Chapter 213: Catastrophe

As the three terrifying figures stepped forward into the center of the Great Hall, the deafening sound of the wind violently breaking followed.

Several incredibly powerful figures physically tore through the thick atmosphere above the Bastion, shattering the sound barrier as they descended.

They dropped from the sky one after another like falling meteors, their heavy boots cracking the ancient stone floor of the arena.

Angels.

Fully realized Demi-gods.

And ancient, reclusive Gods who hadn’t shown their faces in centuries.

Within mere seconds, the already crowded, bustling hall became completely, suffocatingly packed with the absolute apex predators of humanity.

Powerful, legendary individuals from absolutely every military and political faction of the Bastion had arrived.

The three God Almightys quickly assumed their positions at the high helm, while the newly arrived elites rapidly settled into their strict military formations.

Ethen remained quietly near the back of the massive chamber, his dark eyes sharply scanning the rapidly growing crowd.

Something was fundamentally, catastrophically wrong.

Entirely too many incredibly powerful individuals had been forcibly summoned to the same location all at once.

This absolutely wasn’t a simple faction meeting or a continuation of the youth tournament.

"I will be direct with you all."

Karth’s impossibly deep, resonant voice instantly silenced the entire, murmuring hall, freezing the air itself.

"We are going to war."

The heavy, undeniable words struck the absolute core of every single person present in the room.

The violent, bloody conflict between humanity and the beast-kin was as old as mortal civilization itself.

Small-scale border wars, resource skirmishes, and targeted assassinations were simply unavoidable facts of life in the Nether Realm.

But a declared, full-scale total war was something else entirely.

This meant that every single Demi-god would be drafted to participate on the front lines.

It meant that high-ranking Angels would actively descend onto the battlefields to warp reality and slaughter millions.

It meant that the ancient Gods could eventually make their devastating moves to sink entire continents.

And if things escalated far enough, even a God Almighty could personally intervene, risking the destruction of the world itself.

The collateral casualties among ordinary mortals alone would easily, instantly climb into the tens of millions.

"This massive conflict wasn’t initiated by us."

Karth slowly raised his armored hand, gesturing toward the high ceiling.

A massive, glowing holographic screen immediately appeared in the empty air directly above the center of the hall.

The magical image instantly changed, displaying a live feed from the eastern borders.

It showed a dark, stormy sky completely filled to the horizon with heavy beast-kin battleships and floating fortresses.

The scorched ground beneath the armada was heavily covered with enormous, rampaging Godbeasts.

Hundreds of thousands of heavily armored Demi-human soldiers were marching relentlessly toward a massive, fortified human city in the distance.

Ethen’s calm expression instantly changed.

"That’s Windhelm."

His gloved fist violently clenched, the dark leather creaking under the intense pressure.

A sharp, dangerous flash of genuine anger quickly crossed his dark eyes.

Windhelm wasn’t just another strategic location on a map; it was his home in this brutal world.

His clan’s heavily defended territory was located right there in those valleys.

The towering White Tower and its ancient libraries were there.

Friends.

Family.

People he had known and fought alongside for years.

Absolutely all of them were trapped right there in the path of that overwhelming, monstrous army.

"What you’re actively seeing right now is a full-scale, unprovoked invasion."

Karth’s deep voice remained incredibly calm, devoid of any panic or fear.

"Bark has already successfully activated its ancient defensive arrays to slow their aggressive advance."

"We heavily believe the summoned World Tree and its divine guardians will hold the frontline for now, but we have also dispatched massive reinforcements from the other human kingdoms."

The glowing holographic image rapidly shifted angles.

More sleek, heavily armed human battleships appeared on the screen, rushing toward Windhelm from several different strategic directions to intercept the horde.

"For the vast majority of you standing here today, this sudden invasion has nothing to do with you personally."

Karth’s glowing gaze slowly moved across the silent, tense hall, evaluating his weapons.

Then, his terrifying eyes stopped and locked directly onto Ethen standing in the shadows.

"But for us, the absolute apex of humanity, our job today is incredibly simple."

His ancient eyes sharpened with undeniable killing intent.

"We counterattack."

A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the Great Hall as the sheer scale of the order sank in.

Mogar, the King of the Sky, confidently stepped forward from the helm, a cruel smile resting on his face.

"We have already assigned several highly vulnerable, strategic enemy locations to the relevant individuals in this room."

His booming voice carried effortlessly across the entire massive expanse of the hall.

"Your absolute, only objective today is to cause as much devastating, irreversible damage to those specific locations as physically possible."

Several people in the crowd suddenly received glowing blue system notifications in their vision.

Ethen’s dark eyes immediately dropped toward the translucent screen that materialized directly before him.

[ Ethen Algar ]

[Role: Auxiliary / First Contact]

[Objective: Deploy Catastrophe at strategic locations and cause maximum structural and military damage.]

[Team: None]

[Assigned Targets:]

[Graywolf Forest]

[Largo Valley]

[Dragon Scale City]

[.....]

Ethen stared completely silently at the long, scrolling list of highly populated enemy territories.

His facial expression slowly became incredibly complicated as the gears in his mind turned.

"So that’s exactly what this is."

He looked back up toward Karth, finally understanding the true nature of his newly acquired summon.

His new ability had seemed almost like a miraculous blessing when he first obtained it in the restaurant.

Jormungander.

The legendary World-Ending Serpent.

A completely invisible, conceptual creature capable of instantly traversing the entire world and bringing immediate catastrophe wherever it physically moved.

He had initially viewed it as the ultimate escape tool to bypass spatial locks and evade Duke Ao.

But now, looking at this military kill list, he fully understood the true, horrific meaning behind that specific power.

It wasn’t simply an ability meant for transportation or personal defense.

It was a weapon of absolute, untethered mass destruction.

And now, the highest authorities of humanity had just given him official, legal permission to use it without restraint.

Millions of beast-kin lived across the vast territories he had just been ordered to completely annihilate.

Some of them were definitely enemy soldiers and cruel Demi-gods who deserved to die.

Some were hostile enemies plotting against the Bastion.

But the vast, overwhelming majority were probably innocent civilians, merchants, and children who had never even heard his human name.

Ethen let out a long, heavy sigh that faded into the noise of the hall.

"Unfortunate."

There was absolutely no joy or righteous happiness in his quiet voice.

But there was also absolutely no hesitation or moral conflict holding him back.

The brutal, unforgiving system had just given him a horrifying requirement: kill twenty million enemies in under one year to save Adam’s life.

The Divine Beast Mountain and the invading horde had just done him a massive, bloody favor.

They had given him the perfect, undeniable military reason to become a monster.

And now, Karth had officially given him the absolute perfect battlefield to test just how far his new S-Ranked power could go.

"You are all to deploy to your targets immediately."

Mogar continued his briefing, his voice cutting through the rising tension.

"High-ranking Angels will actively monitor the global battlefield from the upper atmosphere and ensure that none of you are left without emergency support."

He paused, letting his cruel, golden eyes sweep over the human army.

"At this current junction of the war, the enemy Gods have not yet made a direct move on the board."

"So, to prevent planetary collapse, neither will we."

That single sentence carried far, far more terrifying weight than it initially appeared to.

The three God Almightys standing at the helm were deliberately, carefully holding their own catastrophic power back.

If they entered the mortal battlefield directly right now, the conflict would immediately escalate into an apocalyptic event that would shatter the Nether Realm.

Mogar’s gaze became incredibly cold, entirely devoid of any mercy or compassion for the enemy.

"These arrogant beasts have shed innocent human blood on our borders for entirely too long without consequence."

His booming voice echoed violently through the stone hall, shaking the very pillars.

"So now..."

A terrifying, suffocating pressure slowly spread from his physical body, washing over the human army.

"Go out there."

"Show them true, unfiltered human malice."

The massive hall instantly erupted into frantic, organized movement.

Powerful individuals began disappearing one after another, their bodies dissolving into flashes of spatial light.

Ancient teleportation formations carved into the floors violently activated, humming with dense energy.

Orders were shouted loudly across the chamber as squads rapidly formed up and moved out.

The entire Bastion completely transformed in a matter of seconds, shifting from a gathering of individuals into a flawless, merciless machine preparing for total war.

Ethen stood completely still in the shadows for several long seconds, letting the chaos wash past him.

He had personally seen the explosive anger of a God Almighty before when Duke Ao had nearly killed him.

It was deeply, fundamentally frightening every single time it happened.

But this time, that overwhelming, divine anger wasn’t directed at him.

It was completely directed at an entire, doomed race.

He looked down at his glowing blue notification screen one last time, memorizing the coordinates.

Then, he turned around smoothly.

"Jor."

The young, completely unremarkable boy standing silently beside him looked up.

"I know."

A faint, chilling spark of ancient intelligence briefly flashed within his otherwise completely emotionless, dead eyes.

"Let’s go."

Somewhere deep within the heart of the Demi-human territory, far from the front lines of Windhelm.

A massive, sprawling beast-kin city stood peacefully nestled between two enormous, snow-covered mountains.

The setting sun slowly bathed the cobblestone streets in a warm, comfortable orange light as its final rays slipped perfectly between the jagged peaks.

The vibrant city was completely alive and bustling with activity.

Ordinary people walked casually through the busy streets, chatting and laughing.

Wealthy merchants packed away their colorful goods and closed their stalls for the evening.

Beast-kin children ran through the alleys, returning home to their families for dinner.

Heavily armored warriors changed their guard shifts at the city walls, swapping jokes and sharing wine.

Large, open-air restaurants began rapidly filling with hungry customers preparing for a relaxing evening.

It was an entirely ordinary, peaceful day in the valley.

For the innocent people living there, tomorrow would undoubtedly be another completely ordinary day as well.

The exact same comfortable routines.

The exact same familiar, safe streets.

The exact same quiet, uninterrupted lives.

The exact same unbroken, generational cycle.

Absolutely nobody in the entire massive city knew that anything was wrong in the world.

Absolutely nobody noticed the invisible fabric of space directly above the main city gates violently distort and warp.

Near the towering stone gates, two solitary figures suddenly appeared completely out of thin air.

A young man with dark, windswept hair stood completely silently, his cold eyes methodically scanning the enormous city before him.

Right beside him stood a young, completely unassuming boy.

His facial expression was completely, terrifyingly emotionless, like a statue carved from ice.

Jormungander.

The absolute, undeniable World-Ending Serpent, currently compressed into a human vessel.

Ethen looked across the sprawling, populated city, taking in the sights and sounds of the innocent lives below.

"This is the first place."

The young boy simply nodded his head slowly.

"It is."

For a long, agonizing moment, absolutely nothing happened.

The beautiful city continued moving exactly as it always had.

The people continued living their lives, completely unaware of the grim reaper standing at their doorstep.