The siege by the Four Zodiacs was like four precise hammers of judgment. Their arrival, besides executing the order to capture Bai Cheng and the others, carried another cold purpose—silencing them forever.

Libra's cool voice carried clearly through the gaps between the sea breeze and energy explosions, sounding like a final sentence:

"...Furthermore, eliminate all failures who might leak the secrets of the ritual. Taurus Atum has been marked by the Leader as a redundant unit."

The voice penetrated the train's protective barrier and reached the ears of Taurus Atum, who was imprisoned in the carriage and had just regained a bit of consciousness.

"Eliminate... redundant unit..." Atum's massive body shuddered violently. In those pure {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} golden pupils, there was first a daze of disbelief, followed by a surging wave of disappointment and grief-stricken rage.

The Leader he had been loyal to for countless years, the great cause for which he had offered his loyalty, executed orders, and even sacrificed the lives of an entire island—in the end, he was actually defined as a "redundant" piece that could be erased at any time? 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

That so-called loyalty was nothing but a scam, and he was just a disposable pawn to be discarded after use!

An unprecedented chill, along with the fury of being completely betrayed, instantly overwhelmed the severe pain in his body.

He closed his eyes tightly, but a voice in his heart was roaring: No! It can't end like this! Bai Cheng... you guys must win! You must survive!

Outside the carriage, the battle had reached a fever pitch.

Knowing the cruel truth that they had become "sacrifices," the fighting spirit of Bai Cheng and the others was instead ignited to the extreme. Under the desperate circumstances, their potential exploded completely.

Bai Cheng no longer held back, utilizing the Power of Space to an unbelievable degree.

She no longer tried to fully confront the domain suppression of the Four Zodiacs. Instead, through exquisite spatial folding and dimensional misalignment, she constantly created tiny battlefield traps and displacements, forcibly breaking the Four Zodiacs' rhythm of cooperation and creating opportunities for her companions.

Blue Bird transformed into the core of a thunderstorm. No longer seeking a one-hit kill, she covered the field with continuous, violent lightning to suppress and exhaust Libra's power, which specialized in calculation and balance.

Zi Yuan's saber techniques made another breakthrough on the edge of life and death. Her saber light condensed like a streak of purple electricity, weaving through Aries's fierce wave of attacks, seeking openings and striking directly at the weak nodes of energy flow with every slash.

Leng Ningxue pushed the ice laws to their limit. No longer seeking to freeze physical entities, she turned the power of extreme cold into an invisible domain of slowness and stagnation, greatly interfering with the transmission of Cancer's majestic power and the frequency of Capricorn's steady offensive.

Lu Duo's vitality and vines displayed astonishing resilience. She no longer tried to meet force with force but instead used softness to overcome hardness. Countless vines entangled, deflected, and guided like living things, even absorbing part of the attack's aftershocks to convert into her own use, tenaciously supporting the defensive line.

Although the Four Zodiacs were strong, under Bai Cheng's elusive spatial tactical coordination, their combined momentum was repeatedly frustrated, and they were instead divided and pinned down.

Blue Bird and the others seized every fleeting opportunity created by Bai Cheng, pouring out all their strength.

Finally, after a series of dazzling cooperations and limit explosions:

Blue Bird shattered the balance core of Libra's Golden Scales with a bolt of judgment lightning that tore through the sky;

Zi Yuan, at the cost of enduring a punch from Aries, sent a strike condensed with her lifelong saber intent into the opponent's chest, where the energy was most explosive and unstable;

Leng Ningxue and Lu Duo joined forces, using absolute zero freezing combined with life-draining vines to briefly imprison Cancer's massive strength and shell defense, while Bai Cheng used a precise spatial tear to cut off its energy connection with the sea below;

And the most steady one, Capricorn, was defeated head-on by the combined attack of Blue Bird and Zi Yuan at the moment Bai Cheng forcibly distorted the spatial structure around it, creating instantaneous weightlessness and directional disorientation.

The auras of four King Rank Three entities withered and dissipated one after another. This thrilling interception ended with the defeat and fall of the Four Zodiacs.

However, the price of victory was equally heavy.

Despite Bai Cheng's best efforts to protect it, the aftershocks of a King Rank Three battle were too terrifying. The train's outer armor was torn in many places, the energy transmission system was overloaded and damaged, and the rear propulsion unit was emitting unstable sparks.

It could no longer support the subsequent long-distance high-speed voyage, let alone deal with potential pursuers who might follow.

"The train is severely damaged; it must be repaired immediately." Bai Cheng quickly assessed the situation, her gaze sweeping over the messy sea surface and her unstable companions.

"The nearest reliable resting point... is only the Desert Kingdom we just left."

No one objected.

With injured and exhausted bodies, driving the damaged train, they turned around and headed back toward the giant, heat-steaming island they had just departed from.

The survivors of the Desert Kingdom watched in surprise as this scarred silver train returned.

After Bai Cheng briefly explained the situation, omitting specific information about the Zodiacs and the Leader, the elder who had once guided them immediately mobilized his clansmen. They provided a hidden, dry canyon as a temporary camp and brought precious fresh water and repair materials.

While everyone was busy repairing the train and healing, Taurus Atum, who was closely guarded but not mistreated, requested to see Bai Cheng after an intense internal struggle.

In a stone chamber temporarily cleared out in the canyon, Atum's massive body appeared somewhat hunched. The golden patterns on him were dim, and his eyes were filled with exhaustion and a clarity that comes after disillusionment.

"I... choose betrayal." His voice was hoarse, yet exceptionally firm.

"I heard it; they came to silence me. The Leader to whom I gave all my loyalty views me as a pawn to be discarded at any time... Hahahaha!"

He let out a bitter and sorrowful laugh that shook the stone chamber, causing dust to fall.

"I used to think that we Twelve Zodiacs were the Leader's right and left hands in carrying out his great cause, that we were fellow pioneers... Now I understand that all of us, including Pisces, including me, are perhaps just tools for him to collect 'materials,' the... firewood on the ritual altar."

He closed his eyes in pain.

A moment later, he reopened his eyes and looked toward Bai Cheng and the others with a scholarly, calm analysis, completely different from his previous image as a battle maniac:

"Before being bestowed with the power and duties of Taurus by the Leader, I... was once a scholar researching ancient energy and life philosophy.

Being forced to become a warrior was not my wish, but I never completely lost my scholarly habits of observation and reasoning."

He paused, organizing his thoughts:

"Based on the scattered information I encountered while forced to execute missions, combined with the emotional collection Pisces was responsible for, the leyline stabilization law extraction I was responsible for, and the collection of different high-level laws possibly involving other Zodiacs... all of this points to a purpose far beyond simple power accumulation or domain creation."

Atum took a deep breath and said something earth-shattering:

"I suspect... the Leader's true goal is to attempt to break through the limits of the king rank and ascend to that legendary realm lost for over a thousand years—the Monarch.