Chapter 1234: Chapter 1221: He Is Your Partner Chapter 1234: Chapter 1221: He Is Your Partner On the scorched earth, golden-red lava crisscrossed, forming a black mist with toxic gases that mortal things couldn’t possibly inhale. The land, devoid of life, drifted with death.

In this domain, now a ghostly netherworld, there were terrifyingly twisted human corpses everywhere, melded with solidified magma, locked in their most agonizing poses from life.

Yet, not all creatures in this desolate land had perished; life still persisted amidst death.

Crash!

A somewhat hunched and charred corpse was pushed aside as a pale-skinned giant emerged from the sandy soil below, standing bewildered before surveying the silent land around him.

“How could this happen?” Nordan roared in despair. He didn’t understand why his tribe had been annihilated in an instant, why the place he had grown up had become a wasteland.

He still remembered the pride he felt returning from an alien camp with his kin, Huishi, receiving the usual admiring gazes from countless tribespeople.

But when he boasted of his accomplishments to the tribal chief, he received not the usual praise but only the chief’s sighs and increasingly worried looks, along with a command to migrate.

He could neither understand nor agree with the chief’s order. He had defeated the enemies, yet the chief still insisted on relocating the entire tribe.

So, the impetuous young giant argued fiercely with the elder chief and promptly held a grand celebration banquet with his admirers.

The disaster struck during the celebratory feast. Nordan recalled the scene; a massive unidentified object fell from the darkness above, landing in the center of the tribal settlement, igniting and erupting flames and heat, along with a shockwave intending to obliterate everything.

This sudden attack left most of the giants, caught in jovial laughter, utterly unprepared. Flesh vaporized instantly in the extreme temperatures, and bones shattered under the ruthless impact.

Nordan, facing such an onslaught, was equally caught off guard, clueless about how to respond, as he was about to be engulfed by the widespread attack.

A gaunt yet still muscular figure lunged from the side and pinned him to the ground; then, a heat wave fierce enough to melt anything swept over them.

This was all Nordan could recall. As he remembered everything, he also realized why he had survived. He abruptly turned to look at the hunched corpse he had just overturned.

“Chief!”

The pale giant rushed forward and embraced the remains, now mostly charred bones with flesh vaporized, hot tears streaming uncontrollably from his eyes.

This was the first time in his life he had cried. Once, Nordan considered tears the sorrow of the weak, but now he no longer cared about that; his mind was filled with endless grief.

He was angry, remorseful, hating himself for not heeding the chief’s advice to retreat the tribe swiftly, instead choosing to celebrate his own victory.

If he hadn’t held that feast and instead heeded the chief’s advice to relocate his people overnight, the catastrophe before him might have occurred, but it wouldn’t have affected a single member of his tribe.

But now it was too late; looking around, he saw only the corpses of his tribespeople. Except for him, no one survived.

Ah!!!

The despairing pale giant roared skyward, his bellow spreading as the lingering flames flickered.

The soldiers beginning to explore this ruined area, hearing the roar, immediately dropped to the ground, not daring to move. They looked at each other, eyes filled with astonishment and uncertainty.

“Are you kidding me? We already dropped an ‘Annihilation’, how could any creature still be alive?”

A soldier in heavy steam armor, his voice tinged with barely concealed panic, spoke as wisps of white steam sprayed from the exhaust vents on his cheeks.

“In our world, dropping an ‘Annihilation’ naturally implies no creature can survive, but this is a different world. Things beyond our understanding aren’t surprising here.”

“But this is terrifying! Listen to that sound, so full of strength, it seems completely unharmed.”

“Stop arguing. This is why we are here: to eliminate any creatures that survived the ‘Annihilation’, including this crazed monster.”

“Yes, Sergeant!”

“Based on the data, the surviving creature likely is the monster known as the Pale King, a calamity-level monster who alone destroyed the entire forward base. He has the power to destroy a fully organized armored legion and annihilate us as well.”

“Should we call for more reinforcements?”

“Reinforcements? We haven’t even seen the monster’s shadow and you’re calling for reinforcements? Do we still have any dignity left?”

“But this monster is too strong.”

“Don’t always think the worst. Having endured an ‘Annihilation,’ even if it survived, it must have been severely injured. We still have a chance to kill it.”

…

Surrounded by solitude, despair, and sadness, the giant walked on the wastelands covered in scorching flames. His eyes were empty and lifeless, as if he had lost his soul.

This state of his delighted the Armored Assault Squad ambushing in the wasteland, so much so that a valiant warrior could not hold back anymore. He leaped from the ruins with a three-meter-long single-edged sword and struck at the pale giant’s nape.

However, the brave soldier’s assault did not achieve the outcome he had expected. The giant, seemingly dispirited by the destruction of his tribe, was not mere fish meat waiting to be carved.

The soldier, clothed in heavy steam armor, was grabbed by the giant’s palm before he even landed from the sky, and his giant blade was shattered by the pale skin of the giant’s body. The broken blade spiraled in the sky and then plunged straight into the black earth flowing with lava.

Creak!

The sound of twisting steel arose, mixed with the sticky blood containing fine bone fragments. It dripped from the giant’s fingertips into the searing wasteland as if a command had been given. Dozens of fully armed hunters, specialized for large creatures, leaped from the ground.

A fierce battle, where neither the quantity nor the strength of the opposing sides were equal, erupted. Even against a creature possessing extraordinary powers, a battle formation designed with a civilization’s peak intelligence could still stand against it with a numerical advantage.

…

“Such conflicts again, son, tell me, when will this war ever end?”

High above in the sky, the Blue-Green Giant Dragon flapped its four wings, circling with its sinuous body through the heavens. On its back, a child and a young girl looked down upon the brutal minor conflict below.

“As long as more than two civilizations exist, such battles will never cease.”

Upon hearing the girl’s seemingly ignorant question, Muria responded with an unusual tone.

“Every civilization naturally possesses an aggressive nature toward expansion. The emergence of every powerful civilization inevitably accompanies the extinction of countless species, even the disappearance of civilizations.”

“So you’re not planning to intervene in the battle below, just like before.”

The girl, Areina, who had traveled with Muria and witnessed countless picturesque scenes as well as numerous conflicts, asked this.

As soon as the question left her mouth, she already knew the answer. She understood what such an existence beside her thought of such wars—high above and indifferent.

The wars and conflicts between two races or civilizations, no matter how bloody or brutal, had nothing to do with good or evil. They were merely about survival and expansion.

Having no ties with either side, Muria chose to remain an observer, for taking sides would be unfair to the other side, which didn’t fit his current identity.

Nor did he see a need to meddle. However, maintaining this attitude, he gave an answer unlike any before, “This time, I will intervene.”

“Huh? You usually don’t care, so why the interest this time?”

“Because there is now a reason for me to intervene.” Muria looked down at the pale giant fighting bloodily below, a ripple of emotion appearing in his eyes. After months of traveling through the Clustered Big World, he had finally found a relative again.

“A reason? What reason?” Areina asked curiously, and upon seeing that Muria did not seem to want to answer her, she changed her question.

“Which side are you preparing to favor? You surely can’t suppress both sides, can you?”

“Of course, I will help the side closer to me.”

Muria stamped his foot lightly. The Blue-Green Giant Dragon roared mightily in the dark sky, bright dawn light appearing through its tooth cracks, drawing the attention of both sides battling fiercely on the scorched earth.

But before they could react, dozens of scorching Flame Columns descended from the heavens, enveloping one elite steam armored hunter after another. Then, before they could scream, these mortal beings utilizing external things to fight extraordinary battles were obliterated in an instant and disappeared from the world.

“You’re actually helping the giant, why?” Seeing the elite troops erased from existence in an instant, the girl asked in great surprise.

“Because this giant is deeply connected to me and to you, so I help him,” Muria said meaningfully, turning to the girl as he watched the giant below lifting his head, looking bewildered at the sky.

“What connection?” the girl asked curiously.

“He is my father and also your companion.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read