Chapter 131: Descent of the Divine Weapon

Meanwhile, the ground forces of the Bear Country, stationed to the east of the Forest Capital, were facing a battle with no victory in sight.

"The people are right behind us, and we have nowhere left to retreat. Ura!" The field commander roared at his soldiers. Intelligence gathered from the Avengers and data retrieved from the battlefront forced the Bear Country military to abandon all forms of long-range strikes, ordering their troops instead to equip themselves with melee weapons to deal with the Dark Young of the Black Goat.

Thor, the God of Thunder, had single-handedly held off the Dark Young in the north, while the Avengers and allied reinforcements from other nations intercepted those in the west and south. Only the one in the east, due to various circumstances, was currently being engaged solely by the Bear Country military.

To combat this terrifying dark behemoth, the Bear Country military had specially brought in ship-mounted cannons typically used on whaling vessels to replace their long-range weaponry, alongside a variety of experimental kinetic weapons. Yet, all of these efforts yielded minimal results.

This puzzled many scientists greatly, but they had to accept it for the time being. After all, entities associated with Evil Gods always possessed something extraordinary about them.

Consequently, the Bear Country military was reduced to its current plight, forced to feed human lives into this bottomless abyss simply to buy time until reinforcements from other fronts could arrive.

The scene of the battle was brutally one-sided. Any soldier touched by the Dark Young was either killed or grievously wounded, whereas the soldiers inflicted barely any damage on the creature in return. Still, their efforts were not entirely fruitless; at the very least, they successfully forced the Dark Young to halt its advance.

Just as the field commander was observing the battle situation intently, a blue flash descended from the sky. A group of warriors clad in golden armor suddenly appeared on the battlefield and lunged fiercely toward the Dark Young.

The soldiers on the front lines saw only a streak of blue light, and instantly, a group of warriors materialized around the Dark Young, severing several of its tentacles.

Wielding blades forged from pure light, these warriors effortlessly sliced the seemingly indestructible tentacles of the Dark Young in two, vanishing in the next microsecond to reappear beside another appendage.

The Bear Country soldiers were completely stunned by the sudden appearance of these 'beings,' freezing in place and not daring to step forward.

At that moment, the dumbfounded commander received a direct order from the Ministry of Defense, informing him that the suddenly appeared warriors were reinforcements from another civilization, and instructing him to immediately order his troops to fall back.

Having learned the origin of their saviors, the commander excitedly hung up the communicator. He saluted the battlefield and promptly ordered his troops to retreat.

The front-line soldiers quickly fell back, carrying their wounded comrades with them. Although the Dark Young did not possess hyper-infectious capabilities, the Bear Country military was unaware of this. Therefore, as a precaution, the wounded soldiers were handed over to medical teams for close observation.

As the Bear Country soldiers withdrew, rumors regarding the Protoss began to spread, quickly igniting discussions across the internet. After all, this was the first alien civilization, aside from Asgard, to manifest in Midgard with a distinctly positive image.

Naturally, none of this mattered to Selendis, who was currently engaged in fierce combat with the Dark Young. Accompanied by ten warriors, she was devoting herself entirely to the battle against the beast.

The Dark Young was, after all, a level-ten dark energy organism. While its primary attributes were not invested in attack power, its defense and health pools were nearly maxed out. This meant that any damage inflicted by the Templar was regenerated almost instantly.

Furthermore, the Dark Young possessed remarkable agility, the kind of opponent that easily dragged enemies into a war of attrition. This was why Selendis had unleashed her full power upon first contact, attempting to execute the creature directly.

Unfortunately, the Dark Young's hide was too thick, and Selendis's psionic blades were not long enough. Although she carved a horrific gash into the creature's belly, it failed to reach any vital organs, and the terrifying wound healed within the span of a breath.

Seeing that Selendis and her party on the ground seemed to have fallen into a grueling battle, Artanis made his move.

Every Mothership was powered by a massive Khaydarin crystal. This crystal not only granted the Mothership immense power but also served as a beacon for the Protoss Empire.

During the colonization era, Motherships served not only as the flagships of the fleet but also as mobile outposts for the Protoss Empire. The potent psionic energy of the Khaydarin crystal provided a stable psionic matrix for the Mothership, linking it to the empire's psionic network.

Through the Mothership, the Protoss Empire could rapidly deploy fleets to star systems that originally lay outside the psionic matrix, greatly expanding the operational reach of the empire's navy.

Artanis intended to use the Mothership's psionic matrix to request fleet reinforcement from the Conclave. After all, the Dark Young was merely an appetizer; the true threat was the Evil God, the Black Goat of the Woods, lurking within the mirror space.

"Greetings to you, Executor Artanis. I am Praetor Fenix. My fleet will be responsible for this purification operation." Having rendered distinguished service in previous operations, Fenix was currently in command of the First through Fifth Legions of the Protoss Expeditionary Force.

"Greetings to you, Praetor Fenix. How much longer until our fleet reaches the high orbit of Midgard?" Artanis asked Fenix with a solemn expression. Upon returning to Midgard, Artanis had immediately contacted the Conclave to transmit the intelligence, prompting the Conclave to dispatch Fenix as reinforcement without delay.

"The fleet has already entered the warp lane. According to Midgard time, it will take ten minutes to arrive." Fenix, well aware of the urgency of the situation, had mobilized the fleet and immediately initiated the warp using the coordinates provided by Artanis. However, due to the sheer distance, a ten-minute transit time was still required.

This was because Artanis had only a single Mothership providing energy for the warp matrix. Although the Mothership's Khaydarin crystal offered a virtually limitless energy supply, each Mothership had a maximum energy output limit. Had multiple Motherships contributed power to the matrix, Fenix's fleet would have warped in much faster.

Even as Artanis communicated with Fenix, El, keeping his presence concealed, was closely monitoring the war.

El, who had managed to escape the Dark Sector, and Artanis had arrived at Midgard almost simultaneously. The reason Vorazun had spoken so rashly earlier was because El had covertly guided her, compelling her to voice everything hidden in her heart.

Once he understood the full picture, El decided against revealing himself immediately, choosing instead to observe from the shadows. He wanted to gauge the current strength of the Protoss Empire. The Black Goat of the Woods was not an Evil God of exceptionally high combat prowess, but it was notoriously troublesome to deal with.

Just as the Dark Young possessed skin of such toughness, the Black Goat of the Woods would only surpass it. As for the other Evil God avatars it had summoned—well, they were not true Evil God avatars; otherwise, Odin and the Ancient One would never have been able to continuously suppress them on the battlefield.