Chapter 189 Earth Reboots, Donning the Armor of the Dead

The golden rain had stopped.

The oppressive, grayish aura that had originally shrouded the Earth had now been washed away completely. In its place was a layer of pale blue, ghostly light.

If you didn't look closely, you might mistake it for atmospheric scattering. But if you got even a little closer, you would discover that the blue light was not static; it was pulsing slowly at an altitude of tens of thousands of meters, like a heartbeat.

That was energy.

And it was also the protection of the undead.

"How can this still be Earth..." Academician Wang was pressed against the porthole, snot smearing the glass, while the data terminal in his hand was blaring alarms like crazy. "The planet's surface hardness has increased by 400%, and the defense level of that 'Psionic Shield'... My god, this is like wrapping a tank's armor around an eggshell!"

The Earth now looked somewhat eerie, and somewhat ferocious.

Twelve thousand planetary engines were spewing flames intertwined with ghostly blue and ghastly white, the massive beams of light acting like the colossal pillars supporting the heavens in mythology. And in the outermost layer of the atmosphere, those previously invisible gravitational ripples had now, due to the infiltration of the titan's divine blood, materialized into layers of translucent black lattice.

Viewed from afar, this blue planet looked as if it had donned a suit of pitch-black undead armor, exuding a fierce, "Keep Out" aura from head to toe.

Lin Yuan sat in the command chair, twirling the captured laser pistol in his hand, in a very good mood.

"Don't be so jumpy, you're supposed to be a big scientist who has seen the world." Lin Yuan glanced at Academician Wang, who looked like he was about to have a cerebral hemorrhage from excitement. "This is just a minor upgrade to the old junk we had before; consider it the first-clear reward for our dungeon run this time."

"A... minor upgrade?"

Chen Weiguo, who had just walked into the command room, heard this and his mouth twitched violently.

He slapped the report in his hand onto the table. "Commander Lin, you call this a minor upgrade? Do you know what has happened on the ground after this golden rain?"

"The tens of thousands of old patients in the underground city hospitals who were lying there waiting to die from radiation sickness have all pulled out their tubes and gone down to dance square dances! Our soldiers used to need half a month to adapt to wearing exoskeletons, but now those greenhorns are all as strong as calves, able to bend steel pipes with their bare hands!"

Although that drop of titan divine blood had been diluted into the atmosphere, it was still the essence of a high-dimensional lifeform. For carbon-based lifeforms like humans who were still wallowing in a low-level civilization, this was the highest-grade genetic supplement.

While it didn't turn everyone into a superman, the radiation sickness and genetic defects that constantly threatened human survival had been washed away completely in this rain.

"Good thing." Lin Yuan nodded. "It's good to have a sturdy constitution; saves you from getting seasick later."

Chen Weiguo took a deep breath, suppressing the shock in his heart, and said sternly, "Also, the expansion plan has been completed. According to your instructions, we have rearmed five expedition fleets using the titanium alloy recovered from the pirate fortress and the graveyard."

"Especially that batch of 'Ghost Fighters'..." At this point, a hint of fanaticism flashed in the old general's eyes. "With our pilots coordinating with the auxiliary AI extracted from the wreckage, it's like adding wings to a tiger. In the exercise just now, one of our fortress squadrons wiped out a hundred simulated enemy aircraft without suffering a single loss."

The flexibility of a human pilot, combined with the precise calculations of the undead AI.

This was the complete form of Earth's current combat power.

"We have the equipment, and the people are in high spirits." Lin Yuan stood up, walked to the massive holographic star map, and traced an arc in the void with his finger.

The gray vortex that had represented the "Land Abandoned by Gods" was now behind them.

And three light-years ahead, a star that was glaringly red was flickering on the star map.

That was the only light source in this dead star sector, and the only way out of this hellhole.

"Boss, where are we going next?" A Ji leaned over. He had now completely accepted his role as a lackey for the Earthlings, even wearing a "Great Xia Law-Abiding Citizen" badge around his neck. "This place is too weird. How about we just warp out of here?"

"Run?"

Lin Yuan looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Why run? We have guns and cannons in our hands now, and tens of thousands of undead thugs who don't need a salary. You want me to run?"

He turned around and looked at the communications officer at the command console.

"Connect to the global broadcast."

"Zzz— —"

After the crackle of electricity, that familiar voice rang out again in every underground city, battleship, and even every individual terminal across the globe.

This time, there were no sirens, no countdowns.

Only Lin Yuan's lazy, yet crazed voice.

"Everyone, I have some good news to tell you: we survived."

In the underground cities, the crowds that had been celebrating fell silent instantly. Everyone straightened their backs subconsciously and looked toward the nearest screen.

"There was a lot of stuff in the graveyard, we picked up quite a bit of junk, and we also made brothers out of a few dead guys. Now, we can consider ourselves to have crawled out of the coffin."

Lin Yuan paused, his tone suddenly shifting.

"However, crawling out isn't the end of it. We've been cooped up in that place full of rust and dead people for too long; we're starting to get moldy."

"I checked, and there's a place called 'Blazing Sun Star' not far ahead. I heard there's a bunch of superstitious guys there who spend all day kowtowing to the sun. Since we're passing by, it wouldn't be polite not to go say hello."

"Most importantly..."

Lin Yuan grinned, and that smile was imprinted on everyone's retinas through the screen.

"Our Earth is a bit cold right now, and I don't like the cold. So, I've decided to take you all there and grab that sun while we're at it, to warm everyone up."

"Did you hear me? Target: Blazing Sun Star, full speed ahead!"

After a brief, dead silence.

BOOM!

The entire Earth erupted.

No fear, no questioning. If it had been before, hearing they were going to snatch a star, everyone would have thought it was a madman talking in his sleep.

But now?

Snatch the sun?

That makes perfect sense! If God Lin says we can snatch it, then we can snatch it! Forget the sun; even if Lin Yuan said he wanted to go plug up the black hole at the center of the galaxy to use as a toilet, these Earthlings, already intoxicated by victory, would be howling as they went to haul bricks.

"Follow God Lin, and you can walk sideways through the universe!"

Someone led the chant, and this slogan instantly became the new catchphrase.

...

At the edge of the Land Abandoned by Gods, on the outskirts of the fog zone.

This was the boundary between the normal star sector and the dead forbidden zone. Dozens of pirate ships with various paint jobs were floating quietly behind an asteroid belt, like a flock of vultures waiting for a rotting corpse.

"Boss, it's been three days."

In a pirate gunboat, the one-eyed first mate put down his binoculars. "That blue planet must be finished inside. That's the Land Abandoned by Gods; even the regular army of the Order Bureau would lose a layer of skin going in. Can a bunch of primitives survive?"

The pirate leader, known as the Boss, was a fat man with a face full of flesh; he was using a dagger to pick meat from his teeth.

"What's the rush? It's better if they're dead." The fat man sneered. "Only if they're dead can we go in and pick up the scraps. There must be plenty of good stuff on that planet. Even if we just strip those engines and sell them as scrap metal, it'll be enough for us to live on for several lifetimes."

The lackeys around him echoed his sentiments, their eyes filled with greed.

In their eyes, this wasn't a dangerous mission; it was a pie falling from the sky.

Just then.

The fog in front suddenly churned violently, as if some behemoth was stirring up wind and waves on the seabed.

"There's movement!" The first mate shouted excitedly. "Is it wreckage drifting out?"

The fat man immediately pressed against the porthole, his eyes wide as saucers. "Quick! Prepare the tractor beam! Don't let the others grab it first!"

The fog broke open.

However, what emerged was not the ragged, lifeless wreckage they had imagined.

The first thing that came into view was a massive planetary engine exhaust plume, still spewing ghostly blue flames.

Immediately after, a second, a third... twelve thousand!

That massive blue planet, with an aura that crushed everything, smashed through all the asteroids along the way and roared out of the fog zone.

It looked completely undamaged.

On the contrary, the layer of black crystal shield on its surface shimmered under the starlight, and the propulsion array composed of over ten thousand engines looked like over ten thousand fully charged star-annihilation cannons.

"What... what is this thing?!"

The dagger in the fat man's hand fell into his crotch, and he didn't even feel the pain as it poked a bloody hole.

Before they could react, an even more terrifying scene occurred.

Around this planet, space suddenly rippled like water.

One after another, pitch-black giant warships burning with eerie blue fire slowly emerged from the void. Ten... one hundred... one thousand...

Especially the Dauntless flagship in the very center, which was a hundred kilometers long; the shadow it cast alone covered the entire pirate fleet.

Those pirate ships that had seemed fierce were like kayaks encountering an aircraft carrier battle group in front of this undead fleet.

"Run... run away!!!"

Heart-piercing screams rang out in the communication channel. The pirates didn't care about picking up scraps anymore; each of them wished they could install eight more engines on their ships, turning around to dive into the asteroid belt.

Earth Command Center.

Lin Yuan watched the frantically fleeing light spots on the screen and yawned boredly.

"General Chen, didn't the newly expanded fleet complain about not having a place to test their cannons?"

He pointed to the dozens of pirate ships. "Tell them, whoever misses a shot, no dinner tonight, and they go scrub the toilets."

"Yes!"

The next second.

The five newly formed fleets on the periphery of the Earth pounced like starving wolves out of a cage.

There was no need to mobilize the titan undead; the human warships, equipped with phase-tracking systems alone, carried out a textbook-level slaughter.

Red laser beams and blue plasma clusters intertwined in space, forming a grand firework show.

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

Those pirate ships didn't even have time to finish sending their signals for mercy before they turned into cosmic dust one after another.

Just thirty seconds.

This star sector returned to tranquility, with only some burning fragments silently telling of the tragedy that had just occurred.

"Boring." Lin Yuan shook his head. "Doesn't even count as a warm-up."

The great xia dragon sparrow slowly adjusted its course, carrying the terrifying fleet behind it, as well as the Earth that looked like a mobile fortress, and sailed toward the red dot in the deep space.

...

Three light-years away, Blazing Sun Star.

This was a red giant star that was burning violently; its volume was fifty times that of the sun, and violent prominences were rolling on its surface.

And in the orbit of the star, a huge metal altar was floating.

The altar was cross-shaped, inscribed with countless complex mechanical divine scripts. Countless believers in red robes were kneeling on the altar, kowtowing to the burning star.

At the very top of the altar stood a tall figure.

His entire body had undergone precise mechanical modification, with only half of his face retaining human characteristics. In that one remaining eye, a fanatical and cruel light flickered.

Mechanical Papacy, one of the seven Cardinals—Jealousy.

"Archbishop." A priest walked up tremblingly. "We just monitored abnormal fluctuations in the fog of the Land Abandoned by Gods. The Earth civilization, No. 109... the signal has disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

Jealousy's voice was as harsh as metal rubbing against metal. He turned around, looking at the turbid star sector in the distance, and the corners of his mouth curled into a mocking sneer.

"Once you enter the Land Abandoned by Gods, that's a dead end. It seems those insects still couldn't survive the first hurdle and became rations for those pieces of scrap metal."

He waved his hand, indifferent as if shooing away a fly.

"Don't worry about them anymore. The dead have no value."

Jealousy turned around, opened his arms, and embraced the red giant star that was emitting infinite heat, his eyes becoming incomparably fanatical.

"How is the ceremony preparation coming along? My Lord has been hungry for too long... This time, we will strip the 'Star Marrow' of this star completely, as dinner for my Lord!"

"As long as this sacrifice is completed, I will receive the blessing of my Lord and be promoted to a true Mechanical Angel!"

The priest immediately knelt on the ground and shouted: "The Holy Sacrifice begins immediately! Glory to the Mechanical God!"

The huge metal altar began to operate, and thick energy probes pierced into the surface of the red giant star, greedily extracting the blood of the star like a straw.

Jealousy laughed, immersed in the pleasure of imminent power.

He didn't know at all.

Deep in the fog, which he thought was a dead zone, a group of robbers, even greedier and more unreasonable than him, were rushing over, drooling, driving twelve thousand high-power thrusters.

Not only did they want their lives.

They also wanted to take the pot.