War was on the verge of erupting!

Jie Ming stood on the cold metal platform of the third defensive node, his gaze sharp as he peered toward the horizon.

The “Sea of Elements,” a roiling expanse of fire and magma, advanced with unstoppable momentum, slowly but relentlessly crushing toward the wizards’ defensive line.

The air was thick with the scorching scent of sulfur and charred rock. The earth groaned rhythmically under the march of billions of tons of colossal beings in the distance.

Thanks to the “Temporal Stability Anchor” pre-installed within the node, Jie Ming felt no influence from the eerie temporal forces at play.

The anchor emitted invisible waves, forming a sturdy dam that locked the surrounding space and time flow, creating an absolute safe haven for the wizards.

Yet, from the dust suspended in midair far off and the strange distortions of light in that region, Jie Ming knew his hard-won intelligence was accurate.

It was a moving temporal stagnation field. Any unprotected creature stepping into it would instantly lose all ability to think or resist, becoming lambs to the slaughter.

“Roar—!” “Hiss—!”

Under the wizards’ silent commands, grotesque bioengineered monsters outside the node swayed their malformed, massive bodies, unleashing chaotic, bloodthirsty roars.

Dragging their enormous frames, they formed a living wall of flesh around the node’s perimeter, their murky, frenzied eyes fixed on the approaching tide of destruction.

This was a cannon fodder legion born of the wizards’ intellect and cruelty, destined to buy even a single second of precious time for their masters in the coming clash.

As the vanguard of the magma giant legion, blotting out the sky, crossed an invisible boundary preset by the wizards—

Buzz!!!

In an instant, the entire earth seemed to awaken!

Centered on dozens of defensive nodes, a visible surge of vast elemental power, summoned as if by an emperor’s call, was frantically drawn from the earth and air in all directions.

Countless streams of colorful energy converged into roaring rivers in the sky, surging toward the ravenous main energy cannon at the node’s core.

The runic arrays around the cannon’s muzzle lit up one by one, from dim to blazing, in less than a second.

Blinding light outshone the sky itself!

Then, one after another, beams of destruction capable of tearing the heavens were unleashed!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

It wasn’t the explosion of shells but a pure torrent of energy capable of annihilating matter itself!

Dozens of beams ripped through the boundary between earth and sky, striking the densest ranks of the magma giant legion with supersonic precision.

No screams, no struggles.

Where the beams passed, hundreds of magma giants, along with the ground beneath them, were utterly “erased” in an instant.

Their sturdy stone bodies didn’t even have time to turn to ash under the terrifying energy onslaught; they were directly broken down into primal elemental particles, dissipating into the air.

A single volley carved dozens of massive fan-shaped voids in the magma giants’ iron flood.

The sheer might was enough to make any creature’s heart quake!

Yet…

The magma giants’ numbers were simply too vast!

The gaping voids created by the energy cannons were filled in mere seconds by the endless waves of giants from the rear.

Devoid of emotion or fear, the instantaneous vaporization of their comrades didn’t slow their advance in the slightest.

Like tireless tides, they pressed relentlessly toward the wizards’ nodes!

“All personnel, prepare!”

“Bio-beast legion, engage!”

Cold commands echoed through the magical network into every wizard’s mind.

A glint of frost flashed in Jie Ming’s eyes. Alongside the other wizards at the node, he mentally commanded their bio-beasts to charge fearlessly at the magma giant legion, now just kilometers away!

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Heavy footsteps pounded like the drums of doomsday, striking every heart!

Two torrents of monsters collided under the wizards’ icy gazes, erupting in a brutally primal slaughter.

The edge of the Temporal Stability Anchor’s field instantly became a colossal meat grinder of blood and fire!

Jie Ming’s multi-armed magma beast, wielding six arms blazing with alchemical flames, smashed furiously at the opposing giants.

Each strike shattered an ordinary magma giant, sending rock fragments and molten lava flying!

But in the next moment, three or four magma giants swarmed from the sides, their hotter, heavier bodies pinning the powerful bio-beast down.

With savage brutality, they tore it to pieces.

A hill-sized stitched corpse beast opened its massive maw, formed from countless cadavers, and spewed a torrent of highly corrosive venom.

The venom landed on the magma giants, sizzling as it carved deep pits into their bodies.

But the giants retaliated, spraying scalding magma like high-pressure jets, evaporating the venom and igniting the corpse beast into a towering torch!

The battle was extraordinarily brutal.

Under the wizards’ control, the bio-beasts fought fearlessly, using bites, charges, and self-detonations to whittle down the enemy’s numbers.

Yet, with their overwhelming individual strength and despair-inducing numbers, the magma giant legion steadily advanced!

Countless giants broke through the rapidly collapsing bio-beast line, approaching the wizards’ defensive nodes with world-scorching momentum!

“Prepare for combat!”

The node’s commander issued the final order.

Jie Ming’s gaze hardened. The cannon fodder’s role was done; now it was time for the wizards to take the field!

As a thirty-meter-tall elite magma giant, wielding a massive molten war axe, broke through the line and roared toward Jie Ming’s node…

Jie Ming unleashed his Grand Radiance!

Buzz!

A massive light wheel, formed from thousands of precise runic artifacts, unfurled behind him.

The fully activated wheel shone like a miniature sun, radiating blinding brilliance!

Immense energy, guided by Jie Ming’s mental force, surged into every node of the Grand Radiance!

“Die!”

Murderous intent blazed in Jie Ming’s eyes as he pointed forward!

In an instant, a dense torrent of energy bolts, like a bursting galaxy, erupted from the Grand Radiance.

Each bolt precisely locked onto the magma giants daring to approach the node!

Swish! Swish! Swish!

The piercing sound of air being torn rang out continuously!

The elite magma giant at the forefront didn’t even have time to swing its axe before hundreds of energy bolts riddled its body.

Its sturdy stone form, like cheese struck by bullets, was instantly pocked with countless holes.

Then, with an internal explosion of energy, it shattered into a pile of rubble and magma with a boom.

Jie Ming’s barrage didn’t relent. Like an tireless war fortress, he relentlessly cleared every magma giant daring to enter his defense zone.

Meanwhile, except for the wizards operating the node’s main cannon, all others unleashed their long-prepared, powerful spells.

Curses, acid rain, gravity fields, spatial rifts…

A myriad of devastating spells erupted across the entire defensive line!

In an instant, elemental brilliance eclipsed the sky, transforming the world into a grand symphony of death and destruction!

The war reached its most fevered pitch almost instantly.

Though Jie Ming fought fiercely, the wizards were steadily losing ground.

The supposedly impregnable defensive line crumbled like a fragile sandcastle before the near-infinite tide of magma giants, soon compressed to a few hundred meters around the nodes!

In moments, the bio-beast legion, exhausted layer by layer, was completely overwhelmed.

In a short time, countless magma giants, ignoring the deadly but insufficient energy cannons and spells, crossed the battlefield’s boundary, charging deep into the camp.

Yet, Jie Ming, stationed within the third defensive node, no longer seemed as excited as at the battle’s start.

Instead, he was remarkably calm.

Though he busily operated the Grand Radiance to clear enemies, his face showed no panic or tension.

After firing several precise energy bolts to knock down magma giants attempting to bypass the bio-beast line and climb the node’s array, Jie Ming even had time, during a brief lull, to ask a wizard operating another energy cannon, “Can we stop them? Those giants breaking through.”

The wizard, a seasoned second-rank, shared Jie Ming’s near-indifferent calm.

Adjusting his cannon’s angle, he shook his head helplessly. “No way.”

He paused, then continued, “With our node’s safety as the top priority and maintaining the current defensive perimeter, we can only clear part of the first wave.”

Pointing at the giants charging past, he said, “Those slipping through the flanks and rear… we just let them go.”

“With node safety as the highest priority, all we can do is deplete the enemy’s forces and ensure the node itself isn’t destroyed.”

Other wizards overhearing their conversation remained equally calm.

Their faces showed no fear or despair, only focused task execution.

After all, each had received direct orders from command.

This mission was to “assist in combat,” not “block the enemy.”

This meant the camp’s orders prioritized protecting the wizards and node safety above all else.

As for the enemies bypassing the line… that was a higher-level game, not their concern as frontline operators.

Over time, Jie Ming noticed something even stranger about the battle.

Though the battlefield’s momentum was immense, with elemental lights and explosions ringing out like a fateful showdown, both sides fought… perfunctorily.

“It’s like an old married couple dutifully handing in their taxes…” Jie Ming muttered to himself.

Take the wizards’ side: the three fifth-rank wizards overseeing the camp hadn’t made a move!

With their power, they could instantly kill any enemy breaching the line or upheave the entire battlefield.

Yet they stood by like spectators, silent.

Similarly, despite the magma giants’ overwhelming numbers, Jie Ming’s sharp scan revealed the strongest were only second- and third-rank.

No fourth-rank or higher combat units, capable of greater destruction, had appeared!

It wasn’t that these giants weren’t part of the army—Jie Ming could sense the high-rank giants lingering at the rear, their intense auras clear even without looking.

Yet they stayed back, watching their underlings charge relentlessly.

Even the giants breaking through ignored the defensive nodes, their “goal” clear: charge forward blindly.

It was as if the nodes weren’t obstacles but mere “waypoints” to a distant target.

Even now, it was obvious the nodes were surrounded by countless magma giants.

The front and rear lines had been breached, yet Jie Ming still had time to chat with the wizard beside him and ponder technical details.

“By the way,” Jie Ming said, precisely commanding a bio-beast with the Earth Pulse skill to smash a massive rock giant into mush, then turning to the second-rank wizard. “The Temporal Stability Anchor’s effect is impressive.”

He praised, “To resist such a large-scale temporal interference in so little time… whose work is this? The rune structure and energy conduction are unlike anything I’ve seen.”

Jie Ming was signaling a common wizardly desire to “exchange knowledge.”

In the wizarding world, curiosity about technical details and sharing insights was a typical “pastime.”

This underscored Jie Ming’s lack of pressure.

Despite being surrounded, the enemy barely treated the node as a primary target.

Jie Ming even felt that if the node weren’t in their path, the charging giants might ignore it entirely.

But the highest-ranking second-rank wizard shook his head regretfully.

“The Temporal Stability Anchor wasn’t our doing,” he said, sounding apologetic. “It… was already here, stable, long before.”

He paused, his tone tinged with an inscrutable emotion. “All we did was activate it and integrate it with our spells to form a complete defense system.”

“Oh?” A spark of curiosity flashed in Jie Ming’s eyes.

So it was designed and placed here from the start?

Before they could delve deeper, a sharper, more chaotic alarm blared from the node’s rear—the flank of their protected zone!

Jie Ming didn’t need to look; his keen senses detected a surge of frost elemental energy from behind.

Even from this distance, the clarity of the frost aura meant the wizards in the Frostshadow Realm faced the same situation.

“Hmm? In that case…” Jie Ming blinked, a thought forming.

Before he could ponder further, reality confirmed his suspicion:

The magma giant legion breaking through from the front collided head-on with an equally massive horde of snow beasts from the Frostshadow Realm, both having bypassed their respective defensive lines!

Though the camp’s protective arrays kept them from direct contact, the issue was that both carried energy fields capable of freezing time!

In the instant their gazes met…

The two energy fields, each with time-stopping power, converged!

!!!

No earth-shaking roar or explosive light followed.

Only an unimaginable “distortion” at the most fundamental level of time!

Protected by the pre-activated Temporal Stability Anchor, Jie Ming and the wizards were spared direct effects.

But Jie Ming could clearly sense that, at the moment of convergence, the entire plane underwent an indescribable, fundamental change!

Boom…

At the same time, the atmosphere of the Flamefrost Plane began to tremble violently!

Jie Ming’s pupils contracted as he looked up in shock at the distant sky.

The heavens had collapsed!