Welcome to Ability Store

However, Chen Xuan quickly realized that this idea was wrong.

The long claws of the ghost subway couldn’t harm the Celestial Patrol in the slightest—even though it could easily slice through human bodies and chop through steel plates, in front of the giant arms of the Celestial Patrol, it could only create a few sparks. All resistance seemed like a dying struggle; the once formidable terror nano-living body could only watch itself being dismantled and absorbed.

A spray of ghostly blue blood erupted from its body, and scattered parts resembled severed limbs.

This wasn’t a war but a massacre.

Yet the destructive power of the Celestial Patrol made him suspicious.

Even if the ghost subway was much smaller than its opponent, it was still a sizable nano-living body. When he first entered this future, even a mutated washing machine could resist the Thousand Thoughts Sword, and it required Liuli to pierce the enemy’s defense with one strike. For something the size of a subway, it should at least be able to withstand a nuclear bomb.

It couldn’t be that every contact with the Celestial Patrol’s giant metallic arms was on par with a thermonuclear explosion?

If that were the case, the subway tunnels should have been vaporized long ago.

"This stance can be neutralized if my master is willing to pay the price," Will saw the doubt in his eyes. "In fact, this event is both a crisis and an opportunity for the master."

"What do you mean?"

He chuckled without giving a specific answer, "If the mechanism hadn’t orchestrated this action, my master’s evolution into something external might have been delayed for decades. You just need to know that the significance of your victory is far deeper than you imagine."

Similar words... the Star God seemed to have said them too, Chen Xuan thought.

Mortals standing on the threshold of fate can also become the hand that drives epochal change.

The ghost subway was destroyed.

It once terrified the survivors of Jiang City and destroyed several subway shelters. But now, it had become part of the Celestial Patrol, and the subway’s shadow was no longer visible on the broken tracks.

Other "overlords" of Jiang City didn’t fare any better.

Their locations were all attacked by the Celestial Patrol and were crushed with almost no effective resistance.

The smaller nano-living bodies fell into despair and chaos.

Seeing through the images, humanoid, non-humanoid, machine-like, and non-machine-like beings swarmed out of abandoned buildings, with steel vines growing beneath their feet, tripping, binding, and absorbing them.

This sight even made Chen Xuan feel a hint of "misery."

The way they fled in all directions resembled the humans they once hunted.

There were even some Evangelicals among the fleeing crowd.

But the Celestial Patrol spared them, the vine capable of tearing through buildings seemingly ignored them.

"Don’t equate this with humans slaughtering their own kind," Will said, "Mutual slaughter between you is a negating behavior, with no benefit to yourselves. But nano-living bodies are different; every part, every nano-worm, can be used for the next body."

"Looks like the Celestial Patrol wants to unify Jiang City. And then?" Honglian mocked, "May I ask if it can spare the lives of Jiang City’s residents?"

"Miss, you still don’t understand," Will shook his head. "The ascension affects not just a city, but the entire world."

Chen Xuan suddenly realized that after absorbing other nano-living bodies, the steel vines didn’t retreat but instead multiplied!

They emerged from bridge tunnels, climbed up skyscraper walls, spread across streets... In short, wherever sunlight touched, they were frantically expanding.

Sunlight?

Chen Xuan was startled, turning to look at the sky behind the image, only to find that the never-ending sandstorm had significantly subsided. For the first time, he saw the scenery outside the city in the future—that was the Lu Mountain range surrounding half of Jiang City, and the dry Sha River extending north to south. Sunlight pierced through the clouds, falling on the ground, reflecting a silvery metallic sheen, as if the city was wrapped in a layer of solid armor.

"The Celestial Patrol has absorbed all the nano-worms in the sky?" Liuli exclaimed in surprise.

"Not absorbed, but reclaimed," Will corrected, "because these nano-worms were originally the metabolic byproducts of the Celestial Patrol. The sandstorm gathered in the sky only accounted for a small part."

Chen Xuan couldn’t help but recall Lin’s words.

There are five such storm circles on Earth.

They all happen to orbit around giant nano-living bodies.

"Has the Celestial Patrol been continuously producing new nano-worms over these years?"

"Indeed, is that strange?" Will said indifferently. "Even humans can manufacture nano-worms, let alone my master? Continuous accumulation increases the burden on itself, so the best method is to peel off the old nano-worms and constantly replace new organic tissue. Although a portion of the nano-worms will be occupied by other nano-living bodies, compared to what the master produces, this loss is negligible."

These peeled-away nano-worms weren’t wasted, Chen Xuan realized. When needed, the Celestial Patrol could still reclaim them into use.

The key was matching up the energy consumption.

And as previously mentioned, the Celestial Patrol very much needed the world of the Lotus Cloud Sect to provide energy—it could, in some way, extract the power of the Inner Demon, allowing it to maintain its existence.

So that’s how it is... he murmured to himself.

The Star God not only endangered the protective array of the Lotus Cloud Sect, putting the entire Grotto Heaven in jeopardy, but also obstructed the Erosion Zone, stopping the energy exchange between the worlds!

Without this portion of energy, the Celestial Patrol couldn’t maintain its overall power and was therefore shattered by the Dimensional Limit Mechanism’s Moon-Earth Mass Projection Weapon.

If it were simply about reopening the Erosion Zone, the Celestial Patrol would at most return to its original state.

But there was a distinct transformation happening now.

Chen Xuan guessed that it was probably the Star God’s actions that forcibly expanded the entry point, similar to how repeated crossings by Ability Users would enlarge the Erosion Zone. When it was reopened, the energy retrieval efficiency of the Celestial Patrol increased manifold.

That’s why Will Naki would say, "This event is both a crisis and an opportunity for the master."

So how many nano-worms has the Celestial Patrol produced over these decades?

The amount was probably unimaginable.

The steel vines sprouting on the ground and building walls didn’t need to grow from roots like plants. The thick layer of dust scattered everywhere... or rather, nano-worm corpses, formed their components.

They were already omnipresent.

The images around the high platform shifted.

The steel giant arms moved underground at great speed, with metal vines sprouting everywhere as they traveled, coating areas beyond Jiang City in a silvery white shell.

This bright yet eerie white color crossed mountains and rivers, covering every inch of the earth’s surface!

Whole forests collapsed, then were engulfed by the vines; grassland simply vanished, with all the flowers and leaves pressed underground by this coating.

Nano-living bodies didn’t need green plants or the oxygen produced through photosynthesis.

When the first giant arm reached Europe and launched an attack on the perfect sphere standing atop the Alps, Chen Xuan finally realized what the Celestial Patrol intended to do.

Whether it be the ghost subway or the doomsday chariot, the overlord-level nano-living bodies that roamed Jiang City were merely appetizers.

The Celestial Patrol’s true objective was to devour other giant nano-living bodies on its level.

It aimed to merge the earth’s power entirely!