Chapter 797: The war for Exilon had begun
Augustus and Warden Felix widened their eyes in shock, confusion twisting into a deeper, primal dread. A chilling sensation spread across their bodies—a sense of encroaching doom. Their instincts screamed in unison, warning them that the colossal energy mantle covering the entire world of Exilon was only the beginning. Something far worse was coming.
Without hesitation, Augustus reached into his space ring and pulled out a special gem, a unique artifact crafted solely for communication with the Zanis Family headquarters on their homeworld. The gem glowed faintly in his palm, then flickered, then... nothing. No pulse, no energy resonance. It was completely inert.
"What!?" Augustus shouted in horror, disbelief etched into every feature of his face. For a moment, confusion consumed him—but he wasn’t just any scion of the Zanis Family. He had earned his position through his own strength, and his tactical mind quickly pieced things together. The energy mantle... it wasn’t just a barrier. It was a communications suppression field—an intentional act of war.
"We’re under attack," he whispered, fury seeping into his voice. "A calculated, strategic assault... They’ve isolated Exilon."
He spun toward Warden Felix. "Where’s the Interstellar Teleportation Formation!?"
His voice cut like a blade. The priority was now clear: they had to re-establish communication with the Zanis high command and warn them. Exilon wasn’t just any world—it was one of their core military hubs. If it fell, it would send ripples across the power structure of the family.
Warden Felix, hardened by decades of war, reached the same conclusion. He opened his mouth to answer—but the ground began to shake violently beneath their feet.
A low, unnatural rumble echoed through the walls of the fortress. Soldiers turned their heads in confusion as tremors disrupted their formation. Then the beasts came.
Animals—common beasts of the world—rushed toward the fortress from every direction. Wolves, deer, birds, serpents. They poured in through the outer walls and fell from the skies. At first, they seemed harmless—merely disoriented by the strange phenomenon. But as the Legends focused their senses, they felt something... wrong.
"They’re not monsters," one Sage muttered. "But they’re not normal, either."
That’s when the realization hit.
"Get ready!" Augustus barked. He, Felix, and the Sages around them prepared their energy for immediate retaliation. The creatures didn’t seem especially powerful, but with the world already sealed and uncertainty looming, they couldn’t afford to take chances.
They didn’t get the chance to attack first.
In a blinding flash, every beast began to glow—then detonated in unison.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOM!"
Thousands of simultaneous explosions erupted across the fortress grounds. Each blast amplified the next, their energy chaining like dominos. Rivers of fire and lightning surged outward, swallowing massive sections of the compound in chaos. The technique was eerily reminiscent of the dreaded Echo Bombs—a weapon designed to multiply the impact of coordinated detonations.
Despite the sheer volume of explosions, the true strength of the blasts wasn’t enough to obliterate the elite forces. The Legends withstood the shockwaves with ease, their energy barriers shielding them. The Sages endured with effort, sustaining some injuries but remaining standing. Guardians suffered the most, many collapsing from the unexpected assault. Thankfully for the Zanis forces, no one below Guardian rank was stationed here—if they had been, the death toll would’ve been immeasurable.
Just as they began to regroup, the situation escalated once more.
From within the fiery clouds above, hundreds of swords began to fall from the sky—each glowing with radiant silver and pulsating with an aura of absolute precision. The power in each of them was so profound and silent that they were not able to detect them until it was too late.
"CRASH!"
Screams erupted as the swords struck down like divine retribution, impaling elite warriors across the fortress. The moment they embedded into flesh, they exploded—releasing spatial shockwaves that ripped through nearby targets.
It wasn’t just an assault—it was a massacre. Soldiers of the Zanis Family blasting to pieces under the power of the Law of Space.
Augustus froze, his mind racing.
"These swords..." he whispered, eyes scanning the battlefield. "Each one has the power of a Sage-tier spell... but there are hundreds. How is that possible?"
His perception honed in on the origin of the attack. Above the mantle, just beyond the veil of flame and cloud, stood a solitary figure.
A young man.
He hovered effortlessly in the sky, white hair whipping in the wind, golden eyes gleaming with power. His skin was cloaked in a strange dark veil, veined with red tendrils that pulsed like living lightning. Space itself rippled around him—his very existence in perfect harmony with the fabric of reality.
The man met Augustus’s gaze and offered a small, mocking smile. Without a word, he raised his sword once more and plunged it into the very fabric of space. This time, instead of summoning blades from above, he inverted the attack—hundreds of swords erupted from the ground below.
The devastation was immediate. Dozens of Sages and Guardians were impaled before the swords exploded again, ripping gaping holes into the fortress structure and sending troops flying.
"You bastard!" Augustus roared, unable to contain his fury.
He didn’t care about the soldiers. They were tools—expendable in the eyes of the Zanis Family. But tools were valuable. You didn’t break what you hadn’t bought.
And this man... this intruder... he was destroying Zanis property.
The scion’s aura erupted like a volcano, drowning the sky in oppressive darkness. The pressure of a High Legend filled the battlefield, snapping lesser warriors to their knees.
A spear formed in Augustus’s hand, crafted from dark crystal and infused with dense, chaotic energy. The weapon was clearly of a very high level, so powerful that it managed to take August’s High Legend energy and raise it to the next level.
With a powerful burst, he launched himself skyward, a black comet tearing through the sky as he surged toward the white-haired man who had dared to defy the Zanis Family.
The war for Exilon had begun—and its first battlefield was Katu Prison.