The Lord of Ashes

The Annihilation Dragon's advancement to quasi-Rank 9 and the small advantage led by the Reclaimer Su were merely minor consolations for the crumbling civilization amidst an overall precarious disadvantage.

The advantages gained by the crumbling civilization in those two war zones were difficult to rapidly expand to other war zones or radiate influence to more regions.

This was because the Six-Winged Demon Ancestor himself was a steady and pragmatic demonic tide quasi-Rank 9. While he couldn't withstand the newly advanced Annihilation Dragon Er'Gunde's sharp edge, he could still hold him back without much difficulty.

Furthermore, the recent defeats suffered by the war zone under the command of the Thunder Calamity Demon Ancestor were even less significant.

It was just the retreat of billions of demonic tide legions and a dozen or so Demon Emperors. There are victories and defeats, and the demonic tide civilization couldn't always be victorious. Many higher-ups considered such defeats in local battlefields to be normal.

Everywhere were the wreckage of warships.

Everywhere were ruins and the corpses of billions of living beings.

Everywhere were scenes of decline and withering.

The Five Great Calamities ravaged in turn, quasi-Rank 9 powerhouses took action one after another, and civilization treasure-level items were constantly bombarding!

If measured by the time flow of the Material Star Realm, perhaps no one would have imagined.

That in just a mere one or two hundred years, a once-prosperous top-tier technology-based civilization would have met its decline and desolation?!

One or two hundred years... In the Star Realm, some wars between medium-sized plane civilizations last longer than that.

But for the Zeus Shield Empire, this was the rapid timeframe for the empire's fall from grace.

...

Inside the Flashback World.

A thousand years had passed, and the fierce fighting on the Ultimate Battlefield was still ongoing.

The Zeus Shield Empire's space-based star destroyer fleet, after so long under siege, was still holding on tenaciously.

However, the energy rule shields on the surface of the starships, flickering with alternating brightness and darkness, as well as the many noticeable wounds already present on the hulls, all told of the great damage that the Emperor Famars' flagship had recently suffered.

The two civilizations had been fighting continuously for a thousand years, and a total of over a hundred Sovereigns had fallen in the Flashback World.

The Sovereign-level craters that dotted the Ultimate Battlefield were becoming more and more numerous.

The Zeus Shield Empire's legion, besieged by Saine and others for so long, had finally reached the end of its rope.

"Do you want to advance to Rank 9 and prevent the annihilation of the Zeus Shield Empire's legion?" The Derelict Temple, asked the Prophet Saria to the Fallen Emperor.

At this time, the Fallen Emperor remained silent, seemingly representing his attitude.

The Zeus Shield Empire's legion was clearly a foreign civilization that the Prophet Saria had drawn in. Even if someone were to advance to Rank 9, it should be the Prophet Saria, so what did it have to do with the Fallen Emperor?

Although the Fallen Emperor was silent at this time, his eyes and attitude had already proven many things.

Faced with the Fallen Emperor's unspoken question, the Prophet Saria gave an awkward laugh.

It was clear that he was also unwilling to advance to Rank 9 for the sake of the Zeus Shield Empire.

This dimensional hegemony war was perhaps really going to enter the next phase with the drastic changes in the Zeus Shield Empire's legion.

...

Fighting a technology-based civilization's quasi-Rank 9 combat power was, to some extent, much easier and smoother than Saine and the others' battle against the Bone Emperor back then.

This was because the Zeus Shield Empire's space-based star destroyer, as a machine and technological product, lacked the Sovereign's All-Encompassing Soul, which was its biggest weakness.

Especially after its outer fleet had been wiped out by the repeated attacks of the four God Crystals, the Five Great Calamities, and Saine and the others.

The space-based star destroyer, which seemed to have incredibly tough outer armor, had actually become a "big cake" flowing with honey.

Saine and the others only needed to cut it one slice at a time to reveal the most delicious parts inside.

At this time, Emperor Famars was at his wit's end.

The nearly seventy Sovereign-level combat units he had brought to the Flashback World had now been reduced to nothing but his underwear.

Of the Sovereign-level combat units that had fallen on the Ultimate Battlefield in the past thousand years, nearly half were from the Zeus Shield Empire.

Famars had indeed repeatedly ordered more fleets from the Material Star Realm to enter the Flashback World.

But this gambler, who had lost his mind, had not seen the so-called "reinforcements" appear in his sight until now.

It wasn't that the Zeus Shield Empire had abandoned them, but that those imperial fleets from the Material Star Realm had been forcibly intercepted halfway by the demonic tide civilization's blocking forces before they even reached the Ultimate Battlefield.

After all, the Zeus Shield Empire didn't have a civilization treasure like the Infinite Passage that could directly teleport its legions to any coordinate node.

At this time, the space-based star destroyer had suffered more than 60% damage.

The continuous attacks from Saine and others had not only caused extremely heavy damage to the space-based star destroyer, but had also sent a large number of mid- and low-level creatures into the interior of the space-based starship fleet to wreak havoc!

This was another important reason why the space-based starship fleet had rapidly declined from its peak in just a thousand years!

If it were another cultivation-based quasi-Rank 9 existence from the Material Star Realm, it would be difficult for any number of mid- and low-level creatures to have a deep impact on it.

But technology-based civilizations were different. Many ants could kill an elephant. The collapse of the space-based starship from the inside out was gradually revealing to Saine the new harvest he was about to obtain.

And in this increasingly desperate and difficult moment, Famars, as an eighth-level peak cyborg, did not hysterically rush out to fight Saine and the others to the death. Instead, he had been holed up in the deepest part of the space-based starship for hundreds of years, not knowing what he was doing.

Feedback from the Cube and the Net let Saine know that the space-based starship had indeed had extremely large energy fluctuations recently.

However, it was obviously wishful thinking for Famars to want to detonate the space-based starship and perish together with Saine and the others.

Not to mention whether he could hurt Saine and the others, just setting up such a large quasi-Rank 9 starship for self-destruction was not something that could be completed in the short term.

Saine had also infiltrated the control center of the space-based starship through the Net.

If the demonic tide civilization could infect all creatures, and the crumbling civilization could silently corrupt any dissenting existence, then what Saine's Net and mechanical power targeted was precisely everything about these technology-based civilizations.

Meeting Saine on the dimensional battlefield could only be considered Famars' bad luck.