384: Chapter 319: The Queen Mother's Wrath, the Rule Annihilation Ultimate Move Unleashed

The milky-white radiance of Elwin's self-detonation was like the first bolt of lightning at the dawn of the Universe, tearing through the frozen despair and darkness hanging over the battlefield. That impact, which contained the supreme spiritual state of 'Hearing the Dao in the morning, one may die content in the evening,' was not just an explosion of energy; it was a rule storm targeting the cold, devouring, and calculating essence, ruthlessly piercing into the core of the Broodmother's spiritual world constructed of greed and rationality.

Under the baptism of the milky-white light, the Broodmother's mountain-like, massive body lost its composure and coldness that had crushed all things for the first time.

"Hiss-roar—!!!!!!"

It was no longer the previous spiritual fluctuation filled with calculating intent, but a real, sharp screech containing pain, rage, and a hint of disbelief! This screech pierced through the void, even causing violent ripples in the energy shields of the S-rank defense line in the distance, causing a large number of weaker dependents to spit blood and collapse again.

Over a third of its tens of thousands of compound eye arrays dimmed and shattered instantly, like smashed precision lenses, flowing with viscous 'blood' that emitted a ghostly purple fluorescence. In the remaining compound eyes, the cold purple light flickered and pulsed violently, filled with chaotic and painful emotions. Nearly half of the hundred pitch-black vortices that once devoured everything now twisted and collapsed, while the rest operated sluggishly, their devouring power greatly reduced. The dark purple void matter flowing on the surface of its sac churned incessantly, like boiling asphalt, becoming thin and disordered, even exposing the terrifying inner structure below—composed of what seemed like countless writhing black meridians.

The most severe trauma was at the spiritual and rule levels. The core impact of Elwin's self-detonation acted directly on the Broodmother's Divine Soul and the rule manifestation of its [Devour] divine office. That pure sacrificial will, seeking not survival but only 'Hearing the Dao' and 'Protection,' was like a red-hot branding iron ruthlessly seared onto the Broodmother's 'Soul' composed of endless greed and cold logic. Its calculation core seemed to have been implanted with a fatal logical virus, as countless contradictory fragments of 'emotion' and 'belief'—which could not be simply analyzed by 'devouring' and 'Evolution'—crashed and tore through its consciousness frantically.

Broodmother Status (Real-time estimation, severely interfered):

- Divine Soul Integrity: Decreased by approximately 18% (Temporary severe trauma; calculation power, spiritual command, and rule control precision significantly decreased).

- [Devour] divine office Authority: Suppressed (Effect weakened by approximately 35%-45%, stability of devouring black holes decreased, absorption and conversion efficiency reduced).

- [Void] divine office Authority: Slight disorder (Control over void matter on the sac surface decreased, minor delays in spatial control).

- [Evolution] divine office Authority: Operating under overload (Currently fully analyzing, adapting, and attempting to 'evolve' resistance against such spiritual sacrificial attacks, but requires time).

- Comprehensive Combat Power Assessment: Temporarily dropped from LV950 (Mid-Tier Divine Power Peak) to approximately the LV880-LV900 range (Mid-Tier Divine Power High-Stage), accompanied by rule disorder and spiritual agony; status is highly unstable.

- Estimated Full Recovery Time (if undisturbed): Unknown, but cannot return to Peak in the short term.

On the battlefield, everyone was stunned by this sudden reversal.

The hearts of Elios, Evelyn, Renn, Kevin, and others, which had been on the brink of despair, felt as if they were gripped hard by an invisible hand and then suddenly released, bringing a suffocating throb. They watched as the once-invincible Broodmother screeched in pain for the first time, its limbs flailing and compound eyes shattering, and saw the terrifying devouring vortices mostly collapse. The shock in their hearts was beyond words.

That Heroic Spirit who called himself Elwin... actually managed to severely wound this World-Ending Insect Empress with just his own Soul?!

Su Yueyao and Qin Qing were even more moved to tears. Being closer, they could better feel Elwin's resolute will to face death calmly to protect his students before his self-detonation, and they could better feel Lin Zhou's currently suppressed, volcano-like grief. Their gazes were locked tightly on the youth ahead who was still supporting the shield, his back trembling yet straight; their hearts ached as if twisted, yet were filled with an even stronger sense of tragic heroism and hope.

Hope! Elwin had used the total destruction of his form and spirit to trade for a precious, fleeting hope and window of opportunity for everyone!

Lin Zhou was the first among everyone to forcibly break free from that heart-wrenching grief.

"Teacher..." A beast-like low growl escaped his throat, his eyes bloodshot as he forced back his tears. Elwin's final relieved and calm smile, and that phrase 'Hearing the Dao in the morning, one may die content in the evening,' were like the most searing brands, deeply etched into his Soul. This was not the end, but a Legacy! He must not waste the opportunity his teacher had bought with his life!

Grief transformed into even more violent power! He could feel that after Elwin's self-detonation, he had not completely disappeared. A portion of the purest faith radiance, carrying the intent of 'sacrificing oneself for righteousness' and 'passing on the torch,' was like a weary bird returning to its nest, merging into his Fire of Civilization shield. It even flowed backward, nourishing his nearly exhausted Divine Soul and Godhead! Under the reduction of the Broodmother's devouring power and the injection of this new strength, the shield's strength actually stopped its downward trend and began to rise weakly!

Divine Power Reserves: 89,000/200,000 (Consumption rate slightly decreased due to weakened devouring power)

Fire of Civilization Shield Strength: Recovered to 44%

Mental State: A mix of grief and indignation, willpower concentrated like never before.

"Now is the time!" Lin Zhou suddenly looked up, his blood-red eyes staring fixedly at the Broodmother ahead, which had temporarily lost its attack rhythm due to pain and Chaos. His raspy but incredibly clear voice exploded like thunder in the ears of everyone who still possessed the will to fight through the command link:

"The Broodmother is wounded! Its combat power has temporarily dropped! Rules are in disorder! Devouring ability is weakened! All units still capable of movement—attack with everything! Targets: its compound eyes, the base of its mouthparts, the connection points of its lower limbs, and that halo above its sac! Do not be stingy with Divine Power! Do not hold back your trump cards! This is our only chance! Make it hurt! Drive it back! Avenge Teacher Elwin! For our survival—KILL!!!"

Lin Zhou roared that final 'KILL' with his remaining Divine Power and a heart full of grief and indignation. The sound shook the fields, even briefly drowning out the Broodmother's painful screeches!

This roar completely ignited the battlefield!

"For glory! For eternity! KILL—!" Elios was the first to respond. The cold arrogance was gone from his handsome face, replaced by a near-ferocious Battle Intent! Although the phantom of the eternal throne behind him was covered in cracks, it burst forth with unprecedented light! The remaining Heroic Spirit Legion—whether Heavy Guards, Divine Archers, Spellbreakers, or Rangers—all let out earth-shattering war cries, pouring out the remaining Divine Power in their bodies without reservation! The [Divine Judgment Cannon] roared again, and though its power wasn't what it once was, a greater number of divine arrows, dispelling lights, and charging slashes surged toward the Broodmother like a golden tide!

"Spirit Sound · Overture of Ruin!" Evelyn wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth. Her ethereal voice was raspy from overexertion, yet it carried a resolve to go down in flames. The Phantom Sound Singers sang in unison; this time, it was not support, but the most aggressive sonic killing technique! Invisible sound blades were like a storm, slicing toward the Broodmother's shattered compound eyes and disordered void matter!

Renn struggled to stand, ignoring the sharp pain of Divine Soul backlash as he drew the 'Star Slayer' longbow again. This time, what condensed on the arrow was no longer starlight, but the [God-Slaying Intent]—a secret technique of the Star Hunter Academy that could only be triggered by burning one's Divine Soul and life Origin! The arrow was dark and lightless, yet it locked onto a slightly pulsating black node (suspected to be an energy core or vital organ) exposed on the Broodmother's sac due to the void matter disorder.

In Kevin's Mechanical God-Nation, all remaining turrets, including those few [Titan's Fist Siege Arrays], entered final overload mode simultaneously! The barrels turned a dark red due to high temperatures, and alarms blared everywhere, but he ignored them. His cold command was singular: "All rounds fire! Logic core overclocked! Calculating optimal strike path! Target—the connection between the Broodmother's limbs and sac! FIRE!"

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

A concentrated fire more frantic and reckless than before exploded violently across the Broodmother's massive body like apocalyptic fireworks! Although most attacks were still blocked, weakened, or devoured by its powerful defense and remaining void matter, the Broodmother was currently in a terrible state with greatly reduced defense. Moreover, the attacks came from all directions and possessed various attributes, making it difficult for its [Evolution] divine office—which was frantically trying to 'evolve' resistance—to fully adapt for a moment.

Divine light scorched its exposed black meridians, spirit sound blades sliced at the edges of its shattered compound eyes, and physical shells and energy beams exploded in clusters of fireworks mixed with purple slime and black fragments at its limb joints. Renn's arrow, which burned his Origin, accurately hit that pulsating node, triggering a small-scale but deep internal energy sympathetic detonation!

"Hiss—!!!"

In the Broodmother's screech, the pain was greater, and the rage even more so! It felt it! These ants! These 'food' and 'dust' it had originally disdained actually dared to attack it so frantically while it was wounded! To harm it! Even... to threaten its internal structure, which had temporarily become somewhat fragile due to the full operation of its [Evolution] divine office!

Humiliation! An overwhelming humiliation! Furthermore, the bone-deep pain and rule disorder brought by that 'little bug' (Elwin) self-detonating completely ignited the violent rage of a predator and overlord's instinct beneath its cold logic!

In its remaining, intact compound eyes, the purple light was no longer cold calculation, but burned with a raging fire of fury that seemed ready to incinerate the Universe! All the pain, Chaos, and irritability brought by the hindered calculations transformed into the purest desire for destruction!

[part:gemini-3.1-flash-lite]

It no longer tried to stabilize its form, nor did it prioritize repairing its wounds or analyzing its opponents. It wanted to utterly annihilate these ants who dared to offend and harm it, along with this entire space!

"Roar—!!!"

This time, the roar was no longer shrill; it was deep, grand, and filled with a terrifying will that sent all things returning to nothingness! The Mother Empress's massive sac suddenly contracted inward by a full circle! It was as if all its power, all its rage, and all its Law authority were being compressed and condensed to the extreme!

Above the sac, the dim, dark halo that had been rotating slowly suddenly stopped! The three divine office symbols—[Void Realm], [Devour], [Evolution]—erupted with an intensely blinding, deep purple light, as if in a final flash of brilliance, and then... the three forcibly merged and collided!

An indescribable aura of great terror, akin to the end of the Universe and the heat death of all things, erupted from within the Mother Empress and swept across all directions!

The twelve articulated limbs rooted in the Void Realm beneath it simultaneously lit up with countless, infinitely complex purple patterns. These patterns frantically drained all energy from the surroundings—the remains of Zerg corpses, shattered spatial fragments, and even light and sound! The limbs began to turn transparent and illusory, as if they were about to merge into the Void Realm behind them.

Directly in front of the Mother Empress's contracted sac, an absolute singularity, indescribably "black," appeared silently. This point of "black" was purer than the deepest black hole; it did not absorb light, but rather directly erased the very concept of "light's" existence! The moment it appeared, the surrounding space, time, energy, matter... everything, began to spontaneously and irreversibly collapse and annihilate toward it!

"Oh no!" Lin Zhou's pupils shrank to pinpricks, as the Temple of Civilization sent out an unprecedented, nearly explosive, frantic warning! He perceived more clearly than anyone that the Mother Empress was burning its divine personality Origin in a nearly self-mutilating manner, forcibly combining and detonating the power of the three major divine offices in the most violent and uncontrollable way, unleashing a Law-level annihilation attack that transcended the scope of conventional divine arts!

"Retreat! All units! Abandon the attack! Full defense! Get away from the Mother Empress! The further, the better!" Lin Zhou's roar was distorted by his extreme sense of danger.

But it was already too late.

The absolute "black point" in front of the Mother Empress's sac trembled slightly.

There was no sound, no light, and no shockwave.

There was only a visible, gray-white halo with twisted, rippling edges, constantly expanding outward. Centered on that black point, it swept silently yet faster than the speed of thought in all directions!

[Law Annihilation · Return of All Things to Nothingness]!

Wherever the halo passed was absolute "nothingness."

The first to come into contact were the remaining Zerg corpses, broken weapon debris, and floating energy embers around the Mother Empress. The moment they touched the halo, they were not destroyed; rather, they were gently erased from the canvas of "reality" like a top-tier eraser, leaving not even the smallest quark structure behind, directly turning into a primitive base state that couldn't even be considered "nothingness."

Next was space itself. As the halo swept by, space did not shatter; it simply vanished, revealing a chaotic, undefined "backdrop" behind it, as if from before the birth of the Universe. Time lost its meaning in this area, and the chains of Karma snapped.

Then, the halo touched the Fire of Civilization shield that Lin Zhou had erected!

Hiss—!!!

It was like a red-hot iron block plunged into ice water, or paper meeting flame. The incredibly tough Fire of Civilization shield, which had once withstood the devouring vortex, dissolved and annihilated at a visible speed the instant it made contact with the gray-white halo, much like snow under the sun! The flickering epic scenes within the shield—the phantoms of Yu the Great, Yu Gong, Jingwei, and the sages of the Hundred Schools—flickered violently for a few moments before fading, shattering, and dissipating in the face of the annihilation halo, as if they had met their nemesis! The spirit of resistance, resilience, and wisdom contained within the images seemed powerless to resist in the face of this absolute "erasure" rule!

"Pfft—!" Lin Zhou was struck as if by a heavy blow, spraying blood wildly as he was sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string! His connection to the shield was forcibly severed and annihilated! The backlash caused his divine personality to shake violently, and his Divine Soul felt as if it were being torn apart!

Divine Power Reserve: 75,000 / 200,000 (Massive damage caused by shield shattering backlash)

Divine Personality Durability: 89% (Decreased again)

Fire of Civilization Shield: Completely collapsed!

Self Status: Severely injured (Law backlash, Divine Soul shock, Divine Power turbulence)

The annihilation halo did not pause in the slightest, continuing to expand outward at a steady speed of 10 meters per second! This speed might not seem fast, but in the face of such a rule of absolute erasure, any existence caught by it had only one path: destruction!

The halo pushed forward ruthlessly toward the Temple of the Eternal Flame and the S-Class defense line!

"No—!" Su Yueyao and Qin Qing screamed, desperately trying to rush over to catch Lin Zhou, while simultaneously unleashing the power of Moon Radiance and Law in an attempt to block the annihilation halo. But their attacks fell upon the halo like a clay ox into the sea, unable to stir up even a ripple; instead, their own power was rapidly annihilated and devoured, scaring them into quickly retreating.

Elios and the others were also furious to the point of their eyes splitting, but they were a bit further away, and the annihilation halo had not yet reached the defense line. However, they could clearly see that everything was disappearing along the path of the halo's advance! At this speed, the halo would reach the defense line in at most a dozen minutes; by then, any S-Class formation or Eternal Barrier would be reduced to nothing!

Even more terrifying was that this annihilation halo seemed to affect more than just the physical battlefield!

As Lin Zhou was barely caught and dragged backward by Su Yueyao and Qin Qing, he suddenly felt that the connection channel between himself and his divine domain had been eroded in reverse by an invisible force filled with the rules of annihilation!

Hum—!!!

The Temple of Civilization in his Sea of Consciousness shook violently! A few faint, gray, corrosion-like lines had actually appeared on the sanctuary's body! Inside the divine domain, an earth-shattering upheaval was occurring!

[Warning! Super high-tier Law annihilation power detected eroding in reverse along the faith channel!]

[divine domain core rules under attack!]

[Divine domain stability dropped to 73%!]

[Violent turbulence occurring within the divine domain environment!]

Lin Zhou "saw" eerie gray-white cracks appearing in the sky of his divine domain, like a cracked mirror. The ground was collapsing and disappearing for no reason—not an earthquake, but as if being gnawed upon by an invisible glutton. Rivers stopped flowing, lakes dried up, and forests turned into fly ash in swathes!

The most serious part was the buildings within the divine domain! Those miracle buildings and ordinary structures, built with countless heart's blood and resources, began to collapse and annihilate in swathes under the erosion of the annihilation rule's aftershocks!

[Jixia Academy] (Epic miracle building, effect: significantly increases believers' wisdom and comprehension, cultural dissemination efficiency +300%) The roof of the main hall vanished silently, revealing the panicked students inside and the bamboo scrolls scattered all over the floor.

[Temple of Law] (Epic miracle building, effect: divine domain Law · Order stability +50%, Law-type skill effects +40%) The phantom of the Scales of Judgment in front of the door suddenly shattered, and the outer walls of the temple were covered in gray, withered-looking lines.

[Tiangong Workshop] (Rare core building, effect: Mohist Mechanisms research and construction speed +200%), the semi-finished mechanical beasts being assembled and countless precision parts turned into dust, like weathered sand sculptures.

[Temple of Literature], [Taoist Temple], [Temple of Martial Arts], [Altar of Shennong], [Imperial Hospital]... almost all important buildings of the Hundred Schools suffered varying degrees of damage! Many auxiliary facilities, warehouses, and civilian residences attached to these buildings collapsed and annihilated directly, reduced to nothing!

The believers fled and cried out in panic, but there was nowhere to run. The sky was shattering, the ground was disappearing, and the buildings they relied on for survival and faith were collapsing! In just a moment, the area of the divine domain had shrunk by nearly 5%! A large number of resource points (ore veins, farmland, spiritual springs) were directly erased! The believer population suffered heavy casualties due to the collapsing buildings and Law turbulence; preliminary estimates indicated that the number of directly dead and missing believers exceeded 8% of the total population! Faith output plummeted instantly!

"My divine kingdom..." Lin Zhou "watched" the tragic situation within his divine domain, feeling the endless panic and despair coming from the other end of the faith channel, as well as his own Divine Power slipping further due to the damage to his divine domain (Divine Power Reserve: 72,000 / 200,000), his heart bleeding once again. The Mother Empress's [Law Annihilation] attack not only almost killed him in reality but also severely damaged his Foundation—his divine domain—from across the void!

Was this the furious strike of a Mid-Tier Divine Power at its Peak, burning its divine personality Origin?!

So terrifying! So... despair-inducing!

Up ahead, the gray-white annihilation halo continued to push forward unhurriedly, yet unstoppably. Within ten miles, everything had turned into absolute, dead nothingness. Behind the halo, the Mother Empress's massive body, which appeared dim and withered after releasing its ultimate move, slowly "solidified" again. In its shattered compound eyes, the flames of rage had not extinguished; instead, they became even more intense and cruel upon seeing Lin Zhou's divine domain damaged and everyone fleeing in panic.

Although it had paid a huge price for this (damage to its divine personality Origin, further decline in status), this strike had completely reversed the passive situation it had fallen into just moments ago due to Elwin's self-detonation! It would use this absolute destruction to crush and erase these ants and their hope, bit by bit!

Desperation, in an even deeper way, descended once more.