184: Chapter 184: The people of the Annihilation Cult are out of their minds.

Outside the base's perimeter walls, the disciples of the Nirvana Sect were still charging crazily.

These guys were truly not quite right in the head. Some wore tattered black robes, while others were simply bare-chested, their bodies covered in blood-red runes. They didn't fly on swords, nor did they use spells for cover; they just charged forward with red eyes, waving bone clubs or rusty longswords in their hands, shouting "Nirvana is eternal" as they rushed ahead.

Jiang Ning watched the surveillance in the Command Center, shaking her head incessantly.

"Have these people been brainwashed?" Jiang Ning asked Manager Qian beside her. "Do they think they can smash through our spiritual energy shield with their flesh and blood?"

Manager Qian's face was a bit pale. Although he was at the Nascent Soul Stage, this kind of suicide charge still made his heart race with fear.

"Consultant Jiang, the Nirvana Sect emphasizes 'sacrificing the body to attain the Dao.' They believe the body is merely a cage and that death is the only liberation. That's why they never care about their lives in battle; they only care about whether they can cause trouble for the enemy."

"That's not called sacrificing the body to attain the Dao; that's called mass suicide." Jiang Ning gave a cold snort. "Company Commander Zhang, stop wasting bullets. Use the microwave dispersers. Just drive them away; I don't want to dirty the place by killing too many of them."

"Yes!"

Several silver pillars around the perimeter of the base suddenly lit up, emitting a high-frequency wave invisible to the naked eye.

Those disciples charging at the very front suddenly hit an invisible wall, collapsing to the ground one by one while clutching their heads and screaming. The microwaves acted directly on their nervous systems, creating the hallucination of being consumed by raging fire.

"Ah! My head!"

"Demons! This is the work of demons!"

The originally fanatical charge instantly descended into chaos. The disciples rolled on the ground, and those behind them tried to rush forward, but were blocked by the people in front.

Watching this scene, Jiang Ning felt not a shred of pity. These people would even destroy the world for their so-called doctrine; they were not worth sympathizing with at all.

Just then, a different figure appeared on the surveillance screen.

A tall figure in a black robe, holding a white bone staff, was slowly walking toward the base. With every step he took, the ground beneath his feet would crack, releasing wisps of black energy.

"An elder of the Nirvana Sect." Manager Qian exclaimed. "That is Old Man Kumu, at the peak of the Gold Core Late Stage. It is said he refined a piece of root from an ancient demonic tree, and his magic power is extremely bizarre."

Jiang Ning narrowed her eyes, watching the old man on the screen.

Old Man Kumu stopped at the edge of the microwave disperser's range. He raised his staff and slammed it heavily onto the ground.

"Begone!"

With a muffled thud, a black ripple spread out from him as the center, actually forcibly neutralizing the effect of the microwaves. The disciples who had collapsed on the ground scrambled up one after another, their eyes filled with fanaticism as they looked at him.

"Heretics, you dare to break ground in the Holy Land and blaspheme the gods! You shall fall into the abyss forever!" Old Man Kumu's voice sounded like nails scratching across glass, harsh and unpleasant.

Jiang Ning grabbed the microphone, and her voice broadcast across the entire field through the base's loudspeakers.

"Old man, stop with that mumbo jumbo. Holy Land or whatever, this is the Pillar of the World, the foundation that maintains the operation of this world. You want it to collapse so we all finish together? That's you being crazy. We're repairing it; that's saving lives. If you know what's good for you, get lost immediately and don't delay our construction schedule here."

Old Man Kumu sneered: "Saving lives? This world has long since rotted; destruction is the only rebirth. You ants, clinging to the mortal world, simply do not understand the true meaning of the Dao."

"Alright, alright, don't talk to me about these philosophical questions." Jiang Ning was somewhat impatient. "I only know that whoever stands in my way of working, I'll let them 'be reborn' first. Company Commander Zhang, lock onto that guy with the stick and fire a spiritual energy shock cannon at him to help him cool off."

"Target locked! Spiritual energy shock cannon, fire!"

A heavy artillery piece on top of the base jolted violently, and a thick blue beam of light instantly tore through the air, blasting directly at Old Man Kumu.

Old Man Kumu's expression changed; he clearly hadn't expected such terrifying energy to come from this hunk of iron. He hurriedly waved his staff, and countless black vines emerged from the ground, weaving into a giant shield in front of him.

"Boom!"

The beam of light struck the vine shield, kicking up a sky full of dust and smoke.

When the dust settled, although Old Man Kumu wasn't injured, the staff he was so proud of had actually snapped in half, and he himself had been knocked back several dozen meters, his arrogance instantly replaced by terror.

"This... what kind of magical artifact is this? It actually has no spiritual power fluctuation?" Old Man Kumu began to question reality.

Watching his ghostly expression on the monitor, Jiang Ning felt secretly pleased. The suppression brought about by this information gap was just too satisfying.

"How about it, old man? Calmed down yet?" Jiang Ning's voice sounded again. "That was just our standard defensive measure. If you don't leave now, the next shot won't be a shock cannon, but an armor-piercing shell."

Old Man Kumu gritted his teeth, looking at the cold cannon muzzles of the base. Although he hated them to death, he knew he wouldn't get the upper hand today.

"You just wait! The Sect Leader will not let you off!"

After saying this, he flicked his sleeves and retreated behind the mountain in disgrace with his remnants of defeated troops.

"Consultant Jiang, are we just letting them go like that?" Company Commander Zhang asked.

"What else can we do? Our task right now is to repair the pillar, not to suppress bandits." Jiang Ning turned around and looked at the core model on the screen. "They will definitely come back, and next time, it will probably be someone at the Nascent Soul Stage. We need to speed up our progress. Manager Qian, has the material been unloaded?"

"It's all unloaded; we can start work at any time." Manager Qian answered quickly.

"Good." Jiang Ning's eyes narrowed. "Order drilling robots one through ten to begin descending. I want to see the first spirit-suppressing stake driven in before dark!"

Following Jiang Ning's order, the ground in the center of the base slowly split open, revealing ten massive drilling machines, each three stories tall. These machines were silvery-white all over, and their huge drill bits were forged from top-tier meteoritic iron, covered in complex reinforcement arrays.

"Hum—"

A dull roar sounded as the drill bits began to rotate at high speed, kicking up sparks as they bored directly into the hard rock.

Jiang Ning stared at the depth data continuously descending on the screen, calculating silently in her mind.

This first step was the hardest. As long as she could drive the spirit-suppressing stake in and stabilize the surrounding spiritual energy field, the subsequent work would be easier to carry out.

But she also knew that the bunch of lunatics from the Nirvana Sect would absolutely not just give up like this. The real test was still waiting for her underground.