Chapter 48 — Orbit-breaking Meteor Shell

Deep within the camp, the geothermal smelting cabin was so scorching hot that it seemed to physically warp sight and light itself.

The massive geothermal furnace let out a low roar like a giant beast. Dark red magma churned and surged beneath the steel trough, continuously pushing waves of scalding heat toward the narrow, gloomy iron-sheet workshop. The air here was extremely thick, filled with the pungent smell of sulfur, the coal tar stench of machine oil scorched by high temperatures, and the faint, sweet ionizing scent given off when highly radioactive star-marrow ore was crushed.

"Make it snappy! We're racing against the battleships in the sky, not taking a vacation!" Nova stood on a gantry crane track suspended high above the furnace, shouting at the top of her hoarse lungs. Her fiery-red punk mohawk was plastered to her forehead with sweat, and the hydraulic bearings of her heavy mechanical right prosthetic shrieked sharply as she slammed a massive radiation-proof lead plate heavily onto the alloy workbench. "Caleb! How many times have I said it, the winding of the detonator coil must be bi-directionally reverse-spun! That is used to generate a negative energy reverse polarization field. If you wind it the wrong way, not only will the bomb fail to paralyze the divine soldiers' shields when it explodes, but it will also fry our own camp's main control grid! Is that fake mechanical eye of yours just for show?!"

"Stop yelling in my face, you red-haired brat. I was assembling electromagnetic detonators on the wasteland before you were even born!" Caleb spat roughly, but his military mechanical eye still lit up with an amber scanning beam. He stared unblinkingly at the components before him, winding extremely fine superconducting copper wires densely around the pale blue transistor core with micrometer precision.

Beside this crude workbench, Elias wore heavy asbestos heat-resistant gloves, using a heavy physical crushing hammer to smash several pieces of recrystallized star-marrow slag—which emitted a faint blue cold light—into powder. These slags were originally scavenged from the ruins of a destroyed star core. Though a long time had passed, they still contained an extremely high dimension of non-structural causality energy. To mortals, this was a lethal radiation source capable of causing flesh to necrotize within a week; but to the tightly interlocked law circuits of the Divine Court, it was the most potent "logical poison."

With every heavy strike of the hammer, a fine mist of blue fluorescent dust rose into the air, only to be sucked into lead-sealed collection canisters by the powerful negative pressure exhaust fans operating on both sides. Elias mechanically repeated the hammering motion. Sweat flowed down his golden hair and into his eyes, bringing a burning sting, but he did not stop.

Looking at those canisters of blue ore powder, a trace of extreme darkness and agony flashed in Caleb's single eye. It was as if he could once again see that hellish night—his home planet Acheron crumbling away amidst a sacred golden light, countless familiar faces evaporated into nothingness in an instant. The high-and-mighty gods used a single command to erase all life on an entire planet. And now, he was using the star-marrow remnants left behind by Tartarus's destruction in this wasteland blind spot to personally forge bullets that would send the gods to hell.

"Pack the star-marrow powder into the neutron reflection cavity, then use molten lead to double-layer physically seal it. Do not leave a single gap!" Nova leapt nimbly down from the crane frame, wiped the black oil off her cheek, and pointed at the three newly assembled, bizarrely shaped, coal-black heavy warheads on the stone table. "The gods' law shields only defend against high-energy law beams and causality erasure algorithms. Their high-dimensional system won't even bat an eye at a physical chunk of lead flying at them. Therefore, we will use the most primitive kinetic projectile to deliver the warhead inside their flagship's armor, and then detonate it at the moment of physical impact, releasing the reverse star-track algorithm!"

Lyra ran over hugging a portable data terminal. Due to mental calculations all night, her delicate face appeared a bit pale, but her little canine tooth was still stubbornly exposed at the corner of her mouth. "Nova, the data simulation is complete. In the dream blueprints of the God of Uranus, Uranus, the constant for the gravitational wave blockage is correct. If we can detonate this orbit-breaking shell at the grand canyon pass, the localized 'insulation domain' can cover a radius of three kilometers. Within this physical field, any divine envoy's divine core fluctuation will be instantly suppressed to below five ten-thousandths!"

"That's enough! As long as it drops to ten percent, their law divine bodies will degenerate into carbon-based flesh! At that time, my dark matter sniper rifle will be able to blow straight through their skulls with one shot! Gods are also destined to be killed by a single shot!" Caleb said gruffly, his voice carrying the killing intent of an unsheathed blade.

"But these are just theoretical data. We must conduct a physical test before the battle to ensure the algorithm and the ore radiation can perfectly resonate." Elias put down the crushing hammer in his hand, took off the sweat-soaked asbestos gloves, and turned to look at Orion, who was standing in the corner of the smelting cabin, staring at the furnace with a complex expression.

The demigod's face was a bit pale at this moment, but looking at this group of mortals frantically struggling to survive, he took a deep breath and pulled a worn bandage stained with golden divine blood from his pocket.

"Use this." Orion handed the bandage to Elias, a flash of unprecedented resolution in his eyes. "I tore this off a few days ago when changing dressings. Even though the divine blood has coagulated, it still retains a portion of my Orion law fluctuations. In the Divine Court's Star-network system, this belongs to a typical 'Tier 2 Demigod Causality Source'. If this thing can cut off my fluctuation, then it will definitely work against the vanguard's automated divine soldiers."

Elias took the bandage and carefully clamped it onto a simple ionizing antenna fixture. Behind the antenna was connected a fist-sized orbit-breaking shell core tester, where a pale blue interference crystal slept quietly in its center.

The smelting cabin instantly fell into a deathly silence; only the gurgling sound of churning magma deep within the geothermal furnace echoed lowly.

Vespera (Umbra) stood quietly by the iron pillar closest to the gloomy edge of the smelting cabin. Her deep and coldly beautiful violet eyes flashed with an eerie light in the darkness. She watched Elias place the bandage stained with demigod blood into the tester. She knew very well that the upcoming test would be the first time in mortal history that physical technology was truly used to physically strip away the "privileges" of the gods—dragging the high-dimensional laws down into the mud of the mundane.

Her slender hand, hidden inside the cuff of her trench coat, clenched slightly. Her divine origin resonated faintly at this moment, but she forcefully suppressed it, without making any intervention.

"Detonator coil connected! Full load output, reverse star algorithm activated!" Nova shouted, her mechanical arm heavily pulling down the power switch.

"Bzzzz—!"

An extremely low and bizarre hum—one that even made everyone present feel their eardrums itch and their hearts violently convulse—resounded through the workshop. It was not an explosion in any physical sense, but rather a low-frequency gravitational amplitude that felt as if the void had been instantly vacuumed out and the causality chains had physically ruptured.

In that instant, all the electromagnetic light points on the holographic map and the main control screen bizarrely extinguished for a tenth of a second, and the surrounding light seemed to be sucked into an invisible black hole, dimming instantly.

Subsequently, the alarm blared furiously, but the red indicator light on the instrument turned into a cold grey representing silence a few seconds later.

Elias and Caleb abruptly rushed over to the ionizing antenna.

They saw that the bandage of Orion's divine blood—which had originally emanated a faint golden divine glow and even caused weak thermal fluctuations in the air—had completely lost its piercing golden color.

It had turned into a lifeless, dirty grayish-brown piece of ordinary rag. The bloodstains on it had also completely lost the temperature of a high-dimensional life, degenerating into dark red mortal iron-based blood spots.

On the tester's screen, the red waveform representing the "Orion Causality Energy Level" instantly plummeted to the flatline at the very bottom.

"It succeeded..." Lyra looked at the data terminal, her voice trembling slightly from extreme shock. "Causality blockage rate... one hundred percent. Orion's residual law fluctuations have been completely erased. This area... truly became an 'insulation zone' where laws cannot enter just now."

"Haha... hahahaha!"

Caleb let out a low and hoarse burst of maniacal laughter. The sound echoed in the hot smelting cabin, filled with endless gratification and desolation. "Without the divine light... they are just chunks of flesh that bleed! They are also mortals who can die! Our home planet... this debt can finally start to be settled!"

Orion stared blankly at the piece of cloth that had lost its golden light. He was a demigod; though reduced to wandering the wasteland, the blood of high-dimensional life still flowed in his bones. Yet at this moment, right before his eyes, mortals had used a few pieces of slag, some superconducting copper wire, and the crudest lead plates to brutally bash his divine core fragments into mundane, lifeless objects.

At that moment, the shock in his eyes even surpassed his fear.

He looked at Elias.

The blonde youth was standing beside those three pitch-black warheads. There was no ecstasy in his lake-green eyes, only a mountain-like composure and determination. He reached out, gently caressing the cold, rough lead-sealed shells, and said softly:

"This is our weapon. From today on, the starry sky is no longer invincible."

"Nova, push all furnaces to maximum power. Within three days, we will have these three 'Orbit-breaking Meteor Shells' completely lock down the grand canyon pass! We will let the high-and-mighty Aries Legion know that this land of mortals does not welcome gods."

"Orders received, Supreme Commander!" Nova laughed heartily. Her heavy mechanical arm clanged loudly as she pounded it against her chest plate, and the massive smelting cabin once again plunged into frantic operation amidst a blaze of fire and roaring machinery.