“This morning, we had people make an emergency run to the Rune Store in Oran City to collect a batch of Blast Bombs,” Captain Zhang told Su Chen, holding nothing back.

After all, they were still counting on this top-ranked individual.

“Do you need any strategic supplies? Just name them,” Captain Zhang said directly, not mincing words.

They were all adults; there was no time for empty talk about vague ideals.

Everything had to be grounded in reality. You couldn’t just expect someone to give their all without getting anything in return; that would only dishearten them.

Captain Zhang knew full well that to save Dongfu City, he had to rely on the unfathomably powerful man before him to step up once more… to precisely deliver another Annihilation Realm bomb and finish off that Flesh Giant.

Su Chen was just as direct and made his request.

“The Substitution Skill, or the Soul Pocket.”

These types of special Runes involved the Space Law and were completely unaffected by even a 90% Elemental Suppression, allowing them to be cast safely in a low-magic environment.

Their value was extraordinary, and they were not in circulation whatsoever.

“No problem. I’ll have them in your hands within five minutes!”

Captain Zhang Shihao agreed instantly, using his internal authority to bypass the rear supply depot’s approval process.

The supplies arrived quickly.

And it wasn’t a matter of choosing one of the two.

Instead, they sent both Runes—the Substitution Skill and the Soul Pocket were given to Su Chen. Not only that, but Captain Zhang also took the initiative to include a Light Element Soul Core.

For a Master of All Things proficient in All Elements like him, no Soul Element material would ever go to waste.

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Chen immediately absorbed the brilliantly glowing Light Element Soul Core. In his Sea of Consciousness, his Radiant Chain Rune collapsed and restructured. As its patterns returned to their primal simplicity, it successfully broke through to Level 8.

He also consumed and absorbed the Substitution Skill Rune.

Its function was quite easy to understand.

Within their Perception Range, a Spellcaster could instantly and precisely swap their spatial coordinates with a target, or swap a target’s coordinates with those of a specific object.

This wasn’t traditional teleportation, but a forced rewriting of physical rules.

In theory, one could easily use it to swap a small pebble into a target’s brain.

…

In the past few hours, all non-combat personnel outside the border town had already been evacuated in an orderly fashion to a large safe zone in the rear.

The only ones left on the walls now were elite Spellcasters, all prepared to fight to the death.

The cave dwellers soon launched their offensive.

Perhaps wary of the world-ending power—like a miniature nuclear explosion—of the previous Annihilation Realm bomb, the largest Flesh Giant did not advance immediately.

Not only that, but it remained entrenched by the distant fissure. Its bloated, mountain-sized abdomen split open to reveal an Abyssal Maw, from which tens of thousands of tentacles emerged. They swept up the corpses of the cave dwellers slain in the earlier battle, along with any Rune Essence the humans hadn’t had time to collect, and absorbed them all.

It was, without a doubt, feeding.

Accompanied by the nauseating crunch of flesh and bone, the giant was draining them of any residual traits.

The surface of its purplish-black, rotting flesh began to harden rapidly, growing a thick layer of bony armor that emanated a ghostly light.

Even the pressure from its Spiritual Energy slowly intensified, a clear sign that it was undergoing some terrifying transformation.

The glimmer of intelligence in its eyes, which had been largely extinguished, was also restored.

Su Chen didn’t rush to attack either. He stood patiently atop the city wall, coldly observing the giant’s metamorphosis.

Dongfu City was also racing against the clock.

Over the past few hours, the rear-echelon quartermasters had used a massive amount of resources from the Crystal Prism Towers to acquire Level 6 Magic Energy Light Prism Towers, which were now being constantly deployed to the front lines.

These architectural units were card-based, meaning they were portable and could be deployed at will. As soon as a major breach appeared in the front-line defenses, a commander would seize the opportunity and immediately play the card.

VMMMM!

Outside East Gate 3, in less than a breath, tall buildings sprang up from the flat ground almost instantaneously.

More than a dozen defensive towers, each several meters high, shot up from the ground instantly. A volley of blazing, swift disintegration beams swept forward, vaporizing the elite monstrosities trying to cross the line and turning them to ash.

“Hell yeah!”

The eastern side of the city had suffered heavy damage due to its proximity to the fissure, but other areas were often calm. This undoubtedly gave the “mining teams” plenty of opportunities.

Even top-tier combatants like Xiaohu used the portability of their Soul Pockets during their downtime, becoming human transport drones frantically hauling supplies back to the city.

Furthermore, to deal with sections of the defensive line that could collapse at any moment, a temporary, quick-response vanguard force roamed the area, ready to act as a troubleshooting squad wherever needed.

The Ghost Assault Team, squads from the Investigation Legion, and the top independent powerhouses were all part of this unit.

The atmosphere was stretched to its breaking point.

Just then, a Skeleton Executioner over forty meters long charged wildly through the muddy forest, lunging straight for Su Chen. Its two rusty Bone Scythes sliced viciously toward the mid-air Su Chen, letting out a piercing shriek as they tore through the air.

SWOOSH!

Two pure scythe attacks crisscrossed as they flew toward him.

They moved so fast that they left two curved afterimages in the air, which lingered without dissipating.

In response, Su Chen’s piercing gaze held not a trace of fear. He slipped past with ease, gliding along the very edge of the slashes’ force fields. Under the light of his Divine Illumination Skill, his entire body was wreathed in intense fluctuations of Spiritual Energy.

In his perception, the Skeleton Executioner’s lightning-fast movements seemed to be playing in slow motion.

BOOM!

A ring of white vapor exploded around Su Chen. Like a cannonball, he shot through the only opening left by the intersecting Bone Scythes, closing in on the enemy’s massive chest cavity in the blink of an eye.

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