Chapter 141 The Stargate at the Bottom of the Pacific Ocean

"Rumble—"

Inside the Command Center of the Heavenly Court Fortress, the floor began to tremble without warning.

This tremor did not come from external artillery fire, but rather from intense fluctuations transmitted from the Earth itself via the gravity sensors.

"Report! A magnitude 9.2 earthquake has been detected in the Pacific Ocean!"

gaia's alarm cut through the heavy atmosphere. "The epicenter is at the southern end of the Mariana Trench. This defies geological logic!"

Chen Weiguo stared at the glaring dark red dot on the giant screen, his brow furrowed into a tight knot.

Real-time satellite footage on the screen showed a massive vortex suddenly collapsing in the center of the calm Pacific Ocean. Tens of thousands of tons of seawater poured in, and the resulting tsunami was spreading toward the surrounding coastlines with overwhelming force.

"It's not just an earthquake. The Command Center has received an extremely strange high-frequency signal interference that is blanketing the global communication network." Academician Wang tapped rapidly on the console. "The signal source is at the epicenter. That frequency... it's sixty percent similar to the remains of the Mechanical Papacy we found earlier, but the underlying signature is much older."

"Squatting there for hundreds of millions of years, it finally couldn't hold back and decided to bubble up."

A somewhat raspy yet wild voice came from the entrance of the hall.

Everyone turned around to see Lin Yuan had already changed into a form-fitting black combat suit. His silver-gray short hair made him look exceptionally energetic, yet the dark purple glimmer that occasionally flashed deep within his pupils still gave people an indescribable sense of oppression.

"Lin Yuan, you haven't fully recovered yet. The Medical Team said your cell structure is still in the adjustment phase!" Li Na hurried forward, her tone filled with a mix of reproach and worry.

"Lying in a hospital bed listening to the heart monitor beep, that's what old men do."

Lin Yuan flexed his wrists, and a faint, subtle sonic boom sounded in the air, as if the space itself was being forcibly kneaded.

He looked at the deep-sea coordinates on the screen, the corners of his mouth curling up. "That signal just now shook me. I have to go to the seabed and see who's firing off shots down there."

"You're going down there yourself?" Chen Weiguo looked at him seriously. "That's a ten-thousand-meter trench. The pressure could crush the hardest titanium alloy mecha into a pancake. Besides, we know nothing about what's down there."

"That's why I have to go."

Lin Yuan didn't waste any words. He turned to look at Academician Wang. "Old Wang, is the test unit 'Abyss-01' assembled?"

Academician Wang sighed and pushed up his glasses. "It just finished its seal test. It was developed for extreme environments, so it doesn't have much heavy firepower; the focus was entirely on defense and diving depth."

"That's enough. Besides, I am heavy firepower myself."

Lin Yuan waved his hand and strode toward the launch bay.

Half an hour later, a teardrop-shaped dark gray mecha pierced the surface of the sea, trailing a long white streak as it plunged straight into the abyss.

The seawater turned from azure to deep cyan, and finally, into absolute darkness.

"Commander, current depth is 8,000 meters. External water pressure has reached 800 atmospheres. The mecha's outer shell is showing slight deformation, which is within the normal range." gaia's voice echoed in the communication channel.

Sitting in the narrow cockpit, Lin Yuan felt no discomfort at all.

On the contrary, as the depth increased, he felt the Void Energy that had been forcibly stuffed into his body becoming unprecedentedly active. It was as if this extreme solitude and high pressure were the most suitable training room for him.

"That is..."

Lin Yuan's gaze pierced through the thickened quartz window, locking onto a point of light on the seabed.

Amidst the pitch-black silt and the fault lines of the rock layers, a towering silver pyramid was slowly rising from the depths of the seabed.

It was enormous, over a thousand meters tall, and its surface was not rough stone, but some kind of metal that flowed like liquid mercury. Eerie blue light patterns intertwined on the tower, forming an ancient and sacred design.

Standing on the seabed, this thing looked like a sleeping metal heart.

"Ding!"

In Lin Yuan's mind, the long-dormant system interface suddenly began to vibrate violently.

"Detected Titan Civilization base station node: Star Station No. 342."

"Identification Code: SS-Alpha-342."

"Warning: Illegal signal relay detected. This station has been marked as 'Infected'."

Lin Yuan's heart sank.

So the signal the Archbishop sent out at the end wasn't sent into deep space, but to the very ground beneath Earth's feet.

This pyramid was like a spy lurking inside the Earth, using the relay method to leak the coordinates.

"I knew it. How else could those tin cans find us so accurately?"

Lin Yuan sneered. "There's a traitor in our own backyard."

"Bang!"

The mecha suddenly shook violently.

In the surrounding seawater, countless points of scarlet light lit up.

They were thousands of bizarrely shaped mechanical sea monsters. They looked like squids magnified dozens of times, their bodies shimmering with a cold, icy light. Hundreds of metal tentacles swished rapidly through the water, each one glowing with the red light of high-energy pulses at its tip.

"Ruins defense mechanism activated." gaia's voice became urgent. "Target count exceeds three thousand. Commander, 'Abyss-01' does not have high-power area-clearing weapons. I suggest surfacing immediately and calling for orbital bombardment!"

"Orbital bombardment will destroy these ruins. This thing is a treasure."

Lin Yuan took a deep breath. Feeling the overwhelming, crushing pressure all around him, a flash of ferocity crossed his eyes.

"gaia, open the launch bay door."

"Commander? Have you lost your mind? It's ten thousand meters deep outside! Even if you have completed the Star Core Body Tempering, your lungs will be crushed instantly..."

"Open the door. That is an order."

Lin Yuan cut through the tedious confirmation process and swiped his fingertip across the control panel.

"Hiss—"

The hatch let out a whine under the immense force of the water pressure, then suddenly popped open.

Billions of tons of seawater instantly poured into the cockpit like a wild horse breaking free.

However, the expected scene of gore and carnage did not happen.

The moment that terrifying water pressure touched Lin Yuan's skin, a layer of translucent, dark purple undulation suddenly appeared around his body. The seawater seemed to hit an invisible wall, forcibly pushed away three centimeters from his body.

Lin Yuan, just like that, naked, walked slowly out into the deep sea, where the atmospheric pressure was enough to crush a tank into a sheet of iron.

His long hair undulated slightly in the water, each strand shimmering with a luster like the stars.

"This feeling... is much more comfortable than a sauna."

Lin Yuan grinned, revealing a row of stark white teeth.

"Whoosh—"

Dozens of mechanical sea monsters sensed the threat from this tiny creature. Their tentacles retracted, turning into black afterimages as they rushed over, bringing with them sharp sonic booms.

In the water, their speed even exceeded the speed of sound.

Lin Yuan didn't even move.

He just gently raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together, and with a flick, slashed through the air as if chopping vegetables.

"Slash!"

The pitch-black seawater was forcibly sliced open by a purple rift that was almost invisible to the naked eye.

That was the 'Void Blade.'

No water resistance, no inertia; that was an erasure performed directly at the spatial level.

Those dozens of aggressive mechanical sea monsters didn't even have time to self-destruct before being neatly sliced in half on their charge. There were no sparks at the cut, only dense components being instantly annihilated into dust by Void Energy.

Lin Yuan's figure disappeared.

The next second, he appeared at the core of the sea monster swarm.

In the deepest part of the ocean, in a place where even light could not reach, a one-sided massacre began.

Lin Yuan's figure flickered unpredictably. Every time he flashed, he brought up a cloud of pitch-black metal debris. He didn't need weapons; his palms were the sharpest blades in the world, and his fists were meteorites of immense weight.

A 'giant sea monster leader' over a hundred meters in size opened its mouth filled with sharp teeth, attempting to swallow this arrogant creature.

Lin Yuan reached out and pressed his hand onto its forehead, his five fingers suddenly exerting force.

"Boom!"

A column of purple-black energy erupted from his palm, instantly piercing through the sea monster's entire body. The aftermath even blasted a bottomless hole into the rock layers hundreds of meters deep behind it.

Two minutes.

The once dense mechanical legion had now turned into garbage all over the ground, quietly spread out at the foot of the pyramid.

Lin Yuan stood on the top of the silver pyramid.

There was a circular groove here, with blue light flowing inside like a beating heart.

That was the core of the base station.

"gaia, I'm taking over this place. Let's give it a new brain."

Lin Yuan pressed one hand onto the blue light, his SSS-rank talent 'Void Affinity' and system permissions erupting simultaneously.

"Ding! Highest authority holder detected."

"Executing forced format..."

"Deleting existing AI program... Deleting infected virus code..."

"Reshaping underlying logic: Protection."

The pyramid emitted a low rumble, like a long sigh of relief from some ancient beast awakening.

The eerie blue light patterns on the tower turned from dim to bright, finally converging into a thick beam of light over a hundred meters in diameter. It ignored the obstruction of ten thousand meters of seawater, pierced directly through the ocean surface, and roared into the firmament!

Inside the command hall of the Heavenly Court Fortress, everyone held their breath, watching the magnificent spectacle shooting from inside the Earth into deep space.

At the end of the light beam, outside the atmosphere.

A holographic star map, so grand it took one's breath away, slowly unfolded.

It was a miniature of the entire Orion Arm.

On the star map, countless stars twinkled, and a route marked in bright red, like venom in a vein, crossed the vast vacuum and pointed straight to a familiar location.

That was Alpha Centauri.

Humanity's nearest star system, Proxima Centauri.

And directly above that point of light, a string of titan text appeared, chilling Chen Weiguo and the others to the bone.

The translation from the system was only a few short words:

"Target Coordinates: Alpha Centauri-c."

"Nature Determination: Mechanical Papacy · No. 109 Low-Level Pasture."

"Note: Due to long-term failure to 'harvest' and overpopulation, a major format is urgently needed."

Inside the command hall, it was so quiet that only the sound of people's teeth chattering could be heard.

"Pasture..."

Academician Wang looked at that word, and the water cup in his hand fell to the ground, shattering into pieces.

"In their eyes, are we... just livestock they keep?"

Earth, Mariana Trench.

Lin Yuan stood on the tip of the pyramid and also saw this star map.

His gaze lingered on that route; there was no fear in his eyes, but rather, a flame called excitement ignited.

It was the most instinctive desire of a hunter who had discovered his prey.

"So that's where you are."

Lin Yuan rubbed his arm, which was covered in purple veins. His voice sounded in the communication channel, carrying a bone-chilling smile.

"Since they want to harvest, let's be proactive."

"Old Chen, tell everyone, stop celebrating."

Lin Yuan looked up, his gaze seemingly piercing through the ten thousand meters of seawater, looking toward the depths of the distant starry sky.

"Our first navigation waypoint has been generated."

"Proxima Centauri. We're going... to slaughter the cattle."

Just then, the red marker on the star map suddenly began to flash rapidly.

In the shadow of Proxima Centauri.

A massive black cross structure, three times larger than the moon, was slowly poking a sharp corner out of the spatial ripples.

At the same time, the system interface in Lin Yuan's mind popped up a brand-new, blood-red quest box.

"Epic Quest Started: First Expedition."

"Objective: Destroy the 'Proxima Centauri' harvesting station."

"Warning: Large-scale enemy space-time jump detected."

"Countdown to enemy arrival in Earth orbit: 240 hours."

The smile on Lin Yuan's face grew wider.

"Ten days left."

"It seems this 'rancher's' elite force is moving quite fast."