203: Chapter 201 Cooperation? Submission? Or Treating Them as Snacks?

Su Zhiruo stood at the edge of the entrance, watching the black-red mountain that was Godzilla walk up from the underground step by step, its every footfall on the purple crystal rock layer splashing up large amounts of debris.

She ran over, but the first thing she did wasn't to ask about the battle situation.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

Luo Yu jumped down from the top of Godzilla's head. After landing, he stretched his shoulders. "Godzilla handled all the output unilaterally; I just watched a show from up there."

Su Zhiruo glanced at Luo Yu; he was clean, not even a speck of dust on him. Then she looked at Godzilla, the 1,900-meter-tall king of the titans, whose mouth was still making chewing motions, its golden vertical pupils half-closed, tail swaying slowly behind it.

Well, it was full and still savoring the aftertaste.

"What about the status of the High-Dimensional Hunter?"

"It ran away, just like last time, beaten half-dead and scurrying back into the rift. But it's in worse shape than last time; half of its faceplate was torn off by Godzilla." Luo Yu patted the spatial storage device in his pocket. "I kept a few fragments to hand over to the research institute later."

Su Zhiruo breathed a sigh of relief. Just as she was about to say something, her communicator rang.

It was Su Qingxue's voice.

"Luo Yu, everything is normal at the bridgehead, but my long-range detector in the south has detected a group of low-frequency vibration signals with a special frequency. The frequency is completely different from the biological signals of the Abyssal Giant Beasts; it's more rhythmic, like..."

"Like communication," Luo Yu added.

There was a pause on Su Qingxue's end.

"Correct."

Luo Yu looked up toward the south.

Those seven Ninth-Rank Abyss Great Beasts had retreated fifty kilometers and were currently emitting reporting signals.

Reporting to the three kings of the abyss.

One didn't need to think to guess that the content of the report was likely: the high-dimensional egg had been eaten, the High-Dimensional Hunter had been beaten away, and the one who did the work was that Planet-level Lizard.

"Don't worry about them, let them report," Luo Yu said into the communicator. "Sister Qingxue, just keep the bridgehead secure. The expeditionary force doesn't need to push forward; wait for my word."

"Understood. Stay safe."

The connection cut off.

Luo Yu and Su Zhiruo stood at the edge of the depression for a while.

The wind of the Abyss World blew from the south, carrying its usual stench.

But today, this stench had an extra layer to it—the smell of minerals from the purple crystal rock layer being scorched by high heat, mixed with the strange, sweet, bloody scent of evaporated high-dimensional biological fluids.

Godzilla had shrunk into its 300-meter "compact version" and was squatting next to the depression, licking its claws—or, to be precise, licking the gaps between its claws. When it hooked the High-Dimensional Hunter's faceplate earlier, a few fragments had gotten stuck between its nails.

Mothra was preening its wings on its shoulder, golden scales drifting along under the ink-green sky. If the background were changed—say, to a sunset over the East Sea—this scene would actually be quite romantic.

"They are here."

Su Zhiruo's voice pulled Luo Yu's attention back.

On the southern horizon, seven massive silhouettes were moving.

They weren't charging over.

They were walking over slowly.

The seven Ninth-Rank Abyss Great Beasts were in a single file line, moving at an extremely slow pace, about the same as a stroll.

Each of their heads was held very low, their body postures kept as low as possible. That cautious air reminded Luo Yu of a large dog he'd seen next to the orphanage when he was a child—the one that had been beaten into submission by its owner. Even though it was huge, it would still walk with its tail tucked and hugging the wall when it saw people.

When the distance closed to five kilometers, the leader stopped.

Luo Yu used his spiritual energy perception to see its full appearance clearly.

It was an Abyssal Giant Beast nearly five hundred meters in size, its overall form somewhere between a leech and a snake. Its entire body was covered in dark purple scales, and there was a row of deep red compound eyes on each side of its head. Its mouth took up a third of its head, filled with dense, barb-like teeth.

Ugly enough.

The other six didn't look good either.

They were all sorts of strange shapes: some were beetle-like with six legs, some were octopus-like covered in tentacles, and there was even one that looked like a centipede magnified several hundred times, with glowing shells hanging off its arthropods.

But their sizes weren't much different from Godzilla's 300-meter "compact version." If they really fought, seven against one, it wasn't like they were completely without a chance.

Provided Godzilla didn't enlarge.

After the lead leech beast stopped, it slowly lowered its head to the ground, its entire chin pressed against the purple crystal rock layer.

A mental fluctuation came through.

Unlike the rough projection of the high-dimensional larva, the mental fluctuation of this Ninth-Rank Abyss Great Beast had clearly been "polished." The signal was steady, the phrasing cautious, and it even carried a hint of fawning.

"Great king of the titans."

The opening was high-profile.

"All living beings in the Abyss World have witnessed your power."

"The product of the high-dimensional invaders has been cleared by you, and the crisis of the Abyss World has been resolved because of you. We, representing the three kings of the abyss, offer you our highest respects."

Highest respects.

Luo Yu stood on the back of Godzilla's foot with his arms crossed, tilting his head as he listened to this opening speech.

The phrasing was very deliberate. Who taught them? Does the Abyss World have etiquette training classes?

"Continue," he replied with a single word via spiritual voice transmission.

The mental fluctuation trembled slightly; it seemed not to have expected such a brief response.

But it quickly adjusted.

"king of the titans, the three kings of the abyss have already taken note of your great achievements. The infiltration of the Abyss World by high-dimensional civilization has not been a matter of one day. Over the past few thousand years, High-Dimensional Hunters have repeatedly deployed markers and probes into the abyss. The The Three Kings have been resisting these invasions, but with little success."

"Now you have displayed the absolute power to repel the High-Dimensional Hunter, something the The Three Kings have never been able to do."

"Therefore, the The Three Kings propose—cooperation."

Cooperation. Exactly as Su Zhiruo had predicted.

Luo Yu glanced at Su Zhiruo. Su Zhiruo nodded slightly.

"What are the specific details of this cooperation?" Luo Yu followed up.

The mental fluctuation of the lead beast became more detailed: "The The Three Kings are willing to open up fifty percent of the Abyss World's territory for you to move about freely, while simultaneously providing mining rights to abyss energy veins in return. In exchange, the The Three Kings hope you will no longer attack the Core Area of the abyss and promise not to launch any more invasions toward the surface world."

"Furthermore, should the High-Dimensional Hunter descend again, the The Three Kings are willing to fight side-by-side with you to resist the foreign enemy together."

The conditions were listed, and the seven Ninth-Rank Abyss Great Beasts all lowered their bodies in unison, waiting for a reply.

To be honest, the conditions weren't bad. If it were another negotiating partner, say a president of some country, they would likely consider it seriously.

After all, although the three kings of the abyss couldn't beat Godzilla, they had entrenched themselves in the Abyss World for who knows how many years. The forces under their command were still massive. If they were truly forced into a corner and it came to a hard fight, with over ten thousand people in the expeditionary force thrown in, the risks would be uncontrollable.

But the premise of negotiation is that the gap in strength between the two sides is within an acceptable range.

And the current gap was already outside that range.

"No cooperation." Two words, so crisp that they didn't even carry a ripple in his mental fluctuation.

The bodies of all seven Ninth-Rank Great Beasts stiffened. The lead beast's compound eyes blinked several times, and its mental fluctuation cautiously continued.

"king of the titans... perhaps you haven't fully understood the sincerity of the The Three Kings. They are willing to cede half of their territory, which has never happened in the history of the Abyss World. The The Three Kings have ruled the abyss for tens of thousands of years and have never made such a huge concession to any living being..."

"I said, no cooperation," Luo Yu interrupted it crisply and cleanly.

Silence! The mental fluctuation of the lead beast stopped. It was quiet for three seconds.

"Then... what does the king of the titans desire?" The mental fluctuation was wrapped in restrained anxiety and anger.

Luo Yu looked down at Godzilla beneath his feet.

At this moment, Godzilla was no longer licking its claws; its vertical pupils were half-open, watching those seven Great Beasts. If a Lizard had corners to its mouth, it would have been curled up slightly.

It was waiting for Luo Yu to say a certain word.

Luo Yu didn't disappoint it.

"Submission." He hammered out the word.

The reaction of the seven Ninth-Rank Great Beasts was even greater than Luo Yu had anticipated.

The entire body of the lead leech beast jolted—not because it was attacked, but it jumped in place. All those dense, barb-like teeth stood on end.

The reactions of the six behind it were all different.

The beetle-form one dug at the ground with all six legs simultaneously, gouging out six deep grooves. The octopus-form one's tentacles curled wildly. The centipede-form one's arthropod shells rattled, and its entire body arched into an arc.

The mental fluctuations were incredibly intense... not just from the leader, but all seven simultaneously. Overlapping, the peak of the signal shook Luo Yu's spiritual energy shield.

"Submission?" "You want the three kings of the abyss... to submit to you?" "Since the birth of the abyss, the The Three Kings have never bowed to any existence! This is an insult to the Abyss World!"

"..." Quite loud.

Luo Yu stood where he was, unmoving. Su Zhiruo stood behind him, the spatial magic circle on her hand lighting up, ready to teleport at any moment.

But Luo Yu waved his hand at her. "No need to be nervous."

He turned back to look at the lead beast's deep red compound eyes, the corners of his mouth moving.

"Two options. Submission, or death. Choose for yourselves, and choose for your The Three Kings as well. When you go back, make sure the message is clear... I don't have a third option."

"You are too arrogant!" The lead beast's compound eyes turned deep red.

"The The Three Kings are willing to cooperate, which is already giving you face! Submission? Let the kings of the abyss be your slaves? Don't even talk about the The Three Kings not agreeing—none of us will agree!"

The posture of the seven Ninth-Rank Great Beasts changed from low-lying to semi-upright.

An attack posture? Not exactly. But the attitude was laid out.

These guys definitely had the confidence; after all, in the food chain of the Abyss World, Ninth-Rank was already at the pinnacle. Above that were just the The Three Kings. Letting them be dogs for an "outsider Lizard" was something they couldn't accept psychologically.

"Luo Yu," Su Zhiruo said in a low voice.

"I know."

Luo Yu's attention wasn't on these seven Great Beasts. He was sensing something further away. The south. Deep underground, 580 kilometers away.

Su Zhiruo had said there was a huge hollow there, with life signals filling a depth of forty kilometers. Just now, as Godzilla stomped over, those signal sources had been shrinking deeper and deeper.

What about now? Luo Yu pushed his spiritual energy perception to the limit. The signals weren't shrinking anymore. Instead, they were expanding.

Three energy signals, far exceeding the Tenth Rank, were slowly rising from the deepest part of the Abyss World.

"The The Three Kings have moved," Luo Yu said to Su Zhiruo.

Su Zhiruo's magic circle spun, verifying his judgment.

"They are rising, not fast, but the direction is toward us."

"It seems these seven are just messengers; they transmitted my words back in real-time."

This was indeed the case; the lead beast's mental fluctuation was still roaring.

"The The Three Kings have ruled the abyss for tens of thousands of years, and countless races have prostrated before them... You, an intruder from the outside world, by what right do you demand submission? By what right?"

Luo Yu ignored it. He crouched down and patted Godzilla's toe.

"Godzilla." "Hiss?" "Are you hungry?"

Godzilla tilted its head, its vertical pupils sweeping over those seven Ninth-Rankers that were still clamoring.

"Hiss." Translation: Not too hungry, but my mouth is a bit lonely.

"Then eat."

The lead beast's mental fluctuation stopped abruptly. Eat? Who eats whom? Was this the flavor of war at the slightest disagreement?

Sure enough, the answer was revealed three seconds later.

Godzilla's size began to expand... 300 meters, 500 meters, 800 meters, 1,200 meters, and then it maxed out directly: 1,900 meters.

Planet-level · king of the titans · Peak Titan: Godzilla of Final Destruction.

In an instant, the gravity field released at full power caused the ground within a five-kilometer radius to sink by twenty centimeters. The tallest of those seven Ninth-Rank Great Beasts was barely over five hundred meters; in front of 1,900 meters, they had almost no power to resist.

Alright, it wasn't the gap between an ant and an elephant, but the gap between an ant and a skyscraper.

"You..." The lead beast's mental fluctuation shattered into fragments.

Its compound eyes were spinning rapidly, its body instinctively starting to retreat. But its legs went soft.

The biological pressure released by a Planet-level Titan was not a mental attack; it didn't require any skill support, it was purely a crushing of the life hierarchy. Before this pressure, the Ninth-Rank Abyssal Giant Beasts were basically just like little pieces of trash.

Out of the seven Ninth-Rankers, three collapsed on the ground on the spot. The remaining four were shaking desperately, but at least they were still standing.

The lead beast's compound eyes stared fixedly at the black-red mountain blocking out the sky in front of it.

Godzilla lowered its head. Golden vertical pupils aimed at it.

The distance was less than two hundred meters. The head of a 1,900-meter-tall giant beast leaning in front of a 300-meter-tall target... the oppressive feeling of this scene, if one didn't experience it personally, could not be described with any words.

Hot air puffed out of Godzilla's nostrils, blowing right onto the lead beast's head.

The dark purple scales were lifted by the air wave and then slapped back down.

"Hiss." Godzilla's mouth opened.

Three seconds later, the lead beast discovered it was being picked up.

And the way Godzilla picked things up was about the same as picking up a shrimp cracker—its upper and lower jaws lightly clamped down, the force just right at the critical point of "won't bite through immediately" and "absolutely cannot break free."

The lead leech beast's 300-meter-long body was clamped in the middle by two rows of 50-meter-long teeth, its head and tail drooping from either side of the mouth. Dark purple scales were indented by the teeth, and body fluids dripped down from the gaps.

It was screaming. The mental fluctuation was so piercing that Su Zhiruo had to turn down the reception sensitivity of her perception magic circle by three levels.

"Let go... let go of me... this is... you will regret this... the The Three Kings will not..."

It chewed once. The screaming turned into a single-syllable wail.