Chapter 158 All We Need Is to Slay Gods

Every meteorite in the Boulder Starfield was trembling violently.

This wasn't due to the roar of some battleship's thrusters; it was the laws of physics themselves wailing.

The radar screen of the great xia dragon sparrow had turned a blinding deep crimson, so red it was almost black. On it, the red dot representing the enemy unit was no longer a single point, but a terrifying sphere occupying an entire quadrant.

The moment it squeezed out from the cracks of Subspace, the surrounding meteorite belt was instantly dragged toward it by a tyrannical gravitational pull. Thousands of tons of rock carved chaotic arcs through the vacuum, slamming into the black-coated surface without igniting even a single spark before turning into a layer of insignificant dust.

"Probe data reading... mass parameters exceed 1.2 times that of the Moon."

gaia's voice lost its usual lightheartedness at this moment, every byte sounding somewhat sluggish.

"The opponent isn't piloting a battleship. They've pushed a solid metal planet right up to our noses."

divine punishment.

The name appeared at the center of Lin Yuan's vision. It was over twenty thousand kilometers long, with an incalculable thickness. Looking out from the porthole of the great xia dragon sparrow, one could see nothing but that cold, metallic-lustered surface; the starlight was gone. The three-thousand-kilometer-class motherships humanity took pride in were truly less than fleas before it—at most, a grain of sesame floating next to a watermelon.

The massive gravitational differential began to create chaos within the human fleet.

"Warning! Port frigate propulsion system overloaded!"

"Gravitational tides are tearing at our external armor! Gravity compensator power raised to 200%!"

Chen Weiguo gripped the handrail tightly, the veins on the back of his hand bulging one by one. The command platform he occupied was vibrating at a high frequency of dozens of times per second. Had he not taken the gene medicine, this vibration would have been enough to shatter an ordinary veteran's internal organs.

"Is this the foundation of the Mechanical Papacy?" Chen Weiguo stared at the black behemoth blocking everything, his voice raspy.

Responding to him was a voice that exploded directly in the depths of his brain.

It wasn't an electromagnetic wave communication, but a kind of psionic broadcast acting directly on the soul. It was violent, fanatical, and carried a rage that sought to burn all reason to ash.

"Thieves! Heretics! Ants!"

The three words struck the heart of every Great Xia soldier like a heavy hammer.

"I am the Cardinal of the Papacy's Holy Inquisitorial Army—'wrath'."

At the center of divine punishment's massive cross, a translucent holographic image over a thousand meters tall projected into the vacuum. He wore crimson mecha, with countless mechanical tentacles wreathed in lightning extending from his back, each tip dangling the skull of an unknown race.

"You have touched a taboo that should not be touched. Your lowly civilization has been stripped of even the right to be slaves. Hand over the titan's legacy, and I shall grant you intact corpses, allowing your souls to find liberation within the mechanical furnace!"

Lin Yuan stood at the hatch. Although the strong winds couldn't reach him, the pressure from a high-dimensional lifeform cut at his skin like a knife.

He looked up, the dark-gold patterns in his eyes glowing to the extreme.

"These lines are terrible. Does your Papacy not test for literary literacy when recruiting?"

Lin Yuan's voice was pushed back through the dragon sparrow's enhancement devices, echoing in the empty starfield.

"Grant me an intact corpse? You'll have to ask if these iron lumps in my hands agree first."

"Fire!"

With Lin Yuan's command, Chen Weiguo, who had been suppressing his anger, slammed his palm down.

All the gun ports of the great xia dragon sparrow erupted simultaneously. Dongfeng-X main cannons, gravitational wave missiles, and those titan-class light spears freshly pulled from the factory converged into a brilliant torrent of energy.

The three thousand fully loaded ships of the Great Xia fleet also fired at once. In that moment, the darkness of the Boulder Starfield was completely dispelled. Tens of thousands of beams struck the pitch-black planetary surface of divine punishment.

Fireballs rose one after another, each with a diameter exceeding dozens of kilometers.

However, as the smoke cleared, Lin Yuan's face darkened.

A honeycomb-like blue light curtain emerged over the outer layer of divine punishment. The firepower that was sufficient to destroy an entire galaxy's defense line only stirred weak ripples upon hitting this light curtain.

It was as if someone were using a water gun against a city wall; besides making the surface slightly damp, it was useless.

"Damage report, quickly!" Chen Weiguo roared.

"Zero." Academician Wang's voice in the communication channel carried a hint of despair. "All our energy strikes were absorbed by the opponent's shield matrix. That isn't a simple energy layer; it's a gravitational force field established based on planetary mass. Unless we can instantly output enough energy to destroy a planet, we won't even scratch a single black armor plate."

"Try this."

Lin Yuan took out the Dimensional Reduction Grenade from his system space, which he had always regarded as his trump card.

This was the last one.

Without hesitation, he utilized the characteristics of his Void Body to attach his mental power to the grenade. Through a dedicated launch rail, he sent the grey capsule flying out.

The grey sphere of light flickered in the void, accurately striking the cross core of divine punishment.

According to previous experience, as long as this thing exploded, all three-dimensional matter within a hundred-kilometer radius would be compressed into a lifeless sheet of paper.

But just as the grey capsule was about to touch the honeycomb light curtain, a sudden change occurred.

From the center of the previously calm light curtain, a burst of white mist suddenly sprayed out.

Wherever the mist passed, space actually emitted a crisp sound similar to glass shattering. The moment the grey dimensional reduction field touched the white mist, it was like acid falling into strong alkali—rapidly dissolving, collapsing, and finally vanishing without a trace.

"What?!" Lin Yuan's heart skipped a beat.

[Ding! Detected 'Dimensional Solidification Force Field'.]

[Description: The enemy has mastered basic space stabilization technology. This force field can forcibly lock the physical constants of the current coordinates. Two-dimensional attacks cannot forcibly alter solidified space.]

"They are mocking us."

Lin Yuan looked at the screen; the giant image named 'wrath' was letting out a deafening, wild laugh.

"You actually hope to use the authority of gods to oppose gods? Ignorant bugs, let me show you what true 'divine punishment' is."

The center of divine punishment's massive cross began to indent.

Inside the originally pitch-black sphere, a dot of dark red that one could not look at directly lit up. That red dot expanded rapidly, and the surrounding space, unable to withstand the gathering of this energy, had already developed fine black cracks.

Those cracks were swallowing the surrounding light, like a hungry black hole waking up.

"It's charging." gaia's warning sound had almost turned into a scream. "Its attack target is locked onto the central area of our fleet. If this shot is fired, the entire inner defense belt, including Earth, will be vaporized!"

"Old Chen, order all ships to disperse! Fast! Spread out at maximum radius and enter phase evasion state!"

Lin Yuan shouted while turning to rush toward the rear.

"Boss, it's useless." gaia's voice carried a sense of defeat. "An energy release of this magnitude will form an energy fan over a hundred thousand kilometers in diameter. Our ships' speed simply cannot outrun its coverage. Even just the aftershocks would instantly carbonize our outer armor."

No escape.

No blocking it.

A never-before-felt sense of oppression shrouded the entire headquarters. This was the crushing weight of a top-tier civilization—unreasonable and giving no chances. They didn't even need to play tactics with you; they just needed to drive their 'planet' over and press a red button.

"Then we can't let it fire."

Lin Yuan was already standing before the maintenance platform of 'xingtian demon god'.

This twenty-meter-tall dark-gold mecha was not even worth being called dust in front of the massive divine punishment.

"What are you going to do?" Academician Wang keenly perceived Lin Yuan's thoughts, his voice trembling. "You're crazy! You want to rely on a single mecha to charge over?"

"At a time like this, conventional means are a joke."

Lin Yuan climbed into the cockpit, all sensors connecting to his nerve endings within a second.

He felt a heart-wrenching burning sensation. To deal with the crisis before him, he directly overshot all the Void Energy in his body, and the dark-gold patterns on his skin even began to spread toward his eyeballs.

"My body is semi-energized, and the system's void characteristics allow me to ignore most physical defenses."

Lin Yuan took a deep breath, his eyes showing an unprecedented ruthlessness.

"I am the bomb. As long as I can drill into its shield's interior and find its reactor core to give it a hard blow from the inside..."

"Then you will die!" Chen Weiguo roared into the communicator. "The energy fluctuations inside will grind you into smithereens! Not even ash will remain!"

"Old Chen, if we lose today, will anyone in Great Xia survive?"

Lin Yuan's counter-question plunged the communication channel into a dead silence.

On the big screen, the red light at the center of divine punishment had reached its critical point. That terrifying heat was already making the dragon sparrow's hull glow red across tens of thousands of kilometers of vacuum.

"Take care of my junkyard."

Lin Yuan gave a light chuckle.

"gaia, release all limits. Put all power sources into instantaneous propulsion."

"I'm going to perform the most expensive... deep-space scavenging in history."

BOOM—!

The six pairs of golden light wings on the back of the xingtian demon god mecha exploded outward.

The entire mecha was like a burning steel needle, piercing through the already solidified space. A second before divine punishment's main cannon was about to fire, Lin Yuan turned into a stream of light that even radar could not capture, charging straight against that overwhelming red pressure toward the eyeball larger than the Moon.

In everyone's sight, that tiny point of light appeared so insignificant yet so tragic against the backdrop of the vast, boundless black planet.

"For Great Xia!"

In the channel, someone shouted.

The next moment, the entire starfield was completely covered by intense light.

That was the energy explosion from Lin Yuan striking the shield, as well as the final roar before divine punishment fired.

In that white light that could swallow everything, Lin Yuan felt his consciousness being rapidly stripped away, but he gripped the control levers tightly.

[High-energy environment detected...]

[Void Penetration activated...]

[Target: divine punishment Core Power Reactor.]

His figure vanished behind that unbreakable blue honeycomb light curtain, charging into an alien world filled with killing intent and metallic components.

At the end of his vision, a pulsing purple Antimatter Core, as large as half a city, was releasing destructive pulses.

Lin Yuan pressed the self-destruct button of the mecha and simultaneously opened his already translucent palm.

"Explode... for me!"

This was his final and only salvage operation.

Using his own life to salvage the tomorrow of all mankind.

Amidst that world-shaking roar, the image froze.

The form of divine punishment, which had been as steady as Mount Tai, actually produced a violent tremor from the inside out.

And that destructive red light originally aimed at Earth, at the most critical moment, went wide.