378: Another three days in the sky?

The hollow pulling sensation receded like a tide, replaced by the solid feel of the ground accompanied by the familiar dizziness after weightlessness.

Morning Light suddenly opened his eyes, the blinding sunlight making him instinctively squint, then warily glance around.

Yellow sand, gravel, distorted heat waves in the distance, and the assault ship quietly moored in place, covered by camouflage netting.

They were back, back to where the assault operation began. It was some distance from the underground city, but not too far.

"Did we... get out?" Lin Tao's voice held a trace of bewilderment. He knelt on the ground, one hand propping himself up on the scorching sand, the other still clutching his chest where the lingering warmth of the rainbow light had not yet fully dissipated.

"All personnel, report status!" Morning Light suppressed the sharp pangs from deep within his brain and the feeling of exhaustion, barking out the command.

"Zhao Qiang, minor injuries, armor damage 15%, combat-ready!"

"Lin Tao, good condition!"

"Wang Wei, slight concussion, recovering, equipment intact!"

"..."

A series of reports quickly sounded. Though weary and injured, miraculously, there were no casualties. The team members helped each other up, quickly checking their gear and injuries, the relief of surviving a disaster mixed with apprehension about the unknown teleportation etched on every face.

"It's Pexito's amulet." Zhao Qiang took out the bundle of white hair from his inner pocket. It had now returned to its original smoothness, though its luster seemed a bit dimmer, no longer shimmering with rainbow light.

"She... saved us."

"My goodness, what did Doctor Xia Er and the others create? Pexito, is she as strong as that monster?"

Morning Light's doubts at this moment were largely the same as his team's, but there was no time for emotion or speculation now.

"Board immediately! Full speed withdrawal! Get away from the underground city!"

The sense of unease did not vanish with their escape from the spherical space; instead, it intensified. Tai Yi's towering rage and the countdown of the fusion bomb hung over everyone's hearts like two Swords of Damocles.

They couldn't be sure if the bomb would be easily disarmed by Tai Yi, nor could they predict if that terrifying existence would pursue them along the traces of the teleportation, or, in a way they couldn't comprehend, direct the force of the explosion towards them.

Or, the simplest method, just throw the bomb out.

Without any hesitation, the team members unleashed their last burst of strength, rushing towards the assault ship like arrows released from a bow. The hatch quickly slid open, then slammed shut after the last member stepped inside.

"Engine overload startup! Ignore cooling procedures! Pile all energy onto the thrusters!" Morning Light practically threw himself into the command seat, yelling at the ship's AI as he buckled his seatbelt.

"Command confirmed. Engine overload mode activated, energy prioritized for propulsion system. Warning: This mode will significantly shorten engine lifespan," a cold electronic voice responded.

"Execute!" Morning Light directly ignored the risks. "Now! Immediately! Get out of this hellhole!"

The main thruster nozzles at the assault ship's stern instantly erupted with a brilliant blue exhaust plume far exceeding normal, and the immense overload gravity pressed everyone firmly into their seats.

The ship's hull emitted a grating metallic groan, as if it would disintegrate at any moment. The warship, like a top whipped by a giant lash, suddenly lifted, then adjusted its direction, accelerating madly away from the underground city.

Outside the viewport, the vast and desolate planetary surface began to blur, turning into rapidly receding color blocks. Everyone stared intently at the coordinate point representing the underground city entrance on the holographic screen, their hearts pounding like war drums.

Time, at this moment, was infinitely stretched. Every second was accompanied by the engine's frantic roar and the ominous creaks of the hull's structure under strain.

"Time until detonation, one minute."

No one spoke superfluous words, only heavy breathing. The combined yield of the several fusion bombs they planted was enough to wipe a large city off the map.

But in that bizarre space, facing an existence like Tai Yi, no one was confident if it would be effective.

Meanwhile, deep underground, within the spherical space.

Tai Yi's towering rage, having been profaned by ants and toyed with by the power of Harmony, had not yet subsided when It sensed that something new had appeared in Its old home.

Those few "filthy objects" the ants had placed within Its sanctuary, their unstable nuclear reactions reached a critical point, about to release destructive energy that, in Its view, was primitive, crude, and utterly devoid of beauty.

Countdown to destruction: three, two, one... Intense light and violent energy erupted at several points simultaneously, attempting to annihilate everything in the most savage way. The power of fusion roared, seeking to turn everything it touched into gas.

However, for Tai Yi, who possessed the divine rank of a Star God and wielded the path of Order, this itself did not pose a fatal threat.

Its core body, condensed with immense consciousness and the authority of Order, was sufficient to withstand such an explosion. It might be damaged, It might be depleted, but It would certainly not be "killed."

If a Star God could be so easily ended by mortal weapons, that would be the greatest joke in the universe.

But "cannot die" and "undamaged" are two different concepts.

To allow that dirty, chaotic, uncontrollable explosive energy to directly impact Its main body? To allow the "filth" brought by those tiny insects to contaminate Its sacred body, which symbolized absolute Order?

Even the slightest scratch, the most insignificant trace of energy contamination, was, in Tai Yi's eyes, unacceptable, an utter and complete humiliation!

It, the embodiment of Order, would not permit even a hair's breadth of harm from insects!

"Profanity!!!"

An energy fluctuation far more terrifying than the fusion explosion erupted from the core of the purple-gold giant sphere.

Tai Yi unleashed Its power without reservation, intending to completely counteract the chaotic explosive impact with absolute power of Order before it could reach Itself.

Space itself let out a groan of unbearable strain. The surface of the steel-hard, colorful milky lake instantly evaporated under the pressure of the two forces, and the bedrock beneath was directly annihilated.

Specific frequencies, intensities, and directions—everything was so coincidental. Within the planet's geological structure, a series of chain resonance effects were triggered. It was like tapping different parts of a glass with a specific rhythm, eventually causing the entire piece of glass to shatter uniformly.

While practically difficult to achieve, it was theoretically possible... "Ten seconds."

Morning Light clenched his fists, his nails almost digging into his palms.

"Five, four, three, two, one..."

The countdown reached zero.

In that instant, it was as if the entire world fell silent for a moment.

Then, from nowhere, came a deep, muffled roar, as if the planet's core had been torn apart.

And then, everyone witnessed a scene they would never forget.

In the area they had just escaped, the earth "came alive."

Like a fragile eggshell, it was violently pushed up from within by an unimaginable force. The ground over hundreds of kilometers rolled like waves, then bulged, forming an unimaginably vast arc.

Everything on the surface—dunes, rocky mountains, dry riverbeds—was instantly ground to dust by this force.

Immediately after, at the highest point of that bulge, blinding white light pierced through the thick layers of earth and erupted!

In the sky, another "sun" appeared. This sun, however, was smaller and closer.

Where the white light reached, matter was directly vaporized or ionized. Solid rock layers dissolved and evaporated like ice and snow under the sun.

The light was so intense that even after being filtered through the assault ship's multi-layered, high-strength viewports, it still illuminated the ship's interior with a stark white glow, temporarily blinding everyone.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Morning Light roared hoarsely through the blinding light, though he knew it might be futile.

The assault ship's AI had already reacted before the command, its engines running wildly, and the reappearing immense overload almost crushed the team members into paste.

After lasting for what felt like an eternity, several seconds, the white light suddenly contracted, followed by an even more terrifying release of energy.

A visible, annular shockwave, mixed with plasma and dust, swept across the ground in all directions at speeds countless times that of sound!

Wherever the shockwave passed, the earth was literally scoured down by dozens of meters; everything was flattened, pulverized, and then thrown high into the sky.

The assault ship was struck hard as if by the invisible hand of a Titan. Its shields shattered like soap bubbles upon impact, and the hull, caught in the chaotic energy currents, tumbled and was flung outward like a leaf in a gale.

Alarms blared throughout the ship's cabin, and red emergency lights flashed madly.

"Shields overloaded! Structural damage forty percent!"

"Hold on! Prepare for impact!"

Amidst a dizzying whirl and piercing alarms, Morning Light clung desperately to a fixture, looking through the viewport at the center of the explosion.

There, no trace of the underground city, no topographical features, could be seen.

Only an abyss.

A vast, indescribable crater, its edges glowing with dark red molten rock, had replaced the original surface.

The diameter of the pit was certainly over a hundred kilometers, perhaps even close to two hundred kilometers. The pit walls were steep and bottomless, as if leading directly to hell.

And at the center of the pit, dark red light still surged.

Large amounts of dust and debris were ejected high into the sky, forming a gigantic dust column connecting heaven and earth and still expanding, its top forming the familiar shape, the mushroom cloud of destruction.

After the shockwave passed, the ship gradually stabilized. Although severely damaged, the main structure seemed to have held. The team members, still shaken, gazed at the scene of destruction behind them, a sight that seemed to belong only in creation myths, speechless for a long time.

"Did we do that?"

"Just a few fusion bombs, could they really cause such a massive disturbance?"