doitstory Chapter 1051 The Zhang Family
Chapter 1051 The Zhang Family
The city surrounding the tower, the southern part.
The inverted triangular floating fortress "Fork" hangs high above the city's core area, its smooth metal lines gleaming with a cold luster.
The surface is covered with a faint blue light pattern that flickers and flows, like an inverted sword of order looking down on all living beings.
Around it, floating towers, fortresses, and island cities of various styles are like stars adorning the massive arms of the Tower of Trials.
They either cling tightly to the pitch-black walls that seem to devour light, or float on the edge of the city, cleverly avoiding the precious sunlight in the central area.
The straight thoroughfares above ground, like the spine of the city, run from north to south, with offices of various powerful forces, headquarters of chambers of commerce, and a dazzling array of shops lining both sides.
The bustling crowds showcase the city's most authentic and vibrant atmosphere. Pedestrians come from all walks of life, and alchemical cleaning dolls and armed golems move about among them, creating a unique scene.
In another corner of the city, the alchemical experiment isolation zone, sealed off by multiple barriers, exudes a completely different atmosphere.
Arcane runes flowed across the metal walls, and latent energy within them shimmered with a dangerous gleam.
Turning our gaze to the southwest corner, dozens of floating structures, densely packed like the nests of strange birds, are clustered around the base of the Tower of Trials. The space is utilized to an extreme degree, forming a suspended cluster that climbs upwards and exudes a sense of oppression.
Inside the conference room floating in front of the Black Tower.
In front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window, Alyris stood tall and straight, her silver hair gleaming with a cool sheen in the dim light filtering in from outside.
Her gaze seemed to pierce through the reinforced glass, looking down at the bustling and strange scene of the southern city below.
However, her thoughts were no longer here, but had transcended the barriers of space, lingering on the aftermath of the abyss battlefield and the triumphant return journey.
Unconsciously, her fingertips tapped lightly on the cold windowsill, revealing a waiting that was not as calm as it appeared on the surface.
There was more than one person, Aliris, in the conference room.
Popper is here too.
On an alchemical levitation device floating in the air, Poppot leaned casually against the wall, her tail deftly scooping up a snack from an open bag beside her, tossing it lightly into the air, and then catching it precisely with her mouth wide open below.
The crunching sounds were particularly clear in the quiet conference room.
Her face carried a relaxed and carefree air, which was completely out of place with the serious atmosphere of the conference room. Her small body swayed slightly with the hovercraft, as if she were in her own backyard.
The crunching sound of chewing continued incessantly.
Alyris finally turned her head with a hint of helplessness, her icy blue eyes glancing at the small figure on the hovercraft, her tone carrying a subtle reproach.
"Popot, if you really have nothing to do, you should go back to your own lab and tinker with those bottles and jars. Don't disturb my thinking here."
Making noise here... makes it really hard to concentrate.
She pointed to the bag of snacks next to Poppot's tail.
Popper nonchalantly chewed another piece of snack, swallowed it, and then retorted in her uniquely high-pitched, crisp voice.
"Think? What's there to think about? Wasn't the battle on the other side of the abyss already over? A great victory!"
"Didn't you see the news that Leilia and the others sent back? The Night's Watch has started to withdraw from the Abyss in batches! Kana will definitely be back soon too."
She waved her little paw, as if trying to dispel Areris's worries. "Besides, I'm just here munching on my 'snacks,' I'm not interfering with your communication channel, so why are you so nervous?"
The command group that Ariris joined was indeed able to get real-time updates on the battle situation in the Abyss, and Leilia and the others sent back even more detailed intelligence immediately.
Through the interpretation of Poppot, the "chief person in charge of the Earth God Kingdom Project," they knew long ago that after achieving a decisive victory in the Abyss Battlefield, Kana's main focus was on collecting the purest energy crystals produced by that earth-shattering collision—which was one of the core objectives of their entire Abyss strategy.
As Kana disappeared into the abyss passage and the order signifying final victory and triumph spread throughout the army, the lingering anticipation in Ariris's heart inevitably transformed into tension and an indescribable flutter of excitement.
Kana is coming back.
"I'm not nervous at all, so why are you?"
Poppot seemed to read Alyris's mind, and curled up another snack with his tail, dangling it near his mouth.
"You should know that I am the person in charge of the Earth God Kingdom Project. I should be the busiest and most stressed person afterward!"
"Handling such a massive amount of energy, coordinating the construction of various modules, and ensuring everything goes perfectly... tsk tsk, just thinking about it gives me a headache, but it's also exciting! I've been looking forward to this day for a long time!"
As she spoke, her eyes shone with an eager light for the great project that was about to begin—a pure yearning for knowledge, for creation, and for pushing the limits.
Just then, the air on the side of the conference room was torn apart without warning, and a stable and deep spatial rift silently unfolded.
There were no violent energy fluctuations, only a sense of smooth spatial transition.
The two of them woke up instantly and turned their heads at the same time.
At this point in time, there is only one person who can appear directly in the Night Watch's highest-level conference room in this way without alerting the city's defense system.
Where their gazes were focused, Kana calmly walked out of the portal.
He was still wearing his signature silver-white robe, on which faint runes of order flowed.
He wore a gentle, familiar smile as his gaze swept over Alyris and Popper.
"It seems you've been waiting for quite some time."
His voice was calm, yet it carried a sense of relief and warmth after everything had settled down.
At this moment, Popper, who had just said he wasn't nervous, was actually more anxious than Alyris.
She jumped off the hovercraft with a "whoosh," her petite figure nimbly leaping through the air a few times, creating a gentle breeze, and instantly appeared in front of Kana. She tilted her little head up, her big eyes filled with eagerness and curiosity, almost shining brightly.
"Hurry up!"
She stretched out her little paws, urging impatiently.
"Quickly, take out the energy crystal so I can see it! Let me feel the 'primordial stardust' generated by the collision!"
"That thing has been holding our entire plan back for so many years, and now we finally have it!"
Her tail wagged excitedly from side to side, like a child waiting to unwrap their most beloved gift. Ariris quickly stepped forward and stood beside Kana, her icy blue eyes filled with concern and relief.
She let out a soft sigh, as if an invisible burden had been lifted, and simply looked at him quietly, a thousand words unspoken in their gaze.
"Don't rush, Popper."
Looking at the subordinate god in front of him who was beginning to resemble a mad scientist, Kana's smile deepened.
He understood her urgency; after all, this was a crucial turning point in the entire plan.
He took out the sealed box from his bosom, which was woven from liquid starlight and covered with intricate data runes.
As the lid slid open silently under Kana's will, a soft yet incredibly pure light flowed out from it.
In the center of the box, a crystal about the size of a pigeon egg, shaped like a perfect teardrop, floats quietly.
It exudes a faint, seemingly innate radiance, and at first glance appears quite ordinary.
However, in the eyes of Popper, the master of alchemy and energy, this small crystal contained a vision that shook her very soul.
It was an extremely concentrated torrent and vortex of energy, vast, pure, and violent, yet perfectly bound within its small form by some supreme rule.
She even felt that if she condensed all the divine essence of her meager divine power into energy, its total amount and purity might not be able to match the small crystal in front of her!
"Unbelievable...it's truly unbelievable!"
Popper's voice trembled slightly, a mixture of excitement and awe at the power of the universe.
"How could such a massive amount of energy, enough to shake the very foundations of the world, be compressed into such a small crystal?"
"The collision between the origins of the abyss and order... the energy level it released could actually reach such an inconceivable level?"
Although she had participated in the entire project and was fully aware of the principles behind the energy source, theory is theory. When this creation, which embodied the essence of the most intense collision of rules at the beginning of the bloody battlefield, was truly presented before her eyes, the direct impact still shocked and amazed her.
Faced with Poppot's almost delirious question, Cana felt it necessary to give her a more concrete answer.
A slight glint of data flashed in his silvery-white eyes as he explained in a simple and easy-to-understand way.
"This involves an essential aspect of energy generation. Think about it: among the energies in the world, those that can burst forth instantly and produce the largest amount of energy are often not stable combustion or transformation, but violent collisions."
"The most extreme collisions, those with the most concentrated energy release, always come from the level of rules, especially the violent collisions of opposing rules."
"The so-called opposite rules are always mutually reinforcing and mutually restraining, like the eternal entanglement of light and darkness, the cyclical repetition of rising and falling, and the dialectical unity of flow and stagnation."
The three absolutely mutually generating and mutually restraining rules that Karna mentioned form the fundamental framework for all existence. However, he then changed the subject.
"But among them, only 'light' and 'darkness' have relatively clear rules that can be controlled by powerful beings."
"For example, the Titan chief god, who possesses great divine power, has mastered some of the derived rules of 'light,' but the core of his greatness lies in his profound understanding and control of the higher and more complex rules of 'order.'"
"And the Goddess of Darkness holds sway over a portion of the rules of 'darkness' and its derivative domains."
"However, the most fundamental rules of the universe, such as 'light' and 'darkness,' are vast and boundless and cannot be completely controlled by any individual."
"Therefore, the Goddess of Darkness, through her mastery of 'darkness' and its derived rules, reached the pinnacle of powerful divine power, yet still failed to cross the threshold of great divine power."
He paused, giving Popper a moment to process it, before continuing.
"As for the so-called 'rise and fall,' 'flow and stagnation,' those are the most fundamental rules of the universe's operation, which cannot be truly 'grasped' by any being."
"They are like the invisible beams supporting the stage. Lifting and pressure, flight and restraint, ice and fire, hot and cold... these phenomena that we can observe and utilize are just extensions of the fundamental rule of 'rising and falling' at different levels."
Similarly, "stagnation and flow" are reflected in the surging of the river of time, the extension and folding of spatial structures, and the birth and death of life—these are fundamental laws.
"These most fundamental meta-rules, by their very nature, determine that they cannot be monopolized by any single individual."
"Even beings who master its powerful extended rules—such as time, space, death, and life—are enough to become powerful, peak-level beings who dominate the star realm, and may even touch the edge of great divine power."
Cana steered the conversation back to the Abyss Battlefield, his eyes seemingly reflecting the breathtaking clash of rules.
"The battle in the abyss is, at its core, a microcosm of the collision of these most basic rules."
"The gods of the Order side, regardless of their strength, all represent a part of the rules of 'order' in essence; while the Abyss itself and the demons it breeds are the manifestation of the rules of 'chaos'."
"The Bloodbath Battlefield is the front line where these two fundamental cosmic forces clash fiercely. When the Bloodbath Battlefield is successfully opened up and spreads outward, it is the moment when the most basic rules of 'order' and 'chaos' collide most violently and purely!"
Cana's voice carries a profound depth that seems to have a deep understanding of the mysteries of the universe.
"The energy release and rule ripples caused by the violent collision of the most basic rules are so large and powerful that even the gods cannot ignore them. What they are chasing is the clear rule imprint that is released at the moment of the collision."
"As a byproduct of this essential collision, the sheer volume and purity of the primal energy it releases far exceeds the imagination of ordinary life forms, and even the limits of ordinary gods."
This is one of the fundamental reasons why the gods on the side of order are so enthusiastic about opening up and expanding the battlefield of bloodshed.
What Kana didn't say was that while demons could also gain some power or insight from such collisions, it was insignificant compared to the price they paid.
Essentially, this is a war in which one side benefits.
Otherwise, the Abyss wouldn't be so hysterical, trying to stop the expansion of the Bloodbath battlefield, which is tantamount to causing damage within His body.
Because the battlefield is inside the abyss's "body," every collision tears apart the abyss's foundation.
The demons might be able to comprehend some of the released fragments of rules, but at the cost of wounds from the abyss and the depletion of their power.
This disproportionate loss is precisely the root of the abyss's fury.
On the other hand, those on the order side fight on other people's turf, gaining insights into the rules and pure energy, while suffering almost no damage themselves. With this ebb and flow, their advantage naturally continues to expand.
The birth of the Bloodbath Battlefield is, to some extent, a powerful backlash from the level of cosmic rules caused by the abyss's past frenzied invasion and devouring of the world.
Because the invasion of the abyss that devours the world is the opposite of this behavior.
Previously, it was the abyss and demons who frantically seized these benefits. (End of Chapter)