182: Chapter 182 The Ultimate Gathering Across Borders!

Mirror World, Tokyo Bay.

Eagle Nation's USS Gerald R. Ford nuclear-powered aircraft carrier sat silently on the sea like a floating island of death.

On the deck, rows of F-35C Lightning II fighters were loaded with live ammunition, the steam from the catapults trailing pale ribbons through the cold, still air.

Not far away, China's Fujian carrier towered majestically, its three electromagnetic catapult tracks shimmering with a cold blue light; the escorting Type 055 destroyers stood like sword-bearing guards, their 112-cell vertical launch systems fangs ready to tear through the sky at any moment.

Beneath the surface, Russia's Borei-class nuclear submarines glided silently like giant deep-sea whales, the low-frequency pulses from their sonar being their only breath in this silent world.

On land, Ota Ward had been leveled, replaced by angular, modern war machines.

Leopard 2A7, M1A2, and Type 99A main battle tanks formed a Great Wall of Steel, while the radars of air defense missile sites spun frantically, weaving the entire sky into a fire-control grid.

This was an ultimate gathering that transcended national borders and ideologies.

Humanity had bared all of its most hideous and powerful fangs on this soil of a different dimension.

Amidst this chilling atmosphere, a golden light bright enough to sear retinas pierced through the low-hanging leaden clouds without warning.

Clad in a white-gold battle skirt, Jeanne d'Arc hovered abruptly directly above the "Black Hemisphere" gate.

The global live broadcast cameras zoomed in instantly.

Jeanne d'Arc slowly opened her unarmored right hand, palm upward, making a lifting gesture.

Hum!

Space let out an overburdened wail.

The "true holy grail," which had been glimpsed briefly over the Potala Palace and contained the birth and death of billions of stars, emerged from the void in her palm.

It was originally only the size of a wine cup, but the moment it appeared, everyone could feel a shudder from the depths of their souls.

It wasn't greed for a divine artifact, but the instinctive fear of low-dimensional beings facing the prototype of a high-dimensional universe.

The holy grail slowly ascended; with every meter it rose, its radiance grew a fraction softer.

When it finally came to a halt a thousand meters up, the originally dim and oppressive Mirror Tokyo was plated in a layer of dreamlike starlight.

Looking up, it was no longer just a cup, but clearly a compressed and folded brilliant galaxy hanging high above humanity's heads.

"This object is the coordinate."

Jeanne d'Arc's voice did not travel through air vibrations but exploded directly in the minds of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers below and everyone in the command center.

"It shall guide the way home and serve as the cornerstone for the survival of the human order."

"Until the calamity ends, any attempt to touch, analyze, or exploit this object will be deemed an act of betrayal."

"I shall deliver judgment personally."

As she finished speaking, a white-gold halo exploded outward from the holy grail, instantly sweeping across the entirety of Tokyo.

At that moment, red "Warning" boxes popped up on every electronic device—a lock-on from a higher-tier existence.

Inside the Joint Command Center, several agents from major powers who had been eyeing the situation and plotting to snag some "samples" in the chaos now felt a chill on their necks, as if an invisible guillotine were pressed against their throats; their schemes were instantly extinguished by cold sweat.

Just as the entire scene was silenced by Jeanne d'Arc's awe-inspiring presence, two shrill sonic booms suddenly echoed from the horizon.

That was the roar produced by objects breaking the sound barrier several times over!

"Enemy attack?!"

Before the air raid sirens could even sound, two streaks of light crashed like falling stars onto the plaza in front of the Joint Command Center's entrance, carrying smoke and the smell of char that had yet to dissipate.

"Boom!"

Dust rose everywhere, and debris flew.

Once the dust cleared, the two figures revealed made the tense soldiers breathe a sigh of relief, followed immediately by profound shock.

Li Bai's once-elegant green robes were now riddled with holes, the hem ragged as if corroded by strong acid; though the green lotus sword that never left his side still gleamed with a chilling light, the blade was vibrating slightly, emitting a low hum.

Beside him, Sir Isaac Newton looked slightly disheveled.

His sophisticated scholar's robes were now wrinkled, and the silver wig he took such pride in was slightly askew.

Li Bai casually brushed the dust off himself, unfastened the long-empty wine gourd from his waist and shook it, looking disgruntled. "This isn't war; it's like wrestling with a piece of rotten meat that never stops being cut. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting."

Newton didn't speak; he simply pushed up his glasses, straightened his crooked wig, and stared fixedly at the command center's entrance, whispering complex non-linear equations under his breath.

Five minutes later.

In the center of the Ota Ward ruins, at the temporary Five-Nation Joint Command Center's highest-level operations briefing room.

Seated around the long conference table were not only battle-hardened generals from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council but also Jiang Ming (Mirror 1), Zhang Ruoxu, Furina, and the newly returned Jeanne d'Arc, Li Bai, and Newton.

Jiang Ming (Mirror 1) sat at the head of the table; looking at the room full of heavyweights, he spoke to break the silence.

"Let's begin, Sir. Tell us, what exactly is over there?"

Newton took a deep breath and stood up.

Sizzle... a massive tactical screen lit up.

But it didn't show pulse-pounding combat footage or high-definition close-ups of monsters; there was only a pitch-black background and dense, frantically jumping streams of green data.

"This is an environmental sample model I collected one kilometer outside of New Delhi," Newton said, his voice raspy yet carrying unquestionable authority. "Please look at the third line of parameters; that is the local manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics."

An admiral from the Eagle Nation frowned. "Doctor, we are soldiers. Please speak in plain English. How many enemies are there? What equipment? Where are the weaknesses? We need specific strike coordinates!"

Newton glanced at him coldly—the look of a top student looking at a failing one, filled with undisguised contempt.

"In plain terms, it is a breeding ground for negentropic monsters."

Newton's fingers swiped through the air, and the data on the screen instantly reorganized, constructing a hair-raising 3D model.

It was a constantly writhing, irregular sphere that was devouring all surrounding matter and proliferating outward in a manner that defied the conservation of energy.

"The things we encountered, let's call them 'Black Mud' for now," Newton said quickly. "They have no fixed form; they can be liquid, solid, or even gas. Conventional kinetic weapons hitting them is like punching water—completely meaningless."

"What's most lethal is..."

Newton pulled up a set of waveforms and pointed at two curves that were almost perfectly overlapping.

"This is the energy output spectrum of myself and Li, and the one below is the spectrum of those monsters 4 minutes and 12 seconds after the battle began."

The conference room fell into a dead silence; even the non-technical military attaches could understand what those two curves meant.

Total overlap.

"They are learning."

The previously silent Li Bai suddenly spoke. Playing with the empty wine gourd in his hand, his tone was flat but sent chills down everyone's spines. "At first, they just imitated our movements—clumsy and stiff, like a baby learning to walk. But after only a few hundred exchanges..."

Li Bai looked up sharply, a chilling glint of trepidation flashing in his eyes.

"They learned my Sword Intent. Not just the outward forms, but the true intent—the concept of 'severing'..."

The sound of people gasping for breath rose from all sides.

Able to absorb energy, immune to physical attacks, and capable of analyzing and copying enemy skills in real-time?

How do you fight that? It's basically an unsolvable bug!