What kind of impression does everyone usually have of weapons? Or rather, what should be the definition of a weapon?

Perhaps its form can be ever-changing, the light and shadow effects during the attack can be brilliantly colorful, and the names and usage can vary, but I think basically all conventional weapons are fundamentally established on one common point: to attack the target, possessing the ability to cause harm or intimidation, leading to the destruction or damage of the target’s structure or function or any intact aspect, using various means to disrupt the normal state of the target — I believe weapons should essentially be like this — but evidently, the armament that Bellavilla has showcased for me in this thing called the Radiant Ring is entirely another kind of thing.

A large number of black and red Fallen Apostle spaceships appeared around the Radiant Ring, and through proportion comparison, I found that the size of the Radiant Ring is less than half of the Eternal Level, much smaller than I anticipated. After demonstrating the basic size of that golden halo, the Radiant Ring began to charge and displayed its most basic attack method — well, honestly, despite the glamorous effect, the power seemed ordinary. Around the golden halo, a large number of giant magic arrays could generate, using dense barrages to launch attacks. The power of those barrages probably was comparable to the main cannon power of medium-sized warships. Using it against an Eternal-class super mothership was somewhat struggling. During the demonstration, it took over ten minutes of saturated bombing against an enemy ship, which completely did not resist, before extinguishing its shield— it’s impossible to conduct such smooth saturated bombing against a unit on a real battlefield. To achieve the same firepower output, it’s estimated that five to six "Radiant Rings" would be needed to breach an Eternal-class mothership’s shield rapidly.

But Bellavilla told me that in the Imperial Military Equipment Series, the Radiant Ring is on par with the Eternal-class mothership as a super battleship.

Just as I was puzzled by this, a change suddenly appeared in the holographic projection: at the moment the target’s shield extinguished, the originally empty region inside the Radiant Ring suddenly exhibited a mirror-like layer, the image of the enemy ship with the shield breached was clearly reflected in the mirror. Although it’s unclear what this is, I instinctively felt that this might truly be when the halo starts its attack. However, as I continued watching, I noticed a bit of disharmony — perhaps to make the demonstration clearer, Bellavilla densely arranged the black ships representing the enemy army, but only one enemy ship appeared in the mirror while the surrounding ships were all gone. The reflection in the mirror didn’t quite adhere to the rules of perspective either — it didn’t appear smaller due to the distance between the entity and the mirror, which doesn’t make sense from a perspective standpoint. So I started speculating, maybe that’s not a mirror but a super large display? Showing the locked target in a full 100% scale? — Okay, this guess is a bit far-fetched.

"The ordinary ’main cannon’ of the Radiant Ring is quite weak, unable to compare with the main cannons from technology side like the Galaxy, but its ultimate armament is extraordinarily powerful — it’s known as the Horror Mirror System," Bellavilla explained the combat methods of the Radiant Ring to us — mainly to me. "This thing is extremely difficult to defend against, but it also has limitations. It cannot destroy targets exceeding its annihilation radius at one time, and the annihilation radius is defined by that mirror-like area you see. Targets outside this area cannot be fully locked, only partially. It’s a weapon causing absolute destruction on limited targets, unsuitable for dealing with large, bulky things. However, this locking device can be utilized smartly, I don’t know if you noticed, it looks like a mirror — during the locking process, it indeed operates in the manner of a mirror, anything fully reflected in the mirror zone at a 100% scale can be locked, thus if a target has a cross-section smaller than the annihilation radius of the Radiant Ring, it becomes inescapable. Now the second weapon system of the Radiant Ring begins its attack."

The golden halo in the holographic projection reached its charging limit, and the internal "mirror zone" suddenly flickered, following which the enemy ship image reflected in the mirror began to shrink rapidly. In just a few seconds, the size of that image decreased from several kilometers to... well, on the holographic projection, it’s merely left as a tiny dot if it wasn’t for the arrow pointing next to it, I couldn’t even spot it with the naked eye. Meanwhile, as the image shrank in the mirror, the Eternal-class enemy ship locked by the Radiant Ring similarly shrank swiftly and disappeared in a flash, moments later, a faint spark like a firefly erupted where that black warship vanished.

"The absolute power of the Horror Mirror System," Bellavilla smiled lightly, "Of course, this system has its weaknesses. Its attacks can be neutralized by Ghost Energy Shields or shields of the same level because, in terms of information priority, Holy Light and Ghost Energy are equivalent, neither can fully annihilate or interfere with the other in the Main Material Plane. Therefore, the Horror Mirror System cannot lock a target completely wrapped by Ghost Energy or similar level shields. Thus, the combat method of the Radiant Ring needs to proceed in two stages: the first stage involves continuously weakening the target shield using its conventional weapons and ally firepower, the moment the enemy shield disappears, the target gets reflected in the mirror zone, the second stage begins. The Radiant Ring reverses the boundary between mirror and reality. Normally, when you look into a mirror, you actively change your posture, and then the image in the mirror follows up the change, but once reflected by the Radiant Ring, this relation reverses — the Horror Mirror System turns your reality entity into a mirror phantom, and then it rapidly shrinks its ’mirror,’ the reflected target is unconditionally crushed."

Me: "..."

"Overloaded with information?" Bellavilla waved a hand in front of my eyes, "Snap out of it, it’s not that exaggerated."

"This thing... what’s its weapon level? Law-level? Concept-level?" I pointed to the holographic projection of the Radiant Ring, "Isn’t this destructive power too unsolvable?"

"Actually, it’s not as exaggerated as you think," Bellavilla shrugged, "It’s just that the operational principles of most things in the Mystic System don’t conform to the general worldview, so they appear astonishing. In a strict sense, the Horror Mirror System is merely a math rate modification device. Its attack effect is limited to within the annihilation radius, so it’s not a Law Weapon. Its locking and activation process is subject to external interference, hence it’s not a Concept Weapon. Its power level is actually on par with the Galaxy Main Gun, which utilizes a high concentration of Ghost Energy Torrent capable of producing effects across all dimensions, target units without shields facing Ghost Energy attacks would also be unconditionally destroyed, so the Galaxy isn’t merely an Energy Cannon — all medium to large active weapons in the Empire aren’t purely physical destructive. Once understood, that’s how it is. Although when contending with Empire fleet warships, the Horror Mirror System has an advantage compared to the Galaxy Main Gun, that is after the enemy ship’s shield is broken, against the Galaxy Main Gun, it can keep fighting relying on the Recharge Armor and inner Ghost Energy environment, whereas against the Horror Mirror System, as long as the outer Ghost Energy shield of the enemy ship is no longer intact, the ship’s structure is entirely doomed, abundant internal Ghost Energy can’t block the irradiation."

Bellavilla explained the operational mechanism of the Horror Mirror System in detail. Whether it can irradiate a target depends on two conditions, the first being the target must be smaller than its annihilation radius — the locking system of the Horror Mirror utilizes the "information mapping" principle, requiring a 100% reproduction of the target; the second is demanding a flaw in the target’s outer shield. This flaw may persist for a very brief time, even if only flashing momentarily for a few femtoseconds, it’s enough for the Mirror System to establish mapping. Afterward, even if the enemy ship recharges its shield, it’s too late to restore, because in the current world, the information mapping relation is already established, the bullet has already entered the head, it’s too late to put on a helmet at this point.

As for how this thing utilizes a mirror to annihilate a physical entity in reality, Sandora noticed my struggle to understand and made a vivid analogy: "You should be familiar with shortcuts, right?"

"The ones on computers? Of course, I know." I nodded.

"Through shortcuts, you can control program entities," Sandora continued, "The Horror Mirror establishes a shortcut for the target. We know that the essence of the world is an information collection, everything that enters the World Barrier must find a refuge for its information within the ’world’ — this grand storage device. We can be viewed as a folder, and a complete Ghost Energy concealment can utilize advanced permissions — which is the priority position of Ghost Energy in the hierarchy of all things — to hide the folder path. The Horror Mirror System seeks to locate the target’s file location and then... establish a shortcut for uninstallation."

This time, I finally understood thoroughly.

"It’s a powerful thing... I still think it’s more high-tech compared to the Galaxy... Hmm, high magic," I marveled at the golden halo in the holographic projection, "But I think its autonomous combat capability is probably quite weak?"

"There’s no way around it. Besides true Law Weapons and Concept Weapons, trying to circumvent the world’s various corrections through cunning is fraught with difficulties. When the target has a complete Ghost Energy Shield, even if that shield is weak, the Horror Mirror System can’t be activated," Bellavilla spread her hands helplessly. "And it’s limited by having a finite energy load; its conventional firepower isn’t strong. Therefore, when faced with a cluster of Eternal Level formations, the Radiant Ring must have a substantial number of support warships as auxiliaries to avoid a dire fate: its defense is only about half that of the Eternals. However, as long as our fleet contains a certain number of Radiant Rings, it will pose an unprecedented deterrent to the enemy. You can probably see right away how much fear such a sniper turret—potentially effective and lethal at any moment—can instill in their large warships. They might sacrifice firepower and maneuverability—to enhance single-ship shield strength—to prevent being point-killed by the Mirror. The Joint Shield is powerless against the Radiant Ring because it’s not a complete shield; the stacking of shields from different spaceships creates a large number of discontinuous surfaces. These discontinuous surfaces don’t affect protection against conventional fire but provide the Horror Mirror an opportunity to exploit. Ah, do you have a question?"

I pointed to the holographic projection: "Just one question. How long will it take us to build this thing? Can it be commissioned before the next battle with the Fallen Apostles?"

Bellavilla glanced at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle, then looked at me: "You can’t just consider our past grudges and treat me like an event... How long did it take you to build your first Eternity? Speaking of Eternity, I still hold grudges from back then in Azeroth when Visca mercilessly turned my last Eternal Battleship into fireworks..."

"Well, if she hadn’t turned them into fireworks, it would have been us who got the fireworks... Don’t change the subject," I quickly realized, "That’s not part of your glorified history. Moreover, we didn’t have full data on Eternal Level at the time, and our basic industry wasn’t complete, which slowed progress. But now you have the data for the Radiant Ring."

"But I don’t have basic industry," Bellavilla stated unequivocally. "After searching all over New Xiang, I haven’t found any surviving Star Shaping Pools... which are the starports used by the mysterious system to construct space weapons. Now, even with the data, I have to build an industrial system from scratch. You’ve done the same in the past, and you know how difficult it is. As for the Fallen Apostles... they can go bonkers anytime, so I can’t guarantee you anything. Furthermore, I suggest you don’t push too hard for deploying a large number of powerful warships like Radiant Rings immediately. No matter when, a single unsystematic entity is hard-pressed to turn the tide; this applies even to super weapons. Instead of that, why not hope that we will first produce various small to medium-sized space weapons from the mysterious system, which aligns with reasonable development patterns? Besides, a diversified fleet with reasonable coordination is more powerful than a fleet of mother ships lacking support. As for when the Radiant Ring will be put into service... I can only say I’ll do my best."

I know this matter can’t be forced. Seeing such a remarkable thing and unable to have it appear before me immediately feels a bit depressing. However, I believe that Bellavilla won’t be ambiguous about this matter, so I can confidently leave the task to her—her burden must be heavy.

"Anyway, thank you for your hard work." I felt it was necessary to express this to Bellavilla since these responsibilities were originally not hers to bear voluntarily. Given her current state—a fragmented soul relying on her clone for limited actions—had she remained hidden within Silvia’s soul depths, no one could question it. Yet she stood forth and took responsibility for the most complex and crucial turning point faced by the New Empire, and I’m not one devoid of feeling about this, just unable to find the appropriate way to show thanks—aside from this one sentence.

Bellavilla blinked and smiled: "Such gratitude carries considerable weight, and I’ll gladly accept it."

"Speaking of which, you originally decided to retire peacefully as a small shop owner; now you’ve taken on these burdens. Any regrets?" Sandora gazed at the distant Raven Incubator, speaking softly.

Bellavilla’s lips curled slightly, revealing an ambiguous smile: "Initially, I indeed wanted to retire and no longer handle these chaotic matters—I was genuinely tired. But seeing you all so busy, I feel unable to peacefully enjoy the blessings within the Shadow City you’ve built... Perhaps I always need something to do to feel grounded. Fortunately, I haven’t been idle for long and haven’t forgotten my abilities; I can handle these matters. Back in Azeroth, I did cause you considerable trouble. Think of this as compensation."

Bellavilla put away the holographic projection, waving her hand as she headed towards her Ravens, her words floating lightly in the wind: "...as for retirement—let’s discuss that after we take down those rebels. I’m nowhere near retirement age."

After the conversation with Bellavilla, Sandora and I suddenly felt the urge to revisit Heavenly Realm City. It has been several days since we left, and I wonder if Orelia has tidied up those messes, given her deep understanding of Heavenly Realm City. Her progress there was quick, with numerous updates reported daily, though no report compares to seeing it firsthand.

Now Heavenly Realm City has merged with Shadow Space, making the journey as straightforward as heading from Shadow City to Avalon, so soon after, we arrived at Angel City located at the core of Heavenly Realm City. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Everything before us hasn’t changed compared to a few days ago when we left, which isn’t surprising. By the time we departed, the foundational structures of Heavenly Realm City were already in place as planned, with no immediate plans for expansion or modification. The only change is most of the buildings are now operational: beautiful runes on their surfaces shine with mysterious glow under arcane stimulation, blue crystals embedded in exterior walls are sparkling, and a gentle, melodious sound pervades the air, enveloping the entire Heavenly Realm City.

Though still sparsely populated, the normal operation of these buildings is encouraging news, adding a touch of vitality to this still somewhat deserted Heavenly Realm City.

"Look, there are already guards." Sandora glanced around then suddenly pointed to a floating bridge on the left, where I saw two indistinct blue figures at the bridge’s end—elemental beings.

It’s foreseeable that before enough mysterious system apostles are born, the majority of "residents" of Heavenly Realm City will likely be these mass-produced elemental beings. I wonder if their activity might enliven the atmosphere here.

"Your Majesty?" Orelia’s voice interrupted my thoughts from beside me. "What brings you here?" (To be continued. If you like this work, you’re welcome to vote for recommendations or monthly tickets on Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my biggest motivation.)