Chapter 583

A rather hellish joke is that the United Nations, as the world’s most authoritative and legitimate intergovernmental organization, had an annual budget of just $3.7 billion before the Killing Field descended, often delayed by the United States in paying dues, feeling less substantial than miHoYo’s revenue.

The Global Occult Coalition (GOC), theoretically a subordinate body of the United Nations and on par with the World Bank and WHO, saw everything change when Michael rose to prominence.

When the first transcenders reached Lv5, Michael was Lv10. By the time the main force barely reached Lv10, she was already Lv19.

The staggering power gap, combined with the ideals of maintaining international peace, security, and development, attracted a large following—including agents, spies, corporate spies, and ambitious schemers—to join the GOC.

The snowball grew larger and larger, its authority expanding rapidly; the supernatural research fund it established built laboratories directly within the Killing Field, continuously analyzing and converting Killing Field artifacts into academic papers and scientific achievements, then producing products through its owned enterprises.

Civilian products included anticancer drugs, gene therapy injections, and mechanical prosthetics; military products naturally included firearms, ammunition, holy water, and peach-wood swords.

Additionally, the GOC is the largest real estate developer on Lou Street, and since players on average have Captain America’s physique and can phase through walls and see through objects, construction materials must be specially formulated concrete.

By the way, the GOC’s real estate subsidiary is named Eternalgreatness, which could also be translated as “Evergrande”...

Li Cheng shook his head and cast aside his scattered thoughts.

The GOC, flush with wealth and able to recruit global talent, produced documentation that was highly professional and comprehensive, especially for high-tier items like the Nine-Tooth Rake and Ginseng Fruit—each item linked to hundreds of papers and experimental records—

This also explains why internationally renowned research institutions willingly collaborate with the GOC: the latter is genuinely open and inclusive, willing to share its best assets to help everyone publish papers.

“Atomic structure analysis of the Nine-Tooth Rake, quantum tunneling mechanism behind its size variation, response mechanism to specific sonic commands...”

Li Cheng read the papers with great interest; the GOC’s inventory of Nine-Tooth Rakes did not come from the original Journey to the West, but were looted by players from treasure chests, being Epic-tier artifacts requiring Qi to activate.

The GOC’s scientists were bold and inventive: they discovered the Nine-Tooth Rake responded to specific sonic commands by changing size, so they partnered with the Evil Science Alliance to selectively breed a batch of pig-like subhuman transcenders with intelligence and consciousness, roughly Lv10 strength, dressing them in identical blue-green silk robes from Journey to the West’s Zhu Bajie, then implanting false memories via brain-computer interfaces, making them truly believe they were Zhu Bajie, banished from heaven for flirting with Chang’e.

As the pig subhumans uttered sonic commands in Tang-era classical pronunciation, the Nine-Tooth Rake, after a brief hesitation, changed size autonomously—without consuming the user’s Qi.

The scientists immediately concluded the rake contained a hidden artificial intelligence—something akin to a “spirit within the artifact”—that adapted its behavior to the user.

By extension, Epic-tier and higher transcendent artifacts, beyond their listed effects, might harbor additional hidden properties.

As for subsequent experiments with the Nine-Tooth Rake... the spirit soon realized its master was not Zhu Bajie, merely a counterfeit creation, then floated upward and slaughtered all the pig subhumans, along with several researchers who couldn’t escape the lab and two armed security squads.

It was only subdued and stopped by the arrival of high-tier transcenders.

Li Cheng had no need for the Nine-Tooth Rake; he didn’t need Ginseng Fruit either—his Six-Base Genome’s self-healing alone let him live for thousands of years effortlessly.

After nearly twelve hours of searching, he finally selected from the GOC’s inventory an item... of considerable uniqueness.

It was a paper scroll five meters by ten meters; the scroll itself bore no patterns, but generated maps based on surrounding terrain.

【Item Name: The Eternal War Map】

【Type: Universal】

【Quality: Epic】

【Effect 1: Soldiers as Chess Pieces. Convert all units under your command—soldiers, vehicles, unmanned units, command centers—into chess pieces, storing them within the map. When needed, unfold the map, place the pieces, and deploy friendly units to designated positions.】

【Effect 2: Eternal Game. Passive effect. Once the map is unfolded, the user receives real-time data from every unit and can issue commands via thought, controlling every unit’s movement in real time.】

【Effect 1 Cost: Each map deployment consumes at least 200 Qi points; subsequent costs depend on map area, number of controlled units, and duration of control.】

【Effect 1 Cooldown: None】

【Usage Requirement: Intelligence attribute ≥ 20; completed high-difficulty challenges in ten real-time strategy games.】

【Note: Units converted into chess pieces are bound to the holder of the Eternal War Map. When the holder dies, all units vanish—unless they remain outside chess form for over a year.】

【Note: Warfare is a state’s greatest affair, a matter of life and death, survival and destruction—must be thoroughly examined.】

【Note: Once you’ve learned my operations, all you need is F2 and A-click.】

“Whoa, does the GOC actually allow this strategic-level artifact to be sold?”

Li Cheng couldn’t help clicking his tongue; this [Eternal War Map] alone was equivalent to a super-capacity compression device + remote teleportation apparatus + power projection system + full-spectrum battlefield perception network + AI command-and-decision system.

It utterly overturned modern warfare tactics.

Imagine an Asian tourist, part of a tour group departing from Yin City, flying to the U.S. East Coast, touring Boston, New York, and Washington for ten days, even wearing a “New York” tourist cap while visiting the Lincoln Memorial—then suddenly pulling out a map, dropping chess pieces, and summoning two fully equipped modern heavy combined arms brigades.

Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, rocket artillery, missile launchers, air defense systems—all present, even aircraft and reconnaissance planes that don’t require runways, with submarines and cruisers beneath the water.

Viewing the battlefield from a god’s-eye perspective, as if granted divine sight, while controlling every unit as if they were extensions of one’s own limbs, instantly capturing every politician in the Capitol and every wealthy elite who came to attend the meeting.

“Starship Troopers, Ender’s Game, Galactic Empires...”

Li Cheng’s mind flashed through a series of war-related literary works; any military strategist would crave this artifact—Zhuge Liang with the Eternal War Map could launch a northern campaign all the way to Siberia, Napoleon could sweep across Europe and reclaim his glory, Yang Guang... ah, forget him—Guangshen’s absurdity is about on par with Gao Liang River’s Car God and the Wari student—

sitting at the same table as Chiang Kai-shek.

“But the GOC included the Eternal War Map on its sale list for a reason.”

Li Cheng rubbed his chin; transcenders, especially high-tier ones, still held overwhelming advantages on modern battlefields.

Forget suicide drones and rockets—even hypersonic missiles flying at Mach 5 were useless against transcenders above Lv35.

Either they couldn’t lock on, couldn’t catch up, or simply couldn’t kill them—the latter could teleport underground hundreds of meters and shrug off missiles like toys.

Aside from mutually assured destruction via instant nuclear detonation, only transcenders of equal level could counter the myriad tricks of high-tier transcenders.

Precisely because of this rule, global governments and wealthy elites were willing to pour endless resources into cultivating their own players—even becoming players themselves or turning their relatives into players.

The Eternal War Map was useful, but Lv40 didn’t shake the world order enough—after all, the note clearly stated: kill the holder, and all chess pieces vanish.

Yet for Li Cheng, the Eternal War Map solved several critical problems.

First, the capacity of his 3D warehouse was no longer sufficient to store the ever-increasing number of Magic Cannon Tanks; he could now store all tanks within the map.

Second, deployment speed and command limits of the tanks.

The tanks’ firepower was formidable—equivalent to a hundred heavy tanks firing simultaneously, capable of threatening high-tier transcenders like White Horse Tombstone or Blood Lion Roar—but as battles progressed and transcenders moved rapidly, shifting the battlefield, the tanks would fall behind, easily outmaneuvered.

The Eternal War Map, however, could consume Qi to retract the chess pieces, carry the map, and constantly shift battlefields, always providing fire support.

Simultaneously, the map’s thought-command feature greatly expanded the number and variety of weapon platforms the Magic Cannon Master class could control.

Even if tanks were destroyed, no loss—crafted from screws, recyclable for scrap metal; my fifty-game-coin tanks are infinite, while your Qi constantly drains.jpg

Michael was extremely busy, so Li Cheng contacted Dr. Noah: “Hey, Brother A-Nuo, I want the Eternal War Map with serial number L-352 on the list—can you arrange it?”

??

Either call me Noah, or call me Doctor—what’s this “A-Nuo” nonsense?

Then let me ask you: is your head pointy or bald?

After a brief silence in the forum chatbox, Dr. Noah replied: “Since it was promised by Lord Michael, naturally there’s no issue. But may I ask, Mr. Pi Fu, how exactly do you intend to use the Eternal War Map?”

As time passed, the London incident’s impact was slowly fading, but the hair those GOC personnel assigned to clean up in London lost? Never grew back.

Dr. Noah had heard his field agents pray repeatedly for unstable elements like Pi Fu to stop causing chaos.

The Laughing Troupe pulls off one big stunt a year at most—you’re even worse than them.

“Purpose?”

Li Cheng thought for a moment and typed: “Start a cross-dimensional tour group—invite domestic Warhammer players to fight in the Warhammer universe, lure readers of Sword Legends to hunt down Griffiths, lead Cthulhu fans into mortal combat with ancient gods. Something like that.”

The ellipsis clearly conveyed Noah’s headache: “We’ll send someone to deliver the item to the Starforge Anvil in ten minutes. Please receive it.”