Zhou went completely berserk, issuing an irrevocable command to all Zerg within its control.
“Cross every obstacle immediately and kill Lin Xiaohe!”
The small number of Zerg that had remained within Imperial territory instantly shot into the air, charging toward the Fifth Star Ring with reckless abandon.
For the first time, the Empire’s citizens realized just how many Zerg were actually lurking within their star domain!
Besides Zhou, several deities at the edge of the Fourth Star Ring also lost their minds.
Abandoning their original plans entirely, they became fixated on one thing—reaching Gungong Star to stop Lin Xiaohe from fully mastering that power.
“Lin Xiaohe just unlocked it—she’s not familiar with that energy yet. We have to take her out while we still can!”
“My gods, after humans unlock the first genetic lock, they gain control over that energy?! This is terrifying!”
Chu Huaizhi’s brows twitched violently. It felt like two little voices were bickering inside his head.
One said: this energy should not exist in the universe.
The other said: once you break through the genetic lock, you can fully control it—even if it means facing a crusade from every civilization in the cosmos, it’s still… incredibly powerful!
Chu Huaizhi’s emotions were a tangled mess. He couldn’t even put his own thoughts into words.
Ambition. Fear. Regret.
He was the first person in the Seventh Epoch civilization to touch the genetic lock.
Back then, when he sensed that the life origin lay behind the lock, he’d lost all interest in breaking through.
The life origin was important, sure, but on a cosmic scale, it was also quite common—almost any civilization capable of intelligence would have one.
Who would’ve guessed that the life origin was just a smokescreen? After the natives broke through the first genetic lock, they’d gain access to that energy—the very force that all interstellar civilizations across the universe called “The Unspeakable Existence”!
Just thinking about it made Chu Huaizhi’s scalp tingle.
If Lin Xiaohe—the one who possessed The Unspeakable Existence—wasn’t eliminated, he hardly dared imagine what kind of terrifying enemy he’d brought upon his own civilization.
Even if he somehow made it back to the Outer Domain, the Council of Elders would surely punish him.
Unable to sit still any longer, Chu Huaizhi boarded his ship and raced toward Gungong Star.
[Nüwa] wasn’t faring much better either—its core processors had devolved into a chaotic mess.
“Chu Huaizhi, the [Origin Body] I wanted is on Lin Xiaohe?! Are you setting me up?!”
What a disaster. Lin Xiaohe was someone who carried The Unspeakable Existence!
Sure, the [Origin Body] was important—important enough that [Nüwa] had willingly sealed away most of its computing power to take part in a scheme measured in tens of thousands of years!
But compared to the [Origin Body], [Nüwa] wanted nothing to do with The Unspeakable Existence.
It couldn’t even bring itself to speak of it, let alone come into contact with it.
For the first time, [Nüwa] felt regret. If it had known all this from the start, it would never have…
—
On the Fifth and Sixth Star Rings, the Zerg’s orders were brutally straightforward.
Zhou: “I’ll repeat this once: abandon all other missions. Channel every ounce of energy into me. If necessary, perform a sacrifice—make sure Lin Xiaohe dies!”
“I’ll repeat this again: the target is Lin Xiaohe. The only target is Lin Xiaohe!”
“I’ll repeat this one more time: she must die!”
As the aura of The Unspeakable Existence grew thicker by the second, Zhou’s commands became increasingly frantic.
Lin Xiaohe’s eyes flickered. She immediately issued a single directive to the Zerg at the Black Giant Tombs.
“Begin the sacrifice—now!”
Countless insects surged forward, heedless of death, swarming toward Lin Xiaohe.
More bugs screeched wildly from behind.
They dissolved into black energy that poured into the Black Giant Tombs.
The ten giant tombs linked together into two Cosmic Rings, materializing beneath Lin Xiaohe’s feet.
These two Cosmic Rings were her primary energy absorbers.
Seeing this, Zhou also initiated its own Zerg sacrifice.
Across the galaxy, tidal waves of Zerg rushed toward both of them.
Zhou’s main body rose steadily into view, its tomb beginning to shift and deform.
Lin Xiaohe wasn’t absorbing as much Zerg energy as Zhou was—but she was doing it faster.
The black spear swirling in her hand helped her wield both the life origin and that mysterious power with greater finesse.
Each time she swung it, a tempest erupted in the Fourth Dimension—wreathed in flames and crackling with lightning—snuffing out clusters of tiny white specks of light.
In the Third Dimension, that translated to entire swaths of Zerg dropping dead without warning. No external injuries. No detectable energy fluctuations on human observation instruments.
The surviving Fifth Star Ring military commander’s eyes lit up like lightbulbs. He slapped the chief scientist on the shoulder, hard. “Holy crap! Is this how higher-dimensional beings fight?! My mind is blown!”
His grip was brutal—the chief scientist winced in pain. “Yes, exactly. This is an attack from a higher dimension. We humans…”
His voice cracked as he gazed at Lin Xiaohe and the Stardust Humans riding the Giant Sound Whales, tears welling in his eyes.
“Our evolutionary path hasn’t been cut off! There’s still hope for us!”
Across from Lin Xiaohe, Zhou sped up its sacrifice. Massive amounts of Zerg energy coalesced around it into a thick purple haze.
Boom!
Zhou finally breached a critical threshold—the purple haze was completely absorbed.
The giant tomb contracted violently, compressing into a mound, then exploded outward with a deafening blast. A humanoid figure wreathed in black Zerg energy materialized in the void of space.
“In the name of Zhou, I will fight you to the death!”
Lin Xiaohe showed no fear whatsoever. She leveled her spear and charged straight at him.
Zhou did the same!
BOOM!
The two forces collided, sending tremors rippling through the very fabric of spacetime.
Human warships were flung aside by the shockwave, nearly dragged into the gravitational pull of a nearby star.
The pilots panicked, switching to manual controls and sweating bullets as they barely managed to break free from the star’s grasp.
The Fifth Star Ring commander’s heart was pounding out of his chest. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and barked out a hurried order: “Pull back! Farther away from the battlefield!”
With Lin Xiaohe on the verge of reaching new heights, he wasn’t about to fall in the final hour for nothing.
“Sir! We’ve detected the command ship of the 53rd Division—there are survivors aboard!”
“Initiate rescue immediately!”
Luck was on the 53rd Division’s side—the blast wave had pushed their ship right next to the Fifth Star Ring’s fleet.
Humans helped each other. Meanwhile, Lin Xiaohe and Zhou were locked in a ferocious battle.
Lin Xiaohe’s control over that power was still uneven—it worked when it wanted to.
When it worked, one thrust of her spear would blow a massive hole right through Zhou.
When it didn’t, she could barely hold her own.
She quickened her attacks, but noticed Zhou’s movements growing slower and slower.
Huh?
Inside Zhou’s body, the gaping wound left by that power was expanding nonstop.
Zhou stopped in its tracks, horrified to realize that its energy was being drained away into that hole—yet it felt absolutely no pain.
It was as if a giant hand had reached down from some higher dimension, holding an eraser, and was slowly—methodically—wiping Zhou out of existence…
