Irontomb left without the slightest hesitation, leaving only Celenova standing in disarray beneath the dim starry sky.
The decisiveness of his attitude left even the Xianzhou side looking stunned.
But matters on the battlefield change in countless ways, any event with even the smallest probability can play out.
What's more, on the Xianzhou, campaigns against the Denizens of Abundance were nothing unusual. Nearly all soldiers who went to war possessed solid battlefield instincts.
"Encircle!" Huaiyan shouted in a deep voice, issuing a decisive order.
Large numbers of warships immediately dispersed, forming layer upon layer of encirclement around the activated planet.
Under the coordination of the general, part of the force remained on guard, carefully observing the movements of the activated planet, which had lost Irontomb as its operational core.
"Heh, looks like your little partner doesn't want you anymore."
This morale-boosting scene instantly invigorated Feixiao, who had been entangled with Celenova for a long time and had expended tremendous mental effort.
The arms holding her heavy axe no longer felt tired, and she even found herself entertaining the thought of fighting Celenova for three days and three nights straight.
Facing Feixiao's mockery, Celenova merely curled her lips indifferently.
When Irontomb suddenly left without a word, she had felt a bit indignant and at a loss at first, not because she blamed him for retreating, but because she was slightly annoyed that he had done so without even informing her.
Among the Lord Ravagers, only the dim-witted Zulo and Zephyro, who delighted in battle, would choose to fight to the death.
Even now, Zulo, who had been worn down by the Swarm Disaster in a pointless fight, remained an example Celenova constantly warned herself with.
She was arrogant, but she would not underestimate a powerful enemy.
Although even now she did not believe that the Disaster Swarm truly deserved her attention.
But the enemy before her now was worthy of it.
Her gaze swept across the surroundings. The Antimatter Legion's support had been cut off.
After Irontomb's departure, his mechanical legion seemed to have entered an automated mode.
Faced with the combined forces of several Xianzhou fleets, they stood no chance, annihilation was only a matter of time.
It's time to withdraw, Celenova thought.
Although she hadn't taken down The Vanquishing General before her, the Antimatter Legion and the activated planet were already under severe pressure.
Aside from a small number of elite individuals, most members of the Antimatter Legion were mass-produced units.
Compared to the vast size of the legion, the losses in this battle were insignificant. With a bit of time, she could find a star system and replenish them in an instant.
Having decided on her next route, Celenova abruptly changed her fighting style. Her attacks became sharp and ruthless, killing intent laid bare.
It was completely a strategy of trading wounds for wounds. She paid no heed at all to Feixiao's remarkable regenerative ability.
Seeing this, Feixiao's mouth split into a grin. She slammed her heavy axe into an asteroid, while the tips of her twin gunblades became wreathed in the power of the Hunt.
She took the initiative and charged straight at the seemingly frenzied Celenova.
Clang after clang rang out, the hum of weapons echoing endlessly. Just as Feixiao was fighting at the height of intensity, a shout reached her ears,
"Feixiao!!" Splitting off a thread of attention, Feixiao glanced toward the source of the voice.
It was Huaiyan, leading reinforcements.
He pointed into the distance. Feixiao's expression shifted, and in the next instant her strikes grew even more vicious.
She even wielded the path power against Celenova to the extent that it would cause backlash damage to herself.
Shifting her combat focus outward, it wasn't hard to see that Feixiao was deliberately guiding Celenova toward a specific direction.
"Clang!"After an unknown length of time, the high-intensity battle left several chips in the gunblades. For a warrior, weapons were family. Under normal circumstances, Feixiao would already be heartbroken.
But right now, all she felt was boiling blood.
"Ha!!" With a fierce roar, the gunblades overlapped, bursting forth with dazzling radiance.
"Boom!"
The strike was overwhelming in force. Yet Celenova caught it head-on, steady and unmoving.
Immediately after, Feixiao leapt backward, retreating to a shattered planet, where she seemed to be recuperating.
This scene, quite common in the earlier battle, made Celenova frown slightly.
Something was off.
The exchange of blows was a process of mutual understanding. Although the intensity of the fight had reached an unprecedented level, with Feixiao's recovery ability, this was merely an upgrade from an eight-hundred-meter sprint to a thousand-meter one.
It shouldn't even have been enough to throw her breathing slightly out of rhythm.
The situation on the battlefield changed in the blink of an eye. Before Celenova could sort through the confusion, a vast shadow blotted out the sky behind her.
Only then did she finally sense the flames that had been suppressed from beginning to end.
That was the main objective of her mission. An operation specifically targeting the Xianzhou Alliance.
At this moment, the "gift" she had specially prepared for the Xianzhou Alliance bared its fangs without restraint toward its new partner.
The power of Abundance surged forth, forcibly dragging at her form. She happened to be recovering her strength. Under normal circumstances, this enormous pull would indeed cause her some trouble, but not too much.
But now, after being worn down by Feixiao, and with the activated planet itself possessing great might not inferior to an Emanator, it simply hadn't been able to unleash it fully like one, and could only devour everything by instinct.
And now, the one driving this activated planet was a reborn being overflowing with regenerative vitality!
The power of Destruction suppressed part of the Abundance force driven by the planet's instincts.
The Hunt, focused solely on revenge, erupted with the strongest power it had displayed since falling into darkness!
Before the activated planet guided by thousands of consciousnesses, Celenova could only hastily construct a layer of protection around herself.
The next second, just like devouring an ordinary planet, simple and effortless, she was swallowed whole.
Seeing this, everyone present unconsciously let out a small sigh of relief.
The pressure brought by an Lord Ravager was simply too overwhelming.
The residual power of the Path lingered over the attacked territory, raging unchecked. Without external intervention, it would remain for years.
"Reaping what she sowed." As Celenova was swallowed by the activated planet, a complicated look surfaced in Feixiao's eyes.
How similar this scene was. Hadn't the Xianzhou Cangcheng once been swallowed just like this, without the slightest resistance?
"We still can't let our guard down. She's an Lord Ravager after all, and the activated planet was previously corroded by Celenova's power of Destruction."
Jiaoqiu appeared at the forefront in the form of a projection, eyes slightly open. Though still extremely faint, there was at least a glimmer of clarity.
At this moment, the Celenova everyone was discussing with concern was traversing the interior of the activated planet.
Every step was troublesome. That was the best description of Celenova's current predicament.
"How could this be? The power I corroded it with earlier is clearly still there."
After being swallowed, Celenova wasn't overly worried at first. After all, the activated planet had been mostly eroded by her power. Without precise control, its remaining strength should have been forcibly suppressed.
Entering it herself, even if she couldn't be said to move like a fish in water, at the very least it should have been like walking on flat ground.
It should have been so. But the development of events was always unexpected.
She only felt that inside the planet, every step was difficult, with forces everywhere obstructing her.
Countless faint powers harassed her, extremely weak, yet endlessly persistent.
She could feel her defenses being chipped away bit by bit.
But compared to her own recovery, it was far from enough, barely even counted as trouble.
"So it's you." Suddenly, Celenova reacted, finally understanding where that strange sense of obstruction had come from.
"I let you escape the eternal torment of Abundance and regain new life, was that really so bad?"
She raised her head slightly, a faint smile lifting her lips. She knew they were all watching her, the people who should have died long ago.
No response. As expected.
Just a little more. Almost there.
From the moment she was swallowed, Celenova had been accumulating power. An activated planet possessed might not inferior to an Emanator, but without direct control this was indeed a fatal flaw.
Even with the consciousness of the lifeforms guiding it, it was impossible to block the full-force strike of a Lord Ravager.
She only needed to continue gathering strength slowly. When the time was ripe, a single blow would be enough to break free.
She was not the same as those trapped here, unable to distinguish day from night.
If everything went smoothly, it should have been so.
But she had misjudged the will tempered within the long, endless cycles of day and night endured by the lifeforms of the Xianzhou Cangcheng.
A scorching presence began to appear. Celenova paused involuntarily.
Were the people of the Xianzhou Zhuming planning to use Flint Emperor to shatter the planet and injure her in the process?
Before she could verify her guess, the temperature surged violently. The abnormally rising heat made her frown slightly.
It wasn't Flint Emperor.
She reached that conclusion.
Then what was it?
Two seconds later, Celenova finally understood the source of that heat.
"A red giant?!" A red giant, the sign of a sun about to enter old age.
Stars at this stage are extremely luminous, their surface temperatures relatively low...
But that does not mean they are safer than stars at other stages.
On Star Calendar 3287, a Xianzhou ship once fell into a sun.
The destructive power of a sun fluctuates according to its mass.
Unfortunately, as a remote star region of the galaxy, the Hisei Star Domain's sun ranked among the most massive of its kind.
Celenova instantly understood what they intended to do.
They were going to use the power of the sun, combined with the explosive force unleashed at the instant the planet was activated, to perish together with her!
"A bunch of lunatics!" Upon realizing this, Celenova immediately lost her composure.
But it was already too late.
What truly bound her was not the activated planet, but the underlying suppression of reality at the most fundamental level!
....
"BOOM!!!"
The sound was louder than thunder, dazzling beyond measure!!
At the instant when the planet known as Rahu, guided by the consciousnesses, merged with the sun.
True light, in the truest sense, completely illuminated the Hisei Star System!
Even civilizations at extreme distances captured the immense energy fluctuations at that moment.
The resulting energy field destroyed vast amounts of equipment in an instant and threw the ecosystems of countless planets into chaos.
A single sun exploding could never produce such earth-shaking phenomena.
But what if you added an activated planet that possessed Emanator-level might and the power of destruction?
Such a sight may never appear again, even after hundreds of years.
"...I think I heard what they said." Feixiao's eyes were slightly unfocused as she murmured softly.
"This old man heard it too. That is the will every voice when formally returning to the ranks, passed down through generations."
Everyone stood in silence, gazing at the still-flickering radiance at the very center.
....
"Celenova's biological signal has disappeared."
After returning to the Balanza Furnace, Irontomb immediately began in-depth research on the data he had obtained.
Before he could extract anything truly useful, he sensed the dissipation of her.
An expected result.
If it had only been the combined effort of the Xianzhou side, Celenova could have paid some price and then retreated safely.
But after witnessing the effect of the consciousnesses acting together, and those few individuals, Irontomb was not surprised at Celenova's fall.
Before leaving, he had wanted to take away that organic lifeform capable of linking together such an enormous mass of consciousness.
Then he saw that organic lifeform flanked by two geniuses renowned across the cosmos, as well as that serpent which gave him an intense sense of threat.
It was precisely because of them that Irontomb left so decisively, without leaving even a trace behind.
His calculations told him that between the two sides, only by sacrificing one party could absolute safety be ensured.
As an incomparably rational inorganic lifeform, the choice of who that would be was made without the slightest burden, his diligently struggling peer.
Although he failed to take that organic lifeform with him, the leap zone alone was already more than enough.
He had obtained precious data that no power in the galaxy could ever hope to collect.
This would be the key for him to step into an even higher realm.
No inorganic lifeform could resist deciphering the sparks born from the collision of organic consciousness and emotion.
None! As far as he knew, that monarch of Screwllum was walking the same path.
And now, he would walk ahead of that genius, leading inorganic life toward even deeper mysteries.
After that, he would be able to destroy organic life in the realm of consciousness, bringing them true destruction!
This, this was the destruction an inorganic lifeform was truly meant to comprehend.
It was the true meaning Irontomb realized only after the gaze of Nanook of Destruction descended upon him.
And Nanook's downward glance was affirmation of his actions; the power bestowed upon him was the cornerstone leading toward this arduous path.
"The long road of the stars... the struggle between inorganic and organic life will eventually draw its curtain closed...."
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T/N: Now I'm even sure, this is complete BS, where did the red giant even come from. And a Lord Ravager was taken down so easily?
Sorry some may fell like I'm ranting and yes I'm indeed ranting.
Zephyro could fight against Godzilla.
Feixiao and Jing Yuan both could not even match Zephyro together and Godzilla had to finish him off, but here Celenova is so weak that Feixiao alone can hold her and a bunch of linked wills can take her down. I call it BS.
For god's sake she is the Vanguard of Destruction across the entire cosmos.
At least if Herta or Mobius were the ones who defeated Celenova I could accept it, but being defeated in such a way, no chance :)