Chapter 828: The Secret of the Golden Eye

Chapter 828: Chapter 828: The Secret of the Golden Eye

Ethan reverted to his human form with a heavy exhale, feeling the Void Amethyst plates retract beneath his skin. The floor of the command room was littered with corpses, shattered weapons, and pools of warm blood.

Without wasting a second, he strode toward the central console. The main display flickered with red emergency runes as sirens continued to echo throughout the bunker.

"Do your magic, Crul," Ethan murmured, resting his palm on the terminal’s crystal.

[Initiating neural and mana link... Bypassing Golden Dragon Empire security protocols... Access granted!], Crul’s voice echoed in his mind. [Taking full control of the fortress core.]

Instantly, the roar of the mana cannons on the surface came to a halt. The automated turrets aligned their barrels toward the sky and powered down one by one, plunging the ramparts into silence.

Through his earpiece, Vaelen’s voice crackled through once more, filled with relief.

"Ethan! The anti-air fire has completely stopped. Did you manage to take control?"

"The command center is secure," Ethan replied, wiping a drop of blood from his cheek. "Tell the fleet to land and take up defensive positions. This fortress is ours."

[Master... you need to see this], Crul interrupted, projecting a holographic display before his eyes. [I analyzed the system logs prior to our attack. The reason the base targeted us the moment we emerged from the portal was not an identification error.]

Ethan furrowed his brow. "A glitch in the recognition array?"

[Negative. The order was issued six hours ago from this console. And the spiritual signature used to authorize it belongs to a commander from the Divine Wind Empire.]

Ethan clenched his fists. The fortress had not been empty because imperial troops fled; the original garrison had been betrayed and slaughtered days ago, allowing enemy infiltrators to operate the base to ambush incoming Golden Dragon Empire reinforcements.

Before Ethan could process the revelation, a tremor shook the underground bunker’s walls. A spiritual shockwave surged from the depths of the Great Desert.

On the monitoring screen, Crul detected thousands of energy signatures advancing across the dunes.

[Alert!], Crul warned. [A vanguard from the Divine Wind Empire is approaching. There are over fifty thousand troops, led by three Spiritual Transcendence experts.]

Ethan formed a smirk and drew the Black Chaos Sword, its blade vibrating with bloodlust.

"Perfect," Ethan muttered, walking toward the bunker’s exit. "Just in time to test the Emperor’s gift."

Ethan adjusted his earpiece and spoke through the tactical comms network:

"All units, stay on high alert: an enemy vanguard from the Divine Wind Empire is approaching. Notify the imperial palace; this fortress had fallen into enemy hands and we have just retaken it. Request immediate reinforcements."

Upon hearing the command, the fleet reacted. The vessels that were beginning to land on the docks took to the skies once more, adjusting their energy shields and priming their cannon batteries.

Ethan exited the central complex and made his way to the top of the main wall. From there, he gazed out across the Great Desert: over the dunes, a dust cloud was visible, spearheaded by dozens of war battleships advancing at top speed.

Vaelen stepped up beside him, his expression grim.

"General, we have no communication with the main army," Vaelen reported. "We are receiving no responses to our transmissions."

Ethan remained unfazed, asking without taking his eyes off the horizon:

"How many Dao Transcendence warriors do we have in our ranks?"

"Only myself, sir," Vaelen answered bitterly. "It used to be King Alaric and me, but ever since he ascended to the next realm, I have remained stuck."

"What level are you at?" asked Ethan.

"At the peak stage of Dao Transcendence," Vaelen said. "Even so, I do not know if it will be enough to face such an armada."

Ethan narrowed his eyes, analyzing the enemy formation deploying before the fortress.

"There are three experts in the Dao Transcendence stage," Ethan noted. "Furthermore, the support from their fleet will be a problem; they are bringing superior-grade vessels."

"Should we retreat, General?" asked Vaelen, clenching his fist.

"Retreat?" Ethan repeated, letting out a smirk. "No... this makes things more fun."

Without wasting a second, Ethan raised his left hand and deployed the Orb of Death. An abyssal glow flooded the ramparts as a dark mist swept over the courtyard and the dunes.

With a thought, he summoned tens of thousands of undead. A spectral host emerged from the fog, every single one of them at the peak of the Dao Manifestation stage. Because Ethan had not yet made the leap into the Transcendence realm, his undead servants were capped at that limit, but their sheer numbers and bloodlust were overwhelming.

"Tell the fleet to fall back. I will attempt to take control; I am borrowing one Rhino."

"But General, it is too dangerous!" protested Vaelen, his face lined with anguish. "They could kill you in seconds... please do not take such a risk."

"Do not worry, everything will be fine," Ethan replied with absolute composure before cutting the transmission.

[Crul, take the least damaged Rhino and let’s go], Ethan commanded in his mind.

Instantly, one of the Rhino-class vessels in the rear fired up its auxiliary engines and surged to the front.

"Everyone abandon the ship immediately!" Ethan instructed through the vessel’s internal intercom.

The soldiers aboard, baffled by the order but obedient to their General’s authority, evacuated using emergency gliders. Within seconds, Ethan leapt onto the upper deck, standing resolute atop the ship’s hull. All around him, the thousands of undead he had summoned gathered in silence, crowding every inch of metal, waiting for the collision against the enemy fleet.

Ethan stood tall on the metallic deck, fixing his eyes on the invading battleships covering the desert sky, and issued his final order:

"Advance!"

[Crul, max thrusters!]

The Rhino cruiser roared as its rear engines unleashed sulfur-colored flares, catapulting the ship at a suicidal speed directly toward the enemy line.

On the other side of the battlefield, from the bridge of the Divine Wind Empire’s flagship, the three generals watched the maneuver with disbelief and contempt.

"What on earth are they trying to do?" barked one of the enemy generals, furrowing his brow. "Destroy that ship immediately!"

Dozens of heavy batteries from the enemy fleet opened fire in unison, unleashing a rain of destructive mana beams. However, Crul calculated the trajectory of every projectile in milliseconds, executing impossible mid-air banks to dodge the deadly barrage.

Just as the wall of fire seemed about to overwhelm them, Crul engaged the Rhino’s warp drive. The ship flickered and vanished from the sky, reappearing a fraction of a second later via a micro-warp directly inside the hull of the enemy flagship, causing the warship to explode from within in a colossal fireball.