318: Chapter 319: Commander Luo: He wants the stars in the sky, you find a way to pluck them down for him.

Federal Military, Eagle-7 Conference Room.

More than a dozen hours had passed since that mass of "Abyssal Sludge" appeared out of thin air.

Yet, the atmosphere in the conference room was still so oppressive it could be wrung out like water.

The charred hole blasted into the wall had been temporarily repaired, but the air seemed to still retain that nauseating stench of Law backlash.

A few hours ago, this place had been filled with the top brass of the Federal Military.

But now, only one person sat before the massive circular conference table.

The supreme commander of the Federal Military, the one-armed General, General Luo Zhenbang.

He sat alone, quietly in the main seat, his only remaining left hand rhythmically tapping against the cold metal tabletop.

"Thud."

"Thud."

"Thud."

Each tap felt as if it were striking one's heart.

He had been sitting here for a full five hours.

During this time, he hadn't said a word, nor had he issued any orders; he simply stared at the massive, extinguished holographic screen before him.

Until the door to the conference room was gently pushed open.

Zhao Shouzhen walked in, dragging his exhausted body.

His complexion was terrible, his eye sockets deeply sunken and bloodshot; he looked more than ten years older than when he had left.

"You're back?"

General Luo Zhenbang did not turn around, his voice so calm that not a ripple could be heard in it.

"I'm back, General Luo."

Zhao Shouzhen walked to the opposite side of him, pulled out a chair, sat down, and let out a long sigh.

"Tea." General Luo Zhenbang calmly uttered a single word.

The servo robot in the center of the table immediately extended a mechanical arm to pour a cup of steaming Wuyi Da Hong Pao tea for Zhao Shouzhen.

This was General Luo Zhenbang's prized collection; usually, he couldn't even bear to drink it himself.

Zhao Shouzhen picked up the teacup, unafraid of the heat, and downed half of it in one gulp. The scalding tea slid down his throat into his stomach, finally allowing his cold body to regain a little warmth.

"Speak," General Luo Zhenbang said, still looking at the black screen. "I want to hear what results your 'academic exchange' yielded."

He emphasized the four words "academic exchange" heavily.

Zhao Shouzhen's old face turned red instantly; he was so embarrassed he wished he could crawl into a crack in the ground.

He opened his mouth, but didn't know where to begin.

Should he say that Director Gao Yuan, that idiot, took the Federation's top team and equipment to flaunt their power on someone else's turf, only to be played like a monkey and scared into collectively wetting their pants?

Should he say that kid Lin Qi just had a thought, and from some unknown corner, summoned a terrifying monster whose mere phantom was enough to make a Rank 5 Expert tremble?

Or should he say that the monster's phantom was eventually popped by Lin Qi with a single finger, just like swatting a fly?

Who would believe these words if he said them?

Even now, as he recalled it, he felt like it was an absurd nightmare.

"What, is it hard to say?"

General Luo Zhenbang finally turned his head, his eagle-sharp eyes landing on Zhao Shouzhen's face.

"Or is it too shameful to say out loud?"

"...Yes." Zhao Shouzhen nodded with difficulty, his face burning.

"Director Gao Yuan and his team have all been sent to Sanatorium No. 7. Preliminary diagnosis: collective mental breakdown; they won't be able to recover in the short term. That 'Gaia Law Imaging Instrument' is also completely scrapped. According to the analysis of the recovered wreckage, the core Law chip was... formatted from the underlying logic by an energy we cannot comprehend."

General Luo Zhenbang listened expressionlessly, but his fingers tapping the table stopped.

"Formatted?"

"Yes, formatted," Zhao Shouzhen said bitterly. "Just like wiping a computer hard drive completely clean. No, it's even more thorough than that. It's equivalent to changing the 'physical rules' of that hard drive. Take a piece of iron; you tell it, 'From today on, you are not iron, you are a block of tofu.' And then, it really becomes a block of tofu."

General Luo Zhenbang fell silent.

Although he was not a scientist, he could understand the implications behind these words.

That was an ability only a god would possess.

"He did it?"

"It was him, and yet it wasn't him." Zhao Shouzhen shook his head, then nodded, organizing his thoughts. "He attracted it, but the one who acted was another... thing."

He took a deep breath and described the scene he had witnessed in the D-3 Region, exactly as it happened, in detail.

From how Lin Qi "let" Director Gao Yuan seek his own death, to how the phantom of the "Throat of Devouring Heaven" descended, and finally, how Lin Qi shattered the phantom with a single finger.

Throughout the entire process, General Luo Zhenbang did not interrupt, simply listening quietly.

His expression did not change in the slightest, as if what Zhao Shouzhen was saying was just a boring story.

But Zhao Shouzhen knew that the heart of this Shield of the Federation was far from calm.

Because the hand he had placed on the table had unknowingly clenched into a tight fist, with veins bulging on the back of his hand.

Until Zhao Shouzhen finished speaking, the conference room fell into a long silence once again.

"Throat of Devouring Heaven..."

After a long while, General Luo Zhenbang slowly uttered these four words, his voice hoarse.

"I have seen this name in one of the oldest 'Abyss Files' in the military department."

Zhao Shouzhen perked up and looked at him.

"That file is classified as 'World-Ending' level. According to the records inside, the 'Throat of Devouring Heaven' was an ultimate disaster from countless epochs ago that attempted to devour all planes. It has no physical form; it is the concept of 'devouring' itself. Every world it targets ends up being completely 'eaten,' leaving not even a trace behind."

"And that so-called 'Church of Calamity' is just the 'virus' it spreads across various worlds, with the goal of opening a 'channel' for its arrival."

General Luo Zhenbang's gaze became incomparably deep.

"I always thought that was just a myth."

"Now it seems, the myth... is about to become reality."

Zhao Shouzhen's heart sank to the bottom.

"Then... we..."

"We are very lucky," General Luo Zhenbang suddenly said.

"Lucky?" Zhao Shouzhen was stunned.

"Yes, very lucky," General Luo Zhenbang's mouth twisted into an ugly smile. "The lucky thing is that before the apocalypse arrives, our Federation has produced a Lin Qi."

He looked at Zhao Shouzhen and said, word by word:

"A... monster capable of swatting the phantom of a 'World-Ending' level disaster like a fly."

Zhao Shouzhen instantly understood General Luo Zhenbang's meaning.

In the face of a massive, irresistible world-ending crisis, the threat posed by Lin Qi as an individual had become insignificant.

In fact, the stronger he was, the safer the Federation became.

"I understand, General Luo."

"You don't understand," General Luo Zhenbang shook his head. "You only saw his power, but you didn't see the... logic behind his power."

"From today on, our attitude toward Lin Qi must change."

"It will no longer be 'fear,' 'recruitment,' or 'surveillance.'"

"It will be..."

General Luo Zhenbang stood up, walked to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, and looked at the brilliant lights of the steel city outside.

"...Veneration."

"Treat him like the ancestor of our Federation, and enshrine him."

"Whatever he wants, we give him."

"If he wants money, we empty the national treasury for him."

"If he wants people, we send our most elite soldiers to him."

"If he wants the stars in the sky, you find a way to pluck them down for me!"

"From now on, the D-3 Region is our Federation's 'Holy Land'! All requests are top priority! All departments must cooperate unconditionally!"

"I don't care what he wants to build, whether it's a laboratory or a temple; even if he wants to start a rebellion in there, we must smile and hand him the knife!"

General Luo Zhenbang turned around, an unprecedented sharp light erupting from his single eye.

"Because when the true 'Scourge' arrives, only the door to his 'temple' will be the only place where we in the Federation can squeeze in a single survivor!"

"Did you understand?!"

"Yes! General Luo!" Zhao Shouzhen stood up abruptly and responded loudly.

He felt the blood in his entire body beginning to burn.