Volume 3: Global Vanguard & The Advanced Pinnacle
Chapter 252
Military Order to Defend the North City Gate
The cold wind howling from the northern plains slammed fiercely against the ramparts of the Ancient Capital, carrying that distinctive, spine-chilling stench which made any citizen living on this land tremble the moment it brushed their nose: the damp, moldy odor rising from millennium-old tombs, the sickening reek of rotting flesh, and the metallic, fishy tang of dried black blood.
The North City Gate stood over fifty meters tall, towering like an artificial precipice separating the world of the living from the realm of the dead. Its surface was pieced together from colossal, monolithic blocks of Obsidian up to six meters thick, covered in moss and scarred deep with the claw marks of demonic beasts spanning hundreds of years of history.
Yet at this very moment, the sturdiest fortification in all of the Central Plains was vibrating violently, shuddering with every passing second.
At the base of the wall, the scene resembled the bottom of the ninth hell breaking wide open.
A pitch-black ocean of undead stretched endlessly toward the gloomy horizon, completely swallowing the desolate, barren plains. With neither moon nor stars in sight, the entire sky was blanketed by a dense layer of blood-red clouds emitting an eerie, crimson glow. Under this deathly illumination, tens of thousands of bleaching white skeletons and ashen-gray mummies crowded and trampled over one another, shrieking as they charged forward.
Leading the vanguard were over three thousand Skeleton Knights. These dry, bare bones wore rusted armor and gripped four-meter-long battle halberds, riding atop skeletal horses whose eye sockets burned with ghostly green soul-flames. The clatter of bone hooves slamming against the hard stone rang out like rumpering thunder, forming shockwaves that swept directly toward the base of the defense line.
Right behind the cavalry of death surged hordes of exceptionally massive Putrid Corpse Tyrants. Each stood over four meters tall, their bloated bellies resembling giant airships brimming with bubbling, greenish toxic fluid. Their rotting fat emitted thick waves of poisonous smoke, and as they advanced, they vomited pools of highly corrosive slime toward the fortifications.
Even more terrifying was the sky above, where thousands of Weeping Wraiths flickered and wove through the dark, murky mist. Lacking fixed physical forms, they appeared as distorted, grotesque human faces fused together, perpetually screeching with ear-splitting, piercing wails. The invisible sound waves hammered straight into the consciousness of the soldiers atop the wall, causing countless men to clutch their heads in agony as blood seeped from the corners of their eyes and mouths.
SWISH! CRACK!
The protective barrier light, the “Golden Capital Luminous Veil” enveloping the outer face of the North Gate, emitted horrifying cracking sounds. At sections three and seven, fissures spread like spiderwebs, the golden light flickering like candles caught in a tempest.
“Fire Element Third Squad, intercept! Do not let those Putrid Corpse Tyrants close in on the base of the wall!”
“Where is the Light Element? Hurry up and patch the barrier! Damn it, these beasts are going crazy—tonight’s numbers are five times higher than usual!”
“Where are the mana-recovery potions? Reporting commander, the fifth battalion has exhausted its mana, casualties exceed thirty percent!”
Atop the wall, chaos reached its absolute zenith. The roars of commanding officers mingled with the explosions of mid-tier magic and the savage, bestial growls echoing from beneath the wall, forming a bloody symphony. The fresh blood of soldiers and the black ichwer of corpses splattered wildly across the magical artillery platforms, growing so slick that men had to dig their toes into the stone seams just to keep from slipping.
Amidst this raging tempest, a stream of silver whirlwind suddenly tore through the reeking mist, crashing straight toward the central observation tower of the North Gate.
BOOM!
The transparent airflow swept horizontally across the ramparts, repelling the poisonous gas spilling through the barrier’s breach.
When the stone dust cleared, a tall, slender figure stood atop the highest ridge of the watchtower. It was a young man with sharp, resolute facial features, clad in a customized dark military uniform with shoulder epaulets embroidered with gleaming golden twin-dragon patterns — the insignia of a Major General of the Central Military Region. The fierce night wind whipped at the cloak behind him, revealing the archaic dragon-shaped jade pendant at his chest, which radiated gentle waves of warm heat, silently driving away the surrounding chill.
Lin Feng had arrived.
“Who goes there?! Supreme command zone, unauthorized personnel step back!”
A rough, gravelly roar like grinding stones rang out. A robust, middle-aged man with three jagged scars running from his forehead down to his cheekbone, his entire body stained with black blood, strode forward. It was Colonel Qin Xiong, brigade commander of the North Gate Defense Brigade — a veteran commander who had guarded this strategic pass for fifteen years. In his hand he gripped a magic great-blade smoking with gray vapor, his bloodshot eyes staring fixedly at the uninvited guest.
Yet, as Qin Xiong’s gaze swept across the two golden stars and the dragon-head emblem on Lin Feng’s epaulets, his stride halted abruptly mid-air.
Not just Qin Xiong, but over a dozen staff officers and squad leaders standing nearby froze as well, their pupils contracting.
A Major General’s rank!
Yet... the bearer of this rank was clearly a youth not yet twenty years old! A face so young that if he were tossed into a magic university lecture hall, he would completely vanish among tens of thousands of ordinary students.
“You... who are you?!” Qin Xiong tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade, his hoarse voice filled with suspicion and suppressed fury: “The North Gate battlefront is under red-alert status! Regardless of which great aristocratic family’s scion in the capital sent you here to pad your resume, get out of here right now! This isn’t a playground for brats playing hero!”
The officers behind him also clenched their fists, overwhelming resentment surging in their hearts. Their soldiers were bleeding by the second, the barrier was on the verge of shattering, and the city of twenty million people behind them hung by a thread. At such a life-or-death moment, the upper echelons had sent a green “major-general princeling” like this?! Wasn’t this treating the lives of the North Gate defense brigade like worthless grass?!
Faced with the profound suspicion and outrage of these battle-hardened veterans, Lin Feng’s expression did not ripple in the slightest.
He did not waste a single word of explanation. His right hand slowly reached out from beneath his cloak, pulling out a jet-black alloy command badge edged in gold, engraved with three murderous, archaic characters: Rapid Response.
SWISH!
Lin Feng tossed the command badge straight toward Qin Xiong.
Qin Xiong reached out and caught it. The moment his hand brushed the freezing metal surface, a majestic spiritual mana pressure emanating from the seal of the Central Ministry of National Defense instantly shook his palm. At the same time, an audio secret message bearing supreme authority resonated directly within Qin Xiong’s sea of consciousness:
‘Ministry of Defense Order No. 01: Enforce total command authority over the North Ancient Capital battlefront. Special Envoy of the National Rapid Response Division — Major General Lin Feng assumes supreme command over all armed forces at the scene. Anyone who resists or disobeys shall be executed on the spot!’
Qin Xiong stood frozen in place. The badge in his hand felt as heavy as ten thousand pounds.
He... was he the youngest Major General in the history of the Central Plains who had just slain the Flame Demon Emperor in the Western Desert, as reported by the military broadcast this very morning?!
“Major... Major General Lin Feng?!” A staff officer standing nearby blurted out in a stuttering voice.
Lin Feng stepped past Qin Xiong, marching straight to the windbreak edge of the city wall. He stood at the outermost protruding vantage point, where the deathly aura from the undead ocean billowed most violently, his dark hair fluttering in the gale.
He cast his gaze down upon the battlefield below.
In Lin Feng’s sea of consciousness, the Advanced Tier Phase 2 Lightning System Star Sea, which he had just broken through, surged with powerful purplish-black waves, harmonizing with his acutely sensitive Space System spiritual power. Within three brief breaths, the entire chaotic battlefield panorama beneath the wall had been fully captured in his sight and dissected clearly down to the smallest detail.
“Colonel Qin Xiong.” Lin Feng’s voice rang out, calm, cold, yet carrying a strange majesty that drowned out the howling of ten thousand ghosts outside: “You have guarded the Ancient Capital for fifteen years, but your defensive formation tonight... is a suicidal mess.”
Qin Xiong’s face instantly flushed red at having his pride touched. He took a stride forward, the veins on his forehead throbbing:
“Major General! You are only nineteen years old, don’t think that achieving some merit in the Western Desert means you understand the undead of the Ancient Capital! This undead ocean has no emotions, it doesn’t know fear of death! We have maintained the barrier and poured out continuous magic for four whole hours—”
“That is precisely why you are all about to die!” Lin Feng abruptly cut him off, his sharp gaze locking onto Qin Xiong, causing the battle-hardened veteran to involuntarily feel a chilling pressure run down his spine.
Lin Feng raised a hand and pointed straight down at three critical locations outside the wall:
“First: Your Fire System mages have been indiscriminately bombarding the Skeleton Knights on the front line. Those dry bones are protected by bone armor resistant to fire; flames only peel off their outer paint! Meanwhile, you completely ignored over five hundred Putrid Corpse Tyrants leisurely accumulating deathly aura two hundred meters from the wall. Once their bellies swell and detonate simultaneously, the corrosive acid will eat through the Obsidian foundation in ten full minutes!”
Cold sweat instantly broke out on the forehead of the tactical staff officer. Indeed, the northeast section of the base wall had already begun showing signs of being softened by acid!
“Second: All three hundred of your Light System mages are being forced to funnel mana into sustaining the Golden Capital Veil. That is foolish defensive thinking! Using finite human mana to match the consumption of an infinite undead ocean? You aren’t using the Light System to proactively cleanse the buffer zone, leaving the Weeping Wraiths free to hover and sabotage the soldiers’ morale!”
“Third: What the hell is the Wind System doing on the tower? Generating a tailwind to blow away the stench? Wasting elements to this extent, you deserve to be stripped of your military rank!”
Every single word from Lin Feng fell like a heavy steel hammer striking the hearts of every officer present on the watchtower. There were no empty words, no hollow textbook theories. Every fatal weakness he pointed out was a deadly loophole driving the brigade toward the brink of annihilation.
Qin Xiong was struck dumb. His rough hands gripping the great-blade trembled. As a man who had rolled on battlefields for years, he instantly realized: the young man before him was not relying on empty fame. His tactical insight and ability to read the battlefield were terrifyingly accurate!
“Major General...” Qin Xiong bowed his head, his voice stripped of all prior arrogance, replaced by the earnest plea of an old soldier: “Please issue your orders! The entire North Gate Brigade... shall obey your instructions!”
“Very well.”
Lin Feng did not waste even half a second. He stepped onto the crest of the fortification, invisible Space Force condensing around his throat, amplifying his voice to boom across the entire three-kilometer length of the North City Gate:
“All North Gate troops, hear my order! Change formation immediately!”
The command rang out clear and resonant, shaking the eardrums of thousands of panicked and exhausted soldiers.
“First order: All three hundred Light System mages cease supplying energy to the Golden Capital Luminous Veil immediately! Divide into three echelons, one hundred per echelon, taking turns releasing Light Purification - Holy Light Grid! Carpet-bomb the entire area one hundred and fifty meters from the base of the wall, completely severing the layer of deathly mist!”
“Second order: All Wind System detachments concentrate on both flanks of the fortifications! Disregard individual spells, coordinate to deploy Wind Disk - Heavenly Net Wild Shred horizontally! The sole objective: sweep across from both flanks, uprooting all skeletal horses of the Skeleton Knights, forcing thousands of monsters into the exact center of the light grid!”
“Third order: All Fire System mages of Advanced Tier Level Three and above, do not scatter your firepower! Follow my mental coordinate guidance! Simultaneously condense Fiery Fist - Nine Palaces and Nine Dragons Cannon! When I count to three, dump all firepower straight into the bellies of the Putrid Corpse Tyrant swarm at a distance of one hundred and fifty meters!”
“Anyone hesitating for even a split second shall be executed by military law!”
Military orders like mountains — resolute, cold, and absolute!
Under this thunderous command, the entire war machine of the North City Gate suddenly awoke from its stupor. No more chaos, no more disoriented screams. Each squad immediately moved to their designated positions.
“Light System squad, acknowledge the Major General’s order! Withdraw barrier energy, prepare the Holy Light Grid... Release!”
HUM!
The Golden Capital Veil enveloping the ramparts abruptly retracted. The undead beneath the wall, thinking a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had arrived, roared madly and charged upward. But before they could touch the stone base, a hundred beams of pure white light intertwined from above, forming a colossal light net spanning thousands of square meters that slammed straight down onto the ground!
HISS HISS HISS!
The cleansing light of the Light System was the absolute nemesis of deathly aura. When the light net hit the ground, the pitch-black mist instantly evaporated with a hissing sound like boiling grease poured into a hot skillet. Thousands of Skeleton Knights rushing into the light grid had their bone armor incinerated by the holy energy, their bones cracking open as thick white smoke billowed furiously!
At that exact moment, the second order took effect.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
From both side watchtowers of the ridgeline, dozens of jade-green tornadoes roared horizontally across the ground. The violent Wind Disks did not strike the enemy head-on; instead, they swept across like two giant brooms, uprooting all Skeleton Horses and Skeleton Knights dazed by the light grid, forcibly tossing thousands of monsters together into a dense clump right at the center of the clearing!
And right at that center, the sluggish Putrid Corpse Tyrants had just lumbered over.
Distance: precisely one hundred and fifty meters! Not an inch off!
Atop the wall, Lin Feng raised his right hand high. Purplish-black lightning danced across his fingertips, transforming into a brilliant pillar of light serving as a beacon in the night:
“Fire System... FIRE!”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Thousands of fireballs, hundreds of Fiery Fist Nine Palaces lava columns rained down simultaneously from the fifty-meter-high rampart like a destructive meteor shower. The massive accumulated firepower of hundreds of Fire System mages was unscattered, planting directly into the bloated bellies filled with toxic fluids of the Putrid Corpse Tyrant swarm!
BANG! BOOM BOOM BOOM!
A chain of earth-shattering explosions erupted, shaking the heaven and earth!
The bloated bellies of the Putrid Corpse Tyrants, filled with methane and highly flammable corpse fluids, were ignited by the Fiery Fist flames. They were no different from mobile powder kegs being sparked!
One... dozens... then hundreds of Putrid Corpse Tyrants detonated in a chain reaction!
The shockwave carrying a raging orange sea of fire surged up to thirty meters high, sweeping the entire plain ahead clean. Thousands of Skeleton Knights gathered beforehand were instantly swallowed by the raging sea of fire. Their bone armor melted into ashes, and the toxic fluids were completely incinerated by temperatures of thousands of degrees before they could fly up and corrode the base of the wall.
In a single breath, the buffer zone nearly a kilometer wide before the North City Gate was transformed into a blazing purgatory!
Over ten thousand charging undead... completely wiped out!
Silence.
The entire three-kilometer stretch of the wall plunged into absolute stillness.
Only the sound of wind whistling through stone crevices and the crackling of ashes beneath the wall remained.
The Fire System mages panted heavily, their hands trembling from expending their all, but their eyes brimmed with an unbelievable, stunned shock.
A coordinated assault accurate down to the second! Not a single shred of mana wasted! A defensive formation that looked on the verge of shattering just ten minutes ago had been completely reversed by three simple operational commands from the young Major General, burying tens of thousands of the undead legion at the base of the wall!
“We won... We wiped out the first wave of charges?!” A young soldier dropped his arms, muttering in a daze.
Colonel Qin Xiong stood frozen beside the watchtower. Looking at the sea of fire consuming the mummy swarm beneath the wall, then turning to look at the stalwart silhouette of the nineteen-year-old youth standing facing the wind, a fierce wave of surging passion welled up in the old veteran’s chest that he had not felt in fifteen years.
This was peak magic warfare! This was the aura of a true supreme commander!
CLANG!
Qin Xiong abruptly drew his magic great-blade, slamming the butt of the blade hard against the granite floor, dropping to one knee, and raising his head to roar with all his might:
“Major General divine might! The North Gate Brigade... pledges to follow your orders to the last drop of blood!”
Qin Xiong’s action acted like a detonator, igniting all the suppressed emotions of thousands of soldiers upon the ramparts.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Thousands of weapons and magic shields simultaneously hammered against the city wall in a resounding rhythm. The eyes that had been desperate and weary now burned with towering morale, their unified shouts tearing through the night of the Ancient Capital:
“Major General, all-conquering!”
“Guard the North Gate! Never retreat!”
The resounding cheers of ten thousand troops merged into a violent battle intent, beating back even the layer of deathly mist in the sky.
Yet amidst the blazing cheers of the entire army, Lin Feng did not wear a smile.
His brows twitched slightly.
His hand gently rested upon the Archaic Dragon Pendant at his chest. The primeval dragon pendant was now vibrating intensely, radiating a scorching heat — an extreme danger signal that only entities of Monarch or peak Commander rank could trigger!
RUMBLE... RUMBLE... RUMBLE...
The ground outside the wall suddenly stopped trembling from the aftershocks of the sea of fire, replaced by an entirely different kind of vibration.
A dull, suffocatingly heavy vibration transmitting straight from deep within the pitch-black earth into every fiber of the city wall’s stones. The water inside the magic fluid containers on the watchtowers began to ripple violently before splashing outward.
“What... what is this? An earthquake?!” The smile on a squad leader’s face vanished, his complexion turning pale as he looked into the distance.
SWISH!
The pitch-black darkness at the horizon five kilometers away was suddenly torn open.
The dense, murky mist resembling an iron-solid wall was blasted to both sides by a violently savage, nauseatingly foul aura. From within that endless darkness, three colossal black silhouettes lumbered forward.
They were neither human nor ordinary demonic beasts.
They were three humanoid monsters towering over FORTY METERS tall!
Their massive bodies resembled moving small mountains, bizarrely patched together from tens of thousands of human skulls and giant beast bones fused together by layers of smoking, rotting black flesh. Atop each gnarled skull rested a crown woven from sharp human rib bones, their hollow eye sockets burning with two heavy, blood-red ghost flames.
“Corpse... Corpse God Giants?!” Qin Xiong’s voice trembled violently, the great-blade in his hand nearly slipping to the ground: “And... three peak Commander-tier ones?!”
The three Corpse God Giants strode forward, every step crushing hundreds of corpses beneathfoot, carving deep craters into the ground.
In each of their grotesque, maggot-infested claws, they dragged a massive bone warhammer over thirty meters long. The hammers were forged from millennium-old boulders and wrapped in hundreds of skulls of deceased high-tier mages, emitting mournful shrieks that pierced the soul.
HARSH GROWL!
The Corpse God Giant in the middle threw its head back and roared a bizarre cry. The violent sonic wave transformed into a grayish-black whirlwind that blew away the lingering flames on the plain, tossing dirt and rubble into the air.
It took massive strides, accelerating straight toward the North City Gate!
Its dark, muscular arms flexed, muscles coiling and twisting like giant pythons, raising the thirty-meter bone warhammer high above its head.
Its target was not the soldiers upon the wall.
It was the Obsidian wall foundation — the sole pillar protecting the safety of the entire Ancient Capital!
With the size and earth-shattering strength of these three Commander-tier Corpse God Giants, a single full-strength blow would inevitably smash a massive section of the fifty-meter-tall foundation! Once the millennium-old rampart collapsed, millions of undead behind would pour into the inner city like a broken levee, turning the Ancient Capital into a catastrophic sea of blood!
“Stop them! Raise the shields!” Qin Xiong roared in despair, mana erupting across his body as he felt utter powerlessness before the might of the three giant meat mountains charging forward.
Distance: only three hundred meters left!
The bone warhammer shrieked piercingly through the air, carrying the weight of thousands of tons crashing straight down upon the heads of the entire army!
At that very moment of extreme peril, a figure had quietly stepped out from the windbreak stone ridge, floating directly into the formless void of the night sky...