Volume 3: Global Vanguard & The Advanced Pinnacle
Chapter 253
Spatial Telekinesis Sweeps Away the Zombie Giants
The freezing wind roared and whistled through the crenellations on the northern ramparts of the Ancient Capital, carrying a thick, nauseating stench of rotting flesh and mud laden with heavy malevolent qi.
Black rain drizzled down from the dark, starless sky, the pattering droplets beating heavily against the alloy combat armor of the military mages. Beneath the imposing, fifty-meter-tall walls cast from millennia-old black granite, the ocean of undead surged like a breached reservoir. Dark mummies, skeleton soldiers, and corpse-eating ghouls trampled over one another, roaring hysterically as they stretched out blood-stained, withered arms, attempting to claw apart slabs of moss-grown brick and stone.
Along the three-kilometer-long perimeter of the North Gate, over twenty thousand Ancient Capital soldiers and officers strained to hold the line. The flashes from the defensive magic arrays blinked ceaselessly, radiating the fiery red of Fiery Fist, the azure waves of Violent Surge, and dazzling ribbons of lightning tearing through the curtain of rain. Yet, no matter how many spells cascaded down, it felt like a drop of water in the ocean against the boundless tide of corpses rising from the yellow earth.
The atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. Every breath exhaled into the chilled mist was saturated with a thick, fishy scent of death.
“Boom... Boom... BOOM!”
Suddenly, from deep within the pitch-black mist five hundred meters beyond the city walls, the earth began to vibrate violently. Heavy shockwaves rippled straight through the geological strata, causing the stone blocks beneath the mages’ feet to bound upward repeatedly. The swarming mob of low-tier zombies beneath suddenly shrieked in bone-chilling trepidation, scattering wildly to both sides as if they had just collided with prehistoric monsters.
The ash-gray fog was torn into massive shreds. Three gigantic, towering silhouettes akin to moving hills slowly emerged into the flickering magic light of the city wall.
“Good heavens... What is that?!” A young private tasked with observation trembled, dropping his long-range binoculars as his voice shattered in panic.
“A Bone-Hammer Zombie Giant! It’s a Commander-level... Moreover, three Commander-levels appearing all at once!” The captain standing beside him roared hoarsely, his complexion instantly turning as pale as rice paper.
Unfolding before the eyes of the twenty thousand northern defenders were three beings of ultimate hideousness and overwhelming presence. Each Zombie Giant reached a towering height of forty meters, its entire body patched together from thousands of skeletal remains of ancient fierce beasts and prehistoric human corpses, smeared with a thick, steaming layer of black poisonous mud. Their expansive ribcages stood bare, exposing sharp, intersecting ribs like prison bars that locked away flickering, eerie green ghost-fires burning within.
Most terrifying of all were the brutal weapons grasped in their hands: each giant dragged a colossal bone hammer over thirty meters long, forged from the skulls of prehistoric colossal beasts with surfaces bristling with jagged spikes stained in dried black gore. Every stride taken by the three monsters pulverized dozens of skeleton soldiers into fine powder, leaving behind deep, plunging craters in the earth.
“ROOOOAR!”
The Zombie Giant marching in the center threw its head back and roared, the rotting sonic waves curling into a whirlwind that battered away the black rain and crashed directly against the North Gate’s defense line. The pressure of the three Commander-levels intermingled, forming an overwhelming oppressive aura of death that weighed heavily upon the chest of every single soldier. Countless Primary-level mages, unable to withstand this terrifying coercion, felt their meridians vibrate and instantly vomited fresh blood, their spiritual seas trembling on the verge of shattering.
“Quick! All magic artillery regiments, concentrate your firepower! Aim for the knee joints of the middle one; under no circumstances let them approach the barrier!”
The North Gate’s vice commander, Colonel Qin Zheng, brandished his command sword and roared like thunder, his voice straining to exhaustion amidst the battlefield’s clamor.
Hundreds of Fire and Lightning-system mages atop the watchtowers immediately connected their Star Constellations. Fiery red and deep purple halos burst forth, and dozens of Tier-3 Fiery Fists accompanied by Wrathful Lightnings rained down simultaneously, slamming directly into the towering frame of the lead giant.
“BANG! BANG! CRASH!”
Smoke and fire billowed into the heavens, elemental energies detonating to tear the night apart. Yet, as the embers settled, a despairing sight materialized before the entire army: upon the thick, layered bone armor of the Zombie Giant appeared only a few shallow cracks and harmless charred patches. The bone armor of this baleful species absorbed millenary-laced death magic accumulated beneath the Ancient Capital, possessing a sturdiness far surpassing the military’s enchanted forged steel.
The colossal beast did not even slow its pace by half a step. Its blood-red eyes, akin to twin pools of gore, swept around and locked firmly onto the North Gate ramparts.
“SLAM!”
The three monsters simultaneously took massive strides, the earth shaking violently as if struck by a magnitude-seven earthquake. Brandishing their colossal bone hammers high above their heads, they split the air to create piercing screeches akin to weeping ghosts and wailing deities, smashing straight toward the base of the city wall!
“This is bad! The defensive barrier!” Qin Zheng roared in despair.
“BOOOOOM!”
A bone hammer as massive as a mansion struck squarely against the luminescent shield of the “Radiant Shelter Formation” protecting the North Gate.
A deafening explosion resounded, shaking the entirety of the Ancient Capital. The enchanted light curtain, which had hitherto stood as firm as a monolith, instantly caved inward by over a dozen meters. Countless spiderweb-like cracks spread across the barrier’s surface, accompanied by hair-raising, crisp cracking sounds.
The horrifying shockwave transmitted directly onto the ramparts, flinging hundreds of soldiers airborne amidst flying gravel and stone shards.
“Crack... CRACK!”
The luminous barrier flickered violently, its radiance dimming at a visible rate. The three Zombie Giants roared in triumph once more, the bulging muscles on their gray skeletal arms tightening in preparation for a second blow.
Everyone understood clearly: once this barrier shattered, the sturdy walls of the North Gate would collapse into a pile of rubble. Hundreds of thousands of souls within the inner city of the Ancient Capital would be torn apart and devoured by the undead tide this very night!
“It’s over... We can’t hold off these three Commander-level beasts...”
A few young mages let their hands drop, their pupils constricting as they stared at the bone hammers rising mid-air, despair gnawing at their hearts. Amidst the dense swarm of zombies, the military district’s Super-level archmages were pinned down in other desperate defensive zones; practically no one could spare the strength to reinforce the North Gate.
At that very moment of life or death, a steady, unperturbed voice echoed from behind the central command tower:
“Who gave you permission to despair?”
The tone was not overly loud, yet it swept across everyone’s minds like a bone-chilling cold wind, inexplicably overpowering the giants’ roars and the clamor of war.
Over twenty thousand soldiers turned their heads in unison.
Beneath the flickering light of magic lanterns, a tall, resolute figure slowly emerged from the tower pavilion.
He wore a dark major general’s cloak, the epaulets embroidered with brilliant golden patterns symbolizing the supreme honor of Shenzhou. His dark hair fluttered lightly in the chilled wind, and his youthful, angular visage bore an expression of chilling composure. He showed no trace of haste, walking as leisurely as if strolling through a garden; yet with every inch of ground he traversed, the suffocating pressure enveloping the ramparts was instantly swept away.
“General... Major General Lin Feng!” Qin Zheng gasped in astonishment, blazing with a frantic spark of hope in his eyes.
The youngest Major General in Shenzhou’s military history, the one who had just single-handedly beheaded the Blood-Sand Flame Demon Emperor at the Western Frontier and returned!
Lin Feng made no reply. He bypassed the defensive barrier, stepped directly onto the outermost edge of the ramparts, and gazed down at the three colossal monsters brandishing their bone hammers savagely. His eyes were as deep as an ancient lake, frighteningly calm.
“Three Commander-level giants... and they dare throw their weight around before me?”
Lin Feng uttered indifferently, and before the stunned gaze of all officers and men, he raised his foot and stepped directly into the empty void!
“General! Don’t!” Several guard officers cried out in alarm. A fifty-meter plunge straight into the midst of the undead horde was tantamount to suicide.
Yet, a miracle occurred.
Lin Feng’s figure did not plummet. His foot trod upon the empty air, where the invisible ground suddenly rippled with silver brilliance like the surface of water. Circles of mystical spatial ripples bloomed beneath the heels of his boots, supporting the young general’s body as he hovered mid-air.
Step by step, he walked upon the sky, advancing past the defensive barrier and standing loftily in the open air, directly facing the three Zombie Giants!
His dark cloak flapped violently in the wind and rain. Compared to the forty-meter towering frames of the three monsters, Lin Feng’s figure appeared as small as a grain of sand in a desert. Yet, the momentum emanating from him at this moment felt as majestic and towering as a deity holding dominion over the laws of heaven and earth!
“ROAR!”
The lead Zombie Giant sensed the blatant provocation. Its bloodshot eyes burned fiercely, and its spike-laden arm swung the massive bone hammer, redirecting its arc straight toward the tiny human suspended before it!
Before the hammer even arrived, the gale carrying the putrid stench of death lashed against Lin Feng’s face, whipping his hair into a frenzy.
Facing a destructive blow capable of leveling an entire section of the fortress, Lin Feng remained motionless. The corners of his lips curved into a cold smile, his right hand clasped behind his back as only his left hand slowly rose, pointing toward the roiling, ink-black clouds above.
Within his spiritual sea, the Space-system star constellations blazed brilliantly. The vast, ocean-deep spiritual energy nurtured by the Primordial Dragon Pendant was instantly activated in its entirety.
“Spatial Gravity Suppression...”
Lin Feng spoke softly, his voice echoing like bronze bells reverberating from antiquity:
“... Telekinetic Giant Palm! Kneel down for me!”
Lin Feng’s five fingers suddenly clenched, and then he pressed his palm downward from the empty air with crushing force!
“BOOOOOOM!”
The sky of the Ancient Capital seemed torn apart by an invisible axe. The pitch-black clouds ten thousand yards above suddenly caved inward into the shape of a colossal hand.
The air surrounding the three giants solidified into a mass of invisible steel in the blink of an eye! Gravity within a half-mile radius skyrocketed a hundredfold!
The ground beneath the three monsters collapsed en masse. But that was merely the beginning.
From directly above their heads, a colossal transparent hand formed entirely from pure Spatial Telekinesis, spanning over three hundred meters wide, battered through the storm and rain, carrying a screech that tore the atmosphere as it descended straight down!
“MASSIVE BANG!”
The invisible hand struck squarely upon the backs of the three Zombie Giants.
The lead beast’s swinging bone hammer shattered mid-air like dry kindling before an absolute crushing force. All three Commander-level monsters, creatures that had terrorized tens of thousands of soldiers, suddenly let out heart-wrenching, agonizing wails!
“CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!”
Crisp sounds of bone fractures echoed across the battlefield. Under the terrifying pressure of the Telekinetic Giant Palm, the sturdy bone armor impenetrable to the artillery regiment’s magic exploded into powdery white fragments. The massive knee joints of all three monsters were crushed, buckling backward and piercing through rotting flesh to drive deep into the earth!
“THUD! THUD! THUD!”
Three heavy impacts rang out in succession. The three forty-meter-tall Zombie Giants were flattened into the mud, forced to their knees before Lin Feng with shattered ribcages, the ghost-fires in their eyes flickering frantically like dying lamps in a gale!
The earth around them sank over ten meters, forming a colossal handprint deeply imprinted into the yellow soil of the Ancient Capital. Thousands of surrounding low-tier zombies did not even have time to roar before they were pressed into a bloody, pulpy mush by the residual telekinetic shockwave!
The entire North Gate rampart plunged into a dead silence.
Over twenty thousand Ancient Capital soldiers and officers widened their eyes, mouths agape without uttering a sound.
Colonel Qin Zheng stood frozen like a wooden statue, his longsword slipping from his grasp unawares.
Those were three Commander-level beasts! Three Commander-level monsters capable of easily leveling a mobile battalion!
Yet... with a mere wave of the young general’s hand, before they could even brush against the hem of his garment, they were smashed down and pinned into the earth like three dying stray dogs?!
Was this the power of the Space System?! Was this the might of a youth under twenty years of age?!
Hovering in mid-air, Lin Feng looked down at the writhing behemoths below, his eyes devoid of a single ripple of mercy. To him, these malicious beings were merely stumbling blocks in his path.
“Enough with the noise.”
Lin Feng muttered, his right hand casually slashing a straight line across the empty void.
“Spatial Tear - Void Soul-奪 Slashing Blade!”
There were no flickering flames, nor any roaring thunder. Yet the instant Lin Feng’s finger traced across space, three crescent-shaped silver fractures instantly split open the gloomy night.
These were pure spatial blades bearing the creator’s rule of severing all matter!
The silver blades glided in absolute silence, moving too swiftly for the naked eye to capture their afterimages.
“SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!”
Three crisp severing sounds rang out simultaneously.
The invisible spatial blades swept across the colossal necks of the three Zombie Giants. Meter-thick bone armor, rotting muscle as hard as volcanic rock... all were severed smoothly as a hot knife slicing through mutton!
The surrounding space seemed to freeze for half a second.
Immediately following...
“BURST!”
Three columns of foul, pitch-black blood erupted like geysers into the nighttime sky, staining the wind and rain black!
Three colossal skulls the size of two-story buildings slid from their necks, tumbling into the mud with their eyes wide open, exhibiting supreme terror before the inner ghost-fire completely extinguished.
The three headless, massive carcasses convulsed a few times before collapsing heavily onto the earth like three city walls demolished by explosives, kicking up dust and embers dozens of meters high.
The three Commander-level Zombie Giants... annihilated in an instant!
From the moment Lin Feng stepped off the rampart until the three skulls hit the ground, the total elapsed time was less than ten breaths!
The silence on the battlefield persisted for several seconds, as if the entire expanse had been robbed of its right to produce sound. The soldiers on the walls stared blankly at one another, then out at the three smoking giant corpses in the deep craters, still unable to believe what their eyes had just witnessed.
Yet, the suffocating aura of death enveloping the North Gate had genuinely vanished!
The wall remained intact! The defensive barrier stood tall! The imminent danger of city destruction had just been wiped away with two feather-light magic spells!
“Roar... ROOOOAR!”
The undead horde below, witnessing their three supreme commanders decapitated in the blink of an eye, was struck by utter panic. Bestial instinct drove them to flee in terror, trampling over one another as the aggressive momentum of the corpse tide was utterly broken.
And then, the silence on the North Gate rampart erupted into an earthquake of emotion!
“Dead... They’re actually dead!”
“Heaven has eyes! The three Commander-levels have been slain!”
“Major General Lin Feng! Major General Lin Feng did it!”
One soldier shouted, then two, and soon all twenty thousand troops along the three kilometers of the North Gate ramparts raised their magic staves and weapons high into the sky, howling hysterically in the intoxication of victory!
“MAJOR GENERAL LIN FENG! LONG LIVE!”
“LONG LIVE! LONG LIVE!”
The cheers thundered like rolling lightning, drowning out the rainfall and vibrating to the deepest corners of the Ancient Capital. The weather-beaten faces that moments before had turned pale with fear now flushed red with exhilaration and pride. Tears streamed down the cheeks of the seasoned soldiers as they gazed at the retreating back of the young general suspended in the void.
This was not merely salvation; it was an absolute dominance that birthed infinite reverence within human hearts!
Colonel Qin Zheng stood atop the command tower, trembling hands wiping away the rainwater from his face as he threw his head back and laughed aloud:
“Hahaha! A tiger father begets a tiger son! With Lin Feng stationed to guard our Shenzhou, how could this Ancient Capital ever fall?!”
Amidst the roaring cheers tearing through the night sky, Lin Feng hovered calmly, pulling back his sleeve with an indifferent expression.
Beneath his uniform at his chest, the Primordial Dragon Pendant suddenly grew scorching hot.
“Whoosh... Whoosh...”
Three dark, deep blue, massive and pure spectral currents of light resembling three ghostly silk ribbons soared from the remains of the three Zombie Giants, slicing through the wind straight toward Lin Feng’s chest!
Those were Commander-level Spirit Empowerment Crystals!
Moreover, they were three pristine Commander-level Spirit Empowerment Crystals, top-tier rarities among millions of zombies! On the international magic auction market, a single Commander-level Spirit Empowerment Crystal was worth no less than hundreds of millions in magic currency, enough to drive any major clan into a frenzied scramble.
Yet the Primordial Dragon Pendant, akin to a millennium-starved dragon, vibrated with a single deep resonance, instantly opening a tiny golden vortex that swallowed all three Spirit Empowerment Crystals into its spatial vault.
A vast, pure surge of spiritual energy flooded into Lin Feng’s spiritual sea, causing his magic Star Seas to vibrate in satisfied chorus.
Lin Feng nodded slightly. This harvest was indeed not bad. With these three Commander-level Spirit Empowerment Crystals as catalysts, nurturing the Gluttonous Black Wolf and consolidating his remaining magic systems would progress at a staggering speed.
Yet, just as Lin Feng prepared to turn and fly back to the ramparts, his gaze suddenly paused.
He turned his head to gaze deep into the pitch-black mist stretching endlessly beyond ten miles of barren wasteland, where darkness seemed to swallow all light.
In the deepest recesses of the boundless undead horde, deep beneath thousands of yards of cold earth, an aura a hundred times more gloomy and chilling than the three giants was quietly churning. Accompanying it were the dull, bizarre chimes of bells echoing within the spiritual void...
Lin Feng narrowed his eyes, his hand hidden within his sleeve clenching slightly.
“Netherworld Church... Just what are you plotting at the bottom of this Ancient Capital?”