

Blasts of energy struck the anchor barriers, explosions of sand and the various elements occurred all over, and the energy within that area went entirely into disarray, partially weakening some of their own attacks but randomly empowering others while partially driving them out of control. Some of the brands simply exploded before they could even have had a chance to strike down upon someone, the Ire energy showering those who were caught beneath it.

That was all met with a single fifth realm beam ceasing its attack and an immense burst of force that met the incoming attacks and collided with the inner layer of the defences, sending a ripple through them.

All of the vast amount of power that had been focused on striking the Greats was either dispersed in a single show of force, or, worse yet, was repelled back at the barrier through which they were initially able to pass through seamlessly, resulting in that great wave rapidly spreading throughout the entire barrier’s surface. In each additional portion of defences, where something was inserted into or overlaid the sphere itself, the wave would fluctuate, wavering or splitting for a few moments before it passed through that region and returned to how it was before then.

On one hand, it seemed like the two sides had effectively cancelled out one another’s attempts to harm the other, but as the beams of the second generation suddenly switched to some of those points in which the wave wavered, Great Dark realised that this was not the case. Most of the points where the wave was unstable was where they had added on one of their defensive methods after Wei Yi had left, and thus they were not integrated as effectively into the barrier as some of the others.

In other words, this wave on the surface of the dome just revealed a series of weaknesses to them.

“Again!” he called out, not intending to reveal his realisation to the troops as that would just do exactly what they were aiming to avoid, which was endangering their morale and leading them to believe that their chances were far lower than they could currently seem to be.

The worst thing about morale was exactly that the moment a battle was seen as being one that they were losing, the forces would immediately act less confidently, with more hesitation and less strength than they might otherwise be able to produce, and so they would transform that belief into truth. For their own sake, as well as that of the very cause of the Ascendant’s Arbiters, they had to believe that a victory, or a satisfactory tie at the very least, was within their reach so that they could best showcase their abilities to the invading force.

Thus, he commanded them to repeat the attack, knowing that the second round would hardly be as organised as the first. In this case, that was exactly what Great Dark wanted, since a single perfectly timed attack was clearly something that their foe was able to handle without much difficulty, while a disorganised barrage of everything they had may prove more challenging to resolve.

It was exactly what happened, with countless projectiles being shot out once again, all of them passing through the barrier without any difficulty due to the way in which it functioned, then soaring into the Greats, all of whom acted this time, with the third and second generation alike removing one of their anchors from supporting their primary attacking beams and releasing a burst of pressure from the anchors. Their simultaneous actions caused the wave of pressure to combine, and thus it fell upon the attacks with a similar degree of strength as before, except that they had to act while the greatest number of projectiles, bolts, brands and beams were in range, meaning that some had already crashed into their defences whereas other projectiles weren’t reached.

When all of this deflected energy hit the inner dome, the rest the attacks shot past and sought to strike at the Greats, except that the wave that once more spread over the barrier got to them first. As they were passing through, they clashed with the wave and caused many of the bolts and projectiles to explode within it, further exasperating the rippling and exposing the defensive patches to the barrier even more blatantly than before.

One of those significant points suddenly flared during the rippling, and all of the point beams targeted it right away, cutting into it with such a degree of force that the dome caved in nearly instantly.

‘What?’ Great Dark questioned, his mind racing to comprehend why the dome was so close to collapse despite the attempts to breach it beginning only moments prior to this occurrence, and soon noticed a particular point of the defensive matrix that created the weakness that they were currently exploiting, ‘The portion added with Meng Chu’s help! It did not stand out at first, but when struck by the combined force of the Greats… The weakness is then enormous…’

He could provide a vast quantity of energy to the barrier to try and keep it standing, but even emptying all of his planar pool, combined with that of Great Light, would give them a few more seconds while the Greats would not need to expend all that much more energy to defend it.

Even had he wished to do so nonetheless, he wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this when the dome collapsed.

The forty-eight Great Family members surged inside. Every single one of them shattered their own beams into many, leaping atop the walls and directing them at the poor souls that did not have the speed to evade or the strength to endure their attacks. In moments, a dozen perished, and the rest fled with every drop of strength they had.

Paragon was breached, and the joy on the faces of the invaders couldn’t be overlooked.

The one that could be held responsible for this, Meng Chu, ran to the front while so many others hastened away, lightning-type energy surrounding him alongside his physique energy surging through his secondary meridians. He wielded a blade that had not seen much action up to this point.

“Protect Paragon! Protect the people! Do not let these bastards get inside and ravage both!” he cried out, speeding up at the last moment before he tried to plunge a blade into the chest of one of the Great Family members. With lightning surrounding him, the soft ash of the Ashen Form whirling around him, any trace of his original weakness and incapability as a fighter vanished, and all that could be seen was his determination.

Again, the soldiers might have been fooled at first, but when the blade struck the air before his white-haired, red-eyed target, and was stopped by it, they couldn’t delude themselves.

“Shut your mouth,” Bai Fu said, seemingly calmly and slowly, as she pointed two fingers at him.

A vast surge of raw planar energy burst out of her body, impacting into his body and audibly breaking bones as it rampaged throughout his body, a small quantity of that force keeping him in place as to prevent him from flying off. Blood spilled from his mouth, much of the organs within his body being crushed and torn by the rampant energy, and soon wounds were also torn within his body that allowed even more of his blood and even his energy to spill out. Some of the power of the Great Family member also sought out his dantian and gripped it tightly.

Bai Fu stated him in the eye and asked, “Anything to say for yourself?”

“You… deserve to die… She will… kill you all…”

“I’ll let you wait for me under the observation of the heavens, rebel!” she said, crushing his dantian and his heart within the same moment.

All of his physique energy, all of his planar cultivation could do nothing for him as he fell lifelessly to the ground, his energy scattering and his very body melting into ash under the pressure of the Ashen Form physique that was able to do nothing to save his life, only being able to prevent his body from lying on the ground in its current broken and shameful state.

What little had remained of the fortress’ morale fell apart with his death, even when Great Dark and Great Light rushed to the aid of the remaining troops. Seeing one of their more courageous combatants fall without a single moment in which he was able to act, without leaving behind a single mark upon the flesh or armour of his foe, was absolutely terrifying, especially when he had managed to acquire a rather high realm among his peers, aided by the techniques of his ancestor.

Of course, the moment that they were fully open to attack, and even before then, the Greats pounced on them, few doing so literally, as they cut them down with point beams and blasts of pure energy depending on what they wished to do more.

In minutes, hundreds died, and the Greats flowed into the fortress unimpeded.

Great Dark was able to hold a few of them back, but with three of the second generation acting together, he was forced to dedicate his all to protecting himself and a small area around him if he wished to remain alive. His brother, inheriting some of the more combative elements of their original identity, fared better, but even he was held back once a fourth member of the Great Families joined in.

With seven occupied, the seventeen that remained were free to assist their younger generation in wreaking whatever havoc they desired, tearing through the defences that had been built up as if they were naught but wet paper placed in their path. Even then, they seemed to hold back, avoiding any damage to the structures of the fortress for now, focusing purely on hunting down all that they could and obliterating everything that had been put in place in order to protect against their invasion. If not for the rushed evacuation that had occurred only shortly before they attacked, countless civilians and bystanders who had merely happened to be in the prison realm would have likely perished alongside the warriors, for the Greats would have taken no care to ensure that they were attacking their enemy.

The twins of Great Earth gritted their teeth and thought to turn to the centre of the desert fortress, intending to call out Yi Shi Ming to step in and act despite the risks, but the world suddenly quaked, and the sky turned dark, filling with storm clouds.

All of it originated from the same gap in the sandstorm that the Greats had entered from.

Thus, for a few moments, everyone turned towards the south, from which the strange phenomena approached, the number of which rose with every moment. The air filled with crimson and silver, strange shadowy and unstable figures arose within the fortress, all of them in combat stances and occasionally performing a move or technique that would not be completed before they vanished again, and a powerful pressure consumed the forty-eight members of the Great Families.

Seeing as they were not affected, the Arbiters all withdrew while they were still able to, while their foes were distracted, and headed to the other side of Paragon to observe.

A great surge of energy rose into the air, black and crimson entwining in a display that made Bai Fu’s expression sour incredibly rapidly, becoming more and more grim and aggressive with each arc of the black and crimson storm that connected with the storm clouds in the air. Those dark masses of gaseous substances became thicker, denser and darker with each moment, and the air became heavier with something that prevented the very thoughts within the heads of the Greats from moving as they normally would.

The silence was all that could be heard for some time, interspersed only by the occasional crackle of lightning, the ambient noise of the point beams, and the faint echoes of sound emerging from the ghostly figures that appeared and disappeared without warning.

Then, the matter changed in an instant. A figure suddenly appeared upon the top of the walls of Paragon, their left arm wrapped in the blackened crimson lightning that had already spread to the skies, their right surrounded by a thin veil of light that seemed oddly insignificant and yet immensely powerful all at the same time. Their eyes burned with an immense hatred that instantly surpassed even the field of crimson and silver that they had been experiencing up to this point, and a towering figure floated behind them, with four arms channelling four different types of energy that gathered above their upturned palms in large spheres.

“So that is what all of you have been up to… I wish to make declaration, to you, to my Arbiters, and to the world – the Great Families shall fall! I promise it and stake my very life upon this purpose!”

As she finished the sentence, Wei Yi, whose killing will cultivation had risen to the sixth realm with the mere realisation of what had happened in her absence, and as she begun to reconnect to the Kong Prison Realm, raised her hand and willed the countless embers scattered across the battlefield to surge towards it.

The Greats did not stand idly by either, with all of them channelling their many point beams and methods towards her, with some in particular acting with a plain rage and fury that was absent from the rest, who simply looked upon her as a pest.

Out of the crowd, she recognised Bai Fu, not just by her appearance, but by her lacking anchors.

As these attacks raced towards her, they were met with the four powers of the Titanic Conqueror, each one throwing them out as the attacks were mid-way towards her. The Warlord’s Banners came down beside her and her Arbiters at the other side of the fortress, their aura spreading out to strengthen and embolden them. The Hunter’s Toxin had formed an enormous sphere that then scattered into a dense rain of absolute noxious horror that covered much of the storm cloud-filled sky with its own colour. Having formed a dozen enormous chunks of frost, the Redeemer’s Frost threw them all out at the second generation, empowering them on the way through the banners that had fallen to the ground. Finally, the Crusader’s Runes exploded from the Titanic Conqueror’s hand and instantly peppered the battlefield, with all of them being the square runes that were then filled with the circular designs by a second wave of that hand.

Together, these factors forced some of the Greats to cease their attempts to attack and to instead block the incoming torrent of madness, raising up their anchors and cores to protect themselves.

The beams of the Great Families hit first, cutting into Wei Yi’s body, many gashes and scorched lines being formed upon her clothing and body, but she did not let herself be moved by a single inch as she continued to gather the embers. Together, these attacks were enough for her to throw up blood and for her body to desire an end already, but her will had become even stronger than before. She endured it.

With her poor state, the Great Families thought that the attacks that were coming for them would be weaker, and that they would only need to dodge the runes that were close to exploding already, but they suddenly saw a blackened crimson light wash over the entire fortress. Every building that had been hit before this was repaired, every mark upon the streets was corrected, and all of them felt as if a mountain had been dropped upon their shoulders. In addition to the crimson mist complicating their thoughts, the additional layer of energy made it even more difficult to endure.

However, that was hardly the worst for them, as the rain of poison, chunks of ice, glowing runes and the many banners alike were also enveloped in this energy, and their radiance of power suddenly doubled in a single breath.

They may have had an upper hand before her arrival, but Paragon was her territory. She did not need to conquer it anew, merely stake her claim with a power more official than her words.

Chunk after chunk of dense frost concentrated into something solid crashed upon the anchor-based barriers of the Greats, exploding violently and scattering raw strength and frost combined with a shower of countless icicles that exploded from within the larger pieces of ice. There were many of them, and all of the miniscule ice shards contained the same force that the previous barrage of ice from Great Light had delivered onto the forces of the Great Families.

Almost immediately, their anchor barriers buckled somewhat, the distance between them and the Greats themselves falling to an uncomfortably low level, but the pieces of ice were merely precursors for the torrent of horrendous toxin combined with the runes from beneath, the number of which nearly sent some of the Great Family members into a panic. When they had observed them initially, while there were still many, they had not covered the ground of the fortress quite as utterly as they did not, with there barely being any spots in which they were able to stand safely.

That panic was what prompted them to finally drop their attempt to attack and to flee from the ground which was about to explode, and that had already been draining at their energy.

Meanwhile, Wei Yi finally gathered every ember around her and placed them in her closed hand, bringing it near her chest as she glanced to her side and said to the crimson-skinned woman that had accompanied her here, “These are the people that seek to bring the world to ruin. They slaughtered countless people and families just for the sake of getting at one person that had the unfortunate fate of being a child that they did not wish to see. I won’t tell you to do anything, so do as you like.”

Jia Rong looked to her, then to the countless bodies that lay on the ground around her, and a spark of her previous demonic expression returned then. Her method of cultivation, odd as it was, had been named the Demon’s Cry by the two of them, and while it was uncertain what it was or where it had originated from, what was obvious was that it was strengthened and developed by emotion.

That combined with the innate strength that she had possessed, her body having been developed in the same way as the stone of the cave she had been sealed in, meant that her might could be formidable. So long as she had even the faintest inclination to fight and even the slightest idea of what to do, which she did possess with the combination of her own knowledge and what Wei Yi had been able to offer her while they were on their journey back, then she could likely tear through the third generation of the Greats with ease.

‘Do I… Hm… They would have done the same to me as those people had… They would have torn my family and my life apart if we had displeased them… I can see it in that one’s face…’

One of the retreating Great Family members noticed her presence, and looked at her as one might at some unpleasant, disgusting, hateful thing that they would never tolerate within their proximity. Perhaps it was purely her demonic visage, or perhaps they had found something else about her distasteful, but that did not matter now.

A trace of flame around her pupils reappeared as she leapt into the battlefield.

Wei Yi followed her with her gaze for a brief moment, then back to the embers in her hand. All of them came from her own Arbiters, from the people that she had hoped would avoid a demise so early on in the war, before it even had a chance to begin, but that was not their fate this day. Now, with their last breaths gone and their energy gathered within these minute, flickering sparks of their last instant of life, they could only be used for a single thing.

“Hear me, Great Families! Your crimes shall not be forgotten! Your actions shall not go unpunished by Yi City! I, Wei Yi, the Conqueror and the Ascendant, declare the beginning of the War of Ascendancy!”

With her voice spreading throughout the fortress with the Lion’s Roar ability, she pressed those hundreds of embers to her chest, letting their power surge into her body, to flood her very being with the flames of life that would have otherwise been forgotten. As she also activated the Vibrant Phoenix physique ability, her figure was enveloped in flame that grew brighter and brighter with each moment, countless sparks surging from within as her skin was marked by countless burning points, wherein the flame seemed to be contained just beneath the surface.

A single ember would have merely strengthened her, but as countless more occupied some space within her body, a boundless might and an endless torrent of energy surged out of her body, exploding out of her with flame powerful enough to mark the very wall she stood on with permanent burn marks and spots of molten rock.

The moment that she felt everything that she had used up to this point instantly being recovered, she leapt down from the wall, her Titanic Conqueror following her, a sphere of Obliteration energy gathering between its four hands, and sought out those that had made her life a nightmare. She vanished mid-fall, and reappeared beside one of the third generation, slashing sideways with the claws on her left hand, releasing five thin lines of crystalline energy to meet the anchors and cores of her foes without hesitation.

As the runes exploded behind them, and as only a little of the toxins dripped down upon them, some of the Great Family members turned to her and tried to meet her attack with their anchors directly, scoffing at her attempt.

That expression was wiped from their faces the moment that the crystalline energy went straight through their anchors, cutting right through their bodies and severing them into many individual pieces. The rest of their anchors shattered and cracked the moment after their last breath, and the anchor energy from all of them surged into Wei Yi’s Truth of the Universe. She had the interface opened, but she did nothing with it yet, instead looking to another large group and pointing at them.

“Rebel, don’t you dare-” Bai Fu cried out as she ran towards her, but it was too late.

The Titanic Conqueror released an Obliteration beam onto the group of the second and third generation, and while the former were able to withstand it for a moment, the change from solid to crystalline had truly changed their odds of survival. Before, Wei Yi would have been attempting to cut steel with her polished yet still rusted iron, but now she wielded something that was effective star metal. With it, her conquering of the region, Jia Rong’s participation serving to further distract and confuse her foes, she had managed to once more level the playing field as she had in the Ping mansion.

“You dare to attack us again? Face me, you whore!”

“All of you just love turning to the meaningless insults, don’t you?” Wei Yi spoke back, appearing in front of Bai Fu within a blink of the latter’s eyes, “Think about your own actions first, killer of families, destroyer of Yi City, and foe to all progress!”

Her words were accusatory, and clearly tinged by her own views of the world, but there was nothing that the Great Family member could truly say against them. She had killed families, she had contributed to the decay of Yi City, and her family and her all opposed the development of the world for their own purposes.

All of it sounded highly negative, and while the Great Family member could retort, she only had the very anger that had driven her to speak the moment prior on her mind.

Wei Yi stabbed at Bai Fu’s core, targeting one of the searing marks upon it with her flaming claws coated in a layer of Obliteration energy within a crystalline state in order to get the most out of this movement. Bai Fu condensed the force of all of her anchors, as well as the energy of a searing mark near the back of her core, and focused all of it into a point that she then aimed at Wei Yi’s head, unleashing a vast and powerful beam from it.

Neither hesitated in their actions, but while Bai Fu’s was intended to prevent the attack upon her, Wei Yi also drove her mental energies into her hair, forming a thin sheet between her face and the incoming beam of immense power.

It struck the layer of crimson strands and scattered into them, with some passing through and marking the face of the Ascendant while others were entirely absorbed by the strands and failed to make a single mark upon the excessively durable material. The beam was only able to last for a little while, as it had not been intended for the same purpose as the attacks that targeted the defences of Paragon, and when it ended, the layer of hair dispersed to show the blackened crimson glimmer in Wei Yi’s eye as she hit the Great Family member’s core.

The power of the Conqueror’s Eye that spread out in that moment added a layer of noxious fluid onto her claws, the movement of which already sent it splashing onto her opponent’s core, while another banner fell beside her and a layer of conquered space surrounded her entire body. In an instant, an attack that had already concerned Bai Fu was suddenly elevated even further, being filled to the brim with so many elements that no single form of defence would ever suffice to completely prevent it from dealing a notable degree of harm to the marked core and the person hiding beneath it. The second-generation member of the Great Bai attempted to repel her with both sheer planar energy and the pressure of the anchors, but both were dissipated by a strange crimson mist surrounding Wei Yi.

Thus, the tips of her claws struck, and the sound of shattering glass once more spread throughout the fortress.

Against everything embedded within the attack, the dense barrier that separated the fourth realm from regular humans in the mind of some could only crumble and break, permitting her flaming claws to penetrate the energy that made up the core. Her entire hand sunk into the hole created within the marked core, and from the tips of her claws surged out arcs of Obliteration and Ire energy, both crystallised as they went straight for the anchors behind it and the person behind them.

For a moment, panic filled Bai Fu’s eyes. She had accidentally made use of the proper defensive formation for her previous number of anchors, but after the battle only a few days ago, that number had been decreased by five, and thus there wasn’t even an anchor to absorb the blow from her foe.

She was forced to decide, and she made that decision unwillingly, seeing no better option. As the energy came for her, Bai Fu attempted to flee, leaving some of her other anchors to take the fall, but she was barely able to begin moving as she suddenly saw a strange twig within Wei Yi’s hand. It was rather plain, and the only notable feature of it was that it spiralled oddly, in a way that most natural pieces of wood or former branches never would. The moment later, she understood that it was a middle-grade artefact, and the moment after that…

A sudden explosion of Obliteration energy emerged from the tip of that piece of wood, right through the tear within her core, striking those anchors and penetrating them directly.

Before she could even comprehend their loss, that explosion occurred once more, but it contained a greater degree of energy, as if the energy had been placed within the twig and allowed to reverberate within it until its magnitude grew. The second beam struck Bai Fu’s body directly, directly cutting off an arm within a single breath.

There was no need to warn of the third burst of power, nor did she intend to be hit by it. Just before it surged out of the twig, Bai Fu pulled out a series of talismans and ripped them all at the same time by holding one end in her mouth and using her only hand to tear them. The beam still occurred, and it still shot at her location, but her body, her anchors and her core all vanished at the same time, appearing nearer to the wall through which they had entered the fortress initially. She had fallen on her knees at some point of the transportation process, but she rose once more and tried desperately to flee.

Her fellow Great Family members had the same idea, many of them pooling towards the exit.

“Look at what you had been keeping from the world!” Wei Yi shouted as she glanced at the interface of the Truth of the Universe and willed most of the numerous anchor points that she had acquired, both during the battle and long before it, to surge towards Obliteration.

It was a technique that was made purely of her own anger and power, and it was one that could hardly be corrupted by the machinations of any kind of otherworldly gift. Furthermore, it was a complex technique, one that encapsulated so many differing principles and thoughts that the number of points required to raise it to the next stage would be enormous, meaning that the thousand and five hundred points that she had dedicated towards it would be spent easily.

With such a large number of points being used, the sudden increase in energy concentration around her could hardly be overlooked when the air momentarily became violet, and the slight movement of her hand caused a ripple throughout it. That wave of energy spread rapidly, soon consuming the entirety of the fortress, the violet fading but the greatened quantity of power clearly remaining within the air. While it was visible to everyone, they were also able to see how all of it suddenly converged upon the centre of Paragon, all of it forming into something that was familiar to all that had been in the Kong Prison Realm.

As Wei Yi’s connection with the Kong Prison Realm returned, and the energy density in the air rose to the extent of being a passive presence of the first realm all around them, she took both of those factors and pulled them towards the centre of Paragon, uniting them into her very own Endless Monolith, building it out of the increased quantity of energy, stabilising it with the prison realm and sending the projection of the Monolith into the condensed structure, causing it to manifest within reality.

A tower, fractured yet whole, appeared within the centre of the fortress, occupying much of the central open space with the base alone, while the rest towered over the sands and Paragon alike. Around it, the crystalline core formed also, surrounding the walls of the fortress.

However, other than all of that, the most pressing matter to the Greats, as well as to those that eagerly watched their fleeing backs, was the fact that the sphere within the centre of the Monolith that would usually be a chained sphere of pure planar energy and a bright white light was instead enveloped in blackened crimson. It arced and sent out bolts of Obliteration energy into the air, with none hitting the ground much to the relief of a few who had been close to it. That great sphere was clearly targeted at the fleeing Greats, and it seemed to be consistently rising in power as Wei Yi looked towards them.

“All of you – burn!”

The moment that the process of the Truth of the Universe ceased, she released the energy that she had projected out into the world, directing it all in a single dense beam at those that attempted to escape her grasp. With a deafening sound, a burst of absolute, overpowering light, and a tremble of the earth, they understood the folly of their actions.

Just as the Endless Monolith was many times larger than it was when regularly placed outside of her dantian, the energy beam that it sent out was many times larger as well. It covered the entirety of the wide street leading out to the wall, and it impacted the ground with so much force that it nearly caused a small collapse of stone beneath Paragon. The blinding crimson and black energy covered the entirety of the fortress with its colours, but where its power was focused, the damage could be seen in the instant that it began to move towards the wall to chase after those that avoided the initial strike.

There, a gash in the earth and stone that was at least three metres deep could be seen, the ground melted into dark crimson glass by the sheer power of Obliteration in the fifty-ninth stage.

Several cores cracked beneath it, with others desperately holding on to flee, like Bai Fu, who was hit only moments after the rest of her companions had been. That overpowering beam of absolute destruction fell upon her cracked and damaged core, and her fate was sealed.

It moved onto her with a deep, thunderous sound that could hardly be more perfect to herald the coming of such an attack, shaking the world merely through it. Had there been fragile portions of the fortress, made of glass or some similarly weak material, they would have cracked, shattered and exploded into little pieces from the sound alone. It would have left a secondary trace of destruction as it slowly and ominously travelled away from the centre of the beam, having already shredded several Great Family members as could be seen by the dissipating energy and their decreasing numbers.

Even then, it persisted towards the wall, following those that leapt atop it, and tore it into shreds just as easily as it continued on, breaking the anchors and cores of several more that were unable to produce the same methods to flee as they initially used to get away from the beam and the damage to them in the first place.

When it finally ended, all that could be seen were the fleeing backs the size of specks of dust in the distance, and a great hole within the wall of Paragon, in line with the gap in the sandstorm.

“The first battle of the War of Ascendancy has been won by us!” Wei Yi declared openly and proudly, even amplifying her voice in the hope that the Great Family members running away from them would be able to hear the announcement, “My Arbiters, I guarantee that this shall not be the last! We shall cleanse the world of those monsters, and we shall set it free! Yi City shall be under their influence no longer!”