Star Dragon had already tried countless times, yet every surge of spirit energy or subspace power he unleashed was perfectly diffused and neutralized by the threads binding him.
Though his body was held fast, it felt strangely like floating in the vacuum of the material universe without any point of leverage—struggling was utterly meaningless.
The humiliation was unbearable!
What was worse, his body had already reached the brink of total collapse. He could no longer endure another round of disintegration and reformation. His only possible escape—dissolving into subspace particles and then reconstructing himself—was completely sealed off.
"Fine. I yield, old as I am, I admit defeat—completely. Release me. Everything I have will be yours."
Star Dragon's tone had grown unbearably dejected, as if he truly intended to surrender.
But Roya was unmoved. The birdcage of spirit-sense threads continued to compress inward.
To give such an old schemer an opening would be to dig his own grave. Roya had no intention of showing even the slightest mercy.
Very soon, under the relentless pressure of his spirit sense pushed to its limits, Star Dragon's colossal body could endure no more. It finally shattered completely.
Even when broken down into fragments scarcely larger than subspace particles, the remains could not escape from the birdcage of spirit-sense threads woven so densely they were airtight.
Out of caution, Roya still did not release the cage. Maintaining it cost him almost nothing—so why risk it? If that old monster somehow revived, wouldn't that be disastrous?
Better to keep him trapped like this until nothing was left but true annihilation.
What Roya didn't realize was that this very caution had completely severed Star Dragon's last path to survival.
Otherwise, even without his conscious will to guide them, those scattered fragments would still have been able to regroup on their own, stubbornly piecing themselves back together in search of recovery.
The star gods—beings born with the universe itself—were terrifyingly resilient, beyond any normal measure.
At last, with this dreadful hidden foe dealt with, Roya felt a wave of exhaustion sweep over his mind.
The spirit sense he had spread outward ebbed back like a receding tide into his projection.
At the same time, the cage of spirit threads that still enshrouded the shattered body of Star Dragon began automatically analyzing and parsing the structure of this ancient, unique lifeform.
A flood of mysterious knowledge about the universe poured ceaselessly into Roya's spirit sense.
Even the rate at which he absorbed subspace energy—strengthening both his spirit sense and physical body—seemed to accelerate slightly.
Roya withdrew his primary consciousness from the subspace. Gazing at the half-mecha before him, he felt the trip had been well worth it.
Beyond the immeasurable treasure of Star Dragon's corpse, this half-complete mecha would bring a qualitative leap for his warriors.
The harvest this time was truly beyond measure.
Casting his gaze around the storage chamber hidden within the subspace, Roya confirmed—thanks to the information parsed from Star Dragon's remains—that this was indeed a relic of the Ancient Saints.
The Ancient Saint Relics had been caches of technology and supplies, hidden away when the Ancient Saints realized they could not triumph in their war against the Star Gods and their vassal races, in hopes of one day staging a resurgence.
For tens of thousands of years after that war, the Star Gods' subordinate races had scoured the universe, unearthing and destroying these caches wherever they could.
This particular relic had been stumbled upon by Star Dragon while fleeing in his gravely wounded state.
Originally, it had stored no fewer than a thousand subspace-powered mecha. He had consumed them like medicine, until only this one-and-a-half remained—barely enough to stall the disintegration of his body, restoring less than a thousandth of his true power.
And his so-called "gift" to Nuwa and the others—the technology for building Colossi of the Ancient Gods—had been nothing but a trap.
His real aim was to use the colossus technology to catalyze the latent spirit energy of this planet's natives, then devour the spirit projections of the entire world in one swallow.
This last intact mecha had merely been left as a material vessel, so he could move on to the next planet and repeat the cycle of deceit and feeding.
"Despicable wretch… you truly deserved to die!"
Seeing the whole sequence of cause and effect laid bare, Roya had no regrets about destroying Star Dragon.
Yet as hateful as that old schemer had been, the giant-catalyst technology he pioneered—designed to accelerate the awakening of spirit energy—was undeniably useful.
Though the warriors of Pirate Star had already entered the stage of fusing Haki, they still had a long way to go before fully evolving into spirit energy users.
Strictly speaking, their fused Haki still couldn't compare to the sheer intensity of consciousness Nuwa and the other colossus pilots possessed.
Thus, Roya was in urgent need of such a method to help his soldiers awaken spirit energy quickly.
Otherwise, what would be the point of building subspace-powered armor if there weren't enough warriors capable of fueling it?
Fortunately, the catalyst technology itself was relatively simple. The finished product was little more than a helmet that continuously stimulated the spirit through unique signals.
With Im's level of technological prowess, it would be easy to set up a production line for them aboard the Pluton.
That way, during their long voyages, the soldiers would have another form of training to keep them occupied and sharpening their strength.
With this thought, Roya swept out his spirit sense, dragging the one-and-a-half mecha through the light gate and back into the underground plaza.
Nuwa and the others were still anxiously awaiting the fate of their world when, suddenly, the massive bulk of two colossal machines filled the square before them.
Roya himself appeared soon after, smiling calmly as he stood before them.
"This is…? Is this the true Colossus of the Ancient Gods?!"
Nuwa looked up at the subspace-powered mecha, her eyes brimming with awe.
Just from the sleek contours of the frame and the strange luster glimmering across its surface, she could tell—this mecha utterly eclipsed the Colossi of the Ancient Gods they had been so proud of, both in materials and in every measurable parameter.
Roya nodded with a smile.
"That's right. This is the true Colossus of the Ancient Gods—or to be precise, it is the Ancient Saints' mass-production type subspace-powered mecha."
Zeus and Odin were dumbstruck.
"M-My lord, you… are you truly of Ancient Saint bloodline?!"
Roya chuckled and shook his head.
"What Ancient Saint bloodline? And even if such blood existed, would it truly be so exalted?"
"At the end of the day, they were no different from us—civilizations born among the myriad stars of the cosmos."
"No matter how glorious their past once was, they are long vanished into obscurity, leaving behind only scattered legends."
Nuwa interjected, her voice solemn:
"But it is precisely such legends that allowed countless oppressed and enslaved peoples like us—the ones harvested by others—to hold onto the final thread of hope."
Roya fixed his gaze on her, his tone stern:
"You're wrong. Our true hope is not in those so-called saviors who will never return from their relics—it lies in ourselves!"
"Only by becoming strong enough ourselves can we overthrow the oppression of the Harvesters, and truly claim dominion over our own fate!"
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