The Suixing envoy leader was utterly panicked!
How could this be?!
That girl was nothing more than a slightly above-average human. Her fate had already been written—she was merely cannon fodder in the calculations of several great civilizations.
How could she possibly turn the tables and devour him instead?!
This was impossible!
“Lin Xiaohe, stop! Don’t you want to know why you crossed the stars?”
Lin Xiaohe couldn’t have cared less!
Perhaps her interstellar journey had been orchestrated by someone.
Perhaps they wanted her to act as a pawn and fulfill some kind of mission.
But since they dared to set up the board and treat her as a piece, they’d have to face the consequences of that piece overturning the entire game!
Do whatever they wanted her to do? How much alcohol had they drunk, and how many dishes had they eaten, to dream so sweetly?!
Listen to all of you? Did she have no pride of her own?!
The Suixing envoy leader felt its energy being madly sucked into the sanctuary chessboard, and its heart was pounding with sheer panic.
What a cursed disaster.
Civilizations had come and gone countless times without ever producing a human sanctuary—and yet she had managed to create one!
If it had been a pure human sanctuary, he wouldn’t have been afraid—after all, it was clearly small and newly born.
But this sanctuary contained Zerg, stardust humans, and stardust plants. How in the world did these different races end up forming a single sanctuary together?!
Seeing that Lin Xiaohe remained unmoved, the Suixing envoy leader softened its tone and tried to lure her: “The [Purifier] has already been activated. Even if you consume every last bit of me, you still won’t escape. Why don’t we cooperate and find a way out of this crisis together?”
“Don’t you want to know where our Suixing civilization came from? Why we chose to cooperate with humans? What crises we’ve faced in the past? As soon as you venture out into the stars, you will inevitably face the threat of extinction. Don’t you want to know how to avoid it?”
Lin Xiaohe’s face remained expressionless: “I do. But I don’t trust a single word you say. If you were really that powerful, why did you become part of Xilos Star? If you could truly handle these crises, then why did the civilization of Number 741 and their people perish?”
Her eyes were sharp and perceptive, as if she had seen through everything: “So, when it comes to the crisis of civilization extinction, you don’t have any answers either.”
The torrent of white energy grew smaller and smaller, until only a tenth remained. Still, the sanctuary chessboard kept absorbing without pause.
“Sigh. I’m not lying. The universe is filled with dangers. You humans are really in a precarious position. How about we talk this over?”
Lin Xiaohe didn’t believe a word of his nonsense. She stayed fully on guard.
And sure enough, the moment the last of the white torrent was drawn into the chessboard, a flash of green light shot straight toward Lin Xiaohe!
It intended to replace her and seize control of the sanctuary!
But Lin Xiaohe was no pushover. She swung the [Holy Codex] and smacked it down hard!
The Suixing envoy leader was dumbfounded.
What the—?! Was there something wrong with her?! Since when was the core of any civilization an individual?!
Lin Xiaohe was the sanctuary. The sanctuary was Lin Xiaohe!
How was he supposed to take that over?!
“Wait… I—”
With a splat, Lin Xiaohe slammed the green light into the chessboard.
The board was a cage—it confined everyone, and now it also suppressed the Suixing civilization envoy.
The difference was that after Lin Xiaohe and her people finished digesting their current energy, they could continue drawing from the trapped white energy.
But the Suixing envoy leader could only stay imprisoned in the sanctuary chessboard, feeling itself grow weaker by the day, until it was completely annihilated.
Having dealt with it, Lin Xiaohe didn’t have time to catch her breath before returning to the three-dimensional world.
At this moment, space-time resembled a mirror. The [Purifier] and the Dead Hand System appeared on opposite sides of that mirror.
The moment Lin Xiaohe stepped into the third dimension, the mirror rippled with waves. After a series of crackling sounds, the two sides finally merged into one.
The pillar of light on Xilos Star wasn’t as thick or brilliant as she had seen before, but it now radiated a terrifying gravitational pull, trying to drag Lin Xiaohe into it.
She felt the sanctuary tremble uneasily. The energy source at the end of the pillar resonated with the same origin as the white energy she had just suppressed!
The two energies vibrated in sync.
Lin Xiaohe seemed to hear the sound of time itself being plucked.
She frowned. This was getting complicated.
Should she gamble again?
The total energy in this beam was less than a third of what the Suixing envoy leader had possessed.
But the problem was, everyone was already stuffed. They couldn’t cram in another drop of energy.
Lin Xiaohe’s spiritual form sat atop Little Black, deep in thought.
Where on earth could she put all this energy?!
Suddenly, she seemed to hear a faint voice.
“My lord… my lord…”
Was it Yingzi?
No! It was the Zerg turncoat!
Lin Xiaohe’s eyes widened in disbelief as she searched for that voice.
How could a turncoat possibly enter the Stardust Human Sanctuary?!
The turncoat’s voice sounded agonized: “My lord, save me! My lord, I’m being drained dry!”
With a flick of her mind, two black whips appeared in Lin Xiaohe’s hands. They stretched out endlessly, reaching toward the energy pillar on Xilos Star!
The octopus that had sent out the distress signal was trapped in a matrix. All eight of its tentacles had shriveled down to mere skin, and all the energy in its mind had been completely drained by the matrix.
And now, it was about to drain its brain!
It didn’t want to die. Fear and dread clung to its spiritual sea like demons.
It wanted to flee, to leave this planet—but a command buried deep in its genes held it frozen in place.
Two completely contradictory emotions were tearing it apart. The pain in its body and its terror of death left it flailing like a headless fly.
In the last second before death, it suddenly remembered that terrifying god of slaughter.
For some reason, a feeling of envy welled up in its heart.
Sure, that god of slaughter was brutal and showed no mercy to the Zerg. But she was truly good to her own people.
If only it could be one of her people too.
The octopus didn’t know why it had such a thought. Maybe it was because it had caught the scent of the Zerg on that killing god. Maybe it had really caught a virus and fallen ill.
In its final moment of life, it sent out a plea for help—or perhaps a farewell—with the most devout posture: “My lord, save me.”
Who was it really calling out to?
The octopus had a guess in its heart. But when that stream of information headed off into the unknown, it felt an unexpected sense of calm, as if everything had finally settled.
Sure enough, it was her.
The octopus’s heart felt sour. My lord would never accept me. She not only killed and ate the Void Devourer’s juveniles, she even used their shells to build ships. She must hate the Zerg to the bone.
Sigh. I wonder which bug got lucky enough to follow her so early.
The octopus gave up. It looked at the corpses of bugs scattered all around and couldn’t muster even a shred of strength to struggle.
Whatever.
If I die, I die. What bug doesn’t die eventually?
Just as it was about to close its eyes, a familiar frequency vibration seemed to come from some dimension.
That was…
The octopus’s eyes shot wide open. Following that vibration came a massive surge of energy pouring into its body!
It was even richer and purer than the energy clusters supplied by the Giant Tomb!
The octopus gulped down the energy in huge mouthfuls. Its shriveled body, as if soaked in water again, became moist and plump once more. New tentacles grew out, even sturdier than before!
A strange emotion surged in the octopus’s heart. Unable to help itself, it let out a cry to its own race, to the void.
The content of that cry, translated into human language, was just two words: “Insect Lord!”
