Chapter 1 Calaxius's Shock

Hearing Calaxius's exclamation, both Hao Ren and Lily were instantly stunned. The latter, unable to hold anything back, immediately whispered, "What did you say? The City of Auspice?"

"In the name of the Goddess, I would never be mistaken," Calaxius lowered his voice, his face pale with astonishment. It took him half a minute to recover enough to continue speaking. "I was sent to the monastery in the City of Auspice when I was a child and lived in that city for decades. I am very familiar with every city wall and tower... That's the Holy District, that's Radiant Avenue, and over there... is the monastery where I first studied..."

"It looks like it's been through a terrible event..." Hao Ren frowned. "Almost a third of the city has been destroyed, and the central area inside is in the worst condition. Look over there, those buildings all show signs of violent tremors and high temperatures."

Actually, Hao Ren didn't need to remind anyone. Everyone present could see that. However, what was more shocking and puzzling than the ruins of the City of Auspice was: why was this city here? Why would a city that should be in the real world appear in the nightmare Old World?!

Everyone couldn't help but think of the situation around Mount Asuman in the real world, the scorching pits and crevices around the mountain, scattered throughout the ruins of the City of Auspice. Hao Ren couldn't help but recall a detail: at that time, there didn't seem to be any building debris around those pits. Although everyone speculated that a meteor shower had destroyed the entire city, even the most intense meteor shower wouldn't completely obliterate all the buildings, right? At least there should be some fragments left! But at that time, there was nothing to be seen on the ruins except for the pits!

So... the City of Auspice wasn't destroyed by a meteor shower, but was instead teleported as a whole to the scorched plains of the Abyss of Forgetfulness?

This idea emerged in many people's minds.

"Does the City of Auspice have similar settings?" Hao Ren whispered, asking Calaxius behind him, "For example, a divine magic array that can use spatial teleportation to avoid danger in an emergency, sending the entire city into another dimension."

"The City of Auspice as a whole is indeed a divine magic array, but it doesn't have the ability of spatial teleportation," Calaxius replied softly. "In the knowledge I have, no divine magic or spell can achieve such a miracle."

"Could it be that there was originally a mirror image of the City of Auspice on the Abyss of Forgetfulness side?" Lily said fancifully. "Isn't the outside real world constructed according to this Old World? So the two worlds might have always maintained a mapping relationship. If there's a City of Auspice outside, one would pop up here out of nowhere... and then the one outside exploded, so this one almost exploded too."

Hao Ren had to admit that this husky, whose brain nerves were always racing, often made some skewed sense...

But even with some skewed sense, Lily's guess was too bizarre, and no one dared to believe it casually. Just as Hao Ren was wondering whether he should call a probe to risk exploring the "City of Auspice" to investigate the situation, Nangong Wuyue poked Hao Ren's arm with her cold tail tip: "Landlord, I think we should pay attention to the camp below first... Look, that camp is right next to the 'City of Auspice,' and the creatures active in it don't seem like the kind of chaotic demons you described before, right?"

Lily peeked her head over for a look: "Actually, they're just as ugly..."

Hao Ren frowned. What Nangong Wuyue said was also what he was concerned about. The dilapidated camp ahead, filled with a dark and eerie atmosphere, was only a short distance from the half-destroyed City of Auspice, and the soldiers active in the camp were even more concerning. They were not humans at all, but all kinds of distorted and terrifying corrupted creatures. They were like various strangely shaped, bloated masses of flesh and cobbled-together skeletons, some of which were simply clusters of tentacles crawling everywhere. These chaotic creatures swayed in the camp, like monsters creeping in a nightmare. However, among these monsters that couldn't help but evoke thoughts of chaotic demons, there were a few individuals wearing armor and wielding weapons. Although they were also rotten and mutated, they were undoubtedly wearing equipment. The equipment seemed to have been modified by themselves, dirty and dilapidated, crudely pieced together, almost just hanging various twisted metal pieces on their bodies.

This was enough to distinguish the "monsters" in the camp from ordinary chaotic demons. They looked more like semi-polluted "corrupted demons," but ordinary corrupted demons shouldn't have such high discipline.

Images of the monsters fighting together that he had seen in the illusion before appeared in Hao Ren's mind. Some of them... seemed to be these creatures in front of him.

Just as these images were emerging in his mind, a probe that was patrolling nearby suddenly sent back a warning signal. The voice of the data terminal sounded in the mental connection: "Warning, warning, abnormal energy is gathering six kilometers away, a large number of physical units are being generated!"

Hao Ren immediately raised his head. In fact, from here he could already see the scene of the mutation—in the distant wilderness, a turbid black cloud was swirling, and many huge structures like tentacles were hanging down from the cloud vortex to the ground. Between the tentacles, storms were forming, smoke and dust were condensing, and countless shadowy things were gushing out of the smoke and dust like sludge.

In this nightmare world where all rules had lost their order and Lockmarton dominated everything, many early warning methods had actually lost their meaning. Chaotic forces could appear out of thin air in any corner of any polluted area, without any warning before their appearance!

"Be careful, that is Lockmarton's power venting," the Mountain King Gotton immediately reminded. "Observe its direction of rotation... Lockmarton's main body should only be a few hundred kilometers away from here... Hmm? Those claws seem to be coming this way!"

The demons emerging from the vortex had gathered into a black tide, surging towards the City of Auspice and the dilapidated camp. Almost at the same moment, Hao Ren also saw a reaction in the dilapidated camp below the slope.

Those twisted and deformed "soldiers" seemed to be able to sense the chaotic demons from afar out of thin air. When the energy focus point had just formed, they had already become agitated. In just a few minutes, they changed from their previous state of blindly wandering, and instead exceptionally swiftly formed a team, gathered, and then formed an imposing battle formation and rushed out of the camp, towards the plain!

"These two groups seem to be about to fight..." Lily suddenly became nervous, and then suddenly discovered something, pointing at the "City of Auspice" and shouting loudly, "Landlord, landlord, look quickly! People are coming out from there too!"

Sure enough, when the "monsters" in the dilapidated camp rushed to the plain, the half-destroyed "City of Auspice" also suddenly moved. Only the melodious chimes of many still basically intact bell towers were heard, and then rays of light lit up from the churches and city wall sculptures. Accompanied by the chimes and firelight, a legion rushed out of the half-collapsed gate of the City of Auspice!

They were fully armored, radiant, and the bright mithril armor gleamed in the twilight. Golden banners depicting the goddess's profile fluttered in the air. They rode armored Holy Domain warhorses, wore sharp enchanted longswords at their waists, and held high holy emblems and burning amulets in their hands. Above this majestic and powerful legion floated many combat priests and warlord clerics wearing robes and holding long staves. These armed clerics flying in the air constantly sprinkled various blessing spells on the knights below, making them stronger, more agile, and more unstoppable as they accelerated!

This was a typical Holy Domain legion, well-equipped, powerful warriors, and high morale!

And not long after this legion rushed out of the City of Auspice, they caught up with the twisted "monster army" that had emerged from the dilapidated camp, and advanced parallel to them.

Hao Ren saw many clerics flying up, sprinkling blessing spells on the monster army, and it seemed that someone was shouting loudly at the latter, as if trying to communicate something—but this was all one-sided effort. The dilapidated monster legion had no reaction at all. They just charged forward with their heads down, and gradually approached the chaotic demons that were coming head-on on the plain.

Finally, the two sides collided fiercely, blood and flesh flying, smoke and dust spreading.

The battle between monsters and "monsters," the two legions that initially collided were simply indistinguishable. They were equally twisted, equally rotten, and equally had terrifying images that made people feel like they were falling into a nightmare. When they collided, it was as if two streams of sludge were colliding violently, flesh and blood tearing, interspersed with the gushing of dark energy. That primitive struggle could make even seasoned warriors feel their limbs go cold.

Then, the Holy Domain legion from the "City of Auspice" also joined the melee.

The great plain was filled with smoke, Calaxius and the others watched this bizarre and unparalleled melee in stunned silence, while Hao Ren vaguely guessed some things.

"Are we just going to watch from the sidelines?" Izhaks pressed Elizabeth's head, while turning to look at Hao Ren.

"No," Hao Ren took out his long guns and short cannons from his portable space. "This is a good time for us to intervene."