You want me to take out a loan to practice cultivation? I'll just pay off the debt physically.

In August of the 162nd year of the Extraordinary Calendar, the Red Heart Society never expected that their plan to intervene in the Heavenly Pantheon would be delayed for several years due to the meager resource allocation of this demigod.

[After all, in the various timelines during which the Red Heart Society rose to power, any conflict with Heaven was at least a localized conflict, but often involved clashes between dozens of rule-based legions and chaotic battles among hundreds of demigods.]

[The terrifying scene of even a true god personally tearing apart the laws of space was so horrifying that the intelligence department's archived battle reports filled three secret rooms, each one permeated with the stench of blood and gunpowder.]

[And now, the expedition of the mighty Heavenly Pantheon is being choked by the meager funds of a demigod, who is even haggling over the teleportation costs for a few legions.]

This kind of thing is a rare occurrence that has never happened in many different timelines within the Red Heart Society's perception network.

So much so that when the intelligence finally confirmed that the Heavenly Legion had completed its assembly and was about to descend, the deacon in charge of monitoring the matter was stunned for a moment, repeatedly checking the timestamp three times before he was sure he hadn't misread it.

They did indeed wait for several years, waiting for the soldiers at the border outposts to be replaced time and again, waiting for the energy shields of the defensive fortifications to undergo two rounds of upgrades, and waiting for the plans and strategies originally formulated for this conflict to be revised several times.

Behind the Red Heart Society's border defenses stretching tens of thousands of miles, when the alarm finally confirmed the coordinates of the Heavenly Legion's arrival at the command center, there were no cheers, no complaints, only an almost cold calm that passed between commanders at all levels.

The Red Heart Society, having waited so many years, finally welcomed these guys down, and from the very beginning, they had no intention of showing any mercy.

In fact, when facing such an opponent, there's absolutely no need for any hypocritical pretense of showing mercy.

When intelligence revealed that the enemy's highest combat strength consisted of only a single demigod, and that his legions were disorganized and lacked a unified command system due to long-term, staggered teleportation, the outcome of the battle was already a foregone conclusion.

The Red Heart Society doesn't even need to activate any weapons of mass destruction, mobilize its main fleet, or alert those ancient beings who have been in seclusion for years studying the rules.

[Simply dispatching any demigod responsible for daily patrols from the standing forces stationed at the border would be enough to wipe out this so-called Heavenly Pantheon expeditionary force as easily as crushing a colony of ants.]

The fate of that demigod, who descended upon the edge of the star field where the Red Heart Society resided, was already sealed.

However, as he habitually prepared to unleash a reconnaissance spell, following the standard procedure of the Heavenly Pantheon to assess the defensive strength of the world ahead, his movements froze.

His pupils contracted sharply, and he seemed to have been struck by an invisible bolt of lightning, floating blankly in the void, unaware even of the slight commotion in the legion formation behind him.

He was utterly stunned by the sight before him, a grandeur and solemnity beyond his comprehension of tens of thousands of years of life experience, a sense of oppression that made him tremble from the depths of his soul.

At the edge of his vision, there was not the world, but a steel galaxy composed of countless defensive fortifications.

From the nearest floating island in the void to the dark abyss at the edge of the horizon, layers upon layers of permanent turrets spread out like a dense thicket of thorns.

Each turret's base is inlaid with a rule-level energy core powerful enough to shatter the world; the runic light flowing on the cannon barrels remains clearly visible even from tens of thousands of miles away.

The turrets exchanged scanning beams at a frequency imperceptible to the naked eye, forming a vast sensing network covering the entire star field.

Above these ground defenses, even more despairing were the fleets patrolling the void.

That wasn't any interstellar force he knew; it was a mobile steel Great Wall composed of tens of thousands of heavy battleships, each over a thousand miles long.

The armor covering the ship's surface was covered with ancient engravings that even he couldn't decipher, and the main guns of each warship were powerful enough to make even a powerful being he recognized retreat.

Not to mention the escort and reconnaissance ships swarming among the battleships like bees, and the vaguely visible, terrifying shadows. These fleets moved slowly through the void in precise formations, their trajectories weaving into some kind of mysterious array pattern, locking the spatial laws of the entire star field into a tense state, ready to explode at any moment.

Is this truly an armed force that an ordinary world could nurture?

Could such technological power be developed in the ordinary world?

Even without the support of a true god, the opponent already possesses power that threatens a true god.

【besides!】

If there isn't a true god overseeing things, then why can demigods of the rules be dispatched so easily from within?

If a true god truly resides there, why has this world never been marked as a high-risk area in the intelligence network of the Heavenly pantheon?

Who deceived me?

Are they just a bunch of incompetent fools in the intelligence department, or is all of this just some kind of illusionary trap targeting us?

Or perhaps, I've inadvertently stumbled into a colossal organization comparable to the Heavenly Pantheon, a behemoth hidden in the shadows of the known universe, a dark overlord undetected even by the Heavenly Pantheon?

Countless thoughts collided wildly within his soul, and fear overwhelmed all his reason like an icy tide.

He began to regret why he had been so petty.

Isn't it just an ordinary world?

[If you don't have faith, you can always try again!]

Why bother coming here to die?

But no matter how much he regretted it, how much he struggled, or how much he tried to find a chance to escape, his death was already sealed the moment that demigod of rules stepped out of the fortifications and raised his right hand expressionlessly.

There was no room for negotiation, no room for surrender, only a blade of law piercing through the void, and the destructive storm that followed swept across the entire legion.

That's all!

This joke has come to an end.

In January of the 163rd year of the Extraordinary Calendar, a strongly worded rebuke traveled tens of thousands of light-years through a special channel, appearing directly on the council table of the core temple of the Heavenly Pantheon.

The Red Heart Society's accountability measures were devoid of any diplomatic rhetoric or the empty pleasantries exchanged between powers. They were direct and severe accusations of unauthorized encroachment on the Red Heart Society's territory and the dispatch of armed forces for hostile reconnaissance.

The text is filled with a condescending anger, as if the Heavenly Pantheon were not some mighty, all-powerful force, but merely a petty, ignorant thief who needed a severe lesson to learn his lesson. (End of Chapter)