Tang Yu's steps were not fast.
One step, two steps, slowly approaching.
The distance to the altar was shrinking.
He was probing, crazily testing at the edge of danger.
Testing the 'hatred' range of those figures.
When the distance was reduced to three to four hundred meters, Tang Yu saw the young man who had made the first move raise his head and whisper something.
Instantly, two figures vanished, appearing a few dozen meters in front of him the next moment.
Even with Tang Yu's vision, despite having opened his crimson eyes, he could only just barely capture a fleeting glimpse of their shapes.
Boss Carmen, two warrior puppets comparable to a Tenth Layer Awakening, and Kong, who had come to reinforce, stood in front.
In the sky, snowflakes fell and transformed into razor-sharp blades, shooting straight towards the two figures.
In an instant, the human skin cloaking the figures burst apart, revealing their true forms, the black skulls.
Weapons collided with sharp, sturdy phalanges, the aftermath rolling towards them like a tempest.
The ground cracked open, countless stones flying and shattering to dust, with layers of the earth caving in.
Tang Yu took a deep breath, his eyes sharpening.
His personal domain, unfolded!
In front of him, a series of black towers rose from the ground!
Arranged in a V-formation, they encompassed the fighting black skeletons within their firing range.
As the black towers were erected, they rose again, advancing directly to level three.
Cannons, mage towers, and other temporary defensive structures were built instantly, upgraded in a flash, forming all at once!
Several followers retreated in perfect sync.
A hail of arrows tore through the air, making a piercing noise.
Cannons roared as if heavenly fire poured down.
Mage towers condensed two massive light spheres, chasing after the skeletons in flight.
Tang Yu once again waved his hand, setting up spike traps beneath the skeletons' feet, countless sharp barbed spikes piercing through the shattered ground like serpentine spirits, seeking to skewer the skeletons into bone kebabs.
In that moment, it seemed as if some bottleneck within Tang Yu had shattered.
His personal domain expanded once again, as if accompanied by the system's prompt ringing in his mind.
He paid it no mind, for at that moment, Tang Yu had an epiphany.
Leveraging his personal domain, he 'saw' the movements of the two black skeletons.
Controlling these temporary defenses became even more intuitive.
Director Jin and the others were gaping.
Just a simple wave of the hand,
Above the ground, beneath the sky.
An overwhelming force, the grandeur of a moving mountain.
"Is this the power of an Architecture Ability User, is this Hall Master Tang's strength?" someone murmured.
Caught off guard, the skeletons were shot through and broke several bones, scorched by the cannonfire… black upon black, hit by the Spell Missiles with tracking functions, and pierced by sharp spikes.
Had they been human, with such grave injuries, they would have perished long ago; though skeletons were different, such a state was still a sorry sight.
At this time, of the remaining three skeletons, only one stayed by the altar, while the other two moved forward to assist.
The strongest skeleton, which had earlier immobilized the missile, was intercepted by Eileen, while another one assisting was entangled in a fierce fight with several followers, along with the two in a sorry state.
Arrow towers, cannons, and other defensive structures, though not able to achieve their initial success, still troubled the skeletons to the point of suffering.
It looked like both sides were evenly matched.
Yet, there was still one skeleton guarding the altar, an enemy still insurmountable for the likes of Director Jin and the others.
A flash of brilliance crossed the depths of Tang Yu's eyes.
"The time is almost right."
Several skeletons dodged arrows and fireballs while enduring the blast of spell missiles, engaging in combat with Carmen and other followers, feeling aggrieved at heart.
"Wait until the elder descends, you humans—one by one, you will all die—"
The soul fire of several skeletons blazed fiercely.
They were all waiting. As soon as the spatial gateway opened and the elder arrived, these humans would be nothing but chickens and dogs.
Suddenly, one of the skeletons spotted two figures holding long spears, blue and white in color, flashing out from behind an Arrow Tower.
'Humans have reinforcements?'
That's what they thought, but they soon realized that as the two figures took a step forward, they appeared right in front of them in the blink of an eye.
Before the two skeletons could react, a long spear, with an unmatched fierce momentum, crushed their soul fire directly.
Tang Yu gently took a breath and steadied himself.
Two Puppet Guards were his trump card.
The range of the Puppet Guards was larger than that of the Territory. A Sub-territory also fell within the Territory's range.
Tang Yu had calculated carefully. The location of villa number three in the Lanxing Community was just within reach of the Puppet Guards.
These two Puppet Guards, comparable to Half-step Transcendents, could utterly defeat any of the skeletons in a head-on fight. With a surprise attack, they could execute them directly.
The space around the Altar was becoming increasingly unstable.
Tang Yu ignored the skeleton leader fighting with Eileen and rushed to the Altar. The skeleton was quickly dismantled into pieces by the onslaught of Puppet Guards number one and two, along with a group of followers.
Standing atop the Altar, Tang Yu examined the Rune Array carefully.
It was so complicated that it reminded him of the terror of being dominated by higher mathematics.
"Which node should I change, which one?"
Muttering to himself, Tang Yu held a rune pen in his hand. As the pen touched a rune, a strong resistance came, and in an instant, the precious rune pen was shockingly crushed into dust before his pained eyes.
Had he not released his grip quickly, he would have undoubtedly been shaken up.
Tang Yu was a bit troubled. He had initially wanted to merely alter the Rune Array slightly to render it ineffective, but now it seemed that he had once again overestimated himself… Why was there a 'once again'?
"Now it seems I can only destroy the energy nodes of the Rune Array. However, even though I have located the energy nodes, I do not recognize any of these runes. Destroying them might lead to an energy conflict, and consequently, an explosion."
"With the level of this Rune Array, if it explodes…"
Tang Yu's thoughts drifted as he held the rune pen, unsure where to place it next.
The entire Altar suddenly shook violently, and beneath it, a massive crack opened up, with countless stones falling into it.
Bottomless, as if leading to another world.
At that moment, the Altar seemed to be floating above the Void, extremely perilous.
The crack continued to widen, and from within, a suffocating presence emanated.
A fearsome, immense silver-white bone hand stretched out from the fissure, accompanied by a commanding voice, "Humans…"
Tang Yu startled, no longer hesitant, took out a new rune pen, and aimed for the nearest energy node.
The energy node was like the vulnerable spot in Martial Arts, also the most fragile part of a Rune Array.
At this moment, the node was destroyed, rune energies converged, clashed, and suddenly exploded.
A fiery light shot up into the sky.
The dense red light atop the Altar began to dissipate.
Directly below, the deep crack in the earth, which had been widening, stopped spreading and instead closed up more swiftly.
The silver-white bone hand that had stretched out didn't have time to retreat before it was unceremoniously cut off by the suddenly closing spatial gateway.
Protected in the middle by Puppet Guards number one and two, avoiding the aftermath of the explosion, Tang Yu sighed in relief.
In the fading echoes, he thought he heard the frustrated voice as the fissure closed: