In the dark and silent desert, a dazzling sun suddenly erupted in the night sky. Its brilliant light illuminated the surroundings, turning the night of the vast desert into day, and then turning the day into a blazing furnace.
In that endless light, hot enough to melt eyeballs, the intense high temperature turned all life within the light into ash and smoke. After lasting for several seconds, this dazzling light gradually became calm and dim. The extreme high temperature in the space also gradually subsided at this time.
Finally, the light dissipated, the dazzling sun in the sky vanished, and the entire desert returned to its nighttime appearance, but its form had undergone significant changes.
Over an area of several square kilometers, the original sandy ground and dunes had completely transformed into a different state. From fine quicksand, they turned into translucent crystals. In the air, still warm from the residual heat, all that could be seen was a land of glass and hills of crystals. Within these thick crystal layers, there were still many unsolidified bright red viscous bodies flowing, like blood vessels flowing beneath the skin. This glass land, forged as if from purgatory, reflected the starlight and moonlight of the night sky, making the surrounding scene appear both bizarre and dreamlike.
"What a strange and terrifying sight, is this the power of the Church's cutting-edge weapons? It's truly breathtaking…" Somewhere in the distance, Dorothy, while overlooking the magnificent and wondrous scene on the ground through a high-altitude scout Corpse Puppet, murmured with emotion.
In order to deal with the Order of Rot, which had been continuously causing trouble regarding the Buserite issue, Dorothy made contact with Awei, the intelligent core of a warship, which was a hidden force dispatched by the Redemption Faction of the Church to secretly protect and monitor Vanya's advancement ceremony.
The Holy Steel Ship is a secretly existing cutting-edge military weapon held by the Church. It is a powerful flying warship built using a large amount of Extraordinary power. Its combat power and status are far above the main warships of the Church's navy.
It is said that the origin of the Holy Steel Ship is a contract from ancient times between the Church and the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild. According to this contract, the Church can spend enormous resources to have the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild forge weapons for them. The Holy Steel Ship is a product of this ancient contract. It is currently unknown how many Holy Steel Ships the Church possesses, nor is the hierarchy among Holy Steel Ships clear, but it can be confirmed that all Holy Steel Ships directly obey the orders of the various Cardinals and the Pope. Holy Steel Ships of a higher rank possess combat power exceeding that of Scarlet.
Dorothy had already speculated that Awei might be the AI of some kind of war weapon back in Kankdar, but it wasn't until she arrived in Buserite that she could confirm it. Dorothy's manipulation of disguising a merchant caravan specifically to deliver grain to Vanya's camp was already full of suspicious points. It could deceive ordinary people but not Awei, so after Dorothy's grain caravan sold the grain, Awei directly sought her out.
Awei directly judged that the group of grain sellers before her were the same people who protected Vanya in Kankdar, and determined that they were subordinates of the so-called Judge of Heaven. Dorothy also knew this, so she simply went along with Awei's intention and made initial contact and communication with her, and also invited her to deal with the Scarlet of the Order of Rot together.
On the Buserite issue, Dorothy's and Awei's interests were basically aligned. Awei herself also had the task of contacting the Judge of Heaven, so their cooperation was very natural.
After confirming their cooperation, Dorothy first successfully profiled Jawadin, and then, after implanting a puppet mark on Jawadin and having his mind profiled, she had him communicate with Amuaba. Afterward, Dorothy used Jawadin as a stepping stone to release spirits silk and entangle Amuaba, distracting her, while Awei accumulated energy in the sky to release a wide-area attack, bombarding Amuaba.
After being scorched at nearly three thousand degrees, the surface sand of a large area of desert beneath the Holy Steel Ship Awei was directly melted by the high temperature and re-solidified into a thick crystal layer, covering a large area of several square kilometers. Within Awei's scorching range, no life form, regardless of size, whether mosquitoes, floating bacteria, or spores, could survive in such a high temperature. The large-scale flying insect swarm that Amuaba had transformed into, as well as many other invisible floating microorganisms, were all burned to death at this moment.
At this moment, in the sky above, inside the Gothic steel giant ship that resembled a Church, within a hall like a chapel, Vanya, wearing a white Sister dress, was kneeling in the center, quietly maintaining a praying posture. At this moment, she was already ritually linked with the entire ship. Holy Steel Ships of Awei's rank, each one is equivalent to a mobile shrine. Awei herself is not only a powerful firepower projection platform but also a shrine-level ritual site that can be present on the front line at any time. At this moment, Vanya is inside the Annihilation Sister, and she can rely on its ritual site to amplify her abilities.
"Beneath the area covered by the pure Light… there is no longer any form of life. Now, let's proceed with further in-depth investigation…"
Vanya murmured as she was in the center of the ritual in the steel chapel. Then, she used the amplification of the shrine-level ritual to further expand her powerful life perception ability of the Holy Mother's Path, extending it to a wider area and deeper underground.
Due to the special nature of the Plague Path, its Extraordinary derivatives can appear in very small forms. When they are at the microbial level, the detection ability of the "Lamp" is usually not very effective. There will be situations where they can be seen with the "Lamp," but due to their small size, they are not noticed. It's not that the "Lamp" ability cannot detect such small Extraordinary derivatives, but rather that even if detected, the consciousness of the "Lamp" ability user itself has difficulty tracking and noticing that such small things are problematic.
For example, things with different spirits traces will show different colors of light under the "Lamp" vision, but if an object is only the size of a bacterium, even if it emits light, the "Lamp" Extraordinary will have difficulty noticing it.
At this time, the Holy Mother's Path ability, which can directly sense the presence of life forms within a range, is more useful. Compared to other "Lamp" paths, the Holy Mother's Path has a strong bonus for detecting life forms. This bonus, combined with the enhancement of a shrine-level ritual site, can instantly turn Vanya into a wide-area life form radar. All life forms within a radius of tens of kilometers, whether macroscopic or microscopic, cannot escape her perception.
"A large amount of Extraordinary life activity traces have been found underground! Please be careful, that cultist is not completely finished, her derivatives are rapidly expanding and proliferating underground!"
After her perception ability spread underground, Vanya said with a slight frown. Then, she used the ability of the shrine to visualize the information she perceived and display it in the space. Immediately, a clear three-dimensional image appeared before the phantom of Awei on the spire of the Church bridge.
It was a virtual three-dimensional map, showing a large area of intricate and dense tunnels, with countless dense red dots constantly surging within the tunnels. These were all Amuaba's plague insect derivatives.
Amuaba did not transform her entire being into that flying insect swarm. For safety, she also transformed a part of herself into sand worms with the ability to burrow and swim through sand, and went underground, rapidly multiplying and proliferating in a group of natural caves hundreds of meters deep underground. After the insect swarm on the surface was completely wiped out by the high temperature, the underground insect swarm remained, relying on the thick sandstone stratum.
"What a high-quality and precise map… Even better than what I can process myself. Is this the result of having the 'Qi' power blessing? Interesting…"
Looking at the high-precision dynamic three-dimensional map that appeared before her, Awei couldn't help but exclaim in her heart. Then, she immediately waved her hand, mobilizing the countless turrets equipped on the steel giant ship, turning the muzzles to aim at the ground, and firing.
"Boom boom boom boom!!!"
Amidst a series of continuous roars, Awei poured golden gunfire down onto the glass land below. Countless explosions emitting golden dazzling light continuously blasted open on the crystal ground. Countless crystal hills were instantly destroyed, huge cracks spread everywhere on the ground, and crystal fragments flew out in all directions amidst the roaring artillery fire.
The smallest caliber Extraordinary secondary cannons equipped on Awei's ship body have power exceeding the largest caliber fixed fortress cannons used in the current mortal world. One shot can blast out a giant pit covering more than half a football field. With so many secondary cannons continuously pouring firepower downwards, for a time, a large area of the ground below that could be seen was submerged in firelight, dust, and smoke. The ground trembled non-stop in the violent vibration, and the tremors and roars directly reached Bastis tens of kilometers away. Coupled with the previous strong light, the residents there were now all fearful, kneeling on the ground and praying worriedly.
Under Awei's continuous powerful artillery fire, the glass land was completely pulverized, the ground was turned up layer by layer, and large areas of topsoil were being peeled off as a whole. What was buried underground was being plowed out under the bombardment of heavy artillery.
Not long after, the ground layer within a diameter of nearly one kilometer had been peeled off to a height of two to three hundred meters. Just as the artillery fire was finally about to reach the intricate tunnels underground, Vanya, who had sensed something, suddenly shouted out.
"The creatures in the tunnels show a high concentration of spirits reaction! Please be careful!"
As soon as Vanya finished speaking, from the roaring artillery flames below, hundreds of spherical, unidentified objects with insect wings rushed out of the smoke and headed straight towards Awei. Seeing this, Awei immediately activated the countless close-in weapons equipped on both sides of the hull. Many close-in cannons and close-in machine guns successively opened fire, accurately destroying those fat spherical flying insects with hard shells.
However, after these spherical objects were destroyed, a dense mist instantly erupted. This mist quickly scattered in space, spreading everywhere, forming a large green cloud, suspended between Awei and the ground where the flames raged.
Afterward, Awei continued to fire downwards, pouring out her gunfire. However, when the shells fired by Awei passed through the green cloud layer, an anomaly occurred. The metal shell and internal metal structure of the shells were rapidly corroded and disintegrated, the overall structure of the shells completely failed, and the entire shell became riddled with holes, like a dud that had been eaten by countless insects, falling down and completely losing its effectiveness.
These clouds and mist were actually a type of Extraordinary bacteria capable of corroding metal with extremely high efficiency and also highly resistant to high temperatures. The solid shells fired by Awei's cannons, which possessed strong burrowing capabilities, instantly lost their effectiveness as their metal structures were corroded while passing through these clouds, becoming neutralized and falling to the ground.
These bacteria are transported by round, plump flying insects. The larvae of these insects are produced in underground insect nests and quickly crawl upwards along tiny fissures in the rocks. Upon reaching the surface, they rapidly grow into adults and fly towards Awei, performing suicide attacks and releasing symbiotic bacteria. After being hit by bullets from Awei's close-in defense guns or shrapnel from the close-in defense cannon barrage, they explode and spread, forming a bacterial mist. These rust-iron bacteria are extremely resistant to high temperatures and can survive for a period in temperatures close to a thousand degrees, infecting flying shells.
Awei has many muzzles and carries different types of ammunition to deal with various situations. This includes Extraordinary solid shells fired by consuming stock stored in the ammunition depot, as well as energy shells fired by consuming the ship's own stored Spirituality. The energy shells have a single function, while the solid shells crafted by the White Stone Craftsmen's Guild have multiple effects, such as focusing on assault, armor penetration, personnel killing, deep burrowing penetration, ground layer blasting, deep water bombardment, and more... She uses whatever is appropriate for the situation.
For example, Awei is currently mainly using ground-blasting shells to plow the ground, because the power of ordinary burrowing shells after reaching their final point is insufficient to kill such a large-scale underground insect nest. Therefore, Awei mainly uses ground-blasting shells to directly blast open a large enough hole in the ground to pour firepower into.
However, the ground-blasting shells are currently unusable because their metal components are countered by the rust-iron bacteria. Awei can only start using energy shells, which are not affected by bacteria, to continue the ground bombardment. But the energy shells have limited burrowing capability, and the speed of damaging the ground layer has begun to decrease significantly.
Facing this situation, Awei began to move the warship to an area without cloud cover to continue the bombardment. However, the underground Amuyaba was continuously releasing flying insects containing rust-iron bacteria through underground fissures towards the sky, flying towards Awei. After Awei intercepted them, new large areas of bacterial mist would erupt and proliferate. At times, this bacterial mist would even approach Awei's hull, directly threatening Awei herself. Awei used close-in defense flamethrowers to spray fierce flames to block them. Under the scorching flames, these bacteria actually took quite a while to be burned to death.
"After burning so many insects, the remaining parts can still construct such a large underground insect nest... and even counterattack me. This Scarlet of Rot is a bit too strong... especially in terms of Spirituality scale, it's seriously exceeding the limit. Where is she getting so much Spirituality from?"
Looking at the scene before her, Awei's projection couldn't help but furrow her brows and say. She originally thought that after eliminating the large-scale flying insect swarm, the remaining part of Amuyaba wouldn't be able to cause much trouble, but now it seems the situation is unexpectedly different. Such a large and deep underground insect nest could not have been built by a crippled Plague Scarlet in a short time.
Logically speaking, the large-scale flying insect swarm from before should have been the main part of Amuyaba. If you add the part of the flying insects that were taken care of before to the part of the underground insect nest now, Amuyaba's own Spirituality scale is a bit frightening.
Awei was frowning and contemplating, while Vanya, who was perceiving the battlefield situation in the temple chapel at this moment, said with some anxiety.
"The deepest part of the enemy is dispersing and digging towards other areas! She wants to split up and escape there now!"
As Vanya said this, Awei glanced at the battlefield's 3D map after hearing her words. She could clearly see that Amuyaba had dug another deep vertical shaft below the underground insect nest, and then her insects were digging simultaneously in eight different directions within this shaft hundreds of meters deep. Each of these eight digging insects had very high Spirituality and could serve as the "main body" of her entire insect swarm. As long as one of these eight insects could escape, she would have successfully escaped.
Facing the Church's Saint Steel ship and the strange power lurking somewhere, Amuyaba would definitely not unrealistically harbor any idea of being able to defeat the opponent. Although she is currently stronger than an ordinary Scarlet under some mysterious blessing, she is not strong enough to dare to fight a Saint Steel ship head-on. Therefore, escaping is her top priority now, and the rust-iron bacterial mist was deployed precisely to buy her time.
Although Awei could eliminate these flying insects in the larval stage by covering their growth areas on the surface with artillery fire, this, in a sense, also dispersed and weakened Awei's firepower, preventing her from concentrating fire to strip the ground.
Facing the vast, dense, and thick bacterial mist covering a large area below, Awei was at a loss for a moment. The solid shells for ground blasting could not be projected downwards, and the efficiency of stripping the ground with energy shells was too low. If she were to only use energy shells to strip away the remaining tens of meters of ground, Amuyaba's eight escape insects digging in all directions would have long since gone far away. Trying to deal with them would only lead to being unable to attend to everything, and one or two would eventually escape. To capture all these escape insects in one swoop, she could only do it now, when they have just started digging tunnels and are not yet far apart from each other.
In this situation, Awei could only use the configured Gale Rune to blow away the continuous bacterial mist, but the bacterial mist also had strong wind resistance. When they gathered together, they didn't look like a cloud of mist but rather like a sticky slime. Even if the wind power generated by Awei using the Rune alone only blew them away slightly, the insects that flew over and exploded would quickly replenish the mist.
Awei's best method now was to use the main weapon on the ship's axis for another blast of Pure Light, burning all these bacteria to death at once with three thousand degrees of high temperature, or to use other modes of the main weapon to penetrate the ground layer over a large area at once. However, both of these required charging time. After the charging was completed, Amuyaba might have already escaped.
Just as Awei was facing a relatively tricky situation, several figures suddenly flew over from the distant horizon. Looking closely, they were indeed several mysterious people wearing long robes.
After these mysterious people flew to the battlefield, they immediately positioned themselves on either side of Awei. Awei originally wanted to clear out these sudden arrivals, but upon seeing the battlefield information provided by Vanya, which marked them as allies, Awei did not take action for a while.
These flying mysterious people came to Awei's side, then extended their fingers downwards. Then, from their fingertips, long, slender threads glowing red extended outwards, quickly stretching downwards, and then successfully connected and passed through the large, round, plump flying insects carrying rust-iron bacteria. After a moment of pause, the flying insects touched by these threads turned and flew to other places.
These mysterious people were all Dorothy's Corpse Puppets. Dorothy released Spiritual Threads through the Corpse Puppets as a medium, directly controlling the carrier flying insects of the bacterial bombs, and then manipulated those flying insects to carry the bombs away from the scene.
At this moment, Amuyaba was in a peculiar "swarm" state, simultaneously controlling thousands of insects to do different things. Her mental power was greatly spread across the entire swarm, and her ability to control a single insect decreased significantly. Dorothy could seize control of a small number of insects from Amuyaba with almost no effort.
Previously, during the process of spiritual thread contention with Amuyaba, Dorothy had shown a slight weakness, intentionally luring her in. But now, when Dorothy controlled these insects, she was going all out, and these flying insects were carrying rust-iron bacteria, not infectious bacteria specifically used against spiritual threads.
"Is this one of the methods of 'Qi' (Awakening/Enlightenment)? It's quite magical..."
Looking at the scene before her, Awei couldn't help but say with a relaxed brow. Because the flying insects, which served as the carriers for the bacteria, were directly controlled by Dorothy and flew away from the battlefield one by one, unable to detonate and generate new bacterial mist, the existing bacterial mist began to be blown away by the strong wind generated by Awei and the storm generated by explosions, rapidly thinning out due to the lack of replenishment.
As soon as the bacterial mist thinned, Awei immediately began to reload her ground-blasting solid shells. For a time, the heavy cannons on Awei's hull began to roar in unison again, and countless heavy bombs were poured into the dust below, drilling into the damaged ground, detonating violent vibrations and roars within the rock layers, and continuing to destroy the rock layer protecting the underground insect nest.
Finally, after the last ground-blasting shell, the final ground layer protecting the underground insect nest was finally directly blasted open, and large areas of the underground insect nest were directly exposed to the open air. Awei could see countless twisted, fat worms under the smoke with her Light's vision.
Facing the large area of exposed underground insect nest, Awei was not polite and immediately poured powerful firepower down. Instantly, endless flames and firelight filled the entire nest, and countless insects died amidst twisted screams.
The insect nest, almost completely opened up, had almost no resistance against the powerful firepower from the sky. Insects died in batches, and Amuyaba's swarm body was completely annihilated. Now, she only had eight escape insects left, digging towards different directions below the nest in a desperate bid to escape.
Facing the current situation, Awei directly blasted open the vertical shaft dug by the escape insects in the nest and then dropped a special bomb into it. The bomb exploded at the bottom of the shaft, releasing intense high temperature and high pressure. This high temperature and high pressure spread and drilled into the tunnel openings at the edges of the shaft's bottom, then rapidly advanced and extended all the way forward, directly pursuing several fleeing insects and crushing and incinerating them.
With this one bomb, Awei directly destroyed seven of Amuyaba's eight escape insects. Only the last one, because it dug the fastest, had the longest tunnel, and it had some twists and turns, the bomb's flames and high temperature were already very weak when they reached it. It was severely injured but managed to survive.
Afterwards, only one, which could almost be considered Amuyaba herself, continued to dig forward, desperately trying to snatch a glimmer of hope. However, at this very moment, several red threads passed through the lower layer of matter and entered the narrow tunnel, connecting to its body.