Chapter 241: Rule Analysis, Real-World Crisis (Begging for Monthly Tickets)

【Player Count: 1,129,357】

Online Players: 942,239 online

Death Cooldown Players: 122,268.

Number of Meng Yuan Chu Traits Contained: 58

Shou Shou Jili Output Per Hour (Real-Time Update): 4.7373 million (rising from last period)

Highest Average Painful Painful Minghun Level Among Players: 34 (rising from last period).

Contained Resource Territories: 42

Spatial Nodes: Imperial Tomb Mountain Range (Main City), Colorful Mist Coast, Frost Snow Plain, Di Ku Shi Jie, Senluo Forest Realm.

Contained Territory Rules: Imperial Tomb Village (Flesh and Blood Weight), Shuijingdian (Gathering), Ten Thousand Forests (Enlightenment), Divine Shift.

Functional Buildings: Testing Tower, Resurrection Point (Teleportation Plaza), Guild Hall, Armed Vehicle Factory, Pet Shop, Rule God Pillar, Cultivation Tower, Weapon Forging Room.

Meng Yuan Chu Altar.

A torrent of player-output data flashed through Qi Sheng's mind.

As the five hundred thousand players recruited in this round grew rapidly in strength, Shou Shou Jili output rose along with them.

Just recently, two more Meng Yuan Chu monsters were successfully contained.

The first monster was the third-generation Meng Yuan Chu: Wind Breaker, contained by the squad led by "Two Slaps Right Back" in the Senluo Forest Realm region.

This is, to date, the first aura-type Painful Painful Minghun trait in the contained Painful Painful Minghun library that can grant a buffing effect to surrounding groups of players.

The trait's effect is to significantly boost the movement efficiency of all targets within the aura's coverage, friend or foe alike.

The movement efficiency boost is influenced by Painful Painful Minghun level and spiritual strength intensity.

With no enemy immunity mechanism, the Wind Breaker Painful Painful Minghun trait seems utterly useless on the surface.

In practice, however, it performed remarkably well in testing.

It can be used to boost the team's movement efficiency while traveling, and also assist friendly frontliners in launching charges under war mode to quickly close in on opponents.

Especially during pursuit and hunting.

Many monsters possess intelligence and will choose to flee when facing danger—Wind Breaker can play a significant role at such moments.

The only drawback is that when used in combat, both friend and foe gain the movement efficiency boost simultaneously.

The Wind Breaker Painful Painful Minghun suits support-style players best, followed by melee-style players.

The second monster was the third-generation Meng Yuan Chu: Spirit Seal, contained by the player "Star Net Big Brother, Accept My Bow" in the Senluo Forest Realm region.

This is the second seal-type Painful Painful Minghun trait in the current Painful Painful Minghun library.

Its effect is to inject Qi and blood into the target through attacks, causing an energy circulation restriction effect; the specific effect is influenced by Painful Painful Minghun level and the player's Qi and blood intensity.

Suitable for melee-style players, especially assassin-style players.

Strategy-guide players discovered during testing in the testing space that the Spirit Seal trait can interrupt the target's casting rhythm.

For example, when the opponent wants to release a fireball and is accumulating fire-element energy, applying the Spirit Seal trait can instantly interrupt the rhythm of fire-element accumulation.

Secondly, when used against melee opponents, the speed at which they release Qi and blood energy will also slow under Spirit Seal's influence.

This is a Painful Painful Minghun trait that seals the opponent's abilities through its trait effect, and its strength performed extremely well in practical testing.

The most upvoted Star Vein combo on the forum was posted by the player "Just Love Playing Assassin," named: Shadow Kill.

The Star Vein combo is: Spirit Seal, Dusk Shadow, Black Armor Snake, Forbidden Blade, Strength Savage Axe, Clone, Qi Devourer, Star Shift, Extreme Speed.

The strength of this Painful Painful Minghun set can be called version-overpowered.

It looks like the simplest assassin-style combination, but its actual combat performance is practically invincible in one-on-one.

In the combat test video, the strategy-guide player who transformed into an assassin used Dusk Shadow to stealthily approach the test target, then activated clone mode, summoning six clones to simultaneously attack the target.

Black Armor Snake and Forbidden Blade dealt special-effect damage, and the clones' attacks likewise carried the traits' effects of vicious poison and Forbidden Blade.

Strength Savage Axe boosted output damage.

The Spirit Seal trait was ready to release at any moment, cutting off the opponent's output options.

The most terrifying part is the combination of Extreme Speed and Star Shift.

The assassin player could swap positions with their clones at will, weaving around the target like a phantom, making it nearly impossible for the test target to land a hit on the strategy-guide player.

The entire battle ended in a manner of toying with the opponent.

Afterward, this strategy-guide player also set up an arena at the Colorful Mist Coast to test the real-combat effect.

The result was ten consecutive wins without a single defeat, and among the opponents were several players whose average Painful Painful Minghun level was higher than the strategy-guide player's.

Facing the strategy-guide player's clone position-swapping combined with Extreme Speed's high-efficiency movement, they were on the back foot the whole time, unable to even touch the hem of his clothes.

Theoretically, this Star Vein combo is equally applicable on the battlefield.

Stealth into the enemy's backline to effectively cut down squishy enemy units.

Stealth, clones, special-effect strikes, position-swapping, extreme-speed movement, sealing… this combination has ushered in an epic-tier buff for assassin-style in this version.

The bottom-ranked assassin-style of the version has leapt to first place on the one-on-one rankings of Gedaliu Sect.

Especially for Faxiliu Sect players.

Spirit Seal position-swapping assassins can easily kill opponents above their weight class, making effective counterattacks difficult.

The only thing that can pose a threat to assassin-style players is the niche branch within Faxiliu Sect: Domain-style.

Domains bombard the surroundings with indiscriminate elemental strikes, but they're still easily cut off mid-deployment by the Spirit Seal trait—once an assassin gets close, it's a dead end.

Spirit Seal-style assassins and Domain-style players share a mutual-counter, instant-kill relationship.

Get close to a Spirit Seal assassin and you die; deploy elemental flood before they get close and you instant-kill the Spirit Seal assassin.

After this assassin-style Star Vein combo debuted, it was borrowed and used by large numbers of PvP-focused players.

It's foreseeable that this Star Vein combo will surely shine brilliantly in the Ancient God Arena.

If one must name a drawback, the drawback of this Ke Liu Wan Fa is that Qi and blood consumption during combat is excessively intense.

Even if the opponent can't touch them the entire match, it's still very easy to drain their own health bar.

Players need to precisely control the healing speed of the Painful Painful Minghun and the frequency at which they release the characteristics of their Qi-Blood system Painful Painful Minghun.

The strategy guide poster noted that, for the sake of sustain, one could try slowing down the combat tempo.

Going full Star Shift + Extreme Speed burst-output, even with a level-35 Painful Painful Minghun boost, only allows for 3 minutes of high-burst damage output.

The appearance of the Sealing Spirit Painful Painful Minghun also solves a major shortcoming for assassin-flow players, finally allowing them to effectively restrict their target during assassination and improve assassination efficiency.

The second-most-liked Star Vein combo on the forum is the support-flow pairing.

Combining the Sealing Spirit characteristic with the Binding characteristic both restricts the target and limits their ability to drive internal energy to counter.

The two most recently contained Painful Painful Minghun are both third-generation, but Sealing Spirit's popularity far exceeds Gale Halo.

After all, the moment Sealing Spirit Painful Painful Minghun debuted, it was already a core Painful Painful Minghun capable of earth-shatteringly transforming the strength of the assassin flow.

Gale Halo, on the other hand, only fits war-team use, has many restrictions, and holds very limited appeal for ordinary players.

The moment it debuted, forum players had already listed it as version-trash tier.

As for when the Gale Painful Painful Minghun can rise, it depends on whether future newly-contained Painful Painful Minghun will include ones that synergize with it, forming a powerful Liu Wan Fa.

After checking the feedback from the player base on the two newly-contained Painful Painful Minghun, Qi Sheng's gaze shifted.

A newly posted thread on the forum is rapidly climbing in popularity.

【Regarding the crafting method for special Painful Painful Minghun, I've compiled all available reference materials and offer my own interpretation.】

Poster: Paper Umbrella Man.

Content:

Recently I've noticed many voices on the forum asking how to obtain a special Painful Painful Minghun.

The main reason is that some players discovered the president of the top-tier team Kindergarten actually possesses five hundred Darkkin warriors he can command at will.

He even crafted this group of Darkkin warriors into a Painful Painful Minghun, portable to any region.

Truly the strongest summoner of the current version.

This also reminded me of an old meme from way back.

If you were given ten thousand utterly loyal death-sworn warriors, what would you use them for?

Some said send them to work on an assembly line, paying yourself a hundred bucks a month each; others said have them study and serve the country—various funny meme riffs.

Back to the main topic.

This Painful Painful Minghun, named "Darkkin Legion," can't be purchased or socketed by other players from the Painful Painful Minghun library—they can only view its characteristic effects.

Many brothers who like the summoner flow, after comparing with the Darkkin Legion, suddenly found their own control Painful Painful Minghun didn't smell so sweet anymore.

The Principal leads an entire legion and can keep increasing the warrior count—it's simply the pinnacle of summoner-flow Liu Wan Fa.

In the future, the Principal only needs to walk the tank and group-buff Star Vein path to possess a super army boosted by Painful Painful Minghun characteristics.

So plenty of voices are asking exactly how to craft a special Painful Painful Minghun.

The Guidance's answer is fairly complicated; I'll interpret the specific method for everyone here.

Using the two existing special Painful Painful Minghun as reference.

Among the player faction, the first to craft a special Painful Painful Minghun were the Painful Brothers (at the time I hadn't yet qualified; before posting I carefully reviewed earlier threads—if anything is wrong, corrections are welcome).

The Painful Painful Minghun they crafted was: Touch of Pain.

Its effect is to use a spiritual link to make the target feel extreme spiritual agony.

This Painful Painful Minghun's damage output, by today's standards, isn't high.

But the advantage is it deals true damage, ignoring the target's armor and physical defense, directly inflicting harm on the spiritual level, and can also disrupt the target's emotions—creating a damage + emotional influence effect.

A fairly powerful half-damage, half-control ability.

But for our player system, a single Cui Qu Ming Hun can effectively counter it.

A Painful Painful Minghun characteristic that's strong against outsiders but a total weakling internally.

The crafting method: at the time, an old man from the Colorful Mist Coast inscribed and branded the two brothers; it can't grow through hunting, but can level up the Painful Painful Minghun by enduring pain—classified as pseudo-rule-tier strength.

The second special Painful Painful Minghun is the recently viral Darkkin Legion.

Comparing the two special Painful Painful Minghun, the strength gap is actually quite large.

Darkkin Legion is a high-growth special Painful Painful Minghun; before the Principal crafted it into a Painful Painful Minghun, the Darkkin warriors had already built up an excellent foundation.

Every Darkkin warrior had been boosted through death thousands of times, with very high talent stats; after resurrection they only need simple cultivation to be usable—in my view, limitless potential.

There's no need to painstakingly build a war system either; just raise the Darkkin warriors' hunting level and they'll automatically awaken the talent abilities their past lives redeemed with military merit.

The crafting method: the Principal obtained a Reincarnation Rule Fragment in advance, then crafted it into a Painful Painful Minghun.

Classified as already-formed rule-tier strength.

Comparing the two, Darkkin Legion far surpasses Touch of Pain in both potential and current strength.

But the funny thing is, Touch of Pain seems to perfectly counter Darkkin Legion.

The Principal has already established a spiritual link with the Darkkin Legion and can transmit Ji De Xiang Fa to them through a faith connection, like a local chat channel.

And Touch of Pain's strongest aspect is its transmissibility.

In theory, if the Painful Brothers fought the Principal, the Painful Brothers would only need to unleash Touch of Pain on the Darkkin warriors to kill the Principal remotely (whether this is actually feasible remains to be verified; this is just my conjecture based on reasoning).

This kind of system-counter is very interesting.

Even rule-tier characteristics have weaknesses; methods to counter them can be found.

Touch of Pain can even inflict damage through evil entities to command-type evil spirits; its only shortcoming is that its growth potential is too low—without accumulating enough pain power, the damage dealt is easily withstood.

The old man who gave the Painful Brothers their special Painful Painful Minghun had also accumulated centuries of pain, which let him one-shot the evil entity from the previous Evil Moon scenario.

So low growth potential is a fatal flaw; even if ordinary players possessed it, it'd be hard to bring out its power.

The restriction that one must endure pain to raise the Painful Painful Minghun's strength—no normal person could bear it.

Having analyzed the specific effects of these two special Painful Painful Minghun, let's now discuss how to actually craft a special Painful Painful Minghun.

At this stage, there is only one clear method.

That is for players to acquire a pseudo-rule or a rule-type ability while exploring the Monster World.

At that moment, the game's hidden mechanism can be triggered.

You can spend Shou Shou Jili to seek guidance and assistance, crafting the pseudo-rule or rule-type ability in your hand into a special Painful Painful Minghun, which can be embedded into a Star Pulse Slot for use.

Seeing this, I imagine many brothers will feel confused.

What exactly is a rule, and what is a pseudo-rule?

First, let's interpret rule-type abilities; these abilities generally have three characteristics.

First, they form their own logical system and cannot be interfered with by external forces.

For example, Ink Flame, Rushing Thunder, and a series of elemental damages: the damage value depends solely on the Painful Painful Minghun level and the player's mental strength; the damage and effects are not weakened by any external force, dealing exactly the amount of damage calculated, with no concept of attribute suppression.

Every rule possesses an unchangeable logic.

This is fundamentally different from other substances in the natural world.

For instance, certain substances can produce reactions at the elemental or chemical level through fusion.

But rule characteristics do not; they do not react with any substance in the natural world, forming their own independent system.

Second, they possess a carrier.

Every rule has a clear carrier.

The carrier for Painful Painful Minghun characteristics is the Meng Yuan Chu monster; the deeper carrier is the rule within the world's operating framework (which can be understood as a clause of the world's laws).

Others include the Evil Moon controlled by the Black Tide; the Evil Moon is also the materialized carrier of a rule in the Monster World.

The reincarnation rule of the Dark Descendant Legion also has an external carrier resembling a Rubik's Cube crystal.

Battle Soul, Supreme Bliss, and similar rules are all alike.

Third, uniqueness.

Every rule ability in the Monster World is unique; there do not exist two identical rule abilities.

At most, the effects may be similar, but the core mechanism and rule carrier will differ.

Next, let's introduce pseudo-rules; compared to rules, they also have three distinct characteristics.

First, pseudo-rules do not necessarily possess a physical carrier.

The Touch of Pain used by Painful Brother has no materialized carrier; it is an energy imprint existing at the mental level.

The second point is that the effects of pseudo-rule abilities can be interfered with or weakened by external skills, items, or environmental factors, and cannot be completely unaffected by the outside world like true rules.

Taking damage values as an example: if Ink Flame deals 50 points of damage, it is exactly 50 points.

When the opponent's defense is 0, it directly deals 50 points of damage.

When the opponent's defense is 60, the defense cannot be broken and the damage is 0, but the damage value is still 50 points.

The Touch of Pain released by Painful Brother also has a damage value of 50 points.

If the opponent's mental defense is 0, the directly dealt damage is approximately 50 points.

If the opponent's mental defense is 49, the effective damage of this strike is not necessarily 1; it is highly likely to be 0.

This is because the damage calculation for pseudo-rule abilities includes many unknown variables.

For example, the opponent's willpower, damage conduction and sharing mechanisms the opponent may possess, and so on.

It cannot produce effects directly like rule characteristics; the damage calculation formula is extremely complex.

The third point is that pseudo-rules possess replicability.

Seeing this, I imagine some brothers will wonder: can't the Painful Painful Minghun mastered by us players also be replicated?

Wrong; this is not replication, but sharing.

Just like the War Divine Seal of the Against-Tide Legion: only Against-Tide possesses the War Divine Seal; other warriors obtain a portion of his war rule characteristics through the gift bestowed by Against-Tide.

But pseudo-rules are different; these are things that can be completely replicated.

In fact, the quantity of Touch of Pain mastered by Painful Brother is two; each possesses one, rather than sharing a single Touch of Pain Painful Painful Minghun together.

Finally, pseudo-rules possess the potential to grow into rules, but the difficulty of crossing this threshold is extremely high.

The guidance's answer is that a world is needed to carry this power; it can even be understood that a rule is the core law of a world.

Every rule is a clause stripped from the world's laws.

To create a rule, aside from natural gestation during the birth of a world, unless you possess the ability to create a world, like a Creator God molding a world to carry this rule power.

Rule-level factions descending into the Monster World basically strip rules from their native worlds and then descend carrying them.

The above concludes the interpretation of the guide shared this time.

Finally, a note: theoretically, all brothers have the opportunity to possess special Painful Painful Minghun; the Monster World holds infinite possibilities, containing a vast number of rules and pseudo-rules.

Acquiring one allows you to craft it into a special rule.

But I must still remind all brothers: pseudo-rule characteristics are truly not as strong as the Painful Painful Minghun of our player system.

The pseudo-rule in Painful Brother's hands is quite special; it belongs to an overpowered mechanism, but its growth potential is too low.

It is a method conceived by the Old Man after years of painstaking research, specifically designed to counter the Black Tide.

For other ordinary pseudo-rules obtained, it is recommended to directly sacrifice Beneath Di Zhao to decompose them, exchanging them for a sudden windfall of wealth.

Unless the mechanism of the pseudo-rule in your hand is as formidable as the Touch of Pain, in which case you can try cultivating it, and even ask the guidance how to advance it into a rule-type ability.

The interpretation of rules, pseudo-rules, and special Painful Painful Minghun crafting ends here.

Welcome everyone to follow me; I am an exploration-focused player. My homepage shares exploration anecdotes daily, and occasionally supplements background materials and hidden mechanism settings within the game.

After reading the post on special Painful Painful Minghun crafting, Qi Sheng was about to check player comments when he suddenly received a prompt from the guidance.

He immediately switched his perspective to the real world.

Moon Eclipse City, Security Center.

Drip!

After detection passed, a green light lit up on the side wall of the room.

The heavy metal door retracted into the wall, and the Second Magistrate passed through.

Entering the security center room felt like stepping into the cosmic hub.

The room had a vast circular dome, inlaid with countless shimmering energy crystals, like stars in the night sky, casting soft, shifting light into every corner.

At the room's center floated a holographic Earth model, dozens of meters in diameter, emitting a faint blue glow as it rotated slowly.

Across its surface, countless fine lines darted like electric arcs.

These were real-time monitoring data of global energy fluctuations.

The thickness and color changes of each line represented energy intensity feedback from different regions.

Surrounding the holographic Earth model were control consoles in blue-and-white tones, devoid of traditional buttons, instead adorned with flickering light clusters and ever-changing patterns.

This system was jointly built by the Eclipse Clan and Earth's various races.

Monitoring stations were established across every region of Earth, tracking energy feedback fluctuations in real time.

Its core purpose was to detect sudden appearances of alien forces.

If unusual energy fluctuations were detected, the security center would sound an alarm, alerting the Eclipse Clan's on-duty Magistrates to determine whether to enter a state of war.

After all, whether the arriving force was friendly remained entirely unknown.

The Earth Alliance had already endured multiple invasion wars—this was a necessary precaution.

Of course, besides invading forces, many new factions had integrated into the Earth Alliance, becoming part of this family.

The Second Magistrate approached the control console and waved his hand lightly, interacting with the floating light clusters.

Instantly, the walls of the security center flickered, revealing several massive screens.

They simultaneously displayed high-definition real-time footage from monitoring stations worldwide.

Along the edge of each screen, a long string of complex energy parameters scrolled.

These parameters updated every millisecond, ensuring the security center constantly tracked every subtle energy change on Earth.

At that moment, a hum arose.

The computer cluster ran at full capacity in the background, analyzing and comparing vast volumes of energy data.

The holographic Earth model also expanded at this moment.

The Earth in the image was covered by a dense grid, each cell flashing with different data streams.

Atmospheric pressure, geomagnetic strength, radiation levels… all information converged here, like an invisible net enveloping the entire Earth.

The real-time footage on the walls shifted continuously as the Second Magistrate waved his hand.

From the summit of Mount Everest to the depths of the Mariana Trench, from the Sahara Desert to the Amazon Rainforest, polar ice caps, equatorial rainforests, deep-sea hydrothermal vents… even magma activity deep within the crust, none escaped the security center's monitoring.

Every monitoring node on Earth collected data without pause.

Energy fluctuations, temperature changes, biological activity—all information was transmitted in real time here, forming a global energy map.

Suddenly, a blinding red light flared at one point on the holographic Earth.

The intelligent assistant's voice echoed through the security room:

"Anomalous energy fluctuation detected. Coordinates: 63°29′ N, 78°30′ W. Energy level: 12.7."

As the voice ended, the holographic Earth rapidly zoomed in, clearly revealing the target area.

The screen showed the Arctic sky, a space rift twisting and quivering.

Focusing the view, relevant information appeared.

【Black Tide Rift (Confidential—Not Public)】:

Analysis: Expanding gradually. Time node for space tunnel formation: Unable to obtain further rift information. Unable to determine.

It had been nearly a year since this space rift appeared.

The Black Tide had shown no signs of invasion yet.

But its existence was a thorn in the throat.

Like a signal marker before invasion, the terrifying Black Tide could at any moment descend upon Earth through the space tunnel formed by this rift's expansion.

When that happened, Earth would face an unprecedented challenge.

"I need the Black Tide rift's space energy fluctuation data from the past month."

Hearing the Second Magistrate's command, the security center's AI automatically retrieved the relevant data and displayed it as a table on a light screen.

"Display as a curve."

Instantly, the listed data transformed into a curve chart.

It was clear: the rift's expansion overall showed an upward trend, with undulating fluctuations.

But based solely on the curve's trend, it was impossible to predict the exact time of the Black Tide's arrival.

The Second Magistrate selected six time nodes with significant fluctuations for comparison, then reluctantly gave up.

He waved his hand lightly, and the data light screen dissolved like ripples in water.

The Second Magistrate turned his gaze back to the hovering holographic Earth.

His eyes scanned each monitoring node, reviewing energy fluctuation data from every region.

An hour ago, he received a security center alert: anomalous energy fluctuations had been detected on Earth.

But the anomaly had no clear pinpoint location.

So he came specifically to check, hoping to find the source region through live monitoring footage.

He reached out and tapped.

The holographic Earth image zoomed in again.

In East Asia, a dense cluster of light points glowed with steady blue light.

This is one of the core zones of global basic industry, where the energy fluctuations show regular peaks.

Zooming in on the region, factory machinery roaring, urban power consumption, transportation networks running… all activity is converted into data streams and fed into the space station's database.

The live feed jumps quickly via satellite; each time it sweeps over a region, that region's node monitoring provides data in sync.

Cutting to the vast plains of central North America, the energy fluctuations show a different pattern.

This is the intersection of agriculture and resource development; massive wind turbine clusters rotate slowly across the grasslands, and the energy readings rise and fall with the wind speed.

Comparing the data, no anomalies were found; the feed jumps again, this time to the African continent.

At the edge of the Sahara Desert, the crystal power station most recently built by the Striker Clan has already been put into operation.

The energy fluctuations have shown an upward trend recently.

Zooming in on the live feed, tens of thousands of energy crystal panels in the holographic image look like a silver sea.

Comparing data and image, no anomalies; the holographic feed jumps to deep within the Amazon rainforest in South America.

The energy fluctuations here are unusually calm, only compared to the beginning, a few more energy activity nodes have appeared.

This is the three clans that joined the Earth Alliance ten years ago building a small city here.

The energy readings at the forest's edge have been slowly climbing every year; the three clans' gradual encroachment into the rainforest is clearly visible.

Logging machinery roaring, new road construction, urban expansion — all activity can be clearly observed by comparing energy fluctuations.

Through the holographic Earth image, whichever clan is developing secret weapons can also be monitored for data at any time.

Unless the process of forging that weapon produces no energy fluctuations at all.

After jumping through several regions in succession, the images and data information shown in the monitoring showed no problems whatsoever.

But since the Security Center gave a prompt, it proves that anomalous energy fluctuations must exist.

The so-called anomalous energy fluctuations refer to unknown energy beyond the monitoring range.

Urban power consumption, factory machinery operation, natural wind, rain, thunder, and lightning — all energy fluctuations rise and fall within the expected range… even if there is a gradually amplifying trend, as long as the trend is stable, it cannot be judged as anomalous fluctuation.

Like a typhoon, it will show violent energy fluctuation data.

But the formation of a typhoon must have a clear trend.

Even if the final form is a super typhoon of Category 16 or above, before the super typhoon forms, it will start as a tropical depression and gradually increase in intensity.

As long as the Security Center detects the energy fluctuations at the starting stage, it will automatically deduce and simulate the subsequent intensity.

Monitoring the typhoon's strengthening trend in real time, even if it ultimately forms a Category 18 typhoon, it does not count as anomalous energy fluctuation.

Earthquakes are the same principle; the Security Center can also detect their intensity escalation trend.

What can be called anomalous energy fluctuation must be an unknown energy eruption that cannot have its trend determined and appears suddenly.

This kind of anomalous energy fluctuation is most likely not from Earth; it is very likely a sign of an alien race opening a spatial tunnel before their arrival.

Examining carefully, unable to find the cause, Administrator No. 2 continues.

This time the anomalous energy fluctuation that appeared was a synchronous response from all nodes, making it impossible to determine the specific coordinate location.

But as long as it is a cross-spatial tunnel, there must be a core coordinate node.

What Administrator No. 2 is searching for is precisely this possibly existing coordinate node.

After hours of fruitless searching, Administrator No. 2 continues the focused search and screening.

The arrival of an alien race is no small matter; a war sweeping the globe could erupt at any moment.

Only by understanding in advance can sufficient preparations be made.

Twenty-three hours later, Administrator No. 2, with the help of the AI assistant, begins comparing detailed images of local regions.

Just then, the AI assistant gives a prompt:

"Anomalous energy fluctuation detected at 45.6° West longitude, 32.8° North latitude, fairly similar to the anomalous fluctuation detected last time."

Administrator No. 2 raises his right hand; the Earth image before him rapidly rotates to the back side and freezes, then zooms in.

What appears is a real-time image of the sky over the Atlantic Ocean.

The energy fluctuation shows a strange dark red, like a wound tearing open the calmly rotating blue.

Administrator No. 2's Face Grew Solemn; he taps lightly in the air, bringing up the data analysis panel.

The energy readings are continuously climbing, already breaching the safety threshold.

This is clearly no ordinary natural disaster, nor any known type of energy weapon.

"Level Three alert, pull up all nearby satellite monitoring." Administrator No. 2's voice echoes through the empty Security Center.

The surrounding wall screens immediately jump; hundreds of holographic screens unfold simultaneously, dyeing the entire space a deep blue.

Each screen displays a different data stream: atmospheric composition, geomagnetic intensity, gravitational field changes, and so on.

In the central image, a twisted spatial rift is slowly shifting.

Administrator No. 2 acts decisively, opening communications with the Earth United Command station closest to the rift.

In the popped-up light-screen image, the figure of a Lunar Eclipse Clan member on duty at the Earth Command appears.

Administrator No. 2 wastes no words, directly issuing orders:

"Dispatch three unmanned observation craft to coordinates 45.6° West longitude, 32.8° North latitude for real-time monitoring, and prepare to make contact with any clans that may arrive."

"Understood." The duty officer in the command image nods immediately.

Seconds later, from the weapon platform near the coordinate point, three unmanned observation craft lift off and approach the coordinate location.

The observation craft enter standby patrol mode one hour later, circling the rift in flight.

But during the wait, no alien race arrived, and the spatial rift remained in its initial state, showing no fluctuations whatsoever.

Time slips away second by second; Administrator No. 2 holds his post at the Security Center throughout.

Five hours later, the spatial rift still shows no change.

This differs from previous alien arrivals; it is rather similar to the Black Tide — this rift is more like a spatial coordinate.

The alien force on the other end does not seem to have any intention of descending upon Earth.

At this moment, beneath the rift, he had already initiated preliminary war deployments.

Deep beneath the seabed directly below the coordinates, a massive deep-sea fortress silently arrived.

Lights illuminated the base's core area; the energy core entered combat-ready operation, releasing energy fluctuations that pulsed rhythmically like a heartbeat, gradually intensifying.

As energy was injected, the base's shell vibrated; the biomimetic scales covering its surface rose one by one, revealing flowing energy patterns beneath, spreading like blood vessels to transport energy to every corner of the base.

The weapon array system activated.

From the base's top, several huge mechanical tentacles shot out, each hundreds of meters long, dancing in the darkness like the tentacles of a deep-sea leviathan.

The tips of the tentacles were high-energy cutters capable of easily tearing through any obstacle; their surfaces were also covered with micro-sensors that collected information and fed it back to Eclipse City.

Following this, the base's belly opened, and tens of thousands of underwater drones surged out like a school of fish.

Their shapes mimicked deep-sea fish; their streamlined bodies moved agilely through the water without making a sound.

The drones' eyes were high-definition cameras capable of capturing every detail of the surroundings; their backs were equipped with sonic weapons and missiles.

As the weapons base fully activated, a semi-transparent energy barrier rose from the base's top and rapidly expanded in all directions.

The barrier, like a giant bubble, completely enveloped the base and the surrounding weapon systems.

Around the base, hundreds of plasma turrets rose from the seabed.

The turrets resembled spires, with blue electric arcs flickering at their peaks.

After the turrets activated, the electric arcs rapidly condensed into energy spheres, ready to fire at any moment.

At the base's bottom, dozens of vertical launch silos silently opened, entering war mode.

On the sea surface at the coordinates, several floating platforms rose from underwater, and the massive energy concentrator at their center entered activation.

In higher orbits, several space-based weapon satellites simultaneously entered Level 3 alert; their mounted railguns and energy beam emitters had their firing restrictions lifted, allowing them to precisely strike the spatial rift above the sea surface from space at any time.

With all deployments complete, Administrator No. 2 continued to wait patiently.

If the initial contact encountered no problems, he would attempt to recruit the newly arrived race into the Earth Alliance.

However, if this arriving faction came with a posture of destruction or plundering war, he would judge whether to enter war mode or full-scale war mode based on the combat power of the invading race.

As time passed during the wait, another 27 hours elapsed.

Above the sea surface, distorted lines silently opened a fissure, like a spatial wound sliced by an invisible blade.

A thick purple mist surged from the rift, resembling poisonous fog; inside, countless tiny creatures could be vaguely seen swimming.

Upon zooming in, it could be discovered that these tiny lifeforms resembled jellyfish, emitting faint fluorescence, their bodies composed of semi-transparent gelatinous material.

After entering Earth, the tiny lifeforms rapidly expanded, forming a vast life network; their tentacles interconnected, releasing a viscous, glowing substance from their tips.

This substance rapidly solidified in the air, forming sturdy biological fibers.

As the interconnected nodes increased, the fibers wove into complex life structures, with each node releasing energy to maintain the life network's framework.

Administrator No. 2 monitored the progress of the changes through surveillance.

Without contact or communication yet, the use of any weapons was not currently considered.

The biological network in the footage continued to expand, and the feedback fluctuations of information transmission between nodes grew exponentially.

At this moment, the tiny lifeforms within the life network began to exhibit different growth tendencies.

Part of the gelatinous material hardened to form skeletons supporting the bodies, while other individuals elongated and deformed, developing into locomotion organs... The gelatinous material gradually differentiated into various functional organs and life structures.

It was like 3D modeling being performed in the real world.

Each small jellyfish was a basic module; through piecing and combining, they formed a massive floating lifeform over a hundred meters long.

The energy fluctuation data radiating from within the lifeform was also displayed in real-time on the light screen of the Security Center.

The crystal chip embedded in Administrator No. 2's nape flickered with a faint light; upon receiving the command, a robot resembling an Eclipse Clan member rose from the sea surface platform and approached the giant floating lifeform.

The translation matrix on the robot's chest operated, preparing to establish a mental link with the arriving faction and initiate preliminary communication.

Just then, the compound eyes of the floating leviathan suddenly erupted with blinding red light.

The massive body shuddered violently; fluorescent patterns on its surface flashed intensely, lighting up segment by segment from tail to head as if charging.

The AI assistant immediately issued a warning:

"Warning! Hostile signal detected!"

The next second, the floating leviathan's back contracted violently; tiny holes suddenly cracked open on its surface, from which dense crystals were ejected.

Zooming in, the sharp crystals were covered in fluorescent slime and automatically flew toward the robot.

In an instant, Administrator No. 2's thought triggered an emergency activation of the robot's energy barrier.

But the crystals suddenly exploded upon approaching; the robot's silver-white shell was instantly covered by the fluorescent substance, which rapidly penetrated. The crystal chip in Administrator No. 2's nape immediately flashed wildly.

The robot in the footage was corroded and melted at a speed visible to the naked eye, falling from the sky into the water as metallic wreckage.

Without even a shred of hesitation, Administrator No. 2 spoke decisively in a low voice:

"Notify all races of the Earth Alliance to enter a state of war."

At this moment, the races of Earth, having already received the notification, launched their actions one after another.

City defense systems activated sequentially; one city after another was enveloped by energy light screens.

Although only a single floating lifeform had arrived, the cities of all races had already prepared in advance to withstand devastating strikes.

(End of this chapter)