178: Chapter 182 I got a get-out-of-jail-free card, I'm just here to buy goods for demolition!

The massive, hundreds-of-meters-high adamantine gate of the main peak's hall was kicked open from the inside with a heavy thud, accompanied by the ear-piercing hiss of a high-pressure air valve being released.

Outside the gate.

Thousands of Martian cyborg Archmagi and high-ranking Servitor guards still surrounded the outer field—some even clutching high-risk long-tube laser punishment devices that had nearly dismantled the battle axe heavy cruiser earlier. All their scanning red-cross eyes instantly locked onto the figure slowly strolling out from the dark, gaping crevice.

They all saw Li Cang's pathetic state, his clothes burned into charred rags by the pressure of high-dimensional psionic energy.

"Incredibly audacious and wicked madman! You have yet to be physically purified by the Holy Light...!"

The warning from the nearest Martian Court of Justice Archbishop, a heavy-defense modified cyborg, rasped halfway out of his electronic throat, sounding like a rusty saw.

Li Cang didn't even lift his head to acknowledge the man's scripted rhetoric.

He backhandedly slammed a heavy metal plate, as large as a shield and etched with high-blood-red and golden dual-rule patterns that could burn through even the highest-limit probes—the [Absolute Authority Death-Exempt Judgment Heavy Metal Plate]—onto the cold marble floor in front of the Archbishop like a piece of junk.

With that!

The alert network, which had been filled with blood-red "dead lines," identified the supreme anti-counterfeit mark of the abyssal, irresistible command etched upon it in less than 0.0001 seconds!

The entire massive encirclement of high-risk heavy artillery, vast as a tide...

...didn't just crash into extreme silence like a sudden mass short-circuit!

The Archmagi Venerables in the inner circle, who had been raising their Lances to liquidate this "ant" just a moment ago, suffered a powerful logic conflict. Their supreme dogmas could not explain how this "sewer mud monster" could return alive while carrying such a token of "Absolute Recognition."

Their proud, elegant, and precision-engineered mechanical cervical vertebrae even emitted the sounds of short-circuiting and snapping as they were forced down in a humiliating and immense reversal of divine punishment!

Tens of thousands of heads followed the movement of the plate, lowering in extreme obedience, as if kneeling!

This was the ultimate display of borrowing authority!

Amidst a chorus of mechanical grinding and distorted welcoming sounds caused by neural spasms and utter disbelief, Li Cang swaggered straight down the main path!

He didn't return to the ship.

The basic cabin of the battle axe heavy cruiser, barely larger than a freighter's, was far too shabby for this deduced hidden map.

Following a map to an extremely secret coordinate forced upon him by the system after obtaining the plate, he led a massive Black Mountain Iron Phalanx—composed of over a hundred tall recruits and thousands of frenzied, heavy-armored Astartes—straight through the grand sacrificial grounds, where everyone was too shocked to utter a word!

Heading directly for the core of Mars' lowest level—the [Lost Ancient Saint Relic Armory Great Forbidden Zone Corridor]!

This was a forbidden "museum" that even the planet's original warlords dared not fully trespass, rumored to be highly susceptible to high-level physical extra-dimensional mutations!

"Lord Grand Inspector... the gate ahead is a massive barrier with seven thousand independent void-computing anti-cracking locks, installed by tens of thousands of generations of our ancestors."

The neutral faction Arch-Speaker, who had been assigned to accompany him, bowed and scraped unwillingly, hoping this gate could preserve at least a shred of the final dignity of their supreme ancestral heritage.

He pointed subserviently at the black gate ahead, which spanned a hundred kilometers underground and was covered in incomprehensible flowing light runes.

"Without a century of ritual analysis, attempting to force it might even trigger the detonation of the core main pillar, causing the heavens to collapse..."

But the old charlatan's bluster, meant to intimidate other advanced civilizations, didn't even last until his final syllable.

Li Cang slammed the supreme imperial decree directly into a smoking iron slot on the Number Fourteen Poison-Equipped dreadnought mech, which had only its left arm remaining and was covered in frantic patch-welds from the previous escape!

This was no gentle, high-tech hacking or infiltration!

With the supreme system's authorization bypassing all interference red lines, this was a legitimate, ultra-violent, physical-bypass keycard!

Number Fourteen let out a resonant roar that caused the entire gargantuan underground bunker to shudder violently!

Its thick, mountain-like black heavy iron pincer alloy arm, which defied all laws of fluid dynamics...

...didn't even need to preheat or accelerate to drill!

Carrying rings of green toxic, berserk, high-kinetic thermal momentum that completely ignored the so-called high-tech void-computing shields...

"BOOM-CRACK-RUMBLE—!"

A single super-heavy punch, utterly devoid of technological refinement or aesthetic grace!

A point-blank, simultaneous volley from eleven rotary cannons, combined with a physical, mountain-splitting, armor-piercing, high-explosive, spear-like heavy strike!

This "divine" runic gate that supposedly required centuries of analysis—the final physical "modesty cloth" of the Martian forbidden zone!

Under the illogical, brute-force demolition of this vulgar, brainlessly violent, heavy-metal tank monster...

...it shattered like a pathetic, thousand-piece sieve of dirty glass!

With the ear-piercing, desperate screech of millions of tons of metal twisting and collapsing, a massive section was brutally kicked and shoved inward, crumbling into the deep, vast interior!

Thick, choking smoke from the shattered gate swirled as electrical sparks danced everywhere.

Before the Martian Archbishops in the back could even react to the sight of their supreme holy site being kicked open like a mud hut...

...their neural logic boards short-circuited and emitted black smoke, causing them to collapse in faints!

Li Cang's dark, emotionless eyes, filled with extreme utilitarian greed...

...peered through the jagged gap and saw what lay beyond the gate—a space so vast it seemed like hundreds of planets stacked together, filled with mountains of densely packed items.

These were relics lost since the Great War period—a repository of red-dotted wreckage maps for super-high-tier armament arrays from the Golden Age, the kind that would make any player in this sector go mad with envy!

This was a massive haul of prime loot that could fully repair and fortify several of Mining Planet No. 3's lower air-defense perimeters!

"I don't care about the principles, I'm not leaving a single piece, and I'm not here for a cultural restoration tour."

Amidst the red light flashing wildly and the ear-piercing yet delightful "ding-ding" sounds of items being collected into his inventory, Li Cang waved his hand violently toward the phalanx of heavy infantry with blood-red, mutated eyes and the swarm of brainless Servitor lackeys!

"Use the maximum amount of violence to tear it all down, drag it out, and stuff every bit of it into the ship's hold!"

"Even if there are high-end locks on them that you damn well can't understand!" Li Cang laughed with extreme brutality. Under this wanton pillaging, all the rigid defenses were like torn paper toys before the absolute violence of his system privileges. "Rip out the locks and the foundations! Take everything, even the dust! Bring it back to be smashed and smelted!"

But just as this chaotic, ant-like, brute-force looting was reaching its peak...

At the very bottom of the control radar... not a blueprint, nor a green bar indicating system recycling points...

...but something revealed as the physical isolation field vanished with the gate's destruction.

In the deepest, darkest part of the mountain sat a mountain-sized [Remnant of a Malicious Men of Iron Transformed Monster from the Abandoned Epoch of Great Darkness]. It was large enough to easily swallow the toxic Number Fourteen whole. Its surface lacked high-end conduits, instead bristling with what looked like mountains of corpses and living blood, filled with the ear-piercing, neural-noise whispers of the Four Chaos Gods.

Stimulated by the greedy noise of the demolition and the aura of absolute privilege...

...beneath the core of this pile of dormant junk!

Abruptly, and in defiance of all logic—without triggering any system alarms—a pair of crimson cyclopean eyes filled with supreme, mutated malice and violence snapped open in the abyss, their gaze causing the radar screen to dry up and sprout bloody bubbles of corrupted code!

While Li Cang was in a vulnerable rear position, having barely finished looting one corner, the creature unscientifically forced itself awake, its eyes snapping open to glare and lock onto him; it reached out with a long arm like a net, carrying an irresistible, heaven-crushing rule.