224: Chapter 224 The Enemy at the Gates! A Steel Torrent and the Ruins of the Gods

Above the canyon.

The sky looked as if it had been forcefully hacked open by a blunt blade.

Three floating motherships, each exceeding a hundred meters in length, slowly pressed out from the torn clouds.

The hulls were dark red, their surfaces covered in a dense network of metal pipelines.

Dozens of deployment pods hung from the belly of each mothership, their doors half-open, revealing glimpses of curled-up mechanical synthetic beasts inside.

The light in the entire canyon dimmed.

A person stood at the bow of the central mothership.

Clad in a crimson robe, a hood covered most of his face, revealing a pale, almost transparent chin.

In his left hand, he held a bizarre scepter inset with a constantly rotating gear.

Cardinal Bishop in Scarlet Robes.

The second-in-command of the Mechanical Divine Court.

"Heretic!"

"You destroyed the Divine Court's Outpost No. 17, murdered Divine General 0017, and plundered the holy relic belonging to the Divine Court."

"Now, in the name of the god of machinery, I give you one last chance."

"Hand over all your weapons and kneel on the ground with your people!"

The voice echoed through the long, narrow canyon, buzzing with resonance.

On the deck of Fortress No. 0819, the atmosphere froze to the breaking point.

"Three motherships..."

Wang Jia pushed up her glasses, her fingers sliding rapidly across the panel. "Based on the intelligence we captured earlier, each carries at least five hundred combat units. Plus the ship-borne firepower..."

She paused, her voice slightly dry.

"Their firepower output is forty times ours!"

“Forty times?”

Lin Keke chewed her last mouthful of potato chips, crumbs falling all over her. "So you mean we have to fight forty to one?"

"Uh... pretty much."

"Oh~"

Lin Keke crumpled the empty bag into a ball, threw it into the trash can, and clapped her hands. "That's fine then. Last time I played Dark Souls, I fought sixty to one."

Tang Ran smacked her on the back of the head.

"Play your head! This is reality!"

Despite her words, her own fists were clenched tight.

"Where's the captain? Is the captain still inside the ruins?"

An Nuonuo gripped her bracers, her small face pale.

Li Yaozhi leaned against the steel pillar of the island, flipping through her Tarot cards over and over.

"He told us to hold on!"

"Then we hold on."

Mid-air.

Cardinal Bishop in Scarlet Robes clearly had no patience to wait for a reply.

He tapped his scepter downward, and the deployment pods on the bellies of the three motherships popped open simultaneously.

A dense mass of mechanical synthetic beasts poured down like a torrential rain!

heavy mechanical apes slammed onto the rock walls at the canyon entrance, their hydraulic crushing hammers held high.

Packs of six-barreled rotary leopards hit the ground running, their red-flashing compound eyes locked onto the fortress.

There was also a new model never seen before—spider-type engineering beasts!

Eight slender metal legs stabbed into the rock walls as they crawled rapidly along the cliffs on both sides of the canyon.

"They're here! Sisters, get to work!"

Tang Ran gave a thunderous shout and leaped off the deck.

Lin Keke spun in place, a golden magic circle spreading beneath her feet.

"Guardian Knight · Arthuria!"

A pale blue shield once again enveloped Fortress No. 0819.

The spider beasts' focus cannons fired first!

Six orange-red beams hit the surface of the shield simultaneously, triggering ripples of intense vibration!

Lin Keke's legs trembled slightly as she gritted her teeth.

"Hiss... this firepower is way more intense than last time!"

Meanwhile.

At the canyon entrance, Mao Mao let out a heaven-shaking roar and charged into the mechanical beast tide.

Its massive five-meter-tall body rampaged through, metal fragments flying everywhere wherever its bone claws slashed.

But this time was different.

The mechanical ape groups didn't fight it head-on but split into three teams to take turns pinning it down.

The spider beasts fired continuously from high ground, high-energy rays blasting one after another onto the dark gold patterns on Mao Mao's back.

The first two shots did nothing.

On the third shot, a tiny crack appeared on the patterns.

"Mao Mao's defense is being chipped away!"

Xia Lai stared at the monitors in the control room, slamming the console. "These guys have gotten smarter; they're specifically using high-frequency attacks to wear down the dark gold armor!"

In the sky.

Cardinal Bishop in Scarlet Robes watched the battle below, a cold sneer curling his lips.

"Ants are but ants. Giving you a fortress just makes it a slightly larger coffin."

He raised his scepter, pointing it toward the depths of the canyon.

"Main cannon, preheating. Blast that bronze gate open for me."

"The Tyrant's ruins... Hahaha, everything inside belongs to the Divine Court."

...

Inside the giant bronze gate.

Chen Du was staring at 7411.

This Heavenly Dao worker had already drawn a pale gold teleportation array in the corner.

He already had one foot inside.

"I'll emphasize this once more."

7411 adjusted his black-rimmed glasses with a business-like expression. "The Heavenly Dao Logistics Department maintains absolute neutrality and does not interfere in any conflicts between players."

"Please resolve your dispute with the Mechanical Divine Court yourself. If you need to complain, you can go to the nearest Heavenly Dao Service Station to submit a ticket. The estimated processing time is three to five business—"

"Shut up."

Chen Du interrupted him.

He took a step forward.

7411 instinctively shrank back, the light of the teleportation array already glowing beneath his feet.

"You said these ruins are the Tyrant's palace."

Chen Du's tone was flat. "Then is the defense system of this palace still functional?"

7411 froze for a moment.

"Defense system? This place has been abandoned for who knows how many eons; the energy has long since—"

He suddenly stopped talking.

Because Chen Du's shadow was crawling into his pocket.

"What are you doing?!"

7411 screamed while slapping at his work uniform pocket.

But the speed of the Shadow Hand was much faster than his.

Chen Du opened his palm, and a small bag of silver-gray powder was already resting steadily in his hand.

There was a label on the bag—[Heavenly Dao Insulation Powder · Engineering Use · Strictly Prohibited for External Circulation].

"This stuff can block the Heavenly Dao's surveillance, right?"

Chen Du weighed it in his hand.

7411's face turned completely green.

"You... that's public property! Do you know what crime it is to steal Heavenly Dao assets?!"

Chen Du stuffed the powder into the inner pocket of his trench coat and lit a cigarette.

"It's a fine, right? Just deduct it from my life essence!"

"It can't be deducted! Your account is immune to the Heavenly Dao system! You're just a bug!"

7411 was exasperated. "I fucking—"

The light of the teleportation array swallowed him whole.

The last thing that drifted out was a nearly distorted roar.

"...Complaint! I will definitely complain about you!"

The light dissipated.

Silence returned to the hall.

Xia Mo stood aside, a rare trace of a smile appearing on her cold face.

"You chased him away in a huff."

"He's just a worker; he'll get over it."

Chen Du exhaled a puff of smoke, his gaze turning to the center of the mural.

The hollow eyes of that shadow giant seemed to be looking back at him.

Chen Du evenly scattered the silver-gray powder onto the stone slabs beneath his feet.

The moment the powder touched the ground, an invisible film rapidly spread out, covering the entire hall.

He could feel that a certain omnipresent sense of being watched had vanished.

The eyes of the Heavenly Dao were temporarily blinded!

"Now..."

Chen Du stepped on his cigarette butt and walked directly beneath the mural.

He crouched down and used the tip of the bone gold cleaver to gently scrape away the dust on the floor.

In the gaps between the stone slabs, an extremely faint dark golden light was flowing.

It was a power from the same source as that within his body.

"This palace actually belongs to the Tyrant."

Chen Du pressed his palm against the ground, and Shadow Power seeped into the stone slabs like ink.

Buzz—!

The floor of the entire hall began to vibrate.

The flames of the ever-burning lamps covered in verdigris suddenly turned from ethereal blue to pitch black.

Black flames.

They resonated with the dark gold flames dancing deep in Chen Du's pupils.

"Since the master is back, the lights at home should at least be lit for me, right?"

Outside the canyon.

At this moment, Cardinal Bishop in Scarlet Robes's main cannon had finished charging.

A white-hot pillar of light, ten meters in diameter, blasted straight toward the giant bronze gate deep in the canyon!

The moment the light pillar hit the canyon entrance—the entire canyon suddenly lit up!

Not lit by the cannon fire.

But by a pitch-black light surging up from deep underground.

Black patterns climbed frantically along the rock walls on both sides of the canyon, like awakening blood vessels.

Wherever they went, ancient totems identical to those on the mural emerged on the rock surfaces.

The moment the white-hot light pillar hit the black patterns.

It was actually bounced back!

Cardinal Bishop in Scarlet Robes's pupils shrank, and he jerked his body to the side to dodge.

The light pillar grazed the side of the mothership and blasted a hole in the clouds.

"What?!"

He stared fixedly at the canyon entrance.

Chen Du and Xia Mo walked out of the giant bronze gate side by side.

The man had a cigarette in his mouth, hands in his pockets, walking at an unhurried pace.

Behind him, pitch-black ancient totems glowed on the rock walls of the entire canyon, as if a giant beast that had slept for ten thousand years was slowly opening its eyes.

"Cardinal Bishop in Scarlet Robes, is it?"

Chen Du looked up at the three sky-blotting motherships, his tone lazy.

"You just said you wanted me to kneel?"

He suddenly snapped his fingers.

Buzz—!

The shadow beneath his feet split into a pitch-black spear!

Carrying the power of the dark gold patterns resonating through the entire canyon, it shot straight into the sky!

In an instant.

The spear pierced through the power core of the left-wing mothership.

Amidst a sky full of sparks, the three-hundred-meter-long steel beast let out a metallic wail.

It began to tilt.

Slowly and irreversibly, it crashed down toward the abyss at the bottom of the canyon.

“What the fuck... what is going on?!!”

Cardinal Bishop in Scarlet Robes's hood was blown off by the air pressure, revealing a distorted face covered in metal interfaces.

He stared fixedly at the tiny figure below.

Behind that man.

The phantom of the Tyrant on the mural and his shadow were perfectly overlapping!!

“Holy shit! Could it be...”