—-

“Hahh… Dammit, this is becoming ridiculous now!”

“It was fine when we battled the smaller ones by the hundreds, but this…!”

“These guys are just on another level entirely! Anna is handling them just fine though?!”

“Anna’s a monster of her own! She doesn’t count!”

Yin Sheng, Fang Shuan, Wai Tian, and Zero One battled intensively against several of the insect-shaped machines; their extreme speed and piercing blows imbued with cosmic energy were pushing them all to their limits.

With the help of Violet, Snow, and Anna’s army of Undead machines empowered by her specialization, which gave them enhanced physical power and healing, protection, and attack magic of the holy light element, they were barely surviving.

Thanks to Anna’s {Main Specialization}: [Legendary Herculean Holy Necromancer (S)], any Undead risen by her would become a Legendary Herculean Holy Undead, gaining Herculean Physical Power and Durability, and also Holy Magic.

It made them more than capable of enduring a hit or two from the powerful machines before dying, and their healing abilities kept everyone’s wounds healed for the majority of the time.

The reason why Anna sent them all to them instead of asking for their assistance was because she had plenty of healing abilities on her own, especially her Heart of Hope Techniques!

However, even with all of that help, the machines were too strong and too many!

CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

“UGH!”

“KRIEEH…!”

Fang Shuan was being swarmed by over five of them, constantly kicking, piercing, and striking his body. He was working as the main tank while Violet was the secondary tank, using his reinforced metal body while Violet used his strengthened exoskeleton to defend.

“Dammit!”

Yin Sheng turned into countless shadow clones and assaulted all the machines at once, his daggers barely managing to deal some damage to their incredibly hard metallic bodies, which were several times harder than the others.

“They’re too damn resilient!”

“Let me try! Carry me with your shadows, Yin!”

“Yeah!”

Yin encompassed Wai Tian with his shadows, bringing her towards the machines as her giant fists cleaved through the bodies of the machines, wrecking them and making them explode into pieces one after another.

BAAM! BAAM! BAAM! BAAM!

“My fists are naturally stronger than a dagger!”

“Unbelievable…”

Yin Sheng was left speechless as he saw Wai Tian overpower the machines. However, her speed was very low, making the machines easily evade her blows if she didn’t have Yin Sheng carrying her with his shadows and moving her at his lightning speed.

“Uwaah! There are more coming from above!”

However, their momentum was broken once the cry of Zero One alerted them of the incoming danger. Everyone glanced above to notice five more of the same machines! They had barely eliminated three so far, and there were five more coming?!

It was ridiculous!

“You’re all so annoying!”

Zero One gathered the powers of the mighty buff that she gained from Anna’s concert show and then harnessed it into her own body, remembering the feeling and how Anna conjured its power by combining her newly acquired Transformation Skill.

“{Myriad Self Arts}: {Hundredth Golden Dragons Armor}!”

FLUOSH!

Her appearance definitely changed as she became something else; her silver hair became a rainbow, made of light; her skin looked crystalized, as if she had become diamonds; and her eyes were rainbow and crystalline, like pearls; her electromagnetic aura combined and materialized into majestic halos above her head.

“It’s a cheap imitation at best, but I can feel some of the power she used to enhance my abilities…!”

Zero One gritted her teeth, quickly transforming the metal of the machines she found around and fusing their cores together into two enormous swords, clashing against all five machines at once.

CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

She copied Anna’s abilities once more, combining them with her own unique Skills to further make her own techniques instead. She managed to slice two of them, but the other three rapidly surrounded her and overwhelmed her, attacking her from every angle.

“Ugh…! Agh!”

At the same time, the other machines rapidly decimated the last of Anna’s Undead Machines, leaving no more healers for the rest of the party, who were growing weary and tired.

“Anna’s busy fighting so many too!” Fang Shuan muttered. “We can’t… bother her…!”

“But if this goes on…!” Wai Tian said. “Should we forfeit and try again later?”

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“What?! And lose all our progress?! I would rather die!” Yin Sheng protested.

“No dummy! That’s the point—that you shouldn’t die!” Wai Tian sighed. “Ugh…! If push comes to shove—”

“CRYYYAAAHHH!”

However, amidst their desperate conversation while trying to survive, the entire party was startled by the loud cry of a giant bird; a phoenix made of golden and black flames and light emerged from the clouds below, carrying hundreds of people with it, and led by the two strongest of the worlds of Bestia.

“ANNA! Everyone! We’re here!”

And the voice of the Heavenly Empress reverberated, being like a heavenly bell to these weary fighters—finally reinforcements were here! They took exactly… less than ten minutes, yet the whole fight felt like an eternity!

“Master!”

Anna immediately recognized her master, as the giant phoenix passed through thousands of machines, burning them to ashes in an instant.

Then it reached the titanic machines Anna was fighting, decimating them with its titanic talons and deadly feather projectiles.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The giant machines that took Anna a lot to defeat were immediately destroyed!

“We’re finally here! And as you can see, you bastards, I WASN’T LYING!”

The Heavenly Demon glared at all the immortals, their eyes widening as they saw the enormous crack in the space and the thousands upon thousands of mechanical, steel-made abominations coming from another world.

“It was all the truth?!”

“I-I can’t… believe it!”

“Now that I see it with my two eyes, it would be foolish to deny it!”

“The Heavenly Demon was right this entire time?!”

“We… we were foolish enough to doubt him…!”

“If we would have ignored him, what future would have befallen our world?!”

The Orthodox Immortals felt completely shaken by what they saw, but there was absolutely no time to be shaken anyway. Their leader, the Heavenly Empress, quickly ordered everyone, including the demonic cultivators.

“Here we are, immortals! This is our world’s last stand against the invaders from another world! Put everything you have to stop them! We cannot let them reach the surface, or the results of their invasion would be catastrophic! I shall assist you with the power of Hope!”

FLAAASH!

Her Golden Aura of Hope encompassed both the good and bad immortals, empowering them beyond their limits and giving them tremendous power!

“Uooohhh?! So this is the power of the empress, huh?!”

“Not bad at all, gahahaha!”

“Now we’re talkin’!”

“Holy shit! Have we been missing this the entire time?!”

“No wonder the Orthodox dogs are always so strong; with her help, they were bound to beat us to a pulp all the time!”

The demonic cultivators laughed, shocked by the amazing buffing ability of the heavenly empress, which they were tasting just now. Meanwhile, the orthodox cultivators had little reaction, already accustomed to the powers of Hope that their empress shared.

“CHARGE!”

The Heavenly Demon roared, leading the entire army of good and bad cultivators together; a scene that would have never been seen before was now occurring. Anna was changing the future, creating a completely insane scenario that never happened.

An idealized future, a better one!

“She’s really here… the heavenly empress!” Yin Sheng celebrated.

“Finally…!” Fang Shuan sighed.

“Ugh, I’m beat…! Ah, the machines have not stopped though!” Wai Tian cried.

“Dammit!” Zero One rushed to save her friends, clashing against countless machines at once and using her armor to tank the hits, yet it was already gaining many cracks.

CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!

“{Rampage}!”

However, in their moment of vulnerability, a blur of golden and crimson light emerged as Anna passed through all the machines with tremendous force, swinging her giant sword-axe and cleaving them all apart into pieces.

CRAAASH!

“Anna, you’re back!” Zero One celebrated.

“Sorry for separating from you guys!” Anna said. “Now that master’s here… Things should get much easier! But for now, all of you should heal!”

“[Celestial Mark: Life Sacrifice]!”

She waved her hands, activating her shield’s Celestial Mark! Anna sacrificed her own lifeforce, healing everyone’s wounds and bringing down her lifeforce to its limits before it began to rapidly regenerate again.

FLAAASH!

Ding!

[You have activated the [Celestial Mark: Life Sacrifice]!]

[A Celestial Mark that uses your own blood and health points as sacrifice to heal and buff others. By using your own blood and health points, you can easily heal a target from any status ailment, and quickly restore almost any wounds.]

[However, the worse the wounds are, the more blood and life will be sapped from you. Additionally, a buff of up to 10% of the target’s stats will be applied to you; the more you heal, the more buffs you can accumulate. Buff duration per target: 5 Minutes.]

As she healed them all, she gained 10% of their stats and further enhanced her power, at the same time as the self-inflicted damage further boosted the other Demonic Stigmas that worked around it.

And above all…

“DESTROY. ELIMINATE.”

A giant insectoid machine attacked Anna out of nowhere, moving at lightning speed and aiming to pierce her body.

Yet!

CLAAANK!

It ended up hitting her aura of blood instead, its hand breaking and shattering apart.

Anna smiled back, demonic ki surging through all her wounds.

All the blood she lost now became her defense too!

“[Demonic Stigma: Blood Protection]”

FLUOSH!

Ding!

[You have activated the [Demonic Stigma: Blood Protection]!]

[A Demonic Stigma imbued with the Curse that saps away the blood of the wielder through the wounds they possess or self-inflict and transforms it into further protection. All the blood and life force you lose and are absorbed creates armor around your body, which can increase your Total Defenses by up to 200%. Based in the amount of Health Points you lose, the amount of Damage Negated can increase up to 50%. Protection duration: 5 Minutes, can increase with more blood and health loss.]

“My turn!”

With a mighty roar, and now that everyone noticed that Anna looked a lot like Wai Tian out of nowhere, Anna’s Aura transformed, her Myriad Self Art transforming and evolving to a new level, as dozens of giant white tiger claws tore apart the machine in front of her.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

BOOOM!

“Come! I’ll lead the way! Let’s unite with the cultivators! We have to quickly defeat all the machines and close the portal!”

“Got it!”

Everyone followed her as their leader, as Anna joined hands with the Heavenly Empress and the Heavenly Demon, who crushed their way through thousands of foes in mere seconds.

Thanks to them and the immortals they brought, the entire skies, formerly flooding with flying machines, were now almost completely clean of them!

However, the gate kept pouring them out endlessly.

“Master! Use you Space Manipulating Arts to seal the gate!”

“I am trying, but it’s too big and powerful; it surpasses my own ability!”

“Then Heavenly Demon! You help too!”

“O-Okay!”

The two Venerables joined hands once more, and as the immortals fought the machines, the two harnessed their power together, resembling two enormous hands made of their Golden and Black Ki.

“{Dual Venerable Arts}: {Heavenly Spatial Seal}!”

TRUUUM!

The gate was suddenly and immediately closed shut; space trembled for a moment as the last machines were slain, and then everything became… silent.

“W-We did it?” Yin Sheng muttered.

“We did it!” Wai Tian celebrated.

“Wooohoooo!” even Fang Shuan celebrated, raising his arms into the sky.

“WOOOOHHHH!”

And all the immortals celebrated together with them, some even in tears! At the same time, the two Venerables nodded, smiling as everything was done.

For now…

[The Cosmic Throne {Mechanical Librarian} says that this was only the beginning.]

[The Cosmic Throne {Mother of Artificial Life} affirms that they shall return.]

“Of course… It wasn’t going to end so easily, huh?” Anna sighed.

—–

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep