The Earth Shakes and the Mountains Tremble

It was like the brief silence between claps of thunder. An unprecedented, surging tide was rushing along the earth veins! Yet just how absurdly intense would it be when it struck? Even across such a vast distance, the harbinger was still this violent. Magnitude six? Magnitude seven? Eight? Or perhaps... even higher? In that fleeting, instantaneous fraction of a second, Ji Jue clenched his fist without a second thought. A roar erupted from Lou Feng's temporary workshop. The Prosperity, which had been undergoing precision engineering under the focus of the Star of Bethlehem, shuddered violently, tore free of all its moorings and restraints, and immediately blazed with fierce light. Repulsion cascaded outward like a tide, flipping over everything in its path. "Ji, you—" Caught off guard, Lou Feng was slammed flat against the wall with a splat. He instinctively opened his mouth to swear, but right then he saw a deluge of quicksilver gushing from the ceiling. A roaring ocean engulfed the entire workshop, expanding rapidly and solidifying, filling every gap and cranny of the subterranean space. "Paradise!" Ji Jue whipped his hand around and pointed toward the colossal spiritus nexus above—[Deus Ex Machina]! Instantly, the Paradise system surged into full throttle, fully activating. Every spirit body across the entire system flared into an overloaded state. In the next moment, dense mist surged and erupted, blasting through sewer manhole covers and sweeping down the deserted streets like a flood tide. Thanks to the economic depression and foul stench, there was nobody in public spaces. No chaos broke out at all; people didn't even have time to react. On the main thoroughfares of Luo Island, the few drivers on the road had barely registered their bewilderment before seeing a massive wall of mist advance from the city center, swallowing everything. It was black as pitch, impossible to see one's hand before one's face. It was as if a pair of eyes looked down from the heavens and nonchalantly snapped its fingers; all motor vehicles slammed on their emergency brakes, and their doors locked down tight. Amid the blaring wails of air-raid sirens, martial law and earthquake warnings were pushed to the screen of every cell phone. Piercing alerts chimed in succession, the flashing red screens illuminating startled faces one after another. "Isis." "I'm here." Relayed through the Doomsday Express, the workshop spirit far away in Punabantu integrated fully into the Paradise system, taking over everything. A volley of ruptures rang out. Across the length and breadth of Luo Island, from the downtown center to the slums, towering water-storage tanks were torn apart by an eruption of force from within, spurting blinding, luminous quicksilver. As if dazzling silver blossoms had suddenly bloomed across a pale blanket of mist, the Crown of Isis bloomed atop the curtain. Even more quicksilver, branching into tens of thousands of continuous threads, insinuated itself through the utility conduits, permeating every residential building and large gathering area. Within a few short seconds, sorting and classification were complete. Accessing Paradise's resident registries, every building above five stories was highlighted, along with dilapidated structures slated for renovation. Most vital were the phlogiston reserves and the dozens of gas stations across the city. Meanwhile, water and gas supplies had already been cut off. Countless silver gleams across the surface began spreading downward, flowing along the veins of the sewer network and interweaving. Beneath the earth of Luo Island, they formed dozens of intricate webs, overlapping and interlocking. The myriad filaments merged into tributaries, and the tributaries converged into three main trunks that bored straight down through the heart of Luo Island. Finally, ripping through the earth, the three trunks descended into the subterranean workshop. Right before Lou Feng's eyes, three gigantic pillars plunged from above. Piercing through the workshop, they continued downward amid deafening concussions, hammering deep into the very core of the crust. The spiritus circuits of Vapor Alchemy manifested continuously, the Three Phases circulating as the trick was repeated, latching onto the earth veins. Suspended between the three pillars arranged in a triangular formation, interwoven cords of quicksilver had hoisted Juque aloft—the massive freighter hung like an ornament between the three monoliths, its appearance unutterably bizarre yet oddly familiar. Just like an ultra-colossal... Pendulum? "Wait?" Lou Feng climbed to his feet in a daze, staring at the scene before him. He even forgot to curse; an artisan's instinct took over, and he threw himself into analysis with total concentration. Just from this design and structure, lightning flashed through his mind, and realization dawned: "A TMD?!" Only this time, it wasn't profanity. Right before his eyes was a super-massive tuned mass damper spanning the entirety of Luo Island! But why had Ji Jue suddenly lost his mind and whipped up something like this? Though Ji Jue going crazy was already an everyday occurrence, no matter how routine it was, every past case proved that Ji Jue never lost his mind without good reason. Which meant he believed this contraption was needed, and the need was so urgent there wasn't even time to give a heads-up. In other words... He closed his eyes and sighed. Finding a random spot, he sat down and released the flow restrictions on the spiritus reserves. Finally, he only had time to rub his hands together. Spiritus shaping produced two earplugs, which he stuffed into his ears. In that instant, an unprecedented, terrifying crash erupted from the Prosperity! Yet even before that, what everyone felt was, purely and simply, the earth shaking and the mountains trembling! The world plunged into abrupt silence. Only deafening roars detonated continuously from afar, like the invisible footfalls of a giant trampling downward. Wherever they passed, the seabed fractured, releasing blinding brilliance from the deep abyss. The so-called [Mountain Light]! The vast sea sings high; the great mountains shine bright. The pinnacle legacy of the Desolate Ruins lineage was named after this, manifesting the boundlessness of the Desolate Ruins, the grandeur of matter, and the terrifying might that could upend heaven and earth, overturning all! Fierce light burst from the sea. The vast waters churned like a boiling cauldron, and turbid tides swelled instantly, surging over the coastline and sweeping inward. The earth jolted violently, everything swaying as if shaken atop a rug. The world spun! A crack silently surfaced on the wall beside Ji Jue, snaking upward... On the screen flickering in front of him, the magnitude rating skyrocketed like a rocket. In an instant, it blew past magnitudes one and two, crushed three and four, leaped past five and six, and reached magnitude seven, hurtling toward eight. And then, it came to a screeching halt. As though clutched tight by an invisible hand. Amid the earthshaking upheaval and the dizzying spin, an invisible hand slowly reached out, gripping all creation like a participant in a tug-of-war, locking in a dead heat against the vast surge sweeping in from the distance. Shattering sounds rang out without cease. In everyone's ears echoed consecutive sharp snaps and pops, coming from the quicksilver threads embedded deep within the buildings, twisted around structural frameworks. Like surfing atop rolling ocean waves, they trembled and convulsed relentlessly. Beneath Luo Island, inside the workshop where the three trunks intersected, gale-force winds and deafening crashes billowed incessantly like a tidal wave. Suspended dead center between the three trunks, the Prosperity suddenly let out a deafening crash that sounded like shattering stone. Violent shudders, swings, and rotations. Its massive hull churned up waves of air in the enclosed subterranean chamber, sweeping up countless stray fragments and debris, hurling them upward only for them to rain down again. Just like a tuned mass damper within a skyscraper, as the storm howled through, it swayed rapidly, diffusing that horrifying kinetic energy and converting it within itself. Consequently, the hull turned red-hot in an instant. The entire workshop seemed to have transformed into an inferno. Roaring scalding currents raged, washing over the spiritus barrier before Lou Feng. Sharp shards whistled past, grazing his temples, yet his eyes never wavered. Staring intently at the Prosperity, which was now glowing crimson, he couldn't help but sigh in admiration. "I have to hand it to you." [Immovable as a Mountain]! To be precise, a reverse application of Immovable as a Mountain! The blessing resonance of Immovable as a Mountain distributed the impact sustained by oneself onto surrounding matter. But right now, Juque's inversion did the opposite—it absorbed the terrifying impact hammering Luo Island, gathering the violent energy channeled through the earth veins and drawing it all into its own body. Using its monstrous mass and stubborn material properties, it substituted itself for Luo Island, dispelling the force of this impact to the greatest possible extent. At this moment, bridged by the Crown of Isis, all of Luo Island was linked to the Prosperity. That impact capable of churning the seas and shaking mountains flowed incessantly inward through countless quicksilver cables. Juque acted like a pendulum, mitigating the earthquake's intensity. The skyrocketing magnitude actually showed faint signs of dropping; no matter how violent the shockwaves and tremors grew, it held them rigidly locked at the threshold of magnitude four. Inside the subterranean workshop, explosions went off one after another. Unable to bear the strain, the quicksilver cables suspending the Prosperity snapped one by one. Dispersed quicksilver vapor dissolved into the gale, but new quicksilver cables immediately reached out to twist and bind around it once more. Cracks even rapidly webbed across the main trunks reinforced by Earth Bears and Sea Embraces, though under the Three Phases circulation, they broke slower than they were repaired. The cost? The cost was Lou Feng's spiritus reserves evaporating at top speed. Yet right now, he didn't even have time to mourn his losses. Raising his voice, he roared toward Ji Jue, "Don't let it go to waste, you son of a bitch! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—" Ji Jue paused in surprise for a moment, and his eyes lit up. Their gazes fell simultaneously upon the glowing-red Prosperity, and then, both broke into wide grins. Indeed. What a golden opportunity! Heaven and earth as the furnace, creation as the smith. With the earth veins providing an endless supply of power, Luo Island as the anvil, and the earthquake as the hammer, was this not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?! Though an artisan who still obsessed over keeping work going at a juncture like this had to be more than a little deranged, the bigger the storm, the pricier the fish. Having invested this much already, how could they possibly let it go to waste?! No hesitation, straight to work! Miss this chance, and it's gone for good! As for trivial concerns like the earthquake being uncontrollable or the transmutation being too violent and prone to collapse, there was no need to care about them at all. If you play, don't be afraid; if you're afraid, don't play! Juque's greatest damn strength was how hard it was. No matter how out of hand things got, could it really shatter Juque? Right now, every extra hammer blow was pure profit! "Old Lou, back me up!" With the aid of the curtain, hundreds of quicksilver hands emerged from the workshop. Immediately following that, the spiritus focus of Transmuted Mirror: Star of Bethlehem locked into place amidst the infernal heat! BOOM! An invisible hammer whistled in along the pathways of Immovable as a Mountain, slamming down mercilessly upon the Prosperity like a ten-thousand-ton hydraulic press. Causing a fracture to appear on the hull. Right after, the Azure Jiao's remnant spirit imprisoned within the ship erupted in a venomous screech and thrashed violently. Before it could even lash out, Lou Feng—clad head to toe in a heavy protective suit—lunged forward, extracting its remnant spirit and transmuting it on the spot. One spiritus circuit after another was chiseled from iron and stone, inscribed within Juque's framework, expanding outward. And then—BOOM! Another fracture appeared on the hull, connecting with the previous one. Lou Feng laughed uproariously, giving free rein to his craft. Amid the violent, pendulum-like swings, he threw himself into his work with total focus. The Azure Jiao's hisses, shouts, roars, and even muffled wails sounded continuously, but beneath the relentless, mountain-crushing ravages, it couldn't find the slightest opportunity to resist. It could only be swiftly torn apart and devoured by the Dragon Blood that had long coveted it.