Atlas of Heaven and Man.

Chapter 1424 A Star Shines Brightly

On December 19th, the Da Shun army left the fortress and continued to advance. After a morning of fierce fighting, the airships at the forefront could already see the outer walls of Youdu.

In fact, by this point, they were already able to officially begin a powerful and sustained attack on Youdu.

This time, the Shun forces concentrated most of their strength on the front lines, instead of following the strategy of encircling three sides while leaving one open.

For the Shun army, which has the advantage in the strength of fighters, there is no need for this. As long as you come out of the fortified city of Youdu, I will definitely be able to catch up with you and annihilate you.

When Youdu saw the Shun army's airships appear in the distant sky, they immediately sounded the alarm and were extremely nervous. Airships took off from the anchor tower one after another.

Since the start of the war, the three royal airship factories in the city, along with the four civilian factories that were requisitioned, have been operating their production lines day and night, continuously shipping out assembled combat airships.

But the front lines seem to be an insatiable black hole; no matter how many airships they produce, they can't satisfy the monster's appetite. Instead, demand letters keep pouring in from outside, now piling up on their desks.

Originally, Youdu, the distant cities, and the fortress complex could form a complete defensive system. However, this system requires a sufficient number of Xuanji martial artists to act as intermediaries to make it function properly.

However, the consequences of the numerous battles in the previous days, in which the Xuanji warriors suffered too many losses, have already become apparent.

Those fortresses, built with enormous resources and manpower and filled with secret rituals, could, if garrisoned by suitable combat forces, slow down and block superhuman forces several times their size.

But now, only some third-level warriors and armed soldiers are guarding it.

The Da Shun side only needs an ordinary fighter to break through and eliminate each fortified stronghold.

Most of those who were killed only saw a fleeting glimpse of light before they died.

As large sections of the fortresses outside the city fell, several cannons on the walls of Youdu began to roar.

This is a semi-biological cannon that Youdu commissioned from the renowned arms company "Ice Lake Evil Shark" of the Norros Theocracy. It combines giant super-limited biological glands and ducts.

It can unleash a spiritual impact similar to that of a martial artist, and it can also be filled with special shells. Its power is so great that even an ordinary martial artist could be severely injured if hit head-on by a single shell.

The downside is that they can only fire one shot every ten minutes or so, and after six or seven shots, they need to consume a large amount of high-energy nutrients. Right now, they are sparing no effort to unleash roars and flames towards the place where their original fortress was located.

Amidst the deafening roar of artillery fire, the two airship fleets clashed once again. More than three hundred airships engaged in fierce combat in the sky, with airships occasionally crashing to the ground, exploding with huge flashes of light and deafening roars.

Most of these were airships from the old imperial family. It wasn't that their models and weapons were inferior; these airships were built and assembled using advanced technologies from outside, and the weapons they were equipped with were the most advanced available today.

However, the limited number of Xuanji martial artists prevented them from gaining an advantage in such clashes.

After the order to defend the king was issued, most of the Xuanji warriors who retreated by abandoning large tracts of land were exhausted in the battles of the previous days. The anomalies awakened at the cost of their lives did not play their due role.

The tactical gamble failed, directly weakening Youdu's support at all levels.

Seeing that the war was going badly, Youdu played another card, releasing a large number of flying alien "Jiaoying" that had been trained in the city.

These mutated creatures possess formidable aerial combat abilities, but their weakness lies in the fact that after a short burst of power, they require a large amount of food to maintain their stamina.

Previously, the battle lines were far apart, making it difficult for them to exert their strengths. But now, with Youdu as their backing, they can fully utilize their advantages.

This surprise attack did cause some trouble for Da Shun, but after figuring out that the characteristics of these alien species were indeed consistent with the descriptions in the intelligence, they were annihilated in large numbers under the siege of Da Shun fighters and active consciousness entities dispatched from the rear.

In fact, if the Da Shun side hadn't intentionally implemented a bloodletting tactic, ordinary Xuanji warriors and these alien species wouldn't even have had the chance to fight.

Even knowing that such tactics would hardly lead to victory and would only waste lives and war resources, airships still took off one after another from the anchor towers, rushing into the sky filled with smoke and fire.

The sky is too important to them; they must find a way to fight for it, and they will not stop until all the war resources are completely exhausted.

The only thing Youdu is hoping for now is to hold out until nightfall. Once night falls, the advantage will shift in their favor, and another day will be over.

After noon, the sound of cannons booming began to echo from behind Da Shun.

Over the past few days, the transport airships disassembled the train cannons and transported them to the front lines, where they were reassembled. Without the threat of air power, they could drop shells directly onto the walls of Youdu.

Chen Chuan stood on the deck of the airship at the rear, wearing an implanted body and holding the Snow Lord Blade. He glanced at the time on his mask; it was 2 PM. After several hours of fighting, most of the airships and aliens from Youdu had been cleared out. Only a few were still putting up a stubborn resistance, but they could no longer form a significant force.

His body slowly floated up into the sky, and the spiritual light around him naturally radiated outwards before drifting slowly towards Youdu.

Upon seeing this, the martial artists from the Dongxuan Temple on each airship rose up one by one and followed him, scattering in mid-air.

The dazzling light emanating from them was like clusters of twinkling stars in the sky, illuminating the entire sky above the land of fusion with unprecedented brightness.

As they advanced, an invisible field and aura expanded outwards, creating a dull echo in the atmosphere, causing the ground outside Youdu City to tremble slightly.

Within the Netherworld, through the gloomy clouds, one could see dazzling figures in the sky. The specific expressions of each person were unclear, but an immense aura enveloped the Netherworld.

Especially the one standing at the very front, whose body was shimmering with platinum-gold light, with white steam rising upwards like a column of smoke, looked like a huge sun from the Old World, which seemed to be about to descend at any moment, dissolving and dispelling the clouds obscuring their heads.

Chen Chuan's gaze fell upon the massive city shrouded in thick, murky black mist.

At this moment, an exceptionally large alien creature charged towards them from afar. It was incredibly fast, but as soon as it entered the area where they were, it immediately lost consciousness and fell from the sky, crashing to the ground with a loud bang, kicking up a large cloud of dust.

Chen Chuan didn't even glance at the thing. At this moment, he stretched out a finger toward Youdu, and then a bright light flashed from the fingertip.

The next moment, a beam of light, seemingly piercing through the sky, shot down and struck the massive city in the blink of an eye. In that instant, layers upon layers of energy fields appeared around Youdu.

The spiritual impact was constantly being consumed within the overlapping fields, and by the time it reached the bottom, most of it had been worn away. Even so, a huge hole was still pierced through the layer of dark clouds, directly revealing the palaces and buildings below.

The armed guards and civilians stared in disbelief at the figures standing in the light, like gods and immortals.

With a deafening roar, a tall watchtower collapsed under the aftershocks of the spiritual energy impact, and the last glimmer of light blasted a deep crater in the ground, resembling a meteorite impact.

The clouds above slowly dispersed, covering everything again.

Chen Chuan deduced that at least a hundred rituals responded simultaneously to the attack just now, with the density increasing towards the inner layers.

Furthermore, it is evident that the greater the impact force, the greater the ritual response it elicits.

Besides these...

His brow flickered, and through his Heavenly Eye, he looked at various corners of Youdu. He could see huge illusory outlines in some places, roughly three or four of them.

This should be the last Dongxuan Temple fighter in Youdu City. However, the aura of the ancient deity was not detected. It is possible that he did not join the defense, but it is possible that he will encounter him in the future attack.

With the secret ritual and the support of these people, aimless attacks are indeed not a good approach. You must know that this is a defensive system that Youdu has spent over a hundred years building, and it was designed from the outset to withstand attacks from multiple Dongxuan Temple fighters.

If you don't find the right entry point, it might take ten days to half a month to exhaust most of the secret realm before you can break through.

However, it's different when he has the blueprints.

At this moment, a message from Wen Mingzhong appeared on the implant's boundary marker:
"Commander, during the attack just now, the location of the palace and the order and scale of the secret messages echoing from various places were almost identical to the secret message intelligence given by the command. Can we try attacking these places again so that we can deduce and calculate a reasonable attack path?"

As they spoke, several red markers appeared on Chen Chuan's boundary marker.

He replied that he understood.

However, he won't specifically target those few spots, as that would easily reveal his true intentions to the opponent.

Therefore, he used his spirit to send the signal to attack to all the Dongxuan Temple fighters present, and informed a limited number of them of the actual location that needed to be attacked.

The moment he gave the order, bright spots of light appeared one after another in the originally gloomy sky, and then the whole world seemed to flicker rapidly as more than ten huge spiritual shock beams rushed toward Youdu below!
……

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(End of this chapter)