Roya strode into the true sanctuary.
Nuwa and the others, however, after their initial shock, gradually sank into deep contemplation.
The terms Ancient Saint Bloodline and Ancient Saint Relic—words they had never heard before—left them all a little bewildered and at a loss.
Roya didn't look any different from an ordinary man, so how could he possess the blood of the Ancient Saints?
And how was this quarter-bloodline even measured?
If this so-called Ancient Saint Relic had only just been opened because of Roya, then what exactly was the place they had entered before, the so-called sanctuary?
And that mysterious voice which had imparted knowledge to them—what was it really?
One question after another surfaced in their minds.
Each of them was a leader responsible for safeguarding and managing populations of tens of thousands—if not hundreds of thousands—within their respective shelter-cities. Possessing wisdom and discernment was the most basic requirement.
Now, seeing the strange behavior of the sanctuary when faced with Royq, how could Nuwa and the others not grow suspicious?
The situation earlier had clearly looked as if the sanctuary feared Royq's overwhelming strength, refusing to open its gates to him. Only after Roya smashed the doors apart did it hastily concoct the clumsy excuse of Ancient Saint Bloodline verification, staging an impromptu performance before finally letting him in.
But if that was the truth, then the so-called Oceanus Star People were put in a terribly awkward position.
It was like having idolized a supposed world-class superstar, only to discover in the end that he was nothing more than a short-video internet influencer.
Not only was the psychological blow immense, it also left behind a lingering sense of having been deceived!
For someone without true power to disguise themselves as a mysterious, mighty existence—what was their real goal?
Nuwa and the others longed to follow Roya into this so-called Ancient Saint Relic, to "behold" for themselves the true face of the so-called Lord of the Sanctuary who had deceived them for so long, and who had nearly become the object of their worship as a god.
Yet reason told them that, at this very moment, what was taking place inside was most likely a negotiation—between the Lord of the Sanctuary and Roya.
And the bargaining chip… was very likely none other than the fate of the Oceanus Star People themselves.
For a moment, sorrow overwhelmed them. They looked at one another, eyes filled with helplessness and bitter resignation.
The weak… truly have no human rights.
As for Roya, he looked at the so-called Ancient Saint Relic with a wry smile.
This wasn't a relic at all—it was nothing more than an abandoned warehouse.
And not even a stocked warehouse, but one already cleared out long ago.
Within the vast space, only two semi-giant mechs remained.
One appeared externally intact, while the other had half of its body utterly destroyed.
Aside from these, the warehouse held nothing else—so clean and bare it looked as though it had been scoured by void scavengers!
If Nuwa and the others knew that their so-called sanctuary was merely a dilapidated warehouse, that their near-revered Lord of the Sanctuary was in truth just some cowardly vermin hiding here, and that their supposed divine statues of the ancients were nothing but mechs wrapped in a skin of mythology—how would they react?
Still, no matter what, these mechs were undeniably battle units far surpassing the technological level of the void scourge. And this was exactly the kind of technology Roya craved most.
He extended a strand of spiritual sense into one of the mechs, though the bulk of his focus remained on vigilance.
After all, someone was still lurking within the warehouse—an entity unwilling to show its true face. Luo Ya's senses couldn't pin down its exact position, only a vague impression of its existence.
In such uncertain circumstances, he naturally dared not immerse all of his awareness into the mech.
Yet even that single strand of spiritual sense soon left him entranced.
The subspace technology employed within the mech was far too wondrous, too intoxicating!
At its chest-core rested a transparent, truncated-pentagonal icosahedron—a polyhedral sphere. This alone was enough to captivate Roya's entire attention.
For this sphere served as a miraculous conduit between subspace and the material world.
Inside the sphere lay subspace.
Outside, the material plane.
Although the sphere was now dormant and lifeless, Roya could easily imagine the unimaginable subspace energies flowing through it, entering the material world to become the inexhaustible source powering all of the mech's defenses and attacks.
And not just inexhaustible—stable, controllable, with an astonishingly high conversion rate!
Even the tiny sliver of subspace energy Roya had once pried open, when fully unleashed into the physical world, carried an intensity comparable to the radiation of a white dwarf star.
If energy on such a scale could be harnessed, stored, and circulated within this mech… what level of destruction could it unleash?
It was almost unthinkable.
What was even more shocking—the way this energy coursed through the mech's systems perfectly mirrored the circulation of blood in a human body!
The sphere was the heart.
The pipelines of identical material spread throughout the mech, thick and thin alike—they were the veins.
The subspace energy itself—blood!
Pumped throughout, driving every function.
The unknown alloys forming the mech's frame acted like muscles, consuming this energy and converting it into terrifying kinetic or weaponized force.
And at the mech's head sat the cockpit, encased in nearly ten meters of armor plating, serving as the second pole where all these energy channels converged.
After scanning the mech inside and out, Roya couldn't help but feel an irresistible urge—to climb inside, to personally merge with it.
To enter the cockpit, become one with the machine.
To ignite the core with his psychic power, opening the passage between subspace and the material plane, to feel that boundless tide of energy surging within his body.
With every gesture, to wield power rivaling the detonation of a stellar core.
Gods would fall before him.
Demons would be annihilated.
Just the thought of it sent a thrill coursing through him!
Every boy carried within him the indelible dream of piloting a mech—and Roya was no exception.
"Since Nuwa and the others were able to model their so-called Ancient Saint Colossi after this mech, that means there must be materials on this planet that can serve as substitutes for its core components.
Even if the energy circulation and conversion efficiency reaches only one-thousandth, or even one-ten-thousandth, of the original… for our warriors, that would still be an extraordinary leap forward!"
After scanning the intact mech once more and confirming it remained fully operational, Roya's gaze shifted with a pang of regret to the broken one.
Weapons of mass destruction like these—there could never be too many. A single unit was far from enough!
If only he could outfit Whitebeard and the other generals each with one… then even the so-called overlords under the Silent King would be nothing more than little brothers in comparison!
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