84: Chapter 84 The Holy City's Sky Has Fallen

The Self-Destructing "City of Liver Emperor"!

The sky of the Central Sacred Land was broken.

It was not a metaphor.

When the war fortress named [City of Liver Emperor], in a posture of barbarism, ugliness, yet possessing an unrivaled momentum, tore through the sea of clouds and crashed into the weakest node of the Central Sacred Land's mountain-protecting formation, the heart of the entire continent felt as if it had been tightly gripped by an invisible giant hand.

It was too massive, too unreasonable.

It was not the delicacy of immortal pavilions, nor the grimness of demonic fortresses, but a kind of industrial, deformed aesthetic spawned purely from "efficiency" and "stacking."

Tens of thousands of rune cannon muzzles were densely arranged like a honeycomb, with scorched welding marks left behind during the rush to build them still remaining on the muzzles;

The city walls were pieced together from the iron wood of the Black Wind Stockade, the Azure Steel Stone of the Qingxi Chen Family, and countless monster bones of unknown origin, with the light of rough yet effective defensive runes flickering in the gaps;

At the very top, a giant cyclopean eye, modified from captured demonic artifacts, was emitting a heart-palpitating psionic light.

"What... what the hell is that?!" A patrolling disciple of the Sacred Land had his Dao heart nearly collapse on the spot; he had never seen such a filthy creation that so desecrated the aura of the immortals.

"Evil demons! It's the lair of the extraterrestrial demons!" An elder roared, unleashing a Flying Sword, but the sword light collided with the fortress's thick outer shell, only splashing a string of insignificant sparks.

The panic of the financial war and the suspicion of the public opinion war had already left the interior of the Central Sacred Land in a state of exhaustion.

And at this moment, this "mobile disaster" that descended from the sky became the final straw that broke the camel's back.

Everyone's gaze was drawn to it.

Including that existence who, from the depths of the Heavenly Scripture Pavilion, slowly opened its eyes.

Boom—!!!

The [City of Liver Emperor] opened fire.

There were no dazzling Five Elements spells, no exquisite resonance of laws.

Only the purest and most violent outpouring of energy.

Tens of thousands of beams, like a rain of light sweeping across heaven and earth, indiscriminately covered the square in front of the Sacred Land's mountain gate, blasting the white jade-paved ground into a molten sea of glass and fire.

"Presumptuous!"

An aged and majestic rebuke, as if coming from beyond the nine heavens, yet also sounding in everyone's ears.

The next instant, an old man wearing a simple gray robe appeared silently directly in front of the [City of Liver Emperor].

It looked unremarkable, its aura restrained, as if it were just an ordinary old man from the mountains.

But when it raised its hand, the whole world stilled.

It just flicked its sleeve gently.

The simultaneous firing of ten thousand cannons, capable of melting gold and iron, solidified eerily in mid-air, and then, like a sand painting wiped away by an invisible giant hand, quietly vanished without making a sound.

The power of laws!

Inside the main control room of the [City of Liver Emperor], Infrastructure Maniac stared fixedly at the scene before him, his eyes burning with a mixture of fanaticism and despair.

"Data cannot be parsed! The opponent's attack pattern transcends our cognitive scope!"

"Tomb Guardian..."

In the shadows, Shadowless's figure was like a wisp of blue smoke; he had already sneaked to the outskirts of the Heavenly Scripture Pavilion, and separated by that layer of [Time Formation] that looked transparent yet distorted light, he gazed at that figure from afar.

His breathing had merged with the surrounding environment, and his heartbeat was suppressed to the limit.

The opportunity was in this very moment while the Tomb Guardian was being held back.

The giant cyclopean eye of the [City of Liver Emperor] suddenly lit up, and a thick, incomparable beam of psionic energy, concentrating one-third of the entire city's reserve energy, shot fiercely toward the Tomb Guardian!

This was the strongest strike the players could muster!

The Tomb Guardian didn't even turn its head; it just extended two fingers and gently pinched at the beam of light.

Space was folded in half like cloth.

That destructive beam of light, a hundred feet away from it, plunged into an invisible fold and disappeared without a trace.

The next second, space tore open behind the fortress, and that beam of light, at an even faster speed, slammed fiercely into its own "back"!

Rumble!!!

The [City of Liver Emperor] let out a painful cry; half of the city body was blown to pieces, and countless parts and wreckage fell like rain.

The gap was too great.

This was not a battle; it was a mockery.

Just at the moment the Tomb Guardian casually neutralized the attack, Shadowless moved!

His figure turned into an extreme phantom, without making a sound, sticking to the [Time Formation] like a ghost.

He did not attempt to break in by force, but instead gently placed his palm on that layer of light curtain.

In an instant, an indescribable sense of decay surged crazily into his body along his arm.

His health points were plummeting at a speed of ten percent per second!

This was not damage; it was "passage"!

It was his "existence" being washed away by time!

Shadowless's pupils shrank violently; he withdrew his hand like lightning and retreated a hundred meters.

He looked down at his palm; that hand had become shriveled, aged, and covered in wrinkles, as if it had experienced decades of time in an instant.

No...

The [Time Formation] was seamless, without the slightest flaw.

As long as the Tomb Guardian's will covered this place, even if it were held back, the power of this formation was not something he could touch.

The plan had reached a stalemate.

"Fortress structure damage 70%! Energy reserves remaining 12%! We won't last thirty breaths!" Inside the main control room, the alarm was shrill and harsh.

"Shadowless failed! The [Time Formation] cannot be broken!" The frontline battle report was like a basin of ice water poured over the hearts of every player.

The shadow of failure loomed over everyone.

In the virtual meeting room of the Player Expedition Council, there was dead silence.

All the core players' projections were silent; they watched the city on the light screen being dismantled bit by bit, and watched that God of Thieves who was helpless on the outskirts of the Heavenly Scripture Pavilion.

The terror of the failure penalty swirled in everyone's hearts.

"We... lost the bet." Wolf of Wall Street muttered to himself; no matter how perfect the financial storm he planned was, it could not shake the absolute strength of someone at the half-step Ascension stage.

"No..."

A hoarse voice rang out.

It was Infrastructure Maniac.

His projection flickered due to the fortress's heavy damage, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.

"The plan did not fail." He looked around at everyone and said word by word, "It's just... the chips we put in are not enough."

Everyone looked at him.

Infrastructure Maniac took a deep breath, as if using all his strength, and proposed the most insane final contingency plan that had existed since the beginning of the plan but which no one dared to mention.

"I propose initiating the 'For the Ancestor' plan... final phase."

"Detonate the core of the [City of Liver Emperor]."

The entire meeting room instantly fell into absolute silence.

Detonate?

That wasn't an ordinary fortress; it was the crystallization of all their hard work!

It was the home they had built from one brick and one tile, staying up for countless days and nights!

It was the masterpiece of the fourth calamity civilization!

Its value could no longer be measured in contribution points.

"You're crazy!" Zuan Pianist was the first to jump up. "Self-destruct? How is that any different from failing the mission? We won't have anything left!"

"There is a difference." Outlaw Zhang San's projection spoke slowly; his lenses reflected Infrastructure Maniac's determined face.

"If we fail the mission, we lose half. But if we use this half to bet on a possibility of success..." His voice was soft, but carried a kind of cold, rational madness, "The rewards of a Mythic-grade mission are enough to compensate for everything."

"I agree."

"Agree."

"Let's do it! Isn't it just deleting the account and starting over? Who's afraid!"

After the silence came a response like a mountain-shaking tsunami.

That suppressed fanaticism and gambling nature belonging to players was completely ignited at this moment!

"Vote." Outlaw Zhang San said.

The light screen lit up.

99% approval rate.

Infrastructure Maniac smiled; that smile was as bright as a child who had received a beloved toy.

He cut off the communication and pressed the scarlet final button, protected by triple restrictions, on the console in the main control room.

"Brothers..."

His voice, through the fortress's last broadcast system, spread to every corner of the city.

"It's time to give the ancestor... a big gift!"

Inside the fortress, all the players who were still putting up a desperate resistance stopped what they were doing.

They smiled, patted each other on the shoulders, or gave the middle finger to the sky.

"For the ancestor's golden coffin!"

"For the tribe... pfft, for the ancestor!"

The next second, all the gunfire from the [City of Liver Emperor] ceased.

It was like a giant beast that had exhausted all its strength, floating quietly in mid-air.

The Tomb Guardian frowned slightly; it sensed something was wrong.

Inside that fortress, an extremely unstable energy, capable of destroying everything, was gathering frantically.

It was about to take action to completely erase this threat.

But it was too late.

There was no earth-shattering loud noise, nor was there a world-destroying shockwave.

The world seemed to have been pressed on the mute button.

The core of the [City of Liver Emperor], that energy source irrigated by the countless efforts of the players, collapsed inward to an extreme.

Then, a silent white flower, yet billions of times brighter than the sun, bloomed fiercely over the sky of the Sacred Land!

That was pure energy, the collapse of rules, the passion and will of tens of thousands of players who had been grinding hard—at this moment, it turned into the most brilliant swan song!

The light swallowed everything.

The first to bear the brunt was the eternal [Time Formation].

Time, in front of this violent energy capable of tearing apart laws, experienced "lag" for the first time.

The steadily flowing river of time was forcibly blasted into a fault!

Crack—a faint sound, as if glass were shattering, rang out.

On the indestructible light curtain of the [Time Formation], a black crack several zhang long, constantly twisting, was forcibly torn open!

Inside the crack, fragments of time raged like a storm.

But it had appeared after all!

"Three breaths!"

In Shadowless's mind, only these two words remained.

At the moment the white light bloomed, he was not shaken in the slightest by the heroic scene; all his focus condensed into the sharpest sword!

He moved!

His figure flickered between reality and illusion, like a black lightning bolt going against the flow of time, precisely rushing into that fleeting crack!

One breath.

He passed through the turbulence of time, the scene before his eyes changed, and he had arrived in front of the door to the top floor of the Heavenly Scripture Pavilion.

Two breaths.

He did not pause for a second, his figure passing through layers of restrictions like a phantom, his gaze locked tightly on the ancient stone box on the offering table.

Three breaths!

On the third breath after he rushed into the crack, which was also the last breath, his fingertips finally touched that cold stone box!

Obtained!

Just the moment he put the stone box into his pocket, he unhesitatingly crushed the jade talisman in his arms provided by Ninth Prince, which was emitting a faint spatial fluctuation!

Hum—a barely perceptible silver light wrapped around him.

At the same time, outside, the crack that the [City of Liver Emperor] had blasted open with its life closed with a bang after maintaining for a mere three seconds!

On the Tomb Guardian's eternally unchanging face, for the first time, a trace of astonishment and... monstrous rage appeared!

It turned its head violently and looked toward the top floor of the Heavenly Scripture Pavilion.

It was empty.

And over the sky of the Sacred Land, that gorgeous white flower had dissipated, leaving only a huge spatial void that continued to swallow clouds, and countless burning, falling wrecks.

Like a... grand and tragic funeral.