"You're awake?"
At the moment Caitlyn was still completely dazed, Jovian, with Yan tucked against his waist, turned around.
"You!"
"You two!"
"What exactly is going on here?"
Caitlyn looked at Jovian, then at the utterly dead-eyed Yan, confusion written all over her face.
"Well, how do I put this…"
"You've been saved!"
Jovian scratched his cheek. There was no easy way to explain any of this to Caitlyn, but he was sure that after today, General Du Couteau and the others would explain everything to her.
"This…"
Caitlyn still did not understand a word Jovian was saying.
"What happened?"
"Why didn't that Earth monkey die?"
"And who's this new Earth monkey that just showed up?"
If anyone was truly baffled right now, it was the ugly alien.
Standing on a hovering flight platform, the hideous alien stared suspiciously at the cannon in his hands. He distinctly remembered hitting those Earth monkeys with his shot, but now they looked completely fine. That left only one possibility, his shell had been a dud.
"Earth monkey?"
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?"
Jovian had obviously heard the ugly alien muttering to himself. He turned his head with a displeased look and glared at him.
"Me? I'm…"
After hearing Jovian's question, the ugly alien actually started introducing himself.
"Bzzzt…"
Unfortunately, Jovian had absolutely no interest in listening to the alien's bullshit. A brilliant golden light suddenly burst from his eyes, and in an instant, the ugly alien was torn clean in half.
"And you lot too…"
Jovian's heat vision did not stop after ripping apart one hideous Taotie grunt. It swept through every last one of the scouts who had come to Earth, shredding them all before it finally ceased.
"Your eyes can fire energy blasts too?"
Yan stared at the glowing beams pouring from Jovian's eyes, stunned.
"Basic control."
As he spoke, Jovian swung his hand and smacked Yan on the backside.
"You!"
"That is an insult! An insult to Angels!"
Yan was furious. She felt Jovian simply did not take the Angels seriously at all.
"Relax."
"You're way too uptight. Not very godlike of you."
Jovian spoke as he smacked her again, even harder.
Honestly, an Angel's body really did lean toward perfection. The exquisite feel of that impact was something impossible to put into words.
"You killed two Taotie soldiers."
"The Taotie civilization serves Karthus. He won't let you off so easily."
Yan looked at the Taotie scouts Jovian had killed with his heat vision and smiled.
"He won't let me off?"
"You think I'm going to let him off that easily?"
"These ugly creatures showed up in front of me without my permission. That's pushing it way too far."
"He doesn't need to come looking for me. I'll be the one asking him for an explanation."
Jovian's expression darkened. Looking at the wreckage all around him, he felt deeply annoyed.
There was no real reason for it. He was just pissed off.
"Oh?"
"So what are you planning to do? Don't tell me you're going to run all the way to the Styx Galaxy and kill Karthus yourself?"
Yan's eyes shifted slightly. In her view, Karthus had always been a threat. If she could use this to make Jovian and Karthus go at each other, that would be good for the Angels.
"Of course not."
"How the hell would I know where the Styx civilization is?"
Jovian's answer caught Yan off guard, and disappointed her a little.
"Even if I don't know where the Styx Galaxy is…"
"That bunch of Taotie who've already set up an outpost beyond the solar system are a different story."
Jovian raised his head. His gaze seemed to cross an immeasurable distance and reach the edge of the solar system, his expression turning utterly serious.
"What are you planning to do?"
Yan asked, puzzled.
"Kill dogs."
"Send those brain-dead mutts back into their god Karthus's arms."
Jovian's face remained calm as he stated his objective word by word.
The instant those words left his mouth, a golden portal appeared before him and Yan.
Holding Yan in his arms, Jovian stepped through it.
"…"
Caitlyn watched everything from beginning to end, her eyes wide, her small head simply unable to process what in the world had just happened.
At the edge of the solar system, inside a massive war base floating through outer space—
"Everyone, stay sharp. We need to be patient and wait for the main force to arrive!"
"Once the main force gets here, we'll crush those damned Earthlings for good!"
An elderly-looking Taotie was lecturing his subordinates with solemn intensity.
"Yes, sir!"
After hearing the old Taotie's words, the soldiers shouted in unison.
They were devout followers of the great Karthus. They intended to plunge the entire universe into deathly silence, and the first step was turning Earth into ashes to please their great god.
"Report, Commander! We've detected an unknown energy signature on the outer perimeter. It's moving straight toward us!"
Just as the elderly Taotie was trying to fire up the new recruits, the radar operator seemed to catch sight of something unbelievable. Eyes wide, he confirmed the reading several times, then reported sharply to the old Taotie.
"What?!"
The old Taotie's face stiffened.
"Put the image on screen!"
He ordered his subordinates to project the captured image onto the display.
On the screen, a figure glowing with golden light was racing straight toward them.
"This is…"
The old Taotie stared at the image, shock rising in his eyes.
"Zoom in!"
He ordered the technicians to enlarge the figure.
"At once!"
The Taotie at the controls quickly magnified the image again and again…
On the screen appeared a handsome human youth flying straight toward their warship, carrying a beautiful blonde Angel in his arms.
"He can fly through space with his physical body alone? A god?!"
Cold sweat poured down the old Taotie's forehead. There were quite a few powerful beings in the universe capable of crossing the stars through sheer physical force, Angels and gods created by god-making civilizations could do such things. Those were true gods, not opponents a nobody like him could ever fight.
But…
"Lock onto the target! Do not let the enemy get any closer!"
The old Taotie barked out the order, commanding his subordinates to snipe the unknown god before he reached them.
"But Commander! That's a god!"
The operator's face changed dramatically after hearing the order. He was horrified. Their commander was actually ordering them to assassinate a great deity capable of roaming the universe. Every god stood behind a powerful civilization. One mistake could ignite a top-level holy war.
"Use the Godslayer-grade bullets Lord Karthus gave us!"
"You must never forget our mission!"
"Remember why we came here, we obeyed Lord Karthus's command and came here to complete this task!"
"As members of the Taotie civilization of the Styx Galaxy, completing Lord Karthus's mission is our one and only purpose! Even if we're reduced to dust, we do not hesitate!"
The Taotie commander clenched his fist. Before today, the idea of attacking a god would have been unimaginable to him. But if he succeeded in killing one, then the Taotie would never again have to bow before other gods, never again fear the Angels. They would become a true power in the universe.
"Yes, sir!"
With the old commander's order ringing in their ears, every Taotie soldier clenched a fist. That was right, they were believers in the great Karthus, followers of death itself. All things would eventually die, only death endured forever. The gods would all fall into twilight, and only the god of death would live on eternally.
"For Lord Karthus!"
Shouting Karthus's name, the operators slammed the firing controls.
The next second—
Countless Godslayer-grade rounds erupted outward, tearing through space and arriving instantly before the glowing figure.
Light.
A blazing burst of light exploded across the universe.
Endless energy and shockwaves rolled through the void, tumbling amid the currents of cosmic force.
The terrifying annihilation shells twisted space itself, to the point where even light could not pass through for a brief span of time.
"Grrrk… clank… clatter…"
Because the dark-energy bombs had distorted the surrounding space, the area around the Taotie base became unstable as well. The entire station shook violently, strange noises echoing throughout its interior.
"Did we succeed?"
The Taotie commander paid no attention to the base's condition. He only wanted to know whether they had truly used the great Karthus's technology to kill a real god.
"Report, Commander, we have detected no trace of that chief god from the unknown civilization!"
"I believe we succeeded. Our Godslayer shells killed the enemy's chief god!"
"Commander, from today onward, we never have to fear those gods again!"
The young operator was overcome with emotion. He felt like bursting into tears. Their Taotie race had finally risen. From this day forward, no civilization would ever be able to threaten them with gods or super soldiers again.
"Calm down. This is nothing to be proud of!"
"This isn't our power. This is the power of our great god, Karthus!"
"How could some foreign god possibly stand against our god Karthus?"
The old Taotie gently stroked his chin, utterly confident in his great deity.
"…"
And yet, the moment he finished speaking, the younger Taotie around him all stared at him in open shock.
"Wh… what's…"
"What is it?"
The old Taotie sensed that something was wrong, but he truly did not understand what.
Pat. Pat.
Only when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder from behind did he finally realize.
"…"
The old Taotie seemed to think of something. His face changed instantly, turning as cold as stone.
"I…"
He slowly turned around and saw a man and a woman standing behind him, the very god and Angel they had just observed on the screen. His throat went dry as he tried to say something.
"Surprise, motherfucker!"
What answered him was a pair of glowing crimson-gold eyes and a searing beam of light.
"Bzzzt…"
As the light flashed, two beautiful holes were drilled clean through the ugly old Taotie's face.
"The enemy—"
The other young Taotie had already gone numb, but seeing their commander die jolted them into instinctively drawing their sidearms to defend themselves.
Too bad they were slower than heat vision.
In an instant, several more gallant headless horsemen appeared inside that beautiful space fortress. Honestly, if you ignored their faces and only looked at their combat suits, those Taotie did look pretty stylish.
Thump.
Jovian set Yan down from where he had been carrying her at his waist.
"Be good."
"Wait here for a bit."
Jovian patted Yan on the head, looking at her the way someone might look at a housecat.
"Hmph."
Yan rubbed her backside and ignored him.
"Hahaha…"
"So pouty."
Jovian never paid much attention to other people's expressions. He laughed loudly, lifted off from the floor, and floated deeper into the space fortress.
"Enemy—"
In the corridor, roughly three hundred meters away, a Taotie who had been lying in ambush leaped out from a corner with a sniper rifle aimed at Jovian's head. The Taotie believed that at three hundred meters, the gun was faster.
"Bzzzt…"
But he guessed wrong. At three hundred meters, heat vision was still faster.
"Kids, this is light speed!"
"Beyond three hundred thousand kilometers, heat vision is fast!"
"Within three hundred thousand kilometers, heat vision is fast and accurate!"
With his hands behind his back, Jovian floated in the air, crimson-gold light blazing from his eyes as he carved those hideous cucumber-faced freaks into pieces one by one.
"There's no other choice!"
Inside the secondary control room, a Taotie watched Jovian slaughtering everything through the surveillance feed. He opened the final control lock and revealed a red button.
It was the self-destruct switch, the last resort meant to take the enemy down with them if their warship was ever seized. He had never wanted to use it, but the enemy clearly had no intention of letting them live, so he had no other option.
"Then die with us!"
The Taotie roared as his finger drove down toward the red button.
And yet, just as his fingertip came within less than half an inch of the switch, time itself seemed to stop.
The clock in the room ceased ticking forward. Every Taotie who had seen Jovian wore the same frozen expression of terror, their faces locked forever in a ridiculous, wide-mouthed look as though they were trying to swallow a whole apple in one bite.
As time stood still, only Jovian kept moving forward with his hands clasped behind his back.
"Let's make this one good~"
Humming to himself, Jovian walked past room after room until he reached the secondary control room. He grabbed the foolish Taotie who had intended to trigger the self-destruct by the head and lifted him high into the air.
Crack.
With a soft click from the clock, time began flowing again.
On the surveillance feed, more than three thousand Taotie who had been perfectly alive just a moment earlier had their heads explode all at once, transforming instantly into a legion of noble, stylish headless horsemen before collapsing to the floor.
"Ugh…"
Held aloft by the head in Jovian's grip, the Taotie trembled in utter panic. Looking at Jovian, who had been far away only an instant ago and had now appeared directly in front of him, his eyes filled with despair.
"Trying to be clever."
Jovian looked at the Taotie soldier and gave him a kindly smile. A streak of crimson-gold light flashed, and the world gained one more headless horseman.
Peace.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 10 extra free chapters //[email protected]/Razeil0810