Chapter 619 — The Iron Throne

The holographic projection cast by the Magic Web terminal glowed softly, sketching a strange atmosphere blending fantasy and technology into the room after dusk. Gao Yang sat before the communicator, listening earnestly to Kamael's report from the laboratory in the rear.

"...Pi Yun has confirmed that the high-tier crystal giants are transformed from clerics of the Church of the Final Death. We cannot rule out the future appearance of 'commanders' transformed from other superhuman beings, but at the present stage, the fanatical Final Death believers are the core upper echelon of the crystal legion..."

"Crystal giants transformed from ordinary people have smaller bodies and lesser strength. Their capacity for thought—or rather, their remaining sanity—depends on higher-tier individuals to sustain it. There is a curious relationship of dependence between superior and inferior crystals. Lower-tier crystal giants are capable of thought, but their thinking is incomplete..."

"Pi Yun and I are in agreement that this unique connection among crystal giants indicates they possess some degree of 'telepathy.' Commander-level crystal giants may be able to control nearby units through this telepathy, or sense the state of distant crystal legions, but this sensing is not very clear and decays sharply with distance. This conclusion was drawn after several controlled isolation experiments."

"Upon losing their commander, lower-tier crystal giants rapidly weaken and lose their sanity, degenerating into monsters acting purely on instinct. Complete weakening takes about an hour, while sanity is cut off from the very beginning..."

Gao Yang listened to Kamael's report without missing a single word, his brow occasionally knitting and occasionally smoothing.

Thanks to the researchers in the rear, the soldiers fighting at the front no longer faced an unknown enemy. As more and more infected samples were sent to the rear, and as Kamael unlocked those memories from the Gondor era, the various characteristics of the "divine-scourge infected" were finally unveiled before the world.

Beside Gao Yang, the attending knight Philip Qian wore a thoughtful expression: "A degree of telepathic ability... no wonder they could organize a large-scale pursuit of Suo Jilin in such a short time, and maintain such high organization without conventional scouts or messenger units..."

Gao Yang looked at this knight—still young, yet increasingly a mature commander: "What are your thoughts?"

"The crystal's telepathic ability is a troublesome advantage for us. It means their information flow on a small-scale battlefield is not the least bit slower than ours—perhaps even faster," Philip pondered very seriously. "But clearly their telepathic ability is also quite limited. The command system built upon it is relatively chaotic and vague, and not impossible to deal with. Moreover, I think that compared to the advantage brought by telepathy, the enormous flaws in their organizational structure are the real key."

Gao Yi nodded slightly: "As long as we destroy the command nodes, they will rapidly collapse. Mindless monsters are far easier to deal with than organized soldiers."

"I will work with my adjutants, staff officers, and the think tank to formulate a viable tactic," Philip said with a solemn face. "If it works, our rate of advance will certainly accelerate further."

Gao Heng could not help but feel some emotion: with Byron no longer beside him cracking jokes, Philip's mental efficiency when pondering tactics had clearly shot straight up. He had probably saved the thread of the comic sidekick to use for tactical planning...

Then Kamael continued reporting the rear's research findings: "In addition, we have observed and compared the magical reactions and erosion levels in divine-scourge carriers and mutants, and reached a preliminary conclusion regarding the 'ritual power' that causes them to mutate from carrier status to mutant status—it is related to divine interference."

Gao Yun drew a soft breath: "So it really is the power of the gods..."

"I have discovered activated divine-scourge factors within the bodies of infected who have fully mutated into crystal giants. Although due to equipment limitations I cannot fully isolate them, I can determine that they have undergone trigger activation. Just as the ancient Gondor Empire extracted flesh and power from the Giant Stag Amon to create the first generation of divine scourge, the Church of the Final Death must also have its own 'energy source' to reactivate those divine-scourge factors that had already become recessive genetic elements. Thus far, although no direct evidence has been found, we can theoretically conclude that the Church of the Final Death has already grasped some kind of divine power, or a substitute for divine power..."

Gao Yang's expression was utterly calm, without the slightest surprise.

Even before this disaster erupted, he had already realized that the Church of the Final Death was brewing some astonishing scheme behind layer upon layer of dark curtains, and had vaguely guessed it was connected to "gods." After all, the initial fall of the three great dark cults was clearly intertwined with the divine realm in a thousand ways, and that their ultimate goal pointed toward gods was hardly surprising.

And afterward, in his conversations with Tyr, the information leaked by that siren—who possessed rich experience in eating and cooking within the field of god-devouring—made Gao Yang's conjecture all the clearer. For this reason, he had even asked Tyr in advance to make some preparations, to cope with the possible terrible dark scheme involving gods.

Now, Kamael's research had finally provided certain evidence from the empirical direction: the Church of the Final Death had dragged "god" onto this battlefield.

This placed enormous pressure on Gao Yang, but he was not thereby driven to despair.

The power of gods is terrifying to mortals. If a wrathful true god truly descended, then perhaps Cecil really would be powerless to resist. But could the Church of the Final Death bring a true god down to help them fight? Obviously impossible. At most they had found flesh remains similar to those of the Giant Stag Amon and activated a portion of their vitality, or used artificial forbidden arts to create some kind of powerful monster possessing partial divinity. And whichever possibility it was, since those heretics had created it using human magic, it was certainly not something that could not be destroyed.

If even heretics could control it... it must at least have a health bar, right?

Even if the Church of the Final Death had created a living "artificial god" that Cecil's cannons could not destroy, there were still Tyr and the sirens behind her who could help. Those deep-sea salted fish might not be able to deal with a true god (though they ate Storm Lord sashimi all day long, what they ate was, after all, unresisting corpses), but as the great ancestors of a fallen empire possessing trans-era technology, dealing with a "tainted" fake should be no problem at all.

Add to that the fact that Gao Yang had once come into contact with the battle reports of the "God-Slaying Fleet," and that in his previous life he had been an atheist, and when facing problems in the domain of gods, he might be nervous, might be cautious, but would always retain a certain margin—though at the present stage this margin might be nothing more than mysterious self-confidence.

But at least it was still confidence.

What Gao Yang was curious about was what Philip would think upon learning of the forbidden power the Church of the Final Death might hold.

"I have no particular thoughts," this young knight said with a solemn face after hearing Gao Song's question. "To obey the monarch's command is a knight's duty; to protect the territory and the people is also a knight's duty. On that premise, I only care about where the enemy is, not who the enemy is."