Otherworldly Desert Dust-Chapter 426 381: The Situation Has Changed
...
Only one hour remained until the final attack.
Wu Hen had already infiltrated the Living City's hub, where the people mostly relied on their equipment for strength.
Inside the safe hub fortress, most personnel kept light equipment, with some combat ability but without excessive military force, as their show of force primarily relied on the entire Living City.
Before, Wu Hen had considered whether infiltrating their city and then directly destroying their main control rooms, or even capturing their leaders, could paralyze the massive Living City.
However, after entering the energy facility of Steel Eagle City and taking up a commander's role, Wu Hen discovered that the whole Living City had internal protection mechanisms.
When it suffered internal attacks of unknown origin, all commanders would activate their heavy equipment.
These heavy equipment pieces were usually in a dormant state and would only charge and activate during internal attacks, and these commanders, each one an Ultimate Iron Man, certainly had a chance to kill some in a sneak attack, but escaping the city alive was nearly impossible. Moreover, the small prisons like Levi's Prison Town had forbidden magnetism technology, and all the large Living Cities had it too. Without mastering the deceitful power of the Evil Spirit, under the strong suppression of forbidden magnetism, and with everyone as an Iron Man, Wu Hen could only end up dead.
Bluntly speaking, if he fought the Living City head-on outside the city, there might still be a slim chance to evade the forbidden magnetism or use the terrain to contend with the Living City.
But inside the city, at the center of the forbidden magnetism's power, it was extremely difficult to exert extraordinary powers, reducing the odds of success even further.
As for assassinating a few commanders, it wouldn't significantly impact the overall combat capability of the Living City; replacing them with younger, more fearless commanders and leaders could even make their fighting force more formidable.
It could be said that they had their own protective laws within the city; breaking these laws presented a great challenge. After all, how could these intellectual and technologically advanced natives not have thought of what outsiders could conceive?
Of course, there had been times in Da Xuan's history when their city interiors were loose and frail. During that era, they belonged to the Low-class Human Clan in the Cang Chu Divine Realm and even shook their technological foundations, attempting to find other methods of Evolution Ascension. But after developing forbidden magnetism technology, they filled in their final shortcoming, elevating them to the elite of the Cang Chu Divine Realm, even forcing Immortals, Xuanzu, and True Gods to treat them with a degree of respect...
Unfortunately, the Da Xuan that Wu Hen encountered had already filled in these shortcomings, existing in their golden imperial era, with all possible sneaky approaches already blocked by their extraordinary predecessors.
Levi also mentioned that the day Da Xuan resolved the Evil Spirit issue and overcame their last technological barrier, the Da Xuan civilization would completely ascend, becoming a higher-dimensional emperor dynasty, controlling billions of life forms in the otherworldly realm.
"There must be quite a few Evil Spirits breeding here," Wu Hen observed through a slit-window, watching the Grand Canyon City.
He was puzzled because, logically according to Da Xuan Technology, the more aggressively they developed, the easier it was for Evil Spirits to breed. And their technology was mostly ineffective against Evil Spirits; once an Evil Spirit appeared in the city, it could completely paralyze a whole working line and, if not dealt with, could spread to other areas.
When Wu Hen activated his Fourth Rank Spiritual Vision to observe various areas of the Grand Canyon City, he saw the soul fires of Evil Spirits floating in residential areas, industrial parks, combat zones, and smelting areas...
The number of Evil Spirits almost surpassed that of the Evil Spirit Town in the swamps, yet the Grand Canyon City was operating normally, unbelievably.
As Wu Hen pondered, suddenly a chanting sound came.
It sounded like an ancient language reciting scriptures, maintaining a light and slow rhythm, solemn and orderly.
Wu Hen immediately shifted to another window and looked towards a rock pillar platform.
It was a large rock pillar extending from deep underground, actually connected to the upper rock layers, but a section in the middle was cleanly cut off, forming a sacrificial altar.
On the altar, an array of magical artifacts was laid out, including animal fangs, ancient skull fossils, animal figures woven from fresh vines and flowers, and a large number of ancient coins and bronze stones.
Ancient Temple Monks sat forming a snake-head circle, murmuring incomprehensible words.
As a person with Fourth Rank Hearing, although Wu Hen could not understand the content of their chants, he could sense a form of magic from these sound waves. At first listen, it resembled a religious ritual of soul transmigration, yet it also gave Wu Hen a feeling closely akin to deceitful hypnosis.
Wu Hen immediately turned to observe the soul fires of the Evil Spirits throughout the city.
These soul fires, which had been burning more intensely throughout the night, began to flicker and dim, as if the chanting had formed a series of sacred bell sounds, suppressing the emergence of Evil Spirits and forcing them to retreat back to their hosts.
"This Grand Canyon City really knows how to sort things out," Wu Hen thought.
"Their Evil Spirit issue has reached its limit; it should be impossible for them to develop further, all technology could be destroyed by Evil Spirits, and city life could become paralyzed. Yet, they have the Ancient Temple Monk Clan native to them, relying on these monks to suppress the Evil Spirits."
"Mysticism, theology, really suppressing the peculiar, huh?" Wu Hen finally understood the key to the Grand Canyon City's unbridled operation; the ancient monks residing in those temples played a role in suppressing the Evil Spirits.
These ancient monks looked somewhat strange and slightly different from the orthodox theological temperament, having seen the Land of Myths himself.
"Hats off to them," Wu Hen remarked.
At this moment, a man dressed in a black long coat appeared on the sacrificial platform. After the ceremony, he warmly offered refreshments, the steaming liquid's nature unknown, hopefully not fresh human blood.
"After tonight, the heroic spirits can rest. But City Lord Wei must be cautious. We have been forced into a corner and are sparing no expense. But it doesn't mean that our city can accommodate those true scumbags. Those in our city's leadership don't even deserve transmigration; I hope City Lord Wei handles them properly," one of the ancient monks stood and said.
"Rest assured, I will arrange a place for the people of this fortress," City Lord Wei said, his gaze sweeping toward the giant molten pool below the city.
...
Wu Hen furrowed his brow.
This City Lord Wei, underneath his guise, fundamentally despised these criminal scum.
Though a war criminal himself, he kept Grand Canyon City well-organized, even suppressing the Evil Spirits.
He previously thought City Lord Wei was akin to the fortress's criminals, but in reality, they detested those involved in human trafficking, forcing women, and arson just the same.
"This is bad! City Lord Wei is a war criminal with broad schemes; he probably plans to use up Evil City and then toss the entire fortress into the Ten Thousand Melt Evil Cauldron as fuel!"
If it had been earlier, Wu Hen would have wholeheartedly agreed.
Anyone who had seen the conditions below the casinos would be sure these people deserved to be furnace slag, and Wu Hen felt no pity.
But they needed to relocate the residents of Prison Town into the fortress.
If not handled properly, without timely evacuation from Grand Canyon City, not only the fortress's criminals but also the good people of Prison Town could end up thrown into the cauldron…
If defeated, there was a chance the townspeople could survive, as those overseeing Grand Canyon City did not just throw anyone they saw into the cauldron as fuel; perhaps through negotiation, they might survive as furnace workers beneath the city's furnace.
But now, if Wu Hen mishandled the situation and failed to detach Evil City, the townspeople and the criminals would meet their end in furnace hell together.
"We have only half an hour left."
"There's no time to consult with Levi anymore."
"Little Yi, we've encountered a special situation… regardless of what else might be lurking behind this battle between the two great cities, we must give it our all."
At this moment, Wu Hen could only discuss the situation with Little Yi.
"Ding~"
Little Yi shuddered to signify, 'Just do it.'
...
What was meant to happen, happened.
In the half-hour before Steel Eagle City was about to launch their assault, four living hubs within the fortress saw the emergence of armed war generals who swiftly took control over the fortress's criminal bosses, using the need to coordinate the entire Grand Canyon City as an excuse to confine them within the hub area.
Initially, Wu Hen just needed to dispose of these criminal bosses to quickly seize control of the fortress.
However, the appearance of these heavily armed and well-equipped war generals significantly elevated the difficulty of the battle.
They were originally intended to suppress these criminal forces internally and eliminate them, but now Wu Hen found himself facing these fully-armed Dark Iron Men.
"Little Bronze and Demon Sword Concubine should be able to handle the enemies over there."
"I wonder if Chen Fanfan can withstand the pressure."
"I'm too close to the Ancient Temple Shura Head. Any major movement and one of the nine heads will strike down, I won't be able to defeat it without drawing my sword."
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"We can only play it by ear."
...
Suddenly, an ultrasound wave transmitted through the ground.
The wave did not disturb a single flower, blade of grass, or even ripple the marshy lake waters, yet it triggered the war bell sounds throughout Grand Canyon City!
The giant bells in the ancient temples scattered across various districts of the city could sense the ultrasound produced by large objects moving at high speeds—akin to an eagle swooping down for its prey, startling the hunter's bell wire in the forest!
Chi Luo, that fool, had finally launched an attack.
And Grand Canyon City captured this information immediately; the city, which had just been bustling, exploded with energy like several volcanoes erupting simultaneously, causing the surrounding rock layers to recede like tides due to the underground city's expansion!
Hell Nine-Headed City had awakened once again!!
