Chapter 510: False Flag, The Sky Falls

The weapon known as the World Anchor operated at full capacity under the command of the only two authorized users, its material field projecting from within to brutally invade the voidal realm.

An immense power now completely enveloped the massive heart of the Utopia organization, embedding itself from the material world into the void and forcibly severing the organ's connection to the entity residing in the depths of the abyss.

Deprived of the power from the void's core, the heart was left only with its own inherent energy—not weak, but incomparable to what it once possessed—and within the material field created by the Anchor, it could not even manifest that, leaving it vulnerable to being pierced by this instrument, itself a "World Spear."

Icarus had already gained a fundamental understanding of the heart's composition; its essence was much like the "divine phantoms" that had appeared on the battlefield before.

It was a mass of psychic energy formed by the convergent wills of a vast number of Utopia members, utilizing this unified strength and two pre-established "nodes" to draw special power from the depths of the void.

Thus, to slay this entity shaped like a giant heart, one had to sever its link to that abyssal power. The only tool capable of this was the ultimate weapon intended to prevent Utopia from constructing a third node: the World Anchor, which used its reverse-invading material field to lock and isolate the target.

"It worked. Those chains coiled around the heart must be the power generated by the two existing nodes, used to bind and drag that force from the void's depths—the power Roland described as full of chaos and distortion, perfectly aligned with the nature of the void."

Roland watched as the World Anchor drove into the heart's main body, causing a deluge of unknown liquid to pour out as the massive organ gradually shriveled; he spoke these words to himself.

The heart attempted to utilize those two chains, but the chains, composed of node energy, remained unaffected by the Anchor. Even within the material field, they retained immense destructive power, yet they were blocked by the Silver Dragon Aerythrian, the White Dragon Patriarch Mistrix, and Roland, who had been observing the battle from the void, just as Icarus had predicted he would.

The forms in which these chains were used were not limited to mere sweeping, whipping, or smashing—those were the tactics of a human or a common intelligent race of the continent, not the way an indescribable monster would wield its own power.

Even as an aggregate of wills, it remained a synthesis of the consciousnesses of the continent's intelligent races; its limitations did not fundamentally change, only its accumulated knowledge and capacity for burden.

This unified will, driving the power of the depths, was actually somewhat like that fellow Wang Yu; their gathered consciousness made them strong enough to bear the load of using such power, yet they could not wield it as freely as a true monster.

If you forcibly shove a human soul into the body of a slime, who knows how long it would take for them to secrete corrosive fluid?

The same logic applied to this unified will driving the giant heart. This meant the Allied Legions were still facing an enemy employing the "distinctive attack patterns of the continent's intelligent races." This constraint, preventing the full exertion of its power, allowed the two chains to be intercepted, enabling the Sky Mechanical City to drive the World Anchor into the heart's core.

The heart was not composed of tangible matter, but of a physical projection created by void energy constantly distorting the material world. Once its supply was cut off, the heart—whose very structure defied the laws of the material world—naturally collapsed and annihilated itself, and the unified will within began to disintegrate along with the destruction of its vessel.

"Pull yourselves together. We must set course for the next stop; this will decide the final outcome."

Icarus sent this rallying cry through the magitech communication network to all Allied Legion soldiers still capable of receiving it. The heart, that immense threat, had been dealt with; there were no more enemies left to block their path.

"Click!"

"Zzzzzzt..."

Quickly inputting commands into the main console, Icarus ordered the Sky Mechanical City to retract the vital World Anchor from the giant heart, which had collapsed inward and nearly vanished. The two chains, now blocked, seemed to lose all direction, hanging limp until they were seized and pinned by Aerythrian and Roland.

"Clang, hum!"

Upon receiving the command, the metal pillar did not retract into the mechanical structure; instead, it began to operate of its own accord, shifting from its full-power state into its reverse-working mode.

"How can this be!?"

Icarus's expression turned to one of shock and incomprehension. He repeatedly corrected the input commands and entered new ones, but to no avail. The World Anchor was no longer under his control—or rather, the entire Sky Mechanical City was no longer under the control of the Feather-folk assigned the role of "Commander."

"Astartes!"

"..., ah, ..."

Icarus stopped trying to input commands into the control console and instead shouted into the command room for the entity that held the second, and in reality, the highest authority: the Tower Spirit, Astartes.

No one responded. The dimming lights in the cabin were enough to explain the situation. Seeming to have anticipated this, Icarus sat down, sighed, and silently watched the cataclysm unfolding outside the cabin.

The World Anchor could allow the material world to invade the void, which inevitably involved the conversion between the two realms. Based on the theory that the void was simply the power lost by intelligent races and was inseparable from the material world, it also possessed a reverse effect: allowing the void to permeate the material world.

Astartes had seized command from Icarus, completely taking over the ultimate weapon intended to stop Utopia from building the third node, and had inverted its operational mode.

"Attention: we will use the World Anchor in reverse to open a passage to a location in the void. Prepare to travel to the target destination under the protection of the Anchor."

Perfectly mimicking the vocal characteristics of Icarus, Astartes took over the magitech communication, deceptively dispelling the doubts of all others.

The reverse operation of the World Anchor started rapidly. Voidal power began to seep back into the material world, and a passage was opened. However, the destination it pointed toward was deeply wrong. The first to realize this was Roland, who used his fortress as a body.

The fortress's power was instantly activated, and Roland immediately intended to act, but the connection between the Anchor and the object on the other side of the passage had already been established. A familiar and despair-inducing wave swept out: it was the power of a node, a third node, currently in an incomplete state but moving toward completion.

"!?"

"What is it?"

"..."

Confusion and incomprehension were the shared emotions of all the soldiers participating in the battle. They had fought with everything they had to prevent the birth of the third node, yet this was what the Anchor was doing. Only a few entities seemed to have realized the truth; some had even foreseen it, standing in calm silence, gazing up at the sky where the Anchor resided.

An incomplete node was still a node. The two chains that had lost control were instantly re-integrated into the node's command. A change that defied description occurred within them; the power of the chains surged, and abyssal energy, rivaling or even exceeding that of the giant heart, poured forth, seemingly rising without limit.

Instantly breaking free from the restraint of the Silver Dragon Aerythrian, the two chains lashed out and bound Roland before he could do anything. The limitlessly produced abyssal power severed all his connections to his surroundings, pinning him firmly in place as the chains began to tighten.

"Merlin..."

Roland's voice passed through the gaps in the chains surrounding him, directed at the World Anchor suspended in the air, which was currently docking with something on the other side of the opened path.

"It is I. Though, for now, I am called Astartes."

Merlin—or rather, Astartes—responded.

"You chose to stand with Utopia?"

"What do you mean by 'chose'? My stance has never changed from the very beginning."

"Do you not see any other possibilities?"

The fortress cracked layer by layer under the arduous resistance. This time, it was not just the outer shell that was shattering; an unprecedentedly powerful abyssal force invaded the interior, reaching the core. Roland felt little fear of death, only asking faintly.

"It is precisely because I have seen too many so-called 'possible' solutions that I am all the more certain that what Utopia has chosen is the only one. Roland, I must admit you are a true genius, but you were born too late. Your entire life has been under our arrangement. Everything you discovered, everything you strove for, even the allies you sought—all were under our guidance."

"We needed a banner—a banner of resistance against us, especially after the Abyss War, when we, who hide in the shadows of history, were forced to reveal a portion of ourselves to the world. You and the Sky Mechanical City were the two banners we chose."

Astartes crushed the final layer of the barrier, revealing the body within the sphere—Roland's own physical shell—and told him the truth.

When Utopia revealed traces of itself and risked being discovered and opposed, it needed a banner—a banner to lead all dissidents together, a leader whose birth was interfered with by Utopia.

Roland was that banner. His life—his learning, his advancement, his discoveries, the friends he made, the scholars he studied under—all were interfered with and guided by Utopia. This genius discovered the truth, decided to resist, and spent his life striving on thin ice, but in reality, he had always been walking on a one-way path laid out by an organization whose existence was so ancient that its plans extended into the distant future, leading only to one direction, one destination.

The Sky Mechanical City was the other banner, the one in the light. Roland gathered those in the shadows outside the world's view, while the Sky Mechanical City, under the guidance of the "Tower Spirit" Astartes and the influence of compiled history, united the five races to formulate the "World Anchor" plan, gathering the continent's strongest combatants here in search of a way to survive.

As for why no one doubted the Sky Mechanical City, it was simple: if an organization possessing the continent's most advanced technology also stood against them, their already slim chances of victory would approach zero. Not to doubt, but to cooperate as much as possible, was the only choice.

It was much as Sula had said: every step taken by these beings on the continent was predictable, all within the plan. From the beginning, there had never been a possibility of threatening Utopia.

This organization, whose age was unknown, had used its layouts and intelligence to nail down every developmental trend. The probability of winning could only be scraped, with great difficulty, from the phrase "anything is possible."

"Ha, every choice I made in this life came from my own heart. I have no regrets. So, if there really were that 'possibility,' would you choose to grasp it?"

Roland laughed openly. He did not seem to care whether his calculated life had any meaning; to him, this life of schemes and plans had not been a lie.

"Possibility? If it existed, perhaps I would try. But it has long been impossible."

Having given his answer, Astartes drove the chains to completely tear Roland's existence apart.

"Hum..."

The sound from within the Sky Mechanical City gradually faded as all power furnaces were shut down by the city's highest authority. The city no longer had any reason to exist, neither for the Allied Legions nor for Utopia.

The massive giant fell from the sky, crashing into the earth of the underground world and embedding itself within. It looked like a dead giant, its corpse intact, yet devoid of all life. As the war fortress came to a halt, its main body remained whole, making it seem less "decadent and decayed."

The final piece of the puzzle, provided by the Sky Mechanical City—the "World Anchor"—finally completed its docking with the entity on the other side. The third node was forged.

The chains extending from the three nodes darted toward the depths of the void, pointing toward the indescribable object from the stars at the very bottom. Utilizing the connection taken from the abyssal creatures and the entity itself, they drew forth that abyssal power—which had no true location—to be wielded by the psychic aggregate that had gathered the wills of countless Utopia members.

As the three nodes were forged, the ocean of the void gradually rose, slowly drowning the material world. Ubiquitous pollution began to spread, and Utopia paid no heed to the Allied Legion soldiers or the Night Church's dragons still alive in the underground world; their survival could not affect the final outcome.

They had a clear goal: to use the power of these three nodes to completely annihilate the entity that was gradually approaching the depths of the void.