Chapter 431 - 419: I Made a Mistake
Allen sat on the throne, rubbing his temples to ease a slight headache.
The strain of the Allen Network was heavier than he had anticipated. With his current Spiritual Power as a Second-level Wizard, he couldn’t maintain it around the clock without interruption.
Still, it was enough for now.
He slowly closed his eyes, gathering the Spiritual Power he had just withdrawn and twisting it into a single thread once more.
This time, his target was no longer within the borders of the Aiselan Kingdom.
’It’s time to cast my gaze further afield.’
The continent where the Aiselan Kingdom resided was completely encircled by an eternal, swirling Storm Belt of Magic Power and an endless swarm of Heart-eaters, making it seem like a massive prison.
He had always speculated that this continent was a "pasture," and the Heart-eaters were the "scythes" that came to harvest periodically.
Before, he lacked the power to verify this theory.
Over the past decade, the Demon Eyes he had dispatched tried to cross the Storm Belt several times, but all of them were destroyed.
But things were different now. He had a new tool.
The Allen Network was not just a god-tier communication skill; it was also a top-class exploration tool. Moreover, it had genuinely tripled his total Spiritual Power!
"Jarvis, set the power of all Spirit Communication Towers along the west coast to maximum."
[Command confirmed. Fifty-six Spirit Communication Towers on the west coast entering overclock mode. Core Rune Arrays estimated to overload in three minutes.]
"Three minutes. That’s enough time to map the area."
Those towers were his "fingers," reaching out into the deep sea.
Deep within Allen’s pupils, the brilliant river of stars formed by countless Runes began to spin faster!
A terrifying amount of Spiritual Power, amplified by the Allen Network and dozens of Spirit Communication Towers, transformed into an invisible probe and plunged violently into the Magic Power Storm Belt that isolated the continent!
The moment his Spiritual Power made contact with the Storm Belt, frenzied torrents of energy tried to tear it to shreds.
But fortified by the Allen Network, Allen’s Spiritual Power was as tough as a diamond drill. It forcefully bored through the chaotic layer of Magic Power, which was several kilometers thick.
He was through!
Allen’s "vision" suddenly opened up.
He saw the scene on the other side of the Storm Belt.
It was still a deep, vast ocean. The surface was empty, with nothing out of the ordinary in sight.
Allen’s Spiritual Power began to descend.
One thousand meters... three thousand... five thousand...
The seabed’s topography appeared in his "vision," filled with rugged, strange rock formations and bottomless trenches.
Just as Allen was about to expand his search,
He "saw" it.
’What is that thing?’
A... massive mass of flesh, lying quietly in the deepest part of the abyss.
Its size was immense; the exposed portion alone was nearly half the size of Golden Stone City.
Its skin resembled a wrinkled, parched landscape, covered in bottomless ravines and orifices. Countless thick, flesh-like tubes, akin to blood vessels, connected its main body to the surrounding seafloor.
It looked something like a deformed, hideous, slowly pulsing heart.
With every beat, the surrounding seawater churned with violent undercurrents.
But what made the hair on Allen’s arms stand up was that with each pulse, hundreds upon thousands of dark figures of varying sizes were "squeezed" out of the orifices on the massive creature’s surface, like toothpaste from a tube.
Those dark figures... were Heart-eaters!
From the lowest-level grunts to elite-class bosses, every kind was there! After being "birthed," they merged into the black tide swirling around the mass of flesh.
’An Insect Race broodmother?’
’No, this thing is far more terrifying than a broodmother!’
This was the endless source of the Heart-eaters! A living armory that could produce monsters on its own!
Just as Allen tried to get closer, wanting to use his Spiritual Power to see the details of this "broodmother," the mountain-sized mass of flesh suddenly stopped pulsing.
It was as if... countless searchlights had all focused on him at once.
’I’ve been discovered!’
BOOM!!!
A Spiritual Attack far more violent, chaotic, and filled with pure malice than the combined emotions of fifty million mortals came hurtling back along the path of his probe!
Inside Cybertron, Allen’s body was blasted from the throne as if struck by an immense, invisible force.
Faced with this brutish, unreasonable impact, the barrier of his Mechanical Mind didn’t even last a millisecond before it was instantly crushed to dust!
It felt as if a supernova had been stuffed into his brain and detonated on the spot!
"Damn it!"
[Warning! Dawn Star Level Spiritual Attack detected!]
[Estimated intensity exceeds current defense threshold by 470%!]
[Emergency discon—]
It was too late.
Like a heavy sledgehammer, the malicious force smashed directly through the buffer layer formed by seventeen Spirit Communication Towers and surged straight through the nodes of the Allen Network.
"PFFT—!"
Allen doubled over like a shrimp, spraying a mist of blood as it gushed from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth!
That consciousness from the deep sea had nearly torn his newly reconstructed Sea of Spirit apart with just a single "glance."
The Mechanical Mind operated frantically on the verge of collapse, stripping away, isolating, and expelling the residual malicious Spiritual Power layer by layer.
Three seconds later, the aftershocks of the invasion were cleared.
But Allen’s face was already as white as a sheet.
"Dawn Star Level..." He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his voice hoarse.
"To think it was a Dawn Star Level monster."
[Commander, west coast Spirit Communication Towers number three, seven, eleven... a total of seventeen towers... have had their physical Rune Arrays burned out due to spiritual backlash overload.]
[In addition...]
[The Celestial Net has detected an anomaly. Heart Eater activity signals in the Western Sea Region have increased by 1700% in the last thirty seconds.]
Allen hadn’t even finished wiping away the blood when the river of stars in his pupils suddenly froze solid.
’I’ve really screwed up this time.’
The thing had discovered his spying and was now mass-producing troops! It was sending out more of its "offspring."
’Is this a punishment?’
"Celestial Net, give me a real-time feed."
The projection switched.
On the Magic Power imaging screen for the Western Sea Region, the previously scattered red dots were now converging at a speed visible to the naked eye.
It wasn’t three hundred thousand.
It was over a million!
A dense mass of Heart-eaters surged up from the deep sea, like a boiling red stew, covering the entire surface of the western sea.
Among them, there were eleven clusters of red light marked as "King of Heart-eaters."
"Jarvis," Allen’s voice was calm again, but his knuckles were white as he gripped the armrest.
[At your service.]
"Full-scale combat readiness. Triple the standard ammunition loadout in all defense sectors. Activate all Golems."
He paused.
"Inform King William—"
"The Beast Tide is coming early."
On the holographic projection, the red in the Western Sea Region had merged into a solid mass, like a bloody curtain spreading toward the continent.
The Celestial Net’s warning system continued to update.
[Estimated time until first wave reaches the coastline... 18 hours.]
The estimated time of landfall was just 18 hours away.
Eighteen hours.
Allen stared at the suffocating expanse of red and slowly sank back into his throne.
Blood dripped from the tip of his nose, splattering on the armrest.
A fatal curiosity, an arrogant probe.
He had made a costly mistake.
And the entire Aiselan Kingdom would pay the price for it.