CHAPTER 171 — THE FIRST BATTLEFIELD
The desert did not greet them with wind.
It greeted them with memory.
The spatial transit dissolved, and heat slammed into their lungs. Ruinsand stretched before them—no longer a frontier city clinging to survival, but a wound reopening.
The outer wall was broken.
Half-buried in dunes.
Towers leaned at unnatural angles as if pushed aside by something that had risen from beneath, not invaded from beyond.
The Vice Dean stepped forward first, his aura expanding carefully, minimal output, controlled.
"Maintain suppression," he reminded quietly.
Long Hao nodded.
The golden mark over his chest pulsed once.
He could feel it adjusting to the new environment.
The Pseudo-Sovereign stood several kilometers ahead, skeletal ridges glowing with golden inscriptions. But it was not attacking.
It was waiting.
The sand beneath it trembled in slow, rhythmic pulses.
Thump.
Pause.
Thump.
Long Hao felt it inside his core.
A second heartbeat.
