Just as Gao Gong was playing roles like "mafia boss" and "school bully" at this mechanical conference, the sound of a metal staff striking the ground rang out.
The sound of the metal staff hitting the ground was not loud, and was even somewhat muffled.
Yet the instant that sound rang out, the entire venue—this space that should have gathered countless wills transcending physical laws and been filled with streams of higher-dimensional information—suddenly froze.
All the civilization leaders, whether they took the form of energy vortices, radiant rules, geometric conceptual bodies, or projections existing between reality and illusion, instinctively performed an almost identical adjustment in that same instant, something akin to sitting up straight.
"The conference moderator..."
The thought flashed through countless consciousnesses, but immediately afterward, an even vaster perception swallowed everything.
A pure, overbearing, ancient mechanical force field, seemingly as old as the stars of the universe, descended with the rhythm of the metal staff striking the ground, rapidly filling every inch of "space" in the venue.
"Thud!"
The second strike.
A hallucination seemed to appear before Gao Gong's eyes.
With the sound as its core, boundless metal gravestones spread toward the "distance" beyond the limits of vision.
Each gravestone towered like a mountain, standing silently in the cold void and forming a dead, silent mechanical cemetery stretching to the ends of time and space.
"Thud!"
The third strike.
The oppressive force field surged once more. The illusory mechanical cemetery became even more substantial, even beginning to erode the structure of reality in reverse. Cold patterns and textures resembling metal gravestones appeared across the venue's metal floor, energy barriers, and even the edges of the radiance emitted by some civilization leaders.
This was no longer merely a display of authority. His own power was already capable of seeping into