Chapter 1680: Skirmishing

Qinglong no longer looked anything like he once had. His entire body was pitch-black, and he remained in the form of the enormous Weak Water Glazed Dragon God.

But his eyes were filled with savagery, devoid of even the slightest trace of human emotion.

Seeing this, Xiao Lie’s face immediately twisted with barely restrained fury.

Like him, Qinglong was a soldier. In the years since the apocalypse, they had both done everything in their power to protect their homeland and defend their nation.

He could accept Qinglong dying in battle, but he could not accept the enemy humiliating him like this after his death!

“Qinglong, let me see you off on your final journey!”

As Xiao Lie infused it with his supernatural power, the black spear in his hand underwent a tremendous transformation. It became a strange, dragon-shaped great spear attached to his arm.

He raised the dragon spear high and roared, “Brothers, follow me! Kill every last one of these alien bastards!”

His roar shook the heavens. The elite forces from every region of Huaxu Nation charged toward the army of blue-armored Transcendents, shouting as they went!

…

At the center of the battlefield in Tianshui City, Houtu used the power of the Divine Path of Heaven to lay a curse on the Gatekeeper of the Underworld.

Any Transcendent below the Black Chariot level who was struck by this curse would immediately lose the ability to fight.

Yet the Gatekeeper of the Underworld seemed to have suffered almost no ill effects.

His gaze swept across the void. As he waited for the Ghost Train to emerge from it, he also tried to find a way out of the maze formation in every direction.

But to Zhang Yi and the others, he was nothing more than a headless fly.

Although he flew in what he thought was a straight line, he was just going around in circles.

The most terrifying thing was that this formation affected not only every direction around him, but also above, below, left, and right.

Even trying to break through into the sky was useless.

This was a pure trapping formation. To escape, they had to kill the people aboard the Ghost Train first, then remove the Thirty-Six Heavenly Spirits, the foundation stones of the formation.

The Ghost Train appeared once more, gliding diagonally through the void in defiance of the laws of physics.

Zhang Yi and Shang Daowen took the front, using Dimensional Gates and telekinetic barriers to form a defensive line.

The one responsible for the main assault was God of Thunder Perun, Alexei.

This usually taciturn middle-aged man had once been nothing more than an ordinary lumberjack on a farm in the Arctic tundra.

But after the apocalypse, he had grown at an astonishing rate. Now, he was one of the foremost figures in Freemonts’s Pantheon!

The Ghost Train’s appearance was abrupt. The Gatekeeper of the Underworld could not predict from which direction they would suddenly emerge, but Zhang Yi and the others were fully prepared.

The instant the train appeared, Alexei raised a massive woodcutting axe in each hand.

“Hrrraaaaaah!!!”

A deep, bear-like growl rumbled from his throat. A surging wave of supernatural power burst from his body, transforming into dazzling silver lightning that completely engulfed the Ghost Train!

“Boom!!!”

Thunder rumbled across the sky as lightning crashed down from above, striking the battle-axes he held aloft.

Lightning swallowed him, then clung to his body. He grew visibly larger, until his plain combat suit burst apart, revealing muscles so powerfully built they were enough to leave anyone dumbfounded!

This was Alexei’s ability, Tyrant. It was the fighting style of a warrior people, always simple and bold, and enough to set anyone’s blood on fire.

Even facing a godlike being whose ability index seemed to reach 40,000 points, he charged ahead without the slightest fear and swung his battle-axe!

The battle-axe in his right hand chopped down through the air. A colossal bolt of lightning formed a crescent-shaped blade and came crashing down toward the Gatekeeper of the Underworld’s head!

Li Changgong hid behind Zhang Yi, ready to join them in delivering a lethal strike at any moment.

They needed only one chance.

Working in tandem with Zhang Yi’s ability, he could carry out a snipe from an extremely long distance!

Even if they failed to kill the Gatekeeper of the Underworld, it didn’t matter. Their goal had been simple from the very beginning.

Either they would hold him off long enough for the heavenly punishment to descend from the unseen heavens,

or they would make him shed his first drop of blood, then use Houtu’s ability to curse him to death!

Facing the enormous lightning battle-axe, the Gatekeeper of the Underworld looked up and casually waved his left hand.

“Whoosh!”

He crushed the enormous lightning battle-axe with one hand!

Alexei immediately followed up by swinging the axe in his left hand horizontally at the Gatekeeper’s waist, but the Gatekeeper blocked that with one hand as well.

Boundless fury surged in Alexei’s eyes. To him, this was the ultimate humiliation!

“Oooooooh!!!!”

His two arms, each almost twice as thick as Zhang Yi’s thigh, swung the lightning battle-axes frantically. It was hard to imagine that such heavy axes could move so fast in his hands that they left afterimages!

“Rumble!”

“Crack!”

Lightning ravaged the entire space. Frenzied bolts twisted into serpents, hissing as they lunged at the Gatekeeper of the Underworld.

Li Changgong gripped the hilt of his blade tightly with his right hand. He had already assumed the stance for a quick-draw strike, his attack long since prepared. He was waiting only for the perfect opening to deliver a fatal blow!

But as the Gatekeeper of the Underworld faced this onslaught, he seemed to grow somewhat irritated. He swept both hands outward.

A wave of black energy erupted from his body and surged toward every direction in an instant!

An indiscriminate attack!

It shattered Alexei’s lightning outright, then swept toward the Ghost Train.

“Evade!”

Zhang Yi shouted in alarm.

“Whoosh!”

The Ghost Train vanished into the void, heading somewhere else. But in the very center of Tianshui City, another enormous crater, dozens of kilometers in diameter, appeared.

At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before all of Tianshui City became a barren wasteland, with not a trace of human civilization left.

Zhang Yi could only be thankful that he had prepared in advance and put away Tianshui Fortress. Otherwise, even a fortress built from Barrier Stone might not have been able to withstand the Gatekeeper of the Underworld’s attacks!

“Not bad, for a space-type ability user!”

After missing his target several times, the Gatekeeper of the Underworld didn’t grow frustrated. Instead, he rested one hand on his chin with interest and calmly analyzed the situation.

“They escaped, did they? I’m not a space-type ability user, so I can’t precisely pinpoint where they went.”

“Then why not just destroy everything within sight?”

He raised his head and stopped trying to find his way through the mist. Instead, he quietly waited for the next attack.

“What do we do? Our attacks are practically like an itch to him! We said we’d win as long as we made him bleed once. But looking at things now, that sounds like nothing more than a pipe dream!”

Zhang Yi said with a frown.

“The gap in strength is still far too great. Even with the advantages of timing and terrain on our side, it’ll be difficult.”

Shang Daowen had to admit it too.

But he immediately continued, “Even so, at least we haven’t let ourselves fall into a completely passive position. While he’s still wary of the heavens’ might and hasn’t unleashed his full power, we need to use this opening to make him bleed!”