I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

North America, West Coast, Los Angeles.

This international metropolis, with a population of nearly four million, is known as the "City of Angels." But now, the angels have fallen, and hell is reveling.

In the sky, a kilometer-long, pitch-black crack, like an ugly scar, stretches across the iconic Hollywood hill.

Thick, purplish-black void mist cascaded down like a waterfall, completely obscuring the sunlight from the entire city.

On the streets, abandoned cars blocked all the main roads, and there were burning wrecks and mutilated corpses everywhere.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

In the ruins of Beverly Hills, three M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks were firing wildly. 120mm depleted uranium armor-piercing rounds, with a piercing whistle, slammed into the behemoth ravaging the center of the city.

It was a terrifying behemoth, larger than a skyscraper.

It resembles a giant, upright beetle, its entire body covered in a thick, dark gold carapace. Its lower body has more than a dozen thick tentacles, each swing capable of snapping a multi-story office building in half.

Void Siege Beast (subspecies).

[Level: Half-step Golden Core.]

[Features: Void Kinetic Energy Deflection Armor, High-Dimensional Regeneration.]

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

A depleted uranium armor-piercing round, powerful enough to penetrate a half-meter-thick homogeneous steel plate, struck its dark golden armor, producing only faint sparks and leaving not even a white mark.

"Sir! Conventional weapons are completely ineffective! Even the Air Force's bunker-buster bombs have been deflected by its energy field!"

Two thousand kilometers away, in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, at the underground nuclear war command center.

An intelligence officer looked at the screen showing Los Angeles engulfed in flames, his voice trembling uncontrollably.

The command center was deathly silent.

General Thomas, the highest-ranking officer, stared intently at the screen, his crisp military uniform soaked with cold sweat.

In the past four hours alone, they have deployed two armored divisions, three fighter wings, and even space-based kinetic weapons. But against this monster, the saturation attack of modern warfare is as laughable as a stone thrown by a primitive man.

"His Excellency the President has boarded Air Force One..." the adjutant swallowed hard and said in a low voice, "The Pentagon has given its final assessment. If this monster is allowed to leave Los Angeles, it will devour the entire state of California within a week."

General Thomas closed his eyes in anguish.

As a staunch materialist, he scoffed at the "Immortal Riding a Sword" livestream in the East China Sea, believing it to be some kind of holographic projection scam.

But now, harsh reality is relentlessly rubbing the dignity of physics into the ground.

He suddenly opened his eyes, a hint of madness and determination belonging to a soldier flashing in his eyes.

Since conventional physics can't kill you, then let's use the most extreme form of physics that humanity has mastered! Let's use Einstein's ultimate truth!

"Connect to Strategic Command."

General Thomas's voice was terribly hoarse. "Code name 'Broken Arrow.' Authorization to unlock the B61-12 tactical nuclear weapon."

"Sir?!" Everyone in the command center turned around in horror. "That's Los Angeles! There are still hundreds of thousands of civilians inside who haven't been evacuated!"

"If we don't kill it, tens of millions of Americans will die!"

Thomas roared furiously, "Execute the order! I will use the light of a thousand suns to burn this damned worm and that city to ashes!"

……

Ten minutes later.

Over Los Angeles, a B-2 "Spirit" stealth strategic bomber opened its bomb bay at an altitude of 10,000 meters.

A tactical nuclear bomb, carrying the equivalent of 300,000 tons of TNT, roared with the highest roar of human technological civilization as it crashed down toward the Void Siege Beast that was devouring flesh and blood in the city center.

Time seemed to slow down at that moment.

The instant a nuclear bomb detonates at a height of 500 meters above the ground—

No sound.

The deafening roar of the explosion was left far behind by the instantly depleted air and the supersonic shockwave.

First came the light.

An indescribable, blinding light capable of piercing the eyes of any living being. Before this light, all the glass curtain walls in downtown Los Angeles instantly vaporized, and the reinforced concrete melted like candles.

Immediately following, a terrifying fireball with a diameter of over a kilometer rose slowly from the earth at a temperature of tens of millions of degrees Celsius!

At that moment, Los Angeles truly welcomed "a thousand suns".

Intense nuclear radiation and devastating shockwaves swept outwards in a ring-like pattern.

Skyscrapers collapsed, shattered, and were blown into ashes like dominoes. Everything within a ten-kilometer radius was completely wiped out by this ultimate force of E=mc².

Inside the underground command center.

Seeing the massive mushroom cloud soaring 100,000 feet into the sky in the satellite imagery, all the officers breathed a long sigh of relief. Some even slumped in their chairs, covering their faces in anguish.

Los Angeles is gone.

But at least, the monster is dead. No carbon-based life form could survive in temperatures of tens of millions of degrees and at the center of a nuclear explosion.

This is a victory for science.

however.

As the high-altitude gales gradually dispersed the outer edge of the mushroom cloud, and as the satellite's infrared detectors once again pierced through the ruins that had been blasted into a glassy mess...

Inside the command center, a piercing alarm suddenly and frantically blared!

"Impossible... This is absolutely impossible!"

The radar operator sprang from his chair as if electrocuted, pointed at the screen, and let out a piercing, distorted scream: "High-energy response! The target's high-energy response is still there!!!"

on the screen.

Inside the crater at the center of the nuclear explosion, a dark red mass of magma was churning.

In the center of that lava field, a huge, incomplete black shadow was slowly and unsteadily rising to its feet!

That Void Siege Beast was not immune to nuclear weapons.

Humanity's ultimate weapon inflicted devastating damage on it. Eighty percent of its once indestructible dark gold carapace was shattered, and its left side, along with seven or eight tentacles, was completely vaporized by the intense heat. Its abyssal maw was torn open, revealing the still frantically pulsating [Void Core] radiating a ghostly purple light within its body.

It was blown up and severely crippled.

However, it is not dead yet.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, filled with despair, collapse, and shattered values.

The exposed void core suddenly burst forth with a blinding purple light!

The laws of the void are forces of a higher dimension than the physical universe.

The astonishing heat and nuclear radiation remaining in the surrounding air were now transformed into nutrients for its rebirth, and were being devoured by the core like a whale sucking up water!

"Hiss hiss hiss—!"

Accompanied by a chilling groan of flesh writhing, countless purple buds of flesh intertwined and grew wildly like venomous snakes on its vaporized left side. New bones were forming, and new carapaces were forming.

In less than three minutes, it was reborn at the very center of the nuclear explosion by absorbing the energy left by the explosion!

"roar--!!!"

The battered behemoth raised its head and let out a mocking and savage roar at the B-2 bomber that hadn't yet flown far away in the sky.

A purple beam of void death light shot out from its newly formed mouthparts, instantly tearing through the sky at an altitude of ten thousand meters, blasting the two billion dollar stealth bomber into a fireball in mid-air.

"thump."

In the Cheyenne Mountain command center, General Thomas's knees buckled, and he knelt heavily on the ground.

He stared at the monster on the screen, standing on the glassy ruins and continuing to regenerate, until the last glimmer of light in his eyes went out completely.

"Nuclear bombs...even nuclear weapons are ineffective against him..."

"We're finished. Humanity is finished."

Despair, like a plague, has utterly destroyed the Western world's defenses of faith.

When ultimate force proves ineffective, the scientific pyramid that humanity has built over thousands of years collapses.

……

At the same time.

In China, atop Mount Kunlun, stands the Lingxiao Palace.

Gu Qing sat quietly in front of a floating bluestone table, holding a cup of freshly brewed premium Snow Mist Spirit Tea.

In front of him floated a water mirror, which displayed the brutal scene of the behemoth rising from the ashes after the Los Angeles nuclear bombing.

"Does physics no longer exist? No, it has always existed."

Gu Qing took a small sip of tea, his eyes cold and deep.

"The power of a nuclear bomb is indeed immense. The sheer release of energy is enough to destroy its three-dimensional physical form. But unfortunately..."

Gu Qing put down her teacup and tapped her fingertips lightly on the table.

"The half-step Golden Core stage has already touched upon the power of the 'Domain.' Although it hasn't been fully mastered, merely achieving immortality is enough."

"The essence of void creatures is that high-dimensional core. Without the sword intent of cultivators that can sever laws, and without the Samadhi True Fire that can erase cause and effect, relying solely on pure high temperature and shock waves is as ridiculous as trying to destroy a computer virus program using physical methods."

"And they're quite clever, knowing to concentrate most of their resources to deploy high-intensity creatures outside of China's territory."

Gu Qing waved his hand, and the water mirror vanished.

He stood up and turned his gaze to the western continent across the ocean, which was plunged into its darkest hour.

[System notification: A massive amount of "extreme despair" and "collapse of faith" emotions have been detected in the western region.]

[System assessment: The old (scientific) belief defenses have been completely destroyed, and the ideological front is in a state of absolute vacuum.]

"Perfect harvest soil."

Gu Qing's lips finally curved into a smile that was a mixture of divinity and demonic nature.

When arrogant mortals discover that nuclear bombs have become scrap metal, when they are plunged into a despair more terrifying than death.

At this point, if they were given a new power to kill monsters, they would not question the source of that power. They would simply kneel down at the feet of the god who gave them the power, like drowning people grasping at their last straw.

"system."

Gu Qing's voice echoed in the main hall, "Extract the underlying logic of [Array Formation] and [Body Cultivation]."

"Prepare for reskinning and repackaging. Rename it to: [Magic] and [Holy Light]."

"It's time to release the system DLC called 'Magic' to the audience across the ocean."