Ethan Quinn had been monitoring the battle from behind the scenes.
The power of the Sakura Dragon played a decisive role in this battle.
Meanwhile, Arthur Reed fully displayed the swordsmanship and spirit foundation of Miracle City.
These two were currently the only Tier 3 combatants in Miracle City, and both played crucial roles in the war.
At this moment, from the Lord's perspective, the battle was progressing rapidly.
Sophia, transformed into the Sakura Dragon, appeared as a hundred-meter-long divine dragon emerging from a massive sacred cherry blossom tree. Holding the Azure Jade Seven-Branched Sword, she was surrounded by storms and thunder, radiating overwhelming pressure and majesty while fully showcasing the dominant power of Miracle City.
Thousands of meters of land around her were covered by a sea of clouds, and an invisible barrier trapped all the elites of Thunder City, leaving them with no chance of escape.
Only by defeating the Sakura Dragon could they hope to retreat.
The Thunder Lord had no choice but to grit his teeth and order an attack on the city.
Although Thunder City's strongest combatant had been severely injured and was no longer a major threat, the city still possessed a significant military advantage, with nearly ninety Tier 2 units.
In comparison, the Adventurers numbered only around five hundred, with just over forty Tier 2 combatants.
At first glance, the Adventurers appeared disadvantaged, but that was far from the truth.
First, the Adventurers held the defensive advantage. Green Swamp City's walls, though not especially strong, were still sufficient when combined with a Barrier Tower and several arrow towers.
Hundreds of assault rifles and grenade launchers provided suppressive long-range fire.
Ordinary Thunder Lizard soldiers were harvested in large numbers before they could even approach the walls.
Among the Tier 2 Adventurers, ten Rocket Launcher Nemesiss continuously fired rockets from elevated positions behind cover. Each rocket was capable of killing a Tier 2 unit, and theoretically, they possessed unlimited ammunition.
Who could withstand such firepower?
Second, Miracle City possessed a massive advantage in high-level combat power.
Sophia, in Sakura Dragon form, was equivalent to a peak Tier 3 existence.
Although her performance was slightly weaker than the Sakura Dragon illusion in Ashina Country, she could still summon lightning storms and unleash giant sword-energy attacks.
That overwhelming force was enough to completely shatter the morale of the Thunder Lizard Tribe.
Finally, the Adventurers possessed another trump card—the Soldier's House.
The territory's Soldier's House granted a certain number of resurrection opportunities for soldiers of every tier.
As a result, even after Adventurers died in battle, they could revive at the Soldier's House and return to the battlefield, meaning the actual combat force exceeded the initial deployment.
There was no suspense.
Miracle City had developed quietly for many days precisely to prepare for this moment.
These Adventurers represented the foundation and essence accumulated over more than ten days of growth.
Ethan commented while observing the battlefield:
"The Sakura Dragon is incredibly useful. Not only does it possess large-scale destructive power and ultra-long-range attacks, but its crowd-control abilities are exceptionally rare. It's practically the perfect guardian beast for a city."
Of course, the Sakura Dragon had flaws.
Its greatest weakness was its inability to move while transformed.
This made it unsuitable for mobile warfare. However, once summoned, it automatically generated the Sakura Dragon Illusion, trapping enemies within a fixed area. Combined with its overwhelming long-range attacks, this weakness became far less significant.
Whether for defensive warfare, positional warfare, or annihilation battles, the Sakura Dragon was extraordinarily effective.
The battle ended after only half an hour.
There had never really been any suspense.
The Thunder Lord died in battle.
The two thousand elite soldiers of Thunder City were completely annihilated.
The Adventurers lost only a quarter of their forces, and thanks to resurrection through the Soldier's House, their actual losses were negligible.
"Did we really win that easily?"
Ethan knew both himself and his enemy well.
He had never taken Thunder City seriously, but even he hadn't expected such a crushing victory.
After all, Thunder City was still a well-established Tier 2 Dark Dungeon.
Yet Miracle City had relied solely on five hundred Adventurers and the defenses of Green Swamp City to annihilate two thousand elite Thunder City soldiers without even deploying its monster army or native army.
This single battle had effectively destroyed over half of Thunder City's elite military forces.
It had to be said—
The Adventurers had performed exceptionally well.
Ethan immediately dispatched Evelyn, Iris, Kimba, and Rook along with a thousand troops to teleport to Green Swamp City and clean up the battlefield.
At the same time, he sent Miracle City's monster army there as well.
The Chaos Tide had receded less than five hours earlier, which meant Thunder City likely had no idea what had happened yet.
This was the perfect chance to press the advantage and achieve total victory in a single strike.
---
Ten Minutes Later
Evelyn and the others arrived at Green Swamp City.
The moment they saw the battlefield, they froze in shock.
The battle had only just ended, and the lingering smell of gunpowder still hung in the air.
The city gate and several sections of the walls had been heavily damaged, clearly showing that the enemy had launched repeated assaults, only to be repelled by overwhelming firepower.
Outside the city, corpses littered the ground.
The scene was horrifying.
Faced with the countless dead lizardmen, Iris, Kimba, Rook, and the others felt more than shock.
Kimba stared blankly at the Thunder Lord's corpse.
"That's Thunder Fang… the Dark Lord of Thunder City… and he actually died like this?"
Rook muttered, "Is this real? I feel like I'm dreaming."
"I feel the same way," Iris whispered.
Dark Species possessed resurrection abilities. Unless their bodies were dealt with quickly, they could eventually revive within Thunder City.
That was why the cleanup crews—composed of Halflings, Dwarves, Flower Fairies, and Kobolds—felt such overwhelming disbelief when facing the battlefield, especially the corpse of the Thunder Lord himself.
Thunder City had terrorized the surrounding region for decades.
The Thunder Lord and the Thunder Lizard Tribe had instilled fear deep into the souls of the local natives. No tribe had ever dared to resist them.
And now…
This terrifying Dark Lord had died so suddenly.
Worse still, he had died during the attack he himself initiated.
The entire battle had been nothing more than self-destruction.
Iris and the others also understood something important—
The Lord hadn't even used his full strength.
Even so, he had utterly crushed this powerful enemy and annihilated them completely.
For a moment, their understanding of Miracle City's true power deepened immensely, and their reverence for the Lord grew even stronger.
"Where are the Adventurers?" Iris asked.
The Flower Fairies and Dwarves noticed that none of the Adventurers remained in Green Swamp City.
Evelyn explained:
"They've already pursued the retreating enemy and launched a counterattack against Thunder City."
"What?!"
"They attacked Thunder City directly?!"
Everyone was stunned.
They had just fought a brutal battle, yet instead of resting, they immediately launched another offensive?
To the natives, it sounded completely insane.
Thunder City had operated for decades and possessed at least four Barrier Towers, including a Tier 2 Barrier Tower. Its defenses were extremely strong.
It also still housed several Thunder Lizard generals and at least five thousand combatants.
Attacking such a fortress should have been nearly impossible.
Yet Miracle City had gone on the offensive anyway.
---
Thunder City
The lizardmen remained completely unaware of the disaster approaching them.
Thunder City's First General, Korrak, was inspecting the city's defenses.
In another two or three hours, the Chaos Tide would return.
By now, the Lord should have already conquered Green Swamp City and begun marching toward Gloomy Valley.
Within three days, Gloomy Valley would surely fall.
Korrak had absolute confidence in Thunder Fang's strength.
Suddenly—
Squish.
He stepped on a massive leech.
There were many leeches in Thunder Marsh, but he had never seen one this large before.
Looking around, he suddenly noticed countless leeches crawling across the ground, walls, and buildings.
"What's going on?"
"Where did all these leeches come from?"
Most of them seemed to be moving toward Thunder City's most important Tier 2 Barrier Tower.
Something felt wrong.
Korrak immediately approached the tower.
The Barrier Tower itself appeared normal, glowing faintly with no visible issues.
Then he noticed several strange square objects attached to the tower, flashing with red lights and displaying a countdown.
10… 9… 8…
A growing sense of danger filled his heart.
By the time he realized something was wrong—
It was already too late.
3… 2… 1… 0!
Boom!!!
Several C4 charges detonated simultaneously.
The explosion instantly destroyed the Tier 2 Barrier Tower and killed Korrak on the spot before he could react.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
At the same time, explosions erupted throughout Thunder City.
City gates, Barrier Towers, arrow towers—
Everything exploded one after another.
Within less than twenty seconds, Thunder City's entire defensive system collapsed.
As countless leeches gathered outside the city, they eventually merged into the form of Luna Frost.
Sophia exclaimed:
"What an incredible spirit!"
Luna Frost's Tier 2 spirit was the "Leech Queen: Marcus."
Although Marcus lacked powerful frontal combat abilities and possessed the fatal weakness of light-element attacks, it excelled in reconnaissance, infiltration, stealth, and disguise.
With this spirit, Luna Frost had effectively become Miracle City's greatest spy.
She could shapeshift into other people, scout using hundreds of leeches, or split herself into countless leech clones.
Most importantly—
Her infiltration was nearly impossible to detect.
Leech-form clones could bypass ordinary detection towers and perception systems entirely.
After force-marching to Thunder City, the Adventurers did not attack immediately.
Instead, they handed all sixteen C4 bombs collected from the Raging Tide Arena to Luna Frost.
Using her infiltration abilities, she sneaked into Thunder City and planted the explosives on key defensive structures.
The Thunder Lizard Tribe never expected Thunder City itself to come under attack, nor had they ever seen such weapons before.
As a result, the operation succeeded flawlessly.
Before the battle had even begun, four Barrier Towers and the city gates had already been destroyed.
Luna Frost's sabotage operation alone reduced the difficulty of the war by more than half.
"Attack!"
Arthur Reed transformed into his Headless form, purple miasma swirling around him as he teleported directly into the city.
With a single strike, he cut down several guards.
The other Adventurers immediately followed.
This battle involved massive numbers of Adventurers and monster troops.
The number of Tier 2 combatants alone exceeded one hundred and fifty.
Although they were still outnumbered by the lizardmen, the city's defenses had already collapsed, and the attack began while the enemy remained completely unprepared.
The outcome was inevitable.
The offensive was utterly overwhelming.
Dozens of Flamethrower Trackers advanced while spewing fire.
More than twenty Rocket Launcher Nemesiss bombarded the city relentlessly.
Two hundred Riot Corpse mercenaries provided suppressive fire using assault rifles and grenade launchers.
Then—
The Sakura Dragon descended once more.
The Sakura Dragon Illusion engulfed the battlefield again.
Storms, lightning, and giant sword-energy attacks rained down endlessly.
After more than an hour of fighting, Thunder City fell completely.
However, since the battle took place on enemy territory, the Adventurers quickly exhausted their resurrection opportunities.
More than half of the Adventurers were lost, and roughly a quarter of the monster troops were casualties as well.
The losses were significant.
But compared to the rewards—
They were insignificant.
"We won!"
"We actually captured Thunder City!"
"This operation was insane!"
"Seriously, we conquered a Tier 2 Dark Dungeon in a single day. I can brag about this for the rest of my life!"
The Adventurers erupted in celebration.
None of them had imagined that conquering a Dark Dungeon could be this smooth.
It could only be said that Miracle City's weapons and overall power were overwhelmingly effective.
"If it had been another Tier 2 Dungeon—"
"Even one developed for ten years probably wouldn't have fallen this cleanly!"
"Thunder City's Tier 2 Barrier alone should've caused massive casualties!"
"So in the end, Miracle City is just too powerful!"
"And Lord Ethan is amazing!"
---
While the Adventurers celebrated wildly, Ethan personally teleported into Thunder City.
"My Lord, how did we do? You're not disappointed, right?"
"You all did extremely well."
Ethan generously rewarded the Adventurers with massive contribution points.
To Ethan, contribution points cost nothing to issue.
But after so many days, their value had become universally recognized.
To the Adventurers, receiving contribution points felt like receiving real wealth.
Nothing excited them more.
Without wasting time, Ethan walked toward Thunder City's core and began the final process of occupation.
[You are refining the "Thunder City Core Divine Stone."]
[This process requires 5000 Mental Power. Proceed?]
Without hesitation, Ethan confirmed.
[You have refined the Thunder City Core!]
[You are constructing a Tier 2 Main City Core!]
[You have successfully established the Tier 2 Main City: "Thunder City"!]
[Chaos Treasure Chest (Green) +1!]
Success.
Everything was completed in one step.
Thunder City officially became the second main city under Ethan's control.
With this, Miracle City had effectively become a quasi–Tier 3 territory.
This victory held enormous significance.
Miracle City's territory, population, and resources would all expand dramatically.
However, just like before, Ethan did not plan to immediately advance the territory further.
Miracle City still needed time to digest its gains and stabilize development.
Still, Thunder City's core could now be used to create Miracle City's third major Secret Realm.
According to Ethan's plans, this would become a massive sci-fi world.
Titanfall, StarCraft, Star Wars, Halo, Dead Space—
All the sci-fi materials Ethan possessed would eventually be integrated into this enormous futuristic Secret Realm.
But before that—
It was time to check the spoils of war.
The rewards from conquering Thunder City were extraordinary.
Just the directly looted Soul Crystals exceeded twenty thousand.
Recycling facilities and surplus materials would provide at least fifty thousand Material Essence.
Ethan planned to use these resources to fully develop Gloomy City, officially activating it as Miracle City's second major city and opening a second Adventurer Town.
This would attract even more Adventurers and dramatically increase traffic.
More importantly—
The battle also rewarded him with a Green-grade Chaos Treasure Chest.
This was the highest-quality treasure chest Ethan had ever obtained.
Without hesitation, he opened it.
[You have opened the Chaos Treasure Chest!]
[Soul Crystal +20000]
[Skill Secret Crystal: Soul Blessing Art]
[Blueprint: Tower of Abundance +1]
Not bad.
Twenty thousand Soul Crystals alone was an impressive reward.
But Ethan was far more interested in the Skill Secret Crystal and the blueprint.
[Skill Secret Crystal: Soul Blessing Art]
Tier 3 Lord Skill.
Learning Requirement: 5000 Mental Power.
This ability allowed the Lord to temporarily bestow a soul onto any target, granting them the power of that soul.
It functioned similarly to a mercenary transformation.
However, unlike mercenary forms, Soul Blessing could be used on anyone—Adventurers, citizens, or even Ethan himself.
For Ethan, this skill held enormous value because it finally granted him combat capability when necessary.
[Tower of Abundance]
Tier 3 Building Blueprint.
Construction Requirements:
15,000 Soul Crystals
10,000 Material Essence
5,000 Mental Power
This was an extremely practical facility.
Its purpose was to allow Adventurers to delay their reward settlement after completing adventures.
If Adventurers disliked their rewards, they could abandon them to the territory.
In exchange, they would receive a "Mark of Abundance."
These marks increased the quality of future rewards.
Marks could even stack up to three times.
For the territory, this meant gaining extra resources.
For Adventurers, it meant a greater chance of obtaining rare rewards.
Of course, it also involved risk.
Some Adventurers might sacrifice rewards repeatedly and still gain nothing valuable.
Others might use three accumulated Marks and suddenly obtain extraordinary loot.
Everything depended on luck.
Ethan didn't mind the possibility of producing high-level souls and rewards.
In fact, he felt Miracle City still lacked enough Tier 3 soul production.
After all, despite all this time, the territory had only produced two Tier 3 combatants.
With the Tower of Abundance, the chances of obtaining Tier 3 souls would increase significantly.
Naturally, Ethan planned to construct it immediately.
Thus, Miracle City's latest expansion came to an end.
Thunder City had fallen.
Now, Miracle City would fully develop Gloomy City while establishing the Thunder City Secret Realm.
A new era had officially begun.
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