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Chapter 151: War or Peace?
Chapter 151: War or Peace?
The Holy Lord stopped at the edge of Olympia's atmosphere, with the entire curved surface of the planet beneath his feet.
From this height, the white city cluster appears as a light-colored geometric pattern. The defensive array surrounding the world engine is being powered on, and six beams of light rise from different directions on the ground, converging at orbital altitude to form a net-like energy curtain.
The Eternals' standard defense protocol, designed by Phantos, is theoretically capable of intercepting an orbital bombardment of Celestial caliber.
Wanda stood half a step to Shendu's right, red energy quietly swirling between her fingers. She glanced down at the planet below, then looked back, awaiting Shendu's instructions.
The Holy Lord gave no instructions; he simply stood there and watched the six pillars of light slowly converge.
Inside the council chamber.
Phastos's hands flew across the control panel, pushing the World Engine's energy output to its maximum. Defense data on the holographic screen jumped; all six layers of shields were activated, and the energy barrier was four times thicker than usual.
"Shields fully activated, World Engine output at 120%." Faustos glanced at the numbers: "Overloaded operation, can only last for 40 minutes at most."
Jinge had already stood in the square, his matter conversion ability fully activated. The metal layer on the ground surged and reorganized beneath his feet, transforming into more than thirty cone-shaped projectiles that floated in mid-air.
The other twelve Eternals took their positions. The battle formation had been practiced tens of thousands of years ago and required no last-minute coordination.
Icarus took flight, but stopped only five hundred meters above the city. He looked up at the point outside the atmosphere, the cosmic rays in his eyes gathering, then dissipating halfway through.
"Don't waste your energy," he told Ginger.
Jinge ignored him.
Cerci stood at the entrance to the council chamber, her palms on the ground, sensing the city's physical structure.
She was looking for the other person's energy signature, trying to determine which direction the attack would come from.
Can't find it.
The opponent's energy did not come from the outside; it had no direction, no source, or more precisely, its source was everywhere. In the world engine, in the bodies of every Eternal, in the core of the planet beneath their feet.
"Fastos." Celsi's voice trembled slightly: "The energy spectrum of the World Engine—"
"I saw it." Fastos stared at the screen.
An extra waveform appeared on the spectrum. It wasn't an external intrusion signal; it was the resonance of energy within the World Engine itself. The frequency was slowly rising, increasing slightly each second, as precisely as if someone were adjusting a knob.
"He's using the Tiger Talisman." Phantos slammed his hand on the control panel and said helplessly, "He's interfering with the fragment projection inside the World Engine from the outside. Our engine core contains remnants of the Celestials' original technology, and those things are of the same origin as the Tiger Talisman. He doesn't even need to break through the shield; the signal goes straight through."
"Can it be cut off?"
"What should we do? Turn off the world engine? If we do, we won't even have a shield."
The resonance curve on the spectrum is still rising.
Outside the atmosphere, the Holy Lord extends his right hand.
The tiger talisman floats three inches above the palm, with black runes flowing across its surface.
The Holy Lord's will descended through the Tiger Talisman, passing through six layers of shields and directly touching the remnants of the Celestials within the core of the planet's internal world engine.
The fragment has begun to respond.
The response was not intense but rather quiet. The fragment projection flashed briefly in the core of the World Engine, then transmitted the signal to every energy pipeline, to every building slab on the surface of Olympia, and finally to the bodies of the fourteen Eternals.
It's the same thing, the signature of the Creator.
Icarus sensed it from 500 meters in the air.
It wasn't pain or pressure; it was the feeling he had experienced once before on Earth—the cosmic energy within him suddenly no longer belonged to him.
The cosmic rays that had gathered halfway in his eyes dissipated. His ability to fly became intermittent; he paused in the air for a few seconds before beginning to fall.
It wasn't free fall; he could still control a portion of it, but only a small part, barely managing to keep his body steady on the square.
The thirty-odd cone-shaped projectiles that had been hovering in mid-air simultaneously fell to the ground, emitting a series of metallic clanging sounds. The feedback from the uncontrolled matter conversion ability struck Jinger, causing his arms to twitch.
"What!" Jingle looked down at his hands in disbelief.
Not only him, but all the Eternals in the square encountered problems at the same time.
Druger's mind control field collapsed, and a sensory network that was being maintained shattered. The backlash of information caused her to take two steps back.
Cercy's sense of matter was severed; she could no longer read anything from her palm pressed against the ground.
Macari's speed was decreasing; she took three steps before tripping and falling, which was a humiliation for someone whose instinct was to move at supersonic speeds.
Fourteen Eternals, with zero resistance and zero attacks, all simultaneously lost most of their combat capabilities.
Fastos stared at the data on the console, unable to do anything. The world engine was still running, the shield was still glowing, but the energy within was no longer under his control. The interface could still display data, but all commands were unresponsive.
"I told you, didn't I?" he said to the air, it was unclear who he was talking to.
Jingle attempted to reactivate his matter-transformation ability, but failed. He tried again, and failed once more. On the third attempt, he experienced a strange sensation—the energy was still within his body, perceptible, but completely untouchable. It was as if someone had locked it from the very beginning.
"What is this?" Jingle gritted her teeth.
"Consider this a demonstration," Icarus's voice came from the side.
Jingle turned to look at him. Icarus stood there, old wounds on his armor layered with new energy disturbance patterns, but his expression was calmer than anyone else present.
"I've already experienced that once on Earth." Icarus looked up at the blue rift in the sky, in which stood two figures, one large and one small. "It's the same feeling. Except last time he only attacked me, this time it's everyone together."
After regaining his balance by leaning against a pillar, Druger spoke his second sentence of the day: "So he can do this anytime?"
"In theory," Fastos's voice came from the council chamber, "as long as he has the Tiger Tally, and as long as the energy in our bodies is still part of the Celestial System, he can do this to any number of Eternals, anytime, anywhere."
Is there a solution?
"Change to a different energy system." After saying that, Phantos gave a dry laugh, not really a laugh. "Give you tens of thousands of years to evolve again, and that should probably work."
The square was deathly silent.
The blue fissure began to move, slowly descending towards the ground. It wasn't falling; it was actively and calmly approaching.
The Holy Lord emerged from the rift.
He landed in the central plaza directly in front of the World Engine, with Wanda behind him. The two of them, standing among fourteen incapacitated Eternals, looked no different than strolling into someone's yard.