Chapter 106: Uprising in the Upper City

City 14 — the border between the Upper City and the Middle City.

Towering walls divided the Upper and Middle Districts. Heavily armed patrol units stood guard at the perimeter, their presence commanding. Residents from the Middle City occasionally glanced up at the imposing walls, eyes filled with envy.

And beyond those walls… were two completely different worlds.

If the Middle City already resembled a metropolis of the future, then the Upper City was a full-blown work of science fiction.

On the ground, vast green parks stretched across the city—an expansive natural paradise that occupied nearly all of the Upper District, a luxury in a world where every inch of land was precious. Rare and exotic beasts roamed freely through the lush landscape.

But the true residential area of the Upper District floated in the skies nearly a hundred meters above ground. Countless levitating islands hovered in the air, scattered with graceful disorder.

Each floating island was its own miniature world: medieval castles, futuristic towers, magical strongholds, noble estates—nothing was lacking.

There were no “civilians” in the Upper District. Every resident here held immense power or unimaginable wealth. And because of that, the hierarchy among the islands was just as rigid—those who resided on higher islands held almost absolute dominance over those below. The class structure was suffocatingly strict.

Beneath the still night sky, Lu Yan cloaked himself in invisibility and flew silently along the border between the Middle and Upper Cities. His black robes shimmered faintly—etched with Heaven’s Code in spirit energy.

Now that he understood the necessity of instigating a conflict between the Upper District and the AI God, Lu Yan decided to act personally.

Thanks to Heaven’s Code shielding him from the AI God’s perception, Lu Yan no longer had to move as cautiously as before when entering the Upper District. With that knowledge in hand, he felt far more confident.

The surveillance cameras on the city wall scanned the skies above. Under normal circumstances, Lu Yan’s invisibility would’ve been detected instantly. But with the black robe imbued with Heaven’s Code, the system completely failed to register his presence.

Flying swiftly through the air, Lu Yan passed into the Upper District with ease.

Following intel gathered by his portable AI assistant, he quickly located his first target: Klein, the Director of Supervision for City 14 under HuanYu Corporation.

Klein was a high-level spirit energy user—powerful, but more importantly, he was backed by a member of HuanYu’s board of directors. Even in the Upper District, he was a major figure.

Rising several hundred meters into the sky, Lu Yan soon spotted a floating island resembling a military base—Klein’s residence.

At this altitude, Lu Yan stopped using his invisibility.

Although Heaven’s Code could fool surveillance systems, it wasn’t guaranteed to deceive high-level spirit users.

Raising his right hand, he summoned a Fierce Ghost from his soul banner and handed it a set of documents—compiled information detailing the AI God’s creation of the Soul World.

The ghost, clutching the data scroll, dove into the building and slipped quietly into Klein’s office.

Inside the floating military island, Klein was lounging on the sofa when a sudden disturbance caught his attention. His keen spiritual senses flared—someone had entered his home.

With a scowl, Klein leapt to his feet.
“Who dares trespass on my turf?!”

He rushed to his office, where he found the door ajar and the window wide open. A scroll-reader sat conspicuously on his desk.

After confirming that it wasn’t a trap, Klein opened the device. His expression changed drastically as he began reading its contents.

Ten minutes later, Klein boarded a skycar and soared toward the higher floating islands.

Watching this from afar, Lu Yan nodded with satisfaction. Then he ordered the Fierce Ghost to select its next target.

Naturally, Lu Yan wasn’t going to rely on Klein alone. The more people who knew about the AI God’s plot to harvest reality by constructing a Soul World, the faster he could rally a formidable resistance.

Under Lu Yan’s direction, the Fierce Ghost distributed the scroll-readers one after another. All two hundred were soon delivered to their designated targets.

With that done, Lu Yan was ready to return home and wait for the storm to begin.

Boom!

A thunderous explosion shattered the tranquility of the night sky. Lu Yan turned toward the sound—one of the floating islands, a gothic castle, had just erupted in flames.

It was one of the very locations where Lu Yan had planted a scroll-reader.

Before he could investigate, another explosion rocked the sky—this one even more intense. Fiery debris rained down as the floating island was split in two and plummeted toward the ground.

Like toppling dominoes, a chain reaction of explosions erupted across the Upper District.

Almost every building where Lu Yan had delivered a scroll-reader had now been destroyed.

“This is… the AI God already noticed?!”

These floating islands were technological constructs. The AI God, in control of all intelligent systems, could easily wipe them out along with everyone inside.

Lu Yan was stunned. To avoid detection, he had embedded Heaven’s Code into every scroll. Theoretically, the AI God should have been blind to them.

Yet the response had been swift and devastating.

“There must’ve been a traitor… or perhaps a faction that’s already loyal to the AI God?”

Lu Yan’s heart pounded. He hadn’t expected his plan to be compromised this quickly.

And then—on one of the destroyed islands—a pillar of spirit energy surged skyward.

A powerful high-level spirit user emerged from the flames, spirit energy radiating from his body like a raging inferno.

“The AI God feeds on us! And you still do nothing?! Will you really just wait until the day it harvests you like cattle?!”

With a roar, another burst of spirit energy erupted from a nearby floating island. A second spirit user stepped forward, voice echoing through the skies.

“We must reclaim control from the AI God!”

One more ray of spirit light shot upward.

“I can’t say whether the information is real or fake. But one thing is certain—we must conduct a full investigation of the AI God!”

“I agree!”

“I second that!”

“A full investigation is necessary!”

As more high-level spirit users revealed themselves, the night sky seemed to boil with unrest.

And then—a sudden, overwhelming pressure descended.

From the highest island, a radiant figure emerged, cloaked entirely in spirit energy, blazing like a living sun.

“It’s Director Prang!”

“We have to reason with Director Prang! He’ll understand!”

Amid the collective fervor, Lu Yan’s expression didn’t brighten in the slightest.

His eyes fixed on the figure in the sky—and in Director Prang’s hand… was an object.

A severed head.

The head of Klein, the very first person who received a scroll.

(End of Chapter)