Chapter 1 The Inception

Three minutes after the cargo ship went missing, the news reached Mad Breath Island and the mainland of Y country, but it didn't attract much attention.

It wasn't particularly strange for a cargo ship to be attacked. Although the human defense line had been built, there would always be some stragglers sneaking in. Most people, including those in the upper echelons of Y country, didn't consider this a particularly serious accident.

After all, compared to the massive beast tides of the past, which numbered in the tens or hundreds of thousands, a single giant beast king was hardly a threat.

Rather than spending energy hunting it down, it would be better to devote more time to other matters.

Anyway, a beast king couldn't stir up much trouble...

It was just an insignificant little episode!

That's what most people thought, including Li Tianran.

...

But the way things developed was far beyond everyone's expectations.

Starting with the first cargo ship attack, in the next five hours, there were eighteen consecutive attacks on various transport fleets within the human defense line, and the locations were far apart, but the attack methods were roughly the same!

The targets chosen were resource transport ships without large fleet escorts. There were basically no fierce battles between the two sides. The giant beast kings didn't even show their faces much, but hid underwater, relying on their size and strength to drag the cargo ships to the bottom of the sea...

Finally, such an abnormal situation caught Li Tianran's attention.

If these beast kings that had accidentally entered the human defense line were aiming to simply cause destruction, then attacking cargo ships seemed a bit too trivial. It would be more effective to break into some inland cities near the coastline!

Although these beast kings might lose their lives as a result, Li Tianran didn't think that the apostles of the ancient civilization would care about their life or death.

"These beast kings aren't just trying to create chaos... Their targets are very consistent, all cargo ships loaded with resources. Moreover, we went to the attacked sea areas to investigate and found that those cargo ships didn't sink to the bottom of the sea there, but were dragged away!" Qin Yiming stood in front of Li Tianran, reporting his investigation results to him.

"The sea beasts' target is... the resources on those cargo ships?" Li Tianran frowned. Sea beasts had indeed attacked cargo ships in the past to seize resources, preparing to develop their own technological power.

But with the death of the Sea Demon and the revival of the ancient civilization, these sea beasts had long lost the possibility of rising as a civilization.

And the ancient civilization possessed resources of a higher level and greater practicality than humans, so it was unlikely that they would seize these resources for their own use...

It wasn't sabotage, nor was it the autonomous behavior of the sea beasts, and it couldn't be that the ancient civilization coveted some human resources, so what was the point of attacking these cargo ships?

Li Tianran believed that there must be an apostle behind them directing them, but why would the apostle allow this group of beast kings to risk crossing the defense line and come to the human world to do something meaningless?

He couldn't figure it out. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration crossed his mind, and he asked in a calm tone:

"What kind of supplies were those attacked cargo ships carrying?"

Qin Yiming replied quickly, "Most of them are steel, fuel, and some special alloys for casting evolver weapons!"

"What about the ships carrying seeds, food, and medicine?" Li Tianran asked again.

Qin Yiming shook his head, "So far, we haven't received any news of ships carrying such resources being attacked."

"That's right, I know who's attacking our cargo ships!" Li Tianran suddenly stood up, and he sneered, "I let it escape on the Gulun Nuo'er Great Desert, but I didn't expect it to be plotting against me again!"

At this time, Li Tianran could basically confirm that the mastermind behind the attacks on these cargo ships was the Gale Apostle.

Steel, fuel, special alloys, these things can be used for [construction] and [providing energy]!

Could it be that the Gale Apostle, who had just lost his miracle building, wanted to rebuild a Tower of Babel by plundering some resources from the human world?

Qin Yiming also quickly reacted and understood what Li Tianran meant, but he was a little incredulous, frowning and asking, "Are miracle buildings something that can be easily rebuilt? Power, weapons, electromagnetic equipment, signals... Even with sufficient materials and equipment, it would probably take decades to manufacture them, just to integrate all the functions numbering in the tens of thousands!"

"What's more, the resources possessed by the human world can't meet the requirements for casting a miracle building!"

"Even if the Gale Apostle stole all the resources of the human world, he could only create a semi-finished product at best!"

After Li Tianran obtained Sky City, Qin Yiming had also thought about replicating one, but after careful analysis, he had to abandon the plan.

The reason was simple: the steel and alloys of the human world simply didn't meet the standards for manufacturing miracle buildings. More importantly, the power system, those planetary-level conversion engines that could absorb natural energy, couldn't be manufactured with the equipment humans currently possessed.

Although Li Tianran possessed the Four Seas Dragon King and the Kunlun Giant Ship, which were products of the same level as miracle buildings in some sense, he simply didn't have the ability to replicate them!

To manufacture a miracle building, both materials and technology were indispensable!

Although the Gale Apostle might have the technology to replicate it, the material strength obtained from the human world was too low. To reach the point of manufacturing a miracle building, it would have to undergo higher-precision purification and mixing.

Qin Yiming had once calculated that if you wanted to create a miracle building similar in size to Sky City, you would probably have to add up the total steel production of the human world for a hundred years to be enough!

And that was just the outer shell!

The electronic components inside required even higher material precision. Even emptying the entire human world wouldn't be enough to meet this demand.

In the past, the construction of miracle buildings took hundreds of years for the great apostles.

And in the repeated great destructions, some rare materials had long disappeared completely over the years. It was basically impossible to replicate miracle buildings with the existing materials!

"No... Perhaps the Gale Apostle isn't thinking about replicating the Tower of Babel, but repairing it!" Li Tianran suddenly seemed to have thought of something, turned to look at Qin Yiming, and asked in a rapid tone, "Which country was it that cleaned up the Gulun Nuo'er Great Desert battlefield?"

"Where are the remains of the Tower of Babel now?"

"The battlefield was jointly cleaned up by the Federation and the European Union. Because of the residual radiation in the remains of the Tower of Babel, it took a long time to process... Let me check the report. Oh, right, it was just transported into the human defense line two days ago and should now be parked at SF-550 Combat Base!" Qin Yiming picked up the satellite phone, "I'll contact them immediately!"

He dialed the SF-550 Combat Base's phone with lightning speed.

Once...

Twice...

Three times...

Qin Yiming put down the phone with a pale face, looked at Li Tianran, and said in a trembling voice, "No... No one is answering!"