Chapter 68.2: Unity of Divine Authority
Although Dihai had converted almost all of its crystals into weaponry, the battle had erupted so suddenly that there had been neither enough time nor enough personnel to use up its stockpile of Item Cards.
As a result, they left behind nearly five times as many Item Cards as Mingxia had.
Blue Sea’s warehouse grew even fuller.
These gains had all been expected to some extent.
But what pleased Cheng Qisheng the most were the various facilities the two Tier 3 Safe Cities had purchased from the System Marketplace.
The moments that hurt her wallet the most had always been when she had to buy large-scale facilities from the Marketplace.
Yet they were impossible to do without.
Simply put—
There wasn’t a single large facility sold in the Marketplace that wasn’t incredibly useful.
Their only flaw…
Was that they were expensive.
Though, strictly speaking, that wasn’t the facilities’ flaw.
It was the City Lords’ poverty.
And now…
Those expensive facilities were sitting right in front of her.
Completely free.
Cheng Qisheng felt the same exhilaration as an angler who had set out to catch fish…
…only to reel in a great white shark instead.
She curled up on the sofa with Aether. While sipping milk tea, the two of them opened the descriptions of each newly acquired facility that had been incorporated into Blue Sea Safe City.
She read out the facility names, while Aether looked up their detailed descriptions in the System Marketplace.
The feeling was wonderful.
If she had to compare it to something familiar to the people of Blue Sea…
It was like hunters returning from the wilderness in ancient times, sitting down with their families to count the day’s bounty.
“Energy Accumulation Tower (Tier 1).”
“That’s a good one. It provides continuous electricity generation. Blue Sea won’t have to ration power as much anymore.”
“Multi-Level Ecological Livestock Farm (Tier 1)—definitely useful.”
“Citywide Climate Purification Station (Tier 1)… Hmm, this one seems to overlap with the Air Tower.”
“Medium Medical Restoration Center (Tier 1)—now that’s nice. High-tech.”
Among them, only the Citywide Climate Purification Station (Tier 1) was somewhat redundant. Its function overlapped with the Air Tower’s, and it wasn’t even as effective, making it rather underwhelming for Blue Sea.
Everything else, however, was genuinely valuable.
Still…
It was free.
Cheng Qisheng certainly wasn’t going to complain.
Even that purification station carried a Marketplace price tag of 4,500 Crystals.
Mingxia had possessed a fairly large number of facilities.
It was obvious that most of their purchases had been aimed at long-term development, focusing on infrastructure that maintained and stabilized life within the city.
Dihai, on the other hand, was a completely different story.
Its territory was nearly three times larger than Mingxia’s.
Its population was roughly five times as large.
Yet despite governing such an enormous Safe City…
It had only two large-scale facilities in total.
“Material Preservation Warehouse (Tier 1).”
“…What’s this for?”
She read further.
“Oh… It can’t store living beings, but anything placed inside remains permanently in the exact condition it was in when it was stored?”
Just hearing that made it sound expensive.
Cheng Qisheng had Aether pull up its Marketplace price.
As expected…
It was outrageously expensive.
56,000 crystals for a single one.
She opened the detailed description.
The warehouse measured 1,000 meters by 1,000 meters, occupying a full 1 square kilometer.
It truly qualified as an enormous storage facility.
Best of all, the warehouse was already more than half full.
It mainly contained staple grains, medicines, enormous quantities of seeds, and all kinds of vegetables, fruits, freshwater fish, and countless other food supplies.
Taken together, the miscellaneous stockpile was enough to feed seven to eight million people for an entire year.
Compared to Blue Sea’s population of more than 300 million, that was naturally nowhere near enough.
But free was free.
Who would ever complain about getting too much for free?
The more Cheng Qisheng looked at it, the happier she became.
On top of that, the warehouse possessed the special attribute “Never Spoils.”
No matter which world Blue Sea traveled to in the future, it would always have a reserve of perfectly edible food waiting in storage.
She continued scrolling.
“Military Equipment Forge (Tier 2).”
“A Tier 2 facility?”
Her eyes lit up.
No wonder Dihai had owned only two large-scale facilities.
They had clearly prioritized quality over quantity.
This was the first Tier 2 large-scale facility Cheng Qisheng had ever seen.
The factory was constructed entirely from reinforced alloy.
It measured 1,500 meters by 1,500 meters, covering a total area of 2.25 square kilometers.
The entire structure was an oval of silver-gray metal, its hard, angular lines and thick walls perfectly matching the stereotypical image of a military forge.
Its outer walls were covered in countless fine grooves.
According to the description, these served as its heat-dissipation system.
The most striking feature, however, was the gigantic smelting tower rising from the center of the complex.
That tower formed the very heart of the forge.
The entire facility was divided into thirteen production zones.
The smelting tower confined its blazing furnace entirely within its interior, while an elevator provided direct access to the very top floor, which served as the factory’s command center.
Inside were numerous giant display screens monitoring every section of the complex, along with so many control panels and switches that they were almost dizzying to look at.
Each set of controls corresponded to one of the thirteen production zones.
After giving the overview a quick glance, Cheng Qisheng realized the factory was practically foolproof.
As long as a small amount of raw materials was delivered to the facility, workers only needed to sort those materials and send them into the appropriate production areas.
From there, everything else could be controlled from the central system.
Once manufacturing began…
The entire process required no manual labor whatsoever.
As long as personnel remained in the command center, they could oversee the mass production of weapons.
The entire facility had already been taken over by Blue Sea’s military.
The forge was capable of manufacturing a wide variety of weapons.
It could produce conventional firearms such as submachine guns, sniper rifles, and heavy machine guns, as well as cold weapons including longswords, sabers, spears, bayonets, and daggers.
It could also manufacture military protective equipment such as ballistic helmets, tactical armor, knee pads, and riot shields.
All of these could be mass-produced continuously, provided enough crystals were supplied.
Larger weapons, however—such as artillery emplacements and tanks—required production time.
For example, manufacturing a fully enclosed heavy tank took 120 hours.
Workers only needed to load raw ores and crystals into the factory.
The forge would then begin operating automatically.
One hundred and twenty hours later, the completed tank would be transported to the finished goods section on its own.
Those were the capabilities of a Tier 1 Military Equipment Forge.
The Tier 2 version added only a single new function.
If rare materials were used during the forging process, there was a certain probability that the finished product would become a Transcendent Weapon.
Rare materials could be anything from uncommon ores to body parts harvested from powerful mutant beasts.
For example, one squad of Dihai soldiers had wielded extraordinarily sharp spears because Heaven-and-Earth Rat scales had been incorporated during forging.
Unfortunately…
Dazzling Star didn’t have any Heaven-and-Earth Rats.
That creature had been encountered by Dihai Safe City two worlds ago.
Cheng Qisheng could only memorize its appearance and hope they would meet one again someday.
Even so, she quickly became excited again.
Dazzling Star might not have Heaven-and-Earth Rats…
But it had Snow Beasts.
Every imaginable variety of Snow Beast could be found there.
Why not throw all of their materials into the forge’s raw material section and test them one by one?
Who knew?
Some of them might also qualify as rare materials.
The Military Equipment Forge truly was an incredible facility.
The deadly Snow Beasts that had once posed such a tremendous threat…
Had suddenly become nothing more than crafting materials.
Without delay, Cheng Qisheng contacted the Blue Sea government and had them calculate the cost difference between producing weapons in the forge and purchasing them directly from the System Marketplace.
Based on the prices in the Safe City Marketplace, weapons produced by this forge cost only about one-fortieth as much as buying them directly.
In other words…
If Dihai Safe City went to war against another Safe City and both sides relied on firearms, then for every weapon the enemy spent 40 crystals to purchase, Dihai could produce an equivalent one for just a single crystal.
No wonder Dihai had been willing to spend 250,000 crystals on this Military Equipment Forge.
Cheng Qisheng completely understood the reasoning behind the purchase.
After all, the way Safe Cities were matched to worlds wasn’t random.
When Tier 1 and Tier 2 Safe Cities descended into a new world, they were usually matched with cities of roughly the same tier, with only the occasional Tier 3 appearing.
And everyone knew—
Tier 3 was a major dividing line.
Once a Safe City reached Tier 3, it became exceedingly rare to encounter opponents that were two full tiers lower during world descents.
Dihai Civilization was currently Tier 3.
If its City Lord had spent another 300,000 crystals to advance to Tier 4, then in the next world, it would simply become one strong city among many.
There would still be Tier 5 Safe Cities above it.
But Dihai was a Predator Civilization.
If it descended into a world filled with Safe Cities of equal or even higher rank…
Who exactly would it plunder?
Instead, Dihai invested those crystals in a Tier 2 Military Equipment Forge and a Tier 1 Material Preservation Warehouse.
Theoretically speaking, with the advantages provided by those two facilities alone, Dihai ranked among the absolute strongest Tier 3 Safe Cities.
In theory…
It could practically dominate the entire Tier 3 bracket.
It could attack whichever Tier 3 Safe City it pleased, and there was a 99.9% chance it would emerge victorious.
Conquer another Safe City.
Seize its crystals.
Ensl*ve its population as laborers and cannon fodder.
Grow even stronger.
Then move on to conquer the next city.
For a Predator Civilization, there was nothing wrong with that strategy.
Nor had Dihai grown overconfident.
Despite knowing it possessed the strength to defeat most Tier 3 Safe Cities on its own, it still cautiously formed an alliance with Mingxia, another Tier 3 city, and even used the Tier 2 Mianyin Safe City as bait.
No matter how you looked at it, they shouldn’t have lost.
Even if they had encountered a Tier 4 Safe City, the combined strength of three Safe Cities would have given them a fighting chance.
…And then they ran into Blue Sea.
To make matters worse, it happened in a world where firearms couldn’t be used.
Dihai’s soldiers belonged to a dwarf civilization and stood barely a meter tall.
Blue Sea’s people, meanwhile, were generally over 1.8 meters in height.
They were forced to compete in raw physical strength.
Even Cheng Qisheng couldn’t help but feel that Dihai had been spectacularly unlucky.
Then again…
Even if Dazzling Star had allowed firearms, and Dihai had been able to match Blue Sea shot for shot, a Tier 2 Military Equipment Forge couldn’t manufacture nuclear weapons.
In that case…
Cheng Qisheng would probably have had only one thing to say to Dihai:
“Happy Holy Bomb Day.”
She found herself feeling fortunate that Blue Sea had targeted Dihai from the very beginning.
If Dihai had actually managed to cede territory and escape, then given its City Lord’s cautious personality, it might very well have staged a comeback someday.
By then, to prevent a situation like—
“You forced me to surrender my land back then. Now the king has returned!”
—she would probably have had to search the entirety of Dazzling Star to hunt Dihai down and eliminate the threat once and for all.
Thankfully…
It hadn’t come to that.
Cheng Qisheng slowly patted herself on the shoulder in relief.
Now that she had finished reviewing the spoils, it was time to summarize everything.
She took out her little notebook.
Behind the name Dihai, which had been circled in black, she carefully drew a ✓.
Next came Mianyin.
Then…
Mingxia.
Cheng Qisheng stared at the black circle around Mingxia’s name.
To be honest, she barely had any impression of it.
Compared to Mianyin, which had served only as bait after being stripped of its crystals and population…
And compared to Dihai, which had clearly been the mastermind…
The only thing Cheng Qisheng remembered about Mingxia was that its City Lord had wanted to kill both Moonspirit and herself.
Mingxia now possessed only a little over 200 square kilometers of territory.
As for its population…
Based on Blue Sea’s calculations after taking over Mingxia’s ceded land, the City Lord had escaped with only around 3,000 residents.
With so few people, surviving in the harsh environment of Dazzling Star, there was no way Mingxia could gather the required 10,000 residents anytime soon.
Which meant…
For the foreseeable future, it wouldn’t be leaving this world.
Rationally, Cheng Qisheng knew that in Mingxia’s current state, there was a 99.999% chance it would never recover.
But in her mind flashed countless stories she had witnessed over the hundreds of billions of years she had watched over Dark Star.
There was…
The emperor who had watched his parents be murdered as a child, fallen into beggary, changed his name and identity, clawed his way to the top, killed every one of his enemies, overthrown an entire dynasty, and finally crowned himself emperor.
There was…
The legitimate heir whose tendons in both his hands and feet had been severed, whose own father had stolen his late mother’s dowry to lavish upon his half-brother, yet who endured for decades, patiently plotting until he finally found the opportunity to assassinate the emperor, dragging his entire family down with him into annihilation.
There was…
The celebrity who had been framed by a rival, betrayed by her boyfriend, publicly disgraced, had her career destroyed, and was even crippled for life after her enemies hired someone to cause a car accident—yet still managed to turn the tables, expose both her rival and ex-boyfriend to the entire internet, and eventually become the largest shareholder of her former company through savvy investments.
She had seen far…
Far too many stories like those.
If those people could rise again…
Why couldn’t Mingxia?
Cheng Qisheng narrowed her eyes.
Then, over the words “Mingxia” in her notebook, she slowly drew another large black circle.
This person absolutely could not be allowed to live.
There was no way Blue Sea could scour every corner of the world searching for Mingxia.
Besides, her believers were already eager to head for the Skywing Dragons’ coordinates and enjoy another glorious hunt.
But that didn’t matter.
Because…
This was exactly what the City Lords’ group chat was for.
The group chat was still lively, with City Lords discussing the fall of the two Safe Cities and speculating about what had happened.
At that moment, Cheng Qisheng made an appearance.
[Blue Sea Safe City]: Is it okay to post a bounty in the group?
One of the City Lords replied curiously:
Sure, you can. What are you putting a bounty on?
…
Mingxia Safe City
Mingxia had been closely monitoring the group chat.
The instant he saw Blue Sea’s message, a bad feeling welled up inside him.
He had always known that Safe City Wars were a gamble.
Winning felt exhilarating.
Losing, however, could mean becoming the target of endless retaliation.
That was why he had deliberately stayed in the background throughout the entire affair.
Although it had been he who lured Mianyin’s former City Lord into the trap…
It was Dihai who had handled all subsequent contact with Mianyin.
Dihai had been immensely powerful.
Its Safe City had been far larger than Mingxia’s.
And even if that wasn’t enough, there had also been Mianyin.
Even if Blue Sea had taken in the survivors from those two cities and questioned them, the one they would identify as the ringleader would surely be Dihai.
Dihai should have attracted almost all of Blue Sea’s hatred by now.
And if that still wasn’t enough…
There was always Mianyin—the city that had lured everyone into the trap—to serve as a convenient scapegoat.
Blue Sea… surely wouldn’t keep chasing even a city that had already surrendered territory and fled… right?
Mingxia repeatedly reassured himself.
It won’t happen.
It won’t.
For a moment, he didn’t even dare open the group chat.
But in the end…
He looked anyway.
The hope in his heart instantly sank to the bottom.
Blue Sea Safe City: [Bounty: Mingxia Safe City. Its current territory is approximately 286 square kilometers. You may either provide Mingxia Safe City’s coordinates or eliminate the current City Lord yourself. As long as the current City Lord of Mingxia dies and sufficient evidence shows you were responsible, the bounty will be paid.]
Blue Sea Safe City: [Reward: Citywide Climate Purification Station (Tier 1). Remaining operational time: 32,040 hours. Capable of supporting 250 million people.]
Mingxia fell silent.
“…”
That’s my purification station!
Is Blue Sea insane?!
They had seized his Citywide Climate Purification Station…
Had no intention of using it themselves…
And were now using it as the bounty for hunting down its former owner?!
His anger was real.
But beneath it lurked an even stronger emotion—
Fear.
His Safe City now occupied barely over 200 square kilometers.
It had been crippled by the war.
At this point, even an ordinary Tier 2 Safe City could easily crush him.
No other City Lord would pass up the opportunity to earn such a reward.
The moment Blue Sea posted that bounty…
He instantly became the common target of every Safe City on Dazzling Star.
And the worst part was…
He couldn’t even leave Dazzling Star.
Human joy and sorrow were never shared.
No one cared about Mingxia’s grief and outrage.
The other City Lords, upon seeing the announcement, instinctively opened the Marketplace.
The first thing they checked…
Was the price.
4,500 crystals.
“…Whoa!”
That was no small reward.
Even for an ordinary Tier 3 City Lord, obtaining it would be equivalent to making a small fortune.
What’s more, Blue Sea had merely mentioned that people could eliminate Mingxia themselves.
Even if they didn’t…
Simply providing Mingxia’s coordinates would be enough.
Just spotting the city could earn them a large-scale facility worth 4,500 crystals.
Where else could they find a deal that good?
Across Dazzling Star, City Lords’ eyes lit up.
On one hand, they immediately instructed their residents to search the surrounding area for a small, badly damaged Safe City that had recently descended.
On the other hand, they couldn’t help but think things over.
So…
Blue Sea really was the one that had destroyed those two Safe Cities.
And now it was going after Mingxia as well.
None of them knew that Moonspirit had also participated.
Naturally, they came to the conclusion that Blue Sea had fought three Safe Cities alone.
Why else would three Safe Cities have gathered in one place?
Besides, Blue Sea had previously accepted Puya Safe City’s request to fight on its behalf.
Puya was still alive and well.
That made it obvious who had started the war.
One after another, the City Lords turned their attention toward Blue Sea Safe City, which had barely spoken since joining the group.
Powerful Safe Cities naturally attracted attention.
Even if they couldn’t become friends…
Everyone wanted at least a cordial relationship.
Whether that goodwill would ever prove useful was beside the point.
It might end up being worthless.
But it was still better to have it than not.
…
Puya Safe City
Quan Shazi lay curled up under his blanket, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing.
He had always known Boss Blue Sea was powerful.
He just hadn’t realized they were this powerful.
Boss Blue Sea had only left a day and a half ago!
…No, wait.
He thought back to when the names Mianyin and Dihai had turned gray.
Boss Blue Sea had only been in the new world for seven hours.
In those seven hours…
A Tier 3 Safe City and a Tier 2 Safe City had both been wiped out.
And another Tier 3 Safe City had been forced to surrender territory and flee.
Seven hours.
Quan Shazi was genuinely shaken.
He suddenly remembered that, not long ago, Blue Sea Safe City had been parked right next to his own.
And somehow…
He had actually been able to sleep peacefully at night.
However…
On second thought, Quan Shazi figured that he and Boss Blue Sea did share some sort of relationship, didn’t they?
—The kind where she could have killed me, but chose not to.
That was a pretty profound bond in its own right.
So shouldn’t he hurry up and flatter the boss, show his support, and make sure the boss remembered him?
This was the perfect opportunity to shower her with praise!
Coincidentally…
Wen Huahua, the self-proclaimed number-one underling of Blue Sea, was thinking exactly the same thing.
His fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed out an endless stream of compliments, each one different from the last.
Being the clever fellow he was, he also came up with another idea.
He could add 300 crystals to the bounty as a show of support for his boss.
Just as Wen Huahua was about to hit send…
Two messages popped into the group first.
Jin Yu Safe City: [Boss is awesome!! Those three Safe Cities deserved it for ganging up to ambush my boss!]
Jin Yu Safe City: [I’ll add another 350 crystals to the bounty! Full support for Boss! Take down Mingxia!]
Wen Huahua: “…”
He really wasn’t used to the feeling of someone else stealing his boss.
No sooner had Jin Yu’s messages appeared than Puya Safe City’s barrage of flattering praise arrived.
Wen Huahua: “…”
Another one.
He sent the carefully prepared message he’d already written.
Then, not wanting to lose out, he increased his own bounty contribution by another 50 Crystals, bringing it to 350 as well.
Looks like the flattery lane is getting crowded.
I’d better focus on doing something more practical instead.
Like…
Finding Mingxia’s City Lord and helping take a burden off the boss’s shoulders.
Though that lane looked just as competitive.
Even a normally quiet Tier 3 City Lord joined the bounty.
Zhuojin Safe City: [I have a personal grudge against Mingxia. I’ll add another 1,000 crystals to the bounty.]
Nobody knew what kind of personal grudge Zhuojin had against Mingxia.
And nobody asked.
City Lords having grudges against one another was about the most normal thing in the world.
Instead…
Every pair of eyes in the group was drawn to the bounty total, which kept climbing higher and higher.
