I raised stunning young ladies, but they all wanted to possess me.

After Li Xuanzhen struck out with that palm, his right arm turned to ashes, which were scattered by the wind from his fingers to his shoulder.

The body then began to disintegrate.

He stood with half his body on the pass, his eyes still open, his gaze fixed on the transport ship that was taking off behind him.

Then even that half shattered. His ancient martial arts essence had been completely burned away, turning into the still-glowing golden dust below the pass along with his life.

Just then, a new type of calamity, never before recorded, emerged from the rift.

It was even shorter than an average human, and its entire body was covered in dark gold scales.

It stood in the very center of the pass, its pale golden vertical pupils sweeping over the still-burning battlefield and the mountains of corpses, before it spoke.

"You can't hold it."

"Surrender."

The entire battlefield was deathly silent for several seconds.

Then a second humanoid creature emerged from the rift, wearing a tattered bulletproof vest and a charred military tag hanging on its chest. The lettering on the tag was still faintly discernible, bearing the number of the Russian Federation Icefield Commando Unit.

Its face no longer resembled a human's; scales spread from around its eyes to its jawline. However, when it spoke, its tone was more fluent than the previous one, even carrying a slight Siberian accent.

"My name is Ivan."

"I am a human being."

"once."

It drew its saber.

"If I become like someone else, at least I can keep living."

Yuzuru stood at the highest point of the pass, the blade of his pheasant sword still dripping with the blood of a Titan.

Point the blade at the ground.

"No matter what you used to be."

"You are now blocking our way home."

"Get out of the way."

Ivan did not move aside.

He remained silent for a while, then drew his military knife.

Yuzuru's pheasant sword clashed head-on with him.

Behind her, Lin Jinyu's golden flames burned through the chest cavity of the third Titan.

Pei Youyi's wind wall firmly held off yet another breath attack from the skeletal dragon.

Gu Yan precisely pierced the power of the Mirror Flower Seal into the will wrapped in the scales of the other party, pulling out a blurry voice from the depths of that chest cavity.

The voice said three words, which no one else could hear, but Ivan heard them clearly.

He suddenly stopped moving, and the murderous intent in his vertical pupils gradually faded, turning into a deep, profound bewilderment.

Then he turned around and used his saber to cleave the still-charging steel colossus behind the battlefield, one strike, two strikes, until the saber broke and he fell to the ground.

His eyes turned back to light blue, and he opened his mouth, mouthing out a single word.

The pronunciation of that word was unclear, as if it hadn't been used in a long time, but he did say it.

go.

All civilians have boarded the ships and safely evacuated into the territorial waters.

A protective force field was deployed on the sea surface, and the guns of the warships, ready for action, were pointed towards the coast.

Yuzuru planted his pheasant sword into the ground and sealed the entire pass with the Chiyomiya family's final sealing formation.

The valley in front of the pass, which was once full of wildflowers, along with the countless skeletons buried beneath it, was swallowed up by the slowly closing crack of light and shadow.

Gu Yan stood at the pass and looked back.

Those who died.

Li Xuanzhen's shattered half of his body remained in the posture facing the pass.

The deputy captain took Han Jae-hee's commando armband off and tied it to the only pine branch on the position that wasn't charred.

Sakamoto Shingo's disciples pulled their master's broken sword from the stone slab. The family crest on the hilt was soaked in blood and glowed with a dark red light in the morning light.

Rain began to fall from the sky, gently and softly, washing away the last trace of expression on the faces of those who could never return home.

......

Panoramic footage of the Battle of Nagoya's western pass spread around the world in less than half a day after the battle.

In the aerial footage, the valley, repeatedly ravaged by artillery fire, is a jumble of catastrophic debris and the remains of human soldiers.

Sakamoto Shingo's broken sword was stuck in the crack of the stone slab, Han Jae-hee's commando armband was tied to the only pine branch that was not charred, and the spot where Lee Hyun-jin turned into golden dust was carved into the ground by his orderly with a military dagger.

The afterglow of Chiyomiya Rei's sealing array still flickered faintly above the pass, like an eye that refused to close.

The host in the studio remained silent for a long time before finally speaking.

Her voice was hoarse and restrained, as if she was using all her professionalism to suppress the sob in her throat.

"As of midnight today, the following individuals have been confirmed dead: Sakamoto Shingo, the Sword Saint of the Sakura Kingdom; Xuanweizi, the former head of the Kunlun Sword Sect; Li Xuanzhen, the first elder of the Great Xia Ancient Martial Arts; Chiyomiya Rei, the former chief priestess of the Chiyomiya family; and Han Jae-hee, the captain of the East Asia Theater Lightning Commando Team."

"All the hidden talents of the Cherry Blossom Country perished in the western pass of Nagoya."

"More than half of the high-ranking combat personnel dispatched by Great Xia, the Russian Federation, and Southeast Asian countries have been killed or wounded."

"The Eastern Theater Command paid an extremely heavy price in this defensive battle."

The scene then cuts to the emergency meeting of the Global Superpowers Association.

Representatives from various war zones sat on both sides of the long table. Some remained silent, some clenched their fists, and some lowered their heads, unable to look at the scrolling list of fallen soldiers on the screen.

There was only one core topic at the meeting.

The main direction of the Black Tide attack has been determined to be the Eastern War Zone, and troops and strong warriors must be immediately transferred from other war zones to provide support.

The representative from the North American theater was the first to express his opinion.

He carried the star insignia of a United States Army general on his shoulder, and sat beside him an elderly man with graying temples, wearing a dark blue navy coat.

The old man didn't say a word the whole time; he simply folded a pair of white gloves and placed them on the table.

But everyone present recognized him.

Joseph, the commander-in-chief of the Seventh Pacific Fleet, is a distant relative of the Chen family of Great Xia and is a distant cousin of Cecilia Chen.

His fleet is crossing the Pacific at full speed. An expeditionary force of dozens of destroyers and cruisers has crossed the International Date Line and is expected to reach the fifth line of defense in the East China Sea within days.

The representative from the South American theater then spoke.

Sitting next to him was an old woman with dark skin, wearing an Amazon tribal totem necklace around her neck.

She wasn't wearing a military uniform, but rather a colorful, hand-woven fabric, yet no one in the entire venue dared to underestimate her.

Ikana, the leader of the voodoo priests in the Amazon basin.

The rainforest tribe behind her had sent hundreds of voodoo warriors and dozens of curse sorcerers to board the plane with the special forces.

The aircraft are crossing the Pacific Ocean and will rendezvous with the Eastern Theater Command within hours.

The Nordic Command representative said that Marshal Andrejevich, commander of the Finnish Aurora Fortress, has personally led the Snow Special Forces Division onto the plane, and the transport planes spanning Eurasia will arrive before dawn tomorrow.

The representative from the Central African Theater only said one sentence.

We didn't have many soldiers, but we sent them all.

The speaker was Nwanko, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Central African Joint Defense Force, who led the team. Accompanying him were the only two remaining S-class superhumans in the entire Central African theater. He said that there were no more S-class calamities on our defense line; they had all come to the east.