Volume 4: Super-Tier Awakening & The Ancient Capital Calamity
Chapter 386
The Crimson Rain Clears: Sunlight Breaks Over Western Capital
Gale-force winds whipped swirling crimson mist through the fractured ramparts of the Western Capital’s ancient fortifications, carrying with them a bone-chilling frost and the nauseating, metallic stench of fresh blood and rotting flesh. For nearly two months, the sky above tens of millions of souls had never once known natural light. It was an eternal, oppressive blood-red hue—a crushing weight upon every chest that made even the mightiest Super-Tier mages feel as though they were drowning at the crushing depths of a deep-sea trench.
On the ground, the mud had long since congealed with the black gore of countless fallen undead. Tattered corpses and bleached, skeletal remains intertwined with glowing demonic runes clawed endlessly over one another, forming towering heaps of bone that surged forward, hungry to breach the final line of defense. Tens of thousands of military mages from the garrisons guarding the Western Capital stood rooted to the ramparts, every single one of them covered in wounds. Their battle armor was shredded to pieces, the magic energy in their dantian drained to the absolute final drop, their eyes bloodshot and glazed from sleep deprivation and profound despair.
“Captain... My magic energy... I don’t have a single drop left...”
A seventeen-year-old mage cadet, his staff trembling so violently it threatened to slip from his grasp, collapsed onto the blood-soaked flagstones. His hands were raw and weeping blood, his flesh charred black by the necrotic miasma of a Commander-tier beast he had slain moments before.
The squad’s leader was a rugged veteran with a tiger-like beard and a towering frame. Now missing an arm, his chest was bound in thick bandages soaked in dark, blackened gore. He didn’t turn his head; his gaze remained locked unwaveringly onto the boundless sea of undead howling beyond the moat. Slowly, he raised his half-broken battle blade and drove it deep into the stone, his voice raspy and choked with emotion yet ringed with unyielding steel:
“As long as you’re breathing... you keep fighting! Behind us are our families, our parents, hundreds of thousands of children huddled in the underground bunkers. If you dare let go, those beasts out there will trample over your corpse to devour them all!”
The youth bit his lip until it split, hot tears mixing with soot and ash across his bruised cheeks. Staggering back to his feet, he bit down hard on a bitter, low-grade qi-recovery pill, gripping his wooden staff with white-knuckled intensity. Yet deep down inside, a bottomless wave of helplessness continued to gnaw at his soul. Forty-nine days and nights! An entire agonizing epoch. Did reinforcements—did miracles—actually exist, or had this Western Capital long been abandoned by the holy sanctuaries and supreme sects to rot in the abyss?
Deep within the subterranean bomb shelters, the air was suffocatingly thick. Tens of thousands of civilians packed tightly together in the dim, flickering glow of magic crystals whose energy was rapidly dying. A young mother clutched her infant tightly to her chest, her vacant eyes fixed on the reinforced concrete ceiling that shuddered violently with every terrifying shockwave from above. The starving child wailed in weak, pathetic gasps, but the mother could only bite her lip, hot tears streaming down to dampen the infant’s wispy hair. She had no milk, no clean water, and no strength left even to soothe her baby. All they could do now was hold each other close, trembling as they prayed to some nameless deity to show mercy.
Just as the final spark of humanity’s hope within the Western Capital flickered on the verge of extinction, when the shadow of death had consumed every narrow alley...
Rumble—Rumble—Rumble————!
A cataclysmic, world-shaking roar erupted from deep within the earth, right at the epicenter of the ancient Imperial Mausoleum. This sound bore no resemblance to the roar of a magical beast, nor was it the detonation of a magic artillery shell; it was a primordial, pure, and majestic vibration so overwhelming that it seemed to freeze the surrounding space itself.
The entire ground of the Western Capital shuddered violently. Millions of undead scrambling frantically outside the walls froze instantly, the deep hollow sockets of their skulls flaring with specks of terrified blue fire as though they had just sensed a supreme, bloodline-crushing majesty.
“What... what is happening?!”
The one-armed veteran widened his eyes, his broken blade slipping from his grip to the earth. He stared in absolute disbelief toward the heart of the city, where the ancient Imperial Mausoleum had slumbered for generations amidst stagnant death qi.
Right from the ruins of the previous emperor’s tomb, a magnificent, blinding pillar of golden light surged into the heavens. It was not ordinary light, but the condensation of countless natural laws transformed into a divine celestial sword thrust straight into the darkened firmament.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The golden pillar of divine radiance erupted with terrifying energy the moment it appeared. The thick, viscous sea of blood clouds that had blanketed the Western Capital for nearly two months suddenly convulsed violently. Gigantic fissures tore across the crimson sky, resembling a shattered mirror smashed to pieces by an invisible force.
“Look! The sky... the sky is shattering!”
A terrified scream rang out from the soldiers along the ramparts.
Tens of thousands of pairs of eyes lifted simultaneously. They watched clearly as patches of black clouds carrying monstrous grievances dissolved into nothingness like snow encountering molten lava. There was no thunderous explosion, no bloody clash—only a pure, brilliant, and warming light sweeping away every trace of gloom and demonic aberration from the skies of the ancient capital.
The foul, rotting blood rain—which had claimed the lives of countless comrades and fouled every inch of soil—abruptly ceased. The final drops falling onto the soldiers’ palms transformed into transparent dewdrops before vaporizing completely into the air.
The stench of decaying corpses, the metallic reek of fresh blood, and the oppressive aura of death that had weighed heavily upon the city for so long were swept away by a sudden, pristine breeze. The air grew remarkably fresh, crisp, and teeming with primordial vital energy. Inhaling deeply, everyone felt their chests cleansed as if washed anew; the dried-up, withered magic rivers in their dantians abruptly surged on their own accord, regenerating at a dizzying pace.
Whoosh... Pop!
The first rays of sunlight in nearly sixty grueling days finally pierced through the shattering canopy of clouds, casting their brilliant warmth directly down upon the ruined ramparts, the moss-grown tiled roofs, and the dumbfounded faces of millions of people.
Golden, warm, and radiant sunlight enveloped the Western Capital. It illuminated the tear lingering on the cheek of the young mother in the shelter, the dried blood on the battle armor of the one-armed veteran, and the stunned smile of the young mage who had just collapsed moments before.
The entire city of tens of millions fell into an absolute, breathless silence. No one spoke a word. They raised their heads, gazing at the boundless azure sky unmarred by a single cloud, gazing at the sun radiating a sacred light of salvation.
Then, a choked sob broke the stillness.
“We won... We... we survived?!”
A soldier collapsed to his knees, slamming his fists hard against the stone flagstone, tilting his head back to release a cry that shattered the agonizing suppression of countless days and nights. That cry spread—from one person to ten, from ten to millions. Tens of millions embraced one another amid the rubble, their sobbing blending with sudden, delirious laughter born of overwhelming joy. It was the tears of surviving catastrophe, the revival of faith reborn from ashes.
Yet, amidst this atmosphere of ecstatic release, across the desolate hills surrounding the Western Capital, millions of high-tier corpses and ghouls that had moments before howled in madness fell abruptly silent.
They did not charge forward as previously commanded. Millions of hollow eye sockets turned simultaneously toward the central Imperial Mausoleum—where the golden pillar of divine light still stood piercing the high heavens. A strange, muffled, and chilling sound, resembling the sigh of an ancient deity from the deepest bowels of the earth, began to echo, plunging the newly sunlit sky once more into an unprecedented, eerie stillness...