Chapter 63 — The Den of Iniquity

As the crystal elevator suspended on anti-gravity cables rapidly ascended, the foul-smelling, noisy, and highly radioactive exhaust-filled lower mine shafts beneath their feet gradually shrank into an insignificant dark crevice.

The rapidly retreating rough mine walls were replaced layer by layer with smooth, flawless obsidian-gold armor plates. Seconds later, the elevator passed through a thick high-energy defensive polarized membrane, and a dazzling world floating in mid-air, built purely of obsidian-gold and high-energy polarized crystals, unfurled with a bang before their eyes—this was the middle-level den of iniquity in the "Ring of Molten Iron," the extravagant temple known as the Golden Canopy.

Far removed from the mud and gore of the lower mining districts, the air here was filled with the elegant scent of lavender essential oils and the mellow aroma of expensive nebula nectar. On a massive curved holographic sky-dome, the magnificent and holy stellar flares of the Aries star-realm were being simulated in real time. Hundreds of Taurus Divine Court bureaucrats clad in gorgeous holy formal wear, arrogant merchant lords of Leo, and Gemini speculative compradors holding gold rosaries and wearing hypocritical smiles, shuttled between the ornately carved hanging gardens and floating casinos.

Amidst the clinking of glasses, millions of star-coins turned into blinding flowing light on the gambling tables. Merry laughter, accompanied by elegant higher-dimensional ancient zither music, echoed endlessly within the resplendent halls.

However, standing on the viewing gallery outside this extravagant den of iniquity, Elias's gaze was as cold as a glacier that hadn't melted in ten thousand years.

"Elias... look over there." Caleb's voice trembled violently as he suppressed a furious rage. The lens of his military-grade mechanical prosthetic eye frantically focused physically, locking onto the depths of the side wall of the glittering hall.

Through the translucent obsidian-gold relief soundproof glass, the mortal squad clearly saw the true bloody foundation that supported the extravagant operation of this "Golden Canopy."

Within that hidden underground control cabin covering thousands of square meters, tens of thousands of transparent nourishment pods made of roughened high-voltage electrodes and causality conduits were densely arranged.

Inside each pod, a naked and emaciated lower-dimensional mortal slave was firmly locked in place. Countless thick electromagnetic suction pipelines pierced directly into their temples, throats, and chests. The branch laws of the LinBoo Astrolabe bared their most ferocious fangs at this moment—that massive higher-dimensional machine was, with a nearly industrialized extreme efficiency, continuously stripping and forcibly extracting their pain, love, hate, faith, and life potential from these mortals' flesh and souls!

Those pure emotional waves that were extracted were forcibly compressed by high-pressure machinery into drops of "liquid starlight" radiating dazzling prismatic flowing light, continuously transported through golden pipes to the main banquet hall and floating hot spring pools above.

"These high-and-mighty beasts... these dog gods!" Caleb's eyes were entirely bloodshot, thick veins on his forehead wriggling violently like earthworms. His fists cracked in his trench coat pockets, the joints aching fiercely. "They smashed our home to pieces, hunted us like beasts; I'm going to smash this canopy to pieces! I'll use insulating bombs to burn all these fat pigs to ashes!"

Orion's hands were also clamped tightly on his notched combat blade, the muscles under his left eye's scar twitching violently, his battle intent towering. He felt the demigod blood flowing in his body boiling wildly—he had once guarded the borders for the Divine Court, but he had never imagined that behind the prosperity of the heavenly realm lay such a despairing underground slaughterhouse.

Only Elias stood in the shadows, silent for a long time.

He looked at the "liquid starlight" shimmering with prismatic flowing light in the golden goblets, then at his compatriots dying silently in the transparent pods. In his mind surfaced his sister Aira, who evaporated and melted away in the depths of the Tartarus tragedy, and Astra, the Lantern-Bearer of Light, shouting "have mercy on all living beings" in the heavenly realm.

In this moment, Elias thoroughly understood the ultimate cold and cruel foundational logic of the heavenly order.

"This is not incidental corruption, Caleb." Elias's voice was extremely low, carrying a profound power that could pierce through the hypocritical order, "This is the fundamental meaning of the LinBoo Astrolabe's existence."

Caleb whipped his head around to look at him, frantic confusion flashing in his eyes.

"Jupiter, Saturn, and those high-and-mighty planetary gods have been proclaiming to the entire universe: the Divine Court's Star-network Aegis is the sole sanctuary upon which mortals rely to survive. Without LinBoo's orbital constraints, mortals would self-destruct in internal friction and die to the external original Khaos." Elias's gaze was cold and piercing, staring straight at that dazzling yet bloody den of iniquity. "They use 'safety' as a curse, forcibly implementing this patriarchal utopian rule. But they will never tell mortals—the price of this so-called safety and healing is to refine the joys, sorrows, dignity, and souls of all our living beings into fuel to maintain their high-and-mighty, eternal extravagance."

Elias turned around, looking at the boundless, pitch-black starry sky behind him, every word falling like iron:

"If living under the Divine Court's Aegis means the only price is to be a living battery that cannot think, has no freedom, and can have its soul extracted at any time... then this so-called 'survival' is nothing but the prolonged continuation of a corpse in warm water! Mortals would rather face the abyss directly in disordered freedom, would rather die fighting in a bloodbath with original Khaos, than accept a life where they are ghostwritten and kept in captivity!"

This resounding existential declaration echoed like thunder in the shadows.

Vespera, who had been watching coldly from the sidelines, felt her cool, delicate body tremble slightly.

She stood at the edge of the precipice of the viewing gallery, her dark night cloak fluttering loudly in the anti-gravity wind. Beneath the hood, those enchantingly beautiful violet eyes gazed deeply at the blonde youth before her, who appeared incredibly small yet unyieldingly tall under the illumination of the golden brilliance.

In her long memory as a god, the supreme Twin Gods had argued over this for dozens of cycle-days.

Her elder sister Astra believed that mortals were foolish and fragile, and that their suffering must be glossed over with gentle light and memory-soothing, giving them a utopian cage devoid of pain; whereas she, as the God of Darkness, saw through the cold cruelty of the higher-dimensional Star-network mechanism, advocating the use of ruthless efficiency calculations and high-pressure purges to maintain the fragile energy balance.

They both looked down from on high at lower-dimensional beings, viewing mortals as data specimens that needed to be disciplined or purged.

Until today, this mortal youth Elias—devoid of any divine power and liable to die at any moment—used the most naked and painful personal experience to tear to shreds the false premise the Twin Gods had debated for billions of years right to their faces.

"The Divine Court's patriarchal system is not healing... but painless slavery." Vespera softly repeated this sentence in her heart, an unparalleled, profound coldness rippling in the depths of her violet pupils.

She turned her head, casting a cold glance at the merrymaking Taurus divine officials in the distant hall.

In the eyes of the supreme God of Darkness, these low-level divine officials and bureaucrats—parasitizing the bottom of the divine network and living off the exploitation of mortal soul crystals—were not only hideously ugly but were parasites frantically corroding the entire cosmic defense system. Her sister Astra's false mercy had indulged the inflation of these fools, and the black market trap she had personally set up in the past had now been reduced to a feeding ground for the private interests of these maggots.

"An utterly foolish order." The corner of Vespera's mouth curled into a smile mixed with endless coldness and mockery, "Elias... you are right. This wall indeed ought to fall."

In this moment, the God of Darkness and the mortal rebel achieved an extremely dangerous resonance of will that transcended class and the divide between gods and mortals, deep within this sin-interwoven den of iniquity.

What the squad didn't know, however, was that in the topmost secret chamber of this luxury den, a much larger and deadlier net of strangulation had already silently tightened around the black market following the Aries Lord's secret order.