Chapter 193 Is this what a saint is?

"The newbie protection period is over?"

Lin Yuan stood on the command platform, not even bothering to take his hands out of his pockets. He tilted his head as if watching some novel circus performance, his gaze passing through the damaged holographic screen to land on the glowing humanoid figure floating at the gap in Earth's shield.

That fellow calling himself a "Saint" was glowing all over, his brightness even eclipsing the distant stars. He wasn't in a hurry to attack, instead spreading three pairs of light wings that were ornate to the point of being ostentatious. A sacred and solemn ripple surged through the breach, instantly covering the entire Earth.

"Tremble, mortals."

The Saint's voice was no longer that piercing electronic sound, but had taken on a reverb similar to a pipe organ, sounding grand and compassionate. "You are the chosen seeds. My Lord Jealousy bestows upon you supreme glory—to be the chief sacrifices, cast into the embrace of the blazing sun."

As his voice fell, a visible golden ripple wafted out.

"As long as you give up resistance and embrace the star, your fragile carbon-based shells will be sublimated. No more pain, no more hunger; you shall become part of a great higher-dimensional consciousness..."

This voice was extremely penetrating; even through several layers of explosion-proof glass, it continued to buzz within the command hall of the great xia dragon sparrow.

If it had been a few minutes ago, this ripple carrying a powerful mental suggestion would likely have caused many people to fall to their knees on the spot, weeping and wailing.

But now...

The command hall was quiet to the point of being awkward.

Academician Wang looked down at the "Calming Necklace" around his neck that was slightly heating up, then adjusted his reading glasses and looked at the equally calm Chen Weiguo beside him with a confused expression. "Old Chen, is this thing singing? The tune is a bit off."

Chen Weiguo rubbed the stubble on his chin and tightened the lid of the tea mug in his hand. "Maybe it's some kind of pre-battle mobilization? But these lyrics are written too poorly; they don't even sound as pleasant as the propaganda loudspeakers at our village entrance."

The female soldier in charge of communications even took off her headset and tapped it, whispering, "Is there line interference? Why is there a man chanting non-stop? Should I cut it off?"

No one knelt.

No one went mad.

With the addition of the 33rd Legion's soul-shielding field, this "Saint's" strenuous mental brainwashing looked, in the eyes of Earthlings, like a third-rate salesman who had wandered onto the wrong set, hoarsely peddling a knock-off product that nobody wanted.

The Saint floating in the air clearly sensed something was wrong as well.

A hint of bewilderment seemed to flash across his blurred face of light. According to the script, these low-level civilized creatures should have been committing suicide in tears by now.

"Stubborn and incorrigible!" The Saint's voice rose an octave, carrying a hint of shame-induced rage. "Since you refuse this sacred gift, then..."

"Alright, stop howling."

Lin Yuan yawned, his figure flickering as he directly utilized the mecha's spatial warp function to instantly appear in front of the light-man.

The two were now floating in space, less than two meters apart.

Compared to that radiant "charlatan," Lin Yuan's pitch-black mecha appeared simple and unadorned, even looking a bit like a villain who had just crawled out of a coal pile.

"You call this a gift?" Lin Yuan raised his hand and pointed at the shiploads of fanatical believers jumping into the sun behind him. "To treat people like firewood and still describe it so elegantly—your Mechanical Papacy's copywriters must be former members of a fraud syndicate, right?"

"Presumptuous!"

The Saint was clearly enraged, the flaming spear of light in his hand thrusting out violently, aimed straight for Lin Yuan's face.

There was no evasion.

Lin Yuan simply raised his left hand casually, attempting to grab the spear.

However, an eerie scene occurred.

His palm actually passed through the spear without any obstruction, and then through the Saint's chest, as if swinging through a clump of air.

No physical form?

Lin Yuan raised an eyebrow.

"Foolish." The Saint let out a sneer. Although he wasn't harmed, he seemed to feel extreme disgust toward Lin Yuan's offensive action. The light wings behind him flapped violently, and he drifted back several meters. "I am a pure energy body, existing in semi-imaginary space. Physical laws are invalid against me; you don't even have the qualification to touch me."

"Is that so?"

Lin Yuan withdrew his hand, looking at the small speck of light remaining on his fingertip as a stream of blue data flashed in his eyes.

[System analysis complete.]

[Target: High-energy projection body.]

[Composition: Quantum entanglement projection utilizing stellar energy.]

[Evaluation: This is just an oversized holographic projection connected to Wi-Fi; the host is inside that iron ring.]

"I knew it, where would gods and ghosts come from?"

After Lin Yuan finished reading the system prompt, the smile at the corner of his mouth instantly became playful. "So you didn't actually come over at all? Then who gave you the courage to act like a big shot in front of me with just a remote video call?"

The Saint's movements visibly stiffened.

He had been seen through.

"I am immortal! As long as the star is still burning, I..."

"As long as the network cable is still there, you won't lose connection, right?" Lin Yuan interrupted him directly, his right hand suddenly clenching into a fist as the long-dormant void engine within his body roared into operation.

Buzz—!

A black ripple carrying an aura of destruction erupted instantly with Lin Yuan as the center.

This wasn't an ordinary energy attack, but a dimensional reduction strike aimed at the spatial structure. The originally smooth vacuum environment, under the scouring of Void Energy, became like a water surface in a storm, twisting violently.

For physical creatures, this kind of distortion would at most cause dizziness and nausea.

But for a "holographic projection" relying on precise quantum signal transmission, this was fatal signal interference.

“Zzt... Zzt-zzt...”

The just-now majestic and sacred "Saint" instantly became blurred. His voice lagged and changed pitch, like a crumpled colored sticker, flickering in size in space, and those three pairs of light wings directly turned into pixels.

"You... zzt... what did you... do..."

That high-and-mighty divinity collapsed instantly, replaced by a comical sense of absurdity.

"It seems your signal over there isn't very good; did you forget to pay the internet bill?" Lin Yuan wasn't in a hurry to act, just crossing his arms and watching the frantically flickering "Pixel Superman" before him with great interest.

"Damned... bug!"

Even though he had turned into pixels, one could still feel the other party's towering rage. The Saint no longer maintained his compassionate facade; a hideous expression appeared on that blurred face, like a beast whose disguise had been torn away.

"Don't think you've won just by interfering with the projection... since you want to die... then all of you can turn to ash in the fury of the blazing sun!"

His voice was full of resentment, and with one last violent flicker, that overbearing light-man directly exploded into a cloud of aimless light particles, completely dissipating in the vacuum.

“Ran away quite fast.”

Lin Yuan curled his lip and turned to look at that massive metal ring.

"But this makes things easier. Since he's a projection, then that thing must definitely be hidden inside that ring."

He connected to the communication channel, his originally lazy tone instantly becoming cold as a blade.

"Alita, keep a close eye on the energy nodes on that metal ring!"

"Dauntless, preheat the main cannon, full power to the engines!"

"Since they don't want us to be good scavengers, then we'll play the part of bandits. All forces, hear my command, prepare to board; seize that big guy for me..."

Rumble—!!!

Before Lin Yuan's command could be finished, a tremor more violent than any before suddenly struck.

This wasn't an explosion.

This was a terrifying collapse originating from the gravitational level.

Everyone looked up in horror at the holographic screen.

The "gravitational lens array" that had been slowly rotating around the red giant's waist was now actually spinning at super-speed like it had gone mad! The rotation was so fast it even pulled out a pitch-black afterimage in space!

"Warning! Gravitational parameters are skyrocketing abnormally!"

"Warning! The stellar structure is collapsing!"

"My God..." Academician Wang let out a groan of despair.

Under everyone's disbelieving gaze, that unimaginably massive dark-red giant star actually began to deform under the pressure of that frantically rotating metal ring.

Like a piece of plasticine being squeezed hard by a naughty child.

The originally round sphere was being flattened and elongated at a visible speed. Infinite stellar matter was forcibly drawn from the equatorial position by the gravitational lens; it wasn't sprayed out, but was instead confined within the ring, forming an extremely dense, extremely brilliant accretion disk!

In just a dozen seconds.

That red giant was gone.

In its place was a bizarre celestial body in the shape of an elliptical disk, radiating a heart-palpitating aura. It was like an open demon's eye flowing with magma, staring dead at the tiny Earth.

"Crazy... they flattened the star..." The tablet in A Ji's hand fell to the ground with a clatter. "Don't these charlatans care about their future?"

Lin Yuan stared at that monster which had completely defied astrophysics, feeling the near-greedy longing coming from the void engine; his eyes didn't show fear, but instead shone frighteningly bright.

"Good stuff."

He licked his somewhat dry lips, his voice carrying a hint of irrepressible excitement.

"This isn't a sacrifice; they clearly want to squeeze the sun into juice and serve it to us."

"Everyone, hold on to the handrails!"

"We're going to have some soup!"