Chapter 509: Flesh and Blood Paving the Way, End Battlefield

"Hiss!"

Upon the battlefield, the colossal heart transformed the vast void energy it commanded into a viscous black ocean, roaring as it surged toward the array of legendary knights who had encircled it in formation.

The warband formed by these formidable knights was a vital force against the heart. Power from the depths of the void possessed a potent corrupting effect on the material world, rendering the magic of wizards largely ineffective.

Only these knights, who had walked the path to the legendary realm based on the strength of their own flesh and blood, could master the ability to tangibly influence void energy and resist that abyssal power to the greatest extent.

"Boom!"

Their battle auras linked as one, a massive semi-circular barrier of energy descended around the knights' formation, bracing for the impact of the frenzied, black, viscous tide that had already swallowed the stone walls and magical shields in its path.

"Splat, crash!"

The thick, black liquid instantly adhered to the barrier formed by the knights' aura. The abyssal power at its core began to rapidly clash with and negate the knights' energy, draining their strength with terrifying speed.

Grim expressions settled upon the knights' faces. The threat posed by this black liquid was far more harrowing than its mere destructive force suggested. Previously, they had shattered or deflected the heart's attacks, but now, these viscous masses had forced them into a contest of pure, raw power.

The abyssal force of the heart and the knights' aura collided and canceled each other out. This constant attrition was disastrous for the knights; the heart possessed power far exceeding the limits of their mortal frames. Without a countermeasure, they would soon be drained to death.

"Prepare for bombardment! Maintain defensive posture!"

A magi-tech communication link opened, carrying a warning from the Sky Fortress. With a delay of less than ten seconds, a searing red trajectory streaked across the sky of this subterranean world, slamming into the area before the knights' barrier, right where the black tide surged. Aggressive energy and shockwaves erupted at the point of impact, scouring the surrounding space.

Within this explosive shell fired by one of the Sky Fortress's main cannons, a special vibration mixed into the shockwave. Upon contact with the black liquid—which lacked true physical properties—it generated an effective repulsive force, forcibly peeling it away from the knights' visibly thinning barrier.

The shell was infused with a large number of primitive prototypes of world anchors, known as matter-stabilization spears. These devices, widely used to counter void incursions, had been significantly reinforced during the manufacturing process. While they could not truly harm the heart, they could disrupt its power.

"Boom!"

A stunning shockwave of battle aura was released, completely purging the black liquid from the area around the formation, which remained steadfast in its siege of the giant heart.

In the distance, the Sky Fortress was closing in, a maneuver that carried immense risk. Rifts constantly appeared in the aerial combat zone, radiating various attacks shaped by abyssal power: distorted gravitational turbulence, high-energy spheres that disintegrated matter from within, and thick, bladed tentacles so resilient their biological nature was hard to confirm.

"Rumble!"

"Crack, bang!"

These incoming attacks, the counter-fire from the Sky Fortress's alchemical artillery, and the spells unleashed by the mage legions below constantly diffused blinding light and chaotic energy flows across the sky.

The Sky Fortress returned fire, pushing its output to the maximum, demonstrating the true power of its "Firepower Core" designation.

Dense batteries of cannons unfolding from its main hull unleashed a sky-filling barrage of alchemical shells. Like a torrential downpour of steel, they tore through the energy-shattered airspace, raining destruction upon the heart of the Utopia organization.

When these shells were neutralized by the deep purple energy field twisted by the heart, they were immediately followed by super-eighth-tier spells constructed by giant super-magic arrays. Pure energy jets, roaring with high-energy matter, devoured all other forces in their path, pressing down upon the giant heart with overwhelming force.

"Clatter!"

The chains coiled around the giant heart reacted instantly, tangling into a mass with lightning speed. Composed of unknown materials, they transformed into a shield before the heart, forcibly blocking and diverting the terrifying energy jet.

The Utopia organization and the Allied Legions maintained this brutal exchange, leaving nothing in reserve, unleashing every means available to destroy the other. Meanwhile, with the heart pinned in place by the legendary knights, the Sky Fortress maintained a steady rate of advance, closing the distance.

At this moment, the two sides could be seen as representing two different realms: the heart with its abyssal power was the Void, while the Sky Fortress, operating its world anchors, was the Material World.

As one approached the other, the opposing power would significantly weaken due to the field surrounding each entity—except for the legendary knights, whose power remained unaffected by the strengthening or weakening of these realms.

As the two drew closer, their influence on the surrounding area collided and canceled out, causing the material world and the void to tend toward fusion. Attacks would no longer be weakened or strengthened. Consequently, as the distance shrank, the intensity of the combat escalated rapidly.

The near-blanket-coverage attacks did not discriminate; both the Sky Fortress and the Allied Legions marching below were potential targets.

"Above! Do not let that gravity-implosion sphere enter the Sky Fortress's danger zone!"

The mage commander issued a stern order. These mages, none weaker than Archmages, tacitly projected stone spheres wrapped in reverse-gravity spells to intercept and neutralize the heart's attacks, preventing damage to the Sky Fortress.

But this meant they were inevitably lax in their own defense. Almost as soon as the spell was released and before the mana in their vortices could complete a cycle for a second casting, a hideous giant wheel forged from the flesh, bone, and armor of unknown entities plummeted from the sky. It crashed abruptly into the mage ranks, instantly grinding half of them into a pulp of gore and meat.

Void fluctuations erupted as they died. After a flicker and reconstruction, the mages who had just been crushed reappeared. With a brief moment of adaptation and adjustment, they hesitated not a moment to continue following the Allied Legions and the Sky Fortress toward the heart.

Corresponding to their "resurrection," several wizards eroded by excessive void energy perished completely within the void. Witchcraft: Substitution Curse. Under the dual influence of the heart and the world anchors, the wizards could barely utilize void energy.

Apart from those serving as scholars and researchers, the wizards on the battlefield could only use a handful of spells—limited to themselves and their companions—sacrificing their own lives to preserve those more capable of fighting.

The battlefield had descended into absolute chaos. The all-out mutual slaughter turned the entire subterranean region into a kill zone; no one could predict what attack or spell would strike their position next.

Battle formations had lost all meaning. Warriors could only coordinate with the comrades beside them—whom they might not even know—striving to block the heart's attacks and help the legions push forward.

The process of the material and void forces colliding and canceling out was accompanied by a skyrocketing death toll. Unrestricted attacks slaughtered both sides mercilessly. The difference was that the giant heart was a single entity, while the Allied Legions were a collective of mages, knights, and wizards. Both behemoths were suffering wounds that cut to the bone.

A red dragon flew across the firmament, dodging through the interceptors and the aftermath of colliding attacks, its mouth spewing scorching dragon breath with all its might onto the surface of the giant heart.

The heart's surface, already riddled with wounds from the Allied Legions, was instantly seared into a charred, hideous hole. Immediately, the chains patrolling the perimeter lashed out, piercing the red dragon's sturdy flesh and shattering its spine.

The mangled dragon corpse fell from the sky, crashing to the ground. It was not the first dragon to die; white dragons, black dragons, bronze dragons... several broken carcasses lay across the battlefield. These powerful creatures were, at this moment, merely beings who could perish at any second.

"Bang!"

The last Iron Titan was bitten by a hideous beast that suddenly emerged from the ground. Its already battered metal frame disintegrated completely, and its internal energy core detonated, taking the creature—dragged from some corner of the void by the heart—down with it.

At this moment, the path paved at the cost of over a third of their total forces finally reached its target. The Sky Fortress, its own outer structure suffering from multiple fractures and collapses, overlapped the world anchor's field with the area influenced by the heart's abyssal power. The two forces finally "canceled out."

"Swish!"

The moment the Sky Fortress entered range, the chains swept out, violently killing several legendary knights who had been struggling to contain the heart's power, and stabbed fiercely toward the main body of the Sky Fortress. It could sense the "core" within.

"Whoosh!"

A giant silver sword wreathed in incredibly sturdy ice tore through space, blocking the path of the chains. The two collided violently. The blood-ice, created by the White Dragon Patriarch Mistryx using blood near the heart, was instantly pierced, but the chains and the giant sword of silver energy held each other in check.

The silver dragon struggled to command her power. Eirielian had already exhausted herself; the power of the chains was something even she could not block alone. Fortunately, she had Mistryx, the powerful white dragon.

The ice shifted, rapidly attaching itself to the chains. The cold invaded in reverse, "sealing" the chains' momentum. This ice, formed from the white dragon's power, was not meant to withstand the force head-on, but to assist the silver dragon in parrying.

"It's time for you to appear..."

A second chain followed, stabbing toward the Sky Fortress. Icarus watched the chain through a spell that slowed his own perception of time. He gave no orders or preparations for a parry; he was simply waiting for the opportunity.

"Clang!"

Abruptly, a fortress erupted from somewhere in the void, colliding with the chain. Its unimaginable sturdiness meant that after the impact, only cracks appeared on its walls, but it had forcibly stopped the chain and locked its movement with its own mass. It was Roland; Icarus had anticipated his arrival.

"Then, this is the end, isn't it?"

Icarus said, initiating a command that only he and Astartes had the authority to execute.

"Clatter."

Inside the Sky Fortress, a sealed chamber transported its contents outside the main structure. The world anchor was not just an anchor; it was a "spear." To truly kill the heart, this power had to be used.

"Boom!"

The massive metal prototype, representing the material world's counter-invasion of the void, pierced viciously into the heart.