Killing intent, killing intent, killing intent.
Guan Tong's Killing Intent Perception ability was frantically warning him.
Killing intent surged around him from all directions, overwhelming and relentless.
It undoubtedly came from those Suroma Ascendants who had been reverse-summoned by Bruce using the King's Domain, all of them glaring at him viciously at this moment.
Was this another effect of the King's Domain? Or had Bruce controlled these people's minds through modification?
"Kill him!"
"Tear him apart!"
The battle cries erupting from thousands of Ascendants were utterly thunderous. Guan Tong himself was fine, but Chen Na behind him couldn't help but feel tense.
"Brother Guan, there are too many enemies!"
Even more astonishingly, the teleportation still hadn't stopped.
Within the light array, new Ascendants continued to arrive in an endless stream.
"Don't be afraid, they might all be under Bruce's control. I need to capture the leader first to subdue the rest."
With the thousands of teleported Ascendants before him, if Guan Tong wanted to, he could kill every last one of them within the Shadow Domain.
But that wasn't what he wanted.
Several thousand Ascendants held considerable value to humanity as a whole. Killing Bruce and returning these people to normal would be the best outcome.
Bruce seemed able to guess Guan Tong's intentions. After completing the summoning, he remained inside the defensive barrier created by his scepter, even having over a hundred teleported Ascendants press against the barrier as guards.
"No matter how strong you are, no matter how much Mind Power you have, there's always a limit." Bruce said slowly and deliberately. "Unless you can kill every single Ascendant in Suroma, you'll eventually exhaust your power and die."
"If you want to kill me directly... what a pity, the wedding already proved that you can't break through my Royal Protection."
Royal Protection was a defensive barrier, while the King's Domain was used for large-scale reverse teleportation.
Guan Tong had to admit that Bruce's development of his exclusive item was thorough—he'd covered both offense and defense.
But just because he couldn't break through the Royal Protection barrier last time didn't mean he couldn't this time.
At this moment, the thousands of teleported Suroma Ascendants had launched their assault, all sorts of bizarre attack methods bearing down on Guan Tong.
Guan Tong took a deep breath, and a hourglass suddenly appeared in his palm.
Hourglass of Time·Modified.
This was the farewell gift Yelanka had given him when she left the academy back then. Guan Tong had used it once against Lucifer with spectacular results.
Later, after the Emergence Acceleration rule, he used the Upgrade Chip rewarded by the rule to upgrade this item.
After the upgrade, not only were its uses restored to the full five, but the time-freeze radius expanded to 100 meters and the duration extended to 3 seconds.
It could be said that the upgraded Hourglass of Time had leaped to become one of the most precious items in his possession, second only to the Wordless Book in value.
He hadn't had the chance to use it before, but now facing Bruce was the perfect time to put it to work.
Buzz~!
The moment the hourglass flipped, everything within a hundred-meter radius centered on Guan Tong froze into stasis.
Though some Suroma Ascendants beyond the hundred-meter range weren't affected, their attacks were completely unable to stop Guan Tong, all blocked by his shadows.
Second one of the time-freeze, Guan Tong activated Body Swap, exchanging positions with the shadow beside Bruce, kicking the Ascendants pressed against the barrier flying.
Second two of the time-freeze, his right palm condensed a black sphere formed from a massive convergence of Mind Power—the "Small Space" attack he'd often used before.
But this time, he didn't merely use the power of Mind Power alone. He also mobilized the "Kai" power from the fifth page of the Wordless Book.
That power had once been used to unlock the Mind Lock and destroy the Geomantic Pillar. Now, fused with Small Space, what harm was there in using it to break Bruce's Royal Protection barrier?
Second three of the time-freeze, he pressed his right hand—fused with the power of Mind and Rules—against the barrier.
"Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack."
The instant the hourglass effect ended, the Royal Protection barrier spread with cracks like glass struck by a shockwave, shattering into pieces.
Bruce inside the barrier was dumbstruck, staring at Guan Tong in utter disbelief.
"This is impossible..."
He knew the defensive capability of his barrier very well. He had conducted numerous extreme destruction tests before.
Whether it was various high-powered weapons created by humanity or the concentrated bombardment of countless Mind Power items, none could breach this barrier.
Last time at the wedding, even Guan Tong had failed to break through, which only bolstered his confidence in this barrier's defensive power.
Adding to that, he had recently pushed his exclusive item, the Scepter of Royal Authority, to a higher tier through continuous development. The barrier it created should have been even stronger—how could it possibly be destroyed?
"This is impossible' suits you perfectly as your last words."
As Guan Tong spoke, a flood of shadows burrowed into the shattered barrier like starving tigers devouring prey, crazily attacking Bruce's body.
Light flickered across his body—he clearly had quite a few defensive items—but after barely weathering a few hits, they fell silent due to insufficient Mind Power supply and were completely swallowed by the darkness.
"Damn Shadow!"
Bruce, on the verge of collapse, completely lost his usual calm and sinister demeanor. In his despair, he let out irrational roars and manic laughter.
"Kill me, and all of Suroma will be buried with me! Even if I go to hell, my kingdom will descend with me—in hell, I'll still be the King of Suroma! Hahahaha!"
Guan Tong frowned at his words but didn't stop the shadows' actions.
When a Shadow Blade pierced through Bruce's chest, Guan Tong caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a chip implanted inside the latter's body.
He suddenly looked toward the street district that had been burned into a sea of fire by the massive chain detonations. Combining that with Bruce's words, he abruptly realized an extremely terrifying consequence.
That madman Bruce hadn't just planted bombs in the streets around the Hall of Halls—he had planted bombs throughout Suroma's core cities!
Once he was killed by the enemy or died by any means whatsoever, the chip implanted in his body would detect the disappearance of his vital signs and send out a signal—
Damn it!
"BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!"
Xisiya. Yelanka was in a rules discussion meeting with think tank members when the meeting room door was suddenly shoved open forcefully by Sigaochin.
"Administrator!" Sigaochin's voice trembled slightly.
Yelanka knew something major must have happened; otherwise Sigaochin would never be this distraught.
"What's going on?"
"Suroma... we've detected massive explosions across multiple core cities throughout Suroma's territory! Including a large number of nuclear explosions!"
"What?!"
Yelanka shot to her feet, and the other experts and scholars at the meeting were all filled with shock.
It's the teacher... no, that's wrong.
I only gave the teacher one small-yield tactical nuclear weapon, just enough to destroy the Hall of Halls. It couldn't possibly cause nationwide large-scale nuclear explosions.
But if not the teacher, then who?
The other small nations didn't have this capability. Beixing had signed a military mutual trust agreement with Xisiya—if Beixing were truly responsible, they would have communicated with Xisiya in advance.
Yelanka's expression shifted several times, then she gritted her teeth and strode out of the meeting room: "The rules discussion meeting is temporarily suspended!"
Sigaochin followed closely behind her out of the meeting room, leaving the remaining think tank members to discuss among themselves.
Meanwhile, Beixing, Lury, Heilanja, and other nations all received the news as well.
Like Xisiya, the decision-making layers of every nation were shocked to the extreme, unable to believe this was real.
On Tianshui Star, among the nations capable of simultaneously bombing all of Suroma's core cities on a large scale, only Beixing could do it—not even Xisiya.
However, Beixing, as the "leader" of the Humanitarian Defense Alliance, had publicly stated they would give Suroma one month. There was no way they would slap their own face with a surprise attack.
This made the situation utterly baffling, with no one understanding what was really going on.
At the Countermeasures Research Office base, as soon as the news broke, Zhang Minglu—who was in the middle of selecting personnel to form an escort team for the alien merchant delegation—received an urgent notice from the highest decision-making layer.
The highest decision-making layer directly had Gao Liangwei relay the message: drop everything he was doing and use every possible method to contact Guan Tong immediately to ask about the specific situation.
Zhang Minglu knew the situation was extremely serious—even the nation's highest decision-making layer was personally intervening. He didn't dare delay a single moment and quickly contacted Silver Fox and the others.
At the same time, he was deeply puzzled himself: "Could it really have been Guan Tong? But how could he..."
"Doctor, I don't think it was Guan Tong." Zhao Ming, who was in the same office and knew about the situation, spoke up at this moment.
"Oh?" Zhang Minglu looked at his future successor. "If not him, then who?"
"Guan Tong is formidable, sure, but there's no way he could detonate bombs in so many cities simultaneously. I think it might well be Suroma's own higher-ups who did it."
Zhang Minglu's eyes widened: "What? Blowing themselves up? Why would Suroma's higher-ups do that?"
Zhao Ming shrugged, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes: "If they're going to die, they might as well drag others down with them... If ordinary people can have such thoughts, why couldn't those holding great power have them too?"
Zhang Minglu's entire body jolted at his words, cold sweat pouring down his back.
He knew Zhao Ming was right. Many people could have such thoughts—the great and powerful included. This was the unavoidable dark depth of human nature.
But when ordinary people think this way, they can't actually accomplish it, perhaps due to insufficient capability.
When the great and powerful think this way but don't act, it's because too much is at stake. Dying only takes their own life, but acting on it would bring disaster upon their descendants.
But that was in times of peace. In this era of Doomsday Rules, how many still had descendants alive?
Even a king as lofty as Bruce had lost his son and been betrayed by his daughter, hadn't he?
If those who hold great power lose their attachments and weaknesses, once the thought of "dragging others down when I die" takes root, the consequences they can cause are undoubtedly a hundred times, a thousand times, even ten thousand times more severe than what ordinary people could manage!