LWGP - Chapter 280
Chapter 280: The Empress
He was seen with his hands pressed together, his kasaya tattered, ragged, and soaked, dripping with viscous blood. Even his bald head was filthy, but his mind was clear and his eyes were bright. They were a pair of gentle, magnanimous eyes, filled with infinite compassion.
"My Buddha is merciful, offering universal salvation to all living beings."
Then, he activated his own soul talent—his one and only class talent.
It was called Universal Salvation.
It had sealed his fate.
When a powerhouse with nearly four million in average attributes unleashed his strongest soul talent, combined with the Buddhist Dao, the effect was that the corpses on the ground were resurrected.
They all awoke.
"Benefactors, please trouble yourselves to go back and tell the Old Lady that there will be no one to pick loquats for her anymore."
As for him, both his physical body and his soul were incinerated. Amidst the flying ashes, his face bore a smile, just like the one he had given to certain benefactors in the courtyard of the Buddhist temple all those years ago.
"Amitabha."
The clean little novice monk had to return to the Buddha's embrace.
Goodbye, all living beings.
In that battle, only one person died, yet they defeated the enemy's blockade, ultimately tearing an opening to escape the pursuit of 01 and 02 and teleport back to the Gobi side in time.
Only one person died. It should be considered a great victory.
But no one felt like they had won.
In any case, Wang Shu and the others had no smiles on their faces now; each one was grief-stricken. But as soon as they returned, they saw Qing He's corpse and the countless people lying on the ground.
What could be said?
There were no words, only the will to kill!!
Long Aotian, in his coiled dragon form, charged forcefully into the core of the biological army.
What was he doing? Was this fat dragon going to self-destruct or seek death?
Just as 07 and 08 were filled with shock and suspicion, 09, once bitten and twice shy, directly ordered the others to kill Long Aotian to prevent him from releasing poison gas.
They immediately abandoned Xing Yao and the others, charging down toward Long Aotian's position.
Terrified, Long Aotian directly pulled out a large pearl. Cradling it with his two dragon claws, he poured spirit power into it and released…
Buzz. A tremendous radiance.
The Nullification Bead.
This was one of two items created by the Old Lady and Saling using tens of millions of Nullification Beads.
This one was a bead, and its use was very straightforward: just release it.
Upon its release… with Long Aotian at the center, the biological armies collapsed in swathes.
Even those with a combat power of 300,000 in average attributes fell to the ground.
The ocean of ten billion creatures was swept clean of two to three billion in an instant, and the effect was still being released, expanding its range…
It would likely take a while for them to recover. The forces of the Spacetime Alliance had already charged in. The slaves from the first spacetime seized the opportunity to slaughter these nullified creatures, but other creatures, seeing this, also pounced to attack them.
09 and the others were horrified. Just as they were about to kill Long Aotian and shatter the Nullification Bead, Xing Yao and the others attacked from behind.
They were intercepted.
Long Aotian, however, released a cloud of pink poison gas and fled.
"Avoid it!" 09 led his people to evade, not daring to pursue him for the moment. Long Aotian, meanwhile, hugged the bead and flapped his dragon wings, frantically releasing nullification power everywhere…
Hahaha, you think you're so tough? All of you, kneel before me!
Yes, this had been handed to him by Saling not long ago.
Because only he had the ability to charge into the enemy's core.
It seemed this strategy was a good one. Below the Gobi city walls, the Gobi warriors suddenly retreated en masse, as they truly couldn't hold back the terrifying tide of creatures roaring toward them.
Five hundred meters, three hundred meters, two hundred meters.
The defensive line that Qing He and the others had died to protect seemed to have been abandoned. But 09, who was fighting Xing Yao and the others, suddenly frowned upon seeing this. He had descended to Earth the most times and understood human nature better. He knew there had to be a reason for this.
"Retreat!"
With his command, the surging tide of creatures paused for a moment, then obediently began to pull back, but it was too late.
Suddenly, countless layers of frost spread out. Then, with ice as the foundation, tree roots and vines made of corpse flesh climbed up, scaling the three thousand top-tier magic towers. At their tips, crystalline beads were densely arranged, distributed along the towers' bodies to their peaks.
From the scattered vines and roots, a neat Nullification Wall formed above and below the city wall.
The Old Lady manipulated it and released it directly!
Swoosh. A tidal wave of nullification, centered on the city wall, instantly covered an area with a 1,000-meter diameter.
Another three billion creatures from the army were affected.
"Kill!!"
The warriors who had been retreating charged out again, without a second thought.
The nullification effect generally lasted for 30 seconds, with a five-minute cooldown before it could be used again.
These 30 seconds were their time for a one-sided slaughter!
Even if they couldn't kill all 3 billion, they could at least take down 2 billion, as long as they burned resources to increase their attack frequency and the priest corps coordinated well to reset skill cooldowns.
Because of the two nullification items, the situation had surprisingly tilted in favor of the Spacetime Alliance. Xing Yao and the others were formidable, and they tenaciously entangled the four top-tier warriors, 06 through 09.
Dawn was in sight, victory was at hand.
But!
Boom!! A beam of light shot through the sky.
Mo Ran opened her mouth to shout a warning, but she knew it was too late. She also knew that Xing Yao had already sensed it—he had been permanently locked on.
His body was sluggish and couldn't move.
So… Xing Yao didn't dodge. Seeing this, Xie Lu and the others immediately freed up their hands to briefly engage Mo Ran's original opponent, 06. Mo Ran, now free, forcefully condensed flame chains to bind warrior 08, the flames blazing furiously, melting the metal.
08 struggled, but he was facing two Boundary Breaking Scepters. Buzz!! A brilliant light flared, a joint slaughter.
Boom!! As 08's body was blasted apart and his chip was incinerated and destroyed…
Xing Yao's back was also struck by the beam, and a large hole was shot straight through his chest.
On the battlefield, the Young Prince had been fighting with all his might.
He knew what was good for him, practicing the art of cautious fighting. He only engaged the weakest batch of creatures and never got close to the main army. He followed the AI's predictions of creature aggregation trajectories to dodge in advance and always stayed close to the direction of the Gobi's nullification light sweeps…
He might not know how to fight, but surely he knew how to kill weakened creatures.
In the midst of a satisfying slaughter, the Young Prince's face was covered in blood when he suddenly sensed the commotion high above. His pupils dilated, his mouth fell slightly agape, and his cry was drowned out by the dense, shocking roar of the battlefield.
But Xing Yao paid him no mind. In the instant his chest was pierced and his HP dropped to 0…
His gaze met Mo Ran's.
The emperors who had been rivals for over a thousand years were the ones who understood each other best. Once, some gossips from both nations had speculated why two such perfectly matched emperors, one man and one woman, didn't follow the Mary Sue idol drama route and get together. That would bring peace to the entire spacetime.
In fact, they couldn't.
Because they loved their days as rivals more, cherishing each other's abilities while remaining eternal enemies.
But at least, for now, they were comrades-in-arms.
Mo Ran understood. She saw 01 and 02 in the distance, the ones who had just launched the surprise attack on Xing Yao. They were leading the remaining batch of mecha warriors to join the battle.
This group was the strongest fighting force, and their previous objective had been to hunt them down. Now that they had arrived, they would naturally charge straight into the battlefield. Once they joined, the tide of battle would be reversed—because 01 and 02 were stronger than almost everyone here. They could only be surrounded, but that would make it difficult to fend off 09 and the others. Therefore, they had to kill a few to balance the disparity—especially before the enemy killed Xing Yao.
Thus, the already heavily wounded and dying Xing Yao burned his spirit body.
His top-tier emperor mecha was equipped, and as his spirit body burned, it unleashed the most powerful ability of the Boundary Breaking Scepter—Boundary Break.
But this time, it wasn't a large-area attack, but a small-area lock-on.
It locked onto 06, 07, and 09.
Spatial pressure immobilized them.
Attack!!
Rumble.
In the second before 01 and 02 arrived, 06 and 07 were instantly killed by the focused attacks of Mo Ran and the others. Even 09 was severely wounded—a hole had been pierced through his chest.
It was the final attack Xing Yao launched before his death, though it was much weaker. 09 wouldn't die; the metal energy had already begun to repair the hole.
But this also affected 09's subsequent actions, buying time for the others.
09 looked at the emperor, who was just a short distance away, and watched his body rapidly burn away. But it released a stream of blood that shot straight down into the battlefield below, heading toward one spot.
"Father!!"
The Young Prince cried out silently. Then the stream of blood pierced his body. Under the roaring momentum, the immense energy crushed the surrounding hundreds of thousands of creatures into dust.
It was the most violent and direct form of inheritance.
It was all a father could give his son.
The emperor's bloodline entered his body. The inheritance between a father and son of the same bloodline was completely unimpeded. It was an amplification of his own bloodline, an awakening!
Boom!! Five million in average attributes of bloodline energy were all integrated. Even though he hadn't fully digested it, the Young Prince's eyes were filled with tears. Under Saling's direct command, which overrode the AI…
The scepter in his hand, he pointed to the sky.
As 02 was sent flying, 01 single-handedly attacked Mo Ran and the others, especially Mo Ran.
Having lost Xing Yao and Huai En, Mo Ran couldn't hold on at all… but! A dragon's roar sounded, and time paused for a moment. Mo Ran narrowly dodged the blow, and then a dragon tail coiled around her, tossing her onto its back.
Swoosh!
Pink gas was released, surging directly toward 01 and 09, as well as toward 02, who was injured but still had most of her combat power and had locked onto the Young Prince to attack.
The three mechas simultaneously activated their isolation membranes.
All the pink gas was blocked outside.
"Dodge." Under Saling's command, the Young Prince dodged with surprising agility… His movement technique was quite good.
But Saling couldn't praise him, because the movement was all too familiar—it was how he always dodged when he was about to be beaten for failing an exam.
He tucked his head and rolled swiftly.
After rolling, he jumped backward, landing directly on the city wall. Relying on the city's defenses, he locked onto 02 and attacked.
02 naturally dodged it and was unwilling to trade blows with him while he had defensive cover. She turned to attack Mo Ran and the others instead.
01, 02, and 09 were the three strongest among the top-tier mecha warriors. Mo Ran and her group were doomed.
The Young Prince gritted his teeth and charged out, but he was suddenly horrified by what he saw approaching in the distance.
Reinforcements. Reinforcements had arrived.
The Eternal Night Race's reinforcements!!
"Everyone retreat, defend the city to the death!" many people shouted. Mo Ran and the others knew they had to retreat, but 02 released energy chains to block them.
01 and 09 charged up a killing beam of light. In those brief one or two seconds…
A terrifying mental impact directly struck 01, 02, and 09.
It was the Old Lady!
01 and 09 were collateral damage, intended to interrupt their charge-up.
02 was the main target. She felt the programmatic mental nerves controlled by her chip snap inch by inch. She immediately entered a state of vertigo, and all her abilities failed.
Swoosh! Mo Ran and the others had already disengaged, flying rapidly toward the city wall. The Young Prince, hovering below, also released a Boundary Break attack under Saling's command, cutting through space along Mo Ran and the others' return path to obstruct 01's pursuit.
It worked. By the time they broke through the Boundary Break barrier, Mo Ran and the others, along with the Young Prince, had already returned to the city wall. Under the wall's protection, they regrouped with Saling and the Old Lady. These two also had average attributes in the millions and could supplement their combat power.
But no one was happy, because the problem now wasn't the trio of 01, 02, and 09, but the arriving mecha warrior reinforcements.
The biological army had been routed, with less than a billion remaining, but the real enemy was these reinforcements.
Thirty million of them. It was far more terrifying than the ten-billion-strong biological army.
It was an ocean of metal.
The forces from Gobi, the other cities, and the empires had all returned.
Compared to their numbers before the war, four-fifths had already died in battle, leaving only one-fifth.
Across three spacetimes, only a little over five hundred million people remained.
And this was across three spacetimes.
In the solemn atmosphere, everyone shared the same conviction—defend to the death!
Until death do us part!
"Prepare!"
"Charge!"
"Attack!!"
From all the buildings and territories, whether empires or cities, the warriors on the walls attacked as one. At this moment, someone with average attributes of a few tens of thousands was the same as someone with several million.
They were all swept up in the pain and life-or-death struggle of this brutal war.
The pain was constant, but it was either live or die!
The mecha warriors in the metal ocean, under the command of 01's trio, focused their attacks on the various city walls… These light cannons met the warriors' attacks.
Boom!!
The sea of metallic light clashed with the ocean of spirit light.
It was a magnificent spectacle that directly shattered the ice layer, vaporized the frozen sea. The ocean couldn't even churn up seawater, as it was directly suppressed.
The range: thirty thousand kilometers!
Then… the ocean of spirit light collapsed, and the remaining sea of metallic light slammed into the cities' defensive shields.
The Old Lady and the others saw nothing but a flash of golden light.
Boom!!
The defensive shield trembled, its health bar dropping from full to 30% in an instant.
They could use resources to replenish it, but… replenishment required a certain speed, and the Old Lady could already see the enemy charging up their second attack.
"There's not enough time!"
"They're too far away, we can't hit them."
"The Eternal Night Race's greatest strength has always been long-range attacks."
"This reminds me of the dimensionality reduction strike on the first night of the loading period."
"This is a dimensionality reduction strike? You haven't seen the Eternal Night Empress descend. It's fucking comparable to your world's bombs hitting an Indian tribe."
"…"
Although defeat seemed imminent, everyone could still chat a bit to dispel the terrifying, deathly silence.
Those who could still chat now were mostly mentally tough. Everyone looked and saw it was Gobi's main group.
For example, Wang Shu and Mei Qinghe's group, known as the masters of bullshitting, had now been strangely joined by Long Aotian. Given enough time, they could chat up a three-million-word novel for you.
But the Eternal Night Race never gave people time.
In just twenty seconds, as the Old Lady and the others restored the health bar to 70%, the second wave of attacks was already preparing to fire.
It was over.
Everyone was helpless.
The Old Lady couldn't help but frown, but her fingers tightened slightly, and she suddenly said something.
Her words surprised Mo Ran and the others, but they all reacted instantly.
The next second.
Boom!! The attack that was charging up… suddenly fizzled out!
Not only did it fizzle out, but all the mecha warriors, thirty million mid- and high-level mecha warriors, became sluggish and weakened.
Even the trio of 01 suffered heavy damage.
What happened?
09 suddenly understood. "Our ground energy station has been breached! Retreat!!"
He suddenly recalled a strange feeling from before, that something was off, but he couldn't put his finger on it. The battle was too intense, he couldn't get distracted, and his programming didn't allow for excessive divergent thinking, so he hadn't figured it out. But just now, he had a sudden epiphany.
The three thousand Primordial Spirit Race members with spirit bodies had never appeared. Where were they?
They had neither supported Mo Ran and the others nor reinforced the cities. So, what were they doing?
Finding and breaching the energy station!
Damn it, how did they know that their Eternal Night Race needed a fixed energy and information station to descend to Earth on a large scale ahead of schedule and remain there?
02 and 03 had come down to do just that, but this was a secret! How did the enemy discover and find it?
The three wanted to retreat, and the army wanted to retreat as well, but… Mo Ran and the others charged out!
Elsewhere, somewhere in the mainland, the area was also a wreck.
Don't ask why 09 and the others hadn't received information that the energy station headquarters was under attack. There was only one reason—the attack was concentrated and successful in one blow.
There were two types of defenses here: a swarm of one billion creatures and a mecha warrior unit.
The attack was also twofold: one part focused on slaughtering the creature swarm, the other on the mecha warriors.
To achieve such an instant-kill effect and prevent the Eternal Night Race from finding out, they needed sufficiently powerful forces. That was why the Primordial Spirit Race members had not participated in the frontline support and fighting.
One might ask, Yuan Wei was problematic, so would these Primordial Spirit Race members obey orders?
Yes, because Wang Jiu had enslaved them in advance and given command to one person.
"Hey, Yan Hui, now that we're done, did my great-grandma say what to do next? Where is she? Why isn't she back yet!"
Bai Bai was chattering away. Gun Gun and the other creatures behind it were also looking on with anticipation.
Although Lao Wang was nothing like the animal-loving protagonists in novels, and was more like a great demon king, she was just too damn awesome. As long as she was around, all demons and evils would scatter!
But she wasn't here.
Their numbers were definitely not enough to take down a billion creatures, but they had swallowed a huge number of Nullification Beads. The Old Lady had been researching them, and when she got her hands on the Icebound Undead race's BOSS, she had an epiphany.
Ice! The Nullification Beads adapted to extremely low ice temperatures. After entering a creature's body, they also needed to adapt to their internal temperature, creating a suitable temperature to activate them!
The activation point was actually metal! The metal content in that Icebound Undead's body was severely off the charts, even forming an internal metal armor.
With this discovery, the Old Lady quickly gave Bai Bai and the others a kind of internal environment simulation device. They used it to contain the Nullification Beads they swallowed…
Nullification ability, get! They could now attack the Eternal Night Race's ground headquarters!
However, only the Old Lady knew about this plan, but Saling must have found out later, because while making the two large nullification items, she had her medical center staff help make these internal environment simulation devices. Otherwise, how could so many have been distributed to Bai Bai and the others so quickly?
The plan was complete, but without Lao Wang, they still felt uneasy.
"I don't know. Return to the city, join the battle." Yan Hui was as taciturn as ever. Bai Bai and the others had no choice but to activate their return to the city and join the battle with such a massive force.
This time, the tide of battle was on their side.
Despite so many twists and turns, only about ten minutes had passed. When the advantage shifted to the Spacetime Alliance, they did indeed rout the thirty million mecha warriors. Even the trio of 01 were beaten back repeatedly. It looked like they were about to win.
A huge beam of light descended from the sky, directly blasting through the ice layer of a distant ice field, reaching deep underground. The rule-based defensive layer in the sky was torn open.
Then, she arrived.
When everyone saw the Eternal Night Empress, they were stunned.
From the first time they saw the Eternal Night descend, in the countless days and nights that followed, they had held immense fear and hostility toward the leader of the Eternal Night Race.
They had imagined countless images, mostly ugly, evil, arrogant, and cold, but they never expected someone like this.
She was cold, completely devoid of any human quality, yet not as wooden as a typical mechanical body.
She was a collection of countless programs, the creator of an empire, the founder of an era and a race. She was high above, looking down on all living beings. Even each of her fine, fluttering metallic strands of hair was more vibrant than the breath of any living creature in this era.
Her gaze descended, but it did not fall upon the masses of living beings, because from the very beginning, she had only ever seen them as part of the Earth's life that needed to be exterminated.
Individuals were meaningless.
Her gaze was on the underground. The beam of light was still ongoing, but from beneath the earth… a radiance silently roared out. It was like scattered ink, like a free-spirited wind.
The beings of the Spacetime Alliance had hoped for Wang Jiu to appear, but it was not her.
He had come.
It was him.
A man who looked very handsome, kind, and good-tempered.
Long Aotian was stunned, terrified, and awestruck. He knelt down directly.
"Founder."
Along with him, the members of the Primordial Spirit Race also paid their respects.
But compared to their reverence and joy, the others were a bit bewildered.
"Where's my Master?"
"Where's my great-grandma?"
"Where's Lao Wang?"
Lao Wang wasn't here; it was the Founder who appeared.
This was, after all, the ultimate battle between rivals of a bygone era.
Xie Lu and the others subconsciously observed the Old Lady, trying to find some clue, but this time, they couldn't see anything.
However, when the Founder and the Eternal Night Empress met again after so many years, there were no pleasantries or hateful curses, only eye contact and assessment.
In the silence, the only contest was the change in the background behind them.
Countless densely packed, powerful mecha experts of the Eternal Night Empire descended. There were innumerable top-tier ones; 01 and the others were merely among the best. But from underground, a large number of powerhouses who had been sealed near the World Heart and controlled by the Founder's Dao also flew out.
Mo Ran's gaze swept over them, and her pupils trembled when she saw one person in particular.
How could it be?!
Before they could react, the powerhouses of the Eternal Night Empire descended on a massive scale, followed by countless warriors.
One hundred and fifty billion.
It was a number that brought despair.
But what was even more despairing was the interspace in the sky, above the clouds, where the massive fleet of the Eternal Night Empire's starships descended, their light cannons gathering power…
Mo Ran said nothing, spun her Boundary Breaking Scepter, and flew out. The others all followed. In a flash, the entire city wall was empty, leaving only the Old Lady and Saling behind.
They were the lonely guardians, the ones who had to bear the weight of all the death and survival.
Boom!! When the first wave of attacks descended, everyone was engulfed by the radiance and the ocean of mecha warriors.
Saling watched, wanting to distract herself and ask the Old Lady about Wang Jiu, but after a thought, she gave up.
Why cling to what is already known when one cannot influence their comings and goings?
Just like Xing Yao and the others, who didn't speak or ask—that was the magnanimity of those who saw the bigger picture.
Just as one could not mention the death of their own emperor.
Because… he was not the only one who had died. What was there to say?
The focus was on the battle between the Founder and the Eternal Night Empress.
It was unknown who was stronger or weaker.
Back then, the Empress had won. Could the returning Founder turn the tables now?
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