"An army of over ten million NPCs?"
Shi Feng looked at the detailed intelligence Fang Shihan had sent over, and even he was quite shaken.
In the Divine Realm, he had experienced wars between kingdoms and wars between empires. In a war between two kingdoms, a single nation's NPC forces numbered only about a million at most. It was perfectly normal for a battle to drag on for a month, filled with all manner of sieges and assaults, fighting to seize every last inch of land.
For a kingdom to advance into an empire, one method was to expand its territory—which was the whole reason for going to war.
As for wars between empires, when two empires clashed, the number of NPCs involved could reach five or six million, with total NPC counts reaching a staggering ten million.
And right now, this was just one army out of dozens from the Outer World, yet it already numbered over ten million—roughly equivalent to the combined military forces of two empires.
"At the speed these NPC armies are moving, they'll reach the Twin Towers Kingdom's bordermost Steel Lion Fortress in at most two hours. Right now, Fire Dance and I are leading eight hundred thousand Tier 3 experts and fifty Tier 4 experts toward it. We should arrive in just over an hour."
"As for the farthest border city, Thunder Gorge City, Water Rose is currently stationed there with seven hundred thousand Tier 3 experts and seventy Tier 4 experts. Meanwhile, Red Thorn Fortress, which sits on a critical transit route, is being reinforced by Bai Qingxue with a million Tier 3 experts and a hundred Tier 4 experts heading over. As for the free players, they should be converging on these three locations soon to provide support."
"According to our current intelligence, the enemy doesn't have many Outer World players joining this battle. It shouldn't be as troublesome as the other empire wars—we just need to focus on dealing with those NPC armies."
Border fortresses typically only had small-scale teleportation arrays that could transfer very few players at a time. Faced with the sudden onslaught of the Outer World NPC armies, Fang Shihan had no choice but to lead her forces there on foot.
Shi Feng understood completely. After all, players couldn't just station themselves at border fortresses like NPC armies could. Players needed to grind levels, upgrade their weapons and equipment, and so on—they couldn't just sit idle in a kingdom's fortress. Most players set their recall teleport point to the nearest NPC city to the fortress and rode their mounts all the way there.
"I'll leave the command to you for now. I'll head over to support as soon as I can," Shi Feng said, checking the time.
One hour!
With one hour, at his speed, he could definitely make it in time.
The Azure Thunder Airship was only missing its final step—the inscription of the core magic array. This was also the most critical step. Once the inscription succeeded, the airship would be fully complete.
An Iron Rank airship would be a tremendous asset in a city defense battle—arguably even more valuable than two or three ordinary Tier 5 Classes.
After finishing his words, Shi Feng ended the voice communication and began inscribing the final core magic array with his full concentration.
The final core magic array was composed of three advanced Grandmaster-tier magic arrays—so complex that even an elementary Magic Array Grandmaster would be unable to complete it.
Although Shi Feng had only recently advanced to Magic Array Grandmaster, this step would have been impossible for him under normal circumstances.
But because his mental strength had reached the peak of Tier 5, his brain's activity level and computational capacity were vastly greater than when he had been at mid-Tier 5. On top of that, he had obtained the Ancient God's Legacy. All three advanced Grandmaster-tier magic arrays were quite ancient in design, sharing striking similarities with certain arrays found in the Ancient God's Legacy—making what had seemed impossible, inscribing all three in a single attempt, suddenly achievable.
"Three more failures—always at the final mana fusion stage. Logically, with my level of control, the magic array should have been inscribed perfectly. But the final mana fusion just won't merge. Is there something else wrong with my control over the array?" Shi Feng stared intently at the core magic array on the blueprint, completely stumped.
He had successfully inscribed the entire core magic array in one go, but when it came to channeling the final burst of mana to activate it, he failed. This was something Shi Feng had never encountered before.
Normally, once a magic array was inscribed, injecting mana would cause it to activate naturally. Activation failure only occurred if there was a problem with the array itself.
"Guild Master, something about this entire core magic array feels off to me," Melancholy Smile said suddenly from the side, studying the array. "The three individual arrays each channel a different type of magical element from the outside, yet they forcibly merge all three into one. Each type of magical element has its own distinct properties—how can they possibly be forced together like that?"
Melancholy Smile was only one step away from becoming a Magic Array Grandmaster herself. Since she didn't need to fight, she had actually studied Grandmaster-tier arrays even more extensively than Shi Feng.
From the moment she first laid eyes on the core magic array, she had felt something was strange about it. But the blueprint stated it as-is, so she hadn't argued. Now, with the array failing to activate, it was clear the design had to be flawed.
But Shi Feng actually laughed when he heard this. "You're right—magical elements each have their own operating principles, and forcibly merging them should be impossible. But this magic array is remarkable. It first shatters the operating pattern of all the magical elements, and in that instant of disruption, uses the array to guide three types of elements—whose original patterns have been broken—into forming a completely new operating rule before they can revert. This new rule exists independently of the elements' inherent patterns. It's fleeting, but the array genuinely succeeds."
"That's even possible?" Melancholy Smile was astonished.
In her view, the operating rules of magical elements were immutable. It was like when a player tried to forcibly control magical elements—the power they could unleash was extremely weak, because the elements' natural flow would resist the player's force. That was why, after advancing to Tier 4, players learned to work in harmony with the elements' natural flow rather than trying to bend them by force.
As Melancholy Smile's face showed her astonishment, Shi Feng—who had been about to explain further—suddenly froze.
"So that's it! So this is how the Destruction Rule is truly meant to be applied!" A wild grin of ecstasy broke across Shi Feng's face.
He had been stuck at the introductory level of his final sword technique, Holy Annihilation, and had nearly despaired.
No matter how he converted the ambient mana into his own, it was always limited by his mental strength—the higher his mental level, the wider the range he could affect. That was indeed the royal road to mana control, but it wasn't how one wielded the world's rules.
The reason his final sword technique, Holy Annihilation, could unleash the power of destruction was entirely due to the pre-designed complex magic array guiding the effect.
Put simply, he could use the Destruction Rule magic array that the Azure Sage had given him, and he could integrate it into various combat techniques and mana control—meaning he had indeed grasped the Destruction Rule at a preliminary level. But he had never truly understood how the Destruction Rule magic array actually operated.
But now, Shi Feng finally understood.
The essence of the Destruction Rule wasn't making magical elements vanish—it was thoroughly shattering their inherent operating patterns, causing them to completely lose their original effects.
Therefore, to truly master the Destruction Rule and push it to its ultimate limit, one shouldn't rely on the guidance of the Destruction magic array, but instead use one's own mental force to naturally and forcefully halt the operation of the magical elements.
Of course, it was easy to say but extraordinarily difficult to achieve, because it required not only incredibly powerful mental force but also precise reverse-operation control over different types of magical elements. Only then could one perfectly halt their operation—essentially achieving the reverse-circulation of the elements' governing rules.
With this realization, Shi Feng finally understood why the core magic array couldn't be activated.
"So the mana intensity was too weak?"
Shi Feng looked at the already-inscribed core magic array and couldn't help but let out a bitter smile.
Mana, at its core, was simply the power used to manipulate magical elements. Without mana, you naturally couldn't manipulate them—just like a person without strength couldn't move.
To shatter the inherent operating patterns of magical elements required immense power. Liquid mana wouldn't be sufficient—at minimum, you needed solidified mana to accomplish it.
Shi Feng immediately gathered all of his mana, concentrating it again and again, until he finally condensed a grain-of-sand-sized amount of solidified mana in his palm. He poured it straight into the core magic array.
BOOM!
With a thunderous roar, the Azure Thunder Airship's core magic array came alive. Boundless mana from the surroundings began converging on the array, setting the airship's power core into rhythmic motion.
System: Congratulations! You have successfully crafted an Iron Rank Azure Thunder Airship. Gained 100 million crafting experience. Gained 2 experience levels.
At the same time, every player present who had participated in the crafting received a corresponding level boost—though none gained as much experience as Shi Feng, the primary craftsman.
But compared to the experience they had gained, what truly occupied everyone's minds was the Azure Thunder Airship itself.
Five hundred meters long, it could carry up to 300 passengers. It was armed with forty advanced Magic Spirit Cannons, each packing the power of an introductory Tier 5 Class. Twelve Floating Magic Crystal Cannons—usable for both offense and defense—also carried introductory Tier 5 power. Its armor was tough enough to withstand punishment that even Tier 5 Classes would struggle to break through. The main cannon reached mid-Tier 5 destructive force, and its flight speed was comparable to a Tier 5 Transcendent-grade flying mount.
Twin Towers Kingdom. Steel Lion Fortress.
On the fortress's towering steel walls—forty to fifty meters high—over three hundred thousand Tier 3 NPCs above level 150 had gathered, each equipped with Dark Gold-tier sets of level 150 or above. These were undoubtedly the elite forces of the Twin Towers Kingdom. Among them, nearly thirty Tier 4 NPCs stood along the battlements, led by a male knight approaching sixty years of age—a level 200 Tier 4 Sky Knight clad in a set containing fragments of Legendary-grade items, whose imposing presence was barely distinguishable from that of a genuine Tier 5 Class.
In the fortress's core control chamber, more than twenty Tier 4 caster-type NPCs chanted incantations, sustaining the fortress's magic arrays. Unlike the arrays of ordinary fortresses, this one featured three layers of large-scale defensive magic arrays. Even a sustained barrage from Tier 5 Classes couldn't break through—it would merely deplete a bit of the fortress's energy reserves.
Magic cannon towers dotted the entire fortress, numbering a full thirty. In addition, the walls were lined with over six hundred massive siege crossbows designed for devastating destruction.
Hovering above the fortress were ten airships. One was even a Bronze Rank airship, while the rest were advanced airships capable of putting up a fight against Tier 4 Classes at the very least.