Chapter 522: Church

In other words, the contents of two of the three paintings on the bronze door are already known.

Claudia paused, "But who left these paintings, and for whom were they meant?"

"The most plausible explanation I can think of is that they were made for the 'aliens' in the builders' eyes."

Li Cheng smirked, "In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, into deep space; each carried a gold-plated copper laser disc named 'The Sounds of Earth.'

It stored various sounds, including Earth's natural noises, animal calls, music from different civilizations, and greetings; to ensure 'aliens' could understand it, they kindly engraved a diagram on the disc's surface showing the spin transition of hydrogen atoms in their lowest energy state, indicating the disc's playback direction.

They also used the positions of fourteen known pulsars in the Milky Way to reveal the Solar System's coordinates.

This is remarkably similar to the Fibonacci sequence code and tritium half-life on the bronze door—all using mathematical and physical language universal to the galaxy to convey information."

Before Wanli Fengdao and Claudia could process this, Mian Yue couldn't help interjecting, "Wait—you're saying your planet once sent key information like stellar system positions and civilization development levels into deep space via spacecraft, hoping alien civilizations would capture and discover them?

Are you sure this isn't the act of traitors or spies hoping for alien invaders to arrive?"

"At that time, human civilization was in a phase known as the 'Cold War,' a period of rapid development; optimism was normal."

Li Cheng shrugged, "Fortunately, the speed of those two spacecraft is extremely slow by cosmic standards—they might not even leave the stellar cloud in hundreds or thousands of years.

We can always retrieve the gold disc later, once human civilization invents sub-light-speed vessels."

In the real-world Milky Way, alien civilizations likely exist. If they truly master wormhole star gates, death stars, and Dyson spheres, fine;

but if their technology is only a century or two ahead of Earth's, still using fission rockets and lacking supernatural power, yet still dreaming of invading Earth,

then Level 40 transcenders could collectively mobilize and stage a little story of 'Grandma Michaela knocking down an alien warship with pebbles,'

then spit on the wreckage afterward: "Where did this cosmic bumpkin come from?"

With too little information on hand, there was no time or need to pause and carefully ponder the connection between the bronze door, the astronaut, and the Alpha Python. The players crossed the street and saw the church.

The church was built of stone and wood, with a cross atop its roof; on the front of the cross hung a wooden plaque shaped like a lung. Beneath the plaque was a line of illegible small characters.

Opposite the plaque, the church itself was damaged—the lower exterior walls had been repainted with Bai Qi, yet traces of graffiti and slash marks still showed through the white paint.

It seemed a furious mob had once besieged the church, carving angry words into its walls.

The church door stood slightly ajar; pushing it open, they saw wooden chair fragments scattered everywhere. At the far end, the altar did not hold a statue, but a subterranean gas collection well resembling a bell tower.

The collection well resembled a banyan tree or a large pipe organ, branching into countless metal pipes that clung to the church walls and descended to connect with high-pressure gas tanks shaped like lungs.

"Cough, cough—"

From the dusty confessional booth came a hoarse, intermittent voice: "Are you friends with Will?"

"Yes. We were entrusted by Mr. Luo Binxun to collect his pre-ordered new lung."

Wanli Fengdao's gaze sharpened—the church door handle bore fresh breakage marks. The scattered fragments of chairs did not match the layer of dust.

Most crucially, through the confessional's gauze window, they could faintly see the figure in the priest's robe standing in a twisted, agonizing posture.

"Will was a good boy, though he was impractical, always dreaming up strange inventions—manned spacecraft, crystal growth farms, tunnel boring machines—making the town go wild. But I always knew he only wanted everyone to live better."

Inside the confessional, the priest, as if enduring immense pain, continuously deformed, emitting the sound of cracking bones: "The lung Mr. Luo Binxun ordered is beneath the air supply station. Take the other lungs too—I no longer need them."

"Alright, we're leaving now."

Before Wanli Fengdao could finish, Claudia acted immediately, summoning a demonic wind that swept up six high-pressure gas tanks and prepared to flee.

Boom!

The priest's body suddenly swelled, bursting the narrow confessional and sending wood splinters flying.

His hair was thin, his beard thick; his once kind and wise face twisted into a grotesque mask of agony. His shoulder blades, spine, ribs, and abdomen were all pierced through by a mechanical python—or rather, an Alpha Python shrunk countless times.

"Priest?" Wanli Fengdao ventured.

In response came a piercing roar—the priest's jaw split open, and a black rotary cannon barrel extended from his mouth, firing a barrage.

Xiao Dao Ge's body shimmered with clear light; his protective aura deflected the bullet chain. His Sword of Dragon-Slaying flew out automatically, circling the priest's neck once, cleanly severing his head.

But just as Gundam's legs were merely decorative, the possessed priest paid no mind to the trivial wound of decapitation.

Skin on his shoulders rolled and folded, revealing rows of miniature launchers: "Pssss—"

Dozens of miniature missiles, trailing long flames, shot toward the players.

How powerful could missiles the size of a thumb possibly be, damn it!

Wanli Fengdao's protective aura, capable of withstanding ship-mounted cannons, tore apart like paper. Luckily, his passive skill activated automatically—Instant Movement—allowing him to retreat just in time, avoiding the blast wave.

The missiles fired by the mechanical priest were metal hydrogen, hailed in the real world as the "Holy Grail of High-Pressure Physics."

(Not that kind of Holy Grail.)

Their explosive power was 25 to 50 times that of TNT, with theoretical detonation speeds reaching a terrifying 15,000 meters per second. The key wasn't just the explosion—it also emitted a metal jet, faster and more armor-piercing than a hollow-charge fragmentation shell.

The mechanical priest stood on the church's stone tiles, splitting into three heads and six arms, each part transformed into a weapon: machine guns, autocannons, missile launchers, close-in defense systems.

Fleeing was useless—the castle's gargoyles had patrol boundaries, but the mechanical priest, possessed by an Alpha spawn, would hunt the players to the ends of the earth.

Thus, the only path to survival was to kill him—right here, right now.

"Blood Magic: Thousand-Year Blood River!"

Claudia unleashed a grand spectacle—she slashed open a rift in space and poured out tons upon tons of crimson blood, within which clearly visible twisted human faces floated.

A rather unbelievable fact: the world's top blood product exporter is the United States, with annual exports reaching forty billion U. S. dollars, far exceeding traditional products like soybeans and auto parts.

Countless beggars, prisoners, single parents, workers, and students regularly sell blood for economic compensation. Single mothers sell blood to take their children to the zoo; college students sell blood to treat classmates to coffee; workers sell blood three times a week just to afford a full meal.

The mighty United States, with just 4.2% of the global population, supplies 70% of the world's blood products.

The blood Claudia used for her blood magic came from long-term contracts with several private American companies.

She didn't even need to modify it—those bloods, infused with the sorrow and despair of the poor, were naturally the perfect magical material.