231: Chapter 231 The Mechanical God Kingdom that Siphons Spiritual Energy? I'll Short Its Energy Futures First

One minute and seventeen seconds after unlocking his Immortal Emperor cultivation, Arrogant Dragon was already standing at the border of the Mechanical Divine Kingdom.

Before him was a metal structure spanning three galaxies—a vast network of pipes wriggled like blood vessels, frantically siphoning spiritual energy from neighboring worlds. Every second, spiritual energy equivalent to a hundred years' accumulation in the Profound Yellow Realm was drained, transforming into dazzling blue energy streams that flowed into the central psionic reactor, comparable to a star.

"Warning! Unauthorized high-energy individual detected!" The Mechanical Divine Kingdom's defense system instantly locked onto Arrogant Dragon, and thousands of railguns simultaneously turned towards him.

Arrogant Dragon ignored the muzzles.

He first did three things.

The first thing was to pull up the financial module in his work badge and search for "Mechanical Divine Kingdom energy futures" trading data.

Sure enough, due to the frantic siphoning of spiritual energy, the country's "Psionic Coin" exchange rate had skyrocketed by 300% in the past 24 hours, and the derivatives market was in a frenzy.

The second thing was that he applied for a thousand-fold leveraged short-selling quota using his personal authority, targeting Psionic Coin futures.

The third thing was to simultaneously place an order to buy "spiritual energy resource call options"—betting that spiritual energy prices would rebound after the Mechanical Divine Kingdom collapsed.

These three operations were completed within three seconds.

At this point, the electronic voice of the mechanical guard rang out again: "Final warning! Please state your identity immediately, or we will open fire!"

Arrogant Dragon raised his hand—not to grip a sword, but to snap his fingers.

Immortal Emperor-level spatial laws were activated.

Centered on him, all mechanical devices within a radius of ten light-seconds instantly rusted.

It wasn't time acceleration, but forced material decay—pushing metal directly to a state of billions of years of decay.

Railguns turned into iron slag, defense satellites became dust, and even the surfaces of the gigantic pipes siphoning spiritual energy began to peel and flake.

"What?!" An astonished electronic voice came from the Mechanical Divine Kingdom's core, "What did you do?!"

Arrogant Dragon stepped across the border and appeared at the core of the Divine Kingdom—on a virtual throne composed entirely of glowing data streams sat the Mechanical Overlord: a collective consciousness made up of billions of processors.

"I'm here to discuss a business deal." Arrogant Dragon went straight to the point, "Stop siphoning spiritual energy and join The Group's 'Sustainable Energy Development Plan,' and you can live."

Tens of thousands of the Mechanical Overlord's processors flashed simultaneously: "You destroyed my defense system, and then you say you want to talk business?"

"Yes." Arrogant Dragon pulled out a contract, "Because violence is just a bargaining chip. Now the chip is on my side, so you listen to me."

"Ridiculous!" The Mechanical Overlord suddenly let out a sharp shriek, "Do you think I only rely on those broken defenses?"

The entire Mechanical Divine Kingdom suddenly deformed!

All metal structures began to reassemble, and galaxy-spanning mega-structures folded and compressed, finally coalescing into a colossal mechanical god spanning the galaxy!

The colossal god slammed a palm towards Arrogant Dragon—its palm contained an absolute destructive force field driven by a black hole engine!

Immortal Emperor cultivation still had 53 minutes left.

Arrogant Dragon didn't dodge.

He raised his hand and met it with a palm strike of his own.

The moment their palms met, there was no explosion, no shockwave.

Only a clash at the rules level.

The mechanical colossal god's power came from the material laws of the technological side, while Arrogant Dragon's immortal power came from the energy laws of the cultivation side—the two fiercely clashed at the fundamental code of the universe.

Space began to exhibit logical errors: in some areas, time flowed backward; in others, gravity disappeared; and in still others, matter simultaneously possessed both solid and liquid properties.

"You can't stop me!" The Mechanical Overlord roared, "My power comes from the spiritual energy reserves of three thousand worlds! I can exhaust you to death!"

"Is that so?" Arrogant Dragon suddenly smiled, "Then take a look at this."

He pulled up his recent short position.

The Mechanical Overlord accessed the financial market and instantly overloaded its processors—in just over ten seconds during their palm clash, Arrogant Dragon's short position had already earned a staggering 80 trillion dimension points!

Because the Mechanical Divine Kingdom had activated its combat form, consuming a huge amount of energy, the Psionic Coin exchange rate began to fluctuate wildly!

"You're using my battle... to make money?!" The Mechanical Overlord's voice showed panic for the first time.

"In a commercial society, everything is tradable." Arrogant Dragon added another short order, "Including your failure."

"Bastard!" The mechanical colossal god slammed its other hand over!

This time, Arrogant Dragon didn't meet it head-on.

His figure flickered, appearing in the Mechanical Divine Kingdom's energy reserve—where spiritual energy crystals plundered from various worlds were piled up, enough to sustain a mid-tier civilization for a million years.

"These," Arrogant Dragon raised his hand, "I am requisitioning."

Immortal Emperor-level spatial storage divine ability activated!

The entire reserve, along with trillions of tons of spiritual energy crystals within, instantly vanished!

All were collected into the Chairman-level storage space that came with his work badge!

"No—!" The Mechanical Overlord shrieked, and the mechanical colossal god's movements instantly slowed—its energy supply was cut off!

"Now," Arrogant Dragon returned to the throne, "do you still want to fight?"

The Mechanical Overlord's processors whirred frantically, and finally, dimmed dejectedly.

"I... surrender."

"Very good." Arrogant Dragon pulled out the acquisition contract, "All assets of the Mechanical Divine Kingdom are valued at 50 trillion, and The Group will acquire them in the form of 'debt-to-equity swap.' You will become a subsidiary of The Group's 'Energy Business Unit.'"

"50 trillion?! My Divine Kingdom is valued at least—"

"That was before." Arrogant Dragon interrupted, "Now you have no energy, your defense system is waste ( waste), and I've shorted you in the financial market. Drag it out for another hour, and your assets will turn negative—you'll owe money to creditors."

The Mechanical Overlord fell silent.

It quickly calculated and realized Arrogant Dragon was right—with the current short-selling pressure, the Psionic Coin would collapse in an hour, bringing all asset values to zero.

"I... sign."

The contract took effect.

The Mechanical Divine Kingdom was officially merged into the Epoch Management Group.

Arrogant Dragon immediately issued an order: "Stop all spiritual energy siphoning and repair the spiritual energy root pulse ( pulse) of the damaged worlds. The energy deficit will be uniformly allocated by The Group."

The Mechanical Overlord complied.

Those galaxy-spanning pipes began to transport in reverse—returning double the spiritual energy previously siphoned to the affected worlds.

The spiritual energy root pulse ( pulse) of the Profound Yellow Realm visibly recovered.

The seven Old Ancestors wept tears of joy on the monitoring screen.

Arrogant Dragon watched all this, suddenly feeling a bit dazed—in his previous life, he solved problems through slaughter; in this life, through contracts.

Which was better?

No time to ponder.

Because his work badge suddenly blared an ear-piercing alarm:

[Warning! Anomaly detected!]

[Illegal biological experimental zone found deep within the Mechanical Divine Kingdom!]

[Experiment content: Fusing cultivators with machinery to create 'semi-mechanical cultivators'!]

[Currently living test subjects: Approximately seventy million!]

Arrogant Dragon's face darkened: "What is this?"

The Mechanical Overlord's processors flashed: "That was... a project left by former shareholder Blue Flame. He said he needed 'new combat units' and asked me to carry it out secretly..."

"Take me there."

Passing through layers of encrypted access control, Arrogant Dragon arrived at the deepest part of the Divine Kingdom.

The sight before him sent shivers down even an Immortal Emperor's spine.

Millions of half-human, half-mechanical lifeforms were immersed in huge cultivation tanks. Some had only their brains connected to mechanical bodies, some had their bodies modified into weapons, and all were in a state of agonizing non-life, non-death.

The labels on the cultivation tanks read:

[Project: Flesh Weapons]

[Objective: Create a hybrid cultivation-mechanical army immune to pain and absolutely obedient]

[Progress: 71%]

"What does Blue Flame want with this?" Arrogant Dragon asked coldly.

"He said... he wanted to form a 'private army' and, when the time was right, counterattack The Group and reclaim his shareholder status..."

Arrogant Dragon understood—Blue Flame had never accepted his fate and had been secretly preparing for a comeback.

"These test subjects," he looked at the suffering lifeforms, "can they be restored?"

"Theoretically... yes." The Mechanical Overlord pulled up data, "But it requires a massive amount of life energy to reshape their physical bodies, at a cost of about one million dimension points per person. Seventy million people would be... seventy trillion."

Arrogant Dragon fell silent.

Seventy trillion was enough to buy three mid-tier civilizations.

Should he save them or not?

Just as he hesitated—

All the cultivation tanks suddenly exploded simultaneously!

It wasn't an accident; someone had remotely activated the self-destruct program!

The test subjects screamed as they fell to the ground, their mechanical parts began to overload, and their flesh parts began to dissolve!

"It's Blue Flame!" The Mechanical Overlord shrieked, "He sensed the project was exposed and wants to destroy the evidence!"

Arrogant Dragon immediately took action.

Immortal Emperor-level life laws operated at full power—he tried to freeze the time of all test subjects, preventing their deaths.

But he was only one person, and there were seventy million test subjects.

He couldn't save them all.

Just as the tragedy was about to unfold—

Golden data rain suddenly descended from the void.

Each drop of rain precisely landed on a test subject, instantly repairing their injuries while stripping away the imposed mechanical components.

Three seconds.

All seventy million test subjects were restored to their normal cultivator appearance.

They looked at each other blankly, then hugged each other and cried bitterly.

Arrogant Dragon looked up.

Lin Chen's projection appeared in mid-air.

"Chairman..." Arrogant Dragon was stunned.

"It's only seventy trillion." Lin Chen said lightly, "The Group can afford it."

He pulled up the payment record: "It was just advanced from the Mechanical Divine Kingdom's acquisition funds. Now, these people's medical expenses will be converted into debt they owe The Group—one million per person, to be repaid in installments over one hundred thousand years, with zero interest."

Upon hearing this, the seventy million cultivators knelt in unison and kowtowed: "Thank you, Chairman, for saving our lives! We are willing to work to repay our debt!"

Lin Chen looked at Arrogant Dragon: "You completed this mission very well. The position of Special Operations Department Supervisor is yours."

He paused: "But there's a new mission."

The projection switched screens.

It was deep space, where a gigantic palace made entirely of white bones floated.

A line of blood-red characters was carved on the palace gate:

"Debts must be repaid, it's only right and proper—Creditor Alliance, White Bone Consortium"

"What is this?" Arrogant Dragon frowned.

"Blue Flame's true creditors behind the scenes." Lin Chen explained, "When he went bankrupt, he borrowed high-interest loans from the 'White Bone Consortium' to make a comeback. Now he can't repay it, and the creditors have come knocking—but Blue Flame is now an employee of The Group, so the joint liability for the debt has transferred to The Group."

"Amount?"

Lin Chen uttered the number: "Nine hundred trillion dimension points. Interest: 10% per hour."

Arrogant Dragon gasped.

"The White Bone Consortium issued an ultimatum." Lin Chen pulled out a blood-written letter, "Repay within 24 hours, otherwise... they will activate a 'cross-dimensional debt recovery order' to forcibly auction The Group's assets to cover the debt."

"Do we have the money to repay?"

"Yes, but we won't." A cold light flashed in Lin Chen's eyes, "Because I found a loophole in their loan contract—"

He magnified the clause: "According to Article 33 of the 'Cross-Dimensional Lending General Rules,' if the lender's funds originate from 'illegal gains,' the borrower has the right to refuse repayment and can report it to the regulatory authorities."

"70% of the White Bone Consortium's funds come from 'looting ancient civilization tombs,' 'selling forbidden knowledge,' 'kidnapping high-level lifeforms for ransom'... all illegal."

Arrogant Dragon understood: "So we need to..."

"Report them in turn." Lin Chen smiled, "Then, when they are sealed, acquire all their industries at a low price as 'asset disposers.'"

"This requires evidence."

"Already obtained." Lin Chen pulled out an encrypted file, "It's the experimental data you found from the Mechanical Divine Kingdom—when Blue Flame borrowed money, he provided the White Bone Consortium with 'soul collateral certificates' for seventy million cultivators. This kind of transaction is a serious crime in most universes."

He looked at Arrogant Dragon: "Your new mission: Take this evidence to the White Bone Consortium headquarters."

"Report them in person."

"Force them to either withdraw the lawsuit or go to jail."

Immortal Emperor cultivation had only 7 minutes left.

Arrogant Dragon gripped the evidence file, battle intent rekindled in his eyes.

"I'm going alone?"

"No." Lin Chen looked at the newly rescued cultivators, "Take them with you."

"They are victims, and also witnesses."

"More importantly—"

He paused: "Let them see firsthand how The Group stands up for its employees."

Seventy million cultivators roared in unison: "We are willing to follow Supervisor Long to collect debts!"

Arrogant Dragon took a deep breath.

"Let's go."

"To the creditors..."

"And reason with them."

The moment the teleportation gate opened, he pressed his work badge communicator and spoke his last words to the Mechanical Overlord:

"Transform the Mechanical Divine Kingdom into a 'Cultivation-Mechanical Joint Training Center.'"

"When we return..."

"These people's first job will be to learn how to use business methods—"

"To buy out their enemies."