156: Chapter 156 [Catastrophe Fractal, Infinitely Proliferating Purple Despair]

The purple light sphere at his fingertips shot out.

It had no earth-shattering sound of breaking air, nor any dazzling light effects; it was like a playful glass marble, drifting lightly through the smoke-filled air toward the sky-blotting Royal Gryphon Fleet.

At this moment, the wind came to an eerie standstill.

"Courting death."

Atop the flagship, Abra watched the tiny purple speck of light, a contemptuous and cold arc tugging at the corner of his mouth. He didn't charge forward with his Physical Body like some brainless villain; as the supreme ruler of the Star Empire, he understood better than anyone the principle of using full strength even when a lion hunts a rabbit.

"All ships hear my command, activate 'Star Barrier'."

The Holy Sword in Abra's hand swung down abruptly, its tip pointing directly at the ruins below. "Charge the Magic Guide Heavy Cannons, blast him to smithereens for Us!"

Hum—!

With his command, the dozens of Golden Warships hovering in the sky simultaneously lit up with blinding runic circuits. A pale blue energy shield, several meters thick, instantly connected into one piece, like an inverted vault of heaven, firmly protecting the entire fleet within. Meanwhile, hundreds of pitch-black muzzles adjusted their angles, as dark red beams of destruction frantically accumulated deep within the cannon chambers.

Facing this firepower coverage sufficient to sink an island, Qin Ji merely stood on a broken stone pillar with his hands in his pockets, tilting his head as if admiring an upcoming firework show.

"One."

He counted softly.

The purple "glass marble" collided with the heavy Star Barrier.

There was no explosion.

Not even the sound of an impact.

The moment it touched the light shield, the light sphere "bloomed" like ink dripping into clear water. Immediately after, a scalp-tingling scene appeared—

Pop.

The light sphere split into ten.

Ten identical purple light spheres ricocheted frantically along the curved surface of the light shield.

"Two."

Pop pop pop pop!

The ten light spheres split again, turning into a hundred.

Like hungry piranhas, the hundred light spheres began to frantically gnaw at the surface of the energy shield. With every impact, instead of consuming energy, they seemed to absorb the shield's magic power, their volume expanding further and their color shifting from light purple to a deep black-purple.

"Three."

Boom!

This time, it was no longer a crisp sound of fission, but the mournful wail of space unable to bear the load.

The hundred light spheres instantly split into a thousand!

The once indestructible Star Barrier was now like cheese doused in strong acid, instantly covered in dense holes. Those purple light spheres drilled through the holes, and then—

"Four."

Ten thousand.

The sky turned purple.

Those weren't clouds, but tens of thousands of destructive light spheres that were still constantly self-replicating. They followed some ancient and cruel geometric aesthetic, ricocheting, splitting, and multiplying frantically among the fleet.

"What the hell is this?!"

A Royal Mage responsible for controlling the shields watched the console in horror, where the magic power readings were soaring at an incredible speed. "The shield energy is being devoured! They... they're eating our magic power!"

"AAAAAH!"

Screams suddenly rang out.

An escort ship was hit by over a dozen light spheres. The hard alloy armor didn't explode upon contact with the purple light; instead, it underwent a "collapse." The steel twisted and writhed as if it were alive, then turned into a sky full of metal dust.

The soldiers in the cabins didn't even have time to react before being penetrated by the purple light. Their bodies stiffened instantly, then disintegrated into the most primitive particles like shattered porcelain, along with the armor on their bodies.

This wasn't a battle at all.

This was formatting.

This was an unreasonable cleansing directed at the physical world.

"Damn it!"

The composure on Abra's face finally crumbled. He stared fixedly at the leisurely man below, veins bulging on the back of his hand gripping the Holy Sword.

He had anticipated this Outsider would be strong, even anticipated the opponent might have Forbidden Spell-level scrolls.

But he had never imagined that a skill the opponent casually threw out would possess this "infinite multiplication" trait that defied magical common sense!

If not stopped now, the entire fleet would be eaten clean by these purple monsters!

"Prime Minister Kesenluo! Grand Marshal Lorraine Muyuan! Block it for Us!"

Abra roared, while the Holy Sword in his hand erupted with ten thousand zhang of golden light, "Summon—Ancient Star Dragon!"

Roar—!!

Accompanied by a dragon roar that shattered the vault of heaven, the space behind Abra suddenly tore open. A giant creature over five hundred meters long poked its head out from the Void Realm. Its entire body was condensed from brilliant starlight, and every scale was like a miniature star, emitting suffocating heat and pressure.

[Ancient Star Dragon (Summoned Beast)]

[Rank: LV.200 (Platinum Rank · Lord)]

[HP: 5 Billion / 5 Billion]

[Skills: Star River Breath, Space Solidification, Dragon Might Suppression]

This was the Summoner Emperor's trump card.

A Level 200 Platinum Rank BOSS!

"Destroy those sparks for Us!"

Abra pointed his sword.

The Ancient Star Dragon opened its massive maw, and a silver dragon breath capable of piercing through heaven and earth gushed out, attempting to disperse the sky full of purple light spheres in one go.

However.

Seeing this, the smile in Qin Ji's eyes below grew even deeper.

"Feeding time."

He snapped his fingers. "This is excellent fodder."

In the next second, the sky full of purple light spheres seemed to scent blood like sharks; they actually abandoned attacking the warships and all turned around, lunging toward that world-destroying dragon breath.

Sizzle sizzle sizzle—!"

The tooth-aching sound of devouring resounded through the clouds.

The Star River Breath, capable of instantly vaporizing a city, was actually "eaten" alive by those countless tiny light spheres! For every bit of energy devoured, those light spheres split once more.

Ten thousand... fifty thousand... a hundred thousand...

In the blink of an eye, the once majestic Ancient Star Dragon was completely submerged by a purple ocean.

It struggled and roared frantically, its massive dragon claws tearing through space in an attempt to shake off these bone-clinging parasites. But those light spheres were like viruses with independent consciousness, drilling into its body through the gaps in its scales, starting to dismantle its data structure from within.

Only three seconds passed.

That Level 200 Platinum Rank BOSS let out a mournful cry, its massive body collapsing in the air and dissipating into countless specks of light.

"How... is this possible..."

Abra froze in place, the Holy Sword in his hand nearly slipping.

An instant kill?

His strongest summoned beast couldn't even withstand a single move from the opponent?

"Is this your so-called trump card?"

Qin Ji's voice, amplified by wind elements, spread clearly across the entire battlefield. He slowly lifted his foot, crushing a piece of gravel beneath him, his purple-gold pupils reflecting a heart-palpitating indifference.

"Since you've been so polite as to gift me so much experience..."

He raised his hand, and a ball of purple light condensed in his palm again, but this time, the light was a hundred times denser than before.

"Then I shall return the favor."

"Calamity: Infinite Fractal—Second Stage Unfolding."

Boom!!!

All the purple light spheres flying across the sky suddenly came to a halt in mid-air.

Immediately after, purple lightning links formed between them. A massive, complex, and dizzying three-dimensional geometric magic array, centered on the entire fleet, instantly took shape.

Space was locked down.

All teleportation scrolls and all escape skills failed at this moment.

"No! Your Majesty! Run!"

Prime Minister Kesenluo turned pale; he rushed in front of Abra regardless of everything, his staff waving frantically in an attempt to tear open a spatial crack.

But it was useless.

The spatial rules here had been completely overwritten by Qin Ji's skill.

This was the overbearing nature of a [Divine-Grade] skill—in my Domain, I am the Law of physics.

"It's over..."

Luolin Muye closed his eyes in despair.

Just as that world-destroying purple magic array was about to contract and grind the hundred-thousand-strong army along with the Emperor into powder.

The young boy who had been standing behind Abra, who hadn't said a single word from beginning to end, suddenly moved.

He didn't make any earth-shattering movements.

He just took a light step forward, blocking for Abra, then raised that small, sickly pale hand and made a grasping motion toward the purple magic array in the sky.

"Disperse."

A childish yet supremely majestic monosyllable escaped his mouth.

Hum.

Time seemed to flow backward at this moment.

That world-ending purple magic array actually trembled violently under that grasp. Then, like a chalk drawing forcibly erased by an invisible giant hand, the purple light spheres began to extinguish and dissipate in large swathes.

Qin Ji's pupils shrank abruptly.

The skill was... erased?

Not blocked, not countered, but directly "deleted" from the level of rules?

"Interesting."

Qin Ji narrowed his eyes, looking directly at the young boy standing on the flagship deck for the first time.

He had been too far away before, and since the other party had been hiding behind Abra, he hadn't paid much attention. Now, looking with the [Eye of Spotlessness], Qin Ji's heart couldn't help but skip a beat.

All question marks.

[Name: ???]

[Rank: ???]

[Race: ???]

[Status: ???]

In this digitized world, there was only one possibility for an existence that could make him, who possessed the System, see a screen full of question marks.

The other party's authority, or rather their status, was ridiculously high.

"Phew..."

Having escaped death, Abra panted heavily, the cold sweat on his back already soaking through his epic rank armor. He looked at the boy standing in front of him, his eyes actually revealing a deep sense of reverence, even... fear.

"Holy... Holy Child..." Abra's voice trembled.

The boy ignored the Emperor's humility; he slowly lowered his hand, his eyes—which had no whites and were as black as ink—locked onto Qin Ji across thousands of meters of void.

"Anomaly."

The boy's voice rang directly in Qin Ji's mind, cold and devoid of any human emotion. "I originally thought it was just an ordinary data abnormality, but I didn't expect... you actually stole the power of the 'Source'."

Qin Ji raised an eyebrow. "Stole? How can a learned man's business be called stealing? I call this making rational use of System loopholes."

"Sharp-tongued."

The boy raised his hand expressionlessly. In his palm, a pitch-black rune emitting an ominous Aura was slowly condensing. The moment that rune appeared, the surrounding space began to collapse on a large scale, revealing the deep, nihilistic turbulence behind it.

"Since you have broken the balance, I shall be the one to correct it."

"Correct?"

Qin Ji laughed.

Not only did he not retreat, but he also pulled out a palm-sized, green-rusted copper block from his backpack.

He had picked it up in a dilapidated temple in the Newbie Village and never knew what it was, only that it was incredibly hard—even Divine-Grade equipment would chip if it struck it.

But just now, when the boy displayed that power to "erase rules," this green copper block, which had been lying dead in his backpack, suddenly began to grow hot.

It was so hot it felt like it was branding his palm.

"There are plenty of people who want to correct me. Who do you think you are?"

Qin Ji weighed the green copper block in his hand, feeling that heavy sense of weight that seemed to come from the ancient primordial wilderness, the smile on his face becoming increasingly unrestrained and arrogant.

"It just so happens that the skill earlier was only an appetizer."

"Since someone who can actually fight has shown up, don't even think about leaving."

Boom!

The stone pillar beneath Qin Ji's feet instantly exploded into powder.

Instead of retreating, he advanced, turning into a streak of black lightning as he actively charged out of the ruins toward the flagship in the sky, toward that mysterious and unfathomable boy.

And behind him.

The purple light points that were originally erased by the boy hadn't actually completely disappeared. Like some immortal ghosts, they clung to the dust in the air and lit up once more with an eerie glow.

[Calamity: Infinite Fractal] Trait 3: Energy Conservation Violation.

As long as I do not die, the attack will never stop.

Even if you erase its form, its "concept" still exists.

"Come on!"

Qin Ji's figure instantly crossed the thousand-meter distance, the green copper block held high, carrying a tyrannical Aura that seemed intent on punching a hole in the sky as he smashed it fiercely toward the boy's pale little face.

"Let's see whose authority is higher, or if my brick is harder!"

The setting sun was like blood, dyeing the entire vault of heaven a tragic dark red. Beneath those broken layers of clouds, a tiny figure held a rust-stained copper block high, charging resolutely to smash it against that terrifying existence representing the world's will. At the center of their collision, the purple light of calamity and the pitch-black power of correction tore at each other frantically, grinding all surrounding matter into a void of Chaos.