Li Qing came to the glass window of the laboratory.
The Tower of Babel had grown another level taller.
The third level had appeared.
It looked like an imperial wonder of civilization, as though it were gestating something.
Now that the Tower of Babel had reached its third level, Li Qing could more or less make out its external structure.
It was actually shaped like an ancient Huaguo pagoda—a multi-eaved, octagonal tower, similar to the demon-suppressing pagoda carried by the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King. Windows dotted the successive tiers, brimming with the charm of ancient architecture.
"Ridiculous. Why is their Tower of Babel so structurally similar? Is it really just a coincidence?" Li Qing mused. The century-defining wonder built by hundreds of billions of people across their entire civilization had to possess the most perfect design, the shape that best suited their requirements.
Before long, someone else approached from the distance. The infiltrators had come again—a group of church knights.
"Great God!" The Pope arrived with a group of cardinals, fanatical beyond belief. They had probably already turned this into a daily pilgrimage, a regular church ceremony for paying homage to God.
They began discussing the recent events.
Ever since the [Divine Descendant Holy Knight Order's Border Miracle Battle], the entire kingdom had been utterly shaken.
The bloodline bestowed by God.
The divine artifact granted by God.
These were symbols of divine authority, chosen mortals watched by the whole world. In the battles between the two sides that followed, the formidable power bolstered by divine blessings made people tremble with fear.
On top of that came the deterrence of Judgment Day and the mysterious surveillance of the cameras. More and more civilians began to fear the might of God and secretly defected to the church faction they had established.
Now.
They had already reached the point where even the entire empire had to face them squarely. Great Emperor of Atabia regarded them as a grave threat.
At this point.
Divisions had begun to appear among the populace.
And Li Qing could indeed see the fruits of their efforts now.
This time, they had secretly crossed the border without being subjected to a large-scale pursuit. It was clear that their power had completely flourished, and that people within the empire had secretly converted and become their agents!
As for this, Li Qing found it only natural.
Brute-force extinction could not make people submit. Spiritual extinction was the most terrifying weapon of all!
Moreover, those doctrines contained the distilled essence of countless philosophical truths: integrity, trustworthiness, and sacrifice.
They had no spiritual culture, so immersing themselves in it was only to be expected. They increasingly recognized their own "original sin" and yearned for God's salvation.
By now, quite a number of people had begun shouting, "Welcome the descent of our Lord! With a tyrant in power, this corrupt and fallen world needs salvation!"
The stubborn Atabians were not always so unyielding after all.
A trace of a smile appeared on Li Qing's face. Death could not make them submit, but faith could. That was the most terrifying sickle of all.
The Pope said fanatically, "Great True God, we have already seized control of one-tenth of the empire's power. Overthrowing the tyrant, Great Emperor of Atabia, is just around the corner!"
"However, they seem to be ignoring our infiltration. Knowing that the gods are blessing us, they understand that the people's defection is unstoppable, so they have focused all their attention on the Tower of Babel. They seem to firmly believe in the might of this Godslayer artifact!"
"But precisely because they have relaxed their control, we will soon be able to completely overthrow their rule!" The Pope grew even more fanatical.
Although Li Qing did not think toppling the strongest man of that era would be so simple, he merely left them with one sentence: "I have always been with you."
Then he began opening his eyes again.
One second.
Two seconds.
The Popes once again received God's baptism.
"This is!?"
"God's baptism!"
The new believers also became fanatics during this baptism.
He gave them a few sweeteners, then incited the foolish commoners at the bottom to oppose the wise sages at the top. After watching for a while as part of his daily routine, he felt there was nothing more worth seeing.
The entire Atabian populace had concentrated their efforts on the Tower of Babel. To these flea-sized humans, constructing a colossal sky-piercing tower equivalent to Mount Everest was no small feat.
He did not leave. Instead, he sat down by the living-room window, a good seven or eight meters away—far enough that they could not detect him.
He logged into his account.
Amazingly, more than 1.7 million views had accumulated in a single day, and there were quite a few bullet comments.
[That's amazing. The creatures in Cthulhu and R'lyeh look kind of similar.]
[What is that enormous white pillar in that section? It pierces the clouds in a holy manner—is that where Cthulhu is sealed?]
[It's so exquisite! A mythic, epic-style city—the water, humans, and building models are flawless! This crushes all the game CG special-effects teams!]
[Boss, you're awesome!]
[Wait, why hasn't the camera angle changed this whole time?]
[Idiot! That makes the technology even more impressive. What more could you ask for? It's an aerial view of an entire city, with people moving inside. You can even see some knights fighting and crowds walking around. It's practically a real city!]
[I downloaded the full version. Ten minutes takes up more than a gigabyte. The precision is insanely high, and every frame is a gorgeous high-definition wallpaper. If you zoom in, you can even see the myriad forms of the people on every street.]
Li Qing read through them one by one in his spare time.
They certainly knew quality when they saw it.
But then he discovered that many people had left messages in his comments:
"Bad news, UP! Someone stole your video!" "Someone has taken your hard work!" "You forgot to add a watermark to your video."
"Watermark?" Li Qing froze for a moment before opening a video link in one of the comment sections.
The video from this marketing account had actually zoomed in on a street from the aerial map of the ocean city, cutting out the scene and freezing the frame on an Atabian.
[Pay attention. This woman is called Xiaomei. She lives in the underwater city of R'lyeh. She has lived here for seventeen years. She walked out onto the street and got into a fight with the handsome guy next door. She is a fanatical follower of Cthulhu and has devoted herself to secretly awakening the Evil God Cthulhu...]
Then the viewpoint continued following them as Handsome Guy and Xiaomei mounted their exoskeletons and began fighting in the street.
"..."
Li Qing fell silent for a moment.
But this was merely an ordinary Atabian resident's everyday battle. He had suddenly written it into something strange and full of narrative appeal.
He clicked on another one.
The screenshot showed a patrol captain on a street.
[Pay attention. This general is A-Qiang, the leader of the city of Alaya. He is leading his troops on patrol. He has just received word that some cultists are hiding in the city, and a clash is about to begin...]
Li Qing watched for a while.
His original aerial video covered an enormous area, and even after zooming in, the streets remained perfectly clear.
The marketing accounts did not simply plagiarize it. The original was merely a dry but beautiful moving scene, so they picked one person from a street, enlarged and cut out the footage, invented a story, and narrated what they saw.
There was even a particularly slick marketing account that made one episode of narrated imagery out of each street. It had produced more than ten episodes without repeating a single scene, while the story even connected from one episode to the next. It was absurd.
Li Qing felt speechless inside. Looking at these marketing accounts for the "R'lyeh Urban Series," he was not particularly angry.
If it had truly been several hundred hours of his hard work, he would have been furious!
But he had merely recorded it casually.
That did not stop him from playing the victim to boost his popularity. He casually posted a pinned comment:
"Waaah, I'm in so much pain. I forgot to add a watermark, and they actually stole my hard work! You must remember that this video is the original source!"
Then he left it at that. Yet he discovered that many people were sending him private messages, interested in the technology.
Some game companies wanted to invite him over.
Some film companies wanted him to make CG for them.
Li Qing could not even be bothered to respond. No matter how much troublesome money they offered, he would not take it.
His attention fell only on the private messages from some major uploaders. They cared about their reputations and wanted to use this to make videos, so they asked for his authorization.
Li Qing replied to them one by one. It was possible, but they had to pay.
The other side was basically quite agreeable.
An hour later, the money from the video's views had not arrived, but Li Qing had already earned more than ten thousand yuan.
"This quick money isn't bad."
Li Qing had considered uploading another video and blasting the popularity even higher.
But after thinking it over, he decided against it. He had only been playing around in the first place.
His ambitions did not lie here.
Having money was enough. He would laze around for a while before deciding what to do next.
Besides, one video had taken several hundred hours of painstaking work. He could not rush another one out so quickly. Going too far would also easily attract attention.
The next morning.
He got up as usual to wash his face and brush his teeth, then opened the surveillance feed again to check on the laboratory.
The sight left him feeling as though heaven and earth had been overturned.
Previously, they had built only two or three levels of the tower a day. Now, they seemed to have completely overcome the technical difficulties. A towering structure had risen from the ground overnight, reaching eighteen levels.
The tower was as white as jade, piercing through the clouds above the seawater like a sugarcane stalk thrust into the ground.
At the same time, his undercover church had left a small secret signal for him on the entire glass Crystal Wall.
It hinted that the situation was dangerous—a sign that the decisive battle was about to begin.
"The Atabians must have realized that something was wrong. The mortals on the ground are rapidly splitting apart, each following their own faith. The king is about to accelerate the construction of the Tower of Babel and finally begin the decisive battle in earnest."
Li Qing was astonished. After thinking about it, he decided that since their church was going to fight the decisive battle, he had to lend them a hand. If they could bring down Great Emperor of Atabia and put his own believers in power, then he would truly be able to enjoy himself.
"At last, I can see some hope." He did not even have time to eat breakfast. Grabbing the World-Ending Tools he had prepared, he went out.
Before you continue