183: Chapter 183 The portal opens, and a million-strong army descends upon the wasteland.

The sky of the Wasteland was always that suffocating, leaden gray.

But at this moment, this layer of gray was stained with a despairing crimson.

"Zzz—pop!"

Accompanied by one final, overstrained wail, the pale blue energy shield enveloping Dawn City shattered like glass struck by a heavy hammer, exploding into a sky full of light fragments.

The defensive line had been breached.

In that moment, the last glimmer of light in the eyes of the few thousand remaining Wasteland warriors on the city walls extinguished along with it.

Outside the city, countless silver-white Machina Legion robots, like a breached flood, marched with uniform, emotionless steps, trampling over the wreckage of their own kind as they surged toward this last bastion of humanity. The laser weapons in their hands wove into a net, and every flicker meant the extinguishment of a life.

"It's over... it's all over."

Grand Commander Lei Zhen leaned against a section of a broken wall, the barrel of the heavy machine gun in his hands glowing red-hot and warped out of shape.

He gasped for air, his lungs wheezing like a bellows. Half of his body was stained red with blood, and his pride-and-joy mechanical prosthetic limb had been blown off, exposing the sparking circuitry inside.

All around were corpses. Some were the enemy's, others were his comrades'.

"The President! Retreat! Fall back to the inner city!" the adjutant cried out, tugging at his arm. "There's still a defensive line in the inner city, perhaps we can still..."

"Retreat my ass!"

Grand Commander Lei Zhen shook off the adjutant, his bloodshot, bull-like eyes filled with determination. "The Empress is gone, and there's been no word from the Father God either. We are the last backbone of Dawn City; if even we go soft, what happens to the hundreds of thousands of elders and children left in this city? Are we to let them become batteries for these hunks of iron?"

With trembling hands, he pulled the last high-explosive fusion grenade from his waist. His finger hooked the pin.

"Brothers!"

Grand Commander Lei Zhen struggled to his feet, facing the silver death surging toward him like a tide, a savage and wild smile appearing on his face:

"To have followed the Empress to conquer the world in this lifetime, it was worth it!"

"Today, even if I die, I'm going to knock out a few of their teeth!"

"For Dawn City! Detonate!!!"

Just as he prepared to pull the fuse and bloom with the final fireworks of his life.

"Rumble—!!!"

A dull thunderclap, one that did not belong to this world and seemed to come from the nine heavens, exploded without warning.

The sound was so immense that it drowned out all the artillery fire on the battlefield. The earth began to tremble violently, gravel danced, and even the charging Machina Legion experienced a momentary pause.

Grand Commander Lei Zhen was stunned. He instinctively looked up.

He saw the dark, radioactive cloud layer above, suddenly like a piece of rag, being violently torn open by an invisible giant hand.

A massive vortex with a diameter exceeding ten kilometers, emitting a faint blue light, appeared out of thin air directly above Dawn City. In the center of the vortex, lightning danced wildly and space-time twisted, as if connecting to a divine kingdom in another dimension.

Immediately following.

A silver giant ship that blotted out the sky, carrying the pressure to crush everything, slowly extended its bow.

It was the luan niao starship!

It was like a moving mountain of steel, forcibly squeezing itself into this world. Its massive shadow instantly covered the entire battlefield, shrouding the arrogant Machina Legion in darkness.

"Fa... Father God?!"

The grenade in Grand Commander Lei Zhen's hand fell to the ground with a "clang." He rubbed his eyes in disbelief; tears mixed with blood instantly blurred his vision.

But this was only the beginning.

As the luan niao starship fully descended, that massive blue vortex did not disappear. On the contrary, it spun even more violently, as if it had become a gate to another world.

"Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—"

Countless black dots surged out from the vortex like a rainstorm.

That was... the Y-20 heavy transport aircraft fleet!

They arranged themselves in precise combat formations, engines roaring, and the airdrop pods hanging beneath their wings fell toward the ground in dense clusters, like dumplings being dropped into a pot.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Countless white parachutes bloomed in the air, like dandelions in full bloom.

And at a lower altitude.

Accompanied by bursts of teeth-gritting metallic friction, steel behemoths painted in desert camouflage with menacing barrels were slammed heavily onto the Wasteland, directly via anti-gravity delivery platforms.

Type 99A main battle tanks! PHL-191 long-range box rocket launchers! Type 05 amphibious assault vehicles!

These steel torrents, representing the peak combat power of the Earth Dragon Country's Army, descended upon this Wasteland out of thin air, carrying a unique, heavy sense of industrial violent aesthetics.

Those vibrant Five-Star Red Flags snapped in the wind amidst the dark, dusty Wasteland, so dazzlingly red that they made one's heart tremble.

"Zzz—"

Above the battlefield, all public channels were forcibly taken over.

A voice that Grand Commander Lei Zhen was familiar with to his very bones, yet sounded more beautiful than heavenly music at this moment, echoed thunderously between heaven and earth:

"Citizens of Dawn City, raise your heads!"

It was Jiang Chen's voice.

Carrying a protective domineering aura, and that composure of viewing thousands of troops as mere blades of grass:

"I've brought the dowry... no, wait, I've brought reinforcements back!"

"Everyone, get down immediately! Find cover!"

"The scene that follows might be a bit violent, don't get splattered with blood!"

As soon as the words fell.

"Click-click-click—"

On the ground, hundreds of Type 99A tanks that had just landed simultaneously rotated their turrets. That sound of mechanical meshing was as uniform as a death countdown.

The pitch-black muzzles locked in unison onto the Machina Legion surging ahead like a tide.

And beneath the luan niao starship, countless Dragon Country special forces soldiers wearing exoskeleton armor rushed out of the airdrop pods like tigers descending a mountain, quickly constructing a steel defensive line.

At this moment.

Time seemed to freeze.

Although those Machina Legion robots had no emotions, their core processors were now frantically popping up red [Unknown High-Risk Target] warnings.

They stopped. Facing this army they had never seen before, exuding a strong scent of gunpowder and the aura of steel, even these pre-programmed killing machines experienced a logical stutter.

And on the city wall.

Grand Commander Lei Zhen steadied himself against the broken wall and stood up shakily.

He looked at those steel behemoths, looked at those fluttering red flags, and looked at that warship in the sky that was like a deity.

This man who would bleed but never shed tears suddenly grinned, crying like a two-hundred-pound child.

He raised his only remaining arm toward the sky and roared with all his might:

"Brothers! Look!"

"Father God... Father God has not abandoned us!"

"He... he has brought the heavenly troops and generals... to us!!!"