DD Black White [323-324] (Patreon)

Chapter 323: Strategic Advantage

"Master Nan, please lead your disciples through as soon as possible."

Zhang Lexuan stepped forward at an unhurried pace, pointing toward the towering space gate shimmering with a water-like blue halo. Her tone was steady.

"This place is perilous by nature, and the situation is growing more chaotic. No one can predict what will happen next. It's best to relocate to a safe zone as soon as possible."

This miracle-like space gate was a masterpiece constructed by Herta, leveraging her partial authority over Key of Infinity.

So long as a location had been pre-marked by Key of Infinity with precise spatial coordinates, one could use this gate for virtually distance-agnostic, instantaneous teleportation.

Although maintaining a spatial conduit of such scale consumed an oceanic amount of energy, that expenditure was entirely within the tolerable range for Haiyuan City, which had already successfully researched and deployed high-efficiency Honkai-reactors.

Before the Earth Dragon Sect's party arrived, Zhang Lexuan, thanks to her superb organizational ability, had already evacuated all the civilians gathered at the outpost.

Only a handful remained in this makeshift camp now—mostly volunteers who chose to stay, to keep the gate running to the last moment, and to stand ready to intercept any anti-matter legion wraiths that might approach.

With the Snow Empress and the Ice Empress—two masters of absolute ice—sitting at the core, this stronghold could still be considered safe for the moment, so long as the terrifying Lord Ravager, Celenova, did not personally make a move.

But everyone knew this safety was fragile and fleeting, like the false calm before a storm.

The relative quiet at the moment was only because the brutal clashes in core areas—like the palace ruins and the crater battlefield—had drawn away most of the anti-matter legion's attention.

If the situation on the main battlefield changed in any way, or if Celenova suddenly cast her gaze here, this temporary haven could at any time become a new, even more merciless battlefield.

"Thank you, Miss Zhang. And thank you, Haiyuan City, for extending a helping hand."

Nan Shuishui gazed at the stabilized space gate with genuine gratitude and bowed solemnly.

If Haiyuan City hadn't intervened at this moment, she truly didn't know how she could have led the Earth Dragon Sect's battered disciples to survive in this purgatory.

She clearly remembered that, at the onset of the chaos, quite a few sect forces tried to break out of Mingdu's encirclement on their own strength, only to be ruthlessly suppressed in the open fields outside the city by the Sun-Moon Empire's soul engineer legions, which had long been lying in ambush. Those sect contingents—no weaklings—failed to even raise a proper splash before being wiped out.

Even the joint force of the Body Sect and the Heavenly Soul Empire, powerful as they were, suffered devastating interception after paying a great price to break through Mingdu's walls.

In the end, only after losing a titled Douluo elder on the spot did they, in utter disgrace, get forced to retreat back into Mingdu. After circling among the ruins, struggling to survive, they finally chanced upon this Haiyuan City outpost.

Nan Shuishui's gaze unconsciously shifted not far away, where she saw Princess Xu Jiujiu of the Star Luo Empire softly comforting Princess Weina of the Heavenly Soul Empire, whose face was ghastly pale.

Every survivor from the Body Sect and the Heavenly Soul Empire was injured, their clothes in tatters, their expressions filled with grief and exhaustion. Morale had hit rock bottom.

Du Busi was not present—this hot-tempered Body Sect master had charged alone for the palace's core the moment the battle there erupted, attempting an almost impossible decapitation—assassinating Xu Tiannan.

The Body Sect's main force, meanwhile, under several veteran titled Douluo elders, tried to escort Princess Weina in a forced breakout from Mingdu.

But they had barely made it out the gate when they ran headlong into soul engineer regiments completely tainted by Destruction's power and assimilated in will. Among them sat "Imperial Dragon," "Evil Lord," and other beast-king-class engineer regiments.

Those engineer troops formed tight, efficient soul tool battle formations, coordinated with arrays of fixed-installation soul tools controlled by several rank-9 soul engineers. Their saturating barrages blanketed the sky, leaving the Body Sect's force—lacking Du Busi's apex Douluo-level suppressive might—hard-pressed to cope.

If not for a hot-blooded Body Sect titled Douluo elder who, at the last moment, resolutely charged into the enemy formation and self-detonated his soul core—blasting open a breach in the engineers' ironclad formation at the cost of his own life—whether they could have made it back to Mingdu alive would have been unknown.

Worse yet, this wasn't even their original plan.

They had planned to quietly withdraw using a special burrowing soul tool, slipping away from deep underground.

But even such a covert operation was precisely detected by the soul engineer regiments guarding outside the city.

All of Mingdu—its surrounding airspace and even the underground—was shrouded beneath Celenova's all-pervasive surveillance and "Harmony" network.

Even a burrowing soul tool hidden a thousand meters down could not hide its energy fluctuations and metal signature.

Just one pre-buried, eighth-rank seismic shell detonated, and the terrifying quake waves forced the Body Sect and their soul tool out from deep underground.

Exposed on open ground, they instantly fell into layers of encirclement by the engineer regiments and could only rely on their robust Body Martial Souls and secret arts to fight to the death, buying a sliver of life and fleeing back into the city in disarray.

Thinking of this, Nan Shuishui couldn't help but let out a deep sigh, a mix of relief at surviving the calamity and worry for the future.

She hesitated no longer, grasped her daughter Nan Qiuqiu's hand tightly, and led the Earth Dragon Sect disciples toward the space gate that represented survival.

In this world-ending catastrophe sweeping all of Mingdu, reaching this place alive was already a blessing within misfortune.

As Nan Shuishui pulled her through the blue veil, Nan Qiuqiu felt a slight mental haze, as if an invisible, gentle warmth had wrapped around her. Her sense of time and space briefly blurred and spun for an instant.

The next second, a fresh sea breeze tinged with salt washed over her, sweeping away the nauseating stench of smoke and blood from Mingdu.

She instinctively opened her eyes.

Gone were the broken walls and blazing ruins. Arrayed before her were the tightly formed, fully alert soldiers of Haiyuan City's Golden Guard.

They wore uniform, glossy black soul-engineered armor that gleamed with a cold lustre, and carried finely crafted, fully charged soul-engineered firearms. Their hawk-sharp gazes guarded the gate's exit so thoroughly that nothing could slip through—grim, yet reassuring.

Behind them, the towering space gate continued to hum with steady, calming resonance.

The pale-blue curtain, like flowing crystal, softly reflected faces fresh from peril, still haunted and shaken.

Not far away stretched a boundless, sapphire-blue sea.

The salty wind rushed in; white waves cheerfully slapped against the shoreline rocks, their rhythmic swish-swash a world apart from Mingdu's dead, suffocating atmosphere.

Instinctively turning to look around, she caught sight of a distant, faint-yet-striking skyline—an imposing modern city.

Skyscrapers stood shoulder to shoulder. Glass curtain walls flashed dazzlingly in the sunlight. She could even make out a cluster of sleek towers that speared into the clouds.

Compared with Mingdu, this city was equally prosperous and advanced, but exuded a purer, more futuristic aura of modern technology.

"A-amazing…"

Nan Qiuqiu couldn't help covering her mouth, letting out a disbelieving gasp.

In the blink of an eye—no more than a brief bout of dizziness—they had crossed thousands of kilometers from Mingdu's war-torn purgatory to Haiyuan City.

She remembered clearly: when the Earth Dragon Sect had set out from Dragon City to Mingdu for the tournament, traveling by the best carriages had taken over a month of jostling roads.

Even though Dragon City to Mingdu was farther than Haiyuan City to Mingdu, the efficiency gap between spatial transfer and conventional transport was night and day—a dimensionality reduction strike.

Even the fastest top-tier flying soul tools would take several sleepless days to reach Mingdu from Haiyuan City at full tilt.

Yet this miraculous gate truly achieved arrival in an instant, turning chasms into thoroughfares.

Beside her, Nan Shuishui's face held the same shock and disbelief.

Even as a titled Douluo-level powerhouse, she had never truly touched such profound spatial power.

That domain typically could only be faintly sensed by super Douluo at level 95 and barely grasped by apex Douluo at level 98 and above.

But even an apex Douluo could never carry so many people in a single, long-distance, large-scale spatial transfer.

The total soul power required and the precision of mental control far exceeded what any individual soul master could bear.

Let alone what Haiyuan City was doing now—effortlessly relocating tens of thousands of ordinary civilians without soul power from distant Mingdu safely and stably.

Such earth-shattering means completely overturned the understanding of soul tool technology she had built over decades.

This space tech—far ahead of its era, bordering on the miraculous—shocked the hearts of every powerhouse present from the major sects and top academies, filling them with unprecedented dread and awe.

With such terrifying strategic lift, Haiyuan City could practically "set out at dawn and strike by dusk, hitting wherever it wished," without considering the massive time costs and complex terrain obstacles of traditional warfare. In any future conflict, this was unquestionably a crushing, unsolvable strategic advantage.

Nan Shuishui felt a surge of hidden relief.

Fortunately, due to Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow and Extreme Ice Divine Crystals, the Earth Dragon Sect had long since forged close ties with Haiyuan City. Their interests were bound together—half allies, at least.

Chapter 324: Herta's Inference

In the chaotic times to come, with such a deep, era-crushingly advanced ally, the Earth Dragon Sect at least need not fear its heritage being severed nor having nowhere to settle.

"W-whoa… so many people…"

Elsewhere, the lively March 7 was accompanying the gentle, elegant Robin at the docks, welcoming and calming the masses of refugees transferred from Mingdu.

She watched the tide of ragged, hollow-eyed people pour from the gate, clicking her tongue in shock. Her powder-blue eyes brimmed with sympathy and worry.

"Has Mingdu gotten… this dangerous already…?"

After enduring a calamity like hell's descent, many had lost their homes and loved ones in an instant. Their minds hovered on the brink of collapse.

At times like this, even the slightest stimulus could spark a riot or plunge them into utter despair.

Now it was Robin's turn, a follower of the Path of Harmony.

A gentle warmth of Harmonious power naturally radiated from her, like sunlight softly soothing the terror and wounds in people's hearts—comforting souls drowning in great pain and keeping them from immediately falling into the abyss of despair or going to extremes.

"Miss Robin, please—come look at her!"

Just then, Ye Guyi hurried over, cradling a woman with an extremely faint breath and ashen complexion, her face etched with urgency and pleading.

She knew Robin must be stretched thin, but the Common Alliance's Master Shangguan Wei'er was in no condition to wait.

Wei'er's mental bulwark could no longer suppress the madly growing will of Destruction inside her. An eerie dark-red glint flickered in her pupils—she would soon fall completely and turn into a monster that knew only ruin.

"Is it her… the one who had a 'seed' of Destruction planted inside?"

Robin didn't hesitate. She immediately paused her large-scale calming and stepped in.

She extended slender, pale fingers wreathed in pure, colorless radiance and gently tapped Wei'er's brow.

The formless, intangible power of Harmony, laden with coordination and resonance, flowed into Wei'er's nearly shattered mind like the finest, gentlest rivulet—trying to smooth the raging whispers of Destruction and retune her chaotic spirit.

But the next second, the ever-gentle smile on Robin's face darkened into a frown, and a trace of confusion and gravity flashed in her lake-green eyes.

"This power… is 'rejecting' Harmony?"

She withdrew her fingers, her exquisite features turning uncommonly grave, and murmured, "This… feels wrong. Trickier and stranger than expected."

Haiyuan City and Lu Jingming on the Mingdu front had maintained close contact by special means, and Robin had long been briefed on Shangguan Wei'er's Destruction corruption. She had prepared accordingly.

Frontline intel suggested that the one who struck Wei'er was likely the terrifying Lord Ravager—Celenova.

A uniquely situated being—former Emanator of Harmony and current Lord Ravager—who wielded both the powers of Harmony and Destruction.

Because of this, Robin had pre-tuned her Harmony output's frequency and qualities, fully preparing for a combined Harmony-Destruction corruption.

She expected a delicate operation to separate and neutralize entwined forces.

But when her Harmony power truly delved into the raging source of Destruction at Wei'er's core, she realized things had veered completely off script.

"No… completely wrong…"

A sharp glint crossed Robin's eyes. She slowly shook her head, voice certain and solemn.

"The force directly invading her wasn't Celenova at all. What's inside her is indeed violent, but it's only the purest, most primitive Destruction—plus a residue of extremely filthy, depraved spiritual power. There's no trace whatsoever of Harmony."

This was no baseless guess.

Had Celenova struck personally, given her identity and power, she could not have left such a "clean" signature of Destruction.

As a former Emanator of the Aeon of Harmony, her power's foundation and habits were branded by Harmony. Even when wielding Destruction, an inescapable undertone of twisted coordination or resonance would linger.

For Robin, herself a follower of Harmony, that was unmistakable.

Thus only one conclusion remained: the one who directly planted the seed of Destruction in Wei'er was not Celenova.

And that malignant spiritual residue coiling the Destruction like a bone-burrowing parasite—cold, debasing, playing with hearts and profaning souls—gave Robin a sudden, dire premonition.

If not Celenova… then there was someone else.

And the hidden hand's power was clearly more insidious and hard to gauge.

"Oh? Now that's interesting."

A faint, perceptible ripple of space spread like water, and Herta appeared, lounging atop her signature magic staff crowned with a huge blue gem.

She cast a knowing glance at the mentally listless, chaotic-breathed Wei'er. A glint of all-seeing insight flashed in her eyes.

"Looks like the Lord Ravagers muddying Mingdu's waters aren't limited to Celenova… There's a sneakier fish hiding in the darkest depths."

Before her words faded, Herta flicked her hand. A soft, icy-blue, data-like radiance enveloped Wei'er in an instant, scanning at extreme resolution.

She would probe personally and see which Lord Ravager possessed such exquisite concealment.

Mingdu was long a boiling cauldron. Even someone like Celenova couldn't resist striking at the Xianzhou's Feixiao, ambushing the Cloud Knight general. Yet another Lord Ravager lingered like a ghost, skulking in the shadows without leaving a trace.

For one so patient, so adept at hiding, with such venomous cunning, the first name to surface in Herta's brain—rivaling a supercomputer—was an irksome one.

"As expected—Phantylia, that detestable wretch."

The icy-blue probe light faded. Herta's lips curved with a foregone smile. She pressed the wide brim of her witch's hat, her tone tinged with disdain.

That force coiled like a viper in the deepest recess of Wei'er's mind carried a wicked spiritual power that easily teased out mankind's darkest desires and fears, while mixed with a pure, absolute will to destroy.

Aside from Phantylia—the Lord Ravager who ascended via Ambrosial Arbor body and relished playing with minds—no second candidate had such a vile, distinctive signature.

"If I'm not mistaken, she's the Servant that Xu Tiannan managed to summon."

Herta lightly tapped her smooth chin, voice laced with detached amusement and mockery.

"I can't tell if the Sun-Moon Empire is lucky or cursed to the bone. A single Holy Grail War, and they summon two Lord Ravagers' memory-bodies… That's a roll, all right."

Beside her, Changli held an exquisite parasol woven as if from moonlight. Her gentle gaze swept the refugees around them—their eyes still empty, numb.

Clearly, they hadn't recovered from their hellish time in Mingdu. The terror clung deep on their faces.

She sighed softly, a sincere pity flickering in her eyes.

"A single city of Mingdu harboring two Lord Ravagers… For these people to escape alive and reach Haiyuan City is the greatest mercy fate could grant."

"Y-you've got to be kidding! T-two Lord Ravagers?!"

Unlike Changli and Ye Guyi—who were not from the Honkai/Star Rail worlds—March 7, who shared a universe with Lord Ravagers, felt the suffocating import of this news all too well.

Her face went white in a flash. Her hands clenched the hem of her clothes, trembling, clearly frightened stiff by the revelation.

She had heard countless horror tales about Lord Ravagers aboard the Astral Express. The thought that two such calamity-incarnate beings lurked in that city made her knees knock.

"Fortunately, they're only memory-bodies right now, their level of power worlds apart from their true selves."

Herta rolled her eyes prettily, tone exasperated.

"If it were their true bodies, never mind two-on-one— even a fair one-on-one, I'd have zero desire to fight any of them."

Emanator versus Emanator, with true bodies—mutual destruction was all but guaranteed.

Herta had no desire to die. She hadn't yet mined enough unknown cosmic secrets from the special variable that was Lu Jingming.

In her original universe, nearly all "knowledge" and "truth" were firmly grasped, parsed, and archived by the Aeon of Erudition, Nous' vast computational network.

After all, in Nous' calculations, every future was determined and inescapable.

Even a so-called genius Emanator of Erudition could only research, touch, and understand within the bounds Nous had already delineated as "known."

That universe's mysteries and the frontier of knowledge had been exhaustively decoded by the all-knowing Aeon, leaving almost no blank space for exploration.

No matter how deep a genius dug, how astonishing a discovery, the conclusion always came down to: "Nous already knew."

No true genius would willingly be shackled forever within a preordained frame.

The drive to push the borders of knowledge and hunger for the unknown is the core engine behind every true prodigy.

But with Nous' absolute existence, the frontiers of knowledge were sealed shut.