Chapter 418: Human Pile Driver

"I'm so sorry—I originally wanted to give you some beef patties for the road, but the beef patties ran off, so now I only have fresh vegetables; take as much as you like." Negrilis said humbly.

Jimmy looked at the large bundle of fresh vegetables on the ground, his face beaming; he tried to act restrained, but his hands and feet moved swiftly: "No no no, vegetables are good, vegetables are great—my family loves vegetables."

Jimmy grabbed the vegetables and sprinted off, no doubt muttering to himself: Why give me vegetables and still feel bad? Isn't that idiotic?

In Northwind City, beef patties and fresh vegetables were not even in the same league—common folk rarely ate fresh vegetables; having some dried radish was already quite good.

Unlike some humid southern regions, where you could just scatter seeds behind your house and end up with a whole garden of vegetables, varied every day of the year.

This big bundle of vegetables was worth several months of Jimmy's salary; only an idiot would trade it for beef patties.

After sending Jimmy away, the group headed toward Desert Town, arriving at the place where the Undying Flood slept. Ange curled his body and emitted a soul's call.

Bones pierced the ground, one by one; skeletons rose, dazed and confused.

Soon, a tide of tens of thousands of skeletons formed. The little angel raced excitedly along the edge of the flood, yelping: "Aow! Aow! Aow!"

"This child, you're a battle angel, not a shepherd dog!" Negrilis shouted irritably.

"Aow!"

"Aow aow!" Inspired by her, the little zombie also started running.

Under the urging of the two little ones, the skeleton tide surged toward the drop-off.

Du Luo leaned his elbow into Negrilis: "You were afraid I'd do something reckless just now—was this what you meant? What exactly were you afraid he'd do?"

Negrilis grinned awkwardly: "I was afraid he'd target the skeletons in the city's cemetery. Who knows if someone's watching those graves?"

The skeletons in the cemetery had official rosters—basically one grave per pit; if any went missing, it'd be noticed immediately.

Du Luo shrugged dismissively: "So what if they notice? Are we afraid of the Necromancer Council?"

He thought Negrilis was being overly cautious; after all, he was the Alchemy King, and with Ange's power projection, if the Necromancer Council wanted trouble, they'd need to send at least a Lord of Mourning.

Does the Necromancer Council even have a Lord of Mourning? Even if they did, wouldn't it be attacking the Star Burst Array alongside Your Majesty?

Negrilis sneered: "Am I afraid of the Necromancer Council? I'm afraid of the Mage Alliance—what if that damn thing up there changes direction and hits us with another Star Burst? It can strike gods, but it's not *only* capable of striking gods."

Du Luo shuddered—right, how could he have forgotten that thing?

Du Luo was used to measuring this world by the power system of the Prime Plane—he assumed that, below a Sovereign, they were invincible, and had always overlooked one thing: the Star Burst Array.

The Star Burst Array, from an unknown distance, obliterated the Gods of Light. If it now changed direction and fired another shot at them, what would happen?

Du Luo had no divine spark, but the silver coin and Negrilis did. Negrilis had the protection of the Copper Book—though it was a seal, it shielded his divine spark from harm.

But the question is: does the Star Burst Array strike *only* divine sparks?

Realizing this, Du Luo looked up at the Star Burst Array and suddenly felt a knife hanging over his head.

…

With so many hands, building the dam presented no technical challenges. Du Luo was one of the top two engineers across this plane and even the other plane—this dam was child's play.

The surveying problem was solved by Ange's Ring of Balance. Who could have imagined that the Ring of Balance of the God of Equality and Justice had its perfect application in engineering surveying?

In any project, from design to construction, the most time-consuming part is surveying—elevation, level, geology, earthwork—all require immense time and effort. Ange hopped around, glanced a few times, and that was enough.

Without the Ring of Balance, he couldn't have instantly seen that the drop-off to Northwind City was perfectly level. If the elevations weren't aligned, building a dam would be an impossible marvel.

"We can build the dam here—the river channel is narrow, so the workload is small. There's also a large depression here we can use as a reservoir. That way, the dam not only raises water levels but also forms a reservoir to regulate flow during dry seasons."

"Now we need to solve the problem of underground seepage—this area's geology is too loose. If we store water, pressure will cause seepage, washing away silt and forming underground cavities, making it impossible to hold water."

Du Luo began surveying the terrain and quickly identified an engineering challenge. But when he returned the next day, he found the loose soil had hardened into solid blocks.

"Uh… what happened here?" Du Luo was baffled.

He'd spent the whole night thinking how to fix the loose soil—the best solution would be to summon a group of earth mages to compact the ground; the second-best was to seal it with binder and stones.

But either method required enormous labor—could it be…?

Du Luo stared in horror at Negrilis.

Negrilis shrugged helplessly and pointed to a nearby sand pit.

Soon, the sand pit stirred, gurgling as sand spewed out, as if some colossal thing was emerging. The earth trembled, as if a giant hammer pounded it.

Soon, Ange rose from the pit. Each tremor lifted him ten centimeters higher—each tremor lifted him ten centimeters higher—until he finally stood firmly on solid ground.

The solid ground beneath his feet was only about the size of his body—a circle completely compacted by magic.

"Ssshh—" Du Luo rushed over and couldn't help gasping: "My lord, you didn't just compact the loose soil—you drove stone piles into the ground?"

The solid ground Ange stood on wasn't just a surface—it was a stone pile driven dozens of meters deep, spaced every few meters. Not only was the soil no longer loose—it couldn't be shattered even by a magic egg.

Soon, Du Luo understood how Ange drove the piles: he stood on the ground, cast Earth Crack, firing twenty times per second, turning the earth into liquid, and sank straight down.

Only when he reached the bedrock layer did he begin to gather strength, compacting and petrifying the soil beneath his feet at two-second intervals.

Though it was only a level-one spell, two seconds meant forty casts—far more efficient than forty earth mages.

"My lord, you're a humanoid pile driver! If you'd been around back then, I could've built the World Transit Station in half a year." Du Luo sighed.

Negrilis asked: "Then how long did it take you to build the World Transit Station back then?"

"Three hundred years…"

With Ange's pile driver, which accelerated progress six hundredfold, the dam was completed and began filling with water six days later.

Meanwhile, news arrived from Northwind City: Marquis Fiew spent one point two million magic crystals to successfully seize Northwind City and became its new governor.

"But some are resentful—they can't outspend us, so they're trying to attack us for free. Fiew got slashed. My lord, come quick and save us!"

PS: 9:00 AM