Outside the city walls, groups of soldiers from the Divine City coalition, newly teleported, stared in shock at the changes around them, a wave of unrest spreading.
"What's going on? How did the area around the teleportation array suddenly get so big?"
"A miracle! This is definitely a miracle that only the Lord could achieve! Did the Lord abandon us?"
"I heard Fengle City was also a Divine City before. Do you think they had a divine backer behind them too?"
...
The coalition soldiers discussed amongst themselves while preparing for battle. They knew little of events from a million years ago, only indulging in speculation.
"General, is this the state of a city upgrade?" a general clad in black armor, hidden within a shroud of black mist, asked in confusion. Standing beside him was a figure fifty feet tall, resembling a great mountain, seated within the protective shield of the teleportation array.
He was the commander of this attack on Fengle City, the supreme commander of the demon immortal race, a hybrid of fox and wolf demons, Hu Lang!
"You could say that." As a demon immortal from a million years ago, he possessed considerable experience.
"The expansion of a Divine City's territory doesn't necessarily mean an increase in its level, but the concept of a Divine City's level is inherently vague. It's a part of the Divine City's growth, so you can consider it an upgrade," Hu Lang said coldly, glancing at the Shadow race general beside him.
Most members of the Shadow race belonged to one of two common professions: either steel-like warriors, or, like the one before him, assassins skilled in covert operations.
After the previous defeat of An Chen Yu's hundreds of thousands of troops, the Shadow race had dispatched several million more soldiers to join the coalition, but without exception, they all perished.
In truth, over the past month, the Nine Divine Cities had sent nearly two hundred million troops, all of whom were annihilated without a single piece of news about Fengle City making it back.
Therefore, the decision-makers of the Nine Divine Cities resolved to assemble a ten-thousand-strong assassin legion composed of elite assassins from each race to accompany the main force in their assault on Fengle City!
Their objective was simple: infiltrate Fengle City and destroy the Qitian Tower within it. The Shadow race individual before them was the commander of this assassin legion.
"We, the Nine Divine Cities, have been attacking this place for nearly a month. How can this place be so powerful as to withstand our assaults for so long!"
One month. From the initial small-scale probes to subsequent attacks involving at least three million troops each time, this frequency would have overwhelmed even Shenyu, the foremost of the Nine Divine Cities. Yet, this single human main city had endured.
"An Long! Have you not realized for half a day that this human main city's power belongs to the 'Outsiders'?" Hu Lang looked at him with a solemn expression, finding it hard to believe that the commander of the assassin legion could observe for so long without discerning the enemy's nature.
An Long opened his mouth, then said nothing. They had been within this protective shield for over four hours. Besides waiting for the army to pass through the teleportation array and reorganize, their primary task was to observe the city's defenses.
An Long actually had no recourse. Since their arrival, he had dispatched over a dozen assassins skilled in concealment to approach the city walls. However, each time they neared, the city defense structures on the walls seemed to have eyes, directly targeting and killing his concealed, even invisible, subordinates.
Outsiders, he knew of them. But how powerful could Outsiders be at this stage? They couldn't even meet the minimum requirements for entering a Divine City. Even if they could revive, they were no match for the warriors of the Divine Cities.
"The human race's national destiny is so weak, and it's already reasonably suppressed by the national destinies of our Nine Divine Cities. Commander Hu, do you think their national destiny is rising, and the human race can truly rise? Can they?" An Long looked at the distant outline of the city walls and then at the expanding territory, unable to suppress a scoff.
Destiny was the most difficult thing to predict, yet it was a tangible force. Every race, nation, and even star domain possessed its own destiny, intrinsically linked to its development. A million years ago, to ensure the complete decline of human Divine Cities, the Nine Divine Cities had pooled the national destinies of their nine races to firmly suppress the human race's destiny!
"One cannot say that. The rise and fall of races are cyclical. We must not be careless, or else our two hundred million troops from before would not have been for naught!" Hu Lang, the second-ranking marshal of the demon immortals, ranked highly among the marshals of the Nine Divine Cities due to his invariably meticulous approach to all battles.
The exact location where the human race's destiny was suppressed was known only to a few Divine Emperors of the Divine race from that era. As time passed and those Divine Emperors disappeared, the information about this suppression site was lost.
"Indeed. It is said that the human race's destiny had already transformed into a five-clawed dragon, while the rest of us had only three claws. If not for..."
"An Long! Restrain your tongue!" Hu Lang interrupted An Long. Some matters were best kept within one's thoughts; they were not for them to speak of.
A destiny transforming into a dragon, especially a five-clawed one, was a terrifying prospect.
"Alright, I will go out and set up the formations. Now that Fengle City's territory has expanded, we can continue to station troops behind the teleportation array. Once all soldiers are in position, everyone will rest for five hours. After five hours, I want this city reduced to ruins!"
Hu Lang looked at the increasingly crowded army within the teleportation array and quickly led his deputy generals to make arrangements. The expansion of territory outside the city meant he could enlarge the battlefield. With sufficient troops, he could even encircle Fengle City.
Most importantly, the larger the battlefield, the greater the chance of survival for his side, even without the twenty-four-hour protection of the teleportation array.
Column after column of army formations orderly emerged from the teleportation array, arranging themselves densely behind it.
"This coalition army feels a bit different this time," Xie Yifeng, one of the four legion commanders, remarked from atop the city wall, observing the Divine City coalition below.
"Nonsense, our eyes aren't blind. Their numbers are more than double what they usually are," Chen Jiamiao, who seemed to enjoy nothing more than to retort, said. Only Mu Ziming stood behind them, his eyes wide with anticipation as he gazed at the army below.
"It seems my talent skills were correctly saved for now."
Meanwhile, Ye Yun paid no mind to this. With Mu Ziming and the eight hundred thousand player army, as long as that fellow could maintain a certain degree of control, no matter how many Divine City troops came, they wouldn't be enough to satisfy him.
He had already used the teleportation array to visit the New Mortal Continent and collect the over two trillion spirit stones awarded this time.