229: Chapter 229 A Three-Way Game! The Dirty Deal Between the Divine Court and the Heavenly Dao

The four giant mechanical legs of Fortress No. 0819 slowly came to a halt at the edge of the basin.

Ahead.

The hundred-meter-tall divine statue stood in the center of the basin, appearing far more terrifying than it had through the thick fog.

Its lower half was a dense thicket of steel skeletons and hydraulic lines, like a giant metal tree rooted deep into the earth.

Yet its upper half was living flesh and blood.

Blue veins writhed beneath the skin, and the house-sized heart within the chest cavity emitted a dull, rhythmic throb.

Thump... thump... thump...

With every beat, the entire basin trembled slightly in response.

"Holy... this thing is way too big."

Lin Keke's mouth hung open, unable to close.

Compared to this divine statue, Fortress No. 0819 was nothing more than a toy.

At the base of the statue.

A dense legion of Orcs was forming ranks.

A quick glance suggested there were at least ten thousand of them.

Phalanxes of heavy armored infantry held the center, while Mechanical Ape Cavalry lined the flanks.

Spider-type Engineering Beasts clung to the rock walls along the basin's edge, occupying every high point.

Between the legion and the statue, a translucent shield enveloped the entire Holy Mountain.

The shield emitted a soft golden glow, looking... almost divine.

"That shield isn't right."

Xia Lai pulled up an energy analysis chart in the control room, her brows furrowed. "The scanner can't read its energy type at all; it doesn't belong to any known mechanical technology."

Chen Du narrowed his eyes.

Deep within his pupils, two clusters of dark-gold flames began to burn quietly.

Tyrants Gaze: Eye of Reality activated.

The world before him lost its color.

The true nature of the golden shield was laid bare in his black-and-white vision.

It wasn't an energy field.

It was code.

Densely packed golden code, interwoven like a spiderweb to form a barrier that covered the sky and earth.

He had seen this aura before.

7411!

The golden worm code flowing within that Heavenly Dao laborer shared the same origin as the patterns on the shield before him.

"Something from the Heavenly Dao," Chen Du's voice was soft.

But everyone on the deck heard him.

"What?"

Xia Lai leaned halfway out of the control room. "Did you say the Heavenly Dao?"

"This shield is woven from Heavenly Dao code," Chen Du retracted his gaze, his tone flat.

The deck fell silent for two seconds.

"Wait, wait, wait!"

Lin Keke gripped the railing, her voice cracking. "Isn't the Heavenly Dao supposed to be neutral? Didn't that 7411 say the Heavenly Dao Logistics Department doesn't interfere in player conflicts?"

An Nuonuo's hands were shaking as she gripped her chains, her small face pale.

"The Heavenly Dao... isn't it supposed to be fair?"

No one answered her.

Up on the mast.

On the Archbishop's face, which was covered in metal interfaces, that distorted, frenzied smile surfaced once again.

"Hehehe... Hehehe hahahaha!"

He laughed so hard his whole body swayed, making the chains clatter loudly.

"Do you see now? Successor of the Tyrant!"

The Archbishop's mechanical eyes emitted a piercing red light as he stared intently at Chen Du.

"You think the Mechanical Divine Court is defying the Heavenly Dao? Wrong! Utterly wrong!"

"We were the ones who took the initiative to Sacrifice! We took the lives of millions of players and refined them into the purest life essence! We fed it to the Heavenly Dao, drop by drop!"

Everyone on the deck stopped breathing.

"Those players whose talent origins were drained, those survivors who vanished in the Sea of Despair—their lives were all turned into fuel!"

The Archbishop threw back his mangled body and screamed at the top of his lungs.

"We used their lives to trade for the Heavenly Dao's protection! The Heavenly Dao bestowed divine power to help us eternally suppress the Tyrant's original divinity!"

"This is the rule! This is the order!"

"That joke of a three-way standoff on the mural? Ha! It vanished the day the Tyrant died!"

"The Heavenly Dao and the god of fear joined forces to kill the Tyrant, and then the Heavenly Dao turned around and gifted the Tyrant's corpse to the Divine Court!"

"We guard the divinity for it, and it blocks all threats for us!"

"You... are already surrounded!"

The Archbishop's maniacal laughter echoed through the canyon.

The deck was deathly silent.

Lin Keke didn't say a word.

This was the first time since she boarded the ship that she couldn't find a single word to say.

Tang Ran gripped her scythe of calamity so hard the veins on the back of her hand bulged, and her teeth ground together.

Xia Mo's hand rested on her sword hilt, complex emotions churning in her eyes.

Xia Xin lay behind her heavy sniper rifle, her scope aimed at the shield.

But she knew this shot wouldn't pierce it.

Everyone was waiting.

Waiting for the captain to speak.

Chen Du leaned back in his rattan chair and fished his last cigarette from his pocket.

Click.

The lighter flickered twice.

The flame wavered in the wind, then caught.

He took a deep drag.

Then he stood up and walked to the ship's railing.

Smoke slowly drifted from between his teeth.

He flicked the half-smoked cigarette away.

The cigarette butt traced an arc and landed on the surface of the golden shield.

Sizzle—

The cigarette butt was instantly evaporated by the code shield.

Chen Du watched the vanishing point of light and smiled.

"And here I was worried that dog would hide in the sky and never come down."

He turned around.

The bone gold cleaver was unsheathed.

Shadow Power erupted from his body like a bursting black tide, condensing behind him into a sky-blotting pitch-black phantom.

The phantom spread its arms, striking the exact same posture as the Tyrant on the mural.

"Since you dared to stretch your legs down to the ground..."

Chen Du's voice wasn't loud, but every word slammed clearly into the minds of everyone present.

"Today, I'm going to cleave the whole damn table!"

The Archbishop's laughter came to an abrupt halt.

Because in the dark-gold flames deep in Chen Du's eyes, he saw a madness identical to the one on the mural.

No.

It was even wilder than the mural.

"Prepare the twin-linked heavy naval cannons!" Chen Du turned to the control room.

Xia Lai had already sat back down at the console, her fingers hovering over the control panel.

"Aim at the Holy Mountain."

"Understood!"

Both heavy naval cannons swiveled their muzzles simultaneously, their black barrels pointing directly at the hundred-meter divine statue.

The glow of charging energy began to gather at the muzzles.

However—

At the very moment the cannons were about to fire.

The eyes of that massive, half-flesh, half-mechanical statue snapped open.

Two giant pupils, over ten meters in diameter, rolled out from their sockets.

There were no irises like a biological creature would have, only densely packed, frantically scrolling golden code.

Chen Du's pupils constricted.

The statue opened its giant mouth, a patchwork of steel teeth and a fleshy tongue.

The voice that emerged was not that of the god of machinery.

It was the synthesized voice of the Heavenly Dao.

"Unauthorized entity detected."

"Coordinates locked..."

"Initiating obliteration protocol!"

"Angel of Judgment—has descended!"

Suddenly!

The massive heart in the statue's chest skipped a beat.

A golden beam of light, as thick as a water vat, erupted from the center of the heart!

It shot straight into the sky!

The light beam pierced through the blood-colored clouds, tearing a massive hole in the sky.

Above the hole, there was also dense code.

The virtual firmament, composed of endless golden code, looked like the internal workings of a supercomputer that had been forcibly split open.

The mixture of Sanskrit-like chanting and the harsh sound of grinding gears poured down from that hole.

Divine.

Absurd.

Nauseating.

Gravity in the entire space began to fail.

Unsecured toolboxes on the deck slowly floated up; An Nuonuo's hair drifted upward, and her feet left the ground.

"Gravity... it's compromised!"

Xia Lai gripped the console tightly. "The shield strength is surging! The naval cannons can't break through!"

Everyone's faces turned pale.

This wasn't the power of the Mechanical Divine Court.

This was the rules themselves crushing them.

Right then.

Deep in Chen Du's mind.

The fanged, monstrous mouth on the cover of the sacrifice notebook split open to its limit.

It erupted into a burst of extremely greedy, almost frenzied laughter.

【Jie jie jie jie jie jie!!】

【Such a familiar scent, Chen Du!】

【Forget those iron lumps! Aim for the sky! Fire at that glowing thing!】

The fangs of the monstrous mouth trembled wildly, drool dripping onto the pages.

【I smell it—】

【The aura of... a Prime God!!!】