I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

The battle has entered its thirtieth minute.

But for the Kunlun disciples who were currently suspended above the East China Sea, this short half hour felt longer than any year in their lives.

Spiritual power is not limitless.

Especially for this student corps, where even the Foundation Establishment stage is relatively rare, the high-intensity sword-wielding combat caused their dantian to feel like a squeezed-out sponge, sending waves of intense pain through them.

"A Qi-restoring pill! Does anyone still have a Qi-restoring pill?!"

A student roared as his flying sword dimmed. He had just taken a hit from a sea monster's bone spike to save a fellow disciple. His left arm was covered in blood, but he felt no pain, only numbness.

"That's all... Senior brother, we ate it all!"

A student's sob was filled with despair.

Below, the once azure sea had turned into a nauseating dark red.

The corpses piled up like mountains, but more black monsters trampled over the corpses of their companions, like a tireless horde of zombies, surging wave after wave towards the aerial defenses.

They don't need spiritual power; they only need flesh and blood.

……

At the forefront of the battle, Zhao Feng was fighting desperately.

At this moment, he was surrounded by more than a dozen Foundation Establishment stage "Ironbone Shark Demons".

These monsters are covered in black bone armor that is comparable to steel; ordinary flying swords can only send up a string of sparks when they hit them.

Zhao Feng's spiritual energy was almost depleted.

His face was ashen, his hand gripping the sword trembled violently, and sweat mixed with blood blurred his vision.

"clang!"

A shark demon's massive tail lashed out at his shield.

With a crack, the shield shattered.

The immense impact made his throat taste sweet, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

"Senior Brother Zhao!!!" came an exclamation from behind.

"Don't come any closer! Hold the line!"

Zhao Feng sternly stopped his companions who wanted to come to the rescue. He knew that if the formation was disrupted, all his junior brothers and sisters would die.

He stared intently at the group of ferocious monsters before him, a resolute ruthlessness flashing in his eyes.

That was the ruthlessness he had developed during his military career before he even joined the army—ruthless to the enemy, and even more ruthless to himself.

He suddenly bit his tongue, spitting out a mouthful of extremely pure heart blood directly onto the flying sword in his hand.

"Red Makeup! Lend me your life!"

Zhao Feng growled.

Om-!

The red flying sword, which had already lost its luster, suddenly emitted a mournful sword cry after absorbing this mouthful of essence blood.

The sword instantly turned blood red, as if it had come to life and began to pulsate.

A phantom-like figure in red appeared silently behind Zhao Feng.

That was the spirit of the Red Makeup Sword.

She watched as Zhao Feng's face rapidly turned ashen; he was burning his lifespan to gain power.

A complex emotion flashed in her eyes, a mixture of heartache and mockery.

"Fool."

A cool, aloof female voice rang out in Zhao Feng's mind:

"Is it worth burning through so much of your lifespan for people who have no blood relation to you?"

Zhao Feng grinned.

Blood trickled down his teeth, but he didn't wipe it away.

He slowly raised his head, his gaze passing over the churning dust, fixed on the darkness ahead that was about to be swallowed up.

"I served in the military."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was unusually steady.

"At that time, none of the people standing behind me were related to me by blood."

After a brief pause, he took a deep breath, as if he were standing at attention again.

"Now, I am their senior."

"As long as I'm standing, it's not their turn to die."

He remained silent for a moment in his mind.

For the first time, that voice carried emotion.

"...As you wish."

The red-clad sword spirit sighed softly, its illusory figure transforming into a streak of crimson light, rushing forward without hesitation until it completely overlapped with Zhao Feng's form.

boom!

A surge of violent, blood-red spiritual energy erupted from Zhao Feng's body.

His previously hunched back straightened instantly, and the red-clad sword in his hand swelled to three zhang in length. The sword energy was no longer a flowing stream of light, but rather like tangible blood plasma.

"Kunlun Forbidden Technique - Blood Sacrifice Slash!"

Zhao Feng gripped his sword with both hands, ignoring the excruciating pain from his palms being cut by the sword energy, and slashed fiercely at the beast horde in front of him.

This sword strike seeks not immortality, but only to kill.

Pfft!!!

Those dozen or so bronze-skinned, iron-boned shark demons were neatly sliced ​​open like tofu by this sword.

Even the sea behind it was cleaved open by this sword, creating a vacuum zone a hundred meters long.

The power of this attack briefly reached the threshold of the Golden Core stage!

But the cost was also heavy.

With a single swing of his sword, Zhao Feng appeared to have aged ten years; his once jet-black hair instantly turned white at the temples, and he fell straight backward.

"Is this... the limit...?"

As Zhao Feng watched the endless surging tide of beasts, his vision began to blur.

Just then.

……

The summit of Kunlun.

Gu Qing stood there, like an emotionless statue.

Until a specially made communication jade slip in his arms began to vibrate wildly.

That was a dedicated line directly connecting to the highest command headquarters of Bureau 749.

connected.

The anxious yet extremely firm voice of Director Li Guozhong came from the other end:

"Dean Gu! I am Li Guozhong!"

"This is the Eastern Theater Command Joint Command!"

"Our radar shows the students are about to collapse! Requesting fire coverage! (Repeatedly, requesting fire coverage!)"

"Please have your students give way immediately! Increase altitude to over two thousand meters!"

"No matter what those things are, as long as they're on Chinese soil, I'll blow them to smithereens!"

Gu Qing looked at Zhao Feng, who was teetering on the edge of his body, in the water mirror, and then at the children who were still fighting to the death.

He took a deep breath, and his voice, transmitted through his divine sense, instantly covered the entire East China Sea.

"All Kunlun disciples, heed my command."

"Everyone, immediately ascend! Disengage! Clear the battlefield below!"

……

East China Sea battlefield.

Zhao Feng heard that familiar voice as he fell.

"The Dean?"

Although they didn't know why they had to retreat, out of absolute trust in Gu Qing, all the disciples who could still move forcibly gathered their qi, and some grabbed the falling Zhao Feng and desperately rushed towards the sky.

Just as they were 500 meters above the sea.

The sky was torn apart.

Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—

That was a terrifying howl that mortals couldn't hear, but cultivators could clearly perceive with their divine sense.

Dozens of "long swords" trailing white flames roared in from the horizon hundreds of kilometers away.

They showed no signs of spiritual energy fluctuations, nor any sword intent.

Only a pure, cold, killing intent representing the pinnacle of industrial civilization.

Zhao Feng struggled to open his eyes, and what he saw was the most spectacular sight he had ever witnessed in his life.

"That is..."

The red-clad sword spirit beside him even shrank back its sword in fear: "Such a powerful aura of destruction... Without spiritual power, why is there such a strong aura of destruction?"

next second.

The missiles accurately struck the center of the beast tide in front of the rift.

boom!!!

boom!!!

boom!!!

It looked as if dozens of suns were rising on the sea at the same time.

The blinding light even overshadowed the sword light, and the huge shockwave, mixed with countless shrapnel, created a steel storm on the sea.

Those Iron-Bone Shark Demons that Zhao Feng had just needed to burn his life essence to cut through were as fragile as paper toys in the face of this explosion originating from the peak of chemical energy.

The intense heat instantly vaporized the seawater, evaporating it along with the monster inside.

Thousands of monsters vanished in that instant.

Not even a trace was left.

But this is just the prelude.

Immediately afterwards, a dense "meteor shower" appeared on the horizon.

That was a salvo from the Army's long-range rocket artillery brigade.

Hundreds of rockets, carrying the whistle of death, were like divine punishment, indiscriminately bombarding this sea area.

Rumble rumble rumble—

The sea is roaring, and the earth is trembling.

The sea area within a radius of ten kilometers seemed to have been brutally plowed by an invisible giant hand.

The purplish-black seawater was blasted into murky mud, and countless severed limbs flew hundreds of meters into the air with the flames of the explosion, even splashing onto the shields of the group of cultivators.

midair.

The Kunlun disciples, who had just been fighting to the death, were now completely stunned.

They hovered two thousand meters in the air, looking down at the hellish scene below, their mouths agape, forgetting even to breathe.

They are the chosen ones.

They are the immortals of the future.

They believed that mortals were nothing more than lambs to the slaughter in the face of demons.

Until this moment.

As the soul-chilling saturation attack unfolded before his eyes, Zhao Feng looked at the Crimson Makeup Sword in his hand, the very sword he had just barely managed to kill a dozen monsters, and suddenly felt a sense of irony.

He risked his life to kill just over a dozen of them.

For ordinary people, it was simply pressing a button with their finger.

Tens of thousands of monsters were reduced to ashes.

"Is this... the power of mortals?"

The red-clad sword spirit's voice trembled. In her era, she had never seen such a spectacle. "Without spiritual energy, yet able to summon heavenly thunder and earthly fire... this is illogical."

Gu Qing's voice rang in everyone's minds again, carrying a seriousness never before seen:

"Did you see it clearly?"

"These are the people you are meant to protect."

"They have no spiritual roots and cannot live forever."

"But they...were never ants."

Although the communication channel was unreachable, the deafening explosions were the most powerful response the mortal army could give to these cultivators.

As long as we are here, you are not fighting alone.