Reina's attack was the starting gun.
The moment that incandescent beam of solar fire erupted from her palms and lanced across the sky toward the nearest Taotie warship, everyone moved. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing. Just pure, coordinated action born from countless hours of training and the desperate knowledge that failure here meant death for millions.
The super soldiers launched themselves into the air, bodies wreathed in various colors of energy as they rocketed toward the Taotie fleet like a swarm of avenging angels. Below them, the ordinary soldiers—thousands of men and women who'd been normal humans just weeks ago—raised their weapons and opened fire.
The difference was staggering. These were still conventional firearms, still built around the same basic principles of thermal propulsion that had served humanity for centuries. Bullets and barrels and triggers.
But what emerged from the muzzles wasn't lead anymore.
Thanks to the lantern furnace Marcus had gifted them, each soldier could channel their willpower and hope through their weapons. The result? Finger-thick beams of pure energy that screamed through the air like tiny comets, punching through Taotie hull plating with contemptuous ease.
They didn't have the raw genetic power of Ge Xiaolun and the super soldier team. Couldn't reshape reality or shrug off fatal wounds or punch through reinforced armor with their bare hands. So they'd adapted, learning to channel the lantern's power through external tools rather than manifesting it directly.
And it worked.
The ground lit up like a fireworks display as countless rays of white-green light streaked upward, thousands of individual attacks merging into a continuous barrage that hammered against the Taotie fleet's shields. Ships that had been descending with arrogant confidence suddenly found themselves struggling, defensive systems screaming warnings as the sustained fire began to overwhelm their capacity to deflect.
Above the city, in the open sky, the super soldiers had completely unleashed themselves.
Zhao Xin was laughing like a maniac. He couldn't help it—this was the first time since becoming a super soldier that he'd felt truly, completely alive in combat. No holding back, no careful restraint, no worrying about whether his abilities were sufficient.
A white dragon materialized beneath his feet, energy given form and substance, and he rode it through the air like some mythological warrior from ancient paintings. The construct responded to his thoughts as smoothly as his own body, banking and diving and accelerating with liquid grace.
And his spear—oh, his spear—had become something transcendent. The dragon coiled around the weapon's shaft opened its jaws and roared, and that roar became a lance of pure destruction that punched clean through a Taotie cruiser's engines. The ship lurched, began a slow tumble toward the ground trailing smoke and sparks.
"Hahaha! So cool! THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL!" Zhao Xin's voice echoed across the comm channels, raw and unfiltered and completely unprofessional. He didn't care. Let the officers yell at him later. Right now, he was having the time of his life.
He wasn't alone in his enthusiasm.
Liu Chuang—the God of War of Dexing, though he still thought of himself as just a reformed gangster who'd gotten incredibly lucky—channeled lantern power through his massive axe until the weapon practically hummed with barely-contained energy. The blade grew, expanding outward until it was a titanic construct that stretched across the sky like a horizon made of light.
"Who said it wasn't?!" he bellowed back at Zhao Xin, voice full of fierce joy. "This is the first time I actually feel like the God of War! Like I'm living up to that title instead of just carrying it around like a backpack I can't take off! Hahahaha!"
He swung the enlarged axe in a wide arc, and the edge whistled through vacuum and atmosphere both, cleaving through two Taotie destroyers like they were made of wet cardboard. Metal screamed. Hull plating peeled away in great sheets. Atmosphere vented explosively from the bisected vessels.
The girls' team was making an equally impressive showing, though their approaches varied wildly.
Rui Mengmeng—sweet, earnest Rui Mengmeng who worked in restaurants between training sessions—had apparently decided that Liu Chuang's style was aspirational. Her own sword blazed with lantern energy as she condensed it into a giant blade that would have looked at home in a video game cutscene, and she charged at Taotie ships with the kind of reckless courage that made tacticians tear out their hair.
"For Earth!" she screamed, slamming her energy blade through a frigate's command section. The ship immediately began listing, its control systems severed. "For everyone we're protecting!"
He Weilan had taken a more direct approach. The gauntlets Marcus had given her pulsed with blue light, and she'd simply turned herself into a meteor—a blazing projectile of pure kinetic fury that smashed directly into one of the larger Taotie vessels.
The hull crumpled where she impacted, and then she was inside, a one-woman army tearing through corridors and bulkheads with her bare hands. Each punch generated a fist-shaped energy construct that exploded outward, and three punches later, she'd completely gutted the ship from within.
She emerged from the other side trailing debris and looking distinctly pleased with herself before targeting her next victim.
But the real surprise—the performance that made even the veterans take notice—was Qilin.
The sniper had always been competent. Professional. Reliable. Her marksmanship was genuinely supernatural, and when you put god-killing ammunition in her hands, she became one of the team's most dangerous assets despite having only a first-generation divine body.
Now, though? Now she was operating on an entirely different level.
She'd somehow managed to use the lantern furnace's power to simulate Rose's spatial manipulation abilities—not as precisely, not as flexibly, but enough to create micro-portals that redirected her shots in mid-flight. She could fire at one ship, have the bullet exit near a completely different target, bypass shields entirely by materializing the round inside the defensive perimeter.
And her rate of fire was insane. The sniper rifle in her hands had become functionally equivalent to a machine gun, muzzle flashes strobing so rapidly they were almost continuous. Every shot found a target. Every target died—either Taotie warriors, their heads exploding in precise sequence, or critical ship systems, detonating in cascading failures.
She was racking up kills faster than anyone else, and making it look easy.
"Damn," Ge Xiaolun muttered to himself, watching everyone else tear through the enemy fleet with creative applications of their powers. "I didn't even react fast enough to do anything cool."
It stung more than he wanted to admit. When the angels had visited Earth, they'd specifically identified him as the future main god of this planet. The "greatest genetic loser in the known universe" was actually a compliment in angel terminology—it meant his potential for growth was literally off the charts. He was supposed to be special.
But right now, watching his teammates perform like action movie protagonists while he just... floated there? His power of the galaxy abilities helping him tank damage without actually doing anything spectacular?
The lantern furnace manifested as basically a shield for him. A really good shield, sure—it absorbed impacts that would otherwise hurt like hell, even if they couldn't kill him. But shields weren't flashy. Shields didn't make people go "wow."
"Xiaolun," Lianfeng's voice cut through his self-pity, precise and professional as always, "apply your power to Final Judgment. Now."
Ge Xiaolun blinked, confused. "Apply power to Final Judgment? But I can't—"
He'd tried using that technique before. It was incredibly powerful when it worked, using his sword as a carrier to input massive amounts of computational data directly into a target, suppressing their abilities or outright killing them through reality manipulation.
The last time he'd successfully pulled it off was against Sun Wukong during that disastrous first encounter. And even then, it hadn't really worked—the Monkey King had shrugged off the attempt like an annoying mosquito.
The Taotie army wasn't as individually powerful as Sun Wukong, sure. But there were so many of them. Dozens of ships, thousands of warriors. Could Final Judgment even affect that many targets at once? Did he have the computational power, the energy reserves, the sheer capacity to—
"Ge Xiaolun!" Lianfeng's voice sharpened, taking on the edge of command that meant she was done with questions. "Stop overthinking and DO IT!"
"Ah! Right! Yes ma'am!"
Ge Xiaolun's uncertainty crystallized into determination. He could figure out his limitations after the battle. Right now, people were counting on him.
He gripped his sword—that massive black blade that had been with him since the beginning—and channeled lantern energy into it. White-green light spread from his hands along the hilt, across the crossguard, down the length of the blade. The metal seemed to drink in the power hungrily, beginning to glow from within.
At the same time, he activated his genetic abilities. The power of the galaxy stirred, that vast potential beginning to unfold. His divine body started channeling dark energy on a scale he'd never attempted before, pulling resources from the quantum foam of reality itself.
"Final..." he began, voice straining with effort.
The sword in his hands felt like it weighed a thousand tons. He could barely move it, muscles screaming with strain that was more mental than physical. This wasn't about strength—this was about will, about forcing reality to accept his authority, about making the universe acknowledge that HE SAID SO and therefore it would be.
Behind him, something was taking shape. A construct of pure energy and conceptual weight, materializing out of nothing. A second sword—no, dozens of swords. Hundreds. An arsenal of blades identical to his own but composed entirely of light and determination and the promise of judgment.
In the command center, Lianfeng watched her displays with intense focus. The external computational engine—the massive support system designed specifically to assist Ge Xiaolun with advanced techniques—had activated automatically the moment he'd begun gathering power. It was running at maximum capacity now, processing speeds pushing into the theoretical limits of its hardware.
"General," she reported, not taking her eyes from the data streams, "the power of the galaxy has initiated transformation sequence."
Ducao allowed himself a smile. Not a kind expression—this was the smile of a man watching a weapon being forged in the fire of combat.
"Good. This battle will complete Xiaolun's evolution from second-generation divine body to third-generation. He's about to become a god in truth, not just potential."
The implications were staggering. The power of the galaxy as a fully realized third-generation divine body would be Earth's shield and sword both. One day—maybe not today, maybe not this year, but one day—Ge Xiaolun's power would be sufficient to keep all enemies out of the Chiwu star system entirely.
Earth would be protected by a god of its own making.
"Excellent! All units, prepare for expanded engagement!" Ducao's voice carried across every communication channel, reaching thousands of soldiers simultaneously. "Fire at will! Shoot down every Taotie warrior you can target! Super soldier team—protect Ge Xiaolun at all costs! I want his divine body transformation to complete!"
The soldiers who'd been in reserve, holding positions and maintaining the defensive perimeter, immediately opened up with everything they had. More energy beams lanced upward, adding to the already overwhelming barrage. The Taotie ships' shields were failing now, glowing cherry-red from the sustained bombardment before shattering entirely, allowing direct hull strikes.
The super soldiers, scattered across the battlefield conducting their individual decapitation strikes, all heard the order simultaneously. Protect Ge Xiaolun.
They looked back toward their teammate almost as one, and what they saw made several of them stop mid-attack.
Ge Xiaolun's sword was impressive on its own—a massive black blade suited for someone fighting gods. But behind him, hovering in a formation that defied gravity and common sense, were hundreds of energy swords. Each one was tens of meters long, gleaming white-gold, radiating an aura of absolute authority.
The power emanating from that arsenal was genuinely terrifying.
"Holy shit," Zhao Xin breathed, white dragon construct freezing mid-motion. "Is Xiaolun cheating? Did he find some kind of cheat code?"
His voice carried honest bewilderment. Ge Xiaolun's abilities had always been the most defensive, the least flashy among the team. Survivability over spectacle. And now he was manifesting something that made Zhao Xin's dragon constructs look like party tricks.
That was way more impressive than some white dragons. Zhao Xin felt a complicated mixture of emotions—pride in his friend, a little jealousy, mostly just pure awe.
While the human soldiers reacted with shock and excitement, the Taotie commander had a very different response.
The Howler King—Shi Shi—stood on his flagship's bridge, biomechanical fingers clenching on the armrests of his throne. Warning displays screamed at him from every direction, his fleet taking casualties at a rate that should have been impossible against a pre-nuclear civilization.
And that feeling—that crawling sensation between his shoulder blades—was getting worse.
Danger. Real, genuine danger. The kind that made his Void engine start running threat calculations automatically.
He'd thought this would be simple. Earth was barely out of its industrial age, hadn't even achieved basic space colonization. They should have been helpless prey, lambs for the slaughter, deaths to be harvested and offered to karl.
But this... this was wrong. All of it was wrong.
"Who IS that?" Shi Shi demanded, pointing at the tactical display. At the human warrior surrounded by an impossible arsenal, power growing moment by moment.
"Report to King Shi Shi," one of his subordinates said quickly, calling up data files. "Target is identified as Ge Xiaolun, designated 'Power of the Galaxy.' He is the future main god of the Shenhe civilization, recently awakened."
"Power of the Galaxy." Shi Shi's synthetic voice was flat, processing this information. He knew that title. Everyone operating in this sector of space knew that title. It was one of the three god-making projects, alongside the God of War and the Light of the Sun.
Dangerous even at baseline. Potentially unstoppable if allowed to mature.
And this one—this Ge Xiaolun—had just started his transformation sequence. Right here. Right now. In the middle of active combat.
If they let him complete it...
"All ships!" Shi Shi's command cracked across the Taotie fleet channels like a whip. "Retarget immediately! Focus all fire on the Power of the Galaxy! Load god-killing ammunition! I want that warrior dead before he can finish whatever he's doing!"
The threat assessment was clear. What Ge Xiaolun was attempting would be catastrophic for the Taotie forces. They needed to stop him now, cost be damned.
Every ship in the fleet responded simultaneously. Weapons turrets swiveled, targeting systems locked on, and the nature of their ammunition changed. Standard explosive rounds were cycled out, replaced by something far more specialized.
God-killing bullets. Ammunition specifically designed to interact with divine bodies on a quantum level, disrupting their cellular structure and computational processing. Even a third-generation divine body could be severely injured by a concentrated barrage of god-killers.
And Ge Xiaolun was only second-generation. Still transforming. Vulnerable.
"Oh no," Qilin's voice cut across the team channel, sharp with alarm. "Those are god-killing rounds! Everyone, protect Xiaolun NOW!"
She'd spent more time than anyone else working with god-killing ammunition, had fired thousands of rounds in training and combat. She knew the distinctive energy signature, recognized the way reality seemed to recoil slightly from those particular bullets.
And she knew exactly what a full-fleet barrage would do to Ge Xiaolun in his current state.
The other super soldiers reacted instantly, abandoning their current targets and rocketing back toward their teammate. Whatever Ge Xiaolun was building—whatever technique he was preparing to unleash—it was clearly important enough that the entire enemy fleet had suddenly decided he was priority target number one.
That meant protecting him was the most important thing they could do.
"They're all fucking god-killers!" Liu Chuang's voice was a roar of defiance. "Well, let's see if your bullets are harder than my axe!"
He was already moving, channeling every ounce of power he possessed into his weapon. Lantern energy and dark energy both, the axe of the God of War Dexing blazing so brightly it hurt to look at. The blade's edge seemed to cut through space itself, leaving temporary wounds in reality that quickly healed.
Liu Chuang knew he could probably block one salvo. Maybe two if he pushed himself to absolute limits. But the Taotie fleet was huge—dozens of ships, each with multiple weapon batteries. There would be too many rounds, coming too fast, from too many angles.
He could buy time. Maybe that would be enough.
"Chuangzi," Cheng Yaowen's voice came through the comm, steady and calm despite the urgency, "you planning to play hero all by yourself?"
Relief flooded through Liu Chuang as he realized he wasn't alone. None of them were alone.
Cheng Yaowen was already positioning himself, arms raised as he connected to the earth far below. His genetic ability—control over planetary geology and matter—reached down through hundreds of meters of atmosphere and pulled.
Massive stone pillars erupted from the ground, growing with impossible speed until they surrounded Ge Xiaolun in a fortress of solid rock dozens of meters thick. The barriers interlocked, forming a maze of defensive positions.
You wanted to hurt Ge Xiaolun? You'd have to pulverize several hundred tons of stone first.
Zhao Xin materialized in a flash of white light, bringing his dragon constructs with him. Several of them merged into flowing shields that wrapped around Ge Xiaolun's position as a second layer of defense, scales of pure energy overlapping like armor plating. Others remained mobile, circling like predators ready to intercept incoming fire.
More dragon-shadows coalesced around the tip of his spear. He was preparing for what came next, gathering as much power as he could channel.
Rui Mengmeng's sword blazed brighter, held ready to deflect or destroy. He Weilan's fists clenched, blue light intensifying around the gauntlets Marcus had given her, raw force ready to punch through whatever threatened her teammate. Qilin's sniper rifle swiveled frantically, trying to target and destroy Taotie gun emplacements before they could fire.
Everyone was giving everything they had. Because the power of the galaxy—Ge Xiaolun, their friend and teammate—was their hope. The hope of Earth. The hope of humanity's future.
They couldn't let him fall.
BOOM!!!
The Taotie fleet fired as one.
Thousands of god-killing rounds filled the sky in a storm of death, a metallic rain that blotted out stars and turned the air itself into a kill zone. The sheer volume was overwhelming, apocalyptic. No defensive formation should have been able to stop it.
But the super soldier team didn't retreat.
Liu Chuang was first into the breach, axe already swinging in a massive arc. "COME ON, THEN!"
White light erupted from his weapon, a crescent of pure cutting force that distorted space around its edges. God-killing rounds met that impossible edge and disintegrated, molecular bonds severed, the specialized ammunition rendered into component atoms.
But he only had one axe. One swing. There were still thousands of rounds, and they kept coming.
The others unleashed their attacks in a coordinated barrage.
Dragon roars from Zhao Xin's constructs. Blade light from Rui Mengmeng's enhanced sword. Shadows of fists from He Weilan's devastating punches. Spatial shots from Qilin's rapid-fire rifle. Spells and techniques and improvised attacks from every member of the team.
The sky became a confused mess of explosions and energy, god-killing rounds detonating mid-flight or being deflected off course or simply being overpowered by the sheer determination of Earth's defenders.
But it wasn't enough. Too many rounds, too many angles, too much firepower for even their combined efforts to completely stop.
"Leave it to this old Sun!"
Sun Wukong's voice echoed across the battlefield with the weight of ages, and suddenly the Monkey King was everywhere.
His legendary ability—the Body Outside Body technique—manifested dozens, hundreds, thousands of duplicates. The sky filled with copies of Sun Wukong, each one wielding Ruyi Jingu Bang with perfect technique. Stick-shadows blurred through the air faster than eyes could follow.
The clanging of metal on metal became a continuous roar as countless god-killing rounds were batted aside, deflected, smashed out of trajectory.
But even the Great Sage Equal to Heaven had limits. These were god-killing rounds, ammunition designed specifically to injure or kill divine beings. He had to treat each one with respect, couldn't just tank them with his admittedly ridiculous durability. And there were so many.
If he made a mistake, if his defense faltered even slightly, he might end up sleeping for another century before his body could regenerate.
Still, he grinned as he worked. This was what he lived for—the challenge, the stakes, the satisfaction of protecting those who needed protecting.
The combined defense—Liu Chuang's initial strike, the super soldier team's barrage, Sun Wukong's impossible speed—successfully intercepted most of the god-killing ammunition. But "most" wasn't "all."
Dozens of rounds slipped through the defensive layers, screaming toward Cheng Yaowen's rock barrier with terminal velocity.
The impacts were devastating. Each round carried enough kinetic energy and specialized quantum disruption to crater the stone, and dozens hitting in sequence started creating structural failures. Cracks spider-webbed across the pillars. Chunks of rock peeled away. The fortress began to crumble.
Cheng Yaowen gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his face as he channeled more power. More pillars grew to replace the damaged ones, but he was reaching his limits. His genetic ability was powerful but not infinite, and maintaining this level of manipulation was draining him rapidly.
Rounds continued to slip through even the reinforced barrier. Not many—maybe a dozen—but that was still a dozen god-killing bullets heading straight for Ge Xiaolun's position.
"White Dragon!" Zhao Xin's scream was raw with desperation and determination. "STOP THEM!"
He became a streak of white light, moving faster than he'd ever moved in his life. The dragon shield surrounding Ge Xiaolun responded to his will, expanding massively, its serpentine form coiling protectively around their teammate.
Zhao Xin knew how powerful god-killing ammunition was. He'd seen the test results, watched the footage of what those rounds could do. A standard shield wouldn't be enough. He needed to give everything—channel every ounce of lantern power, every bit of genetic enhancement, everything he was or ever could be.
The white dragon construct grew until it was truly massive, its body forming multiple layers of protection.
Dragon roars echoed across the sky as Zhao Xin threw himself into the path of the ammunition, his spear becoming an extension of his will. Faster. He needed to be faster. Every round he intercepted was one that wouldn't reach Ge Xiaolun.
Faster! Intercept one more! Just one more!
His belief in protecting his friend, his faith in their team, his desperate hope for Earth's future—all of it manifested as raw speed. The white dragon under his feet and around his spear moved with liquid grace, destroying god-killing rounds in mid-flight.
When the remaining ammunition struck the massive protective dragon coiled around Ge Xiaolun, the numbers had been reduced by more than half.
But they were still god-killing rounds. Still dangerous. Still potentially fatal.
"I WILL catch them!" Zhao Xin roared, his face twisted into a mask of concentration and pain. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth, his body pushed far beyond safe operational parameters. His speed had reached absolute maximum—he was moving so fast that the air itself was ionizing in his wake.
But physics was still physics. Velocity still took time to build. He simply couldn't accelerate fast enough to intercept those last few rounds before they—
BOOM!!!
A massive explosion consumed the remaining god-killing ammunition, and a voice cut through the chaos with absolute authority.
"Don't forget, you little punk!" Reina stood with one hand extended, solar energy still dissipating from her palm. Her face was set in an expression of fierce determination. "I'm the Sunlight Goddess! I'm your CAPTAIN! You think I'd let you do this alone?!"
The shield of solar light she'd manifested was already fading, but it had done its job—completely destroying the last god-killing rounds before they could reach Ge Xiaolun.
She looked around at her team—at the warriors who'd thrown themselves into danger without hesitation—and felt pride surge through her.
"Heroic Company!" Her voice rang out like a battle cry. "ASSEMBLE!"
They came together in a defensive formation around Ge Xiaolun, battered and exhausted but unbroken. Ready to face whatever came next. Ready to protect their hope.
And Ge Xiaolun, feeling the weight of his friends' protection, feeling the trust they'd placed in him, finally completed his technique.
His eyes snapped open, blazing with white-gold light.
"...JUDGMENT!"
The great sword in his hands launched itself into the sky like a missile. Behind it, the hundreds—no, thousands—of energy swords followed in perfect formation, a army of blades ascending toward the Taotie fleet with the inevitability of divine wrath.