In the past, the Mortal World was helplessly crushed by the Chaos Tide. Every ti a mortal civilization reached its zenith, it would face a hopeless demise.
This cycle repeated an unknown number of tis. That is, until the Ascension of the first Celestial God in recorded history, the Venerable Master of the Azure Heaven, turned the tables.
If Chaos is the Earth Mother, nurturing all of creation...
Then the Celestial Gods are the Celestial Father, who dominates all.
The might of the Celestial Gods could easily protect the Mortal World and contend with Chaos... no, to be precise, it could single-handedly suppress Chaos.
In the face of the will of the Celestial Gods, Chaos was defenseless. If Chaos were not the fundantal source that sustains the world, the Celestial Gods might have eliminated it completely.
Thus, in the present era, while the fight against Chaos remains a top priority for the Mortal World, it is no longer a great crisis of life and death. It has beco more like a formulaic frontier invasion by nomadic tribes.
Even if a Chaos Tide invaded, the greatest harm it could cause would be the fall of one or two Provinces.
As long as the Realms of Order launched an offensive, everything would turn out all right.
Over ti, almost everyone stopped taking the threat of Chaos seriously.
’Only Westheid, with his knowledge of the future, knew that over the past several thousand years, Chaos had never for a mont paused its grand undertaking to "restore the primordial state." It was biding its ti, preparing sothing huge.’
’Since it could never defeat the invincible Celestial Gods, why even fight them? Chaos only wanted to drown the Mortal World, not the Supre Heaven.’
’So why not just sever the connection between the Mortal World and the Supre Heaven?’
’The path forward for Chaos instantly beca clear. The final blow, which had been brewing for millennia, would soon be ready.’
’In the coming era, it would be impossible to rely on the power of the Celestial Gods to resist Chaos. Only then would the Realms of Order learn just how fragile they were without the protection of the Divine Ancestor.’
’Only by pioneering a thod to fight Chaos that didn’t rely on the Celestial Gods could one gain the upper hand. Unfortunately, Qinghui Territory was currently in ruins, waiting to be rebuilt. They would only have the resources to develop their own anti-Chaos technology after rescuing the Pure Holy Spirit, and by then, it would be too late.’
’Compared to developing it himself, Westheid was more inclined to acquire sothing that was already available.’
’As for an organization with extensive research in this area... none had delved deeper than the [Ring of Clear Skies]. Unfortunately, despite having a close discussion with a Witch Apprentice in White Rock City to express his goodwill toward the [Ring of Clear Skies], and despite Liliana assuring Westheid she would pass on Duke Qinghui’s friendly ssage... but based on Westheid’s knowledge of those Witches, they would likely observe from the sidelines for a long ti before making contact.’
Just as Westheid was gazing at the horizon, his mind wandering, Yolanda approached him and spoke.
"Brother, the equipnt we brought is malfunctioning."
The platinum-blonde girl fiddled with the bracelet on her wrist. The data from the bracelet, which was used to test various atmospheric indicators, began to fluctuate erratically before turning into a ss of garbled characters.
"And the weapons and supplies we brought are also showing varying degrees of erosion."
Westheid pulled his thoughts back from his musings on Chaos and nodded.
"It seems this is as far as we get. Any deeper, and we’ll be in the volatile Chaos Domain."
"Let’s stop. We’ll make camp here and set up the forward outpost... Shamuel, I’m counting on you and your people."
The tall, flaxen-haired girl in the gothic black dress skipped over, covering one of her flaming eyes with a hand. She made a couple of soft humming sounds, imitating the crackle and pop of a fire:
"FWOOSH... Friend of the Oath! This is precisely why we of the Shadow Fire have co to help! The Great Chaos Enemy must be scoured and burned to nothing by the pitiless black fla! Hah! From this shore to the next, let the flas purify all! And then... rule over their ashes!"
Westheid smiled. "Yes, without your help, this reclamation would be exceedingly difficult... But please, try not to burn down the entire forest. The Purity Forest is, after all, the Holy Land and ho of my people."
"I, for one, have no desire to rule over ashes."
An embarrassed expression imdiately crossed Shamuel’s delicate, lovely face. Realizing how rude and offensive her words had been, the tall girl shrank back and stamred:
"I... I wasn’t saying I’d burn down the Purity Forest! It was just a taphor... just a manner of speaking!"
But it seed even that explanation couldn’t ease the awkwardness. Shamuel shook her head vigorously, decided to just keep her mouth shut, and scurried off to work with the Shadow Fire Technician contingent.
These artisans and technicians from the Shadow Fla Territory had extensive experience fighting Chaos. They deftly conjured a workbench out of thin air, then began pulling out materials and getting to work.
Westheid waited where he stood for a short while, watching as the group of Shadow Fire Technicians erected a simple outpost out of thin air.
Amidst the surge of dark forge fires and the ceaseless clang of tal on tal, they forged one Magic Power-infused building component after another.
Then, they casually set aside these newly crafted modules and fit them together like building blocks, constructing one hut after another.
There were also walls, watchtowers, and roads... It was completely incomprehensible how they did it. They just seed to randomly CLANG and BANG away with their hamrs, and finished components would just appear. Then, with no need for rivets or foundations, they could directly assemble them into complete structures and machinery.
’This is ridiculous.’
’Westheid had only one assessnt for these "Technician Path" Transcendents: Minecraft players.’
’...It really does seem that to fight Chaos, you need Transcendents from at least two different paths. The support-type professions might even be more important.’
’Because only things conjured by those with Extraordinary Professions could maintain their basic structure within a Chaos Domain.’
’Food, weapons, armor, equipnt—all of it depended on the creations of these technicians.’
’This was also why Westheid didn’t prioritize developing production capacity or pursuing a conventional resource-based strategy.’
’True, the civilizations of the Mortal World developed with incredible speed, especially the Imperial nation and the Celestial Vault Kingdom. So of their anomalous technology was particularly frightening. But to rely on superior production to mass an army and just steamroll through? That was just wishful thinking.’
’Whether it was cannons, firearms, or warships, they were all useless against Chaos unless they had an Enchantnt. Even if you managed to create sothing like a Dual Vector Foil and hurl it into the Chaos Domain, you wouldn’t make the slightest ripple.’
’"Don’t ask why. The answer is just ’ga chanics.’’ No matter how advanced or powerful a piece of technology was, if it wasn’t steeped in taphysical Extraordinary Power, it was just a mundane object... And a purely mundane object could never hope to affect Chaos, which ford the very essence of the world.’
’Once inside a Chaos Domain, they would be warped—iron turning to earth, water to fire. The very form and properties of matter would shift multiple tis a second, changing faster than a player compulsively swapping weapons in a shooter.’
’This was the Chaos Domain, where all laws are in flux. To maintain any semblance of constant Order within Chaos, one had to use Extraordinary Power for protection—even though the essence of Extraordinary Power was itself just a refined form of Chaos.’
’The enemy and oneself sharing the sa origin was a popular trope one just had to appreciate.’
"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP—"
While the Shadow Fire Technicians were hard at work, their construction site buzzing with activity, the first Detector they had crafted suddenly blared.
"Brother, a wave of Chaos Creatures is coming towards us!"
Yolanda imdiately found Westheid, who had been watching the Shadow Fire Technicians work with rapt attention, and spoke with a grave tone.
"Perfectly normal. I’d be more worried and surprised if all this commotion *didn’t* get a reaction from Chaos."
Westheid showed no surprise. This was standard procedure for any campaign to conquer Chaos: you furiously build up your base while simultaneously fending off the counterattacks of the Chaos Tide.
Yolanda asked, "Should we activate the newly built turrets? They should be able to eliminate them from a safe distance."
"There’s no need for that!"
Duke Qinghui picked up [Shadow-Born] and declared with a wave of his hand:
"Focus our resources on building the base. We don’t have enough supplies to be squandering ammunition. It’s just a small wave—I’ll deal with it myself!"
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