Chapter 154: Battling a Desolate Beast (2)
At that moment, Lonely Skyleap suddenly issued another command. “Wind the gears and move back! Release the bait!”
As the soldiers moved to carry out his command, the sounds of massive gears rumbling as they ground against each other could be heard echoing through Sky City as it actually began to move backwards.
Yes, even though Sky City was locked in place by the Deep Sea Anchor, this immobility was only in a macro sense. In actuality, it was still able to move around within a small confined area, and its limiting factor was the pliability of the Deep Sea Anchor.
The chains were about 8800 feet long, which wasn’t particularly short. But given the fact that it was restricting an entire city, it couldn’t be considered very long either. Sky City was like a vicious bulldog on a short leash, so it couldn’t move very far.
However, it was still enough to avoid the toad’s attack.
Sky City’s chain tightened as its Sark’s Nucleus was activated to its greatest extent. A massive column of air suddenly rose into the sky.
This column of air was even thicker than the Nine Dragons Hurricane Formation, but it didn’t seem to pose any threat to anyone.
However, this column of air was very meaningful to Su Chen — it indicated where Sark’s Nucleus was located.
After glancing deeply at the direction of the air column, Su Chen changed focus yet again.
He watched as the Thousand Poisons Toad began to fall through the sky, narrowly brushing past Sky City.
At the same time that it fell, however, it opened its mouth and unleashed its heavy tongue. As the tongue snaked out of its mouth, it quickly slammed into one of the city’s walls.
That section of wall immediately crumbled under the tongue’s immense weight, as if it had been simultaneously struck by hundreds of Arcana Techniques. The hundreds of soldiers stationed on top of that section of wall all immediately lost their lives.
Even so, Lonely Skyleap didn’t even spare that commotion a glance. He continued to issue commands. “Brilliant Light platoon, gather all of your strength. Prepare the Sun-Shattering Cannon!”
The thirty columns of light merged once again. This time, there were three columns of light, each powered by ten thousand mirrors. The offensive power of the columns of light surged yet again as the members of the Brilliant Light Platoon also began to physically group up. This attack was equivalent in power to a Tenth-Ring Arcana Technique, just shy of touching the legendary realm. However, it could reach incredibly long distances, and was impossible to block.
The powerful columns of light slammed into the Thousand Poisons Toad, causing it to finally feel a twinge of pain.
“ROAR!” the Thousand Poisons Toad bellowed angrily.
However, Lonely Skyleap didn’t care about what the toad felt at this point. The battle had already broken out, so there was no longer any room for them to retreat.
An instant later, Lonely Skyleap once again issued another command. This time, thousands of Sun-Shattering Cannons unleashed a vicious barrage at the Thousand Poisons Toad.
However, even though these cannons appeared incredibly powerful, they weren’t even close to being as effective as the three brilliant light columns.
The Sun-Shattering Cannons were about as powerful as a Sixth-Ring or Seventh-Ring Arcana Technique each. Under normal circumstances, they would be much more effective than the columns of brilliant light due to how many of them there were.
However, against a Desolate Beast, any attack weaker than the Eighth-Ring was essentially useless.
Even then, Eighth-Ring attacks would only give the Desolate Beast a pricking sensation, while a Ninth-Ring attack would feel like a bug bite. As such, even though the cannons boomed deafeningly, the Thousand Poisons Toad didn’t feel threatened in the slightest.
The cannonfire’s actual purpose was to disperse the clouds of poisonous fog and help bear some of the burden on the Nine Dragons Hurricane Formations.
This was because the Thousand Poisons Toad was attacking again.
Another wave of poison surged forwards at the same time.
This time, it was impossible for Sky City to dodge the attack.
Lonely Skyleap didn’t choose to try to do so either. Instead, he commanded, “Release the gears and attack!”
The Thousand Poisons Toad discovered that, as it was leaping toward the wall, the walls of Sky City were also moving in its own direction.
The outer wall of the city crashed into the Thousand Poisons Toad. The area that bore the brunt of the impact were the newly developed areas, which had all been evacuated before the battle began. At this point, Lonely Skyleap and Eternal Night were prepared to sacrifice besides the main core of the city itself. If Lonely Skyleap wasn’t willing to put all of his eggs in one basket, then he would never have become such a renowned general in the first place.
Sky City crashed into the toad’s back. Even the Thousand Poisons Toad was unable to bear this burden, and it cried out in pain.
The vast momentum of Sky City made this attack even more powerful than any forbidden Arcana Technique.
At the same time, Lonely Skyleap issued another command. “Thunder God Cannon, fire! Black Fiend Chariots, fire!”
The cannon suspended above the Perpetual Daylight Palace fired.
Boom!
An ear-splitting thunderclap shattered the air as a shocking ball of lightning exploded out.
This ball of lightning was a hundred feet in diameter, and had a shocking amount of aggregated lightning power contained inside. Su Chen was also a Ninth-Ring Thunder Arcana Master, but he had never before seen anyone create a lightning ball this large or this dense.
Forbidden!
This really was as powerful as a forbidden Arcana Technique!
The cannon slammed into the Thousand Poisons Toad’s body right into the weak spot that had been identified earlier, sending a spurt of blood into the air.
“ROAR!”
The Thousand Poisons Toad cried out in pain yet again.
This time, however, the pain it felt was much more intense than the previous bug bites.
At the same time, the Black Fiend Chariots on the city walls also fired, each one unleashing thousands of crossbow bolts in half a second. Since hundreds of chariots were firing, that meant that the volley consisted of a hundred thousand Annihilation Bolts. As the overwhelming number of attacks flew through the sky, they turned into a wall of spikes that descended upon the toad.
The Black Fiend Chariots were unlike the Sun-Shattering Cannons. The Annihilation Bolts they fired did less overall damage, but their penetrative ability was much higher. They could directly bypass most barriers, and even some Grade Two or Grade One armors. These bolts were originally designed to bypass Origin Tool barriers, but their high cost had eventually led to them being put aside. The Harpies had managed to get their hands on them and had incorporated them into the city’s defenses long ago.
Against humans, the Black Fiend Chariots weren’t nearly as effective as the Sun-Shattering Cannons. Creating their bolts was costly, and loading them into the actual crossbow was a huge pain; thus, they were difficult to use repeatedly. However, they were useful to a certain degree against Desolate Beasts.
These Annihilation Bolts also felt like mosquito bites to the Desolate Beast, but even mosquito bites, when they numbered in the hundreds of thousands, could kill a person.
In some sense, the Annihilation Bolts did even more damage than the Thunder God Cannon.
In addition, these Annihilation Bolts were aimed right at where the Thunder God Cannon had just struck the Desolate Beast moments ago.
Sky City’s “punch,” the Thunder God Cannon’s attack, and the Black Fiend Chariots’ barrage were all a part of the meticulous preparations that Sky City had made for the Thousand Poisons Toad. The Thousand Poisons Toad had suffered a serious blow this time.
Lonely Skyleap didn’t hold back in the slightest. He had immediately unleashed his full might against his opponent.
He had no choice. Even if he wanted to save a trump card and unleash a surprise killing blow at an opportune time, that kind of logic only worked against conventional enemies.
Even though the Thousand Poisons Toad was a bit dazed by this sudden barrage of attacks, it was only to the point of an adult who had just been clocked in the face by a child.
It was surprised, and it might have been knocked down, but did these bugs really think they would be able to kill it with that round of attacks?
Quite the contrary. Its anger burned even more hotly now.
The Thousand Poisons Toad was infuriated at this point.
It leapt into the air again, this time landing right outside Sky City. Its long tongue stretched through the air once again, slamming into the city’s walls just like last time.
This time, however, its attack was much less effective than before.
At the exact same time that it stuck its tongue out, the ninety-nine Sun-Shooting Pearls began to glow, covering the entire city in their radiance.
The toad’s tongue collided with this glowing barrier of light, sending rainbow rays scattering in all directions.
There were so many rainbows that it was almost as densely packed as the poison fog, filling up the entire sky.
Barriers would normally fluoresce in this manner when struck, but an attack that could fill the sky with rainbows light could have only come from a Desolate Beast’s attack. The awe-inspiring sight was actually not that surprising.
Even so, this ferocious attack wasn’t actually able to cause Sky City any harm.
Sky City’s barriers were powered by Sark’s Nucleus, which was more than powerful enough to withstand this attack. In addition, because Sark’s Nucleus was directly connected to the Origin Energy Sea, this barrier was essentially supplied with an unlimited supply of energy.
Of course, even with that, this barrier was not invincible. The barrier depended not only on this constant supply of energy, but also the Origin Formation itself, the person maintaining it, and those Sun-Shooting Pearls mounted on top of those towers.
When an attack was extremely powerful, the barrier might not run out of energy, the objects supporting the barrier might not be able to withstand the blow.
The Thousand Poisons Toad followed up with two more strikes in quick succession. The Arcana Masters on top of the towers fell to the floor, their faces pale white.
The Desolate Beast’s attack was much mightier than any human army was possibly capable of unleashing. No wonder they were in such a terrible condition.
Even so, this was only the beginning of the battle.
Now that the Desolate Beast was completely enraged, it was bringing its full strength to bear. All creatures before it could only tremble in trepidation at its presence.
When the Thousand Poisons Toad realized that it still hadn’t shattered the barrier, it howled in frustration and stubbornly rammed its head at the barrier.
This ram almost seemed like a mountain careening in the direction of the city.
No, this attack was even fiercer — it was more like a whole mountain range descending from the sky. The barrier might be able to absorb this attack, but the ninety-nine Eighth-Ring Arcana Masters supporting the barrier would most likely die on the spot to do so.
At that moment, Lonely Skyleap yelled, “Constellation Shift!”
The glow of starlight suddenly illuminated the sky.
Under the shining starlight, everything seemed to suddenly turn ephemeral.
The Thousand Poisons Toad’s attack course seemed to have suddenly been slightly altered. Instead of crashing into the barrier head-on, it merely glanced off the surface. Once again, ray of diffracted light scattered in all directions. The toad fell onto the ground hard, the impact causing the outskirts of Sky City to directly crumble away.
“Spatial method power,” Su Chen blurted out when he saw this scene.
Lonely Skyleap had just used spatial method power.
However, this spatial power didn’t belong to him, but rather to Sky City. This was probably the work of a massive Origin Energy Formation.
This massive hidden Origin Energy Formation had somehow harnessed spatial method power, and through it gained the ability to redirect attacks when activated.
However, the Desolate Beast was just simply too powerful. Even the Constellation Shift formation wasn’t able to fully divert the power of the Desolate Beast’s attack. Even though its head had merely glanced off the barrier, it had nonetheless killed a few dozen soldiers due to the violent nature of impact.
Even so, to the Thousand Poisons Toad, this kind of outcome was completely dissatisfactory.
It howled with rage yet again.
An instant later, the poisonous clouds in the sky suddenly twisted, as if they were about to transform.
