Chapter 457: Thundercloud (4K)

The lightless, pitch-black city crouched beneath his feet—London, the heart of a hegemonic empire that had once colonized the world, laid out in full view.

His palm clenched without conscious thought; the power surging up felt boundless, intoxicating, hallucinatory.

A full 1000 ml of Xuanlei Qilin blood roared and surged through his veins. The six-base genetic material underwent a wondrous chemical reaction with the god-spawn gene.

The DNA repeat sequences at the ends of Earth's biological cell chromosomes are called telomeres; their length and rate of shortening determine the limit of a cell's divisions—in a sense, the wall of sighs leading to immortality.

And at this moment, a great swarm of newborn cells came pre-loaded with telomerase at peak activity, capable of initiating the replication and extension of telomeric DNA, able to proliferate without limit like cancer cells.

At the same time, thanks to the Two-Aspects Blade's moderating and harmonizing effect, every kind of repair enzyme inside the newborn cells went into full operation—mismatched bases were corrected, broken DNA was stitched back together,

keeping the Swarm from falling completely into deformity, from becoming a lump of unspeakable tumor-flesh like mutated cancer cells.

Instead, it became more… complete.

The scars at the junction of flesh and machinery were covered by a newly synthesized web of spider-silk-like protein fibers; no more splattering of oil and grime.

Some of the shed protective plating was replaced by scales that reflected a metallic sheen.

Although taken as a whole, it was still hideous and monstrous, savage and brutal.

Yet under Lei Guang's illumination, there was faintly a hint of something indescribably divine.

"."

Mobius's eyelid twitched violently; his sword-wielding right arm had been scoured and roasted by the immense energy until it was thinner than a bamboo pole—skin stretched over bone, nearly carbonized.

He had no choice but to extend his left hand, grip his right wrist, and raise the Sword of Light once more, aiming it at the Swarm.

Eighth circle, spell school magic—【Shatter Reality】

Fwoosh—

In the space, countless slender, formless, intangible lines suddenly stretched out.

These immaterial lines densely draped themselves over the Swarm; fire could not burn them, tearing could not snap them.

Until the number of threads reached a critical threshold, every line drew taut at once, as if about to drag the Swarm out of this world.

The specific effect of 【Shatter Reality】: the caster shatters the barrier between reality and the timeline, plunging a creature into chaos and madness, then randomly selects one of the following four possible outcomes.

【Glimpse of a Distant Realm】—the target suffers massive psychic damage.

【Shattering Rift】—the target's entire body, including its interior, takes uniform force-field damage.

【Wormhole】—the target is banished and teleported away.

【Dark Void Freeze】—the target is completely frozen.

The Britannia Sovereign Lightsword in Mobius's hand could greatly elevate the caster's tier, so 【Shatter Reality】 shifted from randomly selecting one effect to randomly selecting two.

Crack-crack-crack-crack!!

On the surface of the mechanical Swarm, a great number of bone-deep wounds appeared out of nowhere. The head region was split into several pieces.

At the same time, a wave of freezing cold surged upward from the thick, powerful tail, generating thick, azure frost like the ten-thousand-year ice of the North and South Poles.

But… that was all.

The Swarm's neural structure was inherently distributed in a net; the head was merely one of the nerve nodes.

Li Cheng easily used his spinal nerves to control the external limbs, returning the head fragments to their original positions and pressing them back together like reassembling a cloth doll.

And when the frost's spread reached the Swarm's chest region, it could advance no further; the thrusters quickly melted it back.

Boom!

The thick, powerful tail slammed heavily against the high-rise's outer wall, shattering and stripping away the remaining solid ice. What also fell were the ashes of three parchment scrolls.

【Wraith Shield】, 【Greater Spell Resistance】, 【Might Makes Right】

All three were perfect-quality consumable scrolls, all capable of raising arcane resistance. Especially the last one, 【Might Makes Right】, which could temporarily boost magic resistance based on physical strength.

'No way, just how rich is this guy?!'

The same question arose simultaneously in the minds of the Zhong Lou group including Nicholas, the forum players watching the livestream in real time, and Mobius himself.

Perfect-quality consumable scrolls were expensive; even members of major guilds who wanted to exchange contribution points to use them had to write reports, file applications, and go through procedures.

And buying them on the black market would only be more expensive.

"Something's off."

Cold sweat still lingered on Nicholas's forehead; with a wave of his wand, he used teleportation to embed two entangled six-legged chariots into the wall.

His mind remained clear; through the 【Palace Intelligence】 in his friends-communication panel, he queried the revenue of the Zhu Xing Zhen Tai shop on Back Alley.

(【Palace Intelligence】 is an online consultation service recently launched by the Whale Song guild; in essence, it is a periodically replaced cloned-brain wetware, without limbs, connected to Whale Song's AI servers.

Ordinary players can pay a monthly subscription fee, add 【Palace Intelligence】 as an Arena friend, and use the friend-communication function to treat 【Palace Intelligence】 as an online AI Q&A software. Very suitable for regions without internet.)

The storefront where Zhu Xing Zhen Tai was located wasn't remote; there were surveillance cameras at the street intersections, clearly showing foot traffic and transaction rates.

Even without calling up the surveillance, there was already a pile of information about Zhu Xing Zhen Tai studied by peer shops—pondering its average customer spend, inventory turnover rate, monthly profit, net profit, costs, and so on.

According to 【Palace Intelligence】's real-time calculation, even if all of Zhu Xing Zhen Tai's earnings were stuffed into Li Cheng's pockets, it would still be hard to afford so many perfect-quality consumable scrolls bought at black-market prices.

"Heh,"

As if guessing their thoughts, a deep human voice came through the mechanical Swarm's broadcast speaker: "I just collected the customer's prepayment first, then extended the delivery date, claimed the customer's custom-ordered props as the shop's inventory, and mortgaged them to several banks at the same time to borrow a large sum—merely a temporary cash-flow move."

???

He actually said it out loud! Isn't this fraudulent mortgage, loan fraud, contract fraud? Textbook financial crime, damn it!

Where did you learn this? Tilanqiao?!

Everyone ranted furiously in their hearts, but they had to admit that Master Pi Fu's move was indeed ruthless—very much in the style of London's Jin Rongcheng.

The so-called Western spirit of contract was nothing but dog shit; the strong could casually ignore rules, rewrite rules, or even create rules according to present interests.

As long as Master Pi Fu survived—even without winning—not a single Back Alley bank would sue him.

The victor is beyond reproach. That simple.

"Next,"

Inside the flesh-and-machine cockpit, Li Cheng unclenched his fist; the mechanical Swarm synchronously spread its great scythes, its bloody maw slightly opening to reveal a savage grin: "my turn."

Boom—

Backward thrusters erupted with ghostly blue flames; the mechanical horde, unbound by gravity, leaped over the Taiwushihe like cannonballs.

Möbius teleported away via a teleportation array; the London Eye beneath him was doomed.

The Ferris wheel, already half-melted by the Britannia Light Sword, was slammed hard by the mechanical horde, tearing free from its A-frame supports and toppling over—slow in appearance, swift in reality—before crashing into a fish and chips shop.

The mechanical horde shook its head, dislodging metal shards trapped between its cranial plates, then turned its gaze—still locked onto Möbius.

Chase. Continue.

In the perspective of an orbital spy satellite's anomaly index detector, two glittering dots flickered rapidly at the heart of London. The great scythe cleaved through the steel cables of Tower Bridge; the roadway collapsed and sank into the river.

Horns violently pierced Big Ben's clock face; autocannons shredded the stained-glass windows of St. Paul's Cathedral.

As for Buckingham Palace and the Palace of Westminster, they lay in ruins like sandcastles swallowed by the tide.

These two buildings were far too old; without magical artifacts for protection, and without modern reinforced construction materials, they were incredibly fragile.

Had Britain still been at its zenith, no defense would have been needed at the empire's heart; but when Britain itself had greatly weakened, even setting up defenses became impossible.

One minute. Two minutes.

The withering trend on Möbius's arm had spread from his shoulder to his upper body.

He had been flickering at high frequency, maintaining precise distance to sustain the spatial anchor spell on Pi Fu, preventing the latter from using light-speed burst charges.

Meanwhile, he silently waited—for the myriad colorful effects of perfect scrolls, symbols of immense wealth, on Pi Fu's body to fade.

But now it seemed he himself might collapse before Pi Fu, dried out by the Britannia Light Sword.

"Sorry, President. I've let you down."

A bitter smile surfaced on Möbius's face; the next second, he inhaled deeply and teleported to the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

"Hm?"

The mechanical horde paused. The Royal Observatory Greenwich was nearly nine kilometers from the London Eye—nearly at the spatial anchor's maximum range. It was like letting a tiger return to the mountains.

Möbius had already proven he would rather destroy London than compromise; this teleportation could only mean absolute defiance.

Instantly, the mechanical horde's electronic eyes zoomed and focused, clarifying the scene at the distant observatory.

Outside the Zhong Lou Guild's headquarters, a hemispherical super-large protective array shimmered.

Beneath the array stood two war golems, each twenty meters tall.

Möbius stood between them, kneeling on one knee, driving the Britannia Light Sword into the soil, whispering a chant.

"Whispers of the Void, fate returns to stillness."

A chilling threat surged into Li Cheng's heart like a freezing current.

Before arriving, he had used the Death Note to glimpse the future—this was the moment with the highest probability of his death.

"By the name of Eternal Law, by the meaning of the River of Time—"

Grass and trees near the blade withered instantly; the two steel war golems, wielding massive axes, took combat stances, guarding against Li Cheng's light-speed charge.

On London's surface, Nicolas and others realized the final battle had begun; ignoring the lingering scroll glimmers on the mechanical horde, ignoring their own depleted spiritual energy,

they frantically unleashed skills and spells, trying to delay Li Cheng by even one or two seconds.

"Ex—il—tion—"

Nicolas, drenched in sweat, roared. His internal organs had already been mostly sacrificed; now, to borrow more spiritual energy, he drove his staff straight into his heart.

The staff pierced his heart with a *plosch*; Nicolas's vision darkened rapidly—but fortunately, he still cast the spell.

At ten meters below the mechanical horde, a banishment teleport gate—identical to the one in the inverted pyramid's secret realm—appeared, generating terrifying suction to prevent Li Cheng from escaping.

Banishment, Stasis, Confusion

One spell after another, flung at the mechanical horde like they cost nothing, struck its maxed-out magic resistance—like gauze, accumulating into obstruction.

"Dust to dust, earth to earth."

Nine kilometers away, Möbius's chant neared its end.

It was called 【Decree of Death】—a ninth-tier enchantment spell. After a prolonged incantation, it used a single word overflowing with power to directly pronounce a creature's death on the level of reality's rules.

This was the Zhong Lou Guild's trump card; no matter how transcendent the player, how alien their form, their life essence remained a living being with a soul.

The Sea-Soul-Locking Bell's interruption skill was blocked by the Zhong Lou's large protective array. The familiar's position swap and light-speed elbow strike could not be used, still within the spatial anchor's range.

As for the 【Stony Roots】 technique, it only enhanced physical resistance—it could not defend against rule-level erasure.

"You seem to have forgotten one thing,"

the mechanical horde looked down and rasped softly: "London tonight should not have a thunderstorm."

What?

Confusion and bewilderment rose among the Zhong Lou mages.

A sudden gale arose; the night sky's clouds twisted rapidly, forming a grotesque, blurred human face.

【Name: Mercy's Soul-Giving Melody】

【Effect: Soul-Giving. Upon touching an object, it spontaneously generates a soul based on its own nature. The more complex, complete, and self-consistent the object, the stronger the soul produced.】

Time rewound to 4:39 a. m. in London.

At that time, Li Cheng had used 【Mercy's Soul-Giving Melody】 to bestow a soul upon the thunderclouds above London.

By itself, the thundercloud could never generate a complex mind.

But with the aid of another artifact—【Assembled Doll · Modified】—he first attached graphene aerogel with a density of 0.11 kg/m³, capable of floating in air, to the clouds, then mounted chips onto the aerogel,

forcibly increasing the thundercloud's overall complexity through this unconventional method, granting it a crude, sluggish, yet communicative mind.

The thundercloud's soul was so weak, so insignificant—yet the energy it controlled was immense.

And the command Li Cheng gave the cloud layer was simple—wait.

Until now.

The mechanical horde abruptly raised its upper limbs, pointing toward the sky.

Under the night sky, the thundercloud, its monstrous human face covering more than half of London, unleashed a brilliant bolt of lightning.

It struck directly at those bell tower mages.

All spells, including Banishment, were instantly interrupted; Li Cheng released his grip and ordered the mechanical swarm to retreat violently, flying a kilometer away.

That one kilometer freed him from the spatial anchor.

Far away, Möbius witnessed the scene in central London; his pupils shrank violently, half his body nearly carbonized, his voice roaring in fury,

"Thy flesh, soul, and karma shall belong to—"

The gap of a single word was like a chasm between heaven and earth.

The mechanical swarm—or rather, Li Cheng—had now seized the toy factory's key.

Möbius's blade of light was planted in the lawn of the Zhong Lou headquarters; he chanted the 【Decree of Death】 incantation, unable to withdraw, teleport, or board the battlefield. He was a human target.

Click.

Li Cheng installed the factory key on the outer side of his elbow and aimed at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Finally, a light-speed elbow strike.