Book 7, Chapter 32: Insider Knowledge
Book 7, Chapter 32: Insider Knowledge
“Aiya, it seems like I’ve come at the perfect time,” Su Chen chuckled as he glanced at the number being shown on the display above the switch for Sky City’s barrier.
Then, he reached out and grabbed the handle - the very same one that the demonic cat had accidentally pushed in the past.
He forcefully pulled it down.
“NO!” the Craftsman howled in despair.
The energy output of Sark’s Nucleus suddenly began to wind down.
Alarms began to blare as a large group of Harpy soldiers charged in Su Chen’s direction.
Su Chen curled the corner of his lips up in a smile. “Don’t be in such a hurry.”
Formless consciousness ripples began to disperse in all directions. The Harpy soldiers suddenly froze, incapable of moving.
“That’s more like it. Don’t worry, today will not be the day of your extinction.” As Su Chen spoke, he tapped the Craftsman’s forehead and said in a low voice, “You saw no human here today. All that happened was Sark’s Nucleus malfunctioned due to the excessive load, resulting in an explosion of energy.”
“I saw no human. Sark’s Nucleus malfunctioned due to the excessive load, resulting in an explosion of energy......” the Craftsman repeated in a wooden voice.
“That’s more like it.” Su Chen smiled slightly, then turned to glance at the Harpy soldiers. “The same goes for you.”
This idea began to permeate the thoughts of the Harpies and the Craftsmen, altering their memories.
“What happened? Why did you sound the alarm?” At that moment, a Harpy general rushed in and began yelling at them.
Su Chen pulled out a transmission box.
This was an item that the Boundless Sect had given to the Harpies as well, and now he was using it to get in contact with them.
Su Chen smiled slightly. He first shut down the alarm, then replied, “Sark’s Nucleus was overloaded and exploded with energy moments ago, tripping the alarm. The barrier is temporarily unusable.”
The quality of the voices being transmitted by the boxes was quite poor, which was why Su Chen was brave enough to answer in their stead.
“What?” The voice from the transmission box cried out in despair. In the background, sounds of Beasts snarling and explosions of energy could be faintly heard.
This news would definitely be a huge blow to the Harpies who were currently fighting on the front lines.
After a tense pause, the voice yelled, “So hurry up and fix it!”
Su Chen jumped off of Sark’s Nucleus and gently rubbed the wall of Sark’s Nucleus. “We’re doing our best to fix it.”
“You’d better do it fast. The longer you delay, the more of our comrades will die!” The Harpy general sounded like he was about to cry.
“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” Su Chen muttered to himself.
“What? I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, for the glory of the Harpies, we will fight without fear.”
The Harpy General was momentarily taken aback before he nodded in agreement. “Yes. For the glory of the Harpies, we will fight without fear!”
He came to Eternal Night’s side and knelt. “Your Majesty, because Sark’s Nucleus was being operated at such high intensity for so long......”
“I heard,” Eternal Night sighed, his face seemingly withering even further.
The Beasts were still pouring into the city. Even though the Harpies had managed to organize themselves, it was obvious that they were no match for their enemy without Sky City’s protection.
“AH!”
Fresh blood sprayed through the air. A Tenth-Ring Acana Master had fallen at the hands of a Demonic Emperor wielding a silver crescent blade in his hands. The Demonic Emperor cackled with glee.
The casualties were really beginning to add up.
“Can we still fire the cannon?” Eternal Night asked.
The general hurriedly relayed the command to the core before shaking his head, his face pale.
So the Demon-Executing Cannon cannot be used anymore either?
The Boundless Sect’s surprise was not as threatening as a Desolate Beast, but the timing they had grasped was impeccable, immediately posing a huge threat to Sky City.
“Your Majesty, hurry and think of something!” Serene Dream Lotus Crown was also beginning to grow agitated.
Eternal Night calmly replied, “Now that the situation has escalated to this point, all we can do is have the Mother of All Bugs self-detonate.”
“Detonate the Mother of All Bugs?” Serene Dream Lotus Crown was stunned.
Each Floating Point was powered by a vast power source. The destructive power generated by detonating one of them was so powerful that perhaps even Sky City wouldn’t have been able to withstand, let alone the Demonic Beasts.
The Mother of All Bugs was still incomplete, but the core in its body was finished. As such, its detonation power was not weaker than that of the Harpy’s Star in the slightest.
And because the Harpy’s Star was in a more complete state, Eternal Night chose to first sacrifice the Mother of All Bugs.
Serene Dream Lotus Crown trembled. “Have we already reached this point?”
“Yes, we have,” Eternal Night replied decisively.
As the ruler of a country, Eternal Night’s resolve was quite impressive. As a warrior, he knew when it was necessary to make sacrifices.
Outside Sky City.
The Mother of All Bugs floated through the sky. Strange insects would crawl out of the holes in its body from time to time and join the attack against the Beasts. Occasionally, rain would even fall from the sky.
As one of the Floating Points flanking Sky City, the Mother of All Bugs was also under attack by the Beasts. Luckily, its defensive systems were separate, so they weren’t affected. The Beasts would have a hard time breaking through in a short period of time. And because Sky City was seemingly defenseless, most of the Beasts were focusing on attacking Sky City instead. The pressure on the Mother of All Bugs was not very great.
Even so, the Mother of All Bugs had just been given the command to self-detonate.
Even though the Mother of All Bugs was a fort, it was also a living creature. More specifically, it was the product of merging a fortress with a living creature.
The Mother of All Bugs cried out in sorrow as it slowly trundled towards the battlefield. Even if it didn’t want to, it had no choice but to obey the orders coming from its master.
At the same time, the Harpies within the Mother of All Bugs began to leave the fort, retreating to Sky City.
“Hm?” Su Chen was still sitting in the core region, watching the frenzy unfold like a curious child when he suddenly sensed something. His eyebrow jumped as his consciousness began to rapidly spread.
Very quickly, he received the relevant information about the Mother of All Bugs.
“So they’ve already given the command to self-detonate, huh......” Su Chen felt a tinge of regret.
The Mother of All Bugs was one of the biggest trump cards he had prepared to deal with Sky City, but now his actions had forced Eternal Night to issue the command to detonate the Mother of All Bugs.
Somehow, the rock he had picked up had ended up crushing his own foot.
Without an express command from him, the Mother of All Bugs would default to obeying the Harpies’ commands.
When he realized this, Su Chen shook his head. “I suppose you should ignore that order.”
The Mother of All Bugs chirped with happiness, as if chains that had been kept in its heart for a long time had been released. The excitement and joy it felt was transmitted to Su Chen’s heart, as if it were a child who had just found its long-lost father.”
“What just happened?”
The Harpy generals standing next to Eternal Night stared at the Mother of All Bugs in disbelief. It had originally been flying towards the Beasts, but now, it had suddenly begun to retreat.
One of the Harpy generals reissued the command. “Hurry and fly over there to self-destruct!”
This time, there was no response. The Mother of All Bugs continued to pull back.
When he tried to force the Mother of All Bugs towards the Beasts a third time, he finally got a response.
“It refused! It refused my command,” the Harpy general yelled in despair. “It says it refuses the order to self-destruct.”
Even Eternal Night was stunned by this development.
They had used one of the most powerful control techniques at their disposal to enslave the Mother of All Bugs, so why? Why was it still capable of refusing direct commands?
But there was no time to think about this too much, because the Mother of All Bugs’ retreat meant that they had lost the support of a fort, and the torrent of Beasts surging into the city only grew stronger.
Eternal Night’s expression was grim. “The Harpy’s Star will take its place.”
The Harpy generals were shocked.
The Harpy’s Star had been constructed through the blood, sweat, and tears of their fellow Harpies.
Yet after the Mother of All Bugs’ refusal, its time had finally come.
There was no rebellion this time. The Harpy’s Star began rushing towards the Beasts without hesitation.
When Su Chen saw this, he laughed coldly. “So you want to try with the Harpy’s Star this time? Unfortunately, I’m not planning on letting you have your way today.”
He brought his fingers to his mouth and whistled silently. Suddenly, the sky distorted as a violent gale began to blow against the Harpy’s Star. This wind had been imbued with copious amounts of spatial power. The Void Seahorse had been called into action.
The Void Seahorse’s ability to create spatial storms was quite astonishing, but these spatial storms were nowhere near strong enough to push a fort back.
Even so, the goal of this attack wasn’t to push back the fort, but to create an Origin Energy black hole above the Harpy’s Star. Once the Harpy’s Star detonated, the black hole would swallow up a significant portion of the explosion, greatly reducing its effectiveness. Obviously, this was not what Eternal Night was hoping for.
“Bastard!” Even Eternal Night began to feel a sense of helplessness with so much pressure mounting on him.
At that precise moment, however, the voice of a god descended from the heavens.
“For the glory of the Harpies!”
Following this voice, a saintly light began to shine brilliantly in all directions.
As the light descended on the Harpies, their wounds rapidly recovered, and their Origin Energy reserves were replenished. The Beasts, on the other hand, began to howl in pain as if they were being burned.
“Universal Light Divine Art!” Eternal Night muttered in a daze.
He turned around to find that an imposing figure had appeared above Sky City. It was Serene Dream Lotus Crown.
At some point in time, she had returned to the Mother Goddess Sect, and now she was standing beneath a giant statue of the Mother Goddess.
This statue was the exact same one that Su Chen had destroyed. It had been repaired, and now it glowed with a faint light. It seemed as if this faint light was powering the holy light suffusing from Serene Dream Lotus Crown’s body.
“NO!” When Eternal Night saw this, however, he did not become happy. Instead, he cried out in despair.
He had buried his affection for Serene Dream Lotus Crown a long time ago, but in that moment he was no longer able to restrain his feelings. He cried out, “Don’t!”
Serene Dream Lotus Crown gazed at Eternal Night, then smiled slightly and raised her finger to the sky.
This finger strike seemed to disappear amongst the clouds, as if it had missed its intended target.
Suddenly, however, howls of pain burst forth from the cloud - it was the Void Seahorse.
This mighty Sovereign had been badly wounded by a single attack from Serene Dream Lotus Crown. The Void Seahorse didn’t dare to remain any longer and immediately retreated through the void.
The black hole in the sky also disappeared.
Serene Dream Lotus Crown gestured, sending the Harpy’s Star into the midst of the Beasts as if pushing it forwards.
“For the glory of the Harpies!”
Following this sorrowful cry, the Harpy’s Star exploded.
Immensely powerful waves of energy washed over the entire battlefield, drowning all the Beasts in a tide of energy almost instantaneously.
Serene Dream Lotus Crown smiled gently when she saw this.
The divine light began to fade, and Serene Dream Lotus Crown’s head drooped.
She died.
“Indeed, borrowing divine power from the gods comes at a great price,” Su Chen muttered. “Self-destruction...... divine power...... As expected of a race that has existed for tens of thousands of years. I never would have known about these trump cards if I hadn’t made this trip.”
As he spoke, his figure flickered and disappeared.
Without the Beasts to keep the Harpies in check, there was no point to staying here any longer.