The Fifth Star Ring Military Region Commander was absolutely losing it.
Wasn’t this just a little too much excitement?!
He’d been certain they were all going to die, only to watch Lin Xiaohе take out the Zerg with a single shot.
He’d barely had time to bask in that overwhelming relief before Lin Xiaohе’s warning came through, ordering an immediate retreat.
Shock, joy, then shock again.
That kind of whiplash—that rollercoaster of extreme highs and lows—would’ve given anyone else a heart attack on the spot.
He wiped his face, didn’t ask a single question, and immediately ordered the surviving human fleet to retreat along the route Lin Xiaohе provided.
The space fleet’s engines were pushed to maximum power, the whole hull trembling slightly, with blue light flickering from the exhaust ports.
Only after they’d reached top speed and confirmed they were still on course did the Fifth Star Ring Commander finally have a moment to figure out what the hell was actually going on.
Out there, the Stardust Humans were riding the Giant Sound Whales over to Gonggong Star, getting the humans there organized—those with mechs were to get into their mechs, and those without were to board the ships.
“Don’t worry about engines or power systems! As long as it has basic life support and can withstand cosmic radiation, it’s good enough to go!”
Wesley was directing the evacuation.
Thankfully, the people on Gonggong Star were either military personnel or their families—quick to act and used to following orders.
They didn’t have time to ask why either; they just started organizing the crowds on their own. “Children first!”
“There are still a bunch of maintenance transport ships in the warehouses—most of them have weapon system failures or engine problems.”
“Drag them out! Pack people in, as many as each one can take. As long as you don’t exceed the life support system’s max capacity, stuff ’em in!”
“But that means people can’t lie down—they’ll have to sit or stand. Won’t it be too cramped?”
“What are you, brain-dead?! This is a life-or-death escape, and you’re worried about comfort and space? If you’re scared of crowding, then don’t get on—give your spot to someone else.”
“Sir, the wounded are refusing to board. They say they want to give their spots to the able-bodied.”
“Dammit! Tell them that’s an order, and to shut up about it. Right now we’ve still got room—once we don’t, they won’t be getting on even if they beg!”
The evacuation on Gonggong Star was chaotic, but not disorderly.
They had no idea why they were evacuating, and even less of an idea how they were supposed to evacuate without proper propulsion systems. But it was Lin Xiaohе’s order, so they followed it.
Even if she just dumped them all out into space to die, not a single one of them would hold it against her.
That’s how blind their trust and reverence for Lin Xiaohе was!
Especially after they’d watched her take down the Zerg Grand Tomb—that blind faith had hit its absolute peak.
Clearly, Lin Xiaohе was trying to save them, not send them to their deaths.
As they piled into all kinds of different vehicles, they saw the Giant Sound Whales blow out bubble after bubble, linking them together like train cars.
And their vehicles were being tucked right inside those bubbles.
Wesley let out a loud whoop: “Let’s move out!”
Behind the Giant Sound Whales, Lin Xiaohе was covering the rear.
Nobody else knew it, but Lin Xiaohе understood the situation better than anyone.
The black hole that had devoured Zhou—it was still expanding!
Maybe because there wasn’t any high-density energy nearby, it was growing slowly.
Slow or not, though, it was still growing.
And Lin Xiaohе, the one who’d fired that energy blast in the first place, had absolutely no way to stop it.
Her heart was pounding. Her sixth sense was screaming danger.
After sending out her warning, she kept falling back, again and again.
What happened next made Lin Xiaohе—and every other person and civilization that could observe it—break out in goosebumps.
The great void finally reached Gonggong Star.
Like a chocolate sphere, it was being eaten, bite by bite.
With the first bite, the edge that was consumed—its core activity still churning away as if nothing had happened.
The whole planet showed no volcanic eruptions, no earthquakes—just total peace. If anyone had still been up there, they wouldn’t have even noticed that a third of their world was already gone.
With the second bite, Gonggong Star was like a person lost in a beautiful dream, completely unaware that its body was being torn apart.
It kept spinning and orbiting at its usual speed.
The gap kept widening, until the entire planet had been swallowed whole.
The whole process was steady, unhurried, carrying a strange sort of elegance.
But that elegance was absolutely terrifying to everyone else watching.
The Fifth Star Ring Commander sucked in a sharp breath, grabbing the Sixth Star Ring Commander’s arm, barely able to believe it: “That… that was way too quiet.”
Right. The whole thing was utterly silent. No explosions. No sparks. No earth-shattering chaos.
It was like they were inside a video game, and the programmers had decided Gonggong Star shouldn’t exist anymore—so they just typed in a simple line of code and erased it from the universe.
The Sixth Star Ring Commander twitched the corner of his mouth into a grim smile: “It wiped out the Grand Tomb without breaking a sweat. A little planet like this? Just a drop in the bucket.”
A drop in the bucket, my ass!
Both of them had big beads of sweat rolling down their foreheads.
Lin Xiaohе had told them to haul ass!
What did that mean? It meant even she couldn’t stop it from expanding.
“Holy crap!” The Fifth Star Ring Commander was hopping like his butt was on fire, yelling over the comms for the fleet to go faster, faster!
Lin Xiaohе was pushing the Giant Sound Whales to pick up speed too: “Lin Meimei, faster! Its expansion is accelerating!”
The Giant Sound Whales gritted their teeth and pulled off something like a warp-drive acceleration—whoosh—and shot ahead of the human fleet in an instant.
Fifth Star Ring Commander: …
Alright, alright. Every race has their own special tricks. Except humans.
The nearest wormhole was still three days away!!
Thankfully, Lin Xiaohе was solid. Seeing the human fleet lagging behind, she didn’t abandon them. She stayed ahead, occasionally circling back to push them onward.
“Projection: the black hole will catch up to you in one day.”
“Correction—calculation error. The Fifth Star Ring’s planets are providing enough matter and energy. It’ll reach you in half a day now.”
The humans inside the warships were practically in tears.
They were piloting the cutting edge of human technology—the newest space-faring vessels—and yet compared to the Giant Sound Whales and Stardust Humans, they were moving like snails.
Humiliation. Panic.
Then suddenly, a long, deep whale song echoed from the Giant Sound Whales ahead.
A warning!
Lin Xiaohе rushed over in three quick strides and saw seven familiar humanoid figures blocking the whales’ path, glaring at her with hostile eyes.
“Lin Xiaohе, you deserve to die!”
Lin Xiaohе raised an eyebrow: “So it was you! The so-called Sui Xing Envoys. You’re the ones who screwed over the last civilization, aren’t you? Let me count—seven of you! Plus Jörmungandr and Yanidam. That makes nine. Heh. The ten dead-hand systems that the previous civilization built with all their strength—you just used them as your own stepping stones.”
“That’s right! If you hadn’t devoured that one, we would’ve had ten of us!”
Lin Xiaohе didn’t have time for this: “So what? You want to throw down?”
“We—” The leader god didn’t even get to finish before a massive, world-ending pressure slammed down toward them.
His very soul trembled, his voice cracking: “Lin Xiaohе, are you insane?! Do you even know what that thing is?! And you actually dared to use it!”
