387: Chapter 322: Core Shattered, Mother Queen Falls, Catastrophe Ends

The [Lunar Purifying Divine Light] that Su Yueyao released with everything she had was like the morning star piercing through the eternal night. It not only heavily damaged the Mother Empress's core but also lit a spark of unprecedented clarity and tactical opportunity within Lin Zhou's consciousness, which was deeply merged with the river of civilization!

That cold and pure silver-white radiance resonated with the Fire of Civilization in a "Yin and Yang Mutual Aid" harmony, acting like a key that briefly opened a higher-level vision of the laws. At that moment, Lin Zhou not only "saw" the chaos and fragility of the rule structure after the Mother Empress's core was damaged, but also clearly sensed the brief "disharmony" and "flaws" exposed in the intersection and conflict of its three divine office powers—[Void Realm], [Devour], and [Evolution]—due to the injury!

The power of the Annihilation Halo rapidly declined due to the damaged core, and its suppression of the river of civilization's Concept was greatly reduced. The pressure Lin Zhou endured suddenly lightened, and the agonizing pain of the confrontation that had nearly torn his Divine Soul apart also eased significantly.

Divine Power Reserve: 39,000/200,000 (Confrontation pressure reduced, consumption rate slowed)

Godhead Durability: 82.5% (Stopped declining, slightly recovering)

civilization points: 380,000 (Consumption slowed)

Divine Domain Stability: 67% (Slightly recovered due to reduced pressure and continuous repair by the river)

Current Status: Partially freed from deep confrontation; consciousness has regained partial control over reality; limited active operations possible.

The moment! A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a counterattack!

Teacher Elwin had heavily damaged the Mother Empress's Divine Soul at the cost of his total annihilation, disrupting its rhythm; Su Yueyao had burned her Bloodline Origin to pierce through the void barrier and deliver a fatal blow to its core! The sacrifices of these two most precious people had bought this fleeting and perhaps only chance for victory!

I must not let them down!

Lin Zhou forcibly suppressed his worry and heartache for Su Yueyao's condition, concentrating all his remaining will, Divine Power, and the vast, ancient "Civilization Legacy" Concept he had gained from his deep Fusion with the river of civilization!

His eyes snapped open. Deep within his pupils, there were no longer the vast shadows of the river, but instead two balls of blazing Fire of Civilization, interwoven with pale gold and purple hues! Within the flames, one could vaguely see images of firewood being added, light dancing, and the epic of civilization unfolding!

He was no longer passively using the river's Concept to "embrace" and "dilute" the annihilation; he was going to take the initiative. Following the "channel" Su Yueyao had opened, he would pour the power of the Fire of Civilization back into the Mother Empress's damaged core to deliver the final end!

“The river flows, the spark never dies! In the name of civilization—burn away the false, re-establish Order!”

Lin Zhou growled. His voice was no longer hoarse, but carried a magnificence and majesty that seemed to come from the very source of the river of time. He raised his right hand, fingers spread wide, and clenched them violently toward the dimmed, slowly retreating gray-white Annihilation Halo, and toward the Mother Empress behind it—whose body was twitching violently from the core's pain, screeching incessantly, and showing a mix of terror and rage in its compound eyes for the first time!

Hum—!!!

Within him, the river of civilization, which was fused with the Divine Domain's Foundation, let out a deafening roar! The phantom of the river was no longer limited to his consciousness and surroundings; as if breaking free from some invisible shackle, it surged forth along the brief and fragile "Rule Resonance Channel" that Su Yueyao's divine light had opened between him and the Mother Empress's core!

This was not river water in the physical sense, but a torrent of civilization Concepts, Order rules, and the will of Legacy!

The torrent displayed a strange color of interwoven pale gold and silver-white (incorporating some characteristics of Su Yueyao's divine light). Within it were countless seed of civilizations, epic scenes, the Essence of the Hundred Schools, and the eternal Legacy intent that "wildfires cannot burn it all away; it grows again with the spring breeze!"

This torrent ignored spatial distance, as if performing a conceptual leap, appearing directly inside the Mother Empress's damaged core—that dark purple organ that had been turned into a mess by the Yin-Yang Taiji vortex, its rule structure exposed and its defenses dropped to freezing point!

“Screee—!!!!! NO—!!!”

The Mother Empress let out an unprecedented, piercing shriek of extreme agony! The shriek was filled with despair, resentment, and the most primal fear of the coming destruction! It could feel a majestic and orderly force, completely opposite and even naturally antithetical to its own chaotic, devouring, and void essence, pouring into its most fragile core like a bursting celestial river!

Wherever the civilization torrent passed, the power of purification and Order acted like the hottest lava, washing away, burning, and dismantling the remaining void energy structures, Devour rule networks, and Evolution calculation units within the Mother Empress's core!

Those cold and greedy rule runes that formed the Foundation of its power melted and collapsed rapidly under the wash of the civilization torrent, like snow under the sun! The deep darkness representing the [Void Realm] divine office was dispelled and filled by the pale gold glow of civilization; the pitch-black vortex representing the [Devour] divine office was smoothed out and annihilated in the torrent of Order; and the complex optical paths representing the [Evolution] divine office were shattered by the flow of civilization information containing countless wisdoms and legacies, no longer able to perform effective calculations and deductions!

This was a total crushing on the level of rules! It was the ultimate victory of "Order" over "Chaos," "Legacy" over "Devour," and "Wisdom" over "Ignorance"!

The Mother Empress's massive body, like a giant tower of blocks with all its pillars removed, began to collapse violently and uncontrollably!

The dense cracks on the surface of its sac expanded and spread wildly. Dark purple void matter, like asphalt that had boiled and then cooled, peeled off and dissipated in large chunks, exposing the even more fragile inner layer of black meridians below, which were now being scorched red by the internal civilization torrent as if they were about to melt. The twelve thousand-meter-long limbs rooted in the void convulsed and trembled violently like withered vines that had lost their vitality, then began to break and crumble inch by inch starting from their connection to the sac! Over a hundred hideous mouthparts withered and hung limply like tentacles drained of moisture, the Devour vortexes at their tips completely extinguished.

The most fatal blow was to its core.

Under the relentless washing and burning of the civilization torrent, spiderweb-like golden cracks appeared on the surface of that dark purple pulsating organ. The cracks spread and deepened rapidly, and the originally chaotic and violent energy fluctuations within it suddenly stalled as if gripped by an invisible giant hand, then... collapsed inward!

Hum... Crack... Shatter—!!!

A crisp sound that made the Soul tremble, as if a cosmic crystal had shattered, echoed from within the Mother Empress across the deathly silent battlefield.

That dark purple core organ, along with the surrounding melting black meridians, reached a critical point and shattered with a bang!

It wasn't an explosion, but rather a total dismantling and annihilation by internal forces. It turned into countless fine rule fragments and Origin light spots emitting a faint purple glow, which erupted from the center of the Mother Empress's collapsing body like volcanic ash, mixed with viscous, inert black tissue fluid, shooting and scattering in all directions!

The speed at which the Mother Empress's mountain-like body disintegrated suddenly accelerated! Like a sand sculpture hit by a tsunami, it turned into ash and light spots in massive swathes! Its shrill, desperate screeching also came to an abrupt halt, like a duck with its neck snapped. In the remaining intact compound eyes, the light of all emotions—coldness, rage, cruelty, terror—was completely extinguished in an instant, turning into a deathly gray-white.

[Notification: Void Zerg Mother Empress (LV950, Mid-Tier Divine Power Peak) core shattered, divine office dismantled, life signs vanished.]

[Target Confirmed: Mother Empress—Fallen!]

Rumble...

The last remaining structures of the Mother Empress's body finally collapsed completely without the core's support, kicking up a sky full of dust (composed of disintegrated body particles). Amidst the dust, countless purple, black, and pale gold light spots flew about, like a bizarre and grand "Death Snow." Most of these light spots quickly dimmed and dissipated, returning to the rules of the world (Dungeon Space), but about thirty percent of the more solid purple and pale gold light spots seemed to be pulled by an invisible force. They did not dissipate but instead drifted and gathered toward one direction—where Lin Zhou was—like birds returning to their nest.

Those were the remaining, relatively pure void Origin fragments, broken divine office rule information, and some ordered energy left after being burned and purified by the Fire of Civilization following the Mother Empress's fall!

As these light spots approached the area in front of Lin Zhou that was still shrouded in the faint river Concept, they seemed to find the most suitable home, merging into that pale gold river phantom without any resistance.

[river of civilization has absorbed special resources: Partial Origin fragments of the fallen Mid-Tier Divine Power Peak (Mother Empress).]

[Analyzing...]

[Obtained: Void Rule Fragments (small amount, initially purified), Devour Rule Information (damaged, available for research reference), Pure Divine Essence (weak, approximately 0.7 units of non-attribute divinity), High-Level Chaos Energy (purified and converted by the Fire of Civilization, can replenish Divine Power consumption).]

[river of civilization's Foundation slightly improved; resistance to "Void" and "Devour" type rules permanently increased by a small margin.]

[Divine Domain nourished; repair speed of damaged areas +50%; some areas eroded by "Annihilation" rules show signs of reverse repair.]

[civilization points replenished: +150,000 points (Current: 530,000 points).]

[Divine Power replenished: +5,000 points (Current: 44,000/200,000).]

The Zerg Mother Empress, the World-Destroying Insect Empress that had pushed almost everyone to their limits, had finally fallen! The 'nutrients' formed by her decomposing corpse were actually 30% absorbed by Lin Zhou's river of civilization, turning into resources to repair himself and strengthen his Foundation! This might be another side of Way of Civilization—to include all things, to integrate and transform, turning the enemy's 'nutrients' into the cornerstone of one's own growth!

With the total death of the Zerg Mother Empress, the remaining, greatly weakened gray-white Annihilation Halo flickered a few times like a light bulb that had lost its power and completely dissipated into nothingness, leaving only a ten-mile-wide 'Absolute Blank Zone' as a terrifying testament to its former existence.

On the battlefield, there was a deathly silence, save for the subtle sound of the Zerg Mother Empress's corpse decomposing and the rustling of light particles drifting away.

Everyone stared blankly at this scene, their minds completely blank.

Did we win? That invincible Zerg Mother Empress, who seemed capable of erasing everything... just... died like that?

Terminated by the joint efforts of Lin Zhou, that sudden silver-white divine light, and that surging pale gold torrent...?

The massive shock of surviving a catastrophe left many people unable to react for a moment.

"Is it... over?" Elios muttered to himself, leaning on the Sword of Eternity and kneeling on the ground. His handsome face was covered in blood and dust, and his golden pupils looked somewhat lost toward where the Zerg Mother Empress had disintegrated. The phantom of the eternal throne behind him had long since vanished, and the Heroic Spirit Legion had suffered heavy casualties, with fewer than three out of ten remaining.

Evelyn sat slumped on the ground, her ethereal voice completely hoarse. She just gasped weakly, watching the drifting light particles with a complex expression.

Ryan leaned against a ruined wall, the string of his Star-Slaying longbow broken. He looked at Lin Zhou's back and remained silent.

Kevin's mechanical projection fluctuated, emitting intermittent electronic sounds: "Target... Zerg Mother Empress... Signal disappeared... Threat cleared... Logic core... Requires... Sleep repair..."

Behind the defensive line, more survivors, after a brief moment of daze, erupted into a world-shaking wave of sound mixed with crying, shouting, and cheering! They embraced and wept, kneeling to thank the gods they believed in, celebrating this hard-won survival that could be called a miracle!

Qin Qing tightly held the unconscious Su Yueyao, whose aura was extremely weak. She looked at the figure standing alone ahead, with the pale gold phantom of the river of civilization slowly receding, and then at her friend's face in her arms—pale as paper yet carrying a hint of a peaceful smile. Tears finally couldn't help but burst from her eyes. It was relief, grief, and an indescribable complexity.

Lin Zhou slowly withdrew his hand. The phantom of the river of civilization surging around him rapidly receded into his body like a ebbing tide, returning to the Temple of Civilization deep within his Sea of Consciousness. As the state of deep Fusion with his divine domain was released, a massive sense of emptiness and the piercing pain of overexertion instantly swept through his body, causing him to stumble and nearly fall. He barely steadied himself and immediately turned around, his gaze urgently casting toward Su Yueyao in Qin Qing's arms.

Seeing Su Yueyao's state—her breath as thin as silk and her vitality extremely weak—Lin Zhou's heart wrenched violently. Ignoring his own weakness, he immediately wanted to step forward and check on her.

However, right at this moment—

Buzz!

The entire instance space shook violently!

Immediately following, a grand, cold, and emotionless will descended into the consciousness of every survivor like a high-and-mighty Heavenly Dao. At the same time, a massive settlement interface composed of pure light screens appeared in the sky.

[“Guarding the Eternal Flame” Instance Task—Completed!]

[Final Objective: Protect the Temple of the Eternal Flame (seed of civilization) for seven days—Achieved!]

[Detected that the highest threat unit in the instance, “Void Zerg Mother Empress (LV950),” has been terminated early (Day 5). The remaining threat level of the instance has returned to zero.]

[Task settlement beginning...]

[Contribution score calculation based on the comprehensive performance of each participating team in the instance (including but not limited to: defense contribution, kill contribution, tactical command, special event handling, protection level of the seed of civilization, etc.)...]

[Score calculating...]

On the light screen, progress bars behind the names of the five teams began to jump rapidly, with numbers constantly climbing.

Everyone's hearts were in their throats, their eyes fixed on the light screen. This concerned not only the ranking but also the final rewards!

A few seconds later, the progress bars stopped, and the final scores appeared:

[1st Place: Xinghai University (Lin Zhou's Team) — Contribution: 52%]

[2nd Place: Eternal Divine Court (Elios's Team) — Contribution: 21%]

[3rd Place: Mechanical Divine Domain (Kevin's Team) — Contribution: 12%]

[4th Place: Phantom Sound Academy (Evelyn's Team) — Contribution: 9%]

[5th Place: Star Hunter Academy (Ryan's Team) — Contribution: 6%]

Xinghai University sat at the top of the list with 52%, more than half of the total contribution! Moreover, this score far outstripped the second place!

Seeing this result, although Elios and the others had expected it, seeing such a huge gap with their own eyes still made them let out a complex, bitter smile. They had to admit that in this defensive battle, they would have been wiped out long ago if not for Lin Zhou. This contribution score was fair and reasonable.

Lin Zhou didn't show much emotion regarding this; most of his thoughts were still on Su Yueyao. However, this score was undoubtedly the most powerful affirmation of Xinghai University and Way of Civilization he adhered to.

[Allocating basic instance completion rewards based on contribution scores...]

[Xinghai University (Lin Zhou) receives: Basic rewards + Extra first-merit reward settlement in progress...]

[Warning: Abnormal fluctuation detected in the instance core “Temple of the Eternal Flame”!]

[Source of anomaly: Xinghai University participant Lin Zhou; his essence of power (Fire of Civilization/river of civilization) has generated a high degree of resonance with the “Temple of the Eternal Flame” (Ancient Civilization Spark)!]

[Resonance analysis in progress...]

[Conclusion: Fits the characteristics of an “Inheritor of Civilization”! Triggering hidden reward mechanism!]

[Hidden reward activated: The “Temple of the Eternal Flame” will perform one final “Gift of Civilization” for the resonator and grant its Core Spark Mark to the resonator! This process may lead to slight instability in the instance structure; all survivors, please prepare for extraction!]

"What?" Lin Zhou was stunned, looking at the distant Temple of the Eternal Flame, which remained unextinguished despite its dimmed light.

He saw that the weak but stubborn spark at the top of the temple seemed to be injected with new vitality, suddenly brightening! The light of the spark was no longer the previous dim yellow, but carried a hint of pale gold, originating from the same source as Lin Zhou's Fire of Civilization!

Immediately after, a highly condensed pale gold fire line, only the thickness of a thumb, separated from the temple's spark. As if possessed of life, it crossed space and instantly vanished into the center of Lin Zhou's brow!

[Obtained: “Ancient Civilization Spark Mark” (Special Wonder / Concept Bound).]

[Effect: Permanently increases the intensity and purity of the Fire of Civilization by 15%; slightly increases perception and resonance with civilization-type ruins and Legacies; can serve as a “Key” for certain specific ancient civilization ruins.]

[Obtained: “Gift of Civilization” — Pure Civilization Faith Crystal x 1 (Absorbable, significantly increases Godhead potential and civilization points).]

The moment the fire line entered his body, Lin Zhou felt as if his Temple of Civilization and divine fire were being washed and nourished by the purest civilization Origin. Although his Divine Power did not recover immediately, the feeling of a more solid Foundation and a clearer path ahead was very real.

With the transfer of the spark mark, the light of the entire Temple of the Eternal Flame began to dim slowly and completely, as if it had fulfilled its final mission. The temple itself also began to become transparent and illusory.

[“Temple of the Eternal Flame” mission complete; about to return to nothingness.]

[The instance will close in 10 seconds; all survivors will be forcibly teleported back to their respective initial access points.]

[10... 9... 8...]

The countdown began.

Lin Zhou could no longer care about anything else. He rushed to Qin Qing's side and carefully took the unconscious Su Yueyao from her arms. Her body felt cold to the touch, and her breath was so weak it could barely be felt; only the [Guanghan Tear] jade pendant still retained a hint of warmth.

"Yue Yao..." Lin Zhou's voice trembled slightly. He immediately mobilized the Fire of Civilization, which had become slightly more active after receiving the gift, turning it into the gentlest nourishing force. He slowly channeled it into Su Yueyao's body to protect her final heart vessels and Divine Soul Origin. He could feel that Su Yueyao's injuries were extremely severe; the loss of her Bloodline and Divine Soul Origin had nearly shaken her Foundation, and it was by no means something that could be healed by ordinary means.

Beside them, Qin Qing was equally full of worry.

Elios and the others also began to organize their remaining teams, preparing to leave.

[3... 2... 1... Teleportation beginning!]

White light flooded everyone's vision.

When Lin Zhou's vision cleared again, he had already returned to the exclusive waiting space of the All-Universe Academy Championship. In his arms, Su Yueyao remained unconscious. Around him were Qin Qing, Wang Meng, and other surviving members of Xinghai University, all in various states after being teleported back. Everyone's face carried exhaustion and pain, but more than that, there was a sense of fortitude after surviving a life-and-death catastrophe, and an undisguised respect and gratitude when looking at Lin Zhou.

The catastrophe of the Zerg Mother Empress finally dissipated completely with the closing of the instance.

But the trauma of battle, the sacrifice of companions, and the challenges on a broader future stage had only just begun.

Lin Zhou held Su Yueyao tightly, feeling her weak vitality, his eyes incredibly firm.

Way of Civilization is long and fraught with obstacles.

But the eternal flame has been passed, and one must forge ahead bravely.