Chapter 150: Target: Ancestral God Tomb (5-Episode Release)

On the wasteland.

The ground was in utter chaos, littered everywhere with the marks left by attacks from various weapons.

A massive amount of wreckage from ferocious beasts and mechanical units lay scattered across the terrain.

Within a radius of over ten thousand kilometers, it was a scene of absolute devastation.

Jiang Chen was operating five immortal puppets, dragging the remains of a thirty-meter-tall immortal spirit back toward the transport ship.

"Jarvis, return to base!"

At Jiang Chen's command, the dense, swarming mechanical legions across the sky were retrieved into his world ring. The transport ship activated, accelerating to one-tenth the speed of light within mere seconds, transforming into a streak of light that surged into the firmament.

"An immortal with over a hundred times gene multiplier is truly troublesome to kill!"

Inside the transport ship, Jiang Chen let out a sigh.

"Master, the isolated immortal spirits have all been completely eliminated. Next, if we are to continue our actions, the 'Ancestral God Tomb' is the optimal target. However, the difficulty will also be immense."

Jarvis's voice rang out.

Having spent nearly two years, Jiang Chen had slaughtered every single 'isolated' immortal spirit on the planet Visca.

Even cities defended by two or three immortal spirits had been completely cleared out by Jiang Chen.

Aside from the 51 immortals in the 'Ancestral God City' and the 35 immortals in the 'Ancestral God Tomb', there were no other living immortals left on this planet.

Among them, 'normal immortals' with merely a single gene multiplier, much like 'Bymon', were exceedingly rare. Including the first two immortal corpses and Bymon, there were only seven in total.

The remaining forty immortals possessed gene multipliers ranging between 150 and 200 times.

In terms of combat power, they were noticeably much stronger than ordinary immortals like Bymon. Even if their mastery of laws and secret techniques were identical, the difficulty of killing them was on an entirely different level.

Nevertheless, through Jiang Chen's unsparing consumption of resources, all forty-seven 'isolated' immortal spirits across the entire planet had been completely eradicated.

High gene multiplier? Hard to kill?

Activating [Mechanical Overload] on the 'immortal puppets' could wear the enemy down through sheer attrition.

However, against ordinary immortal spirits with a single gene multiplier like Bymon, Jiang Chen had high confidence in preserving the vast majority of their corpses.

Yet against immortals who had consumed the 'Blood God Fruit' and possessed over a hundred times gene multipliers, preventing them from self-destructing was extremely difficult, with a success rate of less than fifty percent.

Occasionally, it still resulted in rather significant losses.

After this round of hunting, Jiang Chen had accumulated the remains of eight ordinary immortals with a single gene multiplier, and eighteen powerful immortals with over a hundred times gene multipliers.

——One 'immortal puppet' forged from an ordinary immortal had been destroyed during a hunting operation by the enemy's self-destruction attack, completely and utterly annihilated without even the possibility of being repaired.

"The products of this planet are truly bizarre. In the universe, races like humans that are innately weak in genes find it hard to surpass a hundred times their gene multiplier before becoming universe masters, even when relying on external objects to enhance themselves. Yet the planet Visca can break this limit..."

A thought flashed through Jiang Chen's mind.

The special environment found on a planet like Visca held immense research value.

However, this was, after all, the 'important property' of the Virtual Universe Company. Given Jiang Chen's current strength and status, squeezing out some benefits was already pushing his limits.

To bring the planet under his own control and research its unique environment?

That was sheer wishful thinking.

Shaking his head to cast the stray thoughts from his mind, Jiang Chen asked, "Jarvis, has there been any unusual movement from the Ancestral God Cult faction?"

Jarvis immediately replied, "None detected so far. The movement trajectories of all high-energy reaction signals reaching the 'World Lord' level are completely normal. Among the cities where immortal spirits were hunted, the one closest to the 'Ancestral God Cult' would require their World Lords more than three years of travel time just to reach it."

The planet Visca was simply too vast.

Coupled with its powerful gravity, the flight speed of powerhouses at the World Lord level was heavily suppressed.

Furthermore, the planet Visca detested technology and lacked substitute transportation tools like spacecraft. Relying solely on the powerhouses' own slow flight, they would encounter ferocious beasts blocking their path along the way, forcing them to frequently stop to fight the beasts and rest, making travel naturally very slow.

The distances between cities and the travel times were measured in years.

"It seems we still have time." Jiang Chen nodded slightly.

"Extrapolating from the recorded data, we have at least two years." Jarvis reported promptly.

"Eighteen immortal puppets with over a hundred times genes, eight ordinary immortal puppets, plus the Void Dragon Mech..."

Jiang Chen calculated the combat strength at his disposal, unable to help slightly frowning. "The Ancestral God Tomb is guarded by thirty-five immortal spirits; there might even be a Marquis-level powerhouse among them. With just this little military force in my hands, I might not necessarily be able to take it down..."

Over the past two years, Jiang Chen had continuously expanded and mined within the 'Abandoned Land', causing the scale of his mechanical legion to swell rapidly.

The number of E9-grade Gundam mechs had already exceeded 500,000 units.

However, in battles at the immortal tier, while numbers were certainly important, high-tier combat power was equally crucial.

Originally, Jiang Chen had thought that slowly clearing out the 'isolated' immortal spirits outside would quickly increase the high-end combat power in his hands.

Of course, this objective had indeed been achieved, but it had not yielded the optimal results Jiang Chen initially expected.

Out of the forty-seven immortal spirits, twenty-uprising individuals had self-destructed, leaving behind no corpses whatsoever, and even costing Jiang Chen one of his precious immortal puppets.

Although Jiang Chen's current combat strength was by no means weak, it still fell quite short of his initial expectations.

"Master, a coordinated attack by 500,000 Gundam mechs, with their firepower compounding together, will produce a truly staggering destructive force. Those ordinary immortals will absolutely not be able to withstand it." Jarvis reminded him.

"But doing that would surely mean we won't be able to preserve those immortals' corpses! The immortals guarding the Ancestral God Tomb have most likely all consumed the 'Blood God Fruit'." Jiang Chen said with conflicted emotions.

The logic Jarvis pointed out was naturally clear to Jiang Chen.

However, an overly powerful attack would simultaneously destroy the 'spoils of war' along with the enemy.

Jiang Chen's objective was not merely killing; it was seizing the corpses of these immortal spirits as well as the 'Blood God Fruits' residing within their bodies.

If even the corpses were pulverized into nothingness, what spoils would there be left to seize?

Jarvis reminded him once more, "Among the Ancestral God Tomb, the 82 immortal remains are far more valuable. For the sake of these 82 immortal remains, even if those thirty-five guards protecting the Ancestral God Tomb leave behind no spoils of war, it is entirely worth it."

"I understand, I'm just feeling it's a pity." Jiang Chen sighed, then spoke, "Rest assured, I can still tell what is more important."

Rather than gaining nothing at all, it was better to destroy a portion of the 'spoils' while firmly grasping another portion of the benefits in his hands.

The journey passed in silence.

A few days later, the spaceship returned to the 'Abandoned Land'.

Following two years of management, Jiang Chen had already brought the entirety of the Abandoned Land under his control.

The entire continent had become Jiang Chen's resource extraction site and arms factory.

As for the indigenous people who originally lived here, Jiang Chen merely dispatched mechanical legions to monitor them, preventing them from contacting the outside world beyond the continent.

Beyond that, Jiang Chen made no further interventions.

Although the population of the Abandoned Land was not as massive as the other two continents—not even amounting to a fraction of them—it still numbered in the tens of billions.

Jiang Chen simply could not bring himself to casually slaughter tens of billions of people.

The spaceship crossed the greater part of the continent and landed inside the base.

The remains of several immortal spirits were directly handed over to Jarvis for processing and modification, to be forged into immortal puppets.

Over the past two years, Jiang Chen's technology for modifying immortal puppets had become quite mature, and it would not take long to complete them.

"Jarvis, the modifications are left in your hands." Jiang Chen gave the instruction, then asked, "With the resources we currently hold, if we go all out in mass-producing troops, how large of a mechanical legion can we manufacture?"

"Currently, we already have 4,500 fighters and 530,000 Gundam mechs. As for the remaining resources, if we hold nothing back and utilize the master's 'alchemical array' to convert the materials, we can manufacture approximately 80,000 more mechs."

Jarvis cautioned, "Master, after two years of all-out extraction, the shallow-layer resources of the 'Abandoned Land' continent have been mostly depleted. While deep-layer resources still exist in considerable amounts, the extraction difficulty is much greater and takes significantly longer. If we leave no resources whatsoever, repairing damaged mechanical units after the next battle will become troublesome."

Large-scale, rapid extraction capabilities were a necessity for any powerful civilization.

Yet for individual powerhouses, unless they deliberately followed a '军团流' (legion-style) route, none possessed such capabilities.

Of course, this was not a problem for Jiang Chen.

The low cost and relatively simple manufacturing processes of engineering-class machinery allowed Jiang Chen to quickly field a massive 'mining corps'.

It was only because the planet Visca was truly gargantuan in scale that it had taken Jiang Chen two years just to acquire all the shallow-layer resources of a single continent.

If it were an ordinary planet, hollowing out the entire world would not even take a few days.

"The extraction depth has already reached over twenty thousand kilometers?" Jiang Chen checked the data, a look of surprise crossing his face.

The difficulty of mining ore veins also depended heavily on the environment.

Given the conditions on the planet Visca, the extraction difficulty was quite high.

Imbued by the universe's primal energy and subjected to immense gravity, the soil layers and rocks of the planet were exceptionally hard to begin with.

The deeper one went, the higher the mining difficulty became. Beyond a certain depth, one even needed to use drills made of E-grade alloys just to break through the rock.

Over twenty thousand kilometers was already a rather difficult threshold to cross with Jiang Chen's current resources and technology.

Without extensively upgrading the mining mechanical units, the limit for extraction on this planet was three thousand kilometers underground.

Any deeper, and even machinery capable of effortlessly mining E-grade metal veins would be unable to bite into the deeper crust.

"It seems the value of this continent has reached its limit." Jiang Chen calculated mentally; the resources extracted from the 'Abandoned Land' exceeded even his initial estimates.

It was equivalent to nearly 300 million Hunyuan units.

And this was merely the shallow-layer resources.

One had to remember that for any planet, the closer one got to the core, the richer the resource abundance became.

Jiang Chen did not even dare to imagine what terrifying amount of resources could be extracted if the planet Visca were completely hollowed out.

Naturally, given the special nature of the planet Visca, truly hollowing out the entire planet would be a catastrophic waste of heaven's gifts.

The true value of this planet lay not in those ore veins, but in its unique primal energy composition and the 'Blood God Fruits'.

"Master, should the remaining resources be kept in reserve, or used to expand the mechanical legion?" Jarvis inquired. "If we expand the mechanical legion, it will take roughly a month to convert the resources into combat forces."

"Keep them in reserve; we aren't short of those tens of thousands of mechs." Jiang Chen shook his head and instructed, "Take inventory of consumables like energy blocks and ammunition, and let me know early if supplies are running low. Once the immortal puppets are finished, launch an attack on the Ancestral God Tomb as soon as possible."

"Understood, master!" Jarvis complied immediately.

Following a tense inventory check, Jarvis reported a list of 'consumables' that needed replenishment to Jiang Chen.

This included energy, ammunition, backup fragile components, and so on.

However, the shortfall was not large, and with the arms factory operating at full capacity, it was settled in a matter of days.

By the time all consumables were replenished, the immortal puppets had also been fully manufactured and integrated into the ranks of the mechanical legion.

Before setting out, Jarvis confirmed with Jiang Chen, "Master, are you certain you wish to deploy your true body in person? Having your clone lead the majority of the legion into battle might be a better choice."

"No matter what, the Void Dragon Mech must be brought along. Without this mech, relying solely on immortal puppets and the mechanical legion cannot guarantee the capture of the Ancestral God Tomb."

Jiang Chen said calmly, "Without the Void Dragon Mech, there is no meaning in my true body staying behind. Should I encounter powerful enemies, I wouldn't even have a chance to escape. It's far better to head into battle directly alongside the main forces. My Mechanical Affinity and Mechanical Overload can also buff an extra batch of mechanical units."

Aside from special traits like [Triple Soul Transmutation] which could only be utilized by his true body, Jiang Chen's remaining traits were shared between his clones and his true body.

Having his clones and his true body appear on the battlefield simultaneously would double the quantity of units enhanced by Mechanical Affinity and Mechanical Overload.

This provided a massive boost to the combat power of the entire mechanical legion.

When Mechanical Affinity and Mechanical Overload stacked simultaneously, the combat power of a single mechanical unit could skyrocket by over five thousand times.

Even a regular Gundam mech buffed by this could leap to become one of the primary combat forces of the mechanical legion, possessing the strength to contend with ordinary immortals.

"The resources of the Abandoned Land have been practically mined dry, so there's no need to continue guarding this place. Pack up and retrieve everything that needs to be taken away as quickly as possible. All engineering machinery, production and processing modules, including stockpiled ores of various types, must be retrieved back into the world ring." Jiang Chen issued his command: "Regardless of whether this battle succeeds or fails, we must maintain the highest degree of mobility."

"Understood, master." Jarvis calculated for a moment and immediately provided a schedule: "To completely retrieve all units will take sixteen days."

Jiang Chen nodded slightly, took a deep breath, and said in a deep voice, "Then sixteen days from now, we march on the Ancestral God Tomb!"