PGVCW 30

Playing God in Various Catastrophic Worlds

Chapter 30: Sword, Come Forth!

The Cangming Realm was fundamentally anchored by several major urban centers. Even though each city was governed by a presiding overlord, their internal governance was generally plagued by varying degrees of chaos. Yet nearly every surviving city maintained regular correspondence with Feudal King Wu's stronghold, regardless of how many carrier pigeons perished along the transit routes. Part of this enduring connection stemmed from the fact that merely fifty years had elapsed since that historic cataclysm, leaving many contemporaries of Feudal King Wu from their youth still alive and bound by youthful sentiments. Another major factor was that Feudal King Wu commanded the most substantial military forces among all the remaining strongholds; everyone firmly believed that even if the entirety of Cangming fell into ruin, the domain of King Wu would be the absolute last bastion to succumb. Moreover, while Feudal King Wu might appear somewhat unremarkable as a descendant of the Imperial Princess, he could still be characterized as possessing valor, strategic intellect, and deep responsibility. Consequently, once a city suffered a catastrophic disaster, the domain of King Wu naturally served as a viable fallback refuge.

Thus, the eight grand city lords and numerous minor lords had never entertained a single specific possibility: that Feudal King Wu’s intellect might have genuinely deteriorated.

"Has Feudal King Wu grown senile and muddle-headed?" "Practitioners of immortal cultivation? Immortal saviors? And we are commanded to treat disciples of the Immortal Sect with utmost ceremonial courtesy?" "We are ordered to assist Immortal Sect disciples in purging mutated flora across our lands and pacify the populace so the common folk are not frightened by these celestial adepts?"

Every recipient of the missives wore an expression of profound gravity. A singular conviction echoed within their minds: their final fallback refuge had lost its collective sanity, leaving them utterly at a loss regarding their future trajectory. Consequently, secret assemblies convened across every surviving city.

"Utterly foolish!" an octogenarian patriarch trembled with suppressed fury. "Has he forgotten the events of fifty years ago so swiftly?! To repeat the self-same catastrophic folly and place trust in such groundless absurdities!" "Does he harbor any regard for the legacy of the departed Imperial Princess Heng, seeing as he remains her sole surviving imperial bloodline!"

Consumed by rage, the elder snatched up a long whip, intending to march directly to King Wu's domain and fight him to the death. Nearby guards hastily lunged forward to restrain the raging patriarch. Given the treacherous road conditions across Cangming at present, the elder would likely have perished as prime fertilizer for the roadside thickets before even stepping outside the city gates.

Restrained and unable to charge out, the furious patriarch brought his heavy palm down squarely upon the city lord's cranium: "You must under no circumstances believe his madness!"

The city lord rubbed his stinging head in stunned silence. Why strike him? He did not even author the missive! Though subjected to unmerited misfortune, he dared not express anger, for the choleric elder happened to be his own biological father—the former city lord. Nursing his aching head with a disgruntled expression, the city lord turned toward his panel of advisors: "Feudal King Wu not only commands us to accord ceremonial respect to these so-called Immortal Sect disciples, but also summons us to convene at King Wu's city to deliberate upon grand strategic initiatives for eradicating the pervasive crop anomalies. What are your esteemed perspectives on this matter?"

The advisors maintained a tense, heavy silence. What perspectives could they possibly offer? Should anyone dare utter a suggestion to usurp the throne on the premise that Feudal King Wu had lost his mind, the irate former city lord would immediately deliver another physical reprimand. Who was unaware that the elder fiercely revered the former Feudal King? Even though she had perished fifty years prior, the elder steadfastly maintained the unwavering conviction that she would eventually return to deliver Cangming from its tribulation. Furthermore, conditions across all territories remained precarious; while Feudal King Wu possessed an enviable stockpile of military forces, staging a coup remained entirely impractical.

After hesitating for a prolonged interval, the advisors finally birthed a conservative counter-strategy: "Embarking on a long-distance expedition for such an uncertain endeavor is hardly prudent. Is Wangtian City not situated closest to King Wu's domain? Why not dispatch a formal inquiry to the two major sects residing there, requesting them to counsel Feudal King Wu against his folly."

Frowning deeply, the city lord produced two additional missives from his garments: "These dispatches originated from the Rice-Excision Sect and the Wheat-Excision Sect. The contents recorded within mirror the directives of Feudal King Wu with absolute consistency."

The advisors lapsed into an even deeper stillness. The probability of one individual experiencing senile dementia versus three separate sect authorities simultaneously descending into identical madness was distinctly negligible. Inevitably, conspiracy theories began to circulate among the assembly: "Could an external faction have subjugated Feudal King Wu and the two sect masters, drafting forged decrees to lure us into a centralized slaughter?"

The city lord scrutinized the parchment scrolls repeatedly, his brow furrowed: "The brushwork appears completely rational, drafted while in possession of lucid faculties. Furthermore, the missives incorporate the confidential cipher mutually established among the major cities in bygone eras—authentication seals verify this correspondence as entirely genuine."

A sense of profound disorientation washed over him: "Could it be... does the concept of an Immortal Sect genuinely exist within this mortal realm?" "Immortal..."

The elder patriarch's countenance registered a momentary blankness. His spiritual gaze drifted backward across fifty rotational years, recalling the epoch when their collective populace burned with fervent hope, staking absolute survival upon ephemeral immortal legends. In those youthful days, he had maintained unshakeable faith in the existence of celestial immortals, firmly believing that the dazzling, miraculous pillars of light were dispatched to ferry the Imperial Princess to celestial ascension. Yet the Imperial Princess never returned. Following the disappearance of the Imperial Princess and the realm's supreme powerhouses, Cangming lost its ultimate protective umbrella, though the terrifying, seemingly endless hordes of monstrous crop anomalies mysteriously ceased their aggressive expansion, granting the surviving populace a fragile window to sustain their existence.

The elder slowly recollected the profound look of helpless resignation etched across the Imperial Princess's countenance prior to her departure. Perhaps that legendary ascension functioned less like a divine blessing and more like a desperate, inescapable transaction—their supreme guardian trading her own freedom to secure fifty years of fragile peace for Cangming.

"There are no immortals! Within this bitter realm, true immortals do not exist!" Reclaiming his focus from the abyss of memory, the elder declared with absolute finality: "No one shall depart! Everyone shall remain securely within their domiciles!"

"Report—!" Two infantrymen rushed into the council hall, their countenances still reflecting profound shock: "My Lord, outside the gates..." "What has transpired?" Every notable figure within the assembly surged to their feet, grasping their armaments in instant readiness for lethal engagement.

Breathless, the soldiers stammered with a mixture of agitation and visceral excitement: "Beyond the walls... celestial immortals have descended!"

Before the city lord could process the report, the elder patriarch seized his whip and surged toward the exit: "Utter absurdity! Daring to perpetrate fraudulent illusions outside my domain!" "Father!" Terrified that his aged patriarch might suffer a physical collapse from excessive agitation, the city lord scrambled in hurried pursuit.

Bursting beyond the administrative threshold, the elder froze atop the primary roofing structure, staring upward in unblinking astonishment. The city lord hastily deployed a scaling ladder, ascending with arduous effort: "Father, what visual anomaly commands your attention?" Reaching the elevated ridge, he discovered his elderly mother positioned upon an adjacent rooftop, instantly generating a secondary wave of cranial throbbing: "Mother, why have you scaled the structural heights as well?"

For parents who persistently clung to the conviction that the cultivation techniques acquired during their youth held genuine metaphysical efficacy—insisting even now that the Imperial Princess had endured for a century and a half while maintaining the youthful visage of a twenty-year-old—the city lord harbored deep, resigned familiarity. Yet his parents possessed advanced physiological aging; at best, their lower limbs retained slightly elevated agility. Observing both parents locked in silent, paralyzed gazing toward the northern horizon, the city lord sensed mounting anomaly and shifted his visual focus outward.

His breath hitched entirely. Hovering near the perimeter was a colossal flying vessel, accompanied by several figures draped in ethereal immortal vestments executing controlled maneuvers upon flying swords, directing bizarre, humanoid entities down toward the terrain below. Upon making ground contact, these humanoid automatons instantly engaged the surrounding mutated flora in violent combat. The local botanical anomalies—accustomed to operating unopposed across the subjugated territory—instantly erupted into furious counterattacks, thrashing their thick root systems violently. Simultaneously, massive arboreal entities and creeping vines within the distant forests mobilized their subterranean root structures, tearing free from the earth to reinforce the botanical assault.

Yet the long-legged mechanical puppets manifested absolute emotional indifference toward the raging flora, executing crisp decapitations with clinical efficiency and stuffing the vegetative remains into expansive industrial storage sacks. Even shattered timber was harvested—chopped into manageable sections to be returned for combustion fuel or material fabrication, addressing a severe deficit of newly manufactured wooden furnishings across Blue Star. Elevated upon the administrative terrace, observers enjoyed a panoramic vantage point overlooking the massive kinetic clash between thousands of android mechanizations and surging botanical swarms.

The celestial disciples—exhibiting the precise aesthetic markers recorded within the intelligence missives—soared above the battlefield upon their spiritual blades, donning obsidian mourning robes specifically configured for combat deployments.

Xia Wang'an operated within the primary combat zone, carving an immediate swath of absolute spatial vacancy wherever she trod, her combat efficiency resembling an overpowered system exploit. Caicai maintained a rearward observation posture, perched atop the robust shoulders of a towering combat companion, continuously releasing specialized arrows imbued with her designated [Archery] capability parameters. Qiuzhuang traversed the active theater while manifesting volatile thermal vectors from her manual appendices, deploying continuous streams of high-intensity combustion characteristic of her [Fire] attribute. Linke operated with absolute invisible lethality, his unperceived spatial pressure instantly severing botanical limbs across his path via refined wind-blade manipulation. Periodically, auxiliary ordnance launched from the aerial flying vessel detonated across dense vegetative clusters, inflicting catastrophic structural damage managed by Yuanning's hyper-accelerated computational processing.

The Five Tongs Squad successfully executed their inaugural official field deployment; within blinking intervals, the vegetative threats massed outside the municipal perimeter were systematically eradicated.

Xia Wang'an retracted her palm from a severed arboreal trunk, casually slinging her 2.8-meter heavy blade diagonally across her back before executing a manual gesture that dissolved the massive weapon back into a minimalist hair ornament. Re-securing her locks, she offered a casual critical assessment of the municipal sector: "This environment functions precisely like a beginner training zone within an online role-playing simulation." Linke maintained a subdued expression, concurring quietly: "The operational difficulty remains unchallengingly pedestrian."

Caicai and Qiuzhuang—experiencing actual combat deployment for the inaugural occasion—radiated unmitigated elation: "The engagement proves highly entertaining, though my appetite stirs for roasted provisions." Qiuzhuang produced several ears of roasted corn from her storage inventory, distributing them among her companions: "Sustenance provision—processed entirely via my thermal capability parameters; highly aromatic."

Masticating the roasted corn, Xia Wang'an surveyed the extensive landscape littered with sanitized botanical remnants: "Do the auxiliary strike teams encounter identical operational parameters?" Caicai responded affirmatively: "Presumably so; they were deployed to secure alternative urban prefectures. One queries when regional communication relay towers will achieve total infrastructural deployment." Yuanning's auditory feedback transmitted via neural link: "Logistical personnel deficits remain restrictive; the mechanical engineering divisions are actively manufacturing automated relay-construction androids." Relying exclusively upon sub-twenty ability operators to execute sustained infrastructure engineering remained structurally unfeasible; assigning young combatants to combat deployments generated high psychological engagement, whereas manual infrastructural labor fell outside acceptable operational parameters.

Presently, equipping each squad with a qualified pilot capable of managing the flying vessel represented the maximum yield achievable through accelerated academic testing protocols. For instance, the Pit-Fire Squad possessed adequate operational point credits; however, their collective academic standing fell into critical failure. Managing complex subjects such as Aerodynamics, Engine Structural Mechanics, and Flight Control Systems thoroughly shattered their adolescent romantic ideals, confining them to native dimensional facilities to undergo intensive tutorial remediation under mutual surveillance. Recalling this precedent, Qiuzhuang experienced profound gratitude regarding her assignment to the Five Tongs Squad, where she could comfortably divest operational stress without academic burdens.

Contemplating her operational environment, she roasted an additional corn cob, transmitting it via Linke's [Wind] vector upward to the flying vessel for Yuanning's nutritional intake. While the frontline operatives enjoyed temporary respite, Yuanning maintained continuous high-intensity operational management—directing android logistics, deploying reconnaissance drones, and simultaneously rendering dynamic visual special effects across the active combat zone. When Xia Wang'an obliterated surrounding flora via her massive blade, Yuanning projected simulated sword-qi visual effects across the perimeter. When Linke executed invisible wind strikes, complex Daoist Bagua arrays were visually rendered across the spatial matrix. Caicai's projectiles received aggressive predatory visual enhancements, while Qiuzhuang's thermal projections incorporated surging draconic motifs. The overarching operational objective remained absolute: maintain the theatrical illusion of a cataclysmic, high-intensity martial engagement regardless of actual combat simplicity.

Atop the administrative rooftop, the assembled city leadership remained paralyzed in stunned silence, their ocular faculties riveted to the roasted corn cob that had mysteriously ascended vertically into the upper firmament.

"Lord City Lord... it appears Feudal King Wu's dispatches conveyed absolute objective reality." "What element constitutes objective reality?" "Those Immortal Sect disciples... they exhibit genuine flight capabilities, catastrophic combat metrics, alongside that monumental flying vessel..."

The elderly patriarch stubbornly maintained verbal resistance: "Aerial displacement proves nothing; does achieving levitation equate to true immortal status? Furthermore, our garrison forces—provided we accept catastrophic casualties—could ultimately achieve botanical subjugation independently."

Even as he articulated the declaration, a violent subterranean seismic tremor erupted beneath their feet, causing the assembly to stumble hazardously across the sloping roof tiles.

"Catastrophe!" The city lord, maintaining observational focus toward the distant horizon, registered blood draining rapidly from his facial features as massive billowing dust clouds surged skyward. "Catastrophe! The vegetative entities inhabiting the perimeter mountain ranges have been systematically agitated!"

The primary structural rationale governing their historic policy of ignoring peripheral crop encroachment extended far beyond simple military manpower deficits. Geographically positioned adjacent to expansive vegetative zones, eliminating localized incursions inevitably triggered aggressive territorial reinforcement responses from adjacent arboreal colonies.

"A Famine Tide... has fully consolidated..."

Every countenance within the assembly dissolved into solemn, rigid despair.

Simultaneously, within the immediate theater, Xia Wang'an perceived the subterranean tectonic resonance, rotating her physical frame to evaluate the dust plumes, her countenance finally illuminating with authentic gratification: "As anticipated—how could the tactical analysis directorates allocate an assignment lacking adequate developmental challenge?" She had specifically requested the most hazardous operational vector available.

"Wang'an, what operational directive shall we execute?" Qiuzhuang exhibited preliminary physiological hesitation as she confronted the titanic advancing tide. Protracted endurance engagements represented severe tactical liabilities, particularly for junior operatives possessing baseline Tier-1 capability rankings.

Xia Wang'an applied a gentle downward flex of her plantar surface, projecting her physical frame into vertical levitation: "Ascend toward the upper strata." Linke instantly cast spatial [Wind] parameters around his companions, enabling synchronized blade-ascension.

From the administrative rooftop, the leadership cadre stared in unblinking disorientation as the youthful operatives launched vertically into the firmament.

The city lord articulated a hollow inquiry: "Are they executing a strategic retrograde withdrawal?" The advisors exchanged despondent glances: "Appears empirically verified..."

Abandoning the theater entirely after initiating a catastrophic Famine Tide seemed an unforgivable betrayal of operational responsibility. Yet the elderly patriarch and his spouse maintained unwavering composure, lifting their gazes toward the upper atmospheric tier: "Unlikely to constitute tactical retreat; the operational profile mirrors an imminent escalation of combat methodologies."

Xia Wang'an maintained zero intention of tactical withdrawal. Even divorced from specialized visual enhancements, she remained entirely indifferent toward Famine Tide surges; should the necessity arise, she possessed the physical capacity to execute continuous lethal combat across a twenty-four-hour temporal window. Historical precedents of analogous operational scales were well-documented within her operational archives.

Yet contemporary parameters afforded a vastly superior methodological vector optimized for maximum aesthetic impact.

Under the direct observation of the assembled multitudes, Caicai and her companions completed their ascent back toward the primary flying vessel. Xia Wang'an remained suspended within the upper vacuum, her physical platform anchored by a meticulously rendered Daoist Bagua spatial array ([Visual Special Effects]).

The acoustic resonance of her vocal delivery cascaded outward across the domain: "Boundless celestial forces." "Heaven and Earth impart absolute legal decree."

Xia Wang'an executed intricate, highly complex mudra hand-gestures, her ocular focus radiating unwavering, resolute intensity. This concentrated psychological projection involuntarily seized the attention of every terrestrial observer, forcing their expressions into synchronized somatic tension.

"Sword, come forth!"

Following Xia Wang'an's thunderous vocal proclamation—

Directly behind the colossal flying vessel, a dense, infinite array of razor-sharp flying swords materialized spontaneously via spatial generation, rapidly expanding until they occupied virtually fifty percent of the visible firmament. Countless gleaming metallic blades suspended themselves in absolute silence across the void, casting freezing lethal radiance under the solar illumination.

What magnitude of visual spectacle was unfolding before their eyes?

The civilian populace and administrative leadership stationed across the metropolitan sector collectively suspended respiratory function, paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of the celestial phenomena. The aerial weapon arrays appeared visually sufficient to encompass the spatial volume of the entire municipal territory.

High above, the youthful maiden attired in billowing immortal vestments extended a delicate manual appendage, directing her index coordinate toward the advancing Famine Tide: "Execute!"

—Whoosh!

—Whoosh!

Accompanied by the razor-sharp velocity of metallic mass tearing across atmospheric barriers.

Thousands of luminous flying swords cascaded downward with catastrophic kinetic velocity, plunging directly into the heart of the advancing Famine Tide.