This attack by the Holy Spirit Cult was by no means a sudden, crazy whim, but a long-premeditated assault.
A significant portion of those Fixed-Mount Soul-Guided Shells that came howling down toward Shrek Academy did not fly in from afar at all, but instead suddenly soared into the sky directly from the cluster of buildings within Shrek City.
Had there not been insiders who set up launch sites within the city in advance, it would have been absolutely impossible to achieve such a precise and dense saturation strike.
Furthermore, the target of this attack did not seem to be limited to Shrek Academy; soaring flames also rose from the direction of the Tang Sect headquarters, and the sounds of explosions could be heard clearly even from across more than half the city.
In the once-bustling and peaceful Shrek City, the roar of explosions, the collapse of buildings, and the screams and cries of the crowd were everywhere at this moment.
Smoke and dust mingled together, shrouding the entire city in a gloomy shroud of despair.
Huo Yuhao and the others, who were hiding in the Sea God Pavilion, could not see the full extent of Shrek City's tragic state, but they could imagine it to some degree from the Spirit cannon shells that constantly flew across the high sky.
They raised their heads, watching the teachers of the academy—who usually stood on the podiums lecturing them—soaring into the sky one after another, doing everything they could and even sacrificing their own lives to intercept the Spirit cannon shells falling toward the academy.
And finally, the Master of the Sea God Pavilion, Yun Ming, also took action.
He shattered his own God Position, unleashing an unprecedented power.
After slaying a host of Holy Spirit Cult powerhouses, when he thrust out his final spear, the heavens and earth lost their color, and the sun and moon lost their light. That spear light pierced through the vault of heaven, violently colliding in midair with a Rank 12 shell capable of slaying a god.
In Huo Yuhao's perception, that majestic aura, which was like a pillar supporting the heavens, vanished amidst the aftershocks of the explosion.
Dissipating along with it was the entire power of those two Rank 12 God-Slaying Fixed-Mount Soul-Guided Shells.
With Yun Ming's strength, he could have easily withdrawn unscathed from this catastrophe.
But he did not. He was the Master of the Sea God Pavilion; in front of the academy and countless young lives, he had no retreat, nor had he ever thought of retreating.
Huo Yuhao slowly withdrew his mental force, fell silent for a moment, and then turned around to look at his companions behind him.
Tang Wulin bit his lip hard, his honest and resolute face already covered in tear tracks, his hands clenched into fists and trembling slightly.
Xie Xie turned his head away, his shoulders twitching, while Xu Xiaoyan was already crying too hard to speak.
Na'er still stood straight, but her silver eyes were also glazed with a very faint layer of moisture.
Gu Yue was the only one besides Huo Yuhao whose expression was relatively calm. She looked at Huo Yuhao, her gaze filled with unprecedented solemnity.
However, now was clearly not the time to be immersed in grief. The Holy Spirit Cult's attack was not yet over, and the sounds of explosions outside the Sea God Pavilion still rose and fell one after another.
The golden barrier formed by the Golden Tree over the Inner Court had already shattered under the repeated saturation attacks. Fortunately, the core golden barrier of the Sea God Pavilion still stubbornly protected this ancient pavilion.
It was unknown how much time had passed, but the surrounding sounds of explosions finally began to thin out until they vanished completely.
The golden barrier outside the Sea God Pavilion had dimmed to the extreme, like a candle in the wind that could go out at any moment.
Just then, Elder Jin's aged and weak voice echoed in Huo Yuhao's mind once again.
The voice was weaker than ever before, intermittent, as if he had squeezed it out with the very last ounce of his strength.
"Child, this is the last thing... I can do for you."
As his voice faded, the golden barrier outside the Sea God Pavilion, which had struggled to hold on throughout the entire attack, quietly dissolved.
And the ancient Sea God Pavilion where Huo Yuhao and the others were located also began to slowly collapse at the exact moment the golden barrier dissolved.
It was as if an ancient structure sealed for Ten Thousand Years had finally exhausted its last shred of strength, slowly disintegrating in an invisible wind, turning into a sky full of dust and specks of light, leaving nothing behind in the end.
Xu Xiaoyan looked around blankly; as far as the eye could see, everything was in ruins.
The once-rippling Sea God Lake was now filled with rubble and dirt beyond recognition, surrounded by deep craters of various sizes.
Wisp after wisp of black smoke curled up from the ruins amidst the broken walls, appearing exceptionally desolate under the dim, yellow sky.
This had all happened too quickly; from the fall of the first shell until now, it seemed like only a dozen or so minutes had passed.
And within this brief span of just over ten minutes, Shrek Academy, which had dominated the continent for twenty thousand years, was destroyed just like that.
Xu Xiaoyan spoke with a sob in her voice, "Shrek Academy... is gone."
The others seemed to be infected by these words as well, instantly plunged into a deep, inescapable sorrow.
But right then, Huo Yuhao's expression suddenly changed dramatically, and he shouted sharply, "Take cover, it's not over yet!"
Huo Yuhao instantly donned his Two-Word Battle Armor, its smooth and gorgeous plates gleaming with a cold metallic luster under the dim sky, as a pair of giant metal wing blades suddenly unfolded behind his back.
He kicked off the ground forcefully, soaring into the sky like a meteor flying in reverse.
Almost at the same time, his Spirit Eyes captured a brilliant streak of light howling toward the direction of Sea God Island on the distant horizon.
With just a single glance, Huo Yuhao precisely judged that it was a Rank 8 Fixed-Mount Soul-Guided Shell.
At this moment, not a single academy teacher could be seen in Shrek Academy; the only person who could stand between this shell and the ruins of Sea God Island was him.
Huo Yuhao's expression was more solemn than ever, yet he did not panic.
spirit rings rose one after another from beneath his feet. The moment the seventh, blood-red, hundred-thousand-year spirit ring was lit, a majestic and suffocating pressure suddenly erupted from within his body.
Behind him, a massive vertical pupil several tens of meters tall suddenly emerged.
The vertical pupil was a brilliant golden color throughout, with a pupil as deep as an abyss.
A ring of rose-gold solar patterns was distributed around the vertical pupil, each pattern rotating slowly like a living thing, radiating an ancient and sacred glow.
This was not the original appearance of Huo Yuhao's Spirit Eyes Martial Soul, but rather the form after his Spirit underwent a second Awakening after he cultivated the secret techniques of the Body Sect.
Furthermore, this was the highest-tier Golden-grade second awakening, sufficient to explode his Spirit's power to two to three times its original level.
The moment the Spirit Eyes Martial Soul True Body appeared, a highly concentrated golden pillar of light shot out violently from that massive vertical pupil.
The pillar of light, several meters in diameter, was so fast that it didn't even leave an afterimage, precisely striking the Rank 8 Fixed-Mount Soul-Guided Shell that was rapidly approaching in the distance.
After being struck by the Light of Spirit Eyes, that Rank 8 shell, which was powerful enough to level an entire urban area, surprisingly did not explode, nor did it make any sound; it just abruptly came to a halt in midair.
It was as if it had been instantly gripped by an invisible giant hand, transitioning from extreme speed to a complete standstill in just a split second.
After hovering in midair for a few breaths, the metal outer casing of this Rank 8 shell began to decompose at a speed visible to the naked eye.
First, the rivets on the casing fell off one by one, then the internal Spirit Power compression core separated from the outer armor, and finally, even every single metal plate was precisely disassembled into its most primitive components along its joints.
The entire process was as if the creator of this Rank 8 Fixed-Mount Soul-Guided Shell had personally disassembled it step-by-step according to the manufacturing process, ultimately turning it into a pile of harmless metal parts that clattered down from the sky, scattering into the muddy waters of the Sea God Lake.
This was the special effect of Huo Yuhao's Martial Soul True Body against Spirit Tools. Instead of using brute force to clash with and detonate them, he relied on his thorough understanding of Spirit Tools and the structure of metal Materials to completely dismantle the target in an instant.
This move could be considered incredibly powerful when facing Spirit Tools, but its consumption of mental force and Spirit Power was also extremely terrifying.
However, before Huo Yuhao could even catch his breath, the peripheral vision of his Spirit Eyes once again captured another brilliant streak of light on the distant horizon.
The brilliance this time was even more dazzling than the previous Rank 8 shell, dragging a tail of flame that appeared as a bizarre dark purple. Just the trail left by the light tore the clouds along its path into shattered fragments.
A pressure far more terrifying and suffocating than the Rank 8 shell swept over from that direction, overwhelming everything.
A Rank 9 Fixed-Mount Soul-Guided Shell!
Huo Yuhao's fists clenched tightly, the expression on his face solemn to the absolute limit.
Although there was only a single rank difference between Rank 8 and Rank 9, the difference in power was like night and day.
A Rank 9 Fixed-Mount Soul-Guided Shell was already the Peak of the conventional Spirit Tool system; a single one was enough to destroy an entire city.
With Huo Yuhao's current cultivation at the Spirit Saint level, even with his mental force at the Spirit Domain Realm and his Spirit's second Awakening, he did not dare to claim he could block this strike.
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A/N:
I hope all of you are enjoying this story so far. I would appreciate some Power Stones if you can spare any. Leave a review if you like the story. Thank you.