Overload

Shortly after Su Ming returned to the Pansy, the Bone Machine First Battalion and Bone Machine Second Battalion, which were deployed at the farthest point of the battlefield, also withdrew one after another and began to board the ship.

The drone's overhead view showed that after "recaptured" Goldglint Fortress, the goblin guard did not launch a large-scale pursuit, but instead built defenses on the spot and repaired the fortress's damaged fortifications.

They only sent out a few small groups of troops to try and probe the enemy. The Pansy's guns immediately gave them a "friendly" warning, and more than seventy shells exploded in the midst of the pursuers, the huge shockwaves freeing a large number of goblins from their misery.

"Why are they being given such good treatment?" Su Ming asked, puzzled. It was only a thousand goblins, yet they were being subjected to such a dense barrage of fire.

The duty officer in charge of dispatching looked embarrassed. "Guild Master, I reserved 500 shells to hold off the enemy during the withdrawal phase. But the goblins were so incompetent; they only sent this many."

Su Ming understood; reserving more ammunition for the final stage was the right thing to do. But these 203mm shells made by the dwarves wouldn't be of much use even if they were taken back.

"Find some troops within range to use," Su Ming said, "They're getting off easy."

"Yes!"

On the other side of the Feather Race's defensive line, after leaving behind various peculiar defensive structures made by the halflings on the ground, they easily broke off contact and returned to their landing point.

"Organize all troops to board the ship in an orderly manner!" Su Ming instructed. "The rearguard battalion is responsible for covering the rear!"

"Yes!" the dispatch center responded immediately.

About an hour later, the last batch of troops also stepped onto the deck. Those undead troops that were originally considered to be abandoned in case of emergency were also brought back as much as possible.

Members of the deck crew began dismantling and retrieving the long, narrow bone landing bridge.

The three Feather Race supply ships cast off their moorings one after another, their sails billowing in the sea breeze, and slowly sailed away. Once they were out of a safe distance, the four pod propellers at the stern of the Pansy flipped 180 degrees, roaring and stirring up surging white waves, and the massive ship reversed, leaving the beach behind.

The goblin leadership clearly sensed the Final Bone Mad Machines's intention to retreat. However, after witnessing the terrifying power of the ship's cannons, they ultimately did not dare to pursue them relentlessly.

As a result, Su Ming was able to save the rocket reserves that were originally intended for use as a rearguard action to block the enemy.

The Pansy smoothly sailed away from the shallow waters, and the color of the seawater below the hull changed from murky yellowish-green to azure blue.

On the shore, a goblin reconnaissance squad attempted to approach the shore for observation. The MK71 naval gun rapidly adjusted its muzzle, and a shell whistled out at a near-horizontal angle, tearing the squad and the reef where they were hiding apart, turning them into a shower of bloody remains.

Su Ming and Zijin stood side by side on the open-air platform outside the bridge, the sea breeze caressing their faces, watching the final stage of this massive landing operation be successfully completed.

"Go get some sleep," Zijin said softly, looking at Su Ming's bloodshot eyes. "You haven't closed your eyes since last night."

With such a large-scale and interconnected landing operation, Su Ming, as the core commander, had been on high alert the entire time. Now, as he suddenly relaxed, a wave of fatigue washed over him.

He waved to Zijin, preparing to turn around and return to his room to rest. Suddenly, countless eerie green lights appeared around the ship, dancing like fireflies.

Su Ming was slightly taken aback, then sensed that this was the longing of the dead from the White Bone Fortress. They were extremely satisfied with this "sightseeing tour" of Gray Ridge, and the feedback power from the contract swept over the ship and surged into the White Bone Mark.

The shadow energy flowing within it became even purer and more concentrated.

Su Ming subconsciously turned to look at Zijin, only to find that the girl's expression had changed drastically! She opened her mouth as if to say something, but before she could make a sound, her body fell straight into Su Ming's arms like a puppet with its strings cut.

Inside the medical room at Mimi Hospital, Su Ming looked at the girl sleeping soundly but breathing steadily on the hospital bed, his brows furrowed, full of confusion.

"Soul Capacity overload?" he asked, puzzled.

Stacy grabbed paper and pen and quickly sketched out a diagram. "The Undead Fortress is Zijin's large-scale contracted summon. The Bone Dragon is also one of her summons. All of these require her soul to maintain them."

(Illustrative image included here)

Su Ming nodded. "Zijin once told me that because of her limited innate Soul Capacity, she has to rely on me to share some of the burden—"

"Inherent deficiencies? Limited Soul Capacity?" Stacy rubbed her temples vigorously. "You actually believe her—" She stomped her foot on the bone floor, making a dull thud. "The sheer size of this White Bone Fortress is far greater than all the summoned creatures of all the necromancers on the ship combined! And you call that limited Soul Capacity?!"

Su Ming then realized the problem; sure enough, in the scholar's evaluation system, anything she said as "bad" or "inappropriate" was considered offensive.

"Insufficiency" – we need to first examine what standards she's using!

"You did share some of her burden, but the source and core pressure of the contract are still transmitted through Zijin," Stacy continued to explain.

Su Ming pondered for a moment, "It's like a person pulling hard on a rope to help a donkey pull a cart. Although they share the traction, the weight of the entire cart ultimately rests on the donkey's back."

"A very vivid metaphor," Stacy nodded. "That's pretty much the idea!"

"--I'm not a donkey--" A small voice, tinged with dissatisfaction, came from under the covers.

Stacy slapped the blanket without any politeness. "Lie down and rest, you idiot!"

Seeing that Zijin Su Ming felt relieved. Just as Stacy had said, the problem wasn't too serious for the time being.

"Why was the Zijin alright before?" he pressed.

"Of course nothing happened before, but you guys have been getting stronger all along!" Stacy said irritably. "The White Bone Mark is upgrading, the White Bone Fortress is expanding, and Zijin herself is growing stronger too!" She reached out and poked Zijin's forehead. "Now look what's happened, this greedy idiot, she's eaten too much!"

"I'm not stupid," Zijin's voice was muffled, tinged with a hint of grievance. "I've been trying to find a solution, haven't I—" she argued.

Su Ming suddenly realized: Zijin had foreseen this bottleneck, which is why she had been constantly conducting various modifications to the White Bone Mark recently.

"Why didn't you discuss such an important matter with me?" Su Ming's voice carried a hint of anger.

"I thought—there was still time." Zijin's voice was even softer, almost shrinking into the blankets. "I originally planned to start dealing with this as soon as this landing operation was over, together with you."

Su Ming sighed, ultimately refraining from further blame. "So, just now, the feedback from the undead Thought Entity of the White Bone Fortress after fulfilling its wish caused this critical point to erupt prematurely?"

Zijin nodded first, then gently shook her head. She stretched out her fair hand, on the back of which a faint, yet vibrant and chaotic, multicolored light flickered. "Actually, there's also the burden brought by the life element. This was also an accident."

"See? This is all incredibly troublesome!" Stacy spread her hands. "A colossal undead aggregator, life, space—each one is the most troublesome force in this world! Your suicidal tendencies are even more outrageous than Atiya's!"

Su Ming finally understood the situation. "I get it now. Front-end applications are constantly being upgraded in various ways, but the underlying architecture can't keep up."

"--I don't understand your jargon." Stacy waved her hand. "But the most important thing right now is to quickly find a way to remove these unnecessary 'burdens' from Zijin's body!"

As she spoke, she glared fiercely at Zijin.

"No!" Zijin immediately covered half her face with the blanket, leaving only her eyes showing, and stubbornly said, "This is all the wealth we've worked so hard to accumulate!"

"You won't learn your lesson until you see the coffin, huh!" Stacy raised her voice in anger, "You're already on the verge of your limit, if this continues..."

"At most—we'll just give up the bone dragons," Zijin's voice came from under the covers, "But the White Bone Fortress is very important; we absolutely cannot abandon it!"

Su Ming looked at Stacy, "Is there any way to separate the contract between Zijin and the White Bone Fortress and transfer it to me?"

"I don't know," Stacy answered decisively. "Right now, your power systems are like a tightly tangled mess, and it's only getting deeper. There's no precedent to follow in this situation."

Zijin threw back the covers, her expression serious. "Su Ming, this approach won't solve the problem! You're also a master of spatial abilities. Even if you can forcibly shoulder my burden, you'll soon face the same predicament as me!"

The discussion lasted for a while, but after a day of fierce fighting, everyone was exhausted. Stacy, seeing that a conclusion could not be reached in the short term, told them to rest first, while she went to the communication array to discuss this extremely difficult predicament with Chloe.

m*m*

Northern Ice Island, Thousand-Blade Dragon Cliff, in the Rift Tribe ruins cave.

Chloe, wearing a scarf and with her arms crossed, paced back and forth between the rock walls, her shoes making a screeching sound as they trod on the gravel.

It was late, and her companions had all gone to bed. Disturbed by her footsteps, Lanmo slowly opened her enormous dragon eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked in a muffled voice. "Does a scholar with Ashy Drongo also suffer from insomnia?"

Chloe walked to his massive body, sat down against his warm, hard scales, and recounted the contents of Stacy's recent communication.

"When Zijin first took control of the White Bone Fortress, she was attempting to use this path to reach the Saint Rank," Chloe's voice echoed through the empty ruins. "Although she failed, the sheer size of the White Bone Fortress —far exceeding the scope of conventional necromancy—imposed an immense burden on her soul."

"I understand." Lanmo's voice carried a hint of understanding. "When Zijin abandoned the path of the undead and instead sought a breakthrough within herself, today's situation was already predetermined." He pondered for a moment, "The limit to the soul's capacity to accommodate a power system, as predicted by the Scholar Heron, has actually come to pass!"

Chloe turned her head sharply, an incredulous look on her face. "You actually read Heron's thesis on soul science?"

This is no ordinary content; even among academic books, the papers by Scholar Heron are among the most obscure.

Lanmo let out a long sigh. "In this freezing, godforsaken place, the number of books I can find is pitifully small." He glanced at Chloe resentfully. "Su Ming finally managed to get me an interesting gadget, but you only allow me to play with it for three hours a day! All those books you collected—I've already read them all."

Chloe narrowed her eyes, suddenly realizing she had made a serious mistake. Someone who could understand and apply the concept of "entropy," which she herself had yet to fully grasp, was definitely not simple in terms of intelligence and knowledge!

Although Lanmo also had a rudimentary understanding of the concept of "entropy," he was also affected by this force, causing his skin to continuously heat up, making it impossible for him to leave Northern Ice Island.

Chloe slapped her forehead in frustration! So this assistant, with such top research potential, had been treated like a mere laborer all along!

From now on, we must do both simultaneously; we must ensure that neither the transportation nor the scientific research is neglected!

Lanmo continued, "According to the theories of the Scholar Heron, the very existence of that Crystal Dragon has already surpassed the ' Heron Limit, ' hasn't it?"

The colossal dragon slumbering within the ruins, the one that destroyed the Rift Tribe civilization, was six times longer than the largest known dragon in the Taya Plane. Its weight, measured in cubic units, was an astonishing two hundred times greater!

This completely overturned the understanding of the maximum permissible size of living organisms in the Taya Plane. Based on this, Chloe deduced that the Magic Power concentration in the Eden Plane would need to be ten times that of Taya to provide the strength required to support such a huge size.

However, the paradox of the limits of Soul Capacity is difficult to explain. As an authority on soul studies, Heron clearly pointed out that a single soul cannot normally drive such a huge body. Once a living organism exceeds its limits, it will be accompanied by a large number of collapse phenomena.

"Oh right, how could I forget about that!" Chloe had been so engrossed in cracking the Rift Array that she had indeed neglected the research on the Crystal Dragon side.

She looked to the other side of the cave, where, illuminated by the firelight, the grayish-white fossilized skeleton of the Crystal Dragon lay there like a small mountain, emitting a dim light. The crystal clusters on it, eroded by tens of thousands of years, had long since decayed, leaving only the most murky halo.

As researchers meticulously pieced together these fossils, they discovered evolutionary traces on the skeleton of this colossal dragon. The Crystal Dragon was confirmed to share a common origin with other dragons, evolving step by step over tens of thousands of years to reach its current "super-sized" form.

This is definitely a direction worth exploring!

Chloe immediately went to the dormitory area and woke up several researchers who had already crawled into their sleeping bags and were about to drift off to sleep. They were all members of the team responsible for studying the Crystal Dragon fossils.

At the same time, she patted Lanmo's huge head without any hesitation.

"Sleep no more! Get up and get to work!" Chloe's voice carried a hint of excitement. "We need to quickly find out how this Crystal Dragon managed to break through the soul capacity limit!"