A blinding white beam of soul force erupted with a deafening roar, surging from the barrel of the Destruction Impact Soul Cannon, hurtling straight toward the shadowy figures advancing across the snowy plains in the distance.
On the snow-covered field, a variety of ferocious soul beasts, their eyes glowing red, roared as they charged toward the fortress. From the mountain peaks above, where the snow had instantly melted, the scorching white beam of soul force smashed into the rear ranks of the advancing soul beast army.
Boom!
Just before the beam hit the ground, it exploded in mid-air. The raging soul force, like a scorching white sun, expanded violently across the snow-covered landscape. The devastating energy instantly engulfed the soul beasts, dissolving them into ash.
In the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of soul beasts were obliterated by the explosion, while more than 200,000 others suffered serious injuries.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The rune-covered walls of the fortress erupted next, as countless Light Soul Cannons fired simultaneously, their multicolored beams of soul force sweeping through the air, targeting the Wuxing and Xunyin clans.
The Light Soul Cannons, renowned for their rapid rate of fire, unleashed a barrage of soul force beams that rained down upon the flying foreign races. The once dim sky was now illuminated by the brilliant flashes of soul energy, and the intense heat from the attacks melted the snow across the mountains, sending steam rising into the air. The heat was so intense that the Yuan family disciples had to circulate their soul force to protect themselves.
As the soul force rained down, explosions echoed across the battlefield. What was once a deadly, chaotic scene was now a glowing inferno of destruction, as soul energy blasted out from what the Yuan disciples had once dismissed as mere "metal contraptions," cutting down the foreign races and their soul beasts.
But that wasn't all—they soon noticed heavily armored soul warriors, emerging seemingly out of nowhere, moving swiftly among the beams of soul energy. These warriors surrounded any foreign race member that managed to withstand the cannon fire, executing them with deadly precision and coordination.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions continued to rock the battlefield as Yuan Tianxia hovered in mid-air, staring in stunned silence at the devastation unfolding before him. Words failed him.
"Young Master, these metal contraptions are terrifying!" The burly Yuan disciple, drenched in cold sweat, watched as another massive blast of soul force erupted from the cannon, detonating in the sky and instantly vaporizing tens of thousands of foreign warriors.
They had been standing directly in front of that very cannon only moments before. If the soldier from the Hua Xia Empire hadn't pulled them back, they would have been reduced to ashes.
The battle was already decided. The once formidable army of foreign races and soul beasts, which had charged with such ferocity, was decimated before they could even approach the fortress.
The newly arrived army of soul warriors was far stronger than any of the foreign race warriors. Their equipment was advanced, their teamwork impeccable, and their methods ruthless. Compared to them, the Yuan family disciples were like children.
Yuan Zhi swallowed hard, letting out a deep sigh. "Young Master, I think it's clear now. Our ancestor wasn't lying when he said that the Yuan family was to serve the Hua Xia Empire. Now I understand why the elders felt such peace when they saw these so-called 'soul cannons.'"
"These cannons truly will reduce the casualties among the Yuan family."
After Yuan Zhi finished speaking, Yuan Tianxia remained silent, processing everything he had just witnessed. He now understood what it meant for the emperor to send these powerful weapons to the front lines.
With these soul cannons, any future attacks by the foreign races would come at an incredibly steep price. The foreign races would be decimated before even reaching the Yuan family's strongholds, dramatically reducing casualties among the Yuan family.
In that moment, Yuan Tianxia felt a deep sense of shame. He had misunderstood the emperor all along, underestimating the power of these "metal contraptions."
At long last, the days of heavy losses among the Yuan family would come to an end.
And it wasn't just this one fortress. Across the entire northern border, the foreign races, which had harassed the human territories for years, launched simultaneous assaults, almost as if they had coordinated their attacks.
But instead of facing the usual charges from the Yuan family disciples, they were met with merciless bombardments from the soul cannons of the Hua Xia Empire.
The overwhelming firepower of the soul cannons decimated the foreign races before they could even get close to the human fortresses. Under the cover of this bombardment, the Hua Xia Empire's imperial army mercilessly slaughtered the remnants.
The foreign races' dreams of easily breaking through the Yuan family's defenses were shattered. Years of planning were reduced to rubble under the unrelenting power of the soul cannons.
"Why? How could this happen? What are those things?" In the command tent of the Wuxing Clan's army, a towering general, who had taken possession of a massive body from the Qingshi Clan, slammed his fist down on the table, reducing it to dust. "We sent three million troops, and not only did we fail to breach a single stronghold, but only seventy thousand soldiers survived?"
"Three million troops, including four transcendent-level soul warriors and a thousand peak awakening-level warriors. Only one transcendent warrior survived. What happened out there?!"
Meanwhile, in the Xunyin Clan's camp, their general, overseeing the battle from afar, wore a dark expression as he listened to his subordinates' reports. "Buildings that can fire soul energy? Interesting... I've never heard of such a thing before."
In the Ghost-Eaters Clan, their general flew into a rage, smashing everything in sight.
The general of the Savage Clan was so enraged that he struck down one of his own commanders for daring to return alone, berating him for being useless.
The foreign races had only sent their vanguard armies, but they were still formidable forces. In their estimation, the Yuan family stood no chance of holding the outer fortresses on their own against such a large and powerful coalition.
They had assumed that the Yuan family, facing the overwhelming strength of the foreign races' united armies, would be forced to abandon their outer fortresses, retreating to their inner lines and sounding the alarm for the entire human race to prepare for war.
By then, the foreign armies would have already swept through the northern territories of the human domain, demonstrating to the hesitant factions of the Western Continent that attacking the human territories was both feasible and profitable.
But their plans had crumbled before their eyes. The foreign vanguard armies had been annihilated, while the human forces had suffered almost no losses.
Although the northern domain of the human territories had held, the eastern and western domains had already been breached by foreign invaders!
The war had begun, and the great conflict of the Soul Martial Continent was about to erupt on an unprecedented scale.