While Ethan and the others were locked in a brutal fight with the Void Realm creatures, almost the entire Earth was spiraling into chaos.

As more and more Void Realm beings poured out of dimensional rifts, it took only a single morning for sightings to spread everywhere—no longer isolated incidents, but a global outbreak of foreign life.

Before long, creatures from different Void Realms started running into each other.

And then the real nightmare began: battle after battle erupting across the planet.

At this point, the entire world had become one massive battlefield.

When the live feeds from the Satellite Operations Control Center streamed in, even Maxwell and the others felt their scalps go tight. For a moment, humanity looked like a small boat caught in the middle of a hurricane—one bad wave, and it would be swallowed whole.

But Maxwell and his team weren’t ordinary people. They were the Atlas Federation’s top leadership—battle-hardened, crisis-trained, mentally tough. They didn’t panic.

Instead, they watched the fighting and started working immediately—analyzing power levels, comparing abilities, logging everything into cold, usable data.

So far, the Atlas Federation had confirmed 24 dimensional rifts inside its territory.

11 rifts showed no creatures emerging. Most likely, they were similar to the rift beneath Atlas City’s compound—empty, or at least not currently active.

Of course, it was also possible they weren’t empty and the creatures simply hadn’t come out yet.

13 rifts were actively spawning Void Realm creatures, with wildly different numbers.

Some came out in swarms.

Some only sent two or three at a time.

The Void Realm beings themselves varied just as much—some humanoid, others clearly mutant beasts.

At first, no one could be sure how strong they were.

But as fighting broke out, Maxwell’s people began estimating strength based on visible damage—craters, collapsed structures, how quickly they shredded local threats, how their abilities behaved in real conditions.

The results were... mixed.

Some were stronger than anything they’d imagined.

Others were roughly on par with humanity’s current level.

And a few were even weaker.

For every Void Realm creature that had revealed its capabilities, Maxwell ordered a detailed record: strength bracket, abilities, behavior patterns, weaknesses—everything.

He understood the simplest rule of war:

The more you know about your enemy, the fewer stupid deaths you have to pay for.

The Atlas Federation couldn’t do what Fallen Star City did—couldn’t just square up and hard-fight everything head-on.

Their priority was survival. Delay. Endurance. Making the least-wrong choice, again and again.

And then, after Clearford City and Fallen Star City...

A third compound was discovered by Void Realm creatures.

Heartland City Compound.

Heartland sat in the central region of the Atlas Federation. On paper, it was a perfect location—good terrain, good access.

In reality, that also made it a crossroads.

After the mergers, Heartland became the most populated compound in the entire Federation: over twelve million people.

Right now, Commander Graham and Tobias Wainwright stood on the wall, faces tight, staring into the near distance.

Below them, millions of Enhanced packed the ground outside the wall. Their expressions ranged from grim determination to open fear—some people couldn’t even hide it anymore.

And not far away...

Tens of thousands of Void Realm creatures were charging straight at them.

They were massive and thick-bodied—human torsos, but each one had the head of a bull.

Minotaurs.

Four to five ten-thousand of them, easily—40,000 to 50,000.

Their strength ranged from Stage B up to Stage A.

When they saw the dense human lines ahead, the Minotaurs only got more excited, howling as they surged forward.

As they drew closer, that pressure hit like a physical wave.

Enhanced standing outside the wall turned pale. You could see it in their eyes.

They could smell death coming.

Up on the wall, Graham and the others didn’t look much better. A helpless weight sat in their chests, heavy enough to make it hard to breathe.

Atlas City had told them: if Void Realm beings approach, avoid fighting if possible—stall, negotiate, keep things stable.

But that advice assumed intelligent enemies.

What were they supposed to do with monsters like this—creatures that didn’t speak, didn’t hesitate, didn’t bargain, and only charged?

There was nothing to stabilize.

Only war.

Graham gritted his teeth and roared, "All forces—engage!"

The moment the order hit, the military Enhanced at the front rushed out first. Even facing enemies far stronger than themselves, they didn’t flinch.

Behind them, the other Enhanced hesitated—just for a heartbeat.

Then they bit down hard and followed.

Because behind them were their families. Their friends. Their elderly. Their children.

There was nowhere to retreat to.

The two sides collided.

Skills lit the battlefield—countless attacks raining down in waves.

Humanity had the advantage in one thing: numbers.

They had millions of Enhanced. A crushing headcount.

But in raw strength...

They weren’t even in the same league.

The Minotaurs’ weakest were already around Tier 18, and some were as high as Tier 26 or Tier 27.

On the human side, the strongest fighters were only just stepping into Stage B—Tier 18.

Maybe they could desperately trade lives to kill some Tier 18 Minotaurs.

But once the enemy reached Stage A—Tier 24 and above—they were nearly powerless.

The moment the battle truly ignited, it turned into a slaughter.

Earth-element axes condensed in the Minotaurs’ hands—solid, heavy weapons formed from packed soil and stone. They swung again and again, and with every sweep, rows of Enhanced were split clean in half.

The Minotaurs only got more excited as they killed. They chopped people open, then grabbed the torn bodies and stuffed the meat into their mouths like they were eating some rare delicacy, faces twisted in grotesque enjoyment.

The Enhanced’s eyes went bloodshot.

Skills detonated nonstop, a frantic storm of attacks thrown at the charging monsters.

But it was useless.

To the Minotaurs, most of it was too weak to matter. Aside from a few thousand fighters who had reached Stage B, the majority couldn’t inflict real damage at all.

Even so, the Enhanced didn’t stop.

If one hit could leave even a scratch, then a thousand hits could become something more. Their only advantage was numbers—tens of times more people than the enemy.

If they couldn’t win, they’d grind.

They’d bleed the Minotaurs out with bodies if they had to.

Except... that logic only worked on Stage B.

Against Stage A, there wasn’t even a "wear them down" option.

The Stage A Minotaurs treated low-tier Enhanced like ants. One casual swing of an axe, and dozens of humans were cut in half. No effort. No pause.

In that instant, a deep, choking helplessness spread through the entire line.

Then—

A unit suddenly burst out from inside the compound and sprinted straight for the enemy’s Stage A elites.

Only a few hundred people.

But every one of them was Tier 22.

They were Heartland’s carefully cultivated top combat force—high level, heavily resourced. And it wasn’t just their tiers. Every single one had a specialized ability, and many were Awakened, giving them the power to fight above their tier.

With a few hundred working together, even Stage A targets could be killed.

But "could" had a limit.

They could take down a Stage A when it was one or two at a time.

If a whole cluster of Stage A Minotaurs collapsed on them, that elite team would get wiped out fast.

The colonel directing the battlefield clearly understood that. He issued an order immediately—use bodies to split the Minotaurs apart.

It was a decision that would spike the death rate all over again.

But there was no choice.

Only by tearing the Minotaurs’ formation into smaller chunks could that elite unit operate at full value. If those few hundred got pinned by multiple Stage A Minotaurs at once, they’d be erased—and with them would go the compound’s last real hope.

So the colonel chose it.

He chose to spend soldiers’ lives to create space.

And this was where the numbers finally meant something.

Millions versus fifty thousand—under that crushing disparity, the Minotaurs’ mass inevitably got stretched and broken. Bit by bit, they were forced apart.

The cost was horrific.

With axes swinging like windmills through flesh, this single push left hundreds of thousands of Enhanced dead—cut down in waves.

But once the Minotaurs were separated, the fight truly did become more manageable.

Heartland’s elite force began hunting Stage A targets in smaller engagements, while groups of Stage B fighters formed squads and started picking off Stage B Minotaurs one by one.

Still, the "walls" holding the battlefield apart—the low-tier Enhanced thrown in to keep the enemy divided—were dying even faster than before.

And in that moment, something inside Heartland’s people finally snapped into place.

A viciousness. A refusal.

If they were going to die, they’d die leaving a mark—at least one wound on the enemy. Something paid for in blood.

Under that insane, suicidal pressure, the Minotaurs’ numbers started to fall too.

And there was another reason Heartland refused to break:

These Minotaurs had crystal cores.

If Heartland City Compound could hold the line and win this battle—if they could harvest those cores afterward—then their overall strength would change overnight.

Not a small improvement.

A complete, earthshaking leap.