Chapter 32 — Escaping the Deadzone

An unmatched, violently extreme gravity storm ruthlessly swept and tore across the edge of the Tartarus Deadzone.

On the ruins of the Embers Camp, the previously towering waste lead platforms and shacks had long been leveled to the ground during the blood battle where the Aries divine envoys descended. But in the center of the flat, muddy ruins, a heavy submarine behemoth, bizarre in appearance yet exuding formidable physical pressure, was slowly starting its massive anti-gravity engines!

That was the [Orbit-breaker One] explosion-proof warship!

The Mortal Vanguard had spent three days completely dismantling and transforming the captured [Golden Saint] patrol boat into this heavy explosion-proof vehicle belonging exclusively to mortals. The originally dazzling, arrogant Golden Saint coating had been entirely sanded down and cast over with thick explosion-proof waste lead and black carbon armor. The main cannon cabin had been modified into a shelter capable of accommodating the over two hundred mortal survivors. The massive hull exuded the cold, domineering aura of metal and thermomelt black lead, like a steel god of death rising from the wasteland. The entire warship was painted with an anti-gravity coating, emitting a heavy, murderous luster under the purple-red sky light. Dozens of thick rivets firmly locked the explosion-proof armor, radiating the wild power of the industrial era.

Inside the cabin, carburized lead explosion-proof soundproofing panels half a meter thick isolated the violent Deadzone gravity storm outside. Inside the cabin, over two hundred mortal elders, weaklings, and miners who had once barely clung to life huddled tightly together. Their faces no longer bore the terror and ash-like despair of facing Deadzone purges. In its place was the resolute hope of gripping electromagnetic guns and looking toward deep space! Old miners stroked the riot armor plates cast from holy armor on their bodies, hot tears welling in their eyes. Self-Defense Force warriors checked the overloaded batteries of their electromagnetic rifles, having polished the gravity runes on the gods' law guns into god-slaying bullets designed to pierce holy armor. Dozens of families sat in the narrow explosion-proof cabins, distributing reserved energy paste and purified water. The laughter and chatter of the mortals dispelled the haze of death.

In the past, deep in the underground cities, they were waste and garbage that the Divine Court could prune at will. But now, in this explosion-proof behemoth modified from a golden warship, they had become the first batch of vanguard death squads in the lower realm who dared to bare their swords at the gods! The elders told the children the grand tale of how Elias beheaded the advanced divine envoy Gar, while the youths' eyes sparkled with adoration and hot blood.

In the front cabin of the warship, veteran Caleb roared at the top of his lungs, his thick mechanical iron arm pulling down the heavy main air valve! The veteran's electronic prosthetic eye radiated unprecedented ferocity and confidence under the illumination of the deep blue holographic screen:

"Brothers! We've decrypted Gar's navigation map and figured it out! This 6th Mining Deadzone is locked tight on all sides by the Heavenly Realm's [Gravity Storm Wall]. If we want to survive, if we want to leave this tomb of death and go to other star domains, the [Aries Outer Defense Line: Space-based Fortress] is the only astra-axis jump gate! That fortress not only controls the interstellar shipping lanes, but it also has the star-marrow fuel depot that the Aries Lord embezzled! This is our only way out! Set sail—! Let the gods see the wrath of mortals!"

Rumble—!

The massive waste lead hull of the [Orbit-breaker One] spewed two blinding blue-white pillars of high-energy discrete light. Tearing through the surface mud and storm, like an avenging black steel beast, it rose from the ground and shot straight into the clouds! The thousand-meter-high discrete gravitational waves washed the waste lead high platform below into fine powder! The massive warship was like a black spear of the god of death piercing through the clouds, carrying the monstrous wrath of over two hundred mortals as it plunged headlong into the rolling black clouds high above the Deadzone! The violently discrete particles drew a white streak miles long through the clouds!

The violent, discrete hypergravity made the warship's frame creak, but the hull, cast with holy golden armor explosion-proof plates, was as solid as bedrock! The old miners looked at the azure ion flames spewing from the main air valves, waving their fists and laughing aloud. Veteran Caleb spat out a mouthful of thick smoke. That electronic prosthetic eye erupted with bloodthirsty light. Thirty years of accumulated resentment poured out at this moment!

On the main control platform.

The girl Lyra stood before the [Orbit-breaking Astrolabe]. Her slender hands rapidly plucked at the flowing light chessboard, destiny compass star-runes rippling with deep blue light at her fingertips. The girl's bright black eyes were full of radiance, her black hair flying in the wind:

"Elias! The astrolabe penetration trajectory is locked! Once we pass through the [Gravity Storm Wall] at the edge of the Deadzone ahead, we can directly reach the star zone exit—the [Aries Outer Defense Line: Space-based Fortress]! As long as we seize control of the fortress's jump gate, we can break out of this death row cage! The high-dimensional gravitational constant is climbing sharply! The warship's engine polarization has reached its maximum critical value!"

Elias stood proudly before the explosion-proof glass window at the very front of the cockpit. The boy's tactical cloak flapped loudly in the gale. His right hand tightly gripped the handle of his heavy cutting knife, those bright black eyes staring dead at the tens of thousands of meters high dark purple gravity storm barrier at the horizon ahead. The boy's spine was straight as a spear, holding up the spine of the entire cabin amidst the storm! The boy's gaze looked past the storm, locking dead onto the direction of the Heavenly Realm. Inside his body, the Anomaly negative energy roared and surged like a river! The boy's aura merged into one with the storm of the Deadzone!

"So what if it's a fortress? So what if it's a divine defense line?" Elias's voice was hard and cold as ice. "That is our only gateway to survival and stepping into the stars. If gods block the way, we slay gods; if a fortress blocks the way, we ram through the fortress! We already have no way back!" The boy's eyes were bloodshot and red, the veins on the back of his hands writhing like dragons and snakes. The boy thought of his sister Aira who died in the underground city, thought of his compatriots who died tragically under the divine envoys' law spears. That black-extreme Anomaly negative energy erupting from the depths of his marrow drew out an ear-piercing low-frequency hum throughout the entire front cabin!

And in the darkest corner of the warship's rear cabin.

"Vespera," wearing her rough cloth dress, leaned quietly against a waste lead armor plate. Amidst the massive iron air valves and the high-frequency roar of machines, the high-and-mighty God of Darkness, Umbra, suddenly had a strand of extremely profound high-dimensional flowing light flicker deep in her eyes. That exceedingly beautiful and cold face was hidden in the dead corner of the storm and shadows. The goddess's slender fingertips gently brushed the rough cloth dress at her waist. Her high-dimensional law divine core was silently deducing the destiny trajectories of this group of mortals. In the God of Darkness's macroscopic field of vision, the black-extreme negative energy on the boy was like a tiny yet brilliant black hole, attracting the astrolabe causality all around him.

Hum—!

The Goddess of Darkness extended a fingertip and tapped gently in a dead corner of empty space. A strand of supreme dark judgment wave frequency, transcending the Twelve Zodiac Lords, crossed the void barriers of countless dimensions and silently reached straight into the divine core of the [Secret Inspectors of Darkness] deep within the high-dimensional Sanctum. The high-dimensional dark vein unfolded on a microscopic level into an absolutely classified holy channel, completely bypassing the surveillance net of the Heavenly Realm's legions and the Twelve Houses.

[Secret Voice Transmission: Order of Dark Judgment]:

"Suppress the inspection dossier of the Aries Lord privately sending Gar to the lower realms beyond his authority. Do not report it to the Inner Cabinet of Chief Gods and the 6th House for now."

Umbra's voice echoed ethereally deep within the divine cores of the Sanctum's Secret Inspectors, carrying a ten-thousand-year unmelting coldness and high-dimensional computing rationality:

"Let Aries' embezzlement of divine ore and overstepping of authority continue to play out before the Inner Cabinet of Chief Gods. Let the 6th House Lord Asclepius and the Aries Legion suspect each other. The greater the tearing between the Zodiac military power and the twelve political Houses, the more obvious the loopholes in the Divine Court's heavenly principles will become. The monolithic block of the Divine Court has long been decaying, and it precisely needs this external force to tear open a rift. As for this special [Anomaly] in the lower realms..."

Speaking to this point, the dark, profound eyes of the Goddess of Darkness extended from the shadows, landing from afar onto the back of the mortal boy Elias, standing tall as a spear on the deck ahead. Deep within the goddess's divine core, a trace of unprecedented anticipation and teasing faintly rose:

"This God would like to see... just how big of a wound this spark of wildfire that crawled out of the low-dimensional garbage dump can tear open... in the Divine Court's cold astrolabe that it has maintained for tens of thousands of years. This high-dimensional grand play using mortals as chess pieces has only just torn open its prelude. Let's see if he truly can drag the gods into a mortal hell."

"We obey the supreme command of the God of Darkness! The dossier shall be suppressed!" The Secret Inspectors far away in the depths of the high-dimensional Sanctum issued a response filled with extreme reverence, then returned to absolute nothingness. The high-dimensional channel instantly dissipated. In this cold situation of the Divine Court, an earth-shattering chess game personally overseen by the God of Darkness was silently being deduced!

Boom-blast—!

The [Orbit-breaker One], carrying an incomparably resolute, ferocious aura, crashed with a boom and shattered the Gravity Storm Wall, tens of thousands of meters high, at the edge of the Tartarus Deadzone! The black waste lead warship was like a paper cutter, slicing open the thick, ten-thousand-fathom purple gravity storm! The warship's explosion-proof shield erupted with blindingly bright discrete physical light spots! The storm-proof armor plates emitted red-hot heat under the intense gravitational friction.

The blinding pitch-black storm and gravitational electrical arcs exploded into a sky full of sparks on the hull's protective shield! After three full minutes of violent penetration, the centrifugal gravity almost tore open the explosion-proof deck, but relying on the full-power overload of the Akashic computing main furnace, the entire warship forcibly smashed through the final high-dimensional storm barrier! The skyline ahead suddenly opened up clearly! The black steel warship shot proudly out from the black clouds!

The sea of clouds churned, and the river of stars poured down! Countless brilliant high-dimensional stars hung in the firmament, shedding a holy, vast silver-purple radiance! The grand picture of the entire universe, locked dead by extreme gravity, was unreservedly displayed before the eyes of all mortals for the very first time!

Ten thousand fathoms high above the [Orbit-breaker One], a space-based fortress as massive as a stellar cluster, forged entirely of gold and silver holy metal, radiating blinding high-dimensional divine light—the [Aries Outer Defense Line: 11th House Sky Sentinel]—revealed itself before everyone, blocking the sky and sun like a slumbering giant god! Its massive radiant ring tore a golden wound tens of thousands of miles long through the entire cosmic space layer! The high-dimensional runes on that fortress stirred up gravitational ripples as vast as an ocean in the void.

Tens of thousands of holy patrol boats circled the Sky Sentinel fortress like a dense swarm of locusts. The cruising polarized light of the high-dimensional law cannons drew thousands of light tracks traversing the starry sky! That massive, awe-inspiring divine aura oppressed the entire space layer into visible physical dents! The ten-thousand-fathom high light shone on the black waste lead armor plates of the [Orbit-breaker One], reflecting the iron-blooded edges of mortals slaying gods! The black warship of mortals appeared as insignificant as dust before the massive divine fortress, yet it radiated an indestructible, supreme will!

Inside the cabin, over two hundred mortal warriors gasped in a breath of cold air, but every single person gripped the electromagnetic rifle in their hands even tighter! Veteran Caleb's mechanical eye laughed wildly, the girl Lyra clung tightly to Elias's side, and Elias rested his hand on his battle knife, stained with divine blood, at his waist, his gaze piercing toward the gods' Sky Sentinel on that horizon like cold iron! The boy's battle intent surged like a wild hurricane in the starry sky! Before the defense lines of countless gods, the battle flag of mortals fluttered in the wind!

"Mortals... have finally set foot on the territory of the gods." Elias whispered in the wind, his voice spreading throughout the entire front cabin, "This time, it's our turn to question the gods."

The high-dimensional, ultimate-kill epic between mortals and gods was comprehensively unveiling its prelude... toward a vaster, more tragic feast in the sea of stars! The wildfire has been lit, and the Divine Court will eventually fall! The world of the future belongs to the hands of mortals! The epic of mortals has just sounded its overture! The black [Orbit-breaker One], carrying monstrous battle intent, charged with a boom into the heavenly light of the gods' fortress defense line! The sky full of stars are all stepping stones; the god-slaying sword of mortals has already been drawn!