39: Chapter 39 Shura Field

The entire arena had turned into a living hell.

Those ancient colossi, two to three thousand meters tall, strode forward with heavy steps, ruthlessly crushing every floating object and vehicle within their line of sight.

Zhou An piloted the "Cloud Top Fortress" as it wove frantically through the incredibly narrow gaps, like a tiny boat in a storm.

"Radar alert! There is an unidentified warship rapidly approaching us at one o'clock!" Li Muzi stared intently at the radar, her voice sharp with tension.

Zhou An jerked his head up.

Through the panoramic viewport, a menacing warship surged out from behind a shattered slab of rock. The warship was dark red all over, its bow mounted with an absurdly large, super-heavy beam cannon, and its hull was covered in thick reactive armor.

"An LV3 warship! And a pure, heavy-firepower battleship at that!" Zhou An's eyes narrowed. "It must be some overlord-class figure from another zone!"

Just as Zhou An prepared to activate the main cannon for a head-on collision with the opponent.

"Boom—!"

A stone palm, as massive as a mountain, descended without warning from above the heavy battleship! There was not the slightest pause, nor any room for resistance.

Beneath that gargantuan stone hand, the incredibly thick and highly defensive LV3 warship was like a mosquito swatted against a wall. Accompanied by the teeth-grinding sound of twisting metal and a violent secondary explosion, the entire warship instantly turned into a brilliant fireball, then was ground into dust filling the sky.

"Hiss—"

Inside the hall, the three of them gasped in unison, a bone-chilling cold rushing from the soles of their feet straight to their scalps.

"It... it crushed it with one slap?!"

Luo Ning swallowed hard. Her hands, which usually flew across the keyboard like afterimages, were now hovering over the fire control panel, trembling violently. Her fingertips were white from excessive force, yet she dared not press any weapon charging keys, fearing that even a sliver of excess energy would draw the gaze of the death god above.

"Boss, that was a heavy battleship! Its armor was at least twice as thick as ours!"

"Stop looking! Hide!" Zhou An roared, decisively slamming the highest authorization button on the black cube.

"Void Warp Stealth Field, active mode, engage!"

The engines roared violently as a massive amount of energy was drained. A layer of intense spatial ripples surged across the fortress's surface, and it vanished into thin air, as if it had ceased to exist.

"Active mode can only last for three hours at most! We must find a way out within these three hours!" Zhou An gripped the control stick tightly, veins bulging on his forehead.

However, those ancient colossi did not seem to rely solely on vision or radar to locate targets. Their crimson eyes emitted eerie probing light waves that continuously swept through the void. When the light waves swept over the stealthed fortress, the field actually emitted a faint "zzzt" sound, as if it might be seen through at any moment.

"Not good! These things have too high a perception level; active stealth can only barely fool them!" Zhou An gritted his teeth, not daring to be the least bit careless.

Just then, an incredibly small, streamlined aircraft resembling an interstellar fighter zoomed past from below.

"At least over seven hundred kilometers per hour!" Zhou An watched the afterimage flash across the radar, secretly shocked. "They must have dumped all their points into speed!"

The pilot of that small aircraft was clearly extremely confident in themselves, relying on their high maneuverability to weave frantically around a colossus's leg, as if toying with a clumsy giant.

"That idiot is asking for death!" Zhou An commented coldly.

Before the words had even faded, the colossus being "toyed with" suddenly stopped moving. It slowly lowered its head, and on that statue-like, deathly silent stone face, a terrifyingly huge mouth opened.

"Roar—!!!"

A visible, incredibly violent sonic storm erupted from the colossus's mouth! The high-speed fighter was instantly caught in the sonic storm. Under the crushing weight of absolute power, its fragile armor tore instantly like paper, and the entire craft disintegrated and exploded in mid-air!

Under the high-frequency oscillation of the sound waves, the fighter's streamlined hull lasted less than half a second before shattering into pieces like glass struck by a heavy hammer.

Immediately after, the survivor in the cockpit didn't even have time to scream before they, along with the seat and instrument panel, were ground into a mist of blood by the terrifying resonance.

The light of the explosion had barely ignited before it was ruthlessly blown out by the subsequent sound waves, leaving only fine metal debris drifting in the air.

[Notification: The survivor squad from Zone 994 has been destroyed by the 'Ancient Arbiters' sonic wave! Squad wiped out!]

[Current remaining survivor squads in the arena: 9!]

Just as this notification sound faded.

At the edge of the radar, a frigate attempting to use optical camouflage to slip away along the edge of the arena was spotted by another colossus.

The colossus didn't move; it simply backhanded its thousand-meter-long bronze greatsword and threw it like a javelin.

The greatsword tore through the air with a deafening sonic boom, piercing the frigate's reactor with precision. A blinding white light flashed, and the warship was vaporized directly in mid-air, leaving not even a scrap behind.

[Notification: The survivor squad from Zone 998 has been wiped out!]

[Current remaining squads: 8!]

Shortly after, in a debris field not far ahead, a small spaceship was trying to squeeze into a crack in a massive stone slab to hide.

However, the colossus's crimson-glowing eyes suddenly shot out two high-temperature beams, instantly igniting the entire stone slab along with the biological spaceship inside.

The spaceship struggled violently in the high heat for a few moments before finally turning into a charred lump.

[Notification: The survivor squad from Zone 991 has been wiped out!]

[Current remaining squads: 7!]

The death announcements echoed wildly through the oppressive arena like a funeral bell! Those top-tier survivors who usually ruled supreme in their respective zones were falling in droves here, like harvested wheat.

"Cannot be exposed! Absolutely cannot be exposed!"

Zhou An desperately suppressed the urge to push the throttle to the limit. The miserable fate of that fighter and that warship was still fresh in his mind; these colossi had an extremely keen threat detection for high-speed moving objects.

Under the cover of the stealth field, the "Cloud Top Fortress" drifted like a fallen leaf in the void.

He no longer pursued speed, instead using the attitude control engines at the bottom of the fortress to slide extremely slowly through the gaps where the colossi swung their arms, moving within the shadows of the shattered stone slabs.

This was a deadly acrobatic performance walking on the edge of a blade.

Once, the gale kicked up by a colossus's heel nearly grazed the edge of the fortress's shield, causing a violent ripple to surge across the surface of the field, frightening the three of them into holding their breath; their hearts even skipped a beat.

Another time, a multi-ton boulder, shattered by a colossus, came flying straight toward the viewport of the main control room. Zhou An gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked, refusing to engage the main cannon for interception, and instead tilted the fortress's angle to the limit, dodging by a hair's breadth.

The boulder scraped thunderously past the armor plating, leaving a terrifying scratch over ten meters long. The ear-piercing sound of metal friction seemed particularly harrowing in the silent cabin.

"Countdown has... six hours left." Li Muzi looked at the panel, her voice extremely dry.

"Boss, active stealth can only last for three hours... What do we do after three hours?"