Chapter 495: Destruction

Chapter 495: Annihilation

Sheng Xi burst forth from the cloak of invisibility.

The orc soldiers stared in sheer astonishment at her sudden appearance.

Yet they reacted swiftly, grasping their weapons immediately to meet the foe.

Having survived the harshest of environments to reach this place, these orcs were the elite of the elite.

Confronted by the sudden apparition of Sheng Xi, they responded without a moment's hesitation.

But the disparity in their strength was simply too vast.

The orcs’ hands had barely touched their weapons when their heads were severed from their bodies.

Splatter, splatter, splatter!

It was a slaughter of absolute unilateralism.

Sheng Xi snuffed out the lives of the orc soldiers as effortlessly as crushing insects.

Some tried to use the captives as shields, but they too were instantly cut down.

The few captured valkyries collapsed into the snow, staring blankly at the orc corpses littering the ground.

Though the valkyries of the City of Ice and Snow were of a decent level, they had rarely tasted the cruelty of true combat.

Faced with elite orc soldiers of their own caliber, they had been utterly outmatched.

Witnessing this purgatorial, blood-soaked scene before them, everyone seemed to lose the capacity to react.

Levi paid them no heed, turning his gaze toward the mouth of the cavern instead.

The brief skirmish had already drawn the attention of the orc soldiers inside.

Levi pondered a detail: when he had previously used his spiritual perception to scan the cave, he had detected no human traces.

Which meant the humans previously captured by the orcs were already dead.

To be entirely certain, Levi executed a more meticulous sensory sweep.

The resulting mental image turned his stomach with profound revulsion.

Remnants of partially consumed human limbs littered the interior of the cavern.

Levi’s brazen perception finally drew the attention of the powerhouses within the orc unit.

He also gauged the full disposition of the enemy's strength.

Three sixth-rank orc professionals, and one who verged on the legendary realm.

There were no survivors.

With that confirmed, Levi no longer harbored any hesitation.

"Meteor Fireball!"

Standing before the cave, Sheng Xi exhaled a torrent of holy dragon breath.

The sacred flames surged into the cavern, instantly reducing every enemy touched by the breath to drifting ash.

This was the breath of a legendary dragon.

Though its potency had diminished considerably since she assumed human form.

It remained a force far beyond what ordinary orc soldiers could ever hope to withstand.

Sheng Xi blocked the only exit for the fleeing orcs.

The near-legendary orc powerhouse attempted to charge out against the dragon breath, just as a deafening, thunderous detonation roared across the heavens.

A meteor, falling from the outer cosmos, had its internal material mass converted into a violent eruption of elemental energy through the extraordinary property of elemental reaction.

Rumble!

The meteor crashed into the mountain peak directly above the cavern.

The terrifying force of the impact instantly punched through the hollowed mountain, causing the rock and stone to collapse inward.

Immediately following, a catastrophic explosion erupted.

Rumble! Roar!

A hypersonic shockwave instantly swept away the snow for thousands of meters around, exposing the bare earth beneath.

The epicenter of the blast had long since been melted away by the incandescent flames.

Everything vanished, erased into absolute nothingness.

Even the strongest of the orcs, that near-legendary transcendent professional, dissolved into nothingness in an instant.

Levi stood in the valley as the flames and shockwaves parted around him, leaving the surviving women behind him completely untouched.

Yet the orc corpses surrounding them had ignited at some unknown moment, turning to ash within the flames and scattering into the world with the howling wind.

Once the explosion subsided entirely, the landscape before Levi had been completely remolded.

The originally circular valley had been transformed into a massive, gourd-shaped basin.

The crater left by the Meteor Fireball was far grander than the original valley.

Levi looked toward Sheng Xi, who stood a short distance away, and called out, "Sheng Xi, let's go."

Sheng Xi walked back to Levi's side in silence, then asked with a trace of confusion, "Why do those orcs accept devouring their own kind so flagrantly?"

In her worldview, if one were starving, one could eat ice, sand, rocks, or metal—anything, but never one's own kind.

Pure-blooded dragons, in particular, cared deeply about such matters.

Because a pure-blooded dragon's instinct was to preserve the purity of their lineage, never allowing the bloodline of another dragon to pollute their own.

Devouring one's own kind was an absolute impossibility.

It was a supreme taboo.

Levi gazed at the distant sky and replied, "If they don't eat, they starve to death, but that is no reason to forgive them."

He did not wish to lecture Sheng Xi on profound philosophies.

For the truth was simple: the fundamental instinct of any creature is survival, and to survive, they will use any means necessary.

So it was with the orcs, and so it was with humans.

Regaining their senses, the valkyries helped each other to their feet, looking at Levi and Sheng Xi with immense gratitude.

"Thank you for saving us, thank you so very much..."

"Go back," Levi said.

Such a massive disturbance here would surely draw the attention of the Ice Queen.

To be safe, Levi used a communication crystal to send a message to the Ice Queen, informing her of what had transpired.

The Ice Queen replied to Levi almost instantly.

"Monis is already on her way with a squad. Thank you for your trouble."

Before long, the surviving valkyries walking across the snowy plains spotted the vanguard led by Monis.

Weeping with joy, they ran desperately toward their companions.

Looking back, Levi and Sanxi, who had been escorting them all this way, had vanished without a trace.

Sanxi soared through the sky, enveloped in a heavy silence.

It seemed as though the recent events had dealt her a profound blow.

Levi could understand; after all, Sanxi had only just been "born" not long ago.

Though the inheritance of her bloodline granted her vast knowledge from the moment of her birth,

without firsthand experience, much of it remained a hazy, imperfect comprehension.

Sanxi’s voice resonated within Levi’s mind, sounding somewhat muffled and despondent, "I still cannot understand. Why do they not just eat rocks and ice?"

Levi replied, "Aside from dragons, almost no other living creatures can survive on a diet of stone and ice."

He gently stroked Sanxi’s back and added, "Alright, do not dwell on it so much."

"Roar!"

Feeling the suffocating frustration in her heart, Sanxi let out a furious roar, beat her wings with immense force, and accelerated, faster and faster.

She poured every ounce of her strength into the burst of speed, as if desperately trying to outrun and cast off all her vexations.

Sitting upon Sanxi's back, Levi felt the howling gale lash against his face, whipping his hair and clothes rigid.

He did not conjure a magic shield to ward off the fierce wind.

He simply sat there on her back, gripping her dragon fin, sharing the sensation of the tempest and the sheer, blinding speed with her.

In the blink of an eye, the colossally massive Emperor of Ice materialized before them.

This time, Sanxi did not decelerate; she charged toward the Emperor of Ice as if possessed by madness.

Levi’s expression shifted instantly, and he hurriedly slapped Sanxi's back, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Stop, quickly! It is too dangerous!"

Sanxi spoke, "No, I can feel it. It is crying out to us for rescue. It needs help."