Chapter 802: Plunging the world on silence (II)
Jormungandr could not help but grin—broad, fanged, and filled with savage delight—as he watched the river of golden magma consume the city below. The liquid radiance burned so brightly it lit the night sky like a second sun. Entire buildings vanished in seconds, steam and smoke erupting into the heavens, blotting out the stars.
Thousands of soldiers and aristocrats alike perished in moments. Screams rose, then fell silent. The ancient streets of Zanu City, once bustling with military precision and aristocratic decadence, were now melting into slag.
The small yellow cat’s success was not simply the result of brute force, but of cunning, science, and mastery. A fusion of alchemy and advanced magic formations had allowed him to construct a devastating artifact—one capable of hijacking the function of the Interstellar Teleportation Formation deep in the city’s core.
But instead of linking to the outer reaches of the universe, he had redirected the portal inward—to the very core of Exilon.
A direct spatial channel to the planet’s molten heart.
Through this reconfigured formation, the magma at Exilon’s center had surged upward with unstoppable force, manifesting in the skies and descending upon the city like divine punishment.
The result was apocalyptic.
Tens of thousands had died in the first seconds.
And yet True Depravita of Gluttony was not naïve. He could see through the swirling smoke and flaming ruin. Though the damage was catastrophic, the bulk of the enemy army had managed to evacuate in time. The Interstellar Teleportation Formation had collapsed a moment later, sealing the spatial rupture before even more destruction could be unleashed.
It wasn’t a total annihilation—but it was enough.
The formation was destroyed, and the core command structure of Zanu City had been left in shambles.
With no time to waste, Jormungandr turned, his sharp yellow eyes glinting as he gave the signal. Beside him, Fafnir and Ouroboros—the fire dragon and white werewolf—nodded. Their elite Xaos soldiers fell into formation and withdrew into the jungle-cloaked mountains beyond the city.
Within minutes, they were gone—vanished into the wilderness. Not even the enraged Legends or the remaining hundreds of thousands of Zanis troops could track them through the warped terrain.
"Two down," Jormungandr muttered with grim satisfaction, glancing at his two monstrous companions.
Both returned faint, knowing smiles.
They had already received word from Vlad—the operation at Katu Fortress had been a flawless success. With the fall of Zanu City, only one remained: the Azalisk Stronghold.
But none of them doubted the outcome.
Not because they underestimated the challenge, but because of who had been sent to deal with it.
It wasn’t just Freya, the Depravita of Lust—a brilliant general and skilled warrior. No, the real reason for their confidence lay with the A.I. Chip Clone. Overlord possessed intellect and strategic foresight so vast, even the other Depravitas spoke of it with hushed reverence.
"He might be able to take down the Interstellar Teleportation Formation without anyone even realizing he was there," Fafnir once said, voice tinged with reluctant awe.
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Far across the world, in a distant land untouched by fire or war, rose the monolithic towers of the Azalisk Stronghold.
A fortress in name only—it was more like a continent of steel and stone. Its towers soared so high that clouds circled their spires. Each research facility was larger than most towns, humming with arcane machinery, glowing runes, and armed drones.
Unlike Katu Fortress and Zanu City, Azalisk was calm.
There had been no invasion.
No monsters. No black holes. No falling magma.
The shimmering mantle above Exilon—the strange, alien barrier—had appeared here too. But without immediate threats, the Legends stationed at Azalisk remained focused, organized, and deeply suspicious.
This place wasn’t just a fortress. It was Exilon’s central research hub, the site of the Zanis Family’s most dangerous experiments. Here, scientists tested weapons—both mechanical and biological—that would have been forbidden anywhere else. Countless Rune Masters, geneticists, and alchemists worked in tandem with the military, refining superweapons far beyond the ethical boundaries of any sane civilization.
And here, test subjects were plentiful.
When the skies changed, the lead Legend didn’t hesitate. He and two others made their way directly to the Interstellar Teleportation Formation.
The chamber was massive—domed, obsidian, and laced with golden veins of runic power. Rows of white-robed scientists operated intricate consoles, monitoring energy levels and arcane fluctuations.
The commanding Legend’s voice echoed across the chamber.
"Open a portal to the homeworld!"
Without question, the scientists began the activation process.
Runes glowed. Circuits hummed. Spatial energy surged.
The three Legends stepped onto the teleportation platform.
And then... nothing happened.
They waited.
Still nothing.
They should have been halfway across the galaxy by now. Instead, they stood frozen on the platform. Confusion turned to alarm as a sealing formation snapped into place beneath their feet, locking their bodies in place with gravitational force.
"What is the meaning of this!?" the lead Legend bellowed.
He turned to the scientists—and froze.
They were still working, still tapping commands—but there was something wrong with them.
Black blood trickled from their eyes.
Their faces twitched unnaturally, muscles rippling beneath their skin. Something was moving inside them—pulsing, crawling, controlling.
The Legends instantly understood.
These weren’t researchers anymore.
They were hosts.
Some kind of parasitic entity had infiltrated Azalisk Stronghold. It had possessed the minds of the scientists and used them to reprogram the teleportation formation into a prison.
However, what happened next made it clear that the infection of the scientists was not the end of the plan—it was only the beginning.
The possessed researchers, still bleeding from their eyes and twitching with unnatural movements, continued to manipulate the controls of the Interstellar Teleportation Formation. Their hands moved with eerie precision, no longer guided by logic or will, but by some foreign intelligence pulsing through their veins.
And then it happened.
The runes beneath the platform flared with blinding light. A pulse of overwhelming spatial energy erupted from the formation, shaking the entire Azalisk Stronghold. The sealed chamber trembled, the reinforced walls groaning under the weight of unnatural force. The energy didn’t just spread across the city—it reached beyond, slicing into the Void Between Worlds.
Somewhere deep in that otherworldly abyss, the formation latched onto something.
And then it began to pull.
The gravitational energy surged, twisting reality as it dragged its prey toward the material world. The three Legends trapped on the platform could only watch in mounting horror as they realized what was happening.
Above Azalisk, the sky darkened.
It started as a speck—barely visible. But within moments, it grew. And grew. And kept growing.
A few seconds later, the entire sky was filled with the approaching mass.
A meteorite, massive beyond comprehension, descended from the heavens like a divine hammer. Its sheer size blotted out the sun, casting an enormous shadow over the entirety of Azalisk Stronghold. The surrounding cities and landscapes fell into sudden, unnatural twilight as the object approached.
The Legends stationed throughout the stronghold finally noticed the anomaly—and their leaders’ absence. But there was no time to investigate.
Trained for war and conditioned for instant response, their instincts kicked in.
They soared into the skies, glowing trails of power behind them as they raced upward to intercept the celestial threat. Five Legends led the charge, each one among the elite.
They formed a vanguard, unleashing everything they had.
The first one raised his blade high and fired a sword arc glowing with divine light, cutting a glowing trench into the surface of the meteor. The second conjured a storm of plasma lances, which crackled and tore at the rock’s molten skin. The third summoned a whirlwind of spatial daggers, each one detonating on impact, carving smaller craters into its hull. The fourth called forth a beam of solar fire, blasting a section clean off the meteor’s flank. And the fifth—an Elemental Sage—manipulated the winds themselves, trying to slow its descent by shifting the pressure of the upper atmosphere.
Chunks of the meteorite peeled away, breaking off and falling like molten hail. Tremendous pieces of it were destroyed midair, but the core—a hardened, glowing sphere of cosmic alloy and voidstone—remained intact.
They had weakened it. Diminished it.
But they had not stopped it.
And then it fell.
It struck the ground with a soundless, lightless detonation—a burst of raw force so powerful that it launched the entire stronghold into the air. The earth shuddered. Mountains cracked. Cities miles away felt the shockwave, and tremors rolled across the continent.
From the skies, it looked like the land had leapt upward.
An instant later, came the blast—a tsunami of destruction rippling outward in all directions, annihilating everything in its path.
Azalisk Stronghold was gone.
Reduced to flame, rubble, and silence. More than a hundred thousand people had perished, some of them reduced to ash, including the three Legends locked in the Interstellar Teleportation Formation.
The casualties would have been much more dire if the elite soldiers had not run away when they saw that the crash was imminent.