Chapter 576: The Eve of War

"Powder, yes, but not any old powder. As soon as this powder touches a sura, they'll be melted from the outside in, then transformed into the biological lifeform I showed you. This lifeform is almost impossible to kill, especially for the sura. Its only weakness is fire. Burning it will convert it to powdered form, where it'll be blown into the air."

Hong Xi murmured in surprise, "In that case, can't it live on indefinitely?"

The Yeluo chieftain nodded. "Exactly, just like Zhou Ying's cells—and it's even more frightening when burned, since it'll turn into airborne particles that, when sucked in, can destroy the sura from the inside out."

Sun Mengmeng's eyes widened. "What about the blood clots that the sura have been using to counter us?"

The Yeluo chieftain shrugged. "External sources of blood will protect them, but sura blood won't."

Sun Mengmeng grew visibly excited. "When will you be able to mass-produce it?"

The Yeluo chieftain smiled. "I knew what you were going to ask. The warehouse already has a significant stockpile."

Just then, Sun Mengmeng's doublegrowth flower shook. It turned red, a sign of imminent combat against the sura.

Hong Xi's eyes widened. "We have to hand the poison to the troops immediately!"

"No, wait," Sun Mengmeng suddenly said. "Hold on. We don't have that large a supply of this new poison. We should divide it among us humans and the first few races that joined Renhuang. We can hand the rest to the allied races from the Milky Way, but we have to ensure that they don't spread any information to the sura. If anyone dares do so, they'll be branded a traitor and treated accordingly."

The Yeluo chieftain smiled wearily. "Spies, I presume? It looks like you all aren't having the easiest time, either."

The sudden meeting among the sura monarchs shocked the Renhuang forces.

For the first time since the war began, the members of Team Zenith gathered together. Li Feng brought up the fact that the sura were mobilizing en masse, something they had all noticed during their respective fighting. "Do you think they'll finally come at us in earnest?"

Sun Xiaowu shook his head. "It's hard to say. Perhaps they're trying to distract us. From what I can see of the forces they've sent against us, I don't think they'll be able to take us down in a direct confrontation."

Fang Yi nodded. "We haven't seen any of the sura monarchs on their side, either."

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Yang Ze frowned. "Are the sura actually using tactics against us? That's more annoying than I expected..."

Sun Mengmeng sighed. "They have their trump cards, and we have ours—though, well, ours is absent."

Everyone's faces turned glum. They knew whom Sun Mengmeng spoke of, of course. It was disappointing that they couldn't seem to achieve very much without his presence.

They turned to face the sura army massing in the distance, which outnumbered their own forces by over fifty million. So densely were they packed that they were like a black plague spreading over the horizon.

Li Feng sighed. "I hope this upgraded Yeluo poison will prove effective, or else..."

Just then, a sura king approached the neutral territory between the two forces and shouted, "Forces of Renhuang, surrender now!

The sura have dominated over the sura realm for millennia, and no one has ever been able to disrupt our superiority—not in the past, not in the present, nor in the future. If you surrender now, we sura may consider going easy on you."

Before the battle began in earnest, such high-handed words would raise the sura's morale—in principle. The humans were particularly inventive with their insults, and the sura had come out on the losing end of every verbal battle, but the sura couldn't give up now. This was a tradition of the sura, and any army that didn't accede to such a tradition was widely recognized to be scared of their opponent.

Li Feng strode forward with swagger. "Oh? I thought I heard a dog barking, but it turned out to be a sura!"

The sura king's face turned green. "Do you truly think a ramshackle place like this 'Renhuang' of yours can take down us sura? You humans only deserve to be our slaves!"

Yang Ze spread his arms. "Sura, sura—you've grown fat from your time as tyrants of the realm. It's well past time that you be taken down!"

"Indeed? You lot truly are asking to die, aren't you? Sura, charge forward!" With the wave of an arm, the sura king summoned forth the forces that had been massing over the horizon. The stomping of their feet made the very earth shake.

"Charge!" The members of Team Zenith took the vanguard, followed by Renhuang's forces.

"[Lunarflame Shot]!" Fire-attuned genetic energy burst from Sun Mengmeng's body as her body erupted in flames. She pulled her greatbow taut.

Sun Mengmeng's right hand blurred as countless arrows of purple flame shot out of her bow like a meteor shower that tinted the air purple and gave the battlefield a phantasmagorical appearance. The air turned dry and arid, as though a cataclysm was nigh.

Under the brilliant purple sky, the sura fighters began to burn, drowned in a sea of purple flame.

Dozens of sura kings made a beeline toward Sun Mengmeng. If she were allowed to launch technique after technique undeterred, the sura would all die to her aerial bombardment.

"If you want to attack my sister, you'll have to get past me, first! [Blinding Flash: Hundredfold Echo]!" Sun Xiaowu's body split into over a hundred clones, so many they seemed to fill the sky.

"[Golden Divide]!" The hundred clones all used [Golden Divide] simultaneously, coloring the sky in gold as they rained down on the sura kings.

"[Birth of the Holy Dragon]!" A light dragon descended from the heavens like a beacon of shining light. Li Feng leapt up to the head of the dragon, his sword gleaming brightly as though it had been dipped in liquid light. As he raised the sword to the skies, it glowed and expanded, morphing into a huge blade of light that descended on the sura kings.

He turned back and called out, "Sun Mengmeng, keep unleashing your techniques! We'll hold these rabble back!"

Sun Mengmeng cast [Black Sun], forming a corona of purplish-black flame around her. She activated her most impactful soulshards for battle, transforming from a young woman to a fierce warrior with a chitinous carapace, wreathed in black flame.

"[Syzygy]!" Sun Mengmeng shot out dozens of arrows toward the battlefield, sending pillars of purplish-black flame flaring toward the skies. The pillars exploded in mid-air and transformed into a violet moon, whose rays of light shone down on the entire battlefield...