Chapter 123: Missile Strike

Savoring the screams and wails echoing in his ears, Will’s previously tranquil mind finally felt a touch of joy, and this rare delight prompted him to slow his pace.

It was not long before the grief and agony surrounding Will condensed almost into substance, nearly touching the boundary between reality and illusion.

Pity that no matter how powerful these forces of hatred became, they could never truly breach this threshold. Because this power was merely scattered sand; without the guidance of those who truly practiced the Dao of Truth and Illusion or the Dao of the Mind, it would dissipate as quickly as a flash in the pan.

Will’s purpose, of course, was not merely to amuse himself. After all, the command from his master was the supreme directive, overriding all personal desires. As a Cursed Warrior transformed by the Reality Stone, he had immediately sensed the immense power contained within those emotions.

This power would better assist him in fulfilling his mission—namely, constructing the grand altar of the Dark Mother.

The intertwining of the six supreme laws gave birth to the entire multiverse: Time, Space, Reality, Soul, Mind, and Power. The six Infinity Stones were not only the embodiment of the supreme laws but also the cornerstone of the physical universe, jointly maintaining the stability and safety of the cosmos, each one indispensable.

To summon the true form of the Dark Mother, one had to break the restrictions constructed by the six laws, which was obviously impossible.

Yet, over countless years, the dark deities had naturally figured out a shortcut: to build a spacetime bubble upon the foundation of the principal universe, or rather, to transform a region of the prime universe into a semi-plane. Within this semi-plane, an evil god’s avatar could unleash the full might of a true god.

All of this was due to the flaws in the seats of the supreme gods, which indirectly resulted in the imperfections of the current laws. Thus, the faction of dark deities naturally found a way to bypass the restrictions.

However, this method was far from simple. The builder had to prepare sufficient law-power to deceive the six supreme laws. Over the years, only a few remote star systems had fallen prey to the dark forces, and once their operations were exposed, they could only stir up trouble on Midgard.

As for other planets, those with high civilization levels already knew how to avoid such fates, while those with low civilization levels easily fell into the trap of population insufficiency or became protectorates of higher civilizations.

As for Midgard, being one of the Nine Realms, it had long been a thorn in the side of the dark faction. Coincidentally, with the well-known Ragnarok about to descend upon Asgard, the dark forces began to stir up chaos on Midgard on a massive scale.

The massive population of intelligent beings on Midgard provided sufficient support for the smuggling plan. Much like the Breath of the Old Gods in Washington, it had almost completed this glorious mission.

And now, the Cursed Warriors had constructed a relatively isolated spacetime. They only needed to condense intense negative emotions and sufficient souls to successfully establish a semi-plane.

By then, the entire Capital of Forests would become a sanctuary for the Church of Darkness, and the great Mother Goddess would descend in her avatar, personally annihilating those ants who dared to offend.

For planets with smaller populations, this task was exceedingly difficult. Not every race possessed the reproductive capacity and high intelligence of humanity. Among the countless cosmic lifeforms, choosing reproductive capability meant sacrificing high intelligence, while choosing high intelligence resulted in plummeting birth rates.

This was why the evil gods valued humanity so greatly: this race was the most mediocre yet most perfect creation forged by the Celestials, possessing no glaring weaknesses.

Yet these conclusions were inherently subjective. Sometimes, having no weaknesses was the greatest weakness of all, for it also meant having no distinct strengths.

This was why human superheroes were so scarce. To other highly intelligent lifeforms, once a civilization reached the technological and developmental level of humanity, it had essentially entered an era where everyone practiced cultivation.

In contrast, the number of current human superhumans or cultivators was one in ten thousand, and they had even organized themselves into superhero teams—a phenomenon that seemed utterly incredible to alien civilizations closely watching humanity.

Perhaps future humans would find a path of cultivation suited to their own nature, but humanity at present was absolute beginners on this path, utterly battered and helpless when facing the invasion of mid-level cultivators like the Cursed Warriors.

Under the command of the Great Bear Emperor, thousands of missiles were soon launched into the sky. Fired from different locations and at staggered times, they were calculated by supercomputers to strike at the optimal moment, bombarding the red fog that blanketed the Capital of Forests.

Thus, even as the four Cursed Warriors reveled in their symphony of agony, the counterattack from the Bear Country had arrived on the battlefield.

At the exact moment the missiles detonated, all four felt a sudden surge of danger, prompting them to instantly channel their power into the red fog.

And so, before the incredulous gazes of human scientists, the Capital of Forests dissolved into illusion at the moment of detonation, resembling a mirage. The missiles failed to even graze the edges of the red fog, blowing up nothing but empty air.

"This defies all logic! How on earth did they do it? If we could only master this technology..." Countless scientists stared obsessively at the surveillance feeds. To better study the suddenly vanished city, the footage remained frozen on the exact frame when the city turned illusory.

After thousands of missiles detonated in empty air, the Bear Emperor was forced to halt this meaningless action. Though some experts insisted that maintaining such a state must consume energy and that the enemy could not remain illusory forever, the Bear Emperor could not afford to gamble on who would hold out longer.

Thus, the world-shaking missile bombardment was forced to a halt, but the Bear Emperor pressed another launch button.

The launch confirmation button for hydrogen bombs. Although the Bear Country publicly claimed to hold no hydrogen stockpiles, several hydrogen bombs were always maintained in the state treasury, replaced with newly manufactured ones whenever their shelf life expired.

Though they lacked better preservation methods for hydrogen bombs, how could the Bear Country abandon the most terrifying weapon in human history? No doubt the former Bald Eagle Country had thought the same.

Upon receiving the Bear Emperor's confirmation, the launch center began calibrating the trajectories, while the Bear Country simultaneously contacted the other major powers.

Aside from issuing an advance notice regarding the impending nuclear strike, they proposed the formation of a joint coalition army to deal with the extraterrestrial invaders.

Sure enough, once the missile bombardment ceased, the Capital of Forests re-emerged from the illusion, once more becoming a city shrouded in red fog.