90: The Duke's arrival, the final ultimatum

The shadow, vast enough to blot out the sun, descended like a slowly sinking black continental plate made of an unknown metal, dragging the entire city where Pangu Biotech's headquarters was located into a cold, apocalyptic twilight.

That was the Duke's private space-air carrier, the odin.

It hovered silently at an altitude of ten thousand meters, its dark red energy indicator lights, resembling the eyes of a giant beast, flickered with a cold and steady frequency, as if a cosmic behemoth was looking down at the trembling ants in its territory. It didn't fire, didn't make a sound, but its very existence was the most extreme, suffocating pressure, a pure display of power capable of crushing the minds of Mortals.

Inside the city, all alarm sounds had ceased, plunging into a silence more terrifying than any clamor. On the streets, people who had just survived the war now emerged from their temporary shelters, looking up with pale faces at the "sky" that didn't belong to the heavens, feeling a sense of powerlessness, small as dust, originating from the depths of their Souls.

Suddenly, a pure white beam of Holy Light, like the first ray cast by God in the apocalypse, precisely descended from beneath the odin's hull. It silently pierced through the thick cloud layer, finally landing on the central plaza in front of the group's headquarters, which was scarred by the previous battle.

The light was soft and not dazzling, yet it carried an unquestionable sacredness and majesty.

The light dispersed.

Five figures, like sculptures from a myth, silently appeared at the landing point of the light beam.

Leading them was a man who was excessively young.

He wore a well-tailored medieval noble suit, with intricate and delicate lace adorning the collar of his white silk shirt, and an ancient and mysterious Family crest embroidered with pure gold thread on his black velvet tailcoat. He wore no modern technological weapons or equipment, only a pair of pristine white gloves, and held a scepter polished from a single piece of obsidian, with a large sapphire embedded at its tip.

His face was beautiful to an almost demonic degree, his skin as pale as the finest mutton-fat jade, reflecting an ivory-like luster in the dim sky. A pair of rare violet eyes seemed to contain the birth and death of stars and the mysteries of the Universe, carrying a non-human indifference that looked down on all beings, treating everything as grass.

He was the Duke. A Shadow existing only in legends, a chess player manipulating the world's undercurrents from behind the scenes, today, for the first time, he appeared in his true form before the world.

Behind him, four Shadow Guards, dressed in seamless power armor as dark as night, seemingly absorbing all light, and with an Aura as unfathomable as an abyss, stood like four silent iron towers, guarding him in a fan shape. They emitted no energy fluctuations, but their mere black hole-like presence caused the surrounding space to visibly distort like water ripples.

This was a divine Parade, a king's descent, a final judgment upon Mortals.

"Duke!"

A roar filled with endless fury and a desperate Battle Intent came from within the headquarters building, like a Dragon's roar and a tiger's growl, shaking the clouds. The strongest guardian of the Huaxia Long Family, an Elder with white hair and beard, Long Xiaotian, who had immersed himself in the S-rank Peak Realm for nearly a hundred years, stepped forward. He did not choose to cower inside the building, but instead floated directly in mid-air, standing alone between the Duke and the headquarters building, confronting the five figures from a distance.

"This is the territory of my Huaxia Long Family! It is not a place where you can act recklessly!" Long Xiaotian's voice was stern, and his S-rank Peak Aura erupted without reservation, forming the phantom of a roaring energy Dragon behind him, attempting to contend with the opponent. "Retreat quickly, otherwise, do not blame my Long Family for disregarding past ties and fighting you to the death!"

However, the Duke didn't even spare him a glance.

His gaze seemed to penetrate hundreds of meters of heavy alloy architecture, landing directly on Su Mucheng in the top-floor command center, who was pale and staring intently at the monitoring screen. A smile of intriguing amusement, like a cat toying with a mouse, even curved his lips.

He simply snapped his fingers gently and elegantly in the direction behind him.

Snap.

The crisp sound was particularly jarring in the dead silence of the plaza, like the Grim Reaper's scythe cutting through the air.

The Shadow Guard on his left side moved.

No, that couldn't be called "moving."

He simply vanished.

One moment, he stood like a statue behind the Duke. The next moment, he had appeared behind Elder Long Xiaotian, as if he had been standing there all along, as if he had transcended time and space, as if he were Elder Long Xiaotian's own shadow.

Elder Long Xiaotian's battle-hardened instincts, honed through countless life-and-death struggles, made his Soul flee in terror! He felt it! It was a premonition of inescapable death, like being targeted by the vacuum of the Universe itself! He wanted to turn, to defend, to unleash all his power and perish with the opponent... but all his thoughts were too slow.

The Shadow Guard's hand, encased in black armor, transformed into a blur imperceptible to the naked eye, as if it didn't exist in this dimension, like the sharpest battle-blade made of dark matter, gently and precisely, slicing across the back of Elder Long Xiaotian's neck.

Crack.

A faint, almost inaudible sound of bone cracking rang out.

Elder Long Xiaotian's erupting S-rank Peak Aura, capable of shaking mountains and tearing clouds, instantly vanished like a punctured balloon. The divine light in his eyes, that indomitable spirit and Battle Intent of a strong person, quickly dimmed, replaced by blankness and disbelief. He fell limply from mid-air like a broken puppet, crashing heavily onto the ground, raising a cloud of dust, his fate unknown.

The entire process, from the snap of the fingers to an S-rank Peak expert, renowned for nearly a hundred years, losing his combat ability, took no more than 0.1 seconds.

Crushing defeat!

A thorough, utterly unreasonable, and despair-inducing crushing defeat!

In the command center, everyone who witnessed this scene felt their hearts tightly gripped by a cold hand, unable to even breathe. That was Elder Long Xiaotian! One of the Long Family's top guardians, an existence on par with the Family Head, Long Zhanye! To think... he couldn't even withstand a single move from the opponent's guard?!

The Duke ignored Long Xiaotian, who lay on the ground like a dead dog beneath his feet; he didn't even glance down. He maintained his seemingly innate elegance, looking up at the top floor of the group's headquarters.

His gentle voice, like a lover's whisper, echoed clearly through the amplification System in every corner of the city, piercing into the ears of every survivor.

"My purpose for this trip is very simple."

"It is only for the four symbols data disk, and the authority chip in your hands."

His gaze seemed to meet Su Mucheng's in the command center, carrying an undeniable playfulness.

"Hand them over, and I will leave immediately. This city, and everyone in it, can live."

In the command center, Su Mucheng's face was pale, her delicate body trembling slightly from extreme anger and powerlessness. Hand them over? Those were things Lin Tian entrusted to her, things she guarded with the lives of her companions! It was her Family's Legacy for generations! How could she hand them over?!

But what if she didn't?

Looking at the five god-like figures below, and the space-air carrier above, capable of destroying everything, she saw no hope of resistance whatsoever. It was an absolute disparity spanning levels of life, like Mortals looking up at deities.

As if seeing through her hesitation and struggle, the Duke lowered his head and glanced at the extremely luxurious watch on his wrist, made of countless tiny diamonds, still sparkling brilliantly in the dim light, and a gentle yet cruel smile appeared on his face.

"Of course, you can also choose to refuse. After all, courage is a commendable quality, though it is worthless in the face of absolute power."

"I'll give you ten minutes to consider."

"After ten minutes, if the items are not in my hands..."

He paused, slowly raising his head, and looked up at the sun-blotting odin with an almost pitiful gaze.

"...This city, and everyone in it, will turn to dust in the Universe."

As his words fell, a massive cannon muzzle, over a hundred meters in diameter, slowly opened at the odin's bow. Inside, a destructive energy core, capable of wiping an entire continental plate off the map, began to frantically absorb energy from the surrounding space, emitting a dazzling light like the birth of a star.

The countdown to death began.

A massive holographic projection appeared in the sky above the city.

【10:00】

【09:59】

【09:58】

The cold numbers, like a death warrant from a deity, ticked down relentlessly.

Inside the city, the faces of all survivors were etched with ultimate, inescapable despair.