The "Survival on the Train" game has bugs, it's really laggy!

Su Yuan slowly retracted his right hand.

The "elephant" character brand on his palm, interwoven with dark gold, pure white, and jet black, resembled a satisfied eye that slowly closed its eyelids and disappeared beneath his skin.

The moment the three colors disappeared, the oppressive force of the laws that had been weighing people down and making their bones feel weak also dissipated inside the carriage.

The air became breathable again.

Xiao Huo leaned over the control panel, wiping the dried golden blood from between his fingers with his sleeve. His fingers were still trembling slightly, but his gaze was fixed firmly on the panel in front of him.

The data is running.

Not only have all the indicators of the core system returned to normal, but several new columns that he had never seen before have even appeared.

He flipped through a few pages.

Then he froze.

"Owner."

"Um?"

"The logical architecture of the core system... has changed."

Xiao Huo's golden vertical pupils scanned line by line of the newly added underlying code, his voice carrying an indescribable complexity.

"It produced a completely new kind of...resistance."

"Resistance to logical paradoxes."

He looked up at Su Yuan, his face clearly saying, "This is acceptable?"

"The 'law of self-denial' almost crashed our entire system before, but now... the system has treated that crash as an 'immunity training'. In the future, when it encounters similar paradox attacks, the core system can automatically identify and isolate them."

He swallowed hard.

"A blessing in disguise."

"A blessing in disguise."

Su Yuan leaned back in his chair and didn't say anything.

He is feeling.

The way the three forces within his body operated was completely different from before. The dark golden imperial scepter was the skeleton, the pure white creative evolution was the flesh and blood, and the pitch-black "negation" power was the skin—the three were layered and interdependent, operating with unbelievable smoothness.

It's like a car that previously only had an engine and brakes.

Now there's an extra clutch.

The three elements work together seamlessly, like the limbs of an arm.

"Comfortable."

Su Yuan uttered two words in a low voice, a slight smile playing on his lips.

Wang Hu, supporting himself against the wall, slowly lifted himself up from the ground.

His robotic arm was back to normal operation; he clenched his fist, and the joints made a clicking sound. But he didn't have time to check his equipment now.

His eyes were fixed on Su Yuan.

That look in their eyes was no longer one of awe.

Respect is accompanied by a sense of distance.

The way he looks at Su Yuan now is the kind of expression a believer has when standing at the entrance of a temple looking at a statue of a god.

Pure.

Unadulterated.

faith.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something sophisticated to express his feelings, but after racking his brains, he could only manage to utter one sentence.

"Boss, from now on, if you tell me to go east, I, Wang Hu, will never go west. If you tell me to die, I won't even write a will."

Su Yuan glanced at him.

Speak like a human.

"He just knelt down."

in the corner.

The money-guarding spirit's chubby body suddenly bounced up from the ground.

The speed was so fast that it was impossible to tell that he had just been pretending to be dead.

Its two short legs darted swiftly to Su Yuan, holding the treasure chest with several lines of dark gold law runes on its surface, and it smiled like a blooming chrysanthemum.

"My esteemed patron! Look! Look! My treasure chest seems to have benefited from your generosity, growing new patterns on it!"

It held the treasure chest high and spun it around to display it.

"Although I don't know what these patterns are for, they look valuable! They look high-end! It must be because they've been around you for so long that even the box has evolved!"

Su Yuan casually tapped the treasure chest twice.

The sound of knuckles striking metal was much deeper than before.

Moreover, he could feel that the dark golden runes transmitted an extremely faint resonance of laws the moment his fingers touched them.

Those runes are not decorations.

These were some kind of law inscriptions that were generated autonomously after the treasure chests passively absorbed the scattered fragments of law during the previous attack and defense by the high-dimensional hounds.

The specific functions are still unclear.

But Su Yuan's intuition told him that this mutated treasure chest might come in very handy in the future.

He withdrew his finger, said nothing more, and simply leaned back in his chair.

The three forces within the body are operating smoothly.

The core system is stable.

Full of energy.

Everything is fine.

That's rare and wonderful.

Su Yuan closed his eyes, enjoying this brief moment of peace.

Sunshine, sand, and iced watermelon.

Although he was currently in the void with nothing around him, his mood was pretty much the same.

This calm lasted for about seventeen seconds.

Then--

"Beep be ...

The scarlet alarm lights suddenly flashed out, turning the entire carriage blood red. The piercing, high-frequency alarm sounded like ten thousand cicadas screaming in your ears.

Su Yuan opened his eyes.

No rush. No panic.

It just opened its eyes.

The moment the alarm went off, Xiao Huo pounced on the panel, his ten fingers slicing out six monitoring windows, his golden vertical pupils rapidly scanning each line of data.

Three seconds later.

His face turned pale.

"Owner."

His voice was strained, like a string stretched to its limit.

"The wanted poster sent its final coordinates before it disappeared."

He swallowed hard.

"The nearest Arbitration Court's Seventh Punishment Fleet and... the Interstellar Hunter Alliance have completed a joint warp."

He swiped his finger across the panel, expanding the external visual projection to full screen.

The view outside the car window changed.

One second ago, it was a vast, quiet void filled only with floating law-based dust.

The next second—

Densely packed.

Overwhelming.

Tens of thousands of heavy starships, gleaming with a cold metallic luster, surged out from the warp rifts in all directions, filling the star field in a very short time.

Each one is a giant war machine with a range of hundreds of kilometers.

Pure white paint, gold cross-shaped insignia, sharply defined armor lines, and a dense array of weapons.

Their cannons were all pointed in the same direction.

Emperor's Path: Devourer of the Wasteland

The impact of that image was so great that it was almost absurd.

A train.

Tens of thousands of Star Destroyers.

The difference in quantity is not on the same level.

It's not just a difference in body size.

Su Yuan's train was like an ant standing in the very center of an elephant herd amidst those warships.

Wang Hu had just straightened up when his back bent again.

He looked out the window at the impenetrable torrent of steel, and his lips trembled slightly.

"Are you... serious?"

The treasure-guarding spirit loosened its grip on the treasure chest.

The treasure chest fell to the ground and bounced twice.

It didn't pick it up.

Its eyes were as big as copper bells, and its mouth was open, making a kind of "ho ho ho" sound.

The soul began to leave the body again.

Xiao Huo didn't panic.

It's not that I don't want to panic.

I've panicked so many times that I'm numb to it.

He just stared intently at the panel, reading out every piece of information he could get to Su Yuan.

"The flagship of the Combined Fleet, 'Light of Judgment'. A ninth-tier flagship of the Arbitration Tribunal. Length: 2,300 kilometers. Main weapon: Star Destroyer Causality Collapse Cannon."

"The escort fleet consists of 12,000 ships, ranging from Tier 7 to Tier 8."

"Releasing..."

His fingers stopped.

His eyes widened.

Outside the car window, tens of thousands of warships simultaneously released beams of dark blue light from the side.

Those beams of light were not an attack.

They are weaving.

Like a spider spinning silk, countless beams of dark blue light intertwined, entangled, and overlapped in the void, weaving a huge, seamless net of light around the Emperor's Path Devourer—including above and below.

The optical network assembles extremely quickly.

From release to formation, it takes less than five seconds.

The Emperor's Path Devourer was enveloped inside, like a flying insect caught in a spider web.

A dense array of red warnings popped up on Xiao Huo's control panel.

"Absolute Dimensional Blockade Network!"

His voice changed tone.

"All power systems—locked down! Spatial jump modules—locked down! Causality privileges—blocked! Even the basic energy cycle is limited to minimum power!"

He patted the panel.

Useless.

I patted it twice.

It still didn't work.

"A lock-on at the level of physical rules! It's not signal interference; it directly modifies the physical constants of the space around us! Inside this blockade, the physical concepts of 'acceleration' and 'displacement' are redefined—any motion exceeding one ten-thousandth of the speed of light will be automatically erased!"

He turned to look at Su Yuan, his golden vertical pupils filled with anxiety.

"We...can't move."

Wang Hu looked down at his robotic arm.

My fingers, which had just recovered, are stiff again.

It is not a severing of causality.

The method was even more brutal—the blockade directly limited the transmission speed of electronic signals inside his robotic arm to near zero.

The signal is on.

But it's as slow as a tortoise crawling.

Issuing a command to "clench your fist" might take a hundred years to be executed.

His face turned ashen.

"Fuck..."

The following profanities were not spoken.

Because the full-band broadcast started.

A cold, mechanically processed voice pierced through the blockade and entered every audio receiver of the Emperor's Path Devourer.

"The paradox VSE-0".

"You have been jointly identified as a cosmic-level threat by the Interstellar Council and the High Dimensional Arbitration Tribunal."

"Your death is imminent."

"In ten seconds, the entire fleet will fire in a synchronized salvo."

"This is a notice, not a negotiation."

The sound stopped.

Instead, a sickeningly loud charging hum came from outside the car window.

The weapon arrays of tens of thousands of warships were activated simultaneously.

Tens of thousands of cannon muzzles flashed with icy blue arcs of energy, converging into a despairing sea of ​​light in the dark void.

And at the farthest point.

On the bow of the flagship "Judgment of Light," which stretches for 2,300 kilometers, a massive star-destroying main cannon—so enormous that even the word "cannon" wouldn't be enough—is slowly and irreversibly unfolding its hull.

A destructive white light surged from the depths of the cannon barrel, like a star awakening.

The concentration of the laws of light was so high that Xiao Huo's detector directly overloaded and malfunctioned.

The carriage darkened for a moment.

That's because a batch of detectors burned.

Xiao Huo frantically switched to the backup sensor, and the sound was already quite unstable.

"Star Destroyer Causality Honkai Cannon... Full power charging. Expected to reach release threshold in eight seconds."

His finger swept across the panel, bringing up the intelligence analysis for that main gun.

"This thing... a single shot can create a permanent causal fault line with a diameter of thirty light-years in standard spacetime. All matter, energy, and laws within the fault line will be completely overwritten as 'non-existent'."

His throat was dry.

"This is an ultimate weapon that guarantees a kill. Normally, it is only authorized for use when facing beings of higher dimensions, such as those of the tenth rank or above."

Seven seconds.

Six seconds.

The charging light grew brighter and brighter.

The carriage was bathed in a cold, blue-white light, and everyone wore the same expression.

despair.

Pure despair.

Except for one person.

Su Yuan leaned back in the driver's seat.

The posture remained unchanged.

He didn't stand up from beginning to end.

He gazed out the window at the void, tinged with an icy blue by the charging arcs of tens of thousands of warships. He looked at the eerie blue blockade that completely enveloped the train. He gazed at the distant, roaring star-destroying cannon charging its engines.

Then he raised his eyelids slightly.

The movements were very small.

So small that it would hardly be noticed by anyone in such an apocalyptic setting.

But Xiao Huo noticed.

He noticed that Su Yuan's right hand was moving.

very slow.

Very casual.

The hand was raised from the armrest, palm facing up, and slightly open.

Right in the center of the palm.

Dark gold, pure white, and jet black—the three colors intertwined—emerged from beneath the skin as the character "象" (elephant) was branded.

The dark cracks pulsated faintly among the three colors.

Su Yuan's lips moved slightly.

Two words.

The sound wasn't loud.

It was so soft that even Xiao Huo, who was sitting next to him, almost didn't hear it.

"negative."

Gone.

Just those two words.

There are no complex rules or operations. There are no multi-layered nested conceptual games. There is no swarming of dark golden vines.

He only said two words.

Then the world went quiet.

A ripple spread out from Su Yuan's outstretched palm.

It has no color.

wrong.

It has color.

But that color doesn't exist in any known color spectrum. If you had to describe it, it's something blacker than black. Black is at least visible, but this color—you don't see it as it is, but rather the "absence" left behind by everything after it has passed.

The ripples spread silently.

It's not fast.

It could even be described as very slow.

It spreads so slowly that its trajectory can be tracked with the naked eye.

It passed over the train's outer shell.

Then it touched the blockade net.

The moment of contact.

There was no collision. No sparks. No jarring resonance characteristic of opposing laws.

The blockade has disappeared.

It didn't shatter. It didn't melt. It wasn't torn apart by some stronger force.

It means "disappeared".

It's like a spoken word being taken away from the air—the sound waves remain, but the meaning is gone. The mouth is still moving, but no information is being transmitted.

The eerie blue light of the blockade disappeared instantly in the area the ripples passed through, as if it had never existed.

It wasn't eliminated.

The act of "blocking" itself is being negated.

Are you trying to block me?

This "attempt" does not exist.

This "lockdown" does not exist.

You did nothing.

Because your "doing" has been erased from the causal chain.

The ripples continued to spread outwards.

Wherever it passed, the blockade, like morning mist encountering sunlight that shouldn't exist, silently and thoroughly dissolved from the very foundation of physical constants.

three seconds.

The entire "absolute dimension blockade network" covering hundreds of kilometers of space has vanished completely.

There wasn't even a process of "disappearing" itself.

It simply "never existed".

The engines of the Emperor's Path Devourer roared back to life the instant the blockade was lifted.

It's not a slow recovery.

It's an instantaneous burst from zero to full capacity.

The dark golden propulsion port at the bottom of the train spewed out scorching residual flames of the laws, and the entire train trembled slightly in the void, like a giant beast shaking off the dust as it awoke from its slumber.

On Xiao Huo's control panel, all the locked systems were unlocked simultaneously.

Power – Fully loaded.

Leap – Ready.

The privilege of causality—restoration.

Solar energy cycle – normal.

His finger hovered over the panel.

There is a line of text on the panel.

Red.

All the previous dense warnings disappeared, replaced by a line of status description automatically generated by the system.

[Absolute Dimensional Blockade Network Status: Never Existed]

Xiao Huo stared at those four words for three seconds.

"Never existed."

It is not "has been lifted".

It is not "expired".

It means "never existed".

The system means—these four words mean—that within the scope of the laws governing this train, the concept of a blockade network has never existed.

History has been rewritten.

Just two words.

Wang Hu's prosthetic arm had recovered. His fingers clenched into a fist nimbly. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but his throat was blocked, and nothing could come out.

He turned and glanced at Su Yuan.

Su Yuan remained in the same posture.

Leaning back in the chair.

Right palm facing up.

Even his sitting posture hasn't changed.

This extreme composure creates an almost suffocating sense of oppression at this moment.

outside the window.

On the bridge of tens of thousands of warships.

Blasted.

On the main bridge of the flagship of the Combined Fleet, the "Light of Judgment," the commander, dressed in a pure white robe and wearing the insignia of the highest military rank of the Interstellar Council on his chest, had just three seconds ago worn a cold and arrogant expression that seemed to say "sentence him to death."

His expression froze.

It's like someone holding a wine glass ready to celebrate, only to suddenly discover that the glass is filled with air.

On the main control screen in front of him, the monitoring interface of the blockade network went completely black.

It's not a signal interruption.

The target being monitored has disappeared.

The system displayed a line of red text.

[Status of the censorship network: Never existed]

The commander read the line of text twice.

Then he glanced back at the staff behind him.

Seventeen high-ranking officers stood in place, their faces all bearing the same expression—blank.

That blankness is not composure.

It's the brain refusing to process the information at hand.

"What's going on?" the commander asked in a low voice.

No one answered.

"I'm asking you, what's going on?!"

"Reporting, sir..." a technical officer in charge of controlling the blockade finally managed to squeeze out the words. His throat was dry, and each word sounded like it was being ground out on sandpaper.

"The absolute dimensional blockade network simultaneously deployed by 12,000 warships... status shows 'never existed'."

"I know what the hell the status says! I'm asking you what's going on!"

"have no idea."

The technical officer's voice trembled.

"Sir, we don't know. The system didn't record any attacks, any interference, or any energy fluctuations. The blockade wasn't breached, nor was it suppressed. It's just... gone. There's not even a record of 'releasing the blockade' in the system logs."

He swiped his hand across the panel twice.

"It's as if we... never released the blockade."

The temperature inside the bridge dropped several degrees.

It's not that the temperature has actually dropped.

A chill ran down the spine of everyone present at the same time.

The communication channel erupted in chaos.

"Flagship! Flagship! Seventh Cruiser Squadron Report! Our blockade projectors are showing as empty—but we clearly released them! The operations logs have been cleared!"

"Emergency communication from the 12th Destroyer Group! An unknown malfunction has occurred in our ship's weapon systems. The fire control system logs indicate that we have never entered combat readiness! But the gun barrels are still clearly hot!"

"This isn't right! This is fucking wrong! Something has tampered with ours—"

The sounds are increasing.

It's getting more and more chaotic.

I'm getting more and more terrified.

The orderly formation of 12,000 warships began to stir. Several escort ships even started their side thrusters on their own without orders, attempting to increase the distance between themselves and the Imperial Path Devourer.

Fear is spreading.

A fear called "the unknown" that they had never felt on any battlefield before.

They are the most elite fighting force of the Interstellar Council. Their weapons can flatten planets, their fleets can crush galaxies. They know nothing of powerlessness.

Until now.

They were taught by a train.

On the bridge of the flagship.

The commander's face had turned ashen.

His hands were pressed firmly on the control panel, his knuckles white from gripping it so tightly. He stared intently at the tiny train on the main screen, a train less than a thousandth the size of his flagship.

The train remained motionless.

It floats silently in the void.

The dark gold patterns on the obsidian scales on the car's surface pulsate faintly, like the gentle breathing of a giant beast.

Arrogant.

Silent arrogance.

Arrogance that is more infuriating than any provocation.

The commander clenched his teeth. His reason told him he should analyze the situation calmly, reassess the threat level, and consider a tactical retreat.

But his military instincts—no, his pride—overwhelmed his reason.

He made a boast in front of tens of thousands of his subordinates.

He said, "Your time to die has come."

He cannot break his promise.

"All fleet, listen to my command!"

His voice was squeezed out from between his teeth, each word carrying a desperate, all-or-nothing resolve.

"Conventional weapons ineffective - activate main gun."

His right hand pressed down hard on the red button on the control panel, which was protected by three layers of safety shell.

"'Star Destroyer Causality Honkai Cannon' - Full Power Charge!"

"Target: VSE-0"

"Plate it up, along with this entire star sector!"

The flagship's hull emitted a deep resonance.

The entire 2,300-kilometer-long giant warship trembled as it powered up its main gun.

The main gun hull at the bow of the ship was fully deployed. Twelve stabilizing rings rotated rapidly around the gun barrel, each releasing a dense field of law-based stabilization, confining the terrifying energy that was constantly gathering inside into an increasingly smaller and more deadly space.

white.

Pure, blinding white light poured from the cannon muzzle, illuminating the void for hundreds of kilometers around.

That is not light.

It is the overflowing radiation of the law of causality after it has been compressed to its extreme.

It is devouring all cause and effect.

Within its coverage area, the causal relationship of "the sun emitting light" no longer exists—so the light from several nearby stars suddenly disappears in this region. The causal relationship of "space is continuous" no longer exists—so visible fragmented grid patterns appear in the space near the main gun.

Everything was making way for this shot.

Give up the chain of cause and effect.

Relinquish the right to exist.

Make room for the laws of physics to take effect.

Because of where this shot landed.

Nothing will be left.

Even the phrase "nothing will be left" itself will not be left.

Xiao Huo looked at the data returned by the external detector, and his fingers had stopped trembling.

It's not that I'm not afraid anymore.

It's because we're afraid that once we reach a certain critical point, our bodies will automatically activate a protective mechanism, temporarily shutting down the emotion of "fear."

His voice was very flat. Unnaturally flat.

"Master. The Causality Honkai Cannon is 92% charged. It is scheduled to be released in seven seconds."

"Coverage range—thirty light-years."

"All causal chains within this scope, including the cause and effect of our existence, will be completely reduced to zero."

He paused for a moment.

"This shot... there's no escaping it."

Wang Hu's lips were moving.

I don't know what they're saying.

Maybe it's reciting its home address. Maybe it's reciting someone's name. Or maybe it's not reciting anything at all, but its lips are just trembling.

The money-guarding spirit had completely lost consciousness; its short legs were curled up in the corner, even its breathing was light, like a cloth bag with eyes.

Five seconds.

Four seconds.

The white, destructive light from the cannon's muzzle expanded to a terrifying degree.

Looking out the car window, the entire void was submerged in a "white" that did not belong to any spectrum.

three seconds.

Su Yuan gave a cold laugh.

very short.

It's very light.

Then he stood up.

This was the first time he had stood up from the driver's seat during today's battle.

His right hand was extended forward.

The three-color branding on the palm is fully lit.

Dark gold. Pure white. Jet black.

Three forces emanated from his palms, no longer ripples or waves.

It is a physical entity.

Dark golden law skeleton, pure white creative flesh and blood, and jet-black negation skin grew, wove, and condensed wildly in the void in front of his palm.

one second.

One hand.

A gigantic hand that blots out the sky.

It condensed and took shape directly in front of the Emperor's Path Devourer, each finger hundreds of kilometers long, with three distinct laws flowing across its surface. Dark gold formed the joints, pure white filled the texture, and jet black covered the surface.

The hand spread its five fingers in the void.

Then—it crossed space.

It's not about flying over.

It's not a leap to the past.

It "negates" the distance between it and the goal.

The spatial distance of 1,700 kilometers is directly eliminated by the concept of physics.

The three-colored giant hand appeared directly in front of the flagship "Judgment Light".

Bring your five fingers together.

I pinched it.

A flagship that is 2,300 kilometers long.

It was pinched by a hand.

The commander in the bridge stared at the image on the main screen, his mind completely blank.

Each finger of that three-colored giant hand was thicker than his flagship.

It held its warship like an adult holding a pencil.

An understatement.

It was effortless.

"Fire..." The commander's mouth moved mechanically.

The tone of voice has changed.

It is not an order.

It is a plea.

It is the instinct of a drowning person to grasp at the last straw.

"Fire!!! His hand is on our ship! The range of the causality cannon is enough to take him down too—"

He didn't finish his sentence.

Because Su Yuan tightened his fingers.

in the carriage.

Su Yuan stood by the window.

The right hand is loosely clenched.

His eyes were cold.

It's like extinguishing a candle.

His five fingers suddenly clenched.

outside the window.

The negation power unleashed by the three-colored giant hand penetrated every inch of the flagship's structure from its palm.

It's not about crushing.

It wasn't crushed.

It is a "negation".

The very definition of the "Light of Judgment" was denied in that palm.

It was not destroyed.

It was removed from the universe's "catalog".

A 2,300-kilometer-long star destroyer flagship.

Along with its causal collapse cannon, capable of destroying galaxies.

Along with the commander on the bridge who was still hysterically shouting "Fire!"

Along with its 30,000 crew members, 17 high-ranking officers, and all its weapons, armor, core, and engines—

All.

From the universe.

It was wiped off.

There was no wreckage.

There was no explosion.

There was no fire.

There wasn't even a sound.

In that spot, only a desolate, clean void remained.

They've never let a flagship that's 2,300 kilometers away escape.

The three-colored giant hand slowly opened its five fingers.

My palms are empty.

There wasn't even a speck of dust.

On the bridge of the twelve thousand frigates, everyone stopped breathing at the same time.

The flagship is gone.

Their flagship is gone.

It wasn't sunk—if it were sunk, there would at least be wreckage, debris, and black box signals.

It vanished into thin air.

Like a deleted file.

They won't even leave a recycle bin.

Tens of thousands of communication channels simultaneously erupted in chaotic screams and roars.

"Flagship—flagship signal has disappeared—"

"It didn't disappear—it never existed—my monitors show this location never existed—this is impossible—"

"Turn around, entire ship! Turn around! Get out of here—"

That's too late.

Su Yuan released his right hand.

The three-colored giant hand silently shattered in the void, turning into countless fragments of dark gold, pure white, and pitch black laws.

But the fragments did not scatter.

They paused in mid-air for a moment.

Then from the bottom of the train—

The vines have arrived.

Thousands upon thousands.

More than ever before. Thicker than ever before.

Giant, dark golden vines covered with three layers of high-dimensional law patterns erupted from the half-closed mouth of the Emperor's Path Devourer.

They disappeared into the void.

Following the path laid out by those fragments of law, at a speed exceeding the limits of physics, they plunged into the fleet that had lost its flagship, its commander, and all its backbone.

The first vine pierced through the armor of a cruiser.

No sound.

The vines swelled, split, and took root inside. Dark golden barbs pierced the main structural beams, beginning to decompose metal, absorb energy, and transform matter at a visible speed.

Two seconds later.

A cruiser with a range of 100 kilometers was hollowed out from the inside.

The outer shell is still intact.

But it's already an empty shell inside.

All the energy cores, weapon systems, and life support devices were digested by the vines into the most basic metals and core energy, which flowed back into the train's pitcher plant engine along the vines.

Then the outer shell broke too.

Like a fruit shell drained of its juice, it silently shattered into pieces in the void, only to be swept away by more vines.

The second one.

The third one.

The tenth ship.

The hundredth ship.

The vines were spreading faster and faster throughout the fleet.

Because the more warships the vines digest, the more energy they gain, resulting in more new vines splitting off and greater efficiency.

Positive cycle.

Su Yuan's forte is the positive cycle.

Looking out the car window, the densely packed steel fleet was becoming sparse at a visible speed.

One ship. Another ship. Another batch.

The massive warship looked incredibly fragile in the face of the dark golden vines.

Those super-alloy armors that could withstand planetary-level attacks were no different from paper under the corrosive influence of the vines' laws.

Those weapon arrays capable of unleashing star-destroying firepower were reduced to a pile of cold scrap metal after their energy cores were removed.

Those elite warships that had roamed freely throughout the known universe, at this moment—

It's just a dish.

Su Yuan stood in front of the car window.

His right hand had been lowered.

no need.

The vines know what to do. The small fire knows what to do. The train knows what to do.

He only needs to stand here.

Watching.

Outside the window, dark golden vines wove a giant net in the void, ten times larger than the previous blockade.

But this net is not meant to be used for blocking.

It's for eating.

"The rate at which energy reserves are increasing—" Little Fire's voice had stopped trembling. His expression was somewhere between collapse and madness.

"I can't describe my master. The numbers are moving faster than my eyes can see."

He glanced at the panel.

The numbers on the panel are soaring.

Metal energy, core fragment energy, and flesh and blood energy—the values ​​of these three energies are increasing by hundreds of thousands per second.

Six digits.

Seven figures.

Heading towards eight digits.

Xiao Huo gave up on taking the readings.

He turned off the digital display on the panel.

I can't open it. I can't watch it. I'm not watching anymore. Whatever.

outside the window.

three minutes.

From the moment the flagship was erased until the last frigate was dragged into the living space at the bottom of the train by vines, even the outermost destroyers that tried to escape were not spared.

three minutes.

Less than 180 seconds.

Twelve thousand heavy starships.

completely annihilated.

It doesn't even qualify as evaporation.

Because evaporation at least produces water vapor.

These warships left nothing behind.

All their matter and energy were happily accepted by the Emperor's Path Devourer.

Silence returned to the void.

Only the Emperor's Path Devourer remained, hovering alone in this vast star field.

The obsidian scales on the vehicle body are now thicker than before. The dark gold law patterns are three times brighter than before. The flames emitted from the thrusters at the bottom are five times hotter than before.

It's hiccuping.

It's not a metaphor.

The train engine did indeed emit a short, satisfying resonant sound.

It looks like they've eaten too much.

Billions of light-years away.

Headquarters of the Interstellar Parliament's High-Dimensional Arbitration Tribunal.

A pure white domed hall.

Eleven supreme elders, clad in robes of law, stood on the eleven suspended judgment seats high in the sky, having just watched the entire proceedings via a remote quantum entanglement monitoring link.

From the first second to the last second.

From the denial of the blockade to the annihilation of the flagship, and then to the complete annihilation of 12,000 warships in three minutes.

Not a single frame was missed.

There was no sound in the hall.

Even the sound of breathing disappeared.

The eleven beings who possess the highest judicial authority in the entire known universe sat frozen in their respective judgment seats like eleven stone statues.

The old man in the third seat had a trembling right hand. The quantum monitoring interface in front of him was still stuck on the last frame—the image of the Emperor's Path Devourer hovering alone in the empty void.

The scene was very quiet.

The silence chilled him to the bone.

The seventh female elder closed her eyes. Her lips trembled slightly, as if she were chanting something. Perhaps it was some ancient prayer. Or perhaps she was simply suppressing churning stomach acid.

He sat on the highest judge's bench.

The Supreme Judge's face turned ashen.

His right hand was still in the position of holding the scepter.

But the scepter was no longer in his hands.

The very second the flagship was erased, the scepter of law, symbolizing the supreme judicial power of the universe, slipped from his palm without warning.

He didn't even have time to grab it.

The scepter fell onto the metal floor of the judge's bench.

It made a crisp sound.

The sound was particularly jarring in the deathly silent hall.

No one picked it up.

No one speaks.

The eleven highest elders sat in their respective seats, remaining silent.

Silent for a long time.

Finally, an elderly man in the fifth seat spoke. His voice was hoarse and dry, like a rusty iron door that hadn't been used for a century.

"This is not a criminal."

His gaze passed through the quantum monitoring interface, looking at the train that was silently floating in the void.

"This is a natural disaster."

"Undefinable".

"A cosmic-level natural disaster."

Silence fell over the hall once again.

But this silence was heavier than before.

Because everyone present understood that natural disasters are not something you can judge.

Natural disasters are unreasonable.

Natural disasters don't require looking at arrest warrants.

When a natural disaster strikes, the only thing you can do is pray that it doesn't come your way.

The Supreme Judge bent down and slowly picked up the scepter from the ground.

He grasped its hand, but there was no strength in it.

Inside the Emperor's Path: Devouring Wasteland.

Su Yuan returned to the driver's seat.

He leaned back in his chair, the three-colored brand on his palm disappearing back into his skin.

The three forces within his body circulated normally, even more abundant and robust than before the battle.

The energy surge from absorbing 12,000 heavy starships was terrifying. Metal energy, core fragment energy, remnants of laws—all the values ​​reached previously unimaginable levels.

But Su Yuan didn't care about the specific numbers.

Numbers are just numbers.

He cares about the feel of the ball.

The "negation" he just used went even more smoothly than he had expected. Not only did the three-colored imprint not suffer any backlash, but the synergy between the power of negation, imperial authority, and creative evolution was further enhanced in actual combat.

Like a new knife.

There will be some awkwardness at the beginning of the break-in period.

After making a few cuts, his hand and the knife became one.

"Small fire."

"exist."

"Clean up the battlefield debris. Check if anything escaped—"

He suddenly stopped talking.

It's not due to external interference.

It was because his One of All Things sent him a signal in that very second.

That signal was not a warning.

This is not a warning.

Yes—confused.

The One Who Reaches the Unity of All Things "saw" something, but it could not analyze it.

This is the first time.

This is the first time since the One Who Unifies All Things was born.

Su Yuan leaned forward.

His gaze passed through the train window and fell upon the empty space directly in front of the train.

The very second his gaze focused.

The void cracked open.

It is not a warp crack.

It is not a channel of laws.

It was not any known form of spatial rupture that he had ever seen.

It was a pure black slit.

Pure.

Absolutely.

black.

It's so black it has no boundaries. So black that the human visual system refuses to process it. So black that when you stare at it, it doesn't seem like a slit—it feels like a hole.

A hole leading to "nothingness".

The One that unifies all things operates at full speed.

Unable to resolve.

The structural laws governing that rift are not in its database. They are not in any known system of laws. They do not belong to any dimensional level of this universe.

Xiao Huo suddenly looked up from behind the control panel.

The reflection of that slit was shown in his golden vertical pupils.

"Master—this—"

"Shut up."

Su Yuan's voice was very soft.

But all the sounds in the carriage vanished in the face of those two words.

Everyone was looking at the gap.

Then, something floated out from the gap.

A chess piece.

Chess pieces.

Black.

horse.

The black, horse-shaped chess piece was about the size of an adult's fist, and its surface exuded an extremely ancient and majestic aura, as if it had been accumulated over countless years.

It is not composed of rules.

It is not formed by the condensation of energy.

It is a physical entity.

A tangible, readily accessible entity.

Moreover, it exudes murderous intent.

It's not a metaphor.

The void around the chess piece was slightly distorted—not by the interference of laws, but by the pure, intense, and solidified killing intent distorting space.

Su Yuan stared at the chess piece.

The "elephant" brand on his palm suddenly became hot.

All three colors light up simultaneously.

It was not activated intentionally.

It's resonance.

The imprint resonates with that chess piece.

The black gaps closed silently after the chess piece floated out, disappearing without a trace.

The chess piece was suspended in mid-air thirty meters directly in front of the train.

Not moving at all.

quiet.

waiting.

Then--

The sound rang out.

It didn't come from outside.

It is not propagated through any known physical or legal medium.

It appeared directly at the cognitive level of every conscious being inside the carriage.

It bypassed the ear.

It bypassed the brain.

It resonated directly in the depths of the soul.

Icy.

mechanical.

ancient.

Each syllable is like a fossil salvaged from the deepest part of time, carrying the sediment of countless eras.

But at the same time—it also carries an undeniable sense of oppression that sends shivers down one's spine.

That wasn't murderous intent.

That's heavier than murderous intent.

That is—a mission.

"Royal Guard. Dark Horse."

"Salute to Shirako."

A brief pause.

"Your Majesty—please invite him."

Four words.

As the last four words were uttered, the temperature of the "elephant" mark on Su Yuan's palm suddenly rose to a level that made his skin scorch.

The three colors spun, collided, and merged in his palm.

He did not stop.

He looked at the black horse-shaped chess piece floating in mid-air.

The right eye is pure white.

The left eye is dark gold.

The dark crack in the middle runs through the entire iris.

His lips twitched slightly.

It's not a laugh.

It's not that I don't smile.

It was an ambiguous and dangerous expression, somewhere between hunter and prey.

"My king."

Su Yuan's voice was very soft.

So softly that only he himself could hear it.

"Finally, you're willing to see me."