Chapter 360: Full Power Eruption, Slaying the False God
This was not the first time the Artificial God of Psionics had descended.
Most of its body was hidden amidst the dark clouds of the starry sky, yet it still carried the same terrifying might, as if it had descended straight from the Ninth Heaven.
Stars, stardust, warships…
Everything shrouded beneath the divine light of the Artificial God of Psionics trembled, as though it could collapse at any moment.
The last time, the fleet that attacked the Apostolic Holy City’s Eighth Squadron had begun crumbling from the very first moment of confrontation.
But this time, things were entirely different.
The Artificial God of Psionics was still the same, and though the Fourth Squadron behind it was somewhat weaker than the Eighth, the difference was not vast. Only—what stood facing it now was Bai Fu!
“Heard you’re an Artificial God?”
“Tch!”
“What stands before us now is the true God of the Ethereal Realm!”
The terrifying might of the Artificial God of Psionics was stopped hundreds of kilometers before Bai Fu by an invisible high wall.
No matter how much power it unleashed, that invisible wall did not waver in the slightest.
Amidst the starry sea, the energy radiating from Bai Fu clashed violently against the energy radiating from the Artificial God of Psionics. From the flanks, the collision looked like two distinct rivers flowing side by side, with neither overwhelming the other in the short term.
【Tch, just an Artificial God—not even worth a single hair of Fu-fu!】
【Charge, Fu-fu, crush it to death!】
Inside the warships, the Players’ blood surged with excitement, with no trace of fear in their hearts.
Be it an Artificial God, a Cathedral God-Image-class Mothership, a Transcendent, or even a Sovereign—so long as Bai Fu was here, they were invincible!
“Kill!”
Hundreds of thousands of warships converged into a sharp wedge formation. From Bai Fu’s flank, they pierced through the mist-covered starry sea, charging toward the rapidly regrouping Fourth Squadron of the Apostolic Holy City.
【This first strike is ours—the Iron Rain Guild will take the credit!】
With someone taking the lead, the others quickly followed.
Hundreds of colossal arrows tore through the void, plunging straight into the heart of the Fourth Squadron, their momentum devouring the stars themselves.
This was no conventional interstellar war.
Ordinary interstellar battles began with long-range barrages, maneuver fleets reshaping formations, and flanking maneuvers.
But this war, thanks to Sen Lan’s betrayal as an undercover agent, had thrown both fleets into a chaotic melee from the start.
In a clash of this scale, strategy and tactics no longer determined victory. Instead, what mattered was courage and the ability to maneuver during close-quarters ship duels. And between these two, courage was the greater key.
In other words, this war was nothing less than a hymn of courage written by both sides!
Who had more courage—the Players, or the NPCs?
It was undeniable that even without the gift of immortality, some NPCs shone with courage far brighter than many Players.
But within the Fourth Squadron, the number of such NPCs was pitifully low. After all, the Apostolic Holy City was not an ancient, unified civilization boasting ten million years of glory.
When these NPCs, driven by faith, emotion, and the noble qualities of sentient life, piloted their ships into the enemy ranks, what awaited them were enemies who outnumbered them a hundred to one: Players utterly unafraid of death.
“Come then—let us decide victory once and for all!”
Before this war erupted, the Apostolic Holy City had marveled at the Players’ undying trait, but they had not truly feared them.
It was not shortsightedness.
The core reason was simply that the Apostolic Holy City had recruited far too few Players—barely tens of thousands in total.
Tens of thousands of Players, unleashed upon a galactic-level or galaxy-cluster-level civilization, could form a devastating storm. But thrown against a super civilization like the Apostolic Holy City, they could hardly stir a ripple.
Though the Apostolic Holy City foresaw that gathering more Players would have extraordinary effects, they had never expected the effects to be this overwhelming.
“If this drags on, the longer we fight, the greater our losses.”
“They don’t die—but every one of our elite pilots that falls is gone forever!”
“Use True Spirit summons to wear them down.”
“Dream on! Their Psionic Priests are stronger than ours, and among them is even a Transcendent-level spatial Esper!”
“Then we have to eliminate that spatial Esper first!”
In the command room of the Fourth Squadron, sweat poured down the faces of every officer.
They immediately set their sights on removing Hiye and the Shadow Lord, whom Bai Fu and Bai Fu’s allies had just exposed as devastating threats.
But soon, they realized they had oversimplified things.
Spatial Esper?
That was no mere Esper—it was a juvenile Void Sovereign!
Even in its “juvenile stage,” Hiye still relied on her space manipulation to outmaneuver the Transcendents of the Fourth Squadron with ease. And this was when Shadow Foxtail, the top assassin, made her entrance.
After Bai Fu’s repeated strengthening, Shadow Foxtail’s raw power was still below that of the Oathmaster. Yet when it came to sudden ambushes, her burst power was no less.
“They can’t be fought—there’s no way!”
The Transcendents of the Fourth Squadron felt their scalps numb.
They realized that if the battle continued like this, they themselves would collapse even before their fleets did.
“Bai Fu has been preparing this for a long time. The forces she’s brought utterly counter ours. With our own strength alone, we cannot defeat her. Unless the Artificial God can kill her—but…”
All of them, including Sen Lan, exchanged glances.
Given the current situation, none of them truly believed the Artificial God could kill Bai Fu.
If it could, it would have acted long ago. Why would it still be standing there in a deadlock while battles raged around it, the stars themselves being torn apart?
“So—we must call for reinforcements again!”
If the Fourth Squadron was crushed, the entire flank of the Apostolic Holy City would be completely exposed.
The consequences? At best, this month-long offensive would end in failure. At worst, the Apostolic Holy City would suffer an even harsher blow, forced to retract its forces and retreat to its own homeworld.
Of course, most members of the Fourth Squadron’s command were not thinking so far ahead.
They simply wanted to survive.
“Damn it—why is it always the Fourth Cathedral that gets the worst of it?”
Some even suspected that Bai Fu’s breach of their defenses had not been through chance at all. Perhaps disciples of the Supreme God or others within the Apostolic Holy City who despised the Fourth Cathedral had leaked intelligence to Bai Fu, hoping to use her hand to eliminate them. None of them realized that the traitor was among them.
“Why are there suddenly so many Transcendents around Bai Fu? Even if she could guide others in breaking through, the speed should never be this fast!”
Upon receiving the report, the disciples of the Supreme God looked grim.
The situation was urgent; he had no time to contemplate so many things now and could only hurriedly dispatch his most capable subordinates to provide support.
While the Apostolic Holy City scrambled forces, the allied army of the Three Universal Civilizations immediately launched an offensive to coordinate with Bai Fu’s actions.
Everything proceeded according to plan.
Those who did not know the truth assumed the Three Universal Civilizations were seizing this once-in-a-millennium chance to drive the Apostolic Holy City back in one blow.
“Looks like they don’t need our intervention for the moment,” the Leader of the Original Pact said, watching the unfolding star chart with keen interest. “If that’s the case, then we’ll just sit here and enjoy the show.”
……
Winds stirred from all directions.
More than ten minutes had passed since the assault began.
Seeing the Players had completely stabilized the situation, Bai Fu loosened the tension in her limbs.
“Looks like they don’t need me to babysit that side anymore. Now it’s time to send you on your way!”
Originally, Bai Fu had not intended to reveal her true strength in this operation — she planned to put on a show, wait for the Apostolic Holy City’s large reinforcements to arrive, stage a “heroic sacrifice,” and then change battlefields.
But for the three rewards in Main Quest Branch 3, she no longer intended to hide.
“Enough of that fake god nonsense. I’ll show you what the power of a true god is.”
True name, liberation!
Bai Fu raised her right hand high; the Ritual God’s Scepter slowly manifested from her palm, and an enormous black vortex formed above her head.
The vortex ravenously swallowed all surrounding energy. In an instant, every light in the star sea extinguished — the entire star sea had become a dark world.
“Star Sea Fall?!”
In the distance, the commander of the Fourth Squadron almost had his eyes pop out at the sight.
Wasn’t this the huge secret technique the Apostolic Holy City had devised? Why could Bai Fu use it?
Of course Bai Fu could do more than this.
As countless dark energies devoured the star sea, she swung the Ritual God’s Scepter again, and this time a Tide of Annihilation burst forth from the scepter.
Psionic power in her left hand, dark energy in her right.
The two torrents instantly broke through the “domain” the Artificial God of Psionics had erected and surged toward its prismatic body.
The Artificial God of Psionics was no mere trinket. Though its strength ranked below the Supreme God’s disciple and the Fourth Apostle, within the vast Apostolic Holy City it still counted as third. It had held back earlier because it could not read Bai Fu, but now that Bai Fu had taken the initiative, it naturally reserved nothing.
“Just do it!”
What was an Artificial God to fear?
A blinding, world-shaping radiance burst from the ten-faced crystal.
Light braided like ropes to form a dense great net, standing in the path of the Star Sea Fall and the Tide of Annihilation.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions rolled in succession, yet no matter how the Star Sea Fall and the Tide of Annihilation slammed into it, the luminous net remained as solid as ever.
That was close.
The Artificial God of Psionics secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
If its Mind-trapping Net could hold off Bai Fu’s ultimate, then things would be simple: grind them down slowly and it would eventually win.
But before it could enjoy that thought long, the unexpected occurred.
The once-distinct Star Sea Fall and Tide of Annihilation suddenly converged.
“Taste this entanglement of light and darkness. Since I learned this skill, you are the first to face it!”
At Bai Fu’s command, while the light-and-dark entanglement was still charging, Kabaye and Prayer Angel struck from two directions and bound the Artificial God of Psionics.
Crap!
Staring at the Taiji-like intertwining of psionic and dark energies, the Artificial God of Psionics instinctively sensed something wrong.
But under the life-risking restraint of Kabaye and Prayer Angel, it could not break free in the short term. It could only watch as light and darkness truly entwined, and after overlaying the effect of True Adjudication, the spiral — like a high-speed rotating galaxy — slammed down upon it.
“Wait, what is that?”
The horrific commotion instantly drew everyone’s attention.
Even those locked in fierce combat paused, looking with shock or amazement at the light-and-dark entanglement that had completely engulfed the Artificial God of Psionics.
This move shook the star rivers, inverted space-time, and was enough to slay a god!
When it fell, everything around it was crushed — including space-time itself. The once-normal starry sky turned into void; the Ethereal Realm dimension Bai Fu had summoned shattered into “crumbs.”
The Players could not distinguish illusion from reality; they only felt this move was badass.
But the command members of the Fourth Squadron all broke into cold sweat.
If they had faced this move head-on, even if they did not die they would have been severely wounded!
As for the Artificial God of Psionics — it was powerful, but before the fully amplified entanglement of light and darkness, it was clearly insufficient.
Stop!
Stop!
The Artificial God of Psionics frantically struck prisms from its body, trying to smash the descending vortex.
One face, two faces, three faces…
Prism after prism flew out and was ground to fragments.
Only when the seventh prism was crushed did the vortex finally dissipate.
The Artificial God of Psionics exhaled.
It had finally held them off, so next would be its counter—
“Don’t be impatient; that was only the appetizer!”
Bai Fu raised the Ritual God’s Scepter and unleashed a single【Ritual of the God】.
Though this blast lacked the scale of the light-and-dark entanglement, as a full-power strike from an offensive Cosmic Treasure it still shattered star rivers.
Bang, bang, bang!
Two more faces of prisms on the Artificial God of Psionics were smashed in one breath.
When the last face floated up, what awaited it was a particle that at first glance did not seem particularly odd.
However…
“Ethereal Realm Particle?!”
The Artificial God of Psionics recognized it.
The command members of the Fourth Squadron recognized it.
The remotely linked Supreme God’s disciple and the Fourth Apostle recognized it.
The Apostolic Holy City reinforcements arriving aboard a Cathedral God-Image-class Mothership recognized it.
“Get out of the way!”
Hmph — at this point, who could still dodge?
Bai Fu sneered.
To utterly destroy the Fourth Squadron, she had held back nothing.
It was time to end this: a pseudo-god with levels but without the HP and stats to support them!
Void Exile! Frost of All Things!
The terrifying aura unique to a Void Sovereign surged from Bai Fu’s body.
Centering on the Artificial God of Psionics, more than ten miles of surrounding space were sliced away and exiled into an unlocatable other-dimensional space.
Within that prison, the Artificial God of Psionics had no room to dodge.
It could only watch.
It watched the Ethereal Realm Particle shatter its final prism and pierce the exposed core.
Boom!
A violent explosion blew the Artificial God of Psionics and the sliced-off space to pieces.
The pseudo-god had fallen.
Silence reigned.
Inside the seemingly ice-bound cockpit of the Cathedral God-Image-class Mothership, the Supreme God’s disciple let out a low growl.
“Void Sovereign? Bai Fu is actually a Void Sovereign?”
He could no longer sit still.
Void Sovereign plus God of the Ethereal Realm — this was a double ancient lineage!
“Leave this to Zoriel. I’ll personally go support the Fourth Squadron!”
The Supreme God’s disciple hurried away, carrying four Cosmic Treasures including the Mind Desert.
He must kill Bai Fu — no matter the cost, Bai Fu must be killed!