Chapter 458

Rain poured down, the air damp, the entire city as if submerged in a breathing sea.

The Greenwich Observatory stood on a low hill veiled by trees; its original site (now converted into a museum for tourists) and the modern high-rise of the Zhong Lou headquarters overlapped half-phantom, half-real, like two Photoshop images layered atop each other.

Before the observatory, the residual shockwave from light-speed impact tore open the earth, violently plowing through the forest; at the bottom of the gullies, semi-melted hot rocks contacted the rain, continuously emitting a "hiss" as liquid vaporized.

The Mechanical Horde stood before the observatory's low fence, still in the elbow-strike pose; the pale golden hemispherical protective array that had covered the entire hill had not collapsed.

Between the two giant golems ahead of the Mechanical Horde, Möbius knelt on the grass, his carbonized right hand gripping the Sword of Britannia, head bowed, staring at his own chest.

The protective array, indeed, had not collapsed.

But before the high mysticism of the Toy Sun Changyao and the ultra-powerful impact of the light-speed elbow strike, the array was passively compressed and deformed, indenting inward into the shape of a key,

piercing through Möbius's chest.

Extreme kinetic damage and the backlash from the failed nine-ring spell swept over Möbius's entire body.

A look of faint confusion surfaced on his face; his spine slumped, and he collapsed backward.

From his right hand outward, his body slowly faded, turning into white ash.

It was over.

Li Cheng slowly retracted his elbow-strike arm and stowed the Toy Sun Changyao.

The side effects of the Qilin blood and the accumulated spell damage erupted delayed on the Mechanical Horde.

The ornate scales that had just grown peeled off inch by inch; bones shattered across his body; blood and oil spurted wildly, then ignited by electric sparks.

Fortunately, the rain poured heavily now, preventing him from becoming a burning beetle.

"I've captured Jacob, the judge who gave him a light sentence, and the MI6 officer who issued the order—plus I completed the extra objective, hehe. How's it going over there?"

From the intercom on the inside wall of the Mechanical Horde's cockpit came Hui Yu's voice.

Li Cheng replied, "For now, it's fine."

Then he kicked open the twisted, deformed cockpit door, leapt outside, activated the 【Assembled Puppet · Modified】 effect, dismantled the Mechanical Horde into several pieces, and stuffed them all into his time-freezing backpack slot, preparing to take them back for repair.

Only—

Hum!

As the air rippled, an exquisitely ornate golden portal appeared before the observatory museum.

From the portal stepped six men and women.

One young girl, seeing Möbius reduced to nothing but white ash, her pupils contracted violently, "No!!!"

She flashed forward, but the micro-wind from her teleportation scattered much of Möbius's white ash.

She hastily stepped back half a pace, traced two lines in the air with her fingers, sketching a complex magical array to seal the space within a two-meter radius around Möbius.

This woman was none other than Edith, one of the eight Grand Mages of the Zhong Lou Arcane Council, Master of the School of Alteration, Lv36.

And also Möbius's biological mother.

Yes, despite Möbius appearing to be in his thirties or forties, his player mother looked just as young as his daughter.

High-level players have many methods to preserve their youth: some, like Tsunade from Naruto, use the Hundred Healing Technique to control cellular regeneration and eternal youth,

others use rare items like the Fountain of Eternal Youth or the Benjamin Button Elixir to reverse aging.

Alteration magic alters the nature of living beings, objects, or conditions—it can turn a man into a toad, or dog shit into gold.

As a Master of Alteration, Edith maintaining her youthful appearance was merely a trivial act.

But even she had no better solution before Möbius, now reduced to ash.

"You! It's you!"

Edith glared at Li Cheng with bloodshot eyes; in the few seconds since returning from the battlefield to the real world, she had learned through player communication logs what had happened in London.

She immediately activated her authority as one of the eight council members, partially dismantling the Zhong Lou headquarters' defensive arrays, and ordered the two twenty-meter-tall war golems to stride toward Li Cheng.

Thud.

A broad palm rested on Edith's shoulder.

The palm's owner was a middle-aged man in a brown trench coat, a pen stuck in his front pocket, a book inherently heavy tucked under his arm, his face ordinary, expression gentle, like an ordinary professor on a university campus.

"Chairman?"

Edith turned in shock, but found Hoenheim was not looking at her—he frowned slightly toward Li Cheng's back.

Sizzle-sizzle—

Space tore open like an eye opening, forming a slanted rift over two meters tall,

and Truth's Side stepped out leisurely, his entire figure shrouded in a long yellow robe; upon seeing Li Cheng, he let out a cheerful laugh.

"Truth's Side."

Edith spoke his name syllable by syllable, teeth clenched, eyes blazing as if spitting fire, "You'd rather stand against the Zhong Lou just to protect this man? By yourself?"

"You're mistaken."

Before the rain could fall, it evaporated above his head. Truth's Side tilted his head, casually saying, "First, it's not just me."

He pointed idly at the empty ground beside him; the rain in that area inexplicably began flowing upward.

After a brief delay, a figure materialized out of thin air.

It was a humanoid shape wrapped entirely in dark cloth; from its silhouette, it appeared to be a man. One of the first players in the Battlefield, like Hoenheim and Truth's Side, now representing the Special Affairs Bureau's strongest force: Lv40, Han Shuishi.

They were all old acquaintances; Han Shuishi nodded to Hoenheim, then remained silent, standing beside Truth's Side.

The meaning was clear: the Special Affairs Bureau had chosen its side.

From Edith's mouth came a grating sound of teeth scraping.

These Lv40s remained stuck at this level because the current Battlefield's level cap is Lv40.

A single Truth's Side might be forced back by the Zhong Lou's home-field advantage from its main mage tower.

But facing two Lv40s simultaneously—even if they could be held at bay—the entire British Isles might sink to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Shhh—

Suddenly, a piercing shriek tore through the night sky far away—a conical rocket reentry capsule bearing the GOC emblem, trailing flames, slammed into the Greenwich Observatory.

With a "thud," it struck the still-partially-closed bell tower defense array, rolled down the hemispherical barrier in a completely undignified manner, and crashed onto the ground.

The hatch slowly opened, and a crudely crafted humanoid robot, wreathed in smoke, crawled out of the rocket's descent capsule.

"Good evening, everyone."

The humanoid robot spoke—the voice unmistakably that of Dr. Noah from the otherworldly Gao Ta quest: "Respected Mr. Homunculus, respected Mr. Truth's Side, respected Mr. Han Shuishi."

Perhaps due to having fully abandoned his human body, Dr. Noah's voice no longer carried its former bitterness; instead, it was unnervingly light and cheerful.

"Can you represent GOC?"

The Illusion School Grand Master beside Edith asked Dr. Noah in a low, stern tone.

As top-tier players, the Zhong Lou Council members knew roughly what had transpired in the otherworldly Gao Ta quest and were aware of Dr. Noah's origins.

Since being detained by the Global Occult Coalition, he quickly proved his loyalty and value, using his extraordinary intellect to help GOC innovate scientific research, upgrade weaponry, and optimize command systems.

Single-handedly, he advanced multiple cutting-edge scientific fields by ten to twenty years (not counting the technological leaps brought by the Arrival of the Killing Ground).

Thus, Noah's status rapidly transformed from an illegal cross-world stowaway into a GOC overseas-recruited elite talent.

From there, he rose to become a foreign academician.

Finally, he was elevated to Honorary Earthling and GOC Special Appointed Strategic Scientist.

Actually, I've always been an Earthling—I've even taken Earth citizenship. jpg

In a certain sense, he had "taken over the magpie's nest," seizing control of many GOC departments in return.

"If you mean my current position as Acting Regional Director of GOC for the Atlantic Region, then yes, I can represent them."

Dr. Noah's robot nodded, slightly turned its head, and its crude optical sensors flickered toward Li Cheng—as if blinking.

"Ahem."

Dr. Noah cleared his throat and said: "According to the Common Provisions of Article Seven of the Global Security Convention on the Prohibition of Fatal Magical Conflict, signed at the 4201 Negotiation Conference held at the United Nations International Court in The Hague, Netherlands, two years ago—

To prevent global cascading disasters,

all signatory parties must ensure that top-tier magical practitioners under their jurisdiction (including their own citizens, guild members, and permanent resident magical practitioners) shall not, under any motive—including personal grudges, factional rivalry, or ideological opposition—directly or indirectly participate in any form of fatal conflict.

All contracting parties shall ensure that the top-tier transcendent beings within their jurisdiction (including their own citizens, guild members, and resident transcendent beings within their borders), regardless of motive (including personal grudges, factional rivalry, or ideological confrontation), shall not directly or indirectly participate in any form of lethal conflict.

In other words, the conflict must be frozen here. The dispute must be suspended here."

"You've known Master Pi Fu all along—you're in cahoots!"

The Transmutation School Grand Master of the Zhong Lou laughed bitterly with rage—he had seen the classified documents. Dr. Noah had originally been brought to real-world Earth by Master Pi Fu; to claim they had no connection was absurd.

Truth's Side, GOC, and the Special Affairs Bureau arrived precisely when Master Pi Fu shattered the Zhong Lou's defense array, when Mobius burned to ash, and when the Zhong Lou members returned from the Killing Ground.

"The phrase 'in cahoots' is inaccurate. More precisely, as an individual, I once had professional dealings with Master Pi Fu.

But that is all—no personal favors, no illicit transfers of benefits, no cover-ups.

Dr. Noah carefully chose his words to the Transmutation School Grand Master: "Don't believe rumors, don't spread them. The pure will clear themselves. Wait for GOC to reverse this."

In a moment of dizziness, the Zhong Lou members seemed to hear a demon's whisper: "The referee, the witnesses, the host, the co-organizers—all of them are my people. How can you fight me?"

Edith's beautiful young face twisted grotesquely as she shrieked: "It's not your people who died, so you can sleep easy?

Fine! The Chairman personally signed the Security Convention—but I didn't! I want Master Pi Fu dead!"

Saying this, she extended her palm toward Li Cheng; suspended in her palm floated mercury, gum arabic, and a wisp of smoke as spell components.

She unleashed her full power—a Level 9 Alteration spell: 【Perfect Transmutation】.

A spell capable of permanently transforming living beings—including magical practitioners—into inanimate objects.

The laughter from Truth's Side ceased. Han Shuishi remained silent, arms crossed, stepping half a pace forward to block Li Cheng.

The soft laughter beside the truth fell silent. Han Shuishi said nothing, folded his arms across his chest, and stepped half a pace forward to block Li Cheng.

A calm voice sounded behind Edith.

Homunculus sighed, pulled out a thin-framed pair of glasses from his pocket, and put them on—now looking more like an ordinary university professor: "This time, the Zhong Lou has lost."

Hornheim sighed, took a pair of thin-framed glasses from his pocket, and put them on, looking more like an ordinary university professor. "This time, our Zhong Lou has lost."

The mages stared in shock and confusion. Even if two Lv40s stood across from them, they were backed by the Zhong Lou Mage Tower—why surrender completely and dare not even demand accountability?

Homunculus offered no explanation. He simply gazed quietly at Li Cheng, then said calmly after a pause: "You mixed something into the rain as a backup plan, didn't you?"

Hohenheim did not explain anything, but quietly looked at Li Cheng. After a moment, he said calmly, "You mixed something into the rain as a contingency, didn't you?"