Back in the Federation, Changqing, who had been locked in a standoff with Jörmungandr, suddenly felt a shift in his thoughts.
That seed had been awakened.
He could sense it frantically absorbing energy, then compressing that power into its newly grown roots—compressing, compressing, and compressing some more. Only when the compression reached its absolute limit did a second new root finally sprout.
Changqing could easily imagine just how incredibly tough the meridians woven from these roots would be—and just how devastating the shockwave and destruction would be when the energy stored within them erupted all at once.
He couldn’t help but recall the moment of his own birth.
The blood carrying a soul had been poured over him, breaking through layer after layer of shackles, allowing him—who should never have grown at all—to be born in the First Era and receive so many inheritances.
This was a deviation in the gears of fate. A deviation caused by Lin Xiaohe.
“Now I’ve repaid you. You let me be born early, gave me more leverage—I’ve returned that favor twofold.”
One summoning, in exchange for two of his seeds—the only two he had ever possessed.
One remained on Jiuzhou Star, helping Lin Xiaohe build a new home.
The other resided within her body, helping her fuse with that overwhelmingly powerful new form.
Changqing’s presence surged upward like bamboo after rain, joint by joint, rising higher and higher.
In this final, world-ending crisis, every civilization would pull out all the stops and play every last card they held. No one would hold back anymore.
This was a struggle for the continuation of civilization. A struggle of life and death.
Lin Xiaohe, from this moment forward, all debts between us are settled. Should we cross paths again, I will show you no mercy whatsoever!
Over in the Imperial Star Domain, several planets simultaneously sprouted colossal trees that pierced the heavens.
The people on those planets froze in place where they stood, and within mere seconds, their breathing ceased—they became nothing but corpses.
“Jörmungandr, answer my call!”
How dare you steal from my feeding grounds right under my nose? You deserve to die!
…
Meanwhile, back on the other side, Lin Xiaohe swept her consciousness outward and immediately realized she was in the Mutant Plant Zone on Gonggong Star.
At this very moment, Gonggong Star was completely surrounded by the Zerg.
The Great Mound—Zhou—was about to arrive on the battlefield.
Ha!
“Even if you hadn’t come looking for me, I was going to come find you!”
Lin Xiaohe twitched her fingers slightly. The soil and ores around her seemed to gain a will of their own, squeezing aside to clear a path for her.
The ground trembled.
Sensing the change in Lin Xiaohe, Zhou issued a command to the Zerg to intensify their assault.
Countless arthropods scraped against rock layers as tens of thousands of Black-Armored Beetles surged toward the Mutant Plant Zone.
Deep underground, fleshy biomass carpets devoured the foundations, and the entire continental shelf groaned under the tide of bugs.
“Open fire! Open fire now!”
“Damn it, there are too many of them!”
“Requesting orbital bombardment from Space Headquarters! Do not let us become nourishment for the Zerg!”
The frontline forces crumbled and fell back under that overwhelming bug tide, helpless and scattered.
Without the protection of the Mutant Plant Zone, they were surrounded on all sides.
At the 53rd Division’s Space Command Center, the officers received the ground forces’ desperate plea. Their eyes burned red with grief and fury.
“Commander…”
The commander squeezed his eyes tightly shut.
At that moment, his heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys felt as if they were being gnawed by countless ants—a dull, pervasive ache.
The majority of the troops on the ground came from the Sixth Star Ring—all veterans who had survived battles against the Zerg.
If there was anyone left in the Federation who still possessed the purest fighting spirit, it was these old soldiers!
And now, he was being asked to give the order to fire on these very same veterans. He simply couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Bad news! Reporting! The Great Mound is about to enter Gonggong Star’s gravitational range!”
The commander’s eyes snapped open. He immediately ordered the Star Domain Orbital Defense Cannons to swivel their muzzles and fire at the Great Mound!
Space erupted into intense combat, and on the ground, the one-sided battle finally began to turn.
Just when the ground was littered with severed limbs and broken bodies, Lin Xiaohe burst forth from the earth amid the groans and cries.
She crashed through shattered mecha wreckage and twisted rebar, and the air—thick with dirt and the stench of blood—flooded her lungs the moment she emerged.
What greeted her eyes was a scene straight out of hell.
The ground forces’ defensive lines were already in tatters.
The surviving soldiers took cover behind smoking mecha wrecks, firing uselessly at the oncoming tide.
Scorching plasma bolts ricocheted off the thick chitinous armor of the Black-Armored Beetles, leaving only scorch marks before the bugs were swarmed by even more smaller leapers.
The skies were overrun by four-winged flying beasts. Sunlight fractured through them, casting swaying, nightmare-like shadows below.
Zhou’s newly bred creations had all made their debut on Gonggong Star!
The moment the bugs caught Lin Xiaohe’s scent, they went absolutely mad.
A four-winged beast closest to her let out a screech and lunged, its scythe-like forelimbs raised high.
She simply shifted her body slightly. Her left hand shot out like lightning, precisely clamping down on the joint of that descending scythe. Her slender fingers held it immobile, like a hydraulic clamp.
Then her right fist followed through—no flashy glow, no thunderous sound—but it punched straight through the four-winged beast’s hard chest.
Squelch!
Thick, viscous green bodily fluids splattered everywhere. The massive bug corpse convulsed violently once, then went limp.
She flicked the highly corrosive bug blood off her hand, her gaze sweeping coldly across the battlefield.
The next moment, she moved.
Her figure became a blur as she cut straight into the densest part of the bug swarm.
This wasn’t a battle. It was a harvest.
Every step she took, the ground beneath her instantly metallized and, with lightning speed, sprouted metal spikes that pierced through the weak underbellies of the Black-Armored Beetles, skewering them entirely!
Every punch she threw sent a shower of tomatoes flying. The red juice of exploding tomatoes—mixed with the thick, sticky blood of the Zerg—formed little streams across the brown earth.
Occasionally, a bug would manage to fly close to her, only to have its acid-spitting throat ripped apart by her bare hands.
Staring at the endless sea of bugs, Lin Xiaohe finally grew annoyed.
She hovered high in the air, her gaze cold and detached.
The entire planet seemed to freeze. The only sound in everyone’s ears was the frantic pounding of their own hearts.
The Bug God! It was the Bug God from the Grand Canyon—the one who had held off ten thousand bugs all by herself!
She had finally descended once more.
She no longer rode that pink beetle mecha, because she herself was now far more powerful than any machine!
Lin Xiaohe spread her arms wide, and two black whips materialized out of thin air.
This time, the whips showed slight changes—green vines coiled around them, and metallic hues of every color shimmered within the dark patterns flowing along the whip bodies.
No one doubted it: Lin Xiaohe had grown even stronger!
She flicked her wrists and cracked the whips with force.
The whip light transformed into a black arc that split the dim, dreadful sky.
Wherever the arc passed, the Zerg’s indestructible carapaces were sliced apart like paper. Severed limbs and dismembered bodies flew in every direction.
Her figure was so mighty, her gaze so indifferent, as if declaring to the universe itself:
The Zerg were nothing more than this!
Someone—it was impossible to tell who—was the first to let out a hoarse cry. That shout quickly swelled into a wave of fervent roaring:
“Kill—!”
The remaining firepower roared back to life once more. This time, their muzzles aimed straight at the gap in the crumbling bug tide.
With the Bug God here, they feared nothing!
Far away on the Sixth Star Ring, Xiaohei took his place within the Great Mound.
Xiaohei let out a thunderous roar, issuing a single command to all Zerg in the Sixth Star Domain:
“At all costs—protect our master!”
