287: First confrontation

And the silent rock giant, Shui Gu, was their most solid shield and their most terrifying battering ram.

Their entire lives were spent in pursuit of the Universe's most mysterious relics and most precious treasures.

When news of the Kindling's disappearance spread, they immediately set their sights on this legendary Ark as their ultimate hunting target.

In the boundless, silent Void Realm, three ragged figures clung like ghosts behind a floating wreckage.

“Boss, how much longer do we have to wait?”

The red-haired woman, Black Widow, licked her chapped lips: “Rather than drinking the northwest wind here, we might as well go twist off a few unlucky heads and snatch some useful gear.”

Beside her, Shui Gu, the strong man as silent as a rock, let out a low grunt in agreement.

The silver-haired man named Karon, their boss, didn’t even lift an eyelid.

His gaze seemed to pierce through layers of spatial distortion, looking towards the City of Oblivion suspended at the center of the world.

They had exhausted their efforts, even at the cost of a dormant epoch, to track it here, not to be a few petty thieves.

“Be patient, Natasha.”

“The game has just begun, and we late players always need to get familiar with the rules first.”

“Rules? This cursed place has rules?”

Black Widow scoffed.

“Of course.”

Karon finally withdrew his gaze: “There is only one Law: survive, and then take the treasure that even gods desire.”

His gaze once again turned to the distance.

“Now, let those impatient guys clear the way for us first.”

“What we need to do is, when everyone is in a killing frenzy, thinking they are about to win, become the oriole that snatches everything.”

...The biological fleet, constructed of flesh and steel, glided silently like a sky-obscuring dark red fungal mat under the twisted sky.

Within the Myriad Devouring Mother Empress's consciousness core, the Star Lord's will swept through the entire fleet network like a storm.

His Fusion with the Mother Empress gave him almost infinite troops, but it also burdened him with heavy shackles.

He, or rather, they, were now extremely hungry.

Soon, a dazzling beam of light tore through the gloom below and entered his perception.

That was a giant floating continent, and at its center, a towering geyser was spewing an abnormally high torrent of energy.

The beam of light was an alluring milky white, its pure energy almost solidifying, emitting an aroma that made the entire fleet tremble.

“That’s the place!”

The Star Lord's will transformed into an undeniable command: “Descend, occupy it, devour it! With it, the Mother Empress’s Origin will recover seventy percent!”

“Roar!!”

A silent roar echoed through the biological network, and the entire fungal mat began to wriggle and sink.

The carapaces on the surface of countless warships opened and closed, revealing huge, mouth-like energy absorption chambers, with drool-like biological energy dripping from their openings.

However, just as the biological claws of the vanguard were about to touch the dense forest of that continent, the scythe of death swung up from below without warning!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Dozens of golden beams of light, as thin as hair but condensed to the extreme, burst forth from the cracks in the valley and the depths of the dense forest, like Spears of Arbiter shot by gods!

The first few small biological escort ships didn’t even have time to let out a wail; their fate was far more terrifying than being pierced by cannon fire.

The moment the golden light touched the hull, the incredibly tough armor, a mixture of biomass and superalloy, hissed as if splashed with strong acid, rapidly dissolving, decomposing, and vaporizing into a bubbling foam of flesh and blood!

The beams were not for penetration, but for Purification.

Horrible, mirror-smooth wounds appeared on the hull, and the surrounding flesh and blood tissue seemed to have been struck by the most malicious curse.

All hyper-regenerative gene chains were forcibly twisted by a higher-level Law, triggering a destructive self-destruct sequence.

Not only could they not heal, but with the wound as the center, the entire warship began to structurally collapse, turning into piles of grayish-white powder, scattered in the air.

“Alert! Unknown ambush encountered!”

“Warning! Hull is being Purified! Biological repair protocol failed! Life signals, completely cleared!”

The sharp alarm finally broke the fleet’s frenzy.

The Star Lord, perceiving through the flagship, looked furiously at the ambushers.

In the valley, in the shadows, humanoid combat robots, all silver-white and like works of art, were emerging from their camouflage.

They had no facial features, only a single eye.

The Gravekeeper’s Purifier Legion!

“These damned cleaners, they move fast!”

The Star Lord let out a furious roar; he hadn’t expected to be the first one ambushed!

At the same time, in the temporary command post deep in the valley, a high-level AI codenamed Arbiter 07 was coldly declaring the enemy’s identity through shared battlefield data.

“Target confirmed: Fallen Star remnant and Era Error Myriad Devouring Mother Empress Fusion.”

“Threat Rank assessment: Highest.”

“All units, execute Purification Protocol Alpha.”

“Final directive: Completely eradicate all visible sources of pollution, clear the erroneous Karma of this Universe sector.”

With the command issued, Purifier robots ambushed everywhere surged out like a tide.

They marched in uniform steps, hundreds of thousands of golden single eyes precisely locking onto the dark red fleet in the sky at the same moment.

The skirmish instantly escalated into an all-out war between two great legions!

“Release corrosive spore clouds! Melt these tin cans into slag for me!”

The Star Lord issued a frantic counterattack order.

Below the biological fleet, countless bud-like cavities suddenly opened, spraying large swaths of dark green dense fog onto the ground.

That was a cloud of death composed of the most aggressive microorganisms from the Mother Empress’s gene bank, carrying a nauseatingly sweet stench; rocks decomposed, vegetation withered, and everything was transformed into the most basic biomass for the Mother Empress’s gluttonous feast wherever it passed.

However, facing this green catastrophe that could devour everything, the Purifier Legion’s response was shockingly simple.

The miniature cores in the chests of all robots began to spin at high speed, emitting a low hum.

The next second, pale golden energy shields, composed of pure Order Law, opened in front of them, seamlessly connecting to each other, instantly forming a golden barrier that spanned the entire valley!

The green spore cloud crashed against the golden barrier like hitting a conceptual wall; all chaos was instantly neutralized and smoothed out, transforming into the purest harmless energy, dissipating into nothingness.

“Physical attack mode, invalidated.”

Arbiter 07’s electronic voice was unperturbed: “Switch to high-intensity energy strike.”

In an instant, the golden single eyes of all Purifier robots blazed with light, as bright as the sun!