Chapter 34 — The Spark of Fanaticism

Inside the main preparation hall of the [Orbit-breaker One], dead silence and clamor—two diametrically opposed emotions—were fiercely intertwining in the air in a soul-stirring manner.

This used to be the lower airlock cabin where the [Golden Saint] patrol boat stored its polarized chariots and high-dimensional heavy equipment. Now, it had been crudely dismantled and transformed by the old craftsman Barnaby and the mortal warriors into a rally and combat preparation hall for all the miners on the ship. Faint yellow indicator lights flickered on the thickened, high-frequency compression-resistant steel beams, and the air steamed with the intense scent of waste oil, metal shavings, and the slightly warm biological gases exhaled by the mortals.

On the lifting platform in the center of the hall, two spoils of war that made every mortal soul tremble were on display.

One was a high-dimensional gravity gun, three meters long and forged primarily from holy silver alloy. The center of the gun body had been forcefully cleaved in two by a heavy alloy cutting knife, with charred law electrical arcs still lingering at the break. Beside the gun head, inside a sealed glass dish, soaked half a piece of solidified crystal radiating a faint, pale golden glow—it was exactly the residual divine core fragment and mottled divine blood belonging to Advanced Divine Envoy Gar, whom Elias had personally beheaded in the Tartarus blind spot Deadzone a few days ago!

Although the miners on the entire ship had learned the shocking news of Elias slaying Divine Envoy Gar before breaking out of the Deadzone, under the shroud of the Divine Court's dogma for thousands of years, the deep-rooted religious superstition and subconscious terror that "Gods are untouchable high-dimensional sacred laws" still weighed heavily on many mortals' hearts like an invisible shackle.

And today, what old craftsman Barnaby intended to do was physically crush this false sacred halo to pieces!

Old craftsman Barnaby, wearing an oil-stained iron hazmat suit, held a high-frequency microscopic thickness gauge and a magnetic cutting gun. He sliced the gun's circuitry and projected it magnified onto the hall's large screen, roughly introducing it to the densely packed miners around him:

"Everyone, open your damn eyes and look closely! This is the magical divine artifact the Divine Court's church boasts so much about! Before descending to the Deadzone, the church preached that the gods' weapons were the embodiment of high-dimensional laws, and mortal steel would turn to ash at a touch! But I measured it with a microscope today! The main material of this divine gun is nothing but silver-titanium-chromium alloy quenched by high-micro-particle polarized light! When its law circuits suffer radiation overload from our [Prototype Shells], it suffers metal fatigue just the same, and it gets forcefully cut in half by the heavy cutting knives from our mortal mines just the same!"

The old craftsman struck the broken gun, the metal clanging loudly: "As long as we melt down these sacred alloys from the [Golden Saint] and plate them onto our riot shields and armor plates, our warriors can block the small polarized light sweeps of the patrol boats! Mortal hands can build armor that counters gods just the same!"

At the casting workbench in the back of the hall, several burly mechanics were sweating profusely as they pulled high-pressure arc cutters. Amidst flying sparks, spare armor plates originally belonging to the holy patrol boat were cut into thick, heavy riot shields. Veteran Caleb personally stepped forward, raised a high-frequency electromagnetic gun, and fired a test shot at a plated shield. Seeing the high-dimensional law polarized bullet successfully deflect off the shield, the entire hall erupted in earth-shattering cheers!

Looking at the "divine artifact" sliced and thickness-measured on the large screen, looking at the "divine core fragment" shriveled up like waste slag in the glass dish, the last shred of religious awe in the hearts of the miners in the entire cabin was thoroughly washed away!

"Silver-titanium-chromium alloy... the weapons gods use are made of metal too!" An old miner with a scar running across his face stared dead at the large screen, his chest heaving violently, the last trace of superstitious cowardice in his eyes gone completely. "Divine blood is red mixed with pale gold too! They aren't some untouchable supreme law! They are flesh and blood too! They get crippled when stabbed! They die when their heads are chopped off too!"

"That's right! As long as we cast these high-dimensional alloys onto our mechs, mortals can tear through the patrol fleets' formations!" Old craftsman Barnaby roared loudly, waving the thickness gauge. "Mortal wisdom and sweat are absolutely not inferior to gods!"

Before his voice even fell, the suppression, despair, and hatred that had built up for decades in the entire hall erupted with a boom, like an active volcano that had been dormant for a thousand years!

"Well killed! Well killed, Captain Elias!"

"My home... my brothers, were all vaporized at Extraction Station 097 by the Aries patrol fleets! They aren't gods, they are a bunch of bandits cloaked in glory!"

"Vengeance on the sea of stars! Follow Captain Elias! Vengeance on those high-and-mighty lords!"

The fanatical, blood-stirring roars nearly shattered the [Orbit-breaker One]'s high-frequency compression-resistant steel plates! Fear was thoroughly burned to ashes at this moment, replaced by an almost maddened flame of rebellion. The eyes of the over two hundred refugee miners from various blind-spot waste extraction stations completely changed in this instant—it was a viciousness and determination of lambs mutating into ferocious wolves!

Veteran Caleb stood on the platform, his mechanical prosthetic eye spinning violently, taking in every bit of the fanatical emotion in the room.

He turned around and looked at the boy Elias beside him, steady as iron. Caleb took a deep breath, roughly raised his left hand, and hammered heavily against his own steel chest plate, letting out a loud clang!

"Captain Elias!" Caleb's rough voice suppressed the clamor in the hall. "I've crawled and rolled in the waste mining zones for decades. I've seen too many self-important resistance groups, and I've seen too many piles of corpses purged like dogs by divine envoys. To be honest, when I first bet this life of mine on you, I just wanted to drag the brothers of the Embers Camp to fight for our lives and escape, living one day at a time."

Caleb slowly walked up to Elias and smashed one knee heavily onto the steel platform. He raised his face, covered in weathering and scars, his eyes filled with supreme reverence and submission:

"But you led us to chop off Divine Envoy Gar's head! You told us with bloody facts that mortal iron knives can chop through the necks of high-dimensional gods just the same! Your tactics, your decisiveness in killing, your cold-bloodedness and your hot blood, have completely won me over! From today on, Caleb's life, and the lives of every brother on the [Orbit-breaker One], are entirely at your command! Wherever you point, my heavy cannons will fire!"

"Entirely at Captain Elias's command!"

"Sever the astrolabe! Vengeance on the Divine Court!"

Over two hundred warriors and miners in the hall fell to one knee with a boom. The metallic crashes of fists beating on chests echoed throughout the entire warship! This was the first true tightening and condensation of mortal power; no longer the mournful cries of a disorganized mob, but the embryo of an organized, soul-bearing god-slaying vanguard army!

Beside him, the astrologer girl Lyra lit up the miniature Orbit-breaking Astrolabe, displaying a holographic projection of the [Aries Outer Defense Line: 11th House Sky Sentinel]'s physical defense formation above the platform.

"Look, everyone!" Lyra's clear voice rang out in the hall. "Although the Sky Sentinel fortress is massive and possesses three thousand six hundred space-based main polarized light cannons, its high-dimensional cruising orbits have fixed, periodic blind spots! As long as we stay calm and follow Captain Elias's tactical deployment, mortals are absolutely not lambs waiting to be slaughtered!"

As Lyra spoke, she carefully took a warm micro-pressure life-support gas dry-can and wound care ointment from her pocket, gently handing them to Elias. In the previous desperate fight in the Deadzone, Elias's left shoulder had been blasted with a dark bruise by the aftershocks of Gar's gravity.

"Elias... does your shoulder still hurt?" Lyra's eyes were full of deep care and undisguised affection, speaking softly, "Once the tactical deployment is done, I'll rub the bruise out for you. No matter how dangerous it is ahead, everyone and I will always be with you."

Elias looked at this girl before him, whose eyes were clear and who wholeheartedly relied on him, and a complex, gentle pain rippled deep in his profound pupils. As the sole surviving Anomaly of the destroyed Tartarus home planet, the tragedy of his sister Aira turning to stardust was an eternal wound in his heart. And in Lyra, he could always see the shadow of Aira leaning against him for survival in the past. He gently reached out, took the can, and patted Lyra's head just as he used to stroke his sister's hair, "I'm fine. Keeping everyone safe and surviving is the most important thing."

Subsequently, Elias turned back to the warriors of the entire ship, his tone cold, hard, and decisive:

"Everyone, stand up!" Elias's voice was calm yet contained an unshakeable deterrence. "Fanaticism can ignite our blood, but only cold-bloodedness and wisdom can let us survive under the gods' butcher knives. Gar is dead, but this is only the beginning. The Aries Lord's 11th House Sky Sentinel is right above our heads. What we need to do is not a suicidal, blind charge, but to act like the most patient hunters and chisel open the first flaw in the gods' defense line!"

"Caleb, select fifty of the strongest miner warriors to form a vanguard assault team, equip them with ship-mounted high-frequency cutting knives and anti-polarization heavy shields! Barnaby, take the craftsmen and work overnight to produce [Prototype Shells]! We are going to lead everyone to escape the Aries defense line and carve our way deep into the sea of stars!"

"As commanded! Guarantee completion of the mission!" Veteran Caleb broke into a wild, unbridled laugh, loudly roaring and commanding the assault team members to conduct practical anti-counterfeit drills. "All squads, return to positions quickly! Sharpen your iron knives!"

The entire preparation hall transformed into a high-efficiency tactical camp. Some were wiping rifles, some were assembling heavy projectors; the mortal vanguard's will to fight was tempered like steel at this moment!

In the shadows of the suspended observation deck on the second floor of the hall.

The true body of the God of Darkness, Umbra, disguised as the refugee Vespera, stood with her arms crossed, quietly looking down at this soul-stirring mortal oath rally below.

In her charming, violet eyes, ripples of high-dimensional energy that could not be calmed cascaded.

As the supreme God of Darkness, in the past long epochs of the Divine Court, she had seen countless grand worships and prayers from lower-realm civilizations toward the gods, and she had also seen the despairing wails of countless mortals under annihilation strikes. The Divine Court's church had always believed that mortals were merely specks of dust that managed to survive only by the grace of gods; obedience and anesthesia were the only destinations for mortals.

But the scene before her eyes completely overturned the Divine Court's thousand-year-old dogma.

Without the blessings of gods, without the anesthesia of a utopia, these mortals exiled to the desperate straits of the Deadzone had actually relied on their hatred for the dead and their thirst for survival to smelt their fear into a fanatical spark that drew its sword against the high-dimensional order!

"Mortal will... can actually erupt with this level of emotional amplitude?" Umbra whispered deep in her heart. "The illusory utopia the Divine Court built with rules actually appears so fragile and pathetic before this true blood and hatred of mortals."

Suddenly, in the deepest part of her high-dimensional divine core, due to the impact of this fanatical karmic fire, an extremely minute yet unprecedentedly violent tremor occurred! The icy, dead [Law of Darkness] within her faintly resonated and echoed with that fearless, rebellious aura on Elias!

Umbra frowned slightly, her slender, pale hand unconsciously pressing against her heart.

"Damn it... is this the backlash of high-dimensional divine energy, or the karmic fetter this Anomaly boy has upon this God's divine core?"

She raised her head, looking deeply at Elias, who stood in the center of the hall, loudly issuing tactical commands. The boy's profile was sharply defined under the faint red light, his eyes cold as polar ice fields, yet containing a monstrous spark capable of igniting the entire cosmic sea of stars.

The wildfire of mortals had been lit, and the gears of fate for the high-dimensional gods would also begin to turn irreversibly with a boom at this moment.