Chapter 511: The Desolate Cities

The commander of the sura forces stood hovering in the air, quelling the fighting with nothing more than his aura.

The generals of the empire of stars shouted impassionately, "Without a sura monarch present, no one can defeat our commander! Clean your necks and prepare to die!"

"Shut up!"

As space rumbled, a punch came out of nowhere, shot through the entire battlefield, and landed straight on the commander's body. Space rippled where the commander once stood. He fell from the skies and cratered into the ground.

There he lay, his four limbs distorted, blood spouting from his mouth like a fountain. He was severely injured, on the verge of death.

The generals who had started to become cocky again gaped at their commander in shock. What in the world was going on? His aura had managed to suppress the entire battlefield, but the next moment, he was somehow lying in a hole on the ground!

Even the commander himself was stupefied. Everything had happened too quickly for him to be able to react; he hadn't even sensed the punch at all. By the time he came back to his senses, he was lying in a pit, glancing up at the skies, and so badly hurt that he could barely move his fingers.

Even the members of Team Zenith and the representatives of the four prime races hadn't caught a glimpse of what had happened, but they at least recognized the voice. They turned back toward Zhang Lie to see him retracting a fist and sitting leisurely on a stool, as though he had done nothing surprising.

Naturally, he was the one who had attacked the commander.

After maxing out his peak gene fragments, Zhang Lie's strength had reached a truly ridiculous level, and he was easily able to deal with anyone who wasn't yet a sura monarch—with just a single punch.

When they saw their commander being pummeled to the ground in a mere instant, the sura fighters' morale dropped to peak bottom, and they looked at each other in despair.

The sura fighters who were still alive began to flee; none of them had the will to fight any longer.

But why would Renhuang's forces let them go? Over the next hour, they slaughtered the rest of the initially three-million-strong army that the sura had fielded.

The hunters of Renhuang couldn't believe the feat they had just accomplished. How could they have killed all of the three million sura within no more than an hour? Renhuang only had a hundred thousand forces!

This was a miraculous victory, one that made use of no battle tactics or strategy, one that relied solely on the Yeluo poison.

.

"Perhaps this is Renhuang's miraculous strength..."

The morale of Renhuang's forces rose sharply.

When the fallen commander was tied up and brought over to Zhang Lie, he didn't look at all as though the sura had lost. He shouted angrily, "Don't think the battle's over—the monarch of stars and the entirety of the sura await you! Even if you use such underhanded tactics, you'll never be able to defeat the monarch of stars. He's far too strong for the likes of you to defeat!"

The forces of Renhuang stared at the fallen commander with a knowing smile.

The commander's gaze swept over everyone present before naturally landing on Zhang Lie. "You must be the commander of Renhuang's forces."

It was very easy to distinguish Zhang Lie from the others; he had an aura of leadership that none other possessed, that he hadn't seen on anyone but his monarch before, and the forces all glanced at him from time to time.

The commander of the sura forces raised his head and spoke pridefully, "I recommend that you send me back to the empire of stars, then to beg his majesty for mercy! Renhuang killed all nine of his godsons, and his majesty is extremely enraged. Now that you've also killed four-fifths of his army, his anger will surely reach a breaking point. If he takes to the battlefield himself, all of you will surely perish."

Li Feng couldn't help but laugh, prompting everyone else to do so as well. He hurriedly waved his hands. "Don't worry, keep going, I just can't bear it any longer, haha!"

The commander of the army snorted in displeasure. "You might be able to laugh now, but once his majesty pays you a visit himself, I assure you, you won't ever laugh a day again in your life. If you don't want Renhuang to be destroyed, follow my advice. Perhaps his majesty will show clemency and let go of some of you."

Sun Mengmeng couldn't watch him prattle any longer. "Actually, we've already encountered this monarch of yours."

"What?!" The commander's eyes bulged, unable to believe what he had heard.

Li Feng spread his arms helplessly. "He did pay us a visit, and then he died."

"No, that's impossible! His majesty is the closest the sura have to an asura!"

Li Feng explained, "It truly was an astounding battle, but your ruler was the one who perished. The man he faced in battle is sitting right before you!"

Zhang Lie smirked at the fallen commander. "Do you have any more interesting information for me?"

The commander furiously struggled against his bonds as he roared, "That's impossible! You have to be lying to me! It's useless—no matter your lies, his majesty will still appear before you all! Just you wait. You're all going to die!"

With a snap of his fingers, Zhang Lie made the commander's body explode like a rotten tomato.

Sun Mengmeng asked, "Should we have killed him just like that?"

Li Feng nodded. "We didn't manage to get any useful information out of him, after all."

Zhang Lie shook his head. "There's no reason to keep someone as delusional as him alive. We'll get more information just by heading toward the empire of stars."

After a night's rest, the forces of Renhuang set off once again.

They reached the border of the empire of stars easily, only to find it completely unguarded. The cities that they passed through were stranger than the last, each filled with heaps upon heaps of yellow sand, without any sura left alive. The cities all seemed to have become ruins overnight.

Zhang Lie and the others initially thought that this was some strategy or another that the empire of stars had employed, but even after a few days, they couldn't detect anything amiss.

There were still quite a few sura present in villages and in the mountains, and there were some cities which still had living sura, but the majority seemed to have been wiped out.

Zhang Lie couldn't help but feel an eerie premonition. "Could it be..."

Sun Mengmeng asked curiously, "Captain, do you know just what happened to the empire of stars?"

This was the question that Zhang Lie had been considering over the last few days.

"More or less."

Zhang Lie captured and extracted the memories of a sura guard via his moonlight wyrm, which allowed him to understand roughly what had happened. Before the cataclysm, the skies above the empire of stars had turned blood-red, and a beam of light had shot out of the capital.

In that case, the answer had to lie within the capital.

Renhuang's forces made their way toward and inside the capital without any obstacles whatsoever, and they didn't meet a single sura along the way. It was impossible that the capital of a sura empire could be so empty; any such capital was at least populated by a million sura.

A migration of a million sura would take at least a few weeks to plan and execute, and it was impossible for this event to happen so rapidly. Nevertheless, the proof of that impossibility was right before their eyes...