Chapter 491: World Anchor

"Wang Yu, pay attention to the incoming cargo; your delivery has been dispatched."

The magical communication arrived from nearby, carrying the voice of the Tower Spirit, Astartes. Along with the message came a massive crate, hurtling through the air from the distance. Internal magic circles ignited a trail of flames behind it, slicing through the wind with terrifying speed.

"Received. In thirty minutes, I will launch a direct assault on the interior of the Ash Wilderness alongside the dragons and begin scouting the City of Sin below. The Five-Race Alliance and the Sky Mechanical City forces should proceed according to their own readiness; there is no need to coordinate with me."

Wang Yu extended the Power of the Chariot, snatching the high-speed crate from the air. He dismantled the outer seals, revealing the Elven Holy Spear, Casimir, sourced from the World Tree in the elven capital of Liahim.

"Not bad at all. I never expected to get my hands on a weapon so perfectly suited to me."

He gripped the Holy Spear with a smile. The massive, living weapon showed no signs of rejection; instead, it extended fine, delicate roots that wrapped gently around Wang Yu’s arm, drawing life force from him. The gargantuan shaft shrank in sync, molding itself into a size convenient for him to wield.

A surge of majestic vitality flowed from Wang Yu into the spear, causing it to emit a soft, verdant glow. In return, a faint, jubilant emotion pulsed back into his mind.

"Wang Yu, what do you think this Holy Spear actually is?"

Avia, capable of sensing what Wang Yu felt through the Power of the Chariot he had shared with her, had picked up on the spear’s subtle feedback. She posed the question suddenly.

"What? A tree core? No, that can't be right—if you pulled that out, the World Tree would die. Why don't you just tell me?"

Wang Yu paused. He hadn't truly considered the question, and after dismissing his own hasty, ill-conceived guesses, he turned to the girl who clearly had an inkling of the truth.

"Don't you think this thing resembles a specific plant ability? Like a cutting?"

Avia didn't play coy. She shared her theory, and as she spoke, Wang Yu looked at the object in his hand again. Suddenly, it felt different—it felt like she was onto something.

"I'll be damned... I honestly don't know how the World Tree reproduces. But wait, when the World Tree was split into three, it couldn't have literally been chopped into three pieces. So, to the World Tree, aren't those three Life Trees just like these three holy relics are to the World Tree itself?!"

Sensing the faint consciousness within the weapon, Wang Yu found it all quite marvelous. After all this time, he realized he was essentially wielding a sapling of the Life Tree as a weapon. It was no wonder the elves prized it so highly; for all he knew, this thing might one day grow into a new Life Tree.

"You’d better be careful, Wang Yu. Don't break the Holy Spear, though I suppose the elves wouldn't be able to blame you even if you did."

Avia’s voice carried a hint of amusement, putting a little pressure on him.

"I'll try, I'll try."

Wang Yu didn't dare make any promises. He couldn't exactly hold back while using a weapon; at this stage, the enemy wasn't the type to be defeated by half-measures. If he really did break it, well, he’d just have to blame this "little Life Tree" for looking and acting so much like a weapon.

"Jokes aside, we're about to enter the Ash Wilderness. Can the Power of the Chariot block the 'internal combustion' effect?"

Avia stopped teasing him and turned to confirm the current situation. She was busy preparing other things and was not currently utilizing his Power of the Chariot.

"I can. The unique nature of the Ash Wilderness can ultimately be viewed as an intrusion of energy that is neither magic nor void energy. The Power of the Chariot can still reach and block this force."

Wang Yu flexed his fingers and opened his palm. Outside the spherical field formed by the Power of the Chariot, a certain energy was being repelled, preventing the Ash Wilderness's unique properties from affecting anything inside.

The Ash Wilderness, one of the great wonders of the continent, was a wasteland devoid of flora and fauna. It was permeated by a unique energy that invaded every living thing that entered. It accumulated heat within the body until a critical threshold was reached, at which point the victim would begin to burn, incinerated from the inside out.

This "internal combustion" was not as simple as ordinary fire or high heat; it was more akin to a transformation of material form. Otherwise, elemental beings—especially fire elementals—should have been immune. In reality, however, elemental beings died faster than ordinary creatures; they would take a few steps, and their elemental cores would be burned to nothing.

Even most alchemical materials were affected; if left in the Ash Wilderness for too long, they would lose their original properties and turn into the same dust that danced through the air.

The intensity of this effect increased as one moved deeper and lower into the wilderness. On the surface, even near the entrance to the City of Sin at the center, one could linger for a while; the energy density wasn't high enough to kill quickly.

A formal knight's constitution was enough to traverse the surface freely. When the internal combustion began to damage tissues, the body's metabolism and self-healing were sufficient to expel the heat and repair the damage.

But the underground was an entirely different story—hence why it was called the "City of Sin." The intensity of the internal combustion surged explosively. It existed not only in the space itself but was mixed into all other matter.

The ground beneath one's feet, the air one breathed, the ash floating in the sky—all were saturated with this energy. Contact meant it would find a way to penetrate shields of magic or battle aura. Resistance required either the void energy to distort the material world into nullity or the domain of a Legendary Knight to force a defense.

In the shallow layers of the underground world sat a place that was less a city and more a prison, likely built by a civilization of intelligent beings lost to the river of time.

The strength and scale of the architecture were clearly intended for Legendary-tier powerhouses. The city was designed to utilize the wilderness's unique properties to inflict cruel punishments upon powerful sinners.

Curiously, the material composing the city gained astonishing strength when saturated with the internal combustion energy. Even a weakened Legendary powerhouse could not break it, yet once removed from that high-concentration zone, it would quickly crumble into worthless dross.

It was speculated that the intensity of the Ash Wilderness was once even more staggering, as the current energy levels at the city's depth were insufficient to inflict fatal damage on a Legendary Knight, rendering the "punishment" moot.

But that was only for those at the Legendary level. Anything below that would turn to ash in a few steps. If one were to venture deeper toward the heart of the City of Sin, the internal combustion would reach a terrifying intensity that even a Legendary powerhouse could not withstand. To this day, no one knew what lay at the very bottom.

The Black Dragon Pompey had previously been in a region even deeper than the City of Sin. Relying on the inherently powerful physique of the Black Dragon race and their exaggerated self-healing, he had adapted to the destruction step by step, constantly challenging his limits to push his physical strength beyond its ceiling.

It was a pity that time had run out for that heretical dragon. Otherwise, one could only wonder what realm he might have reached, how powerful his body might have become, and whether he might have glimpsed the secrets of the wilderness's depths.

The Ideal Nation organization had chosen this location for their third node, likely hoping to use the environment's lethal effect on mages and knights to weaken the Allied forces, allowing them to complete the node's construction in peace.

However, this internal combustion energy still fell within the realm of what the Power of the Chariot could perceive, touch, and influence. As long as they remained within Wang Yu's field, there was no need to fear the effect.

"That's enough. Let's go."

Once Avia had finished her preparations, Wang Yu sent word to the Sky Mechanical City that he and the dragons were departing, signaling that the war had begun.

"Are you entering just like that? The Ideal Nation has yet to manifest from the void."

Astartes’ simple inquiry arrived. The Ideal Nation had not yet reacted to the Five-Race Alliance, and nothing of theirs had appeared. Consequently, the entire Allied force, including the Alliance legions, was waiting for the right moment to strike.

"It doesn't matter. Even if they stay hidden in the void, I have ways to attack them. Besides, the Sky Mechanical City surely has weapons capable of striking targets within the void, don't they?"

Wang Yu replied as he mounted a silver dragon, leading the flight of dragons toward the center of the Ash Wilderness. The field of the Power of the Chariot completely shielded them from the energy that triggered the internal combustion.

Avia’s perfect fractal spell projected the surrounding void environment before Wang Yu’s eyes. Through the permissions he had granted her, she shared the same view with the dragons. A void chain pointing toward the center of the wilderness was clearly visible; that was their target.

"Indeed. If you, Lord Wang Yu, strike first, you will inevitably draw some of the Ideal Nation's fire. Please allow us to use this opportunity to deliver our prepared weapon to the target point."

Icarus responded in place of Astartes. As he spoke, the deck of the Sky Mechanical City began to unfold. Massive tracks and mechanical arms whirred, lifting a colossal object—supported by gravity magic—from the depths of the main city to the top deck.

It was a pillar filled with complex mechanical structures, forged from the breakthroughs in void research achieved by the Sky Mechanical City. In a sense, it could be seen as the "Morning Star" of this era—not in terms of power or effect, but in the mission it carried: a single strike to settle the fate of the world and shatter the third node the Ideal Nation was about to create.

Void rifts flickered around the massive metal pillar. The void energy erupting from within did not invade the material world uncontrollably; instead, it circled the pillar in an orderly fashion, completing a cycle before returning to the void through another rift. A heavy, continuous hum resonated as the embedded power core generated the energy to drive the weapon known as the "World Anchor."

This was the war machine the Sky Mechanical City had prepared for the campaign. Once this thing was delivered to the target point, it didn't matter if the Ideal Nation stayed hidden in the void or not; once anchored, their third node would never be forged.