The Southern Theater Command in the Ten Thousand Mountains.
The violent tremors, which had lasted for nearly ten minutes, showed no signs of stopping. Distant, muffled roars could still be heard from a hundred miles away.
The crack in the mountain range at the epicenter had now widened to nearly 500 meters, with a length of nearly a hundred meters.
Dark abyssal depths suddenly emitted colorful, vibrant light.
Upon seeing these lights, the soldiers' expressions tightened.
Command Headquarters.
The adjutants' faces changed slightly. "Commander! This is a precursor to a demon crossing passage!"
"Order all combat units to attack immediately upon spotting a target. No report necessary." Commander Li Hanqing issued the order on the spot. Feeling the immense disturbance outside, his usually calm demeanor could no longer be maintained.
He sensed that the scale of this demon invasion was either unprecedented, or they were facing the strongest class of demons encountered by humanity to date.
Regardless of which scenario it was, this would be a bloody battle.
"I hope it's not both," Commander Li Hanqing murmured with a touch of tragic resolve.
If an unprecedentedly powerful demon descended with a terrifying scale of demonic forces, he had little confidence in his ability to quell this disaster. In that case, the Vermillion Bird defense line, a hundred miles away, would directly launch all its demon-slaying ordnance.
Whether they could annihilate all the demons was unknown, but hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Southern Theater Command would undoubtedly die heroically…
And by now, it was too late to retreat!
"Five years, or even three more years, and perhaps we wouldn't be this passive…"
Li Hanqing's clenched fists trembled slightly. The hope for victory was slim, but his heart was unwilling.
Anti-demon weapon development had been explosive in recent years, but it had started too late and the time was too short. While barely sufficient against low-level demons, it proved powerless against high-level demons with formidable individual combat strength.
As Li Hanqing rapidly brainstormed countermeasures, the ground suddenly shook violently, as if the heavens and earth were inverting. Many barracks and fortifications designed to withstand Level 9 earthquakes collapsed with a roar.
Bang!
A deafening explosion erupted from the mountain range's great fissure, as terrifying as a planet exploding.
This fearsome display caused even the well-trained soldiers' faces to change. Without the need for reconnaissance, everyone had a premonition that something was about to emerge!
After the thunderous noise, the fissure erupted with blinding light, a kaleidoscope of colors as beautiful as brilliant illumination, yet no one appreciated it.
The sense of unease grew stronger. They gripped their weapons tightly, eyes fixed on the great fissure…
Rumble—rumble—rumble—
The ground tremors bizarrely subsided slightly. Before the soldiers could relax.
Suddenly, a terrifying roar of a primeval beast echoed from within the fissure.
"Roar!"
While the sound was not as immense as the previous planet-exploding roar, the sound waves carried violent energy, causing partial communication within the military camp to collapse.
Even some soldiers with weaker constitutions bled from their seven orifices.
"It's here!"
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers tensed their fingers on the trigger. Under the gaze of hundreds of thousands of eyes, a sky-obscuring figure emerged from the fissure.
Powerful flaps of its bat-like wings dispersed the surrounding clouds. The true form of this terrifying demon was fully revealed.
It possessed three massive heads, long necks like venomous snakes, but its scaled heads bore elongated horns. Its body was like a lizard, but it had only two powerful legs, and its tail split into two. Three pairs of eyes, one red, one black, and one white, contemptuously surveyed the surrounding mountains and the startled soldiers.
The wingspan of this terrifying demon was at least three hundred meters!
Indeed, as Commander Li Hanqing had stated, it was the most terrifying and powerful demon they had encountered to date!
"Attack! Annihilate it!"
"We absolutely cannot let it escape the Southern Theater Command!"
Despite their fear, the soldiers pressed the trigger.
Bang bang bang~
The first to attack were the soldiers deployed at the fissure's mouth. They wielded demon-repelling firearms, their weapons also imbued with demon-breaking effects. Flames spewed from their muzzles as bullets whistled out.
But these bullets had no effect on the three-headed demon.
Boom boom boom!!!
Not far away, various demon-repelling missiles also whistled through the air, bombing the demon's colossal body and erupting in bursts of fire.
For a moment, the three-headed demon was enveloped in a blaze of explosions.
Was it effective?
The officers watched through their binoculars and scout videos, their hearts pounding.
"Roar!"
An enraged roar shattered the expectations of the soldiers and officers.
Whoosh~
The chilling, terrifying bat-like wings flapped, extinguishing the flames. The three-headed demon soared into the sky, looking down upon the soldiers on the ground.
In its eyes, the soldiers of the Southern Theater Command were like ants, and it was a dragon that felt offended.
From its three terrifying heads, massive eyes emitted red, blue, and black light respectively.
It prepared to destroy everything on the ground.
Its monstrous maw opened, revealing rows of sharp fangs longer than large trees. The three maws accumulated red, blue, and white energy, and a destructive aura permeated the entire world.
Suddenly, its gaze, which had been fixed on the ground, shifted to the distance.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Ten miles from the mountain range, the Southern Theater Command's strongest deployed weapon, the laser cannon, fired.
Three powerful red and yellow lasers pierced the sky, striking the three-headed demon.
"Roar!"
The three-headed demon had already sensed a trace of danger. At the moment the laser cannons fired, it unleashed the energy accumulating in its three maws.
These were also three beams of energy, but they were red, blue, and black respectively.
Boom boom boom!!!
The three energy beams precisely met the three lasers, creating three massive explosions. The intense light clusters were more dazzling than the sun in the sky, and immense shockwaves visibly propagated outwards.
Space seemed to collapse, and the emanating light lines appeared to bend and refract!
One second, two seconds…
The lasers were slowly pushed back by the three-headed demon's energy beams.
"Commander, the laser cannon's reaction drive is overloading!"
While they were in a stalemate, the soldiers operating the laser cannon units delivered bad news, making the officers at headquarters feel as if they had heard a death knell, their faces turning incredibly grim.
"It's over…" Li Hanqing closed his eyes. Laser cannons of this power could only be supplied with sufficient energy by a reactor. Now, with the reaction drive overloading, continuing would lead to an explosion…
The most desperate realization was that even if the reactor had no issues, the laser cannon's power was insufficient to harm this terrifying three-headed demon.
Could this be a demon above the Calamity class?
Li Hanqing opened his eyes, despair evident in them. He prepared to employ their final desperate measure, hoping to ensure this terrifying demon remained forever slumbering here.
Hum~
The reactor overloaded, and the laser shot from the laser cannon ceased abruptly. As the three-colored energy beams from the three-headed demon were about to strike the laser cannon emplacements, hundreds of thousands felt a wave of despair.
Suddenly, along the trajectory of the laser cannon, a violent gust of wind erupted ahead, and three walls of wind blocked the path!
Thump thump thump!!!
The terrifying energy slammed into the wind walls, causing them to shake. Then, these world-destroying energy beams vanished.
What… what is happening? Reinforcements?
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, including Commander Li Hanqing, were stunned.
Suddenly, a figure appeared before the three-headed demon, a single human form. Compared to the hundreds-of-meters-tall terrifying demon, it appeared incredibly small.
Yet, this figure caused the three-headed demon's pupils to contract, instilling fear and caution!
"Roar! Roar! (Lord Hōō)!" The three-headed demon's calls were filled with shock.
Hōō nodded gently and slowly said, "Give me some face and stand down."