Chapter 60 — Volume 1 Finale: To Live through Death

"Boom!——"

Accompanied by a muffled physical explosion that seemed to tear through the mantle, the main support pillar of the entire underground defensive bunker began to shake violently. Countless volcanic ash and rocks smashed down madly like raindrops from the cracked ceiling of the mine shaft, smashing the crude console until electric sparks flew everywhere. The air pressure inside the entire bunker violently fluctuated physically in an instant, causing a sharp, bursting pain in everyone's eardrums.

"Elias! The Silver Ram's Horn's fire control radar has completed 99.9% of the exhaustive calculation! Their main cannons are refocusing! We are completely locked on!" Lyra held onto the violently shaking equipment rack, pointing at the dark red death cursor on the crystal core screen that was now completely locked, her voice carrying a final desperation.

"Nova! Pull the switch!" Elias's explosive roar even drowned out the rumbling explosions.

"Overload start——!"

Nova screamed, using all her strength to push that high-energy copper wire knife switch all the way down.

In an instant, that "Anti-star Orbital Jammer," forcibly cobbled together from scrap iron and broken higher-dimensional causality components, let out an extremely mournful physical shriek that nearly tore through eardrums. The massive energy within the high-energy heavy hydrogen core was forcibly drained in an instant. The thick copper braided wires instantly turned into blindingly red-hot molten lines under the extremely high voltage, emitting a pungent smell of melting metal. The generator unit shook violently amidst the roar of overload, the steel bolts securing the base physically snapping and flying off one by one under immense shear force.

A ring of invisible black gravitational collapse waves, like a black lotus blooming silently on flat ground, violently spread physically from deep within the mine shaft, up the vertical shafts, and toward the vault of heaven.

In this instant, the physical gravity rules across the entire Grand Canyon pass were completely overturned.

All the scattered brass bullet casings, volcanic sand, and even the stretchers the wounded lay on inside the bunker tunnels, bizarrely broke free from gravity at this moment, floating erratically in mid-air. The air physically distorted into rings of ripple-like translucent crystals. Immediately after, that collapsing center of physical gravity seemed to become an invisible black hole devouring everything, forcibly pulling and deflecting the surrounding searchlight beams and all electromagnetic signals, bending them into bizarre dark rainbows in mid-air.

Above the vault of heaven, the flagship "Silver Ram's Horn," preparing to fire its devastating main cannon, suffered violent mechanical turbulence.

"Warning! Encountering localized strong gravitational collapse! Star-network coordinate system suffering 90-degree physical distortion!" The mournful red warning lights instantly illuminated the entire main command cabin. Divine Envoy Phalan stumbled and nearly fell to the ground; he looked in disbelief at the holographic stream-light screens before him that had instantly turned pitch-black silent or into a sky full of white noise, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead:

"This is impossible! How could a physical gravity well that tears apart the causality laws of the Star-network be generated in the blind spot?! Where is our main cannon lock-on?!"

"Commander! Coordinates lost! The fire control locator was physically burned out by high electrical charge due to gravitational transmission! The flagship is being pulled downward by that collapsing gravity; the thruster engines are overloading!" the technical officer shouted in despair.

Several gravity stabilizer wings on the flanks of the flagship "Silver Ram's Horn" erupted with ear-piercing sounds of metal physically tearing in the atmosphere, and boiling high-voltage electrical arcs shot out dozens of meters from the side armor plates. The energy transmission pipelines of the secondary cannons suffered a severe law backflow, triggering a chain reaction of secondary physical explosions deep within the cabins. Several Aries divine soldiers who were loading divine power crystals were blown away on the spot, smashing to death against the hard metal walls. The entire massive silver behemoth pitched and shook violently in the furious gravitational vortex, like a silver beetle struggling in a storm, firmly sucked down in mid-air at a tilt, completely unable to adjust its main cannon's firing posture.

"This is... the residual interference algorithm of Uranus, the God of Heaven! These lowly mortals actually reconstructed the physical constants using that traitor's forbidden Star-network code!" For the first time, a look of terror appeared in Phalan's eyes as he roared hysterically, "Immediately engage reverse thrust! Full speed astern! Break away from the gravitational collapse zone!"

The physical ripples of the strong gravitational collapse forcibly tore open a physical blind spot lasting three minutes on the Star-network's indestructible polarized net.

At this time, inside the nearly collapsing underground bunker, thick smoke billowed. That battered and torn mortal vanguard battle flag, stained with divine blood and volcanic ash, still stood tall and fluttered loudly amidst a pile of crumbled volcanic rock ruins.

Standing beneath that battle flag, Elias slowly drew his heavy cutting knife stained with golden-red divine blood. He looked at the mortal eyes lighting up in the darkness and dust around him; he looked at the heavily wounded, sallow-faced Jonas, at Caleb who had lost his right arm but wore a resolute expression, and at Lyra holding her astrolabe.

"We don't need to defend the Grand Canyon to the death anymore." Elias's voice was very light, but it carried an unshakeable hardness like steel rails. "We are leaving here. We are going to the Taurus Free Black Market."

The soldiers looked at him somewhat blankly; heading deep into the monitoring of the heavenly Divine Court to the black market was no different for mortals than walking willingly into a slaughterhouse for gods.

"The heavenly Divine Court thought we were just mud bugs locked in an iron cage, that they could wipe us out along with the dirt just by using a little gravity law." Elias raised that rough combat knife, the blade pointing straight at the shaking rock ceiling overhead. "But today, we used the wreckage of their battleship to prove one thing: Gods, in the physical dimension, are also flesh and bone. Gods can also fall. Today we abandon this Grand Canyon to go to Taurus to find more ore, more advanced engines, and more off-track comrades who share our goals. We will take the ashes of all our fallen brothers and carry their causality deep into the divine realm. One day, we will fly our own steel battleships and shoot the stars in the sky down."

"To live... through death!" Veteran Caleb raised his battered left fist and roared with all his strength. His face was a mix of black soot and tears, and a fanatic flame flickered in his single eye.

"To live through death——!!"

The mortal roar, suppressed for years, erupted like thunder within the tunnels.

The thirty-minute signal blind spot was rapidly counting down. Under Elias's command, the surviving mortal soldiers lifted the wounded and supplies onto "Off-track No. 1," whose engines were already started, and several rusty old powered transport shuttles at maximum speed. Nova swiftly climbed into the cockpit and pulled a rusted valve; high-pressure steam and hydraulic oil instantly physically roared through the pipelines. Caleb sat in the co-pilot's seat, using his remaining left hand to grip the physical compass tightly, calibrating the course for the ship within the gravitational vortex.

The exhaust nozzles at the rear of the ship instantly jetted out violent, dazzling deep-blue tongues of fire, plowing a scorched trench several meters deep into the steep rock face of the red stone Grand Canyon. Accompanied by ear-piercing sounds of gravitational tearing and friction, the dilapidated ship scraped against the edge of the molten flowing volcanic rock and rapidly gained altitude. In the extremely narrow rock exhaust pipeline, the ship's flank alloy steel plates violently collided with the rough volcanic rock walls, drawing thousands of blinding physical sparks. Nova's hands shook wildly on the rusted joystick, but she gritted her teeth, pushing the throttle dead to the limit. The cabin was filled with the buzzing of alarms and the teeth-grinding sound of the bulkhead steel plates deforming, but all the mortal soldiers gripped the metal handrails beside them tightly, their faces written full of the fanaticism and resolve of survival.

Accompanied by the deafening physical roar of the chemical rocket engines, several dilapidated wasteland ships—like steel moths bursting from their cocoons—braved the flying rocks and lava at the bottom of the valley, physically accelerating madly along the slanting mining tracks. The immense G-force pressed everyone's backs dead against the iron chairs, and the ship's steel plates emitted sounds of physical torture that set teeth on edge. Finally, under the cover of the gravitational vortex, the ships instantly transformed into several scorching tail feathers, bursting out of the Aries flagship's fire control horizon, and forcibly submerged into the cold subspace gravitational corridors.

And before the hatch of the last ship closed, Umbra (God of Darkness), disguised as the amnesiac female worker Vespera, slowly withdrew her gaze cast toward the shattered Grand Canyon, turning and walking into the dim, sweltering cargo hold.

In her higher-dimensional mind, on that originally calm void star-map, rings of extremely dangerous dark-gold halos were rippling outward. That halo of the "Purification Order," issued by the Divine Court's highest executive department, had already lit up on the same frequency along the stellar orbits on the edge of the blind spot.

"Elias... you thought you escaped to freedom." The corner of Vespera's mouth curled up in the shadow of the cargo hold into a complex arc mixing coldness and a sense of destiny.

She knew better than anyone that the seemingly sheltering Taurus Free Black Market was originally a higher-dimensional trap she had personally laid out dozens of cycle-days ago to snare galactic rebels; and the defeat of Divine Envoy Phalan was also destined to draw the thunderous wrath of Lord Aries.

Back when she debated the value of lower-dimensional beings with Astra in front of the Star-network, Astra would rather tear her divine core to fight for a path of survival for mortals, while she chose to coldly set a trap. Now, this blonde youth who didn't believe in fate was leading his battered mortal legion headlong into the net she had personally woven.

The countdown for the seven-day physical purification ring had already begun to contract.

The true strangulation was only just beginning.

End of Volume 1.