Chapter 456: The Price (4K)

Darker than dusk, redder than fresh blood, time flows on without end, but your power endures forever,

In your name I swear within the darkness: every foolish thing that blocks my path shall perish, by the might of you and me combined.

The incantation had barely surfaced in his mind when surging magical power gathered of its own accord.

The light sword in Mobius's hand blazed with a dazzling crimson glow, illuminating half the night sky; in the next instant the radiance surged forth, piercing the sky above the city like a ribbon of silk.

The searing afterwave melted the metal components of the London Eye. The river water boiled and churned, raindrops evaporating midair.

The ancient trees along the embankment were ripped up by the roots and burned to charcoal.

The vector thrusters behind the Mechanical Swarm strained to alter course, paying the price of having nearly half its body incinerated into elementary particles, barely dodging the lethal range of the Dragon Slash.

Its mangled body trailed a spray of bloodstained oil as it staggered into a downward glide, slamming head-on into the water tower atop some high-rise hotel.

The water tower toppled, tumbled off the rooftop, and slammed heavily into the ground, crushing a brand-new Tesla electric car.

Hiss—

The violent noise of the beam superheating the air shattered countless panes of glass along its path; Londoners reacted belatedly, clamping their hands over their ears and shrieking.

Most of them scrambled in panic under their beds, trembling.

A smaller number of quick-witted folks, discovering that the city had lost power and every car on the road had died, didn't even bother to put on shoes before calling their families, grabbing gas masks, flashlights, and insulated space blankets, and racing downstairs at top speed to take shelter in civil defense facilities like underground parking garages and subway tunnels.

They were right to do so—the two eyeballs in Mobius's eye sockets had been drowned and replaced by pure energy.

Light erupted from both his eyes, veins bulging blue across his face; his arms, "baked dry" by the immense energy they bore, laboriously raised the sword 【Britannia】 once more, pointing it at the Mechanical Swarm.

The eight-circle evocation spell created by Hornheim—【Breath of Annihilation】.

A breeze carrying an ill-omened air crossed the Taiwushihe and blew toward the high-rises.

The Mechanical Swarm's remaining limbs thrust hard against the rooftop surface, using the reaction force to push itself off the roof; at the same moment its thick tail hooked the hotel's outer wall and flung its body downward, narrowly evading the seemingly harmless breeze.

Sssh—

Without any sign or warning, the topmost floor of the hotel—ceiling, walls, and floor alike—was simply erased.

All that remained was a pair of cheating middle-aged lovers, clothes still half-on, staring dumbly at the open roof and the rain-falling night sky.

"So this is the foundation of a top-tier guild?"

On the other side of the globe, Changsun Yao stared fixedly at the feed from a low-orbit surveillance satellite relayed by the Whale Song Guild, nervously biting her nails.

Judging purely by destructive power, Mobius wielding the Sword of Light had already reached disaster-class—literally a one-man army.

If it were their group of players instead—

Changsun Yao thought for a moment; aside from White Horse Tombstone with his unusual methods, it seemed none of the others could last even a single exchange.

Streams of bullet comments scrolled across the livestream, many of them lamenting Master Pi Fu.

Under the Killzone system, levels were strictly enforced; challenging across tiers, the weak defeating the strong, was still far too difficult.

Some commenters had even started petitioning, claiming to be from GS Biotech, offering to pay the Zhong Lou Guild to preserve part of the monster's remains for research.

Amid the chorus of lamentation, an anonymous user posted a nose-picking emoji: 【It isn't over yet.】

Bullets immediately challenged him: 【Not over? Brother, are you blind or just too stubborn to admit it?】

Other comments piled on: 【Classic contrarian personality. I've got a buddy I play games with who's exactly like that. I asked him if everything I said was wrong, and he answered, "Wrong! That sentence of yours is right."】

Faced with a barrage of mockery, that anonymous user remained utterly composed and replied calmly,

【If you go back and dig up the old "Curse of the Dead" mission recording on Fei Net, you'll know this Master Pi Fu has been a player for less than a year total since his debut, already rocketed up to Lv21, earning S or S+ ratings in every mission. With that kind of talent, if he'd become a player back when the Killzone first opened, he'd probably be Lv40 by now.】

【With that kind of temperament, will, and mind—do you really think he'd take such a costly risk without a contingency in place?】

【Just keep watching.】

Changsun Yao watched thoughtfully as that bullet comment drifted past and vanished off the left edge of the screen,

while in the footage, a new development appeared.

The Swarm nimbly wove between the high-rises, using the buildings to block and evade the spells Mobius hurled from afar.

The Godspawn Broodlord's regeneration genes continued to take effect, cells dividing rapidly to mend wounds and regrow flesh.

A game of cat and mouse couldn't last forever—if the Swarm kept rampaging through London, the damage wouldn't be much less than that lightspeed elbow strike.

Standing atop the London Eye, Mobius's expression was ferocious; leaning against the metal arm of the Ferris wheel, his left hand drew a giant black agate from a spatial item and laid it along the blade of the Sword of Light.

Using the agate as a casting material, he unleashed an eight-circle evocation gravity spell—【Dark Star】.

Bzzt!

Dense currents of electricity crackled through the air; directly ahead of the Swarm, which was in mid-flight maneuver, a black sphere roughly thirteen meters in diameter materialized out of thin air.

Composed of pure dark magic, it ceaselessly radiated terrifying gravity and destructive energy.

Surrounding buildings crumbled like tofu; cars parked on the road were seized by gravity, slowly lifting into the air and flying toward the black sphere, only to be torn to shreds by its destructive energy halfway there.

It could be called the ultimate advanced version of Li Cheng's gravity-energy sphere skill.

Mobius swung his arm forcefully, and the Dark Star drifted swiftly toward the Mechanical Swarm.

The latter twisted its body, rear thrusters blazing at full power, struggling to widen the distance.

Li Cheng, watching this scene by the Taiwushihe from afar, kicked off the ground and leapt up, firing a bat-claw grapple that bit into a building's outer wall, sending himself and Gray Rain—who had a 【Hover Engine】 stuck to her as well—flying outward.

Nikola and the other Zhong Lou mages, still not recovered from the soul-searing pain, watched with anguished fury and unleashed spells one after another, trying to intercept Li Cheng.

But the latter didn't even look back—he just snapped his fingers.

¤￠O

Bang bang bang bang!

One after another, six-legged armored tanks materialized out of thin air behind Li Cheng's flight path, dropping in a row like a sheep crapping.

The instant they landed, the tanks swiveled their gun turrets and fired invisible yet tangible force-field shells at the mages, once again interrupting their casting.

In a sense, Nikola and the others truly had no one to blame but themselves.

First, all of Zhong Lou's top-tier combatants had been taken away by Guild Master Hornheim to explore the Killzone, leaving London's garrison severely undermanned.

Second, as mages they typically relied on melee classes—warriors, monks, golems, that sort of thing—to draw Boss aggro and create room for them to deal damage,

To facilitate their recitation of incantations and the channeling of high-power spells.

But the clock tower's super-sized war golems were all locked within the Greenwich Observatory headquarters by hastily erected defense arrays triggered by the Crimson Alert, unable to deploy. These coincidences stirred a terrifying hypothesis in Nicolas's mind.

Could it be that the Evil Science Alliance's Side of Truth is providing Master Pi Fu with precise intelligence?

Could their goal be to strike the Zhong Lou—or even destroy London?

Li Cheng paid no attention to Nicolas's scattered thoughts; he soared through the air, and beneath his faceplate, a low voice issued: "Follow the plan."

"Mm."

Grey Rain nodded, glanced at the buildings below, and murmured, "Be careful."

Although she often boasted herself as the Chosen Han, the Ironblood War Wolf, a pure Chinese soul embedded within the Zelos civilization,

as a nanomachine and war automaton, she could not truly comprehend what parents or an orphanage were.

All she could do was trust Li Cheng.

Wind howled at her ears, rain as if trying to sink the city into the sea,

Grey Rain released her grip, detached the levitation engine, and it crashed heavily into an abandoned warehouse under gravity's pull,

searching for MI6's other squad, and Jacob Thompson, Cai Anjie's adoptive father, whom they had hidden.

As for Li Cheng,

he flew straight toward the Mechanical Horde, his armor plates automatically opening to reveal the tendons beneath his skin, and the wiring interfaces hidden within those tendons.

As the live stream comments on Whale Song had said, the later stages of the slaughterground grew ever more rigidly hierarchical; challenging higher ranks was exceedingly difficult.

Thus, one must maximize one's own strengths.

Boom!

The front neck armor of the Mechanical Horde automatically detached, revealing a hidden, thick, arm-sized intravenous device.

Inside the needle tube was a clear, crystalline fluid, threaded with strands of blood.

Or rather, 200ml of Xuanlei Qilin blood.

As the engine within the Horde roared, powerful muscles squeezed the IV device, pumping all the transparent fluid laced with Xuanlei Qilin blood into the veins.

The blood of the divine Qilin, upon first contact with the blood plasma cells of the Worm Lord's divine corruption, immediately boiled and surged, activating its full potency.

The Horde, still flying at full speed trying to escape the gravity of the 【Dark Star】, emitted a dense crackling sound across its entire body.

Tendons tore and regenerated; bones shattered and regrew.

The newly grown muscles swelled excessively, deforming and warping the metal components, making its already massive frame even more twisted and monstrous.

Not enough—then came another "Boom!" The armor beneath its ribs also automatically detached, revealing a second IV device, pumping in transparent fluid mixed with 300ml of Xuanlei Qilin blood.

This fluid was an internal secret medicine purchased by Li Cheng at a high price from the Black Market of the Lousjie, from the Guild of the Thousand Throats.

Its exact ingredients were said to be dried extracts from the corpse of some divine corruption, rich in amino acids, polyols, and various small-molecule peptides.

Something like Kangfu Xin liquid made from cockroach extracts, perhaps.

In short, it slightly mitigated the side effects of direct intravenous injection of Xuanlei Qilin blood.

Under the influence of these two vials of divine beast blood, the propulsion jets on the Horde's back ignited to their maximum, and the immense thrust finally broke free from the 【Dark Star】's pull.

And finally, the last step:

The Mechanical Horde's chest armor, following its preset program, sprang open to either side, revealing its semi-organic, semi-mechanical engine heart.

The engine heart had been hollowed out—or rather, pre-designed with a human-shaped recess, its inner walls lined with countless cables and blood vessels.

Li Cheng abruptly turned in midair and precisely lay down into the human-shaped recess.

The dangling cables slithered out like venomous snakes, biting his hands, feet, and limbs.

Two rows of nine crystal-tipped needles embedded in the recess's walls pierced through his back skin and connected to his spinal nerves.

Another eight full data interfaces, via invasive brain-computer interface electrodes, directly linked to his brain and the cerebellum behind his neck.

The third vial—500ml of Xuanlei Qilin blood—was pumped into his veins. The Mechanical Horde, dragging a tail of meteor-like flame, accelerated into the high-altitude clouds.

————

"We have to hold him back!"

In the headquarters meeting room of the Yinx City Special Affairs Bureau, Yuan Zhixia watched the scene on the large screen, her pupils contracting; she instinctively stood from her seat, accidentally knocking over a bottle of mineral water on the table.

Every power has its cost; Li Cheng dared to directly confront Lv35 Möbius, so he must pay a high—even devastating—price.

No one in the meeting room spoke; the heads and leaders of Yinx City's Special Affairs Bureau, hastily summoned to the meeting, all wore solemn expressions.

Director Xing Hechou waved his hand and said gravely, "Xiao Yuan, sit down first."

"Sorry."

Yuan Zhixia took a deep breath, sat back down, and said calmly, "My suggestion is: Cai Anjie was handed to us by Master Pi Fu.

Cai Anjie's own Lv35 transcendent power means little, but her other identity is a holder of the Hidden Interstice permission—she is the core of the 【Peach Source】 Project.

The Special Affairs Bureau will inevitably cooperate with her in the future, not govern or subordinate her.

We are already entangled in this incident; morally and in terms of interest, we have the duty and obligation to hold onto Master Pi Fu—at least preserve his life. We cannot let Cai Anjie or outside informed sources lose heart.

"Mm, preserving Master Pi Fu's life is certainly necessary. But how to proceed has exceeded our bureau's authority; headquarters informed us ten minutes ago they've taken over."

As Xing Hechou spoke, his tone suddenly halted—as if receiving a message from a friend. He immediately told everyone in the room: "Uh, comrades with Level Five clearance or below, please leave."

Personnel from the Mobile Task Force, including Su Jie and Yuan Zhixia, rose and exited the meeting room. Yuan Zhixia, anxious, quietly quickened her pace, broke from the crowd, ran out of the Special Affairs Bureau building, and pulled out her personal phone.

Her friend message to Li Cheng received no reply; she didn't know how to contact him at this moment.

Buzz.

Her phone gave a slight vibration—a text message from Li Cheng.

Precisely, a pre-scheduled voice message.

Even with Yuan Zhixia's sharp mind, her thoughts were flooded with chaos as she answered the phone. The next second, a light, slightly amused voice came from the speaker:

"Hey, you there? Help me out—try to get the school to cancel classes for the next two days. This one might come with a heavy cost."

At the same moment, within the clouds over the London night sky.

【Worm God Sin Cell compatibility verification passed; blood circulation activation complete】

【Hippocampal emotion separation system operating; killing impulse suppression circuit running in good condition】

【Neural interface fully adapted; visual signal overlay complete; motor cortex neural impulse calibration complete】

【Current dynamic synchronization rate: 100%】

Li Cheng and the machine swarm opened their eyes in sync.