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

Tank formations were firing, rocket launchers were firing in salvos, and missiles streaked across the night sky, leaving trails of flame.

But this black tide was more ferocious than any before, because what emerged from the tide were no longer the same old bone-eating worms and steel behemoths.

This time, what emerged was something from the mythology of the Great Xia Dynasty.

The first thing to appear in the searchlight beam was a Qiongqi.

Its appearance resembles a giant tiger with wings on its back, its entire body covered in dark red fur, and its fangs extending from the corners of its mouth to its chin like two rows of inverted daggers.

It pounced into the tank formation, flipping over a main battle tank with a single claw, as if it were fiddling with a cardboard box.

Next came a nine-headed baby.

A giant serpent with nine heads rose from the black tide, each head spewing venom of a different color. Wherever the venom passed, the ground was corroded into bottomless pits, and the screams of the soldiers were drowned out by hissing.

Then there's the Taotie.

A monster whose size cannot be described.

Its mouth takes up two-thirds of its entire body, and when it opens, it looks like a door leading to an abyss.

It swallowed several retreating armored vehicles whole, along with the people inside, into its bottomless throat.

Further away, there are Taotie, Chaos, Kui Niu, Bi Fang, and Zhu Long.

Those creatures whose names existed only on yellowed pages now emerged from the black tide, their forms savage and madness, fueled by corruption, as they pressed towards humanity's defenses.

The soldiers broke down.

Some people knelt on the ground and kowtowed in the direction of the Candle Dragon.

Someone threw down his gun, turned and ran, but was dragged back by an officer and slapped across the face. Then he cried and crawled back into his bunker.

The faith of the Bactrian people is collapsing.

They grew up listening to stories of these mythical beasts, who were guardians, auspicious creatures, and totems etched into their blood.

But now they emerge from the black tide, their eyes blood-red, their fangs stained with human blood.

This is not a myth.

This is a nightmare.

"No retreating! Anyone who retreats will be shot!"

Xuan Yuancheng's voice boomed over the radio, hoarse and violent.

But with one arm missing, all he could do was hold the line.

Gu Yan stood at the highest point of the city wall.

He drew his demon-slaying sword, its blade gleaming with a cold light.

This knife has been with him for many years, from the secret realm of the South China Sea to the underground boxing ring in South Africa, from the Nagoya Pass to the Shanglu Beach.

The anti-slip cord on the knife handle had been worn shiny by his hands.

He closed his eyes, and a seven-colored light exploded from the depths of his pupils, covering the entire defensive line.

The mental storm, like an invisible giant net, pressed down on those mythical creatures.

Qiongqi was the first to be struck by his mental power.

Its massive body suddenly froze, its blood-red eyes twitched violently, and then turned into a rainbow of colors.

It turned around and pounced on a Taotie behind it.

The two giant beasts rolled together, biting and colliding, causing the earth to shake violently.

The nine heads of the Nine-Headed Serpent turned towards Gu Yan at the same time, spraying nine streams of venom at him.

Gu Yan dodged to the side, the Demon-Slaying Blade drawing an arc in the air, its blade energy cleaving the three streams of poison in two.

He used a piece of flying debris as leverage to lunge towards Jiuying.

The Demon-Slaying Blade pierced the crown of the nine-headed infant's very center, and the runes on the blade lit up, blasting the head into fragments from the inside out.

The nine-headed infant let out a mournful howl, and its other eight heads frantically lunged at him.

He flipped in mid-air, his demon-slaying blade slashing three times, and three more heads fell to the ground.

Black blood sprayed all over him. He landed on the torso of the Nine-Headed Serpent, plunged the knife into its heart, and used his mental power to completely crush its consciousness.

The Taotie opened its mouth towards him.

That mouth was so big it could swallow an entire building.

Gu Yan did not dodge.

He stood on the city wall, the seven-colored light in his pupils shining brightest.

His spiritual energy condensed into an extremely thin and bright beam of light, which shot into the Taotie's mouth and pierced through its throat from the inside.

The gluttonous beast stopped swallowing.

A faint hint of confusion flashed in its pitifully small eyes, then its massive body fell backward, smashing a large swarm of bone-eating worms charging through the black tide.

The Candle Dragon rose into the sky.

Its body occupied half of the night sky, one eye was the sun, and the other eye was the moon.

It spewed a burst of flame toward the defensive line, the temperature of which was so high that it ignited the air.

Gu Yan stepped forward, holding the Demon-Slaying Blade horizontally in front of her. All the runes on the blade lit up, forming a shield of light.

The flames struck the light shield, pushing him back more than ten meters.

His boots carved two deep furrows into the city wall.

But he did not back down.

He charged forward against the flames, inch by inch, like a fish swimming upstream against a waterfall.

When he rushed to Zhulong, half of his clothes were burned off, and his hair and eyebrows were singed.

But he didn't stop.

He cleaved the dragon's reverse scale with his blade, the blade breaking through the scales and piercing its throat.

The flames of the Candle Dragon went out, its two eyes went dark at the same time, and its huge body fell from the sky, crashing onto the open ground in front of the defensive line, raising a cloud of dust.

The battle raged from dawn until daybreak, and then from daybreak until dusk.

Gu Yan had no idea how many she had killed.

All he knew was that the blade of the Demon-Slaying Blade was bent, his spiritual power was almost exhausted, but the black tide was still surging.

He stood amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, his seven-colored light now dimmed like a candle flame in the wind.

Then he heard cheers.

The Kuroshio Current has receded.

The defense line held.

What he didn't know was that every moment of the battle was being broadcast live to the world by battlefield drones.

Billions of people watched as the young man wielding the Demon-Slaying Blade fought his way through mythical monsters, turning Qiongqi into his minions, severing the heads of Jiuying one by one, piercing Taotie from the inside, and cleaving Zhulong down from the sky.

After the live stream ended, the global power rankings were updated.

Yuzuru's assistant has been promoted to first place.

Once the number one, the oldest and most prestigious place in America, it is now ranked second.

The old man's name was Augustus Ambrose.

No one knows how long he lived.

The North American theater was able to maintain its last line of defense entirely because of him.

Legend has it that he was a superhuman who existed before the founding of the United States. He single-handedly turned the tide of the war during the Revolutionary War and went into seclusion during the Civil War.

His last public appearance was at the beginning of the Kuroshio War, when he stood alone on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, blocking the Kuroshio for a full day and night.

He then became the pillar of strength in the North American theater.

But now, he's behind Gu Yan in line.

Gu Yan sat on the ruins of the city wall, holding the dulled Demon-Slaying Blade in her hand.

His face was covered in blood, it was impossible to tell whether it was his own or from the calamity.

His body was trembling, and his mental energy was severely depleted.

But his eyes were very bright, frighteningly bright.

He did it.

He killed an SSS-level enemy.

He held the line.

He's on the right track.

As long as he continues to grow stronger, he can end all of this.

This idea took deeper and deeper root in his mind.