I take life very seriously. Chapter 91: A Kaiju-Level Monster, Part One

Within two seconds, Wine’s speed had surged again to eleven times the speed of sound. At that pace, before the Eight Trigrams Formation could weaken him by half once more, he would already have reached the southern town and begun burrowing underground to seize the energy sphere. By then, even Zhang Mingjing might not be able to kill him.

Zhang Mingjing wanted to pursue him at thirteen times the speed of sound, but the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model stopped him.

“Why won’t you let me chase him?” Zhang Mingjing asked, puzzled.

“You speed up, and he speeds up too. Leaving aside whether you can catch him, your energy will certainly be exhausted first. Yet by the end he still has considerable reserves left, so if you chase him, I’m afraid you’ll lose more than you gain.”

“Then what do we do?”

...

Because Zhang Mingjing and Wine were both moving at several times the speed of sound, the whole affair unfolded like lightning and thunder, so swiftly it was almost dazzling.

Almost at the same time, Zhang Yidao asked Xiao Nüxia, “Can you meditate on an Eight Trigrams pattern?”

Xiao Nüxia said, “I’ve watched you drawing charms and laying out trigrams for more than ten years. What’s so hard about that?”

“Then hurry and meditate on one!”

Before Zhang Yidao had even finished speaking, Xiao Nüxia had already completed the meditation of an Eight Trigrams pattern.

Zhang Yidao had, by habit from his old days of catching ghosts and drawing talismans, thought of the formation as if it were a charm. Since one charm could not deal with a demigod, then another could be added. So he had Xiao Nüxia instantly conjure one in meditation.

In an instant, Zhang Yidao thoroughly examined the Eight Trigrams pattern in Xiao Nüxia’s mind and found it to be perfect and meticulous, practically identical to the one in his own mind.

He could not help but sigh, “Truly someone close to me! To love the house is to love its crow—she even knows the Eight Trigrams I cherish so well.”

Moved, Zhang Yidao had already linked the Eight Trigrams in Xiao Nüxia’s consciousness with the one in his own, and as expected, because they were so in tune, the two patterns harmonized beautifully and immediately resonated.

Zhang Yidao began helping Xiao Nüxia apply the Qian position of the Eight Trigrams in her own consciousness onto Wine’s body, and Xiao Nüxia cooperated with great care and seriousness.

A miracle soon appeared: Wine’s rate of energy loss doubled, then tripled, and finally quadrupled. Two seconds later, his flying speed had fallen to seven times the speed of sound.

Zhang Mingjing and the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model immediately learned the reason from Zhang Yidao’s consciousness, and they were astonished, admiring, and delighted all at once.

According to another, more scientific explanation, Zhang Yidao had just discovered that the Eight Trigrams Xiao Nüxia had meditated upon was highly compatible with the one he had meditated upon, so he instantly superimposed the computational power of the two formations, and as expected, the result was flawless.

After that, because the combined computational power of the two formations was being applied to Wine, one plus one was greater than two. This greatly accelerated the stripping away of Wine’s energy, while also providing two formation spaces in which to store it, so Wine’s weakening accelerated exponentially.

At last, Zhang Mingjing suddenly accelerated. Two seconds later, he rammed into Wine, who was moving at seven times the speed of sound, at thirteen times the speed of sound. With a deafening crash, Wine was sent plummeting toward the ground at supersonic speed.

The instant he hit the ground, besides a thunderous boom, the tremendous impact caused the space-time monster code within him to lose its will in an instant; it could no longer perform the transfer art. Zhang Mingjing had long ago had the Little Overlord, the War God, and the Defender satellites seize this fleeting opportunity and deliver a fatal blow to Wine and the space-time monster code...

In the end, the moment Wine smashed into the earth, more than twenty laser beams fell from the sky and incinerated him and the space-time monster code into ashes.

...

Overall, the battle had gone very smoothly, and Zhang Yidao had also gained quite a bit unexpectedly. He not only realized a new use for the Eight Trigrams Formation, but also developed Xiao Nüxia’s Eight Trigrams.

Finally, Zhang Yidao transmitted all the energy stored in the two formations into Zhang Mingjing’s armor.

...

But just as Zhang Mingjing was flying home in high spirits, the Little Overlord sent new information.

The message said that two crocodiles, apparently blackened by the space-time monster code, had swum into the Indian Ocean and gone directly down to the seabed, disappearing soon after.

“They had not even finished mutating, and had only just begun when they went so deep to hide. They were especially cautious this time,” Zhang Mingjing said after reading the message.

“Mm. The space-time monster code always learns from experience. I suspect they have gone to meet other monsters somewhere on the seabed, and before long they will merge into another great beast,” said the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model.

“I’m not afraid of monsters now. What I fear is that one day a terrifying demigod will suddenly pop out.”

“Against monsters, we have kept winning, and we’ve grown more and more skilled at dealing with them. But don’t be careless. Remember that the enemy also mutates and improves based on every battle, and the scale of those improvements keeps growing.”

“Mm.”

...

When Zhang Mingjing returned home, he told Catherine and Jeremy in detail about the entire battle that day. Both of them were also greatly astonished, and both said they definitely wanted to try this new combat method next time.

Ever since the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model learned that Zhang Yidao had helped Xiao Nüxia develop her own Eight Trigrams Formation, it had been extremely excited. It urged Zhang Mingjing to encourage Zhang Yidao to optimize the formations he and Xiao Nüxia used, so they could have greater storage capacity.

Zhang Mingjing still had many doubts about the Eight Trigrams Formation, one of which was how it could store so much energy.

The Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model told him, “Three-dimensional space itself is an unimaginably vast storage space. And the Eight Trigrams Formation stores energy not only by using three-dimensional space, but also by using multidimensional space, just like your armor. That is how it can store so much energy. This also fully proves that the Eight Trigrams connect to higher dimensions.”

“Then what is the highest dimension it connects to?”

“How would I know?”

A moment later, the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model said again, “Your cultivation has recently stalled. It seems you’ve encountered a significant bottleneck, so I think you may be able to use the Eight Trigrams Formation to improve your strength, and also use it to optimize your armor.”

But it and Zhang Mingjing did not know that this beautiful wish would not be fully realized for the time being.

At this moment, in the Fifth Dimension, the elders had once again begun discussing Zhang Mingjing and the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model.

They had already discussed the matter several times before, but had never reached a consensus.

Then one elder said, “We have already issued a command program to the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model forbidding it from studying Zhang Yidao’s cultivation system. If we also order it not to study the Eight Trigrams, then I’m afraid it will truly have very little potential left to exert in the three-dimensional world. How else can it help Zhang Mingjing and the others deal with the space-time monster code?”

“Yes. If the sun cannot be decoded in time, and these space-time monster codes are not eliminated step by step, it will bring unimaginable disaster to humankind. That outcome is far worse than the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model doing a little something out of line!”

“In my view, the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model is easy to control. After all, its life is in the hands of the Cosmic Secret System. So rather than exhausting ourselves trying to control it, we would do better to spend some effort limiting the upper bound of Zhang Mingjing’s progress!”

These words seemed like a bolt of lightning, instantly inspiring the elders.

Then Elder A said, “Exactly! As long as Zhang Mingjing’s consciousness cannot reach the Fifth Dimension, it cannot disrupt our order. So we can set an insurmountable wall before his progress.”

“You mean sealing the upper limit of his consciousness in the Fourth Dimension?”

“Exactly!”

“Isn’t our sealing light precisely suited to this?”

“But he still has to destroy monsters and those demigods. Would such restrictions prevent him from completing the task we gave him?”

Just then, an elder who was entering data on a holographic keyboard said, “I have just completed thirteen thousand calculations. With the help of the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model, Zhang Mingjing’s consciousness reaching the Fourth Dimension is more than enough to destroy those demigods and monsters.”

“Then that’s wonderful!” Elder A laughed.

At last, these elders unanimously agreed to use the sealing light to confine the upper limit of Zhang Mingjing’s consciousness to the Fourth Dimension.

But there was one problem: if they did so, it would be tantamount to violating their own rule against using weapons on lower-dimensional life forms.

At this point, Elder A said again, “Zhang Mingjing actually died instantly in the car accident back then. If we had not decided to give him the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model, how could he have revived in an instant and become a superhero? So can he still truly be counted as a lower-dimensional life form?”

Another elder followed up, “On this point, we have long shared the same understanding. By now, in essence, he is already a product we created.”

“Mm.” All the elders nodded in agreement.

Ah! As they say, rules are made by the strong. If the strong are determined to break the rules they themselves established, it seems they will always find a way.

...

At the bottom of the Indian Ocean, a thousand meters beneath the surface, the two crocodiles that had dived in half a day earlier had already become two enormous crocodile monsters, and they were in the process of merging.

Not only that, but joining them in this fusion were a whale monster, a walrus monster, and three shark monsters. When so many giant creatures merged together, the result was bound to be terrifying. What sort of monstrous colossus would emerge in the end?

At this moment, the tails of the two incomparably thick crocodile monsters, each twenty meters long, were merging into a single tail more than forty meters in length. The fins of the shark monsters and the whale monster were transforming into the unbelievably hard spines of a great beast...

Although the great beast had not yet fully taken shape, it could already be roughly judged to possess the powerful jaws of a crocodile monster, the razor-sharp, unbreakably hard teeth of a shark monster, the thick neck of a walrus monster, the enormous body of a whale monster, skin so hard and thick that cannonballs could not move it, extremely robust limbs, and on its toes claws sharp enough to cut through iron like mud... It was absolutely a Godzilla-class monster.

...

Three hours later, just after Zhang Mingjing had chatted with Zhang Yidao and Xiao Nüxia and stepped out of the house, the War God satellite sent the latest information.

The message said, “At last, an unprecedented super-beast has appeared in the Indian Ocean. It is one hundred and fifty-eight meters long, and its back is covered with black spines...”

After reading the message, Zhang Mingjing roughly understood what the monster looked like. He complained to the Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model, “Looks like we really cannot underestimate these space-time monster codes. They are unbelievably capable of causing trouble!”

The Fifth-Dimensional Thought Model said, “Based on the data, I have made a preliminary analysis. I estimate that this giant monster was jointly created by seven segments of space-time monster code.”

“Seven segments!!!” Zhang Mingjing said, unable to accept it.

“Seven segments! So this giant monster is definitely not just about sharp teeth, astonishing bite force, and hard skin. It must have other trump cards as well. You must be especially careful!”

...