Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Edited by Aelryinth
In the strange, unknown world…
The originally thick and disorderly volcanic ash that had spread through the skies was stirred up by a massive force, and scattered to the sides.
Endless numbers of densely packed strange creatures were gathered under the purplish-red sky. Their numbers were simply uncountable.
The strange pattern in the sky above the platform grew bigger and bigger up on the peak of the tall mountain. In the end, it started absorbing the aura emitted from the bodies of the massive horde.
Gradually, the smaller black vortexes packed together like honeycombs grew stronger. In the end, they turned into huge black tunnels in the space, connected to a distant world.
Seeing the black tunnels gradually stabilizing, the creatures around them grew frenzied and roared out one after another, the noise enveloping the heavens and earth.
As the black tunnels in the space stabilized, the countless petals of the gigantic demonic flower in the middle of the platform started dancing again. A massive wave of energy spread from inside the demonic flower, entering the countless black tunnels in the surroundings and fully stabilizing them.
After completing all this, the demonic flower seemed to have exhausted its energy. The petals quickly closed in and became a huge flower bud. It lost its ability to float in the air, and it slowly drifted to the ground in the center of the platform.
In a circle around the demonic flower, several dozen of those powerful strange creatures cried out sadly one after another. Afterwards, a frenzied look showed in their eyes again, and they suddenly opened their mouths, spitting out large mouthfuls of blood essence. The blood came together, forming a mass of incredibly pure energy, and sprinkled over the flower bud. The flower, which had dimmed in color after exhausting its energy, looked a little livelier.
The humans that acted as nodes in the energy network suddenly exploded simultaneously. A wave of energy that originated from deep in their bodies erupted, turning into countless dots of light, and flew into the black tunnels around them.
The doors of the black tunnels started opening!
——
On Mercury, ripples spread out in space at many remote lands. Afterwards, the cracks with those little strange patterns at the center appeared in the spaces quickly expanded, and finally solidified.
Large black doors suddenly appeared at where the space failed to resist them.
At that moment on Mercury, a tremendously powerful force suddenly enveloped the planet. Energy waves more fluid than water instantly swept across the bodies of every beastmaster, drawing out a tiny hint of an unknown energy.
The energies gathered together and turned into many complicated and profound talismanic runes.
The profound runes were invisible to the eye, and undetectable by the senses. They instantly fell into the newly appeared black doors.
In the strange world, as the black spatial tunnel doors opened, the countless strange creatures in the surroundings quickly gathered into neat formations, pouring into every black door like flows of water.
At this moment, however, a powerful restriction suddenly appeared in the tunnels, keeping those strange creatures that were above a certain threshold in strength outside. Only those who were weaker than the imposed limit could enter through the tunnel and head towards the other end.
On the platform atop the huge mountain, the several dozen most terrifyingly powerful strange creatures let out furious roars one after another when they felt the restriction in the tunnels. Waves of devastating energy powerful erupted from their bodies, slamming into the tunnels.
Even so, the restriction in the tunnels only shone for a moment, before returning to calm.
The several dozen powerful creatures could only let out furious roars filled with unwillingness, unable to do anything about it. They shifted their gazes back onto the huge flower bud at the center of the platform. However, the flower bud had already fallen into slumber, and showed no reaction.
——
In Mercury, at the desert to the west of Qin Zhou, Hua Xia…
Just as the crowd was starting to discuss about the spectacular battle, guessing what kind of terrifying weapon that little golden bell in Zhen Liu’s hand was, and why the scarlet light that shot out from Zhang Che’s brow was so powerful, an invisible ripple swept across every beastmaster. Although it was weak, their sharp senses took notice of it.
The whole area immediately fell silent. An inexplicable look of shock painted their faces, not knowing what exactly had just happened.
Zhang Che had naturally felt that inexplicable change, too, and it was likely that with the golden vortex, what he felt was more obvious than the others. It felt like a certain mysterious energy was peeled off him as the ripple swept through him.
-Exactly what just happened?- Zhang Che was shocked. He swept his gaze around. When he saw everyone else had the same look on them, he no longer hesitated and directly recalled the Jade-Shelled Mystic Tortoise, then flew back to the hill where the Huang family’s camp was located, riding the Winged Dragon Wind God.
Throughout the desert, no one cared about the duel. Instead, they gathered into small groups with the people they knew and summoned their subdued beasts, forming a defensive perimeter, ready to face whatever changes that might appear.
“Xiaoche, are you alright?” Huang Juyun asked worriedly when Zhang Che came back.
Although Zhang Che had flipped the tables on Zhen Liu and killed him swiftly, he had indeed fallen unconscious momentarily from Zhen Liu’s attack earlier. It would be bad news if there were any hidden injuries left behind.
That faint ripple from the heavens and earth didn’t represent any good news, either. Heavens knew what was going to happen next!
“I’m fine, Uncle Huang. Don’t worry.”
Huang Juyun and the surrounding people immediately relaxed a little… and then, Huang Juyun’s personal terminal suddenly vibrated violently.
He creased his brow, guessing that it was related to that ripple from earlier. He hurriedly opened up his personal terminal, and his face instantly sank.
It was someone high up in the military contacting him.
After a few simple words, the dark cloud around Huang Juyun’s face reached the point that rain was ready to fall from it. He immediately walked towards the camp with quick strides, and he ordered a few communications soldiers to start up a machine. An image immediately showed on the screen through an encrypted signal.
He didn’t know where the image was from, but from the angle, he could tell it was taken from the satellite.
That wasn’t the main point, however. In the center of the image, a cold, majestic black door was opened about a hundred meters up in the air.
The black door itself was over a hundred meters tall, and about fifty to sixty meters wide. All kinds of strange creatures were swarming out from the pitch black door.
Seeing this, everyone around couldn’t help but suck in a breath of cold air!
That door was definitely not a spatial gateway that connected to the beast world. Didn’t that mean that the powerful creatures from another world were about to descend upon Mercury?
Judging from the looks of the densely packed creatures coming out from the black door, they very much resembled those demonic creatures from legends, movies, and books. As they poured out crazily, a black fog spread and covered the skies, turning the place into something from the underworld.
“This is…” Zhang Che immediately thought of the black door that sucked him into a spatial tunnel when he saw the huge black door from the image.
Could it be that the place the black door was connected to was the world behind the demonic flower?
If that was true, then this was simply an apocalypse-like calamity for Mercury!
He didn’t know whether there was only one of those black doors, or…
Huang Juyun saw through what Zhang Che was thinking. He said with a grave expression and a solemn voice, “I just received news from the military. These black doors appeared in many remote locations across Mercury, numbering a total of a hundred and eight!
“Also, an endless swarm of those strange creatures are quickly pouring out from each of those doors, spreading out quickly.”
The looks on everyone’s faces changed tremendously. Was this… a demonic invasion?
This wasn’t happening only at the Huang family’s camp. Every faction at the desert quickly learned of the cruel news. An incredibly heavy atmosphere immediately shrouded the desert. Everyone lost their voices, desperation filling the bottom of their hearts.
The once-a-decade beast swarm already caused huge losses for Mercury. If another world invaded as well, it could be well imagined how difficult the living situation in Mercury would become!
“Everyone pack your things. Get ready to return right away!” Huang Juyun ordered with a loud, stern voice. His expression was still undergoing changes.
With such huge changes, as one of the central forces of the army, he definitely had to rush back to the military for a conference. Afterwards, he still had to hurry back to Qian Wei City and gather the elite forces to deal with the attack from those demonic creatures.
There was no one discussing about the duel. Compared to such a huge change, the life and death match between Zhang Che and Zhen Liu was nothing more than child’s play. No one would put it to heart.
Of course, as the losing side, perhaps the Zhen family would care.
After all, following Zhen Liu’s defeat, the Zhen family had not only lost a few powerful subdued beasts, the heavy bets they placed on themselves for this battle were destined to fall into the pockets of others. The hit to their clan was an incredibly heavy one!
—
About half an hour later, a series of passenger planes rushing over from the military zones nearby landed at the flat grounds in this area, bringing all those present away.
At the same time, news of the appearance of the black doors and the invasion of the demonic creatures had spread throughout Mercury. Every region was urgently mobilized, organizing the gathered beastmasters from every city, and sending people into the various beast worlds behind the spatial gateways to spread the news to every beastmaster they could contact.
Facing the countless demonic creatures that were pouring out from those black doors endlessly, there was no method other than for the humans on Mercury to unite all the beastmasters to resist them.
Of course, in the very beginning, it would probably be the military who went to test the waters. Once they were unable to resist those demonic creatures, the common beastmasters would have to be mobilized and fight for the survival of humanity.
——
In the control cabin of a large passenger plane, Zhang Che, Huang Tielan, Luo Wenjun and the others were seated with heavy expressions on their faces, looking at Huang Juyun talking with army command through a communication device.
After a while, Huang Juyun’s face seemed to relax a bit. After ending the call, he turned to them and said, “The latest news is that the exotic beasts that were driven away to the remote lands are fighting against those demonic creatures!”
