87: I'm standing here, do you dare to move?

The arrival of Lin Tian and his legion was not merely a reinforcement, but a paradigm shift. This was the moment a regional conflict abruptly escalated into a confrontation between titans; the moment a preordained outcome was torn from the book of fate and consigned to flames.

The Pangu Biotech defenders, who moments before had steeled themselves for a glorious martyrdom, now looked up at the sky, their hearts pounding with a wild, unbelievable joy. The three hundred "Bulwark" mechs, that black forest of steel and death descending from the heavens, was a sight more potent than any stimulant, more inspiring than any speech. Their savior had not only arrived, he had brought the thunderous wrath of the Dragon Family itself.

For the allied forces, the feeling was the exact opposite. Panic, cold and absolute panic, spread through their ranks like a virus. The "Bulwark" Division was a legend, a nightmare whispered in the barracks of every mercenary group on this planet. To witness them descend in their full and terrifying glory was tantamount to witnessing one's own death falling from the sky.

"Engage," Lin Tian's voice, a flat and cold command, echoed through the "Bulwark" Division's private channel, "Clear the area."

What followed was not a battle, but a purge.

The gap in technology and combat power was an abyss. The "Bulwark" mechs were tigers charging into a flock of sheep. Their phased-array autocannons fired coherent energy beams, directly vaporizing entire rows of tanks. Their high-frequency vibration blades, glinting with deadly light, sliced through the allied mechs as if they were made of cardboard. It was a symphony of destruction, a brutal, efficient, and utterly one-sided massacre that, in a mere few minutes, reversed the entire course of the battle. The ground, once teeming with enemies, was now littered with their burning wreckage.

While his army executed his will, Lin Tian's attention was focused elsewhere.

With a flicker of spatial distortion, he vanished from the command tower and reappeared in the sky, directly in front of the enemy flagship, the "iron tyrant". He stood there alone, a single figure against a kilometer-long battleship, yet it was the battleship that now appeared small and fragile.

He faced the bridge, his gaze piercing through the thick armored viewport, fixed on the man inside: General Kellen, the S-rank Peak commander of the allied forces, the man who had orchestrated the entire invasion.

Kellen, a battle-hardened man whose name alone could inspire fear, felt a sensation he had not experienced in decades: a primal, genuine shiver. This was not merely due to the mech army that was slaughtering his troops, but because of that boy. The boy suspended in the Void Realm, whose eyes held a coldness that promised a fate more terrible than mere death.

"You insolent brat!" Kellen roared, his voice amplified by the battleship's external speakers, a desperate attempt to reclaim some authority, "Do you know who I am? How dare a mere junior stand before me?!"

Lin Tian's expression remained unchanged. He simply looked at the powerful commander, this man who held the lives of tens of thousands in his hands, with a look of profound disappointment, as if reprimanding a child who had broken a vase.

"I stand here," Lin Tian said, his voice calm yet piercing through the commander's roar with absolute authority, "Do you dare to move even an inch?"

He took half a step forward, and the Void Realm seemed to bend around him.

"If you harm me in the slightest," he continued, his tone dropping to a low, cold whisper, "I promise you, your Family, your company, and every entity associated with your name will be wiped from the face of this planet within twenty-four hours. Not a single share of your stock will remain. Not a single brick of your estates will be left. Your Bloodline will end with you. Right here, right today."

This was not a threat; it was a statement of fact, a promise.

Kellen's face, clearly visible on the bridge's main viewscreen, twisted with rage and a hint of undeniable fear. He was S-rank Peak, just a hair's breadth from the legendary SS-rank. Yet the boy before him, according to all intelligence, was still A-rank. This pure, extreme arrogance and provocation was a slap to his face, an insult to his very existence. But the boy's eyes... there was no bluff there, only the absolute certainty of a monarch passing judgment.

He hesitated. And in that instant of hesitation, he had already lost.

Lin Tian saw the fleeting fear in the old general's eyes and knew the man's will was broken. But this was not enough. He needed more than just victory; he needed dominance. He needed to engrave an image of absolute, untouchable power deep into the minds of his enemies, and his allies.

"You hesitated," Lin Tian said, a cold smile finally touching his lips, "Then allow me to show you the consequences."

He shifted his gaze from the flagship, looking down at the chaotic battlefield below, where his "Bulwark" Division was mopping up the last pockets of resistance. He raised his hand, his index finger pointing to an area where hundreds of elite enemy mech units were attempting to regroup.

He did not gather energy, nor did he make any exaggerated movements.

He simply whispered a single word, a word he had learned in the deepest chamber of the War Emperor's Mausoleum.

"[Dimensional Slash]."

A line appeared on the fabric of reality. It was not a beam, nor an energy blade; it was a line of "nothingness." A hair-thin crack in the Universe, a silent, invisible fissure that flashed for an infinitesimally brief moment above the enemy formation.

Then, it vanished.

For one second, nothing happened. The enemy mechs continued their desperate maneuvers.

Then, with perfect and terrifying uniformity, the upper halves of those hundreds of mechs, along with their pilots, simply... slid off. They separated from their lower halves along a perfectly smooth, impossibly straight line, their internal Systems sparking and exploding as they tumbled to the ground. The initial cut was silent, without explosion, only the jarring crash of hundreds of tons of war machines hitting the earth, delayed by a moment.

An entire sector of enemies was erased from existence. Not by explosion, but by a surgical, conceptual deletion.

On the bridge of the "iron tyrant", General Kellen stared blankly at the scene, his mouth agape, his brain unable to process what he had just witnessed. That was not a combat technique; that was a Law, a Law of the gods.

His pride, his courage, his will to fight—everything shattered into a billion pieces.

"Retreat..." He choked out the word, his voice like a strangled gasp, "All forces retreat! Immediately!"

The already collapsing allied forces now completely routed, turning tail and fleeing in a desperate, chaotic scramble.

The "Bulwark" Division began to pursue, their weapons locking onto the fleeing ships.

"Let them go." Lin Tian's command cut into their channel.

Su Mucheng and the others watching from the command tower were stunned. "But... why?" she messaged, her voice filled with confusion, "This is the best chance to annihilate them!"

Lin Tian watched the "iron tyrant" awkwardly tear through space for an emergency jump, his eyes cold and calculating.

He did not respond on the public channel. Instead, a singular thought, a new, grander strategy, formed in his mind.

Killing you now, Kellen, is easy. But inefficient. The "Duke" will just find another pawn.

But if I let you go back, you, with your will broken and filled with fear... you will lead me directly to the true king on this board.

Go, little fish, he thought, a predatory smile elegantly gracing his lips, swim back and tell the big shark what you've seen. I, very soon... will come for him.