by <unknown>
Besides, the Imperium was now no longer at the age of Blackstar the Great a thousand years ago. The so-called emperor was just a puppet of the four Kurfürst families. Even if he did become an emperor someday, would it be anything interesting? He would be nothing more than a gigantic puppet.
The Heavenly Eye Group was his "imperium". As long as he could completely grasp the Heavenly Eye Group and extend the tentacles of the slaughter stream platform to every corner of the Imperium so that everybody could hear his voice, see his perfect image, and dance according to his will, everything would be enough.
In such a case, he would be the uncrowned king of the entire universe!
"Hehe…"
Looking at the audience rate that continued on the rise and the looks of the "chess pieces" who were panicked, devastated, or bursting into fury, Wuying Lan chuckled in great satisfaction.
Right then, feeble explosions and quakes echoed from a place far away above his head.
Wuying Lan's chuckle was immediately frozen.
As if hit right at the tip of his nose by a punch, the dominator of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" looked more awful than ever.
Narrowing his eyes, he stared at the water cup on the control panel coldly.
"Bo… Bo… Bo…"
The control center should have been absolutely still, but ripples were spreading in the cup nonstop, as if a dinosaur-like behemoth were crashing his fortress heavily.
"Damn it. What has possibly gone wrong? No starships of Starlight can approach us at all. All the attacks have been blocked by our defense shield!"
With a gloomy face, Wuying Lan stared at the ceiling without blinking. His grave eyes seemed to be piercing through the cabin walls in search of the origin of the explosions and the quakes.
"My lord, the beehive prison is under assault!"
The deputy commander of the "Heavenly Eye Legion", a private armed force of the Heavenly Eye Group, who was responsible for the security of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" as the captain of the guards, stammered to him; his teeth clattering beyond his control.
Wuying Lan had such a pale face that the blood all over his body might have been frozen. Grabbing the captain of the guards by the collar, he gnashed his teeth. "What do you mean by 'under assault'? Who has assaulted us in what way?"
"We do not have any idea yet!"
The captain of guards replied, almost crying, "We only know that the energy relay station of the beehive prison has been completely destroyed and the great array of 'Dragnet' is wasted too. The stability of our main energy core has been affected too. We have completely lost in touch with the prison. By estimation, things must've completely gone out of control!"
"How is it possible?"
Wuying Lan burst into fury. "The energy relay station of the beehive prison has a protective shell made of seven layers of superalloys. It has the defensive ability that equals the anti-explosive armors at the front of the main-force warships. Unless the garbage of Starlight sail their starships to the deepest part of the beehive prison and barrage it right next to the shell, it can never be blown up! Tell me. How many starships and troops have the enemy deployed to cause such damages? And where are the starships and troops?"
"I…"
The captain of the guards was as confused as his superior, not having the vaguest idea of how the unexpected attack was activated.
Taking a deep breath, Wuying Lan said—one word after another—his fury turning into gloom and indifference, "Why is the damage of such a large scale not detected earlier?"
"Our Spiritual Nexus was hacked by the enemy."
The captain of the guards replied, "The enemy sent false data streams into our alarm system. They were implanted in a very sophisticated way, which misled our system into thinking that the beehive prison had been peaceful and quiet."
"What?"
The veins on Wuying Lan's forehead were jumping crazily. "The garbage of Starlight can't boast such hacking abilities. What is the situation now?"
"Now, we are still repairing the system and tracing the enemy in an emergency. Ah. All the surveillance cameras from the beehive prison to the center of the City in the Sky have been controlled by us again!"
The captain of the guards operated quickly on his portable crystal processor for a moment, triggering more than ten delicate 3D light beams.
The surging torrents on the light beam completely collapsed Wuying Lan's calm face.
Chapter 2102: Total Sabotage! |
The nearest facility to the beehive prison was the laboratories and the living quarters of the researchers.
Tens of thousands of specialists of the Imperium of True Human Beings in biochemistry and magical equipment production were gathered in the area. Many of them had been working and living in the large laboratory that was "Land of Sins" since hundreds of years ago.
They were the real precious treasure for Wuying Lan's Heavenly Eye Group, Li Lingfeng's Li family, and even the entire Imperium of True Human Beings.
For the convenience of retrieving "experiment materials", and to save their time, the laboratories had been established right next to the beehive prison.
But at this moment, the specialists took the hit at first and suffered a cataclysm!
They were still dedicated to all kinds of experiments a moment ago, or busy tracking and observing the conditions of a certain "experiment subject" on the Land of Sins through the light beams.
All the laboratories were peaceful and quiet. Everybody was at ease.
But the serial explosions that Li Yao triggered at his best by blowing up the energy relay station of the beehive prison with "Cell Obliteration Cannon" affected the area too.
After a while of deafening explosions and world-shaking quakes, countless specialists who were running experiments were knocked to the ground. The illumination arrays on the ceiling flashed rapidly. The pathways and the laboratories were all consumed by darkness. The automatic fire-extinguishing system spurted out tremendous heat-absorption foams!
"Ahhh…"
Caught unprepared, the specialists did not even know what was going on. A lot of them were moaning in pain after they were buried by the cabinets and the operating tables that had fallen over.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The noises that resembled the bombardment of giant cannons echoed from far away. Very soon, they were replaced by a cracking sound. The indestructible gate was opened!
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Hasty footsteps came over from the pathways and the corridors. Twisted shadows tall and short popped up from the smoke, and spots of red light were flickering in the darkness.
At first, the specialists thought that they were the glimmers of the crystal suits of the reinforcement of the Immortal Cultivators.
However, the intense stench of blood and the heavy breath that sounded like animals made their pores constrict violently, and their adrenaline secreted to the maximum. Out of natural instincts, they immediately realized that the red light was actually eyes that filled with the flames of fury, hatred, agony, desperation, and revenge.
"Aooooooo!"
The masters of biochemistry and magical equipment used to refine them in person and stimulate them to grow sharp claws and tusks, sparing no efforts to transform them from strengthless civilians into violent, brutal monsters and slaughter machines. Now, they were finally returning the generosity to the masters of biochemistry and magical equipment!
Thousands of prisoners charged into the laboratories like a flood that had grown tusks and sharp teeth!
"Stop—Stop there!"
A lot of the specialists and the masters of the magical equipment opened fire. To be frank, as experienced Immortal Cultivators, even if they were not pure battle-type, they were still significantly stronger than the common prisoners.
However, faced with the astonishing sturdiness of the prisoners and their absolute advantage in number, the best the researchers could do was to hit the few prisoners in the van
guard, before they were completely drowned by the furious tides!
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Rows of prisoners collapsed, but even more prisoners jumped close from all directions at a speed that far exceeded the limits of normal human beings before they tackled the researchers as quickly as lightning.
They bit with their teeth, they scratched with their claws, and they grabbed the researchers' throats, windpipes, and even internal organs without letting go even if they had died, until they had dug out all their enemies' organs.
The laboratories immediately turned into a living hell. No. The place was a living hell in the first place. Almost all the prisoners had tasted the feeling that was more miserable than death here. They had watched the mutations on themselves with their eyes or even been through the farewells with their families. The feeling of excruciating pain spread throughout every inch of the place.
Right now, they were venting all the pain back to the Immortal Cultivators without leaving any drop of it!
"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"
"Aooooo! Die now! Die now! Die now!"
As long as they fell into the hands or the mouths of the prisoners, all the specialists and experimenters would end up as bleeding, broken bodies in half a minute.
Somebody struggled to get away, but prisoners who had gone berserk were everywhere. They were all caught back helplessly, leaving deep scratch marks on the floor.
There were naturally experts who were supervising the enormous laboratories. Those experts were Li Yao's targets.
Lurking among the frantic prisoners, Li Yao hid in the shadows of the tall prisoners and through the stealth techniques of the Mystic Skeleton Blood Wing, until he jumped out from the enemy's back out of their expectation and executed the experts one after another.
Right next to the experiment area was a small arsenal, in which the state-of-the-art magical equipment that was being researched on the Land of Sins was stored.
Compared to the magical equipment that the Immortal Cultivators projected to the Land of Sins, the state-of-the-art devices here had gone through one or two rounds of real-life tests. Naturally, they were more steady and powerful.
Li Yao had long figured out the location of the small arsenal through Neltharion and the mental devil.
Naturally, the arsenal was sealed by barriers. But few, if any, barriers in the entire universe could ever stop somebody in the Divinity Transformation Stage.
…
"The beehive prison has completely gone out of control. The prisoners have somehow broken away from the suppression of the 'Dragnet' and run into the experiment areas and the living quarters of the specialists. They are now in the middle of a cruel massacre."
The captain of the guards said drily, "Also… Also, they seemed to have opened the state-of-the-art arsenal affiliated to the laboratories and seized abundant magical equipment that we are now researching."
Wuying Lan felt that the world was swirling. The muscles and the veins on his face were twitching at the same time, and there was no telling whether he was going to cry or to laugh. He almost couldn't stand steadily and collapsed to the ground.
He had just climbed to the peak of his life. The most brilliant path was being unfolded before him slowly. His ambitions, his cause, and his dream were turning from unpredictable illusions into reality bit by bit.
But right now, the filthy, humble prisoners had smacked him right in the face heavily!
The specialists and the masters of magical equipment were all his most precious treasures. Many of them had been invited over by him from other Sectors. They were the foundations for the existence of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" and the Land of Sins!
But now, they were killed by a bunch of goddamn prisoners so easily!
Who did it? Who did it?!
Wuying Lan felt like grabbing the collar of the captain of guards and roaring desperately.
But he simply took a deep breath after his eyes were glued to the light beams and shivered for a long time. Gnashing his teeth, he declared, one word after another, "Find a way to stop them!"
"We-We're on it!"
The captain of guards stammered, "But right now, most of our available forces are projected to the space battlefield to deal with the coalition fleet of Starlight. Look. The fleets of the two parties have been completely engaged. There's no way to separate them. A lot of our Exos have taken off from the motherships and even invaded the enemy's starships. It is very difficult to ask them to retreat immediately!"
While the coalition fleet of Starlight was essentially a pile of garbage, just like trapped beasts, at the last moment when they knew that they were dead for sure, their combat ability could be rather astonishing if they were determined to perish together with their enemy.
Now that the two parties were deeply engaged, it would be informing the enemy of their own weakness if they were to summon a large batch of forces back. One moment of carelessness, and the army might be crushed!
Besides, even if they could summon a large batch of troops back, so what? The enemy was not attacking from the outside of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" but savaging right inside the space fortress? Were they going to fight a great "street battle" within "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky"?
The picture was so beautiful that Wuying Lan felt the urge of vomiting when he only thought of it.
"Is there no way to stop them?"
His eyes bloodshot, Wuying Lan said in a hoarse voice, "Cut off the channel from the experiment area to this place and pump away all the air in the experiment area. Or simply open all the airtight gates in the experiment area to space by remote control so that they will all be absorbed into space!"
"In that case, all our specialists would be screwed too."
The captain of the guards reminded him carefully.
Generally speaking, considering the scale of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky", once all the specialists were killed abruptly, they would not be replaced by the specialists of the same quantity and quality in the next decades. The laboratory that Wuying Lan had constructed through arduous efforts would be completely destroyed.
Wuying Lan glared at him.
"Besides, it is hard to achieve even through remote work."
The captain of the guards said, "The enemy is still disrupting our network and implanting all kinds of weird viruses into our crystal processors. The viruses are somewhat similar to the models that were once popular in the Imperium a hundred years ago, but they have gone through very special upgrades and mutations. All in all, they are quite tricky."
…
Deep inside the mainframe crystal processor above the heads of the Immortal Cultivators, the mental devil was maneuvering Neltharion to pierce the crystal wires that were dozens of times thinner than hair into the complicated chips while whispering a weird tune.
Basically, the viruses that were implanted into the control system of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" were exactly those which "Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan" implanted into the super crystal processor of the federation. They were the super mutated viruses that had been fully upgraded and strengthened by the extraterrestrial devils.
However, Extraterrestrial Devil Mo Xuan was trying to fully control the super crystal processor of the federation with such a virus. Therefore, it consumed a lot of his spiritual energy and computational ability.
The mental devil, on the other hand, did not need to bother with the problems of control and manipulation. All it needed to do was to sabotage blatantly and comprehensively to disrupt the enemy for ten to twenty minutes so that Li Yao would have enough time to charge into the central area of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky".
"Sabotage! Sabotage! Sabotage! Hahahaha. This is what I should always be doing!"
The mental devil grinned hideously in delight. "It feels really good to rage unstoppably and to destroy everything without any concern!"
Chapter 2103: Tempest God! |
Wuying Lan looked at the tides of prisoners on the surveillance light
beam who looked like ferocious beasts in silence.
They were more like zombies and devils that were filled up with hatred, anger, and craziness than living human beings. Fearless of death, they pushed forward relentlessly, sometimes even not in search for a chance of survival but for the place where the Immortal Cultivators were densest so that they could die together with the Immortal Cultivators in the cruelest and most violent ways.
After looting a lot of latest magical equipment that was still being experimented from the warehouse affiliated to the laboratory, the lunatics had an even greater damage than before. Very soon, they broke through the channel between the laboratory and the central area of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky".
In the meantime, the guards of "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" organized a few counterattacks. The well-trained Exos blew back the zealous lunatics more than easily. As a result, "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky" was riddled with holes. The serial explosions led to a chain reaction, causing hundreds of holes on the outmost wall of the space fortress. Tremendous Immortal Cultivators and prisoners were sucked out, drifting into the dark, cold universe. Inside "Manjusaka, the City in the Sky", a lot of vacuumed, unpopulated areas had appeared.
Watching countless invaluable experiment facilities and dead bodies of the specialists floating in the vacuum or even sucked out of the space fortress altogether, Wuying Lan felt that his own internal organs were being sucked out of his body too.
His heart was truly aching more than ever!
"You—"
Glowering at the captain of guards, Wuying Lan asked, "Do you have any way to stop those lunatics?"
"It's very difficult."
Faced with Wuying Lan's eyes that were brimming with killing intent, the captain of guards had no choice except to explain in fear, "My lord, as you have seen, the prisoners have occupied the entire experiment area and released abundant mutated beasts which have been through strengthening procedures. They are proliferating in the experiment area like a pandemic and infiltrating into the central living quarters. But it is impossible for us to shut off all the gates from the experiment area to the central area.
