Chapter 359: Who Approves? Who Opposes?

One day later.

Star Fall World, New Cassini.

Wei Shan hovered high in the sky, looking down at the ruined city below.

This city was one of the most densely populated areas he had found while exploring the small world so far.

Yet the entire city was built upon ruins.

The reason was not hard to understand.

When learning about the Star Fall World, he knew this city had once suffered an invasion by external forces.

Afterwards, the Virtual Rune Legion, which mastered the rules of ascension, drove the invading forces back.

At this moment, Wei Shan dove toward the city below, deciding to use this city as his first test target.

Nightfall shrouded the city.

The End of Magic Clan invasion event half a year ago had turned "New Cassini" into ruins.

The entire city was covered in a gloom of despair.

Everyone thought this invasion catastrophe would completely destroy the civilization they had created.

But they never expected divine soldiers to descend from the sky, an unknown force suddenly appearing to utterly drive the alien forces they considered invincible out of their homeland.

Yet the rift torn open by the invasion still spread through the city's texture.

The energy pipelines that once ran east to west had now become natural barriers dividing the city districts.

The northern district still retained half a city dome used to defend against external enemies; the damage was not particularly severe, but the southern district had completely fallen into ruin and slums, where gang forces like wild dogs sprouted among the broken walls and ruins.

The once smoothly operating aerial traffic network had also completely paralyzed.

Countless civilian aircraft were piled up in the city, forming metal mountains.

The death of the rule of law lasted far longer than the impact caused by the End of Magic Clan invasion.

The law enforcement system's database was destroyed during the invasion, and those articles that once constrained behavior were now scoffed at.

Nowadays, what divided territories were not administrative maps, but flags planted on the ruins after gang battles.

The Wild Wolf Gang's blood-red wolf-head flag fluttered in the central square district; the Iron Hand Gang's mechanical claw emblem was nailed onto the wreckage of the energy station... resource struggle had become the main theme of this city.

Water purification factories, combat-type mechas, technical engineers, food breeding bases... whoever could master these resources would hold the power of life and death.

Now, various districts of the city were divided by different gangs; even simple movement by the city's residents required paying a toll.

The corpses of resisters hung on the warning lights of different streets, swaying in the wind, becoming markers more conspicuous than any road sign.

The surviving residents were like insects parasitizing the city's ruins, breeding twisted survival wisdom in the chaotic environment.

They learned to distinguish gang emblems amidst gunshots and knew how to exchange their bodies and other means for temporary safety.

Public facilities that once symbolized civilization had all been transformed into black market trading centers.

Hospitals had become workshops for illegally modifying weapons.

The clock tower, which could overlook the entire city, had now become a neutral ground for negotiations among major gangs.

Heavy rain mixed with sewage washed the city's wounds, yet could not wash away the despair permeating the air.

New Cassini was no longer one of the transportation hubs of this world; it was more like a wound slowly rotting.

It proved how civilization twisted and grew upon ruins after the collapse of order.

At this moment, atop the clock tower in the city center.

The rust-stained hands were stuck at 3:17 AM.

The eight gang leaders who occupied New Cassini sat around in the former astronomical observatory, conducting territory division negotiations.

The dome glass had shattered during the End of Magic Clan invasion; now it was hastily patched together with transparent industrial plastic sheets. Raindrops struck them with a pitter-patter sound, mixed with sporadic gunshots from the distant slums, becoming the background noise of this negotiation.

The Iron Hand Gang leader took a deep breath and slammed his mechanical prosthetic limb heavily onto the table. The collision made the oil lamp on the table flicker uncertainly. Under the dim yellow light, he grinned, revealing a neck made of metal:

"I have only one request: the water purification station in the eastern district must belong to us."

His voice, processed by a throat speaker, carried a static crackle:

"The engineer who repaired the water pump last month was from the Iron Hand Gang. Do you want to reap without sowing?"

The Wild Wolf Gang leader opposite licked the knife scar left on the corner of his mouth during a gang fight, revealing yellowed teeth. Behind him stood two bare-chested burly men, their skin tattooed with glowing wolf heads:

"Some time ago, external gangs forcefully broke in. Don't forget who held the eastern water purification pipeline."

As he spoke, he spat a mouthful of saliva, landing on the bullet-riddled floor:

"If we talk about contribution, we of the Wild Wolf Gang must also have a share of this purification factory."

At this moment, a faint sound of gears turning came from the shadows in the southeast corner. The Gear Gang leader, whose body was mostly converted into machinery, sat up, revealing his facial contours from the shadows:

"No matter what you have done, we of the Gear Gang must also have a share of the purification factory. There are only a few water purification factories in the entire city. If you occupy them, what will we drink?"

Regarding the distribution of the water purification factories, the eight gangs refused to yield to each other.

Outside the clock tower, in the heavy rain, the flags of various gangs shook violently on the ruins, as if cheering for the impending gang battle.

The night of New Cassini was about to open with a bloody carnival.

Just as the major gang leaders were preparing to grab their weapons and fight, they suddenly heard the sound of dripping water.

The sound was very faint, yet it rang clearly in their ears.

Gradually, the sound of dripping water grew heavier.

It was like the saliva of some creature falling onto a metal surface, viscous and slow.

The Iron Hand Gang leader's mechanical prosthetic limb suddenly twitched, and the hydraulic pipes emitted an unnatural "creak."

He suddenly looked down and found that the oil lamp on the table had turned dark red at some point, with a black shadow resembling the evil god "Aluxi" curled within the flame.

"What is this..."

Before he could finish speaking, a dull "thud" sounded from outside the clock tower.

As if some heavy object had smashed onto the ground.

The Wild Wolf Gang leader snapped his head up, and through the mottled plastic panels, he saw a blood moon had at some unknown moment torn through the clouds.

Moonlight seeped in like pus, painting every face a deep crimson.

What was worse, countless human faces drifted in the moonlight—each one he knew intimately, every one of them a traitor, an enemy, or an innocent he had personally executed.

"Playing tricks!"

The Gear Gang leader slammed the table and rose, but heard a *crack*.

His mechanical arm suddenly spun out of control, flipping 180 degrees, the alloy finger joints clamping around his own throat.

The gears slowly meshed, and black blood seeped from the cracks in the machinery.

The sudden, bizarre change threw the eight gang leaders present into utter panic.

The bronze bell that had long vanished from the clock tower suddenly tolled at this moment, its rusted hands spinning wildly backward.

The changes around them were as if a rewind button had been pressed, time seemingly rewound to the moment the Mo Fa Clan invaded.

Their retinas replayed that civilization-butchering slaughter that had once brought them absolute terror.

Rust ate through the entire city like a spiderweb in an instant, while the Mo Fa Clan's warships' cannon fire and small flying craft ravaged the city.

Vast numbers of their compatriots vaporized beneath this unstoppable force.

When they tried to flee the clock tower, they found the world outside had already become a living hell on earth.

When the Wild Wolf Gang leader crashed through the swaying plastic panels, the sight of the square before him froze the blood in his veins.

His brave, battle-hardened gang members were now twisted into inhuman forms.

Their muscular backs split open, six barbed limbs bursting forth; their facial bones jutted grotesquely forward, tusks piercing through their lips; the fluorescent wolf-head tattoos on their skin had actually come alive, writhing and tearing through flesh and blood.

The youngest leader of the Poison Scorpion Gang arrived right behind them.

When he saw the scene outside, he let out a heart-rending scream.

With trembling fingers he pointed at the square below the clock tower—the square his eyes saw was crawling with half-human, half-snake creatures.

The upper bodies of those creatures looked like Poison Scorpion Gang members, but their skin was covered in dark purple scales, and when their serpent tails scraped across the ground, they left trails of venomous fluid that smoked white.

One of the snake-men raised his head, revealing the face of his own younger brother.

His eyes had already turned into vertical pupils, and when he opened his mouth, sickly green teeth showed.

"It's… it's A-Lang."

Seeing his younger brother—who had died horribly in last week's gang war—reborn in snake-man form, the Poison Scorpion Gang leader collapsed to the ground, his fingers nervously picking at bullet holes in the floor from the tension, blood seeping from beneath his nails.

Even more terrifying sights spread in the distance.

The Iron Hand Gang's members had transformed into headless mechanical puppets, bare wires jutting from their necks.

From the direction of the slums on the east side of the clock tower, a black mist rose, carrying waves of wailing.

Occasionally figures burst from the fog, but they were misshapen monsters with multiple arms.

All manner of monsters ran rampant, the world seeming to transform into an Asura hell in an instant.

The demons and evil beings from countless myths, along with the Mo Fa Clan who had once brought them absolute terror, all revived at this moment.

The Iron Hand Gang's leader tried to activate his exoskeleton armor's combat system, only to find metal scales suddenly rising from his body, his own flesh beginning to mutate as well.

The black mist seeping from his pores formed faces in the air, wailing and roaring at him, the sound buzzing in his ears.