Academic gathering with Lich colleagues

Chapter 844 Artificial Satellite

Gravity sat cross-legged on the earthen-brown star ring, flipping through his notebook. The battle was long over. The notebook contained Gravity's plan and steps, which he knew by heart. It wasn't that he lacked confidence in his memory; he was simply reviewing something he knew by heart and hoping to maintain his inner peace.

Now, Mr. Gravity is a little nervous.

The simulated celestial body constructed behind us was already the size of a basketball court. Its tan surface was adorned with dark red stripes, and it slowly rotated, complete with rings. Several meters of ground had been scraped away. At the very bottom of the gravitational star, palm-sized mounds of soil were constantly being captured by its gravity, slowly rising and merging into the sphere, like a fat person who had been forbidden from eating but couldn't resist sneaking a bite. The buzzing sound came from the constant friction of the air; the sound was still very faint, and because it resembled white noise, the gravity hadn't been neutralized.

His part of the plan was crucial because of the inherent nature of Gravity's power; his spellcasting range could reach extremely far, even influencing the outer layers of unobservable planets. He was responsible for constructing a satellite outside the atmosphere using electromagnetically emitted soil and rocks—the largest ever created. It was an incredibly demanding task; the total mass of the electromagnetically emitted material was already one ten-thousandth of the planet's own mass. This mass of material, scorched by electric sparks, could easily block small meteorites even if haphazardly laid out on the outer layer. Mr. Gravity had created many simulated celestial bodies, but constructing a real celestial body based on a simulation was a first.

This satellite also has a host of complex requirements: specified size, mass, and shape. These factors will affect its orbit, thus interfering with subsequent plans. The greatest challenge of the operation itself lies in its unobservability. Performing remote, space-based magic through the thick atmosphere is like a surgeon performing heart surgery blindfolded. Throughout the entire process, the only things one can trust are their own operational skills, timing, theoretical calculations, and personal memory. Any misstep or operational malfunction could lead to deviations and ultimately failure. This is unacceptable for the Advanced Magic Research Society, which has already paid a price.

What is the cost? The chain reaction of a planet losing mass. The crustal movement caused by the planet's self-healing of its wounds, the potential orbital deviation due to the reduction in total mass, the destruction of the underground ecological environment affecting the ecosystem, the geological disasters and even extinction caused by the activation of the core magma, the depletion of the planet's total energy leading to a shortened lifespan, and finally, the revenge killing of the Advanced Magic Research Society by Triton, the sleeping planetary will.

The Advanced Magic Research Club resolutely carried out the research plan after considering the potential consequences. They were confident in themselves, even more so in their comrades, and prepared to bear the consequences. The cost was inevitable, success was accidental, but they would do it even with a one in ten thousand chance.

Mr. Gravity happens to be in charge of the most important part, and in the past, they would have definitely applied for the Lich King of Andre for him. That might have relieved much of the pressure Gravity is currently feeling.

"Being bound by obsession beyond death, I felt joy at the moment I regained humanity, but now I wish to return to that cold and lifeless state. Indeed, happiness is relative, while greed is absolute."

With a wry smile, Mr. Gravity took out the small die from his pocket. It was a gift from his student, Anonymous. Each of the one hundred faces was engraved with a number. Although it was based on probability, the "100" and "1" on the corresponding faces seemed to possess a certain mystery. The entire die, with its uniform luster, presented a symmetrical beauty and a mysterious presence.

"Lucky... Since it's an anonymous gift, of course I can trust it, right?" He said these insincere words, but he knew perfectly well what kind of person his apprentice was. Completely untrustworthy. Even so, playing with the die gradually calmed his mind. Looking at the inscribed numbers on it, he slowly began to have the idea of ​​gambling after work.

The buzzing sound deepened, and Mr. Gravity, familiar with celestial simulations, naturally wouldn't dismiss it as an illusion. The gravitational star had already entered a steady state; only changes in its gravitational field would affect it. For example, the building materials emitted electromagnetically had already overcome the inertia of the star's rotation, crossed the stasis field under relative motion, and arrived in their own territory.

With no time to pay attention to anything else, Gravity set the hundred-sided die to run automatically, and he floated up, his freed hands forming a circle in front of him. Gravity had activated its own magic.

[Concept Extraction·Gravity]

His spirit was expanding! Discarding distractions, Mr. Gravity relaxed his mind and body, adapting to the shift in his consciousness. He felt his soul float away from his barren body, merging into a hazy mist. His consciousness extended, his spirit merging with the attraction generated by mass under the pull of gravity. Gravity sensed two points of light, one large and one small; he overlapped with the one resembling a lantern, feeling its warmth while noticing a small flame in the distance.

Silently count to ten, Gravity looked up at the atmosphere, and his hands began to construct the work as if performing a machine a thousand or ten thousand times.

[Advanced Magic Research - Star Creation]

The levitating lich abandoned all perception, focusing solely on manipulating his arms and fingers through the air. His nimble arms moved gracefully to the rhythm, as if parting streams of water, yet in moments of stillness they were as firm as steel, utterly decisive. Gravity held what appeared to be an imaginary sphere in his hands, each swing of his arm and fingers a swirling vortex, refining and polishing it. Not a trace of power leaked out; there was no sign of magical flow around Mr. Gravity, making his movements resemble a dance or martial arts performance. Completely absorbed, he was utterly unaffected by his surroundings.

The collapse of Gravitational Star unfolded exactly as planned. By channeling spirit and magic into the distance, the meat grinder of earth, rocks, and mantid corpses immediately ceased operation, simulating the outermost rings of a celestial body falling. The sphere crashed to the ground with a deafening roar, its outer shell shattering like a collapsing sandcastle. Mantid particles mingled among the sand and gravel, becoming part of the soil.

The sound of disintegration quickly ended, the buzzing ceased, and all was quiet. A crisp sound, like raindrops tapping on a stone slab, bounced again and again.

It was a prop set to run automatically, its full name being [Kevin's Lucky Dice]. When no one was watching, the dice bounced up and down, and occasionally, changing phantom images appeared on the glowing numbers.

[First blind roll, result...]

[Second blind die, result...]

[Third blind roll...]

[The fourth time...]

[......]

Beyond the atmosphere, a solid celestial body begins to block the moon's radiance. From the moment it becomes perfectly round, a complex mystery pours forth from the celestial body.

[The name manifests, the third son without light.]

[Command executed; the two pale children were captured; command successful.]

[The subordinate command is executed automatically, capturing Crimson's eldest son. Command missing.]

[Error, automatically filter alternative instructions, missing, determine no dependent instructions, error calculation, begin evolving individual intelligence...]

[New instruction loaded, overwriting missing instructions. Name removed, third child without light, offline.]

[......]

[Name manifests, Martian hunter.]

[Pending plan execution.]

Chapter 845 Time Reversal

This world will witness greatness. All efforts will be recognized, all contributions will be rewarded. There's no need to put on a show or flatter others; the world itself is the judge and the witness. For those who achieve greatness, the world will reward them, will bestow upon them [concepts].

A newly formed satellite is, of course, magnificent. Regardless of its creator, regardless of its purpose, whether artificial or natural, whether benevolent or malevolent. When the third moon appears in the night sky, the world will gasp in awe at its existence.

The pale moon is the moon of the night. Its existence separates the night from the darkness, distinguishes day from night, and establishes the biological habits of being active during the day and night.

The Crimson Moon is the Moon of [Abnormality]. Its existence can intensify magic, drawing [abnormality] out of [ordinariness]. The walking dead and bloodthirsty demons disappear from the sun and lurk in the night under the red moon.

The two moons are not sequential. The history of the emergence of magic and day and night is unknown. It was only the first observer who arbitrarily compared the Crimson Moon to the eldest son, because the red moon, which is closely related to magic, sounds more powerful than the white moon that provides illumination. Other scholars who followed the principle of respecting the strong quickly accepted the idea of ​​the Crimson eldest son.

If the Advanced Magic Research Society does not guide the newborn celestial body, it may become the third moon. At that time, its [concept] may have a new impact on the world, for better or for worse, and the order of the Children of No Light may be rearranged.

The power of advanced magic flowed through the celestial bodies. Since they continued to take over, the world recognized their ownership and generously rewarded them, inadvertently revealing the liches' plans without their knowledge.

[Mars Hunt]

This truth has been confirmed, but no one but you knows it. The ultimate goal of the Advanced Magic Research Society is that neighboring planet of similar size to Earth. They'll carve a piece of flesh from Earth to create weapons to attack their neighbor; what they crave is the neighbor's nosebleed stuck to their fists.

Under the guise of material exchange or friendly communication, alien geological materials are clearly highly sought after by scholars. Taking advantage of the planetary chaos, advanced magical research would certainly not pass up this legitimate opportunity for large-scale warfare. Completing a celestial-level "punch" and "retract" is precisely the next task.

The explanation is quite simple: the energy and calculations required for execution would have given the lich a major headache, and the outcome was still a probabilistic unknown. Reality wouldn't wait; the newly constructed satellite was already captured by Earth's gravity and began its descent, its calculated trajectory landing in the next region, precisely appearing on the line connecting it to Mars.

A gaping hole was squeezed through the clouds, and the burning air revealed the dark red celestial sphere. He laughed heartily, responding to his companion's masterpiece with an exhilarating roar. Death Star II gazed at the colossal celestial body filling his field of vision, its center dark and its perimeter a ring of burning flames—a breathtaking sight that seemed to ignite his very soul.

"My comrades!!!"

"You guys... really are... the best batters in the world!!!"

"It's on fire!!!"

"I will give you my all, even my life, with all my might!!"

The dark matter hand crushed the bottle. The contents of the bottle were antimatter borrowed from Apocalypse's leader. In less than a second, the burst of energy tore the hand apart. A blinding light engulfed the Death Star's body, and the maniacal laughter reached its climax in the annihilation.

[Advanced Magic Research - Super Destructive Ray]

"Our stars, hunt down the god of war! (Mars Fall)"

Transforming itself into a fallen star, Death Star II collapsed, unleashing a ferocious gamma-ray burst that bombarded celestial bodies. Energy raged, the earth beneath it softened like mud, and beams of light shot out in the blink of an eye. The dark green barrier shattered after struggling for a few seconds. The enormous sphere in the sky had vanished; the immense energy of the gamma-ray burst propelled the firing pin towards its target.

Death Star II was no longer concerned with any of that; his body had become a black hole, its descent into the depths of the earth's crust unabated. His black hole-like form absorbed the scattered body tissues, leaving only his skull and left hand on the edge. His mind was stretched thin, and the lich felt even his thoughts were slowed. Driven by madness, by willpower, by trust, Death Star II entrusted everything to his companions, activating the final spell.

[Concept Extraction: Even Light Cannot Escape]

The energy of the gamma-ray burst was waning, until only a thread-like strand remained connecting the remaining hand of the Death Star. Yet, this final ray, less than a millimeter long, stubbornly refused to dissipate, as if a lich had grasped the tail of light. Energy dissipated, but a beam of light that had shot out of the planet remained until the very end, stretching into the boundless expanse of space.

The feeling of falling disappeared, and the surface of the Black Hole Man glowed green. Stasis particles appeared all over the Lich's body. Mr. Stasis stood in the deep pit, raising his hand to hold the Death Star's skull as if he were holding a dead fish.

[Advanced Magic Research - Time Stop]

Mr. Stasis successfully saved the day, freezing time on the Death Star and halting the death of the Black Hole Man. He stopped the Death Star II conceptually, materially, energetically, and temporally. This spell consumed most of Mr. Stasis's power, yet he continued to exert himself, generating stasis particles and unleashing his full power with concentrated magic.

"[Static], the remaining time for the sacrifice of 100,000 mantises."

In some mysterious way, Mr. Stasis received a response.

[My agent, at this moment, wields the power of paradox.]

It has been said that what the human eye sees is the past. Because light takes time to travel, by the time it reaches the retina, what appears in the mind is merely a scene from a previous moment. Time is perfect; it maintains the laws of the three-dimensional world in a subtle way. Time is a capricious and unpredictable master of deception in the universe, distorting the common sense under special relativity.

Now, the conman has encountered a robber.

Stasis froze the Death Star's time, while the rest of time continued to move forward. According to relativity, the Death Star remained in the past. The Death Star II, now a black hole, extracted the concept of binding the light of the gamma-ray burst. The past of the gamma-ray burst also remained in the Death Star's hands. Its future propelled that celestial body to bombard Mars. The past and future cannot coexist, but all of this coexisted under the interference of stasis.

Death Star II reverses time, and gamma-ray bursts cause the past and future to coexist, tangling time into a mess.

A paradox arises. Basic logic collapses, reality disintegrates under the influence of the paradox, chaotic fissures appear and widen, and logic dies. The [concept] feels fear, marveling at the irresponsibility of [stasis] and [paradox], and the will of the universe intervenes to correct the lich's capricious behavior.

If everything is reversed, time will be corrected to before the collapse.

Incomprehensible changes were taking place, and Stasis breathed a sigh of relief, but did not loosen its control over the Black Hole Man.

This is the effect of the spell of stasis.

[Advanced Magic Research: Paradox Simulation: Time Reversal]

The destruction was traced back to the moment the collapse began.

Because the gamma-ray burst is associated with Death Star II, which has collapsed into a black hole, it is causing a time reversal. Its future will regress to the past, and the energy that has already bombarded Mars and caused great destruction in the real world is regrouping, pulling the debris it has pushed back to Earth.

The only paradox is the Death Star and its associated gamma-ray burst. The celestial bodies that were shattered by the burst need to be returned to their original positions, and thus begin their journey home. As for the destruction on Mars and the Martian debris that was taken away, that is not something that can be reversed in time.

The members of the Advanced Magic Research Society regrouped. Mr. Apocalypse looked at his companions. Stasis was adjusting the Black Hole Man. He needed to gradually seal the black hole singularity activated by Death Star II. The process was similar to defusing a bomb, only the reaction would be more intense.

"Where is the horror?" Apocalypse asked.

Electromagnetism recounted everything it had seen.

“His meme has been triggered. Now that there’s no carrier, he should have been moved to his new home, an iron box with dimensions of 1.2m x 0.6m x 1.6m. I don’t think there’s a suitable location around here. Maybe Terror has already returned to Andrei’s spare box.” Electromagnetic grinned as he surveyed the surrounding black mud environment.

Apocalypse nodded, no longer paying attention to the horror.

"Was the plan a success?"

"My part was very successful."

"President Apocalypse, it's all up to you now. I have a feeling the plan will be executed perfectly." Mr. Gravity looked at the dice in his hand with a strange expression.

"Ah."

According to the calculations of the Advanced Magic Research Society, if the plan succeeds, the Advanced Magic Research Society will reap the rewards.

A meteor shower from Mars.

They had even come up with an excuse to convince themselves.

The planetary will that couldn't afford to play along applied for off-field assistance.

Chapter 846 Conquering the Angel

"Damn lich!" The fully revealed slumbering being suddenly roared, its numerous tentacles trembling, conveying anger and murderous intent to everyone.

The dragon crawled out of the pit and grinned maliciously at the enraged evil god.