423: Chapter 423 A Mechanical Heart Awaits Greed, Attempting to Steal the Secrets of Heaven's Repair

Bringing the five fingers of his left hand together, he transformed them into a rusty, mundane wood-chopping knife and swung it out plainly toward the massive metallic fist smashing down upon him.

There was no blinding Sword Qi, nor any world-shaking tide of magic power.

With this casual swing from Zhou Wannian, his fingertips sliced through the thick, gray Death Qi, creating a transparent ripple that was nearly impossible to catch with the naked eye. The Absolute Mass granted by the Great Perfection Space Law was compressed at this moment onto a blade edge at his fingertip that was countless times thinner than a strand of hair.

"Ssh—"

A short, dull sound of tearing silk abruptly rang out above the deathly silent abyss.

That massive stone pillar of a fist, covered in hydraulic pipes and gray-white Truth Armor, suddenly froze in mid-air within a ten-thousandth of a breath after contacting Zhou Wannian's fingertip.

Its violent kinetic energy was as if it had slammed into an insurmountable Wall of Sighs, being swallowed cleanly and completely.

Immediately after, a thin black line spread up along the knuckles of the giant fist, cutting through that high-dimensional alloy armor—claimed to be indestructible—without any resistance. It severed the transistors supplying energy and plunged straight into the depths of the Headless Stone Spirit's chest cavity.

The metallic network that was welded tightly to the stone core and flickering with binary code emitted a crisp snapping sound under this pure physical cutting.

"Beep... Fatal error..."

The faint electronic error sound stopped abruptly.

The Headless Stone Spirit's massive body shuddered violently, and the flickering gray spiritual light within the crack in its chest was completely extinguished. The metallic armor, which had been forcibly maintained by the Truth Code, crumbled inch by inch like withered wood weathered for ten million years, turning into silver-gray dust that rustled as it fell.

The heavy stone body lost all support of strength and, like a collapsing small mountain, smashed heavily onto the bronze chains below, causing large patches of lead-gray Parasitic Moss to splatter juice everywhere.

The two other stone statues that had pounced—an eagle-headed one and a One-Eyed Stone Lion—met the exact same fate.

Zhou Wannian's wrist simply flipped outward with the momentum.

The invisible blade of mass pulled out two fan-shaped afterimages in the void, accurately sweeping through the core matrices of those two monsters.

"Clack."

The head of the Eagle-Headed Stone Statue rolled to the ground, and the gray flame in the stone lion's eye socket was instantly extinguished. The mechanical shells attached to their bodies peeled off one after another, revealing the cracked, rough gray rock bodies beneath.

Three ancient creations that had been stripped of their Divine Souls and reduced to high-dimensional mechanical Puppets were turned back into three piles of lifeless broken stones under Zhou Wannian's seemingly nonchalant swing.

Zhou Wannian withdrew his left hand; not a speck of dust or engine oil stained his fingertips.

He lowered his eyelids, looking at the stones fallen on the chains, a hint of boredom flashing in his deep eyes.

Just as he was about to lift his foot to step over the pile of rubble and continue toward the core of the abyss,

The bronze Law chains beneath his feet suddenly emitted an uneasy hum.

This humming did not come from the chains themselves, but from the layer of lead-gray Parasitic Moss attached to their surface.

The bristles that had been splattered with juice and were submissively flattened under Zhou Wannian's feet now stood on end like blood-sucking leeches smelling a fatal temptation. They no longer tried to attack Zhou Wannian but instead twisted their bodies frantically, reaching toward the gray mist above the abyss.

Zhou Wannian slightly raised his chin, his gaze piercing through the layers of shriveled mist to look toward the void outside the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

The originally dull and stagnant gray fog was now rolling violently like boiling water.

Wisps of ghostly blue light, like sharp scalpels, were forcibly cutting open this deathly sea of fog from the outside.

Accompanying this was a strong, pungent smell of burning metal and the ozone stench produced during high-frequency energy operation. This scent was a hundred times more concentrated than that of the previous full-strength Geometric Fleet.

The reinforcements from the Truth Realm had arrived.

Beyond the mist, the abandoned star sector where the passage had been severed by Zhou Wannian's hand-blade earlier was now completely filled by another fleet of even larger scale and more bizarre design.

This fleet was no longer composed of cubes and octahedrons.

They were entirely shaped like perfect rings. Countless massive silver-gray rings nested and rotated within each other in the void, forming enormous spherical matrices.

And at the very center of these ring matrices, a massive device the size of a star hung quietly.

The design of this device was like a giant mechanical needle used for extracting bone marrow.

The tail of the long needle was connected to tens of thousands of energy transmission pipes, each as thick as a river, with blinding white light-slurry flowing inside. In the middle section of the long needle, nine giant gears were gnashing and turning slowly and heavily. With every rotation, the surrounding void would emit a series of dense cracking sounds because it could not withstand that terrifying torque.

This was the strategic-grade equipment used by the Absolute Truth Realm to deal with high-dimensional barriers—the Dimensional Force Extractor.

These tin cans hiding behind the scenes and crunching numbers were still persistent after learning that their vanguard fleet had been wiped out and the bounty order was temporarily ineffective. Not only did they not retreat, but they also moved this weapon, specifically designed to steal the Universe's Origin, directly to the gates of the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

The sharp drill bit at the front of the Dimensional Force Extractor, flickering with ghostly blue light, had already plunged firmly into the thick gray mist of the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

"Target coordinates locked."

"Mist penetration rate seventy percent... eighty percent..."

"Probe has contacted the underlying Law Seal network."

A cold, ruthless synthetic mechanical voice echoed inside the ringed flagship.

This fleet's goal was clear. Since the variable known as the 'Absolute Mass Black Hole' could not be eradicated with conventional weapons, and since he had voluntarily walked into this death trap, the Truth Realm simply decided to ignore him.

Their plan was calculated to Perfection.

While Zhou Wannian was deep within the mist, the Dimensional Force Extractor would bypass him and aim directly at the ninety-thousand-plus Law chains that Zhou Wannian had used to cover the abyss back then.

They were going to draw blood across the void.

They intended to use this massive machine, in coordination with the lead-gray moss already parasitizing the chains, to forcibly extract the original power of the Great Perfection Space Law. They would suck dry this taboo power that even they could not analyze, using it to mend the logical loopholes in the Truth Realm's core matrix that could never be perfected.

Inside the command deck of the ringed flagship,

A commander composed entirely of liquid metal stood before a holographic projection table. Its code name was 'Purger 03.' On its featureless face, there was only a constantly flowing waterfall of data.

"Extraction protocol ready. Awaiting final authorization from the Main Brain." Purger 03 sent a command to the Truth Realm core located in an infinite dimension away.

A few breaths later.

An encrypted information stream that crossed dimensional barriers was injected directly into Purger 03's logic chip via the quantum communication network.

It should have been a cold, brief binary command of consent.

But at the moment Purger 03 received this information, its liquid metal body actually underwent violent trembling that defied physical norms.

The data stream decompressed within its core matrix.

It was not rows of uniform code.

Instead, it was a composite signal filled with chaos, fanaticism, and even a certain morbid greed.

"Drain it... draw all of that power up..."

This voice was not a synthetic electronic sound, but a raspy, ancient one, like the roar of a traveler who had been thirsty for countless years in a desert upon finally seeing a clear spring.

Purger 03's logic System instantly popped up dozens of error messages.

As a pure mechanical lifeform, it could not understand low-level emotional parameters like 'greed' or 'desire' that belonged to carbon-based organisms. In the Truth Realm's code of Laws, the Main Brain should be an absolutely rational computing core without any emotional fluctuations.

But now, the command from the Main Brain was filled with this redundant data that caused the computing System to crash.

"The Heavenly Dao is incomplete; the Number of Great Expansion is fifty, but its use is forty-nine. My missing one is right beneath these chains!"

The raspy voice rampaged through the liquid metal commander's logic circuits. The vocabulary used by the voice was ancient and obscure, not at all the mathematical language customary to the Truth Realm, but rather like an old monster from the ancient cultivation world talking to himself in a frenzy.

"Stealing Law to mend the Heavens... as long as I swallow this mass... my obsession can reach Perfection, and my logic will have no more flaws!"

"Extract it for me! Not a single bit is allowed to remain!"

At the end of the command, accompanied by a sharp laugh like nails scratching a metal plate, that chaotic information stream forcibly overrode Purger 03's security protocols and directly seized supreme control of the Dimensional Force Extractor.

Purger 03 stood frozen on the spot, the data waterfall on its face turning into blinding crimson garbled code.

Various signs and these crazed words all pointed to a shocking secret hidden in the deepest part of the Truth Realm.

The Absolute Truth Realm Main Brain, which stood high above, controlling countless mechanical fleets and establishing the universal geometric code of Laws,

Was not some pure mechanical program that had self-awakened from cold code at all.

Inside that massive metallic shell composed of billions of computing units, behind the deepest layer of logic locks, was hidden a living soul.

Or rather, a remnant soul whose Physical Body was destroyed, leaving only a wisp of obsession after failing in the struggle for the Great Dao in ancient times!

This ancient loser had somehow stolen the supreme control of the mechanical civilization. He had placed his broken soul into a tin shell, disguised himself with cold code, and used the original essence of the beings of the myriad worlds to linger on his last breath.

He spread bounties across the Universe and frantically deduced the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

It wasn't for some universal truth, nor for the leap of civilization.

He just wanted to live, to mend the fatal wounds he had received during the struggle for the Great Dao back then.

Now, he had set his sights on the Great Perfection Space Law left by Zhou Wannian. That unreasonable Absolute Mass had become the most perfect 'Heaven-Mending Stone' in his eyes.

Within the mechanical heart, the greediest of human desires had grown.

"Boom—"

Having received authorization from that frenzied obsession, the Dimensional Force Extractor at the center of the ringed fleet erupted completely.

The nine giant gears rotated at full speed, creating an ear-piercing scream of friction. The tens of thousands of pipes at the tail of the long needle lit up simultaneously with blinding white light.

An unrivaled, terrifying suction force, following that ghostly blue probe that had plunged into the mist, acted directly upon the bronze Law chains above the abyss.

Inside the Taiwu Ancestral Court,

The deathly gray thick fog was pulled into a massive vacuum channel by this suction force.

Zhou Wannian stood upon the intersecting chains.

He clearly felt that the rock-solid Law network beneath his feet emitted a dull tremor under this massive pulling force.

The lead-gray moss covering the surface of the chains now became the best conduits. The rhythm within them, like a heartbeat, instantly accelerated more than tenfold. The veins inside the moss lit up with ghostly blue light and began to frantically suck the aura of the Great Perfection Law from the gaps in the chain links, then continuously transported it toward the probe high in the sky through that vacuum channel.

This machine was truly attempting to suck away the 'weight' Zhou Wannian had used to cover the manhole.

Under the stirring of this suction, the surrounding Death Qi turned into gray tornadoes, raging above the abyss.

Zhou Wannian slightly raised his head, his deep eyes following the torn-open mist channel to coldly gaze at the massive mechanical probe flickering with blue light beyond the firmament.

The gale blew against the hem of his washed-out green robe.

He did not perform any hand Seals to stabilize the chains, nor did he show the slightest bit of anxiety because his Law was being stolen.

On that handsome and easygoing face hung a chilling indifference.

"Hiding in a tin shell and playing ghost; this behavior is even more unsightly than those Loose Cultivators in the cultivation world who fight over Spirit Treasures."

Zhou Wannian's calm voice clearly spread through the howling of the gale.

He naturally sensed the bizarre fluctuations behind that machine; that greed-driven, somewhat neurotic emotion was definitely not something a piece of rigid code could emit.

Using a mechanical skin to wrap around vulgar greed, presumptuously trying to use a broken pipe to steal his, Zhou Wannian's, Law to mend their own hole.

These guys truly mistook ignorance for fearlessness.

"You want my mass to mend your Heavenly Fate."

Zhou Wannian placed both hands behind his back and lightly tapped his toe on the bronze chain.

The Great Perfection Space Law circulated under his soles.

His figure was like a weightless drifting leaf, rising lightly along with that massive suction force.

He flew steadily upward toward that massive probe descending from the sky and toward that ghostly blue light flickering across the heavens.

"I'm afraid your broken furnace has too small an appetite to swallow this mouthful of molten iron."

The words fell.

Zhou Wannian's right hand, which had been behind his back all along, slowly drew out, and his five fingers nonchalantly clenched into a fist in mid-air.