Douluo Continent: My Martial Soul is the Black Dragon, I am the Lord of the Gods

……

The hall was deathly silent; no one dared to answer.

Bibi Dong slowly stood up, and an immense sense of oppression instantly enveloped the entire hall.

“It’s not that we’re easily defeated.” She answered herself, her voice as cold as ice colliding. “It’s that there are people who don’t want to fight.”

"Some within our ranks feel that the new order has threatened their interests and diminished their privileges. They dare not openly rebel, so they want to use the power of the two great empires to force me to compromise!"

Her gaze, sharp as a sword, pierced the commanders of the Soul Master legions: "The frontline collapse is not due to a lack of strength, but rather... a lack of effort! They are using this method to protest to the Empire and put pressure on me!"

"They are telling me that if I don't grant Soul Masters more privileges and benefits, they will no longer support the Spirit Empire!"

Bibi Dong's words, like a thunderclap, resounded in the silent hall.

The generals, whose heads were bowed, trembled almost imperceptibly.

As expected, things developed into the most troublesome, yet inevitable, situation.

The internal parasites, the beneficiaries of the old order, could no longer restrain themselves. Taking advantage of the invasion by foreign enemies, they began to wage a dirty game, using the safety of the entire empire as a bargaining chip.

They believed that as long as the front lines continued to suffer defeats and the empire faced the crisis of destruction, she and Xuanming would have no choice but to compromise with them, retract their orders, and restore the transcendent status of Soul Masters.

“Heh…” Bibi Dong let out a light, ambiguous laugh, a laugh filled with mockery and murderous intent.

She slowly walked down the steps and came to the huge continental sand table. She looked at the countless red arrows representing the attacks of the two great empires, and the ever-receding blue defensive line representing the defeat of the Martial Soul Empire.

"You think you can force me to submit like this?" She stretched out her slender finger and gently touched a marker of a key town that had just fallen, and the marker instantly turned to dust.

"Alright."

Her voice regained its absolute calmness and authority.

"Since the abscess has already formed, then... let's squeeze it all out in one go!"

"Pass down the order," Bibi Dong turned around, her eyes blazing, "All defeated legions, retreat to the second line of defense to regroup. Strictly investigate those who desert or shirk combat. Once verified, regardless of their identity, they will be court-martialed, stripped of their soul rings, and stripped of their cultivation!"

"At the same time, issue a notice to the entire army, and even the whole country!" Her voice resounded throughout the hall, carrying an undeniable will, "The new imperial policy will never be changed by any threat! Anyone who attempts to use this to coerce the empire will be considered a traitor, guilty of the same crime as the two great empires!"

She doesn't need to compromise, and she won't be coerced.

This war is not only about destroying the external enemy, but also about taking this opportunity to uproot all the corrupt and wavering internal cancers!
……

Deep within the Soul Guidance Device Research Institute in Wuhun City.

Inside a laboratory filled with intricate soul guide circuits and metal components, Xuanming stood in front of a soul guide mech several meters tall, with sleek lines and a faint blue luster.

Subtle white divine power flowed from his fingertips, like the most skillful tool, adjusting the energy circuit of the mecha's core magic array.

The laboratory door slid open silently, and Bibi Dong appeared in the doorway, holding several of the latest battle reports. She glanced at Xuan Ming, who was focused on his mecha, and did not immediately disturb him.

Xuanming didn't turn his head, and his fingertips didn't stop moving:

"A crushing defeat?"

Bibi Dong walked to his side and placed the battle report on the metal table beside him: "As expected. The internal traitors are using this as an opportunity to force us to compromise."

"Hmm." Xuanming responded, seemingly unsurprised and even too lazy to comment. He finished adjusting the last energy node before slowly turning to look at Bibi Dong:

"When will they be able to regroup? Not all of them, just a few major attack clusters."

After a moment's thought, and combining intelligence from the front lines with the psychology of those who were "slacking off," Bibi Dong made a judgment: "Based on their current pace of advance and the extent to which those people inside are deliberately holding back, it will probably take about another month. On both the northern and southern fronts, it is expected that several main war zones with a force of over 300,000 will be formed."

“One month,” Xuanming repeated, his tone completely flat. “Then we’ll make our move in a month.” He didn’t ask for details or who the enemy was.

In his eyes, there was no difference between the armies of the two great empires and the Soul Masters within the Spirit Empire who outwardly obeyed but inwardly defied him, as long as they stood on the opposite side.

Bibi Dong watched him turn around again, focusing his attention back on the cold, soul-guided mecha, as if he had just made a trivial decision. A complex emotion flickered deep in her purple-gold eyes, but in the end, she said nothing and quietly turned and left.

She could vaguely guess Xuanming's methods; they were not the kind of battles fought on the battlefield, but a more direct, thorough, and cruel... purge.

A month later.

The situation unfolded almost exactly as Bibi Dong had predicted.

Under the dual pressure of "internal resistance" and external attacks, the army of the Martial Soul Empire suffered "retreats" and its defensive line continued to shrink.

Although Bibi Dong's ruthless orders executed a number of deserters, temporarily halting the rout, overall morale remained low, and the battle lines were barely maintained, preventing any further large-scale retreats.

Meanwhile, the morale of the Tiandou and Xingluo allied forces was soaring, and they continued to inject fresh troops into various war zones, making their forces increasingly formidable.

They saw the dawn of victory and believed that the destruction of the Martial Soul Empire was imminent.

Even the high-ranking officials of the two great empires and the old forces of the Martial Soul Empire who secretly cooperated began to celebrate and plan for a bright future after dividing up the fruits of victory.

Several elders in the Elder Hall could no longer sit still and repeatedly requested to personally lead the expedition to stabilize the war situation. They could not tolerate the empire's territory being lost so "easily." However, Bibi Dong firmly rejected their requests.

Even when Qian Renxue personally volunteered to lead the angel legion to the front lines to turn the tide of the battle with the power of the Angel God, Bibi Dong dismissed her with a single sentence: "Xuanming will handle it. There's no need for such a fuss."

Her attitude sparked more discontent and suspicion, with some believing that Her Majesty the Empress was relying too much on Xuanming, or even condoning the deterioration of the situation.

Until this day.

The latest battle report from the front lines indicates that after a month of "unstoppable advance," the allied forces of the two great empires have finally formed five major attack groups with highly concentrated forces and formidable momentum on both the northern and southern fronts!

Each cluster brings together more than 500,000 elite troops, including a large number of Soul Masters and Soul Guidance Legions, with their forces aimed directly at the core area of ​​the Spirit Empire's interior!
On this very day, the Xuanming, which had been dormant for so long, finally stirred.

He remained standing inside the research institute in Wuhun City, without even leaving the laboratory. But his vast and boundless divine sense, encompassing the entire continent, acted like an invisible radar, instantly locking onto the ten battlefields on both the north and south fronts, each as dazzling as a giant torch!

On every battlefield, the shouts of battle shook the heavens, the light of soul skills intertwined with the roar of soul-guided cannons, and the air was thick with the stench of blood and slaughter.

The armies of the two great empires were in high spirits, while the resistance of the Martial Soul Empire still appeared "weak and powerless" in many areas.

next moment--

An invisible wave, traveling at a speed exceeding the speed of light, traversed endless spatial distances and simultaneously descended upon the ten bustling battlefields!
There was no warning, no light, no sound.

But on the battlefield, whether it was the Heavenly Dou Knights charging forward, the Star Luo Soul Masters unleashing their soul skills, or the Spirit Empire soldiers putting up a "steady resistance"...

At the same instant, all living beings felt their souls being forcibly ripped from their bodies and plunged into an absolute, eternal, pure white realm where only self-awareness existed!

Divine Skill: Eternal Heaven!

This was not an attack, but a mental domain of unimaginable size that forcibly pulled the consciousness of all the soldiers and everyone on the ten battlefields into a mental world that was absolutely controlled by Xuanming!
In this pure white, eternal heaven, there is no up, down, left, or right; no time or space; only endless nothingness, and a cold, indifferent will, seemingly originating from the very source of the world, resounding like a divine oracle deep within every trapped soul:

"Submission...destruction?"

"choose one."

There were no threats, no attempts to persuade them to surrender, only two simple and direct options.

Like a god delivering the final judgment on ants.

The entire continent seemed to fall into a deathly silence at this moment. (End of Chapter)