Although the successive defense lines constructed by Fuli and Yunli successfully intercepted the incoming missiles, the violent shockwaves from the point-blank detonations unavoidably battered the Crychic Squad's starskiff.
"The flight control system is failing!"
Staring at the garbled error codes flashing across the dashboard, Castorice's brows locked in a tight frown. She gripped the flight yoke tightly, desperately trying to stabilize the violently shaking vessel.
Tragically, just like how staring harder at a math test doesn't magically give you the answers, no amount of effort from the entirely inexperienced girl could stop the starskiff from plummeting out of the sky like a wild, unbridled stallion.
"Prepare to bail out!"
Making a split-second decision, Fuli scooped up the petite Hyacine into his arms. Invisible currents of wind wrapped around his body as he shot out of the failing ship like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Castorice reacted just as swiftly, vaulting out of the cockpit. Meanwhile, Yunli, who had been fighting on the hull, flashed back inside the cabin. Moving with lightning speed, she pulled a palm-sized, transparent glass bottle from her robes and popped the cork.
The moment the rim of the bottle touched the hull, the fifty-foot-long starskiff began to rapidly shrink. Like water being sucked down a drain, the entire vessel was instantly drawn inside the glass container.
Seeing this, Fuli couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret.
Before coming here, he had lent his heavily modded, land-sea-air capable Type-59 tank to Bronya, just in case the hardcore gamer encountered any emergencies while furiously grinding points.
If they had that absurdly durable tank right now, an explosion of that caliber wouldn't have even scratched the paint, let alone force them to bail out.
Because they had been extremely close to the ground when they bailed, the four of them touched down safely on the sprawling, yellow-sand plains.
However, the brief glimpse they had gotten from the air was more than enough for them to comprehend the sheer scale of the enemy forces.
A sea of bodies. An endless tide stretching all the way to the horizon.
Conservatively estimating? There had to be over two hundred thousand troops down here.
And that didn't even factor in the hideous biomechanical beast-ships circling in the sky, or the countless other grotesque monstrosities crawling among the ranks.
"You call this a f*cking splinter force?!"
Yunli couldn't help but curse out loud. From where she stood, she could clearly see thousands of elite cavalry mounted on massive, hulking direwolves.
These Borisin warriors wore soft armor reeking of blood and gore, wielding cold-gleaming bronze spears. Without a doubt, these were elite vanguard units.
But that wasn't even the worst part.
The moment they touched down, all four of them felt an oppressive, suffocating weight slam down on their bodies—a suppression completely distinct from the foundational laws of the Ether Anchor.
Not only were they completely cut off from absorbing ambient energy to replenish their stamina, but even projecting their internal Honkai energy outward had become incredibly difficult. It felt as if their very veins had been locked down by invisible shackles.
A military battle formation.
Back during the White Moon of Fog City Incident, Kiana and Bronya had boarded a cruise ship to rescue Asta and Arlan from the Kheshig troops. The very first thing the two girls did upon setting foot on the deck was use the complex terrain of the ship to separate the enemy soldiers, breaking them apart to eliminate them one by one.
The reason was simple: If they had been surrounded and allowed the Kheshigs to form a proper military array, the combined suppression would have been enough to let the grunts hack the two Valkyries to pieces.
Similarly, when Fuli first met the Lady of the Lake at Lake Kanas, he had already been on the verge of the Critical-Class, and he had been wearing the invincible Golden Armor which nullified 90% of all external interference. Yet, when facing the combined battle formation of the Lake Clan, he had still nearly been one-shotted.
This was precisely why, throughout history, top-tier powerhouses usually chose to remain hidden behind the scenes. In a supernatural world governed by Honkai energy, military formations weren't just simple tactical maneuvers used to bully normal people like in a non-magical setting.
As the magnum opus of countless brilliant military strategists across time, these formations were a terrifying manifestation of quantity fundamentally shifting into quality.
That being said, a formation was only as strong as its foundation. The soldiers needed ironclad willpower; a disorganized mob of cowards wouldn't generate any suppressive power, even if they stood in the right spots.
Simply throwing a bunch of elite fighters together didn't work either. The hundred City Gods Fuli had previously fought had never systematically trained in formation combat.
And even if they could learn it, their innate arrogance meant they could never synchronize their wills enough to satisfy the activation conditions.
But once you gathered a massive, disciplined army that did meet the criteria, led by an exceptional general... For example: the formation currently bearing down on them, comprised of two hundred thousand Borisin infantry and eight thousand elite wolf cavalry.
Not only did it exponentially boost the physical stats of every soldier within the array, but it also placed a crushing suppression on any intruders, locking down their energy projection and forcing them to fight using purely their weakened physical strength!
Faced with this nightmarish scenario, the young Luofu swordmaster could only grimly console herself that it could be worse.
If the commander of this army had been the Luofu's "Divine Foresight" General Jing Yuan—the reigning master of formation warfare in the modern Alliance—every single one of them would already be dead.
If you gave Jing Yuan a disciplined army of a million men, even a high-ranking Sequence would get hacked to pieces by his Lightning-Lord if they didn't run away fast enough!
SHING!
Fuli swung his Plasma Kagehide. Ignoring the fluid dynamics of viscosity and compression, the ideal liquid plasma extended over a dozen meters from the hilt.
Amplified further by his Tyrant's Barricade range-extension passive, a single horizontal slash instantly decapitated dozens of charging Borisin infantry.
Blood geysered into the air, instantly dyeing the yellow sand beneath their feet crimson.
"What are you spacing out for, Li-bao?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder, his tone as relaxed as ever.
"You can still project your energy outward?!" Yunli swung her heavy sword, violently batting a leaping wolf-cavalry elite—rider and mount included—out of the air. The heavy armor crashed into a low-flying beast-ship, triggering a chain of fiery explosions.
"It's a little suppressed, but it's not a big deal."
As Fuli spoke, the quantum circuit-like pattern on his lower back pulsed with a faint, ethereal glow.
—Stigmata of Death. Grants 80% immunity against effects that alter or interfere with the body's natural state, such as toxins, aging, disease, and instant death. Attacks possess a very low probability of inflicting instant death.
Evidently, the suppressive field of the Borisin battle formation was classified as a physical interference effect.
"Perfect!" Yunli's eyes flashed with relief. She kicked a piece of heavy artillery to pieces and shouted, "Then let's have our boy Fuli spearhead the breakout! Don't skimp on the healing items! You can't spend your money if you're dead!"
"Understood!" Castorice replied in a tight voice. The massive scythe in her hands shifted into a flexible, extending nether-blade. Like a dancer of death, she carved a bloody, tempestuous path through the enemy ranks.
"Got it!" Hyacine refused to fall behind. Even though her support abilities were severely crippled by the energy lockdown, she instantly dropped into her Bajiquan starting stance.
"Hah! Heaven-Piercing Cannon!"
She threw a vicious uppercut into the chest of an enemy who had underestimated her size. The sheer kinetic force caved in the Borisin's chest plate, sending the massive beastman flying backward through the air.
(Illustration: Hyacine in Combat)
But it didn't take long for the hidden enemy commander to read their tactical intentions.
A scalp-numbing shriek tore through the sky as a dense, sun-blotting swarm of arrows rained down on Fuli and the others like a plague of locusts. Every single arrowhead was packed with enough kinetic force to rival a high-explosive grenade!
This was the textbook strategy for a military formation dealing with high-tier superhumans: suppress their energy, then kite them to death with overwhelming ranged bombardments.
However, a textbook is only ideal in theory.
Superhumans aren't idiots. If you try to kite them, they'll simply charge headfirst into your infantry lines and force a chaotic melee.
The commander is then forced into a brutal dilemma: do you drop the artillery on your own men, annihilating your own troops and completely destroying army morale?
Were the Borisin willing to make that sacrifice?
They absolutely were. In fact, they reveled in it.
Borisin. Primate Order, Hominidae Family, Canine Subspecies. Also known as the Wolf Clan or the Children of the Hound.
Their cultural ethos was disturbingly similar to the ancient nomadic empires of Earth. To die of illness in a tent was the ultimate shame; to die of old age in a bed was an omen of bad luck.
Every member of their society—down to the women and children—was a warrior who fought with bow and blade. Everything in the universe that wasn't a Borisin was viewed purely as food or a slave.
Getting to die in bloody, glorious combat against a powerful enemy?!
This is the greatest high!
Instead of retreating to avoid the friendly-fire arrow rain, the Borisin infantry fanatically swarmed the group. Even the ones who had been cut down used their dying breaths to reach out and grab Fuli and the girls' ankles, desperately trying to pin them in place for the artillery strike.
Though, to be fair, they were already buried under a mountain of corpses. They probably didn't have the space to dodge even if they wanted to.
Since the battle began, excluding Hyacine who was focused on support, Fuli and the other two had already slaughtered over a thousand Borisin soldiers, hundreds of which were elites.
The pungent stench of blood, burning fat, and sweat violently mixed together, creating a nauseating, suffocating miasma.
And because of that brief, desperate delay, the rain of cold-gleaming arrows had already arrived overhead.
"Tch! Get behind me!"
Yunli gripped her massive, door-sized sword, 'Ol' Iron', with both hands, slamming it into the ground like a reinforced steel bulwark.
Castorice and Hyacine immediately ducked behind her, simultaneously swinging their weapons to clear away the grasping, severed limbs trying to lock down their feet.
Only Fuli refused to retreat. Instead, he stepped forward, manifesting a miniature, simulated black hole right in front of him.
It was a predatory organ generated by the Outer Path. The vortex devoured a large chunk of the incoming arrow rain, converting the kinetic and thermal energy to slightly replenish the Honkai reserves he had burned through during the prolonged slaughter.
But it was obvious this couldn't last forever. The formation-buffed Borisin were utterly suicidal, and with the endless swarm of beast-ships and driven war-beasts pressing down on them, the sheer weight of numbers would eventually grind the girls into dust.
"We're breaking out using this!"
Yunli gritted her teeth, pulling a metallic, spring-loaded platform out of her spatial storage.
It was a Sky-Vaulting Board—a gadget she had forged herself. It possessed absurd, supernatural elasticity, capable of launching one person at a time over tremendous distances. However, if the user's physical constitution wasn't up to par, the sheer instant G-force of the launch could cause severe internal injuries or even death.
"I'll cover you! You guys go first!"
Being in the best condition, Fuli unhesitatingly claimed the rearguard position. He had to stop the enemy from shooting his teammates out of the sky the moment they launched.
"Got it! Try to launch in the same general direction! Once we're safe, we sync up using the Blood-Written Diary!" Yunli grabbed Hyacine by the arm. "You're up first!"
It was a damn good thing they had butchered their way into a momentary pocket of empty space, otherwise the board would have been sniped the second she pulled it out.
"Everyone! Please stay safe!"
Knowing this wasn't the time for melodramatic hesitation, Hyacine clutched her blood-soaked little pegasus, Ica, tight to her chest and stepped onto the board.
With a violent SWOOSH of displaced air, the girl turned into a streak of light, vanishing over the horizon.
Standing closest to the pad, Yunli didn't waste a millisecond. Angling her launch trajectory to follow Hyacine, she firmly stepped onto the platform and instantly vanished.
"Cassie! You're third!"
Fuli spun around, executing a backhand slash that instantly bisected a dozen elite direwolf cavalry charging his flank.
But out of the corner of his eye, he spotted it. High in the sky above them, a massive, thousand-meter-long phantom broadsword was rapidly condensing into reality.
The martial avatar summoned by the battle formation!
Seeing Yunli and Hyacine successfully escape had pushed the hidden Borisin commander into a frenzy. They were forcefully draining the lifeforce of the entire army to manifest a terrifying, apocalyptic strike that rivaled the power of an S-Rank!
"Lord Fuli! Run!"
Seeing the descending blade of doom, Castorice gritted her silver teeth. Gripping her scythe tightly, she charged forward, fully intending to sacrifice herself to buy Fuli enough time to launch!
"Don't be an idiot!"
Panic surging in his chest, Fuli didn't care about propriety. He violently dashed forward, grabbed the girl's slender shoulder, and mercilessly hurled her backward onto the Sky-Vaulting Board.
Without hesitating for a single breath, he rocketed into the sky, his longsword carving out a pitch-black, eclipse-like sun.
Setsuna Blade: Lethe Ward!
Empowered by the Stigmata of Rock, the void-like corona erupted with a terrifying gravitational pull capable of violently warping spacetime.
The black sun tore free from his blade and shot upwards, forcibly magnetically dragging the descending, thousand-meter phantom broadsword directly into its center.
The next microsecond, an indescribably catastrophic explosion detonated. A blinding white flash swallowed the heavens, instantly followed by an eardrum-shattering shockwave and a colossal mushroom cloud tearing into the stratosphere!
...
Sometime later. In a desolate, barren desert dozens of kilometers away.
"Pfft! Blegh! Ptui!"
Planted headfirst into the sand like an ostrich, Fuli desperately kicked his legs, finally managing to wriggle himself free.
He spat out a mouthful of gritty sand and looked back at the sky, still painted in the violently burning colors of the explosion, his heart pounding in his chest. "I really thought I was going to trigger a Molting Rebirth there..."
"Lord Fuli, are you alright?"
A gentle, deeply concerned voice spoke up beside him. Castorice had also just managed to stand up from the dunes.
The girl's previously immaculate dress was torn to shreds, exposing large expanses of her pale, alluring skin. Her silver hair, fading into soft purple at the tips, was messy and unkempt.
The sheer vulnerability of her appearance radiated a deeply sinful, almost immoral charm that made a person want to pull her into their arms and aggressively 'protect' her.
But the girl didn't seem to notice her wardrobe malfunction. Instead, she gently rubbed her shoulder—the exact spot where Fuli had grabbed her—a strange, highly complex emotion blossoming in her eyes.
"I'm alive."
Fuli waved it off, pulling a fresh set of clothes from his inventory.
In that final, desperate split-second before the blast radius swallowed them both, Castorice had reacted with blinding speed. She had whipped a rope out of her spatial storage, wrapped it around Fuli's waist, and launched herself off the Sky-Vaulting Board, violently dragging him out of the epicenter just before the explosion hit.
Because of the added weight, their launch distance was significantly shortened, but they had miraculously managed to cheat death.
"Honestly, our luck was just astronomically bad this time. We literally face-planted directly into their main army's battle formation."
As he spoke, Fuli activated Outer Path, passively eating the surrounding sand to slightly convert it back into Honkai energy.
He couldn't help but complain, "Seriously, what kind of normal person just stands around in an open field and watches a two-hundred-thousand-man army leisurely set up a battle array? It's not like we were defending a city and couldn't run away."
He pulled out the Blood-Written Diary and began writing:
[One corner reveals the other three. Cassie and I have safely escaped. We are currently in an unknown desert. No immediate danger.]
Castorice leaned over, tilting her head to watch him write.
Is it just me, Fuli thought, or is she standing a lot closer to me than usual?
A moment later, clear handwriting bled onto the page:
[A ruler's word is absolute. This is Hyacine! Little Ica and I are safe too! Is everyone okay? I was so worried!]
[Defend the city to the death. This is Yunli. I'm fine. No idea where I am, just surrounded by mountains.]
To prepare for emergencies, Fuli had pre-emptively torn pages from the diary and distributed them to his teammates.
The coded phrases at the start were meant to verify their identities. Castorice had one too, but since she was with Fuli, she didn't need to report in separately.
[So the mission intel was complete garbage, right?! Just the sheer scale of that 'splinter force' doesn't match the brief at all!]
Unsurprisingly, a deeply resentful Yunli immediately launched into a furious tirade on the page. [Not to mention everything else! I seriously suspect there's another mole inside the Luofu High Command!]
The word 'another' carried a lot of heavy implications.
And it made sense. Surveying a World Bubble wasn't something you could just do by glancing at satellite imagery; it required specialized reconnaissance personnel to physically infiltrate and report back.
Given that the Borisin were technically distant evolutionary cousins to the Foxians, and armed with their hyper-advanced biotechnology, it wouldn't be particularly difficult for them to perfectly disguise themselves and fool standard patrol units.
Especially right now. With the Luminary Wardance in full swing, the sheer astronomical volume of data flowing through the Matrix of Prescience had basically turned its predictive algorithms into a bowl of mush, making it incredibly easy for spies to muddy the waters.
Even so, Fuli had a gut feeling that this wasn't just a simple case of espionage.
"Hm?"
Lost in thought, the boy suddenly felt a slight tickle on his cheek. He turned his head and realized it was a few strands of Castorice's hair, gently brushing against his skin in the breeze.
"Lord Fuli?"
Noticing his gaze, the girl looked up, her clear, pale eyes meeting his with a silent question.
Her thin lips, the color of newly bloomed cherry blossoms, parted slightly, revealing a glimpse of pearly white teeth.
"Nothing. You just look pretty, Cassie."
Little Li didn't overthink it. Dropping his customary, casual compliment, he turned back to the diary and wrote:
[Before we bailed, Hya used 'Eye of the Sky' to scout the area. Your expression looked absolutely terrified, but we got interrupted before I could ask. Did you see something down there?]
[I did!]
Somewhere near the ocean, Hyacine bit her lower lip and wrote furiously: [Right before we crashed, I looked at the distant horizon... and I saw a massive, impossibly gigantic eye blink into existence!]
Honestly, if the girl hadn't chugged a cup of Golden Mead right before the drop, just looking at that thing would have caused severe mental contamination and physical mutation!
"An eye?"
Standing atop a jagged mountain peak, Yunli's face instantly went pale as she read the words. [Hya, are you absolutely sure you didn't missee it?]
[I am absolutely certain! I saw it perfectly clearly!]
Hyacine was ten out of ten sure.
"Oh, we are so incredibly screwed..." Yunli muttered to herself.
Taking a deep breath, she slowly traced out a new line in the diary:
[Everyone... have you ever heard of a 'Living Planet'?]