Inside the command post, the soldiers were carrying out pre-battle preparations in a tense but orderly manner, wiping their weapons.
Chu Yao's terminal's red light pierced the silence of the command center. The dense red dots in the holographic projection, like a swarm of crazed fireflies, were visibly devouring the blue light band representing Earth's defense perimeter.
Long Wu's dragon scales bristled half an inch behind his neck. As he bent down to pick up the heavy sword from the ground, the blade scraped against the ground with a piercing sound: "Damn it!"
"That old bastard had to come at the worst possible time, right when we were just getting ready!" Before he finished speaking, his skin was covered in bluish-gold scales, and a deep dragon roar rolled from his throat—this was the instinctive reaction of a true dragon's bloodline awakening.
Su Qing's fingertips dug into her palm, and the pale gold mark suddenly became incredibly hot, as if it were about to crawl out from under her skin.
She glanced at Lin Yi instinctively, only to see his thumb slowly rubbing the spacetime prism on his chest, his black pupils shimmering with starlight. "Activate Level One combat readiness," Lin Yi's voice, like bronze tempered with ice, swept across the twenty-seven tactical screens in the command post. "Long Wu, lead the advance team to intercept them. Black Shadow, go to airspace number three to cut off their spatial anchor point. Su Qing, provide battlefield support—"
"Received!" Long Wu's response was mixed with a dragon's roar, and before he finished speaking, he had already smashed through the glass curtain wall of the command post.
His body swelled in mid-air, covered in cyan-gold dragon scales, his tail swept away three dark clouds, and lightning arcs leaped between his claws as he pounced straight towards the densest group of red dots.
Several muffled thuds came from the ground; those were the sonic booms of his dragon claws tearing through the air.
"Commander, the invaders are using the Shadow Erosion Clan's unique 'Dark Tide Propulsion,' which allows them to bypass our gravity traps. They are now only thirty kilometers from the surface—" Chu Yao's fingers flew across the virtual panel.
"Time Legion, deploy the Rift Barrier!" Lin Yi's voice resounded through the tactical headsets to every soldier's eardrums.
Twenty-seven figures dressed in dark purple combat suits raised their hands simultaneously, and the spacetime badges on their chests lit up with a ghostly blue light, instantly creating dozens of semi-transparent cracks in the air.
These gaps, like greedy mouths, devoured all the incoming energy beams and then spat them back from another direction, accurately hitting the power reactors of the three rhomboid warships.
"Beautiful!" Long Wu's dragon tail shattered the last aircraft that was rushing towards the medical team. The black blood on the scales hissed and smoked. "I told you these Shadow Eaters' shells are very fragile!" He raised his head and spewed out a dragon breath. Crimson-gold flames wrapped in thunderstorms melted a large hole in the outer shell of the mothership three kilometers away.
The shadowy figure suddenly appeared in the fifth airspace, his mask flowing with extradimensional runes, and his hands forming complex hand seals.
The spatial passage connecting the invaders' nest suddenly twisted, like a ribbon severed by invisible scissors. "Three support lines have been cut," his voice echoed with a metallic quality. "They can only rely on their existing forces now."
Su Qing stood on the makeshift support platform, a golden mark appearing between her brows, its pale golden halo spreading like ripples.
The warriors' wounds from the dragon's breath healed at a visible speed, and the pupils of the Time Legion members glowed with an even brighter blue light—her "Star Wish Blessing" was taking effect. "Watch out for the left flank!" she suddenly looked up, pointing northwest. "There are three stealth fighters there!"
Three silver bullets were fired from the sniper's gun barrel, accurately penetrating the stealth fighter's energy shield.
Amidst the flames of exploding fighter jets, Long Wu threw his head back and laughed, smashing the last intruder trying to break through with his dragon claw: "That was exhilarating!"
This battle was much more satisfying than fighting aliens in Misty Valley—
Just when everyone thought the battle was about to be won, some minor anomalies began to appear more frequently on the battlefield, such as abnormal local energy fluctuations and minor malfunctions of individual devices.
At this moment, Night Owl revealed a sinister smile in the shadows, and he quietly unleashed the prelude to the Shadow Erosion Domain.
The words came to an abrupt halt.
The air seemed to freeze instantly, becoming as thick as ink, and each breath felt like pulling on a thick black veil.
The once clear battlefield scene quickly blurred, like a painting splattered with ink, where colors and lines twisted and dissipated in the darkness.
All electronic devices simultaneously emitted a sharp, piercing crackling sound of electricity, with sparks flying wildly between the screens and circuits, as if being manipulated at will by an invisible black hand.
Chu Yao's terminal screen instantly became covered in spiderweb-like patterns, with dark light seeping from the cracks. When she looked up, the data stream in her eyes seemed to be drawn into a black hole, visibly swallowed by darkness, leaving only endless emptiness. She cried out in terror, "Commander... the spatial fluctuations are abnormal, it's the Shadow Erosion Domain!"
A dark figure emerged from the deepening darkness. He was half a head taller than a human, and his skin was a deathly dark purple, as if it had been completely eroded by time and evil. His eyes were two bottomless black holes, emanating a chilling aura.
The night owl's voice, like the grinding of rusty gears, carried a twisted malice: "My dear trial-takers, do you think you can stop the Shadow Erosion with such petty tricks?" He raised his hand, and darkness, like living creatures, coiled around Dragon Five's tail. The darkness, like countless writhing tentacles, tightly bound and squeezed, tearing off the scales from the dragon's tail, leaving it dripping with blood. "Taste the true Shadow Erosion—"
Darkness instantly enveloped the entire battlefield with overwhelming force.
Long Wu's roar was muffled in his throat, as if it were being tightly covered by an invisible hand, and he could only let out a muffled whimper.
Su Qing's golden seal struggled and flickered in the darkness, but was ultimately swallowed up mercilessly by the darkness, and the pale golden halo shattered and dissipated like a fragile bubble.
The Time Legion's rift barrier twisted into a grotesque shape in the darkness. The once stable gaps were like strips of cloth torn by a gale, their edges curled and broken, emitting painful wails.
Lin Yi's spacetime prism suddenly became hot, the intense heat burning his skin through his clothes. He could clearly feel that some kind of rule-level power was altering the laws of this space.
Space was like a crumpled piece of cloth, twisted and deformed, gravity became chaotic, and the soldiers' bodies swayed and floated involuntarily.
"Maintain formation!" His voice pierced the darkness, like a sword cutting through the night, but under the weight of the darkness, it sounded somewhat weak. "Chu Yao, locate Night Owl; Long Wu, use dragon breath to burn through the darkness; Shadow, prepare spatial sealing—"
But all that answered him was a series of muffled sounds rising and falling in the darkness.
Someone's weapon fell to the ground, making a crisp sound that was particularly jarring in the silent darkness.
Rapid breathing came through someone's tactical headset, as if they were struggling against the fear and oppression in the darkness.
Su Qing groped in the darkness and finally grasped Lin Yi's wrist. The golden seal on her palm was still burning hot, like the only spark in the darkness, but this faint light seemed so small and helpless in the endless darkness.
In the depths of this darkness, the owl's laughter, like a viper's hiss, sinister and chilling, echoed in the ears of every warrior: "The game... has only just begun."
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