Outside the city of the Seven Hills, on a secluded coast.
Jagged reefs, crashing waves.
An old man wearing traditional loose Huanglong garments and a bamboo hat was sitting leisurely on a small folding stool, holding a long bamboo fishing rod, his line cast into the churning seawater.
Beside him was a fish basket containing only a few small fish, and a steaming small purple clay teapot.
This traveler from the distant Huanglong seemed to have been living in another world these past few days.
The oppressive dark clouds on the southern horizon, the Black Shores warships occasionally patrolling the sea, and the faint oppressive feeling in the air seemed to have nothing to do with him.
He came here to fish every day without fail, his expression tranquil, as if what lay before him wasn't a peril-ridden foreign sea, but a picturesque wild pond somewhere in Huanglong.
"Tsk, the water and soil of this foreign land don't yield very plump fish."
The old man took a sip of tea and muttered slowly to himself, seemingly turning a blind eye to the fleet in the distance. "But then again, the joy of fishing lies not in the fish, but in seeking peace and quiet."
He even had the leisure to critique that fleet: "Those big ships over there have a rather peculiar design. Cold iron armor, but they lack the beauty of the flying eaves and painted beams of our Mingting tower ships. Too imposing, with no artistic conception to speak of..."
However, his worldly detachment and tranquility were completely and brutally shattered in the next moment.
WUUU-RUMBLE—!!!
Without warning, those silent steel leviathans on the sea, like ancient beasts instantly awakening from a deep slumber, let out deafening, terrifying thunders.
The old man was so startled his fishing rod nearly slipped from his hands. "Hmm?! Thunder? This sky..."
He subconsciously looked up, and the following sight made his experienced, always half-squinted eyes instantly bulge wide open.
His mouth fell slightly open, and he even forgot the motion of stroking his beard.
On the decks of those steel warships, countless grid-like hatch covers blasted open simultaneously.
In the next second, streaks of incomparably blazing meteors trailing long exhaust flames, like an infuriated swarm of bees carrying world-destroying momentum, shot straight up into the sky from within the ships' hulls.
Swoosh! Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh—!!!
Ear-piercing sonic booms tore apart the tranquility of the sea and sky. The meteors soared upwards in such massive numbers that they nearly blotted out a section of the sky.
They drew neat, heart-palpitating arcs of death in the air, diving without hesitation toward the depths of the continent blanketed by black clouds to the south.
That was absolutely not any Resonance or Echo power within his understanding; that was the pure, icy, massive roar of steel and gunpowder.
This was the most direct and violent aesthetic of destruction, surpassing all his concepts of artistic conception.
The old man was completely dumbfounded. The fishing rod in his hand dropped onto the reef with a clack.
He stared blankly at the meteor shower flying in reverse across the sky, watching them gradually shrink until they disappeared into the southern horizon. The soul-shaking whistling still seemed to echo in his ears.
It took a full several seconds before he seemed to finally find his voice. Sucking in a sharp breath of cold air, he let out a gasp of utter disbelief in the most authentic Southwestern Huanglong Mandarin:
"Holy—Shit—!"
"What... what the fuck are those things?!!"
This Huanglong angler, who had remained unruffled for countless days and nights, finally completely broke his composure at this moment, condensing the essence of his lifelong vocabulary into this ultimate expression of shock.
He looked in the direction of the fleet, then at the south where the missiles vanished, and finally looked down at his fishing rod and the few pitiful small fish in his basket. He suddenly felt...
This world seemed to be a lot more thrilling than he had imagined.
Inside the Senate, the nobles had gathered in the assembly hall. Seeing the scenes in the camp through intermittent real-time comms feeds from their informants, they were gloating over Augusta's misfortune.
The noble senators, using portable video comms equipment planted near the Hunters' Camp and the northern observation posts, were receiving intermittent real-time text reports and extremely blurry, shaky, snow-filled video clips.
"...The Black Tide... has completely erupted... unprecedented scale, they're pouring out from the Town of Murmurs center... there are too many, we can't hold them back..."
"...The camp and the Governor's group have been cut off... the passage is gone, they can't come back..."
"...The Tacet Discord tide... they found the camp! They've broken in! We can't hold on..."
In the intermittent footage, they could occasionally catch glimpses of the terrifying Tacet Discord tide surging like a black tsunami, the faintly discernible, ferocious silhouettes of the monsters, and the desperate resistance of the camp's defenders.
A gloating sneer first appeared on the nobles' faces.
"Hmph, Augusta... has failed as expected..."
"With the frontline lost, let's see how she answers for it!"
"Perhaps... this is our chance..."
However, the subsequent emergency communication instantly froze all their sneers and whispers.
"...Emergency intel! Intercepted from the frontline channel... it's an order from that Rover! He... he ordered the fleet to... bomb! Bomb our camp!"
"...Order confirmed! Saturation bombardment! The target is the entire camp area and the Town of Murmurs!"
"...Countdown... ten minutes!"
Inside the Senate of the Seven Hills, the atmosphere instantly became as heavy as solidified amber.
When they wiretapped Rover's icy bombardment order, all their expressions froze.
Boundless terror and pallor were all that remained in the hearts of the noble senators—that man, he was actually going to personally destroy the Seven Hills' frontline camp in the Hunting Grounds?! Did he truly have such authority and power?!
Dead silence, a deathly stillness enveloped the entire Senate, followed by a massive uproar.
"How... how dare he?!"
"Lunatic! That's our camp! And our people!"
"He's going to completely destroy..."
Panic instantly replaced any sense of opportunism.
They couldn't imagine that someone could issue such a cold-blooded, absolute order, and possess the terrifying power to execute it instantly.
Outside the east side of the Town of Murmurs, at the forward base.
Standing on the high ground of the base, Rover stared expressionlessly at the northern sky.
Augusta stood tightly beside him, her fists clenched, her knuckles white.
Suddenly, on the distant horizon, countless stars rapidly growing in size lit up.
"They're here," Rover said softly.
The next second, those stars, like lightning spears hurled down by the fury of the gods, carrying air-tearing shrieks, slammed down accurately like a torrential rain onto the coordinate bounds of the Hunters' Camp and the Town of Murmurs.
BOOM! BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—!!!
The endless explosions traveled over like rolling, muffled thunder despite the vast distance.
Giant fireballs morphed into mushroom clouds, rising into the sky one after another, devouring every living creature within sight.
The massive shockwave even made the ground at the distant forward base tremble slightly.
The entire camp and the Town of Murmurs were instantly transformed into a hellish landscape of interwoven flames and death. The Black Tide rapidly melted away before this absolutely devastating firepower like ice and snow under the sun.
Augusta looked in shock at this apocalyptic scene. The soaring flames were reflected in her crimson eyes. She slowly turned her head to look at Rover, who stood as calm as a boulder beside her.
Her eyes were filled with unprecedentedly complex emotions—shock, awe, lingering fear, and an indescribable, utter conviction and worship.
Yuno and the survivors, who had just rushed into the Attilius Pass not long ago, heard the massive noise not far away and looked back exhaustedly.
They saw a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives:
Countless burning meteors, like swords of judgment sent down by the gods, accurately fell into the purgatory they had just fled.
Immediately after, deafening explosions and soaring mushroom clouds of flame engulfed everything.
The scorching heatwave even blew to the canyon entrance, carrying the smell of gunpowder and blood.
Everyone was stunned by this scene of divine punishment, remaining speechless for a long time.
Yuno covered her mouth, unable to speak for a long time. Tears shimmered in her azure eyes—not out of sorrow, but the thrill of surviving a disaster, and an endless gratitude and admiration for the man who had issued that order.
She knew that it was him who had saved them in the most decisive and effective way possible.
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