When that command rippled out from the core of Li Tianming's will, spreading throughout the entire Rust Sea, Lia was the first to perceive it.
She clutched her chest abruptly. Beneath her protective suit, her skin broke out in fine nanite ripples, and her always-clear eyes reflected the throbbing of the entire sea. "You..." She looked at the man beside her, her voice trembling with disbelief. "You've become their 'Node'?"
Li Tianming didn't answer. His eyes were closed, his body suspended on the energy platform within the Primordial Void, yet his consciousness had already diffused outward. He no longer needed to "see"; within the Rust Sea, all things were his senses. He "heard" the ancient Divine Skeletons buried in the abyssal depths roar dully under his command, their rusted joints turning for the first time after eons of silence, churning up monstrous waves; he "felt" the drifting nanite clusters, like docile schools of fish, begin to rearrange and recombine according to his will, constructing new, aggressive forms.
"In the name of the Rust Sea."
He whispered it in the depths of his consciousness,his voice carried across the entire domain via the nanite network.
---
Above the Rust Sea, aboard the bridge of the Scavenger mothership "Plunderer", strident alarms instantly shredded the previously orderly atmosphere.
"Report! Abnormal energy readings! The seabed... multiple ultra-high-energy reactions are rapidly rising from the seabed!"
"Detecting large-scale loss of control in nano-activity!They're forming... structures?"
"Impossible!The Rust Sea's nanites only consume chaotically, how could they possibly..."
Before the captain could finish, a "mountain" pieced together from wrecked ship hulls, nanites, and the bones of some massive creature erupted from the waves directly beneath the mothership! It was not a natural formation, its shape twisted and vicious, like a colossal claw reaching up from hell, carrying an aura of absolute destruction as it slammed toward the mothership's ventral engines.
Simultaneously, the three Blade of Judgment Titans, radiating their dark golden divine light like gods, faced an unprecedented assault. The space around them seemed to "solidify"; countless fine nanites, like activated dust, constructed invisible barriers that not only severely restricted their movement but also began frantically corroding and penetrating the dark golden divine light shrouding their bodies. The divine light and the corrosive power of the Rust fought fiercely, emitting the nerve-grating sound of annihilating energy.
"It's domain suppression!" the commander within the lead Titan roared with shock and fury. "This Rust Sea... it's alive! It's rejecting us!"
---
Back on the platform in the Primordial Void, Li Tianming slowly opened his eyes. Deep within his pupils, it was as if billions of nanite stars were being born and dying.
"They were wrong," he spoke to the empty void, and to Lia beside him. "The Rust Sea never died. It was only waiting for a will strong enough to command this overwhelmingly vast power."
Lia looked at him as if truly seeing him for the first time. The K-017 brand on the back of her neck warmed slightly, a resonance of the homologous power being fully activated. "Are you... still Li Tianming now?" she couldn't help but ask, a trace of barely perceptible fear in her voice.
"I am the fugitive hunted by the system, the brother who swore to avenge his sister," Li Tianming turned to her, his gaze regaining some of the focus belonging to a "human," but the divine pressure deep within his eyes hadn't diminished in the slightest. "And now, I am also an extension of this Rust Sea's will. These three are not contradictory."
He raised his hand, pointing beyond the energy barrier at the Scavenger mothership and the Titans being besieged by the skeletal claws and the activated Rust.
"Look, Lia. This is the power they fear. Power that exists outside the system's code, born from ancient ruins, representing... infinite potential."
At his fingertip, a stream of pure rust-colored energy coalesced, no longer the dim blade of light from before, but condensed like liquid metal, coursing with ancient runes originating from the First Design.
"And potential," he said, his voice dropping, "is meant to break 'established rules'."
As the words fell, the energy at his fingertip shot forth, not towards the enemies outside the barrier, but into the depths of the platform beneath their feet.
The entire Primordial Void—no, the entire interior of the Divine Skeleton—shook violently once more. But this time, it wasn't a precursor to collapse, but a deeper level of... awakening. The darkness in the deeper recesses began to recede. More slumbering ancient runes were lit up one after another, as if a truly colossal behemoth was opening its eyes after an eternity of sleep.
Li Tianming, feeling this boundless power intimately connected to his own will, whispered:
"The feast has only just begun."