187: Chapter 187: You understand destruction, I understand construction
Deep within the earth's core, golden light and black smoke collided.
There was no explosion, only a dead silence, as if the sound had been swallowed by something. Immediately after, the entire world let out a tearing roar, vibrations surged from beneath the ground, and the forbidden zone shook as if it were about to fall apart.
Jiang Ning gripped the cold console tightly, veins bulging on the back of her hands. The energy surge was too fierce; she felt as if her meridians were about to burst, the pain piercing her to the core.
She knew very well that she was merely an energy "plumber." However, that massive volume of spiritual energy howling through her exerted a pressure so great it nearly tore her soul apart.
"Consultant Jiang, the energy output has hit the ceiling! If this continues, the base will burn up!"
Company Commander Zhang shouted, drenched in sweat, his military uniform soaked through. Behind him, red lights on several computers flashed frantically, and smoke was already rising from the casings.
"Hold on! Just a little bit more!" Jiang Ning gritted her teeth, her eyes bloodshot, staring fixedly at the model of the Pillar of the World on the screen.
On the model, the previously dim runes lit up one after another. Golden patterns crawled over the cracks, forcibly pushing back the black-red "blood" that had seeped in.
At that moment, the golden light on the screen suddenly contracted and vanished completely.
Immediately after, a massive black shadow emerged in front of the stone pillar.
The shadow was terrifyingly tall, standing between heaven and earth, propping up the entire core. He wore strange, ancient black imperial robes embroidered with ghosts. A bone mask covered his face, revealing only a pair of eyes burning with green fire.
As soon as he appeared, the violent spiritual energy storm around him stopped instantly; everything went still.
"Jiang Ning, you have indeed surprised me."
The Cult Master of Annihilation's voice rang out directly in the air. Each word was like a hammer, striking everyone in the base until they were dizzy and their throats tasted of blood.
"Surprised? The real surprise is still to come," Jiang Ning sneered, though she felt incredibly hollow inside.
This was the True Dharma Idol of the Cult Master of Annihilation! Although it was just a shadow, the pressure—far exceeding the Nascent Soul Great Circle and nearing the threshold of the Spirit Severing stage—made her feel as if she were being crushed by a mountain, unable to breathe.
"Do you think that by relying on the messy spiritual energy of these mortals, you can repair this ancient divine artifact?"
The Cult Master of Annihilation raised his massive hand of black mist and, from a great distance, lightly flicked it toward the spirit-suppressing stakes on the surface.
His movement was as casual as flicking away a speck of dust.
A crisp snapping sound echoed through the control room.
On the screen, a spirit-suppressing stake capable of withstanding the fierce attacks of Nascent Soul cultivators snapped cleanly in half. The top half crashed to the ground, blasting a large crater.
In front of him, that thing was as fragile as a toothpick.
Jiang Ning's heart sank to the bottom.
It's over.
The gap in power was too vast; they weren't even in the same league. This wasn't something that technology or energy could compensate for; it was a total suppression of levels.
"I have guarded this Pillar of the World for three thousand years, just waiting for the day it completely collapses."
The Cult Master of Annihilation slowly walked toward the stone pillar. With every step he took, the entire core of the earth trembled.
"That will be the beginning of a new era, true eternity. You, an outsider, simply do not understand the beauty of destruction."
"Beauty my foot!" The anger and fear Jiang Ning had accumulated exploded all at once as she cursed, "You're just a pervert! If you want to die, go find a rope and hang yourself. What kind of skill is it to drag the whole world down with you?"
She suddenly turned and roared at Company Commander Zhang, "Activate the 'Spiritual Energy Railgun'! Lock onto that big guy and blast him to death!"
Company Commander Zhang's face instantly turned pale. "Consultant Jiang, that's our last bit of energy! If this shot misses, we'll have no way left to defend!"
"If we don't shoot, we die now! Fire!" Jiang Ning's roar carried a desperate ferocity.
Above Tianxuan City, the ultimate weapon suspended in the clouds lit up its barrel with a destructive white light.
This was the trump card Jiang Ning had cobbled together using Earth's top theories and the best spirit stones in the cultivation world.
A thin white line descended from the sky, so bright that the entire world turned white.
It silently pierced through the atmosphere, through the rock layers, and through the distorted force field of the forbidden zone, accurately striking the massive black shadow deep within the earth's core.
An unprecedented annihilation erupted deep within the core.
Everywhere the white light reached, everything was decomposed into the most primitive dregs.
"Roar—!"
The Cult Master of Annihilation let out an angry roar. A large hole was blasted through his massive figure by the white light, and more than half of the surrounding black smoke was evaporated.
"Ant! How dare you wound my Dharma Idol!"
He was completely enraged.
For the first time, those green fires flickered violently.
His pierced body quickly closed up, and he slammed his hands together in front of his chest.
"Annihilation Grand Array, rise!"
With his command, the black-red substances that had been suppressed by the golden light suddenly erupted frantically from the deepest part of the core.
This time it wasn't seepage; it was an explosion!
Countless vengeful spirits screamed as they crawled out of the black-red mist. Carrying a deep-seated hatred for the living, they turned into a black tide, biting and tearing at the golden runes on the Pillar of the World like mad.
The stone pillar began to shake violently again. The cracks that had just been suppressed didn't heal; instead, they were eroded even wider and deeper!
"Consultant Jiang, it's no good! The Spiritual Energy Network is overloading on a massive scale! The Qingyun Sect's spiritual energy tower has exploded! The Blood Evil Sect's has also cut out! The Northern Plains Wang Family... has also lost contact!"
Company Commander Zhang watched the blue dots on the console extinguishing one by one, his voice filled with despair.
Jiang Ning watched the blue light domain on the screen rapidly shrinking, her heart turning cold.
Is there... really no hope left?
Just as she was about to give up, a cold and familiar voice suddenly rang out in her mind.
[Detected that the host is facing a world-ending crisis. Merit Mall has activated 'Emergency Salvation Mode'.]
[Unlocked Special-Grade Infrastructure Skill: Planetary Meridian Reconstruction Technique.]
[Required Merit: 500,000 (Can be taken on credit).]
Jiang Ning stared blankly for a moment, then felt a surge of wild joy.
This was the last chance!
"Credit! Take it on credit immediately! As long as I can kill this old ghost, I'll take it even if it's a million, let alone five hundred thousand!" she shouted in her mind.
[Ding! Credit successful. Planetary Meridian Reconstruction Technique has been activated. Host, please merge your divine soul with the global Spiritual Energy Network.]
Jiang Ning felt a "boom" in her head as her consciousness was instantly pulled from her body by a massive force.
Her field of vision rose infinitely, following the underground spiritual energy lines that hadn't yet broken, spreading faster than light across the entire world of immortals and mortals.
In that moment, she saw.
She saw the farmer working in the fields, hoping for a good harvest this year.
She saw the cultivator training hard in a cave, trying to break through.
She saw the merchant haggling in the market, bustling about for the sake of his family.
She saw the newborn baby and the old man about to die.
She felt the faintest breath of every life in this world and the deepest pulse of every inch of land. Joys, sorrows, births, and deaths converged into a massive stream of information, washing over her soul.
"Want to destroy this world? Ask them if they agree first!"
Jiang Ning's voice no longer passed through any medium but rang out directly in the depths of everyone's heart.
Those who were originally angry and panicked because their spiritual energy had been drained now fell silent.
They looked up, and although they didn't know what was happening, they could all feel a warm and steady power reaching out to them across time and space, making a request.
"Lend me a little strength to protect our home!"
Jiang Ning's consciousness was screaming.
In an instant, countless specks of light rose slowly from every corner of the world, from every living being.
It wasn't spiritual energy, nor was it magic power.
It was the power of the vows of all living beings, the most primitive desire and obsession of every life to "live on."
These faint lights gathered into streams, the streams merged into a great river, and finally transformed into an unprecedented golden torrent. It was more than all the previous spiritual energy combined, flowing back through the invisible Spiritual Energy Network into the core of the forbidden zone!
In the base, Jiang Ning's body was enveloped in a soft golden halo as she slowly floated up.
Her entire spirit was lifted to an incredible height by this Power of the Vows of All Beings.
She "looked" at the core again, at the shadow still driving the Annihilation Grand Array. The fear and tension in her heart were gone, replaced only by a sense of calm, like a god looking down upon the mortal world.
"You understand the beauty of destruction."
Her voice echoed in the core, clearly reaching the ears of the Cult Master of Annihilation.
"But I understand the power of construction."
Jiang Ning raised her hand, enveloped in golden light, and pressed it gently toward the crack-riddled, collapsing Pillar of the World and the land being eroded by black mist.
"Reconstruction, begin!"