At first, the sound of shattering was faint.

Slowly, the sounds began to come from all directions.

Mo Ling felt a fragment strike his armor. He reached out and caught it. The shards felt like broken glass.

The pieces were covered in dark rust, their once-clean surfaces now peppered with black dots.

"What is this?"

Mo Ling studied the shard in his hand.

’Where did it come from?’

He looked up and witnessed an astonishing sight.

The protective shield enveloping the entire fortress was continuously crumbling away, as a black mist writhed and lunged at the fortress below.

Through his armor’s optical overlay, a dangerous red glow emanated from all directions. It was so piercingly bright it made Mo Ling dizzy. He knew it was the omnipresent mist.

The Fishmen, meanwhile, were too preoccupied to fend for themselves. The mist had already broken through the protective fields on their armor, boring its way inside to cover the armor itself.

Undulating black tendrils gently caressed the components of the armor, and old rust stains rapidly crept across the runic engravings.

The faintly glowing runic lines were quickly severed. Components instantly failed, jamming themselves between other, still-functional parts.

The armor, which had been perfectly agile just moments ago, became an immobile cage in the blink of an eye. The Fishmen had no choice but to hastily discard the ruined components and retreat with whatever parts were still usable.

Strangely, however, the black mist seemed to have no interest in Mo Ling’s armor.

Mo Ling’s neutered version of the armor didn’t even have a protective field, yet when the mist drifted past him, it was as if it were just passing by, flowing around his armor’s surface without a ripple.

The mist wasn’t violent like it was when attacking the Fishmen; it was perfectly placid around Mo Ling.

His armor was also covered by the mist, but there were no signs of rust, and the runic engravings were completely intact.

When the mist first began its rampage, the communication channel was filled with all kinds of cries for help. But as the Fishmen’s armor failed one by one, the voices grew fainter and fainter, until they vanished completely.

Bathed in the red light, Mo Ling could only hear the chaotic sounds of running around him. People occasionally bumped into him. Before long, his surroundings fell into silence, and the Fishman channel went dead.

Just then, a notification box popped up amidst the red glow, startling Mo Ling.

"Superior account logged off. Automatically elevating permission level. Mute lifted."

’Mute lifted?’

Mo Ling froze for a second before it dawned on him.

’I can talk again?’

He didn’t even have time to be happy before a slew of new notification boxes popped up.

The loud notification chimes that accompanied them made his head spin.

"DING! DING! DING DING DING~ DING DING DING DING DING!"

"Superior account logged off. Automatically elevating permission level. Movement restrictions lifted."

"Superior account logged off. Automatically elevating permission level. Weapon restrictions lifted."

"Superior account logged off. Automatically elevating permission level. Control range increased."

"Superior account logged off..."

"Visitor 500, you now have the highest authority! Please issue a command..."

The "DING DING DING" sounds echoed endlessly inside Mo Ling’s Block head.

"Visitor 500, please select a component patrol mode and designate subordinate account permissions. Too many permission slots are vacant..."

After the flood of pop-ups, Mo Ling discovered that the operating interface before him had undergone a world-shattering transformation. All sorts of functions were now completely unlocked; he even had full access to the fortress’s control systems.

However, when he tried to use them, he found he couldn’t control the Giant Dragon Fortress. A prompt indicated there was too much damage and maintenance was required.

Once he’d collected himself, Mo Ling took a closer look at the notifications and finally realized what had happened.

’I have the highest authority?’

He casually clicked open one of the pop-ups in front of him and read the detailed explanation.

It was only then that he understood.

Apparently, the Fishman system had a substitute mechanism. When armor of a certain rank was damaged or lost, the permissions of a lower-ranked armor would automatically be elevated to take its place.

This was originally designed to prevent certain permissions from being left unmanned after a loss of personnel.

The division of labor within the Fishman Race was very specific, and the absence of certain essential roles could lead to severe consequences. Thus, the system was set up with this substitute mechanism to prevent vacancies.

But now, with all the other Fishman Race’s armor suits destroyed, Mo Ling’s armor—which originally had "prisoner" level permissions—had been substituted up, rank by rank, all the way to the position of supreme Commander.

Mo Ling was stunned when he learned of this mechanism.

’All the other armor suits were destroyed?’

This meant that not a single suit of armor ranked above his had survived. ’Could the mist really be that powerful?’

The armor’s detection screen was now filled with a piercing red light, and he could only occasionally glimpse the flashing silhouettes of Fishmen. Mo Ling had no clear idea of the current situation.

Just then, someone suddenly tapped Mo Ling on the shoulder from behind.

"Come with me."

It was Bai Zhou’s voice!

Mo Ling turned to see that Bai Zhou’s armor was in tatters. He seemed to have expended a great deal of effort just to get behind Mo Ling and was now panting, continuously stripping away the damaged components from his suit.

Blood was seeping from the component behind his neck, but thankfully, that part wasn’t damaged and appeared to still be working.

"This way."

Mo Ling didn’t hesitate. He followed Bai Zhou, bypassing the scattered Fishmen and weaving through the area until they arrived before a small hill.

"Keep going."

Although Bai Zhou kept urging him on, he seemed to be in very bad shape. Not only was his armor hindering his movement, but the blood seeping from the component on his neck was also increasing.

As he followed Bai Zhou, Mo Ling also took the opportunity to study his new permissions.

"Wait a second." Mo Ling stopped Bai Zhou, then placed a hand on the component on his neck.

A flash of light passed, and the component seemed to accelerate, beginning to treat Bai Zhou’s wounds.

Next, Mo Ling found the function to release armor parts and completely detached the components on Bai Zhou’s suit that had become a burden, letting them fall to the ground.

"I couldn’t find the function to release this one," Mo Ling said apologetically, looking at the component still embedded in Bai Zhou’s neck.

"This thing can’t be removed." Bai Zhou shook his head helplessly and raised a hand to carefully touch the component.

Then, he looked at Mo Ling with curiosity. "Your armor still works?"

"Yes," Mo Ling nodded.

"The mist didn’t attack you?" Bai Zhou quickly guessed the reason.

Mo Ling nodded again. "No."

Hearing Mo Ling’s answer, Bai Zhou stared at him in disbelief, his expression slowly shifting from curiosity to confusion.

"You must have heard the Fishman Race say it, right? The more you understand about eternal life, the more the mist will attack you."

"I heard. What about it?"

"So you don’t understand it at all?" Bai Zhou asked, completely bewildered.

"I do understand!" Mo Ling replied earnestly. "It comes at the cost of eternal death. The closer you get to eternal life, the closer you get to death..."

Bai Zhou nodded along as he listened.

However, the more he listened, the stranger his expression became.

Finally, he cut off Mo Ling’s long-winded explanation.

"I was asking *how* to achieve eternal life."

"That’s how..."

"How’s that?"

"Like... that..."

Mo Ling’s confidence faltered as he spoke, his voice trailing off into a mumble...

Mo Ling fell silent.

He was starting to understand why the mist wasn’t drawn to him.