Chapter 448: Emergency

"Fight! We won’t let them look down on us!" roared a woman standing on the front lines, brandishing her greatsword. She was covered in blood and wounds, yet she continued fighting to her absolute limit.

Priam gave a slight nod of approval. As a matter of fact, around 80% of the members of the twins’ two factions were women. After all, it was much easier and more natural for them to lead people they could relate to more closely, who were also less competitive.

The front line was on the verge of falling apart. Everyone was doing everything in their power to hold out. As long as the formation remained intact, they would only have to face the enemies from one direction. If the line broke, annihilation would be inevitable.

Priam’s biting words had struck everyone’s pride head-on. Although they suspected he was deliberately provoking them, those harsh truths had deeply wounded them.

Every single person there had been considered a genius, accustomed to receiving praise even from the most experienced elders of the outer sect. Yet Priam had made them look completely useless. They couldn’t accept such humiliation; they would prove at any cost that they weren’t trash.

...

More than an hour passed at a relentless pace.

A mountain of Corrupted Beast corpses had already accumulated around the perimeter. However, the body had its limits. The troops’ Ether and energy reserves were running dry.

Some could no longer even feel their own arms. Every time they swung their weapons, it felt as though they were trying to move an entire mountain.

Despite their extreme exhaustion, no one gave up. They held their ground.

That formation represented their only hope of survival, and not a single soldier could falter at that crucial moment—not just for their own sake, but for all the comrades bleeding beside them.

However, the troops had already surpassed every physical limit, fighting purely through willpower.

With no glimmer of hope in sight and under overwhelming pressure... one of the soldiers finally passed out and collapsed onto the ground.

The moment the first soldier fell, the chain reaction was immediate. The twins and the other soldiers instantly fell into despair. The formation was one step away from total collapse.

At the exact second the defensive line crumbled, just as the Corrupted Beasts prepared to rush in and slaughter the ranks...

An invincible, overwhelming aura emerged in the heavens.

"Disappear."

A cold voice echoed from the sky. Immediately afterward, a colossal storm of lightning and fire came crashing down, swallowing the world below.

The two hours had finally elapsed, and only then did Priam act. He was genuinely proud of the work these new soldiers had done.

*Woooooooosh!*

The Corrupted Beasts didn’t even have time to react before they were instantly reduced to nothing.

Priam made a slight gesture with his hand, fusing the Wind element.

The triple Elemental Domain expanded at a frantic pace, sweeping across the entire region in the blink of an eye.

Tens of thousands of Corrupted Beasts were completely obliterated without leaving a trace.

The battlefield was left utterly deserted in a matter of seconds.

The energy storm dissipated, revealing a blackened, devastated landscape with not a single living creature in sight. The fallen soldiers looked up and swallowed hard.

Priam hovered in the sky, his hands casually clasped behind his back.

Everyone collapsed onto the ground with dull thuds, too exhausted to remain standing.

But...

**BUZZZZZ**

Suddenly, the earth and space trembled with terrifying violence.

All the disciples lying on the ground scrambled to their feet in astonishment, gripped by terror.

The twins also stood up, confused and panting. But when they fixed their gazes on Priam, hovering majestically in the sky, they saw a glint of sadistic, cold satisfaction emerge in his pupils.

Priam formed a subtle smile as he detected two contingents of Sages emerging from the shadows of the valley, very close to them.

A single glance was enough to identify them, thanks to the bloodlines of some of their members: they were members of the Favonian Alliance and the Seiche Alliance.

They weren’t the leaders, nor were they the absolute elite. Approaching from two opposite directions, the armies numbered hundreds of combatants, commanded by mid-ranking figures from those factions.

’Finally.’

Priam had deliberately dangled the bait when he left the inner sect. He had designed this scenario as a final test to determine whether the Sacred Families would play fair or bite the hook.

But they had sent hunting dogs to corner him.

What were they planning? If they openly attacked with the intention of killing him, the moment they returned to the inner sect, the Central Inscription would mark them for death as traitors.

So how did they plan to deal with Priam?

Priam didn’t know, which was why he had waited until now to see what they would do.

Then, he noticed that the expressions on the faces of both armies displayed the same genuine, desperate surprise as that of his own soldiers on the ground.

The deafening tremors shaking the planet weren’t caused by an ambush orchestrated by the factions... but by an apocalyptic horde of Corrupted Beasts rapidly approaching, surrounding the valley from every direction.

’Looks like they were used. These soldiers are nothing but disposable pawns, sent here to die and hopefully take me down with them,’ Priam thought indifferently.

The approaching Corrupted Beasts were exponentially more grotesque and ravenous than any abomination his soldiers had faced.

Priam wasn’t reckless. He had selected a zone on the map whose original danger level had been classified as suitable for putting pressure on his recruits without obliterating them. However, deep within that barren planet, there were enemies several times stronger.

Those were precisely the more powerful Corrupted Beasts that had surrounded them now.

The two hidden armies of the Sacred Families had approached to within ten kilometers of the perimeter where Priam’s soldiers had fought.

They had simply followed the orders they’d been given, without knowing exactly what would happen.

The result? Both contingents were now completely trapped by the tide of monsters as well, with nowhere to run.

Judging by the pale faces and wide eyes of those idiots, they genuinely had no idea what was going on. The raw desperation plastered across their faces was pathetic. They quickly realized they’d been sent there to die.

Priam snorted, and a bloodthirsty glint flashed in his pupils.

’Since you agreed to pursue me from the shadows without even knowing how things would turn out, you should be prepared to pay the price in blood.’

These people were anything but innocent. They certainly knew that their leaders wanted Priam dead, so they’d come to carry out their orders, expecting something bad to happen to him.

With a thought, his Elemental Physique activated.

The heavens descended into chaotic turbulence; time and space seemed to twist like glass.

With a single step, Priam vanished into the void.

"!"

Before they could even comprehend what was happening, the most powerful central figure in one of the contingents felt his body turn rigid under a terrifying pressure.

Then, a hand clamped around his neck with brutal force, crushing his vocal cords and choking off his scream into a muffled gasp.

The surrounding soldiers jumped in panic, turning toward their commander, only to find Priam hovering there like an insatiable God of Death.

Priam gave them no time to process their terror. He merely turned his head and uttered a single, icy word:

"Die."

**WOOOOOOOOSH!**

A devastating conflagration of wind, lightning, and fire erupted out of nowhere, swallowing hundreds of combatants before they could even assume a defensive stance.

Their barriers and auras shattered like dry leaves. The Thunder of Destruction invaded their bodies and detonated their meridians from the inside out, while blades of wind and flames made their bodies explode in a grotesque shower of gore.

These weren’t insignificant figures. Although they belonged to the lower ranks of their respective factions, they all had connections to the Sacred Families and possessed substantial power. Yet, before Priam, they turned to dust without managing to utter a single cry for help.

"AHHH!"

The next second, kilometers away, the commander of the second army felt his neck being seized with the same brutal force.

Priam had moved in an almost instantaneous, teleportation-like motion, bending the very dynamics of movement through his absolute mastery of wind and space.

In one second, he captured the first leader. In the next, he reduced an entire army to bloody mist. And in the following millisecond, he was already appearing on the opposite flank.

"NO! PLEASE, DON’T!" the soldiers of the Seiche Alliance screamed in absolute terror, having witnessed the brutal annihilation on the other side from a distance.

**WOOOOOOOOSH!**

Unfortunately for them, Priam had no mercy to offer.

He burned through every last trace of Thunder of Destruction he possessed, striving for maximum speed and surgical eradication. The elemental storm descended upon the second army, dismembering and vaporizing dozens of Sages in a macabre spectacle.

Less than five seconds had passed.

Priam reappeared above his faction’s perimeter, tossing two twisted bodies at the feet of his recruits.

They were the two enemy faction commanders—both had their Runes of Creation stolen, their meridians destroyed, and every last trace of their power stripped away.

**ROARRRRRRRR!!!**

Apocalyptic, deafening roars echoed just a few meters away. The Corrupted Beasts had finally reached the valley, darkening the horizon like an avalanche of claws, fangs, and hungry eyes.

Priam calmly turned toward the twins.

"Take care of these two rats. I’ll clean up this mess in no time."

The sisters and the three thousand recruits swallowed hard, unable to make a sound in the face of the sheer terror and overwhelming majesty of the scene.

The next second...

*Celestial Battle Armor!*

The entire planet changed color.

It was as if a dazzling golden sun had suddenly blossomed out of nowhere. The atmosphere trembled, and gravity collapsed.

Every soldier on the ground was catatonic, suffocated by the overwhelming pressure.

Priam’s aura expanded across the entire planet, enveloping the sea of Corrupted Beasts and instantly paralyzing them in midair and on the ground.

Then, Ananke enveloped Priam’s fists. The gauntlets’ outer shells were no longer black; they now glowed a blazing, blood-red hue.

A moment later, Priam moved like a ghost.

He transformed into a blood-red, thunderous hurricane, charging into the horde and tearing apart the colossal beasts with direct punches, pulverizing their skulls and bodies as if they were nothing more than dry leaves scattered by the storm.

***

Hours later, deep within the Inner Sect...

In the sumptuous fortresses and main residences of two Sacred Families, emergency alarms began wailing loudly and desperately.

"IT’S AN EMERGENCY! OUR FACTION IS UNDER ATTACK!!!"

Along with the panicked shouts of the attendants, the most powerful figures rushed out of their palaces, their faces filled with shock.

**KBOOOOOOOOM!!!!!**

However, before they could issue a single order, a colossal, apocalyptic explosion made the entire planet tremble.

When everyone looked toward the horizon in horror, they saw the epicenter of the explosion: the residential district of the inner disciples—precisely where the faction headquarters belonging to the two Sacred Families stood.

A cloud of dust, rubble, and energy surged into the sky, indicating that someone had just invaded the area and pulverized it without giving its defenders the slightest chance to fight back.

"EVERYONE, MOVE OUT!!!"

Shouts of fury and panic echoed throughout the upper echelons of both Sacred Families. Within moments, the skies above the Inner Sect were filled with hundreds of terrifying figures hurtling toward the epicenter.