Apocalypse Forecast Chapter 77: The Afterglow of the Thunderous Talisman

In the mist, in just a few hours, how many fish had been eaten by the monsters?
The general impression is that the Rancher is a tyrannical god who views all things as food, or, as an undeniable fact, he controls the life force of many living beings in the name of the Rancher.
If the food does not fatten, one cannot eat with peace of mind.
By simply letting fall a little merciful rain in the far-off Blissful Paradise of the Frontier, the entire sea area can be covered in mist.
In the dense fog, giant creatures comparable to Godzilla are constantly killing and eating each other, fighting for the status of the victor.
Slaughter was taking place everywhere.
Finally, more than a thousand monsters larger than battleships gathered in one place, their eyes, harboring the most primitive bestiality and hunger, swallowing all the food in their path. They followed the shepherd's whistle and headed toward Dongxia.
On the sea, at the boundary between the Frontier and the Reality, steel battleships slowly formed lines, and countless soldiers were working overtime, making emergency combat preparations.
Various types of fighter jets were neatly maintained and took off, and in the rear, missile launchers at each military district base in the coastal region were slowly activating.
Countless monsters rode the ocean currents and arrived in an instant.
In the clear sky, thunder suddenly roared.
Lightning flashed like a dragon. For thousands and tens of thousands of miles, it rained fragments of destruction upon the earth.
In the dense fog created by the people of the Pure Return, the huge and ferocious sea beasts were torn apart like thin paper before the lightning, burned by high temperatures, and melted into the sea like real paper, becoming charred mud that emitted a foul odor.
As if a plow were tilling the earth, the lightning left marks several meters deep on the sea surface from north to west. The diffusion of the electric light reached dozens of miles away.
In this way, the boundary was drawn.
But the Sublimator who unleashed the lightning did not even show his face.
The sound of thunder was the signal for the start of the war.
At that moment, every battleship, whether with torpedoes, main guns, or secondary guns, unleashed its full firepower. Fighter jets soared into the sky like birds taking off from an aircraft carrier, roaring as they headed toward the suspicious mist.
In the air, missiles stretched out scorching tail flames.
At the same time, at every missile launch base along the coast, battle fireworks were being launched as if celebrating the Spring Festival.
This was a real war.
With the world watching, the great war between the Dongxia Social Security Bureau and the people of the Pure Return had begun!
No one doubted the outcome of this battle. With a massive organization like the Astronomical Society, Dongxia as one of the five permanent members, and the armaments and Sublimators capable of sustaining a war for several years, how could they not defeat the people of the Pure Return?
There was no need for the cooperation of private conglomerates, such as Taiqing Industry or the Giant Goose Group, nor the cooperation of Frontier hunters.
The Social Security Bureau alone was enough to pacify this disaster.
How long could the people of the Pure Return hold out against this firepower?
Rome, Egypt, the American Freedom Alliance, Russia, and the closest to the battlefield, Yingzhou... at this moment, countless eyes were watching the battlefield, speculating on the changes in the war situation.
Of course, so were the crows who enjoyed watching others' misfortune.
"Amazing, amazing!"
The crow gulped down the cola placed beside it, burped, and then tossed a chicken nugget covered in sauce into its mouth. It was impossible to see how such a large nugget fit into its beak. Then, swallowing it without even chewing, it cheered with enthusiasm.
"Go! Go! Burn them! Get them!"
It was completely unclear which side it was rooting for.
The war was sudden and inevitable.
One after another, lights fell from the sky, burning large bonfires on the sea.
The flying steel birds and the strange birds killed each other in the same sky, crashing into the sea surface where the fierce struggle was taking place.
The huge battleships constantly emitted roars, and the vibrations in the sea made the waves even higher. Huge beasts jumped out from the sea, opened their large mouths, bit the battleships, and tore them in two.
For some reason, the people of the Pure Return seemed to have the upper hand.
The mist covered the sea area as if it were inexhaustible, creating new sea beasts one after another... In Dongxia, the Sublimators who were there at the beginning were now nowhere to be seen.
According to observations from the Reality, a massive torrent of steel was keeping the monsters from the Frontier outside the national borders.
It was unprecedented for sea beasts to come from the Frontier.
Sea beasts that tried to bypass the battlefield were pursued by battleships, fired upon, and turned into seaweed in the sea.
Amidst the constant shelling, the generation of mist finally stopped, and the shadow hidden behind the countless sea beasts appeared.
Indeed, it was a shadow drifting on the sea surface.
No matter how one looked at it, there was nothing that should have been its substance above or below the shadow. It simply existed on the sea surface, its outline shimmering according to the undulations of the waves.
It resembled a fish as huge as an island. In the center of the shadow, which was as large as a whale, there was a large hollow, and it continued to spew out the merciful rain of the Blissful Paradise.
Countless tentacles extended from the head of the giant fish shadow, and they moved, emitting a sharp whistling sound as if striking the Reality and the boundary from a great distance.
It was not matter, but a Frontier moving in tandem with the Reality.
That independent Frontier was clinging to the Reality like a bubble. Countless tentacles were connected to countless sea beasts, and the shadow ordered the sea beasts to advance, using them as its own tractors, slowly approaching the Dongxia coast.
It was as if... it were alive!
Vibrant fluctuations of Source Quality were emanating from that shadow. Once the cover of the mist was gone, its existence was clear.
It was a living Frontier. No, it should be called a monster between a Frontier and a Sublimator.
This was one of the graces the Rancher poured into the human world from the Blissful Paradise.
—The Abyss Rancher lineage, a Philosopher's Stone worthy of being called an incarnation of a miracle, the Fifth-Stage Stigmata, Dagon!
As the mist dissipated, the shadow twisted and thinned rapidly. It looked as if it were struggling with all its might, trying to break away from the edge of the Reality and escape observation.
At that moment, laughter echoed from ten thousand miles above.
"Why are you trying to leave?"
The voice said.
"You've come all this way."
The sky for ten thousand miles shook as if a drum had been struck.
As if an iron curtain had burst, countless cracks ran across the clear sky. The fragile atmosphere could not withstand the excessive force and was on the verge of collapse.
The roar of thunder struck the sea surface like an iron hammer.
With that sound alone, many sea beasts were shattered.
The wavelength of the voice reached far, and just as waves collapse a bunker made of sand, the blood of the sea beasts splattered, turning the blue seawater into an eerie color.
Following this, a streak of lightning descended from the sky like a legendary divine ladder. It covered the sky and blocked the sun, and everything was covered in the light of the lightning.
It pierced through the sea and sky, taking a hook shape, and headed toward Dagon, who was trying to break away from the Reality!
It was as if the lightning had entered another world, not the sea. The lightning did not leak from the sea surface at all. The thunder began to shake madly, and the vibration caused the thin shadow in the sea to shake as well.
The hook-like lightning targeted the giant fish.
The split electric current diffused tyrannically in all directions, tearing apart every sea beast that tried to approach.
Soon, a large amount of blood spread across the sea surface.
In the sea, the giant fish shadow, which had been thinning, became dense again. It struggled as if in disgust and anger.
"—Stand, up!"
A roar like thunder echoed from the sky, and in an instant, the sea surface shattered. Attracted by the lightning, the seawater rose like a mountain.
The waves reached the heavens.
The moment the Dagon Sublimator appeared, he released his divine mark and tried to alter the entire sea area. However, a streak of lightning descended from the heavens and pierced deep into the sea. The lightning flashed over the giant shadow, becoming a cage that trapped the mountain-sized fish.
From behind Dagon, a thin figure slowly appeared and raised a beautiful face toward the heavens. The face, which originally held a gentle and merciful maternal nature, was now filled with a terrifying, ferocious, and cruel expression.
The Seven Seas shook.
In an instant, amidst the countless flashes of lightning, the figure standing in the void held a whip condensed from thunder in his hand.
As if sitting on a throne at the center of the world, the eyes of the somewhat elderly man looking down emitted a scorching divine light.
The Fifth-Stage Stigmata, the Crowned Qilin. The foremost guardian of Dongxia finally appeared on the battlefield.
《Ten Thousand Mountains and Rivers · Light Permeating Everywhere》
—Fu Zanguang!

Translator's Note:
The appearance of Dongxia's number one Sublimator, Fu Zanguang!
I thought the names of Dongxia's Sublimators, especially the name "Fu Zanguang," were cool, so I asked the author, Feng Yue-sensei, if there was any source for them. He replied, "Not really. I just flip through a dictionary to think of names." Feng Yue-sensei also agrees that "the name Fu Zanguang is cool" ヾ(*´∀｀*)ﾉ