Transcending Godhood: I Extract Keywords and Crush the Gods

Golden Toad City, the main hall of the city lord.

The carpet was soaked with thick blood.

The stench of blood permeated the hall, mingling with the aroma of expensive spices to create a nauseatingly sweet scent.

Chu Xiaoxiao sat regally on a throne made of pure gold.

Her signature black-rimmed glasses were nowhere to be found.

Her eyes and brows exuded a bewitching and aggressive beauty.

She changed into a floor-length gown with a dark gold base and embroidered with crimson silk thread.

The skirt cascaded down, its edges stained with mottled blood.

The luxurious fabric clung to her body, giving her the air of a teenage tyrant.

In the center of the main hall, more than twenty well-dressed native merchants knelt.

These are all wealthy merchants from various races who are attracted to Golden Toad City by the daily automatic refresh of the Rubik's Cube world's mechanics.

"Lord City Lord! I'm willing to hand over half of the Merchant Guild's profits! Please spare my life!"

A portly fox merchant banged his head repeatedly, his forehead a bloody mess.

Chu Xiaoxiao rested her chin on one hand and looked at him.

There was no pity in his eyes, only overwhelming violence.

"Half?" Chu Xiaoxiao parted her red lips slightly and sneered, "On my turf, even your life is mine. What do you have to offer me in exchange for terms?"

She raised her right hand and flicked it lightly with her slender, jade-like fingers.

The nanowires flew out and pierced the fox merchant's forehead.

The fox merchant's eyes widened as he fell backward, crimson blood gushing out.

The remaining merchants were terrified, screaming in panic as they desperately scrambled towards the entrance of the main hall.

Chu Xiaoxiao watched this scene coldly, not even bothering to move a finger.

The mechanical deities standing on either side of the main hall moved.

A deity at the fifth level of demigod rushed into the crowd, limbs and warm blood splattering everywhere.

In just over ten seconds, not a single person survived in the hall.

"Take all their storage rings off." Chu Xiaoxiao leaned back in her chair, her tone as calm as still water.

"Send men to raid all their chambers of commerce, outposts, and warehouses outside the city."

Not a single gold bar may be left behind.

"Yes, sir." The two mechanical puppets knelt on one knee, accepted the order, and left.

Chu Xiaoxiao stared indifferently at the corpses scattered on the ground.

She must seize every moment to accumulate strength.

Lin Yuan's Bloodline Army is ravaging the Central Plains, and she doesn't have much time left.

She has gone mad in her fight against that monster.

Merchants, nobles, and wandering knights who enter Golden Toad City are detained by her every day.

Those who agreed to hand over all their possessions became slaves. Anyone who dared to utter a single word of dissent was killed on the spot.

She poured the vast resources obtained from the confiscation of property into the altar.

With the addition of other deity altars, the military strength of Golden Toad City is growing rapidly.

"Report on our current combat strength." Chu Xiaoxiao looked at Sun Ying, who was standing at the front.

Sun Ying stepped forward and spoke in a completely flat, mechanical synthesized voice.

"Reporting to the city lord. After three days of resource conversion and forced summoning, the total troop strength has exceeded 200,000."

"In addition, progress has been made in the infection assimilation program."

"Thirteen students have been successfully transformed into mechanical deities and incorporated into the Guardian Legion."

An army of 200,000, and thirteen mechanical deities at the fifth-level demigod stage.

This achievement would be enough to make any freshman stand out from the crowd.

But after hearing this, Chu Xiaoxiao's expression turned gloomy.

"Bang!"

She grabbed the priceless jade wine cup beside her and smashed it at Sun Ying's feet.

"Is that all?" Chu Xiaoxiao stood up, her dark gold skirt trailing on the steps. She walked down from the throne and came to Sun Ying.

"Two hundred thousand, thirteen deities."

Chu Xiaoxiao's voice was shrill and piercing, "You bunch of useless trash!"

"You've given me this garbage report in just three days!"

Sun Ying stood still, letting Chu Xiaoxiao's spittle spray onto her face.

Mechanical puppets feel neither fear nor shame.

Seeing his nonchalant attitude, Chu Xiaoxiao felt her anger burn even more fiercely.

"Not enough! Not enough at all!" Chu Xiaoxiao paced back and forth in the center of the hall, grabbing her long, flowing hair with both hands, ruining her haughty queenly aura.

"That Lin Yuan can raise an army in half a day! What's two hundred thousand? I want a million! I want ten million!"

She turned around and pointed to the thirteen mechanical deities standing in the hall.

"There are twenty-eight people in the class! Where are the rest of them besides that freak Lin Yuan?"

"Why are there only thirteen? Are your brains just for decoration?!"

Chu Xiaoxiao's face looked somewhat ferocious and terrifying due to her anger.

"I want you to go and bring them all back! To make them all my dogs!"

"Only by integrating them all will I have the strength to fight Lin Yuan to the death! Do you even understand?!"

Chu Xiaoxiao's hysterical roar echoed throughout the main hall.

The mechanical deity below stood still, the red light in its eyes remaining stable as usual.

They were not moved by Chu Xiaoxiao's beauty, nor were they intimidated by her anger.

They only follow the lowest level of logic code.

"Lord of the City." Zhao Kuo stepped forward.

His slightly overweight body has now become a mobile fortress.

"The establishment of the intelligence network has been hampered," Zhao Kuo stated the facts. "The traveling merchants in the Central Plains region have been slaughtered by Lin Yuan's army."

"The intelligence brokers around Golden Toad City are deliberately concealing key information, so we cannot pinpoint the coordinates of the remaining deities."

"Secondly, the remaining students are all fifth-level demigods, and most of them have already established basic defensive positions."

"It is extremely difficult to capture them alive and assimilate them mechanically. A forced assault would result in severe losses of our troops."

Zhao Kuo's analysis was well-reasoned and based entirely on precise calculations of battlefield data.

But these words were like adding fuel to the fire for Chu Xiaoxiao.

"Shut up!" Chu Xiaoxiao glared at Zhao Kuo, her eyes bloodshot. "Insufficient intelligence? Difficulty in capturing deities? Is this your excuse for incompetence?"

She strode up to Zhao Kuo, tilted her head back, and looked directly into his mechanical eyes.

"Those information brokers deliberately concealed things? Are you pigs?!" Chu Xiaoxiao gritted her teeth and questioned, "This is a world simulated by the Rubik's Cube! The natives here have flesh and blood, and desires!"

"They like to keep things to themselves, can't you force them to reveal their secrets?"

"What's the use of simply buying someone off with benefits? Can benefits be more important than life?"

Chu Xiaoxiao stretched out her finger and forcefully poked Zhao Kuo's hard metal chest, making a clanging sound.

"They have wives! They have children! They have properties outside the city!"

"There's a hidden stash of money in the cellar! Investigate! Find it all!"

"If they wouldn't talk, we'd grab their wives and children and, right in front of them, cut off pieces of their flesh!"

"Burn their houses down! Steal all their money!"

"Threaten them with what they care about most! Crush their psychological defenses!"

"Can't you even exploit this most basic human weakness? Do I need to teach you how to do things?"

Chu Xiaoxiao's breathing became rapid, her chest heaving.

She no longer possesses any of the former prodigy of Starry Sky University.

He was a slave completely dominated by power and greed.

Inside the main hall, the mechanical deities' brains were rapidly processing the new instructions issued by Chu Xiaoxiao.

Just then, Zhou Yan, who was standing in the corner, spoke up.

"Lord of the City." Zhou Yan's rocky, metallic body emitted a grinding sound.

"Excessive killing and intimidation will lead to the complete collapse of the commercial system in and around the city."

"The resource output rate is expected to decline by 75 percent, which is inconsistent with the logic of development."

"It is recommended to stop the extreme looting and restore some commercial order."

Zhou Yan was merely fulfilling his duty to remind others and calculating the optimal solution.

But these words touched a raw nerve in Chu Xiaoxiao's heart.

She wouldn't tolerate any rebuttal.

Anyone or anything that dares to defy her will at this time will die.

Chu Xiaoxiao turned her head and looked directly at Zhou Yan.

"Are you teaching me how to do things?"

No unnecessary words.

Chu Xiaoxiao raised her right hand, spreading her five fingers.

Divine Art: [Silver Thread Decisive Strike - Overload].

Hundreds of nanowires, several times thicker than before, shot out from her palms, enveloping Zhou Yan's massive body.

Zhou Yan stood still, without making any defensive or dodging moves.

"Hiss hiss hiss—"

The sound of metal being cut echoed in the main hall.

Zhou Yan's rock-metal armor, comparable to a high-level defensive artifact, was as fragile as tofu in the face of the overloaded nanowires.

The threads are cut in an interlaced pattern.

Zhou Yan's massive body disintegrated, turning into countless equally sized metal fragments that scattered on the ground.

The mechanical fire hidden deep within the metal shell was directly severed by the silk threads.

The red light flashed twice and then quickly went out.

A mechanical deity at the fifth level of demigod died at the hands of the city lord he served without even uttering a scream.

The hall returned to calm.

Chu Xiaoxiao stood still, keeping her hand raised.

Watching Zhou Yan turn into pieces on the ground, watching those red mechanical eyes dim.

An indescribable pleasure surged through my brain.

This power to control the life and death of others, the power to make those who obey me prosper and those who defy me perish, made every cell in her body cheer with joy.

She even felt an urge to burst out laughing.

Screw credits! Screw bottom lines!

Here, she is the queen!

A wild smile appeared on Chu Xiaoxiao's face.

However, the smile on his face froze.

Zhou Yan's extinguished red mechanical eye lay in a pool of blood, reflecting the light from the ceiling of the main hall.

The light stung Chu Xiaoxiao's eyes.

A sudden chill swept over her entire body.

The pleasure receded like the tide, replaced by a deep fear.

Chu Xiaoxiao shivered.

She slowly lowered her head, looking at her hands stained with blood.

Looking at the scattered indigenous corpses in the main hall, I could hear my own rapid heartbeat.

"What...am I doing?"

Chu Xiaoxiao muttered to herself, her voice trembling.

The initial rage was tempered by a sudden surge of fear, and reason regained its footing.

She realized how strange her recent behavior was compared to her usual self.

In her normal life, Chu Xiaoxiao is calm, wise, and composed.

She is shrewd and calculating, and is used to treating everyone as a pawn on a chessboard.

She is ruthless and will stop at nothing to win.

But she always had her own bottom line.

She only kills valuable targets, and she tortures her enemies to obtain crucial intelligence.

She wouldn't act like a madwoman, yelling and screaming in the main hall, pointlessly slaughtering those defenseless native merchants.

He would never kill the demigod power he had painstakingly assimilated just because of a suggestion based on facts.

This isn't cold-bloodedness; it's madness that's gone mad.

Chu Xiaoxiao staggered back two steps and fell onto the blood-stained throne.

She gasped for breath, her mind replaying everything that had happened in the past few days.

When she killed those randomly spawning merchants, she wasn't thinking about how to acquire resources; she simply wanted to seize their wealth for herself.

When she ordered the confiscation of the property, she saw chests of gold and silver jewelry being moved into the treasury.

What welled up inside me was not the joy of increased combat power, but a morbid sense of satisfaction.

She was controlled by her emotions.

They were driven by greed.

Chu Xiaoxiao closed her eyes, recalling the words displayed on the golden screen when she entered the Rubik's Cube world.

[Identity Effect: In the vault scene, the user's divine power recovery speed is increased by 300%, but greed value increases by 50%, making them extremely prone to greed.]

Greed level increases by 50%.

She initially thought it was just a simple negative situation.

As long as you remain vigilant at all times, you can suppress it with your willpower.

She's too arrogant.

The corruption of the divine spirit by the Rubik's Cube world is not merely a matter of superficial emotional fluctuations.

It is a subtle, gradual alteration of logic that directly affects the origin of divine fire.

As her wealth and military strength increased,

A 50% greed level is like a malignant tumor rooted deep in the soul.

It draws nourishment from her stress and anxiety, and grows wildly.

It amplified her desire for victory and blurred her understanding of resources.

Ultimately, she was transformed into a monster blinded by greed, who only knew how to take.

Chu Xiaoxiao opened her eyes, her gaze falling on the fox clan merchant she had just killed.

The fox merchant died with his eyes wide open in disbelief.

His wide-open eyes still held an extreme desire to live, as well as a deep resentment towards her, the city lord.

Chu Xiaoxiao felt a chill run through her body.

She finally understood why the way those businessmen looked at her before they died had made her feel inexplicably irritated.

Because in the eyes of those natives

She was nothing but an insatiable, greedy beast.

"Damn it..."