I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

"Clang—Sizzle!"

New Chang'an City, Third Heavy Industry Ritual Instrument Casting Plant.

A heavy stamping machine, hundreds of meters tall, crashed down, sending sparks and reddish-brown iron fragments flying everywhere. A high-pressure cooling water curtain gushed forth, instantly filling the entire factory with the pungent smell of ozone and a rich aura of spiritual energy.

Old Zhao squatted on the steps at the workshop entrance, holding a chipped enamel mug, and took a big gulp of scalding hot ginseng tea.

It's been a hundred years.

Time seemed to have stopped flowing on him; apart from a few deep wrinkles around his eyes, his bulging muscles still gleamed with a cold, metallic sheen like a high-grade magical artifact. As a genuine late-stage Foundation Establishment body cultivator, his current identity was the factory manager of the Ninth Branch Factory.

"Master! Damn it, the G30 psionic high-speed train from New Chang'an to Kyoto is delayed again! That batch of Xuanwu armor plates probably won't be unloaded until this afternoon!"

The apprentice who used to get nosebleeds from touching a high-voltage line is now a middle-aged man with a fierce face. He wiped his sweat haphazardly with a dirty towel draped around his neck and sat down on the steps, cursing.

Old Zhao didn't even lift his eyelids. He took out a special supply of spiritual herbs and lit it with a "snap" of his fingertips, creating a cluster of real fire.

"Later again? Are those engineers in the Road Administration just eating all day? The orders from the front lines are booked until next quarter!" Old Zhao exhaled a puff of spicy smoke, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.

"This time it really isn't the fault of the Road Administration Department."

The apprentice, with a pained expression, tapped twice on the tactical terminal on his wrist, pulled up a holographic geological survey map, and pushed it over. "Take a look for yourself. This part of the Central Plains Plate's crust 'squeezed' outward by another five kilometers last month. The railway tracks are being deformed by the earth's growth forces every day. The engineers are constantly patching them up, how can the trains possibly run fast?"

Old Zhao glanced at the glaring red line that was constantly expanding outwards and snorted irritably.

"How could you not gain weight? You eat three big bowls of spirit rice a day and still gain two pounds. This super array on Earth has been eating non-stop for a hundred years! It hasn't rested for a single day!"

He reached out and patted the thick layer of star-iron cement beneath his buttocks, feeling the dull vibrations deep within the earth's veins, like the breathing of an ancient behemoth.

"What's buried underground has long since had its blood transfusion. The high-dimensional energy refined by the grand formation is inexhaustible, so it's all been poured into the earth's crust. Now, you could just dig up any brick by the roadside, and the water you squeeze out could be used as a low-grade spirit stone. The mother planet has become too fat, it's literally 'bloated' itself!"

......

Old Zhao was right.

Viewed from space, this blue planet has undergone an extremely violent physical distortion over the past century.

Its volume has more than doubled.

The tectonic plates were forcibly torn apart and widened, and the depleted ocean bed was refilled by the gushing spiritual springs from the earth. Under the catalysis of the terrifying spiritual pressure of the earth's veins, those ancient famous mountains rose wildly like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

Mount Tai has surpassed 8,000 meters, and Changbai Mountain is approaching the 10,000-meter mark. As the ancestor of all mountains and the absolute core of the Nine Cauldrons Formation, Kunlun's main peak has pierced directly through the stratosphere, standing proudly at an extreme altitude of 30,000 meters.

And that "near-Earth orbit training ground" that encircles the Earth at an altitude of 15,000 meters is no longer the flimsy defense line it once was.

"boom--!"

A heavy star-iron transport ship, a kilometer long, hovered abruptly amidst the raging spatial turbulence. The hatch slammed shut, and extreme cold frost of minus seventy degrees Celsius, mixed with gale-force winds, instantly flooded the cabin.

"Stop fucking shivering! Activate the cold-resistant array!"

At the rear of the cabin, a one-eyed man clad in dark gold general-level armor strode to the edge of the cabin door.

Lin Fan. A hundred years ago, he was a Qi Refining novice who couldn't even stand steadily on a flying sword and was almost frozen into an ice sculpture. Now, he is the supreme commander of the Third Army Corps of the East China Sea Theater's Near-Earth Defense Force, a true Golden Core Peak Sword Cultivator.

His cold, single eye slowly swept over the hundreds of trembling, pale-faced recruits in the cabin. These were fresh graduates from various defense academies.

"Open your eyes wide and see clearly what's below!"

Lin Fan suddenly kicked a trembling recruit in the buttocks, sending half of his body flying out of the cabin.

"ah--!"

The recruit screamed in terror, clutching desperately at the edge of the hatch. Through the churning, leaden clouds, he saw a scene that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

There was no land beneath their feet, only a massive "star ring" woven from countless floating steel islands, heavy array cannons, and the trails of flying swords as dense as locusts. This star ring was firmly welded to the space rifts that constantly seeped outwards with black mist, like an engine that never stopped running.

"A hundred years ago, I was just like you, kicked off this height by the instructor."

Lin Fan reached out and grabbed the recruit by the back of his collar, pulling him back like a chick.

"But I survived! All thanks to the spiritual energy of the stratosphere and the military merits earned by those void scum!"

Lin Fan drew his broadsword from his waist with a backhand motion, the blade pointing directly at the nauseating cloud of spores outside the cabin.

"On Earth these days, even stray dogs on the street can live to be two hundred years old! You bunch of brats, born in a greenhouse of liquefied spiritual energy, have never gone hungry, never experienced the feeling of having your true essence drained. The Command calls you 'delicate flowers'!"

Lin Fan's voice, amplified by the loudspeaker, made the cabin walls vibrate.

"But in my army, we don't grow flowers! We need mad dogs that can bite aliens' throats! Draw your swords! Form ranks! Jump!"

"kill!"

Hundreds of new recruits were stirred to their bloodlust, their eyes bloodshot. They pushed aside their sword techniques and, like dumplings being dropped into boiling water, plunged headlong into the black, turbulent water below.

Lin Fan coldly watched the young figures rushing into the black mist, his brows furrowing involuntarily.

He raised his wrist and glanced at the energy readings on his tactical terminal.

"Commander, something's not right." The adjutant quietly approached him and lowered his voice. "The spores and low-level parasites leaking from the cracks this month are less than a third of what they were ten years ago. The brothers below almost started fighting among themselves over a kill claim."

"They're shrinking their lines." Lin Fan gripped the hilt of his sword, a dangerous glint flashing in his single eye. "The Void isn't a mindless beast. After feeding them for a hundred years, they've finally realized—Earth isn't some punching bag waiting to be slaughtered, but a gaping maw that devours people without spitting out the bones."

......

At the summit of Kunlun, a heavenly palace stands atop the clouds.

The wind and snow were like knives.

At an altitude of 30,000 meters, the spiritual energy in the restricted zone was so dense that it solidified into tangible white frost, which pattered against the cliff face, producing a soft, cracking sound.

Gu Qing, dressed in a white robe that he hadn't changed in a century, stood quietly on the edge of the cliff.

His feet dangled in the air, three inches off the ground. A century had passed without leaving a single wrinkle on his face, seemingly erasing all human emotions and desires. At this moment, he was as calm as a dry well, his entire being radiating a vastness that sent shivers down one's spine.

His consciousness had long since merged with the Nine Provinces Barrier that covered the entire globe.

Just moments before, he clearly sensed that the last vestige of void spores in the stratospheric fissure had been completely shredded by the Third Legion's sword energy. Furthermore, no energy fluctuations from the mutated entity were detected outside the Guanghan Base, 380,000 kilometers away.

The long invasion, which had lasted for a whole century, stopped without warning.

With the loss of external void energy, the massive power source that had sustained Earth's high-speed operation for a century came to a halt. Without the "fuel" from the heavens, the vast group of cultivators, accustomed to the nourishment of high-concentration spiritual energy over the past century, naturally began to deplete the spiritual veins of their home planet.

In the short term, it may be able to maintain a superficial prosperity, but in the long run, the tide of spiritual energy will eventually be drained.

But there was not a trace of panic on Gu Qing's face.

On the contrary, the opponent's almost overtly calculated "supply cut" tactic precisely exposed their deep-seated fears.

Gu Qing slowly raised her hand.

A sharp ice crystal, infused with violent spiritual energy, swirled down and grazed his index finger. A tiny cut appeared out of nowhere. Gu Qing looked down and saw that what was seeping from the wound was not the crimson blood of an ordinary person, but a drop of pale golden liquid that emitted a dazzling light and exuded the aura of pure law.

I couldn't feel a trace of human warmth.

Looking at the drop of golden blood, a barely perceptible ripple finally stirred in his usually calm eyes.

He knew better than anyone what this meant. Over the past century, the "system" deep within his consciousness had been slowly peeling away his emotions and desires, like a frog being boiled in lukewarm water.

It wants to erase the person "Gu Qing" and completely assimilate him into an absolutely rational vessel that only knows how to weigh pros and cons.

Gu Qing's lips curled into a cold smile as he casually flicked his finger.

The golden blood fell into the wind and snow ahead, silently melting a piece of hard ice rock into a bottomless black hole.

He looked down at his pale gold fingertips, which were so worn that not even a single scar remained.

To fight against the endless abyss in the sky, he must first win the war within his sea of ​​consciousness. If even the independent personality of "Gu Qing" is completely assimilated and erased by the cold laws, what is the point of Earth winning against the entire universe?

"You want me to sever all emotions and desires, and become a supreme god..."

Gu Qing muttered to himself.

The next second, his body, which had been hovering three inches off the ground, slowly sank. For the first time in the past hundred years, his feet firmly touched the snow of Kunlun.

"Crunch."

A crisp, clear sound of footsteps echoed before the deathly silent Heavenly Palace.

"But I insist on being a human being."

He turned away, no longer looking at the desolate starry sky, but instead gazing down at the bustling, vibrant world beneath the sea of ​​clouds, a world filled with joys and sorrows.

It's time for this Heavenly Palace on the Clouds, which has been silent for a hundred years, to open its doors and make a trip to the mortal world.