webnovelvip Chapter 239 4-Day Countdown
Chapter 239 4-Day Countdown
"Look at this."
The screen cuts to a video clip.
The camera is shaking. The person holding the camera is breathing heavily.
The camera pans across a vast underground cavity. Bright orange lava flows down the rock walls. Then the camera suddenly pulls up.
Freeze.
Something appeared in the scene. Black. A chain.
Each section was as big as a truck. The other end of the chain disappeared into the darkness at the top of the frame. Only a blurry, enormous outline could be vaguely seen.
It looks like a severed arm. Or like a mountain range.
Lin Chuxue moved the lollipop from the left corner of her mouth to the right. She stared at the screen for more than ten seconds.
"This thing..." she began, "is more than ten times larger than the Eye of God on the southern route."
Zhao Leiguang didn't respond. He stared at the chain in the image, forgetting to chew the energy bar in his mouth.
Wen Yue zoomed in on the image to its highest magnification. The noise became even more severe. However, some blurry details appeared on the surface of the chain after magnification.
"These are not runes from a higher-dimensional civilization," she said.
Everyone looked at Lu Yan.
Lu Yan nodded.
"Pangu was not imprisoned by foreign enemies," he said. "He was sealed away by his own people."
The tactical room fell silent for a few seconds. The only sound was the hum of the projector's cooling fan.
Xiao Qianyu's fingers tightened around the handle of the Dragon King Halberd.
"You mean," she paused, "that Pangu already had problems during the ancient wars of the gods."
"It's not a problem." Lu Yan pulled up another file. Text, no images. It was a fragmented translation of ancient texts. "It's been parasitized. Or contaminated."
He swiped the screen. Several lines of oracle bone script appeared, accompanied by a modern translation.
"When the power of creation was exhausted, the divine body took on strange forms. 'The saints joined forces, using Kunlun as a chain, and imprisoned it at the bottom of the abyss.' 'They did not imprison the god, but rather destroyed the parasites residing within his body.'"
Lin Chuxue popped a bubble. "So... those higher-dimensional beings weren't imprisoning Pangu, they were eating him?"
"To be more precise," Lu Yan switched back to the thermal imaging view, "'The stomach' is a high-dimensional folded space that parasitizes Pangu's body. It converts Pangu's divine energy into fuel to maintain the operation of that digestive space."
The camera focuses on that piece of chain.
"Pangu is the foundation of creation for Earth. His divinity is the oldest 'original code' of this planet." Lu Yan's voice was calm. "With each bite they take, the fundamental rules of Earth weaken one bit. They have been taking bites for thousands of years since the end of the War of the Gods."
Zhao Leiguang swallowed the energy bar. He swallowed it rather forcefully.
"Damn it," he cursed, not loudly, "So, when we go in this time..."
"It's not about saving Pangu," Lu Yan interrupted him. "It's about entering his body, clearing away the parasitic space, and then stabilizing the divine structure of his original body."
"It's like," Wen Yue replied, "performing surgery inside the body of a living creator god."
"Yes." Lu Yan looked at her. "And my Void Disc is the only tool that can deconstruct those higher-dimensional parasitic laws."
He paused.
"I am the chief surgeon."
The tactics room fell silent again. This time, the silence was even deeper. Shen Xinglin closed the door. The clanging of metal was faint, but everyone heard it.
The problem is out in the open.
Su Yunqing turned to the last page of the briefing. "The sealing formation of Taibai Abyss is decaying at three times the expected rate. At this rate, the formation will collapse in fourteen days."
"If the parasitic space within Pangu's body wasn't completely cleared out when the collapse occurred," Lu Yan said, "it would be equivalent to releasing a being controlled by a higher-dimensional being, possessing creation-level power..."
He didn't finish speaking. He didn't need to finish.
Lin Chuxue spat out the lollipop stick. "If that thing comes out, would all of us combined be enough to fight it?"
"Not enough," Lu Yan replied crisply. "Even if all the resurrected gods of China were combined, they might not be able to stop it."
Zhao Leiguang straightened up in his chair. Two Taotie shields rested against the edge of the table, their animal patterns gleaming dimly under the lamplight.
"Then don't let it out," he said.
---
The resources were coordinated by Qin Wangshan.
Of the twenty newly recruited Tier 2 Awakeners, eight were selected to form an outer support squad. Their mission was not to enter Taibai Abyss, but to guard the ground entrance and ensure that the first squad's retreat route was not cut off.
The heavy mech squadron of the 7th Detachment sealed off the entire northern slope of the Qinling Mountains. Three layers of electromagnetic barriers were erected.
News came from Kunlun. Yuanshi Tianzun left a decree saying that after Lu Yan entered Taibai Abyss, he would use the power of Kunlun's earth veins to forcibly extend the life of the sealing formation from the outside.
"At most three days," Qin Wangshan said in the communication. "After three days, the magic array will still collapse. That's all he can do."
Lu Yan did the math.
"Seventeen days," he said. "The actual operational window is seventeen days."
Is that enough?
"It must be enough."
---
The night before departure. The equipment depot.
Lu Yan opened a sealed metal box. The box was lined with shock-absorbing foam. Inside lay a roll of yellowed parchment.
After the war on the southern front, he extracted the last set of blueprints from the shattered divine core of the twelve-winged angel. He did not hand them over to the military industry.
Drawing title: [Void Anchor].
Effect: It can establish stable teleportation anchors in high-dimensional folded space, ensuring that the retreat route is not cut off by spatial distortion.
He rolled up the blueprints and put them into a waterproof tube.
Qin Wangshan took the container and weighed it in his hand.
"48 hours," Lu Yan said. "I need to get the finished product before I go in."
"The first batch will have a maximum of three." Qin Wangshan put the tube into his inner pocket. "Mass production will take time."
"Three are enough." Lu Yan closed the box. "One for me, one for Xiao Qianyu, and one for Wen Yue.
---
Three hours before departure. An unexpected event occurred.
The Dragon Guard Intelligence Department's "Clean Internet" operation has come to a close. The missing analyst, Zhou Zhengyang, has been found.
He died in his own bathtub.
The time of death was more than two weeks. The body was bloated from being submerged in water, and the skin was waxy. The forensic report was brief: the chest cavity had been opened with a sharp instrument, and the heart was missing. Fragments of a shattered phalanx were detected deep within the brainstem.
"He's long dead." Qin Wangshan slammed the report on the table. "The thing that's been using his identity to operate in the system for the past two weeks is something else."
The intelligence department urgently reviewed all the documents that "he" last came into contact with.
One of them is the energy monitoring access key for the Taibai Abyss sealing array.
The key has been tampered with. The three-fold acceleration of the decay curve is not a natural phenomenon. Someone has manipulated it from the inside.
"They know where Pangu is." Lu Yan stared at the photo on the report, the face distorted by the water. "They are actively accelerating the release process."
Qin Wangshan took off his glasses and pressed his thumb against his eye socket. "Before the Void Anchors are mass-produced..."
He raised his head.
"As soon as the first three finished products are produced, you shall set off immediately."
---
Four o'clock in the morning. Longwei Base.
The engines of the three "Kunpeng" heavy transport aircraft were already running. The blue light from their exhaust nozzles tore through the night.
Inside the cockpit, the first squad silently conducted a final equipment check. Weapons were loaded, armor chocks were fastened, and communication channels were switched to encrypted bands.
Zhao Leiguang strapped the two Taotie shields to the rack on his back. The shields collided, producing a muffled thud.
Lin Chuxue sat in the corner, her Blood Pool Howling Staff resting across her lap. She hadn't eaten a lollipop. Her lips were pursed.
Su Yunqing checked the energy bar of the Yao Guang's Gift Staff repeatedly. A silvery-white light flickered at the tip of the staff.
Wen Yue wiped the scope of the World-Destroying Thunder Crossbow with a soft cloth. Her movements were slow and meticulous.
Shen Xinglin disassembled the versatile lance into three sections and packed them into a special carrying case. The metal parts clicked together crisply.
Xiao Qianyu leaned against the bulkhead, her eyes closed. The Dragon King's Halberd stood beside her, the dragon shadow on its blade shimmering faintly in the dim light.
Lu Yan sat at the very front, with his back to everyone.
His right hand rested on his knee, palm facing upward. Beneath the skin, dark veins pulsed slowly. The phantom of the Disk of Nothingness spun deep within his flesh.
More intense than ever before.
The petals of the black lotus were excited. For awaiting its prey was the oldest and most massive remnant of divinity on this planet.
The hatch slowly closed. The light dimmed.
The engine roared louder. The fuselage vibrated.
The Kunpeng takes flight. Course: Qinling Mountains, Taibaiyuan.
Lu Yan closed his eyes.
Countdown begins.