"Come on, let's say hello first!"
Li Zhenlong rolled his neck, elongating his staff into a guandao modeled after the Azure Dragon Crescent Blade.
*Looking down upon all rivals!*
His already simmering battle thirst underwent an instantaneous transformation. An overpowering martial intent surged from him, radiating an aura that declared: *With blade in hand, who else could compare?*
Merging his true martial intent with the rule of strength, Li Zhenlong let out a domineering, low shout and swung his blade toward the warship.
It was a peculiar slash, for Li Zhenlong himself released not a shred of energy. Under normal circumstances, attacks launched by Mighty Ones comprised rules, energy, and will. Rules altered the property of energy while heightening its destructive force, and will guided that energy, causing it to reshape itself to one's thoughts.
Yet this strike contained only rules and martial intent, devoid of any innate energy.
Even so, its potency revealed itself immediately. Countless streams of floating, drifting, and solidified energy lingering in the Tree Universe converged rapidly toward the blade's trajectory as though drawn by an irresistible pull.
In an instant, an immense blade light spanning tens of light-years manifested. As it hurtled forward, it continued to expand, gorging upon vast quantities of ambient energy to relentlessly amplify its destructive power.
The moment the blade light appeared, countless pinpricks of light ignited along the starboard flank of the *Mechanical Empire*. An instant later, a dense deluge of photon rounds erupted outward.
The blade light collided with the photon rounds, sparking a chain reaction of explosions.
Neither Li Zhenlong nor the *Mechanical Empire* suffered the slightest effect from the blast; to them, it was little more than a brilliant firework display. Yet whenever Mighty Ones clashed, misfortune unfailingly befell the neighboring realms.
The instant the explosion erupted, several nearby worlds were shattered on the spot by the sheer shockwave.
Li Zhenlong let out a booming laugh. Gripping the guandao in one hand, he shot toward the *Mechanical Empire* like a sword unsheathed. As he pierced through the flames of the detonation, a female gynoid flew straight toward him.
She was dressed in black Gothic-style attire, but wore a miniskirt so short that from another angle, one could even catch a glimpse of her panties.
Wielding an exceptionally long katana, she crossed paths with Li Zhenlong in a fraction of an instant.
Li Zhenlong did not even glance back, continuing his forward charge. A split second later, the gynoid snapped violently backward as a colossal wound split across her chest.
*Boom!*
In the blink of an eye, the gynoid detonated, dissolving into a dazzling burst of fireworks across the void.
In the central zone of the *Mechanical Empire*, Margot Moxi snapped her eyes open. The gynoid who had spearheaded that charge had been none other than herself—or rather, a digital avatar.
Before the avatar's destruction, a fragment of data had been transmitted back.
"A martial Mighty One?"
"Perfect. Just what I need to test the performance of the Mechanical Dragon Knight!"
Commanding a swarm of nanobots to carry her forward, Margot Moxi arrived before an elevated platform. Below rested a colossal mechanical dragon.
This was no artificial craft, but a mechanical dragon native to the cosmos. Its hide was composed of interwoven plates of black and crimson metal, thoroughly suffused with the power of dragons.
Though a mechanical entity, it was nonetheless a true dragon recognized by the dragon clan.
After Margot Moxi captured it, she had overhauled and upgraded its core, comprehensively reinforcing its energy supply and power reactor. Originally possessing only the strength of the Hegemon Rank, the mechanical dragon now rivaled a Mighty One, for Margot Moxi had implanted into it the rule power stripped from a Mighty One of the dragon clan.
Yet what truly made Margot Moxi value the creature was its partner.
The Mechanical Dragon Knight!
He had originally been a Mighty One of the Machine Race who roamed the myriad worlds, and the mechanical dragon was his mount. After his data core was infected and corrupted, the Mechanical Dragon Knight had become Margot Moxi's puppet.
It could be said that the Mechanical Dragon Knight paired with a Mighty-rank mechanical dragon boasted ferociously formidable combat prowess, second only to Margot Moxi herself and the *Mechanical Empire*.
At that moment, under Margot Moxi's authorization, the mechanical dragon's previously dim eyes abruptly ignited. At the same time, an armored warrior clad head to toe in heavy plate and gripping a spiraling knight's lance strode out from a corridor.
He stepped squarely onto the mechanical dragon's back. Two dragon whiskers served as reins, settling right into his left hand.
"Go. Show me just how much your strength has grown!" Margot Moxi commanded, gazing down upon the Mechanical Dragon Knight.
A golden glint flared in the knight's eyes as he spoke, "Your Majesty, by my honor as a dragon knight, I swear to slay every invading villain for Your Majesty!"
With that, he flicked the dragon whiskers. The mechanical dragon soared into the sky, rocketing through an open hangar toward the exterior void.
Outside.
Watching the *Mechanical Empire* loom closer and closer, Li Zhenlong shifted from a one-handed grip to a two-handed grip on his blade. He intended to cleave open a breach directly and force his way inside without playing by any conventional playbook.
He knew full well that the warship's interior was fraught with peril and riddled with traps.
Walking in through the front door would only land him precisely in their calculations. Thus, he had no intention of playing along; he would simply smash his way through, rendering all enemy calculations utterly moot.
Ten thousand meters. Five thousand meters. One thousand meters!
Li Zhenlong drew closer by the heartbeat. Suddenly, a hangar hatch slid open ahead. Just as he suspected the *Mechanical Empire* was trying to lure him into a trap, a colossal dragon burst from the hatch, opening its maw to unleash a blistering plasma beam.
*A mere plasma beam...*
*Wait! That's wrong!*
*This is an attack of the Mighty rank!*
At first, Li Zhenlong had paid the beam no mind. He had seen countless such cannons before; against an existence of his caliber, their power was barely comparable to a mortal being pointed at by a laser pointer.
Yet the instant the beam closed to within ten meters, an excruciating agony tore through him.
He had underestimated his foe.
Li Zhenlong thrust his guandao forward, its tip slamming directly against the beam. Clenching his teeth, he was forced into a desperate retreat, his eyebrows and hair instantly vaporized by the blistering heat.
*The Dragon Rule!*
*How could a mechanical dragon possess the rule of the dragon clan?!*
Li Zhenlong's skin blistered and ulcerated, his clothes incinerated in a heartbeat. He was forced back an entire light-year before he finally neutralized the strike.
He had been careless.
Seeing that it was a mechanical dragon, he had assumed it was merely an artificial construct like the gynoid earlier.
Instead, it was a genuine dragon, and one that wielded the Dragon Rule at that! The compatibility between dragon breath and the Dragon Rule was renowned for being an absolute hundred percent, capable of bringing the rule's full destructive potential to bear.
His negligence, paired with the dragon's all-out assault, had nearly cost him dearly.
At that moment, the mechanical dragon charged once more. Following a thunderous roar, the crimson jewel on its chest flared with blinding brilliance, and another torrent of dragon breath erupted from its maw.
"The same trick? You think I'll fall for it twice?"
Seeing the plasma dragon breath screaming toward him, Li Zhenlong sneered and darted aside at blinding speed. At the same time, his Life Rule took effect, rapidly knitting his wounds whole.
Finally, he pulled a bolt of cloth from his storage space to wrap around himself. Weaving through the void in a series of sharp maneuvers, he materialized on the right flank of the mechanical dragon in the blink of an eye.
Yet just as he prepared to strike, the corner of his eye caught a figure: a short man had been standing atop the dragon's back all along. One hand held the mechanical dragon's whiskers, while the other gripped a long, slender, spiraling lance.
*A Mechanical... Dragon Knight?*
The words coalesced in Li Zhenlong's mind. In the next heartbeat, the reflection of a golden lance filled his pupils.
Spinning at terrifying speed, the golden lance plunged straight toward Li Zhenlong's abdomen.
Chapter 700