The news of morning glow's interception and probing was presented to the two core 'brains' of the Merlot Heavenly Court almost in real-time and without error, through multi-encrypted quantum entanglement communication and dark information synchronization.
In the 'Heart of Dawn' laboratory, the eternally running data streams seemed to freeze for a moment. On the light screen floating before Hexi, a live broadcast of the battlefield processed by the Sky-based Computing Cluster was clearly playing: the trap disguised as natural turbulence, the Death Song Academy members who boldly self-detonated, the narrow escapes, and... the faint, cold, and deathly silent fluctuation belonging to the Styx Galaxy captured by Artoria through her Psionic Probe.
The laziness and playfulness on Hexi's face vanished without a trace the moment the image froze. Her exquisite features seemed covered in a layer of frost, and deep within her silver eyes, a storm seemed to be gathering—a pure and icy anger that had been dormant for tens of thousands of years and had almost never appeared in her eyes before.
"Karl..." Her voice was very soft, yet it sounded like the friction of the hardest ice, each syllable carrying a bone-chilling coldness. "How dare he."
She slowly stood up, her gentle researcher's aura completely gone, replaced by a suffocating majesty and killing intent belonging to the Heavenly Base King. She didn't look at the light screen; her gaze seemed to penetrate through layers of barriers, casting toward that Styx Galaxy hidden in the shadows of the Universe.
"A bit of low-class ambush, a few disposable small fry..." Hexi's voice suppressed a churning emotion—it was lingering fear, it was rage, and even more, it was a cold murderous intent after her bottom line had been thoroughly violated. "Probing? Warning? Using such underhanded methods to touch my person?"
She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling slightly as she seemed to force down the anger that was almost bursting out, but her eyes grew brighter and sharper, like a peerless divine weapon being unsheathed.
"It seems thirty thousand years of 'peace' have made some rats hiding in the gutters forget the taste of their souls being scorched by the flame sword, and forget... what the consequences are for touching an existence under Angel protection."
Her gaze turned to one side of the lab, where an independently encrypted virtual model with an extremely subtle energy reaction and a structure too complex to understand was floating. It was a top-secret research project she and Keisha had recently undertaken, combining certain cutting-edge conjectures about 'high-dimensional information aggregation and faith-will representation' from the 'gift' Artoria had brought—the preliminary theoretical model of 'Mental Image · Light Wings'.
Originally, this research was still in the theoretical verification and small-scale simulation stage, with a long way to go before actual application or weaponization. It was too abstract, involving unquantifiable concepts like the soul, belief, and collective civilization will; both its power and risks were immeasurable.
But at this moment, as Hexi looked at the model, there was not a hint of a researcher's caution or hesitation in her eyes, only an ice-cold decisiveness.
"Just right," she whispered to herself, her voice cold as if reading a sentence, "I lack an 'experiment' of sufficient weight to verify some conjectures, and while I'm at it..."
She looked up and, through the highest-authority encrypted channel, directly contacted the core of the Merlot Heavenly Court, where Holy Keisha's throne was located.
"Keisha."
No titles, no pleasantries, just a single name, yet it carried the weight of a thousand tons.
The Angel Hall, the Holy Throne.
Keisha leaned back on the throne, resting her head on one hand, her golden eyes half-closed as if she were napping. But when she received Hexi's communication and instantly digested the transmitted information along with that cold resolve, there was no change in expression on her face, which seemed eternally calm, but she slowly and completely opened her eyes.
Those golden eyes were no longer merely majestic and deep; they seemed to have transformed into two slowly rotating miniature Universes, reflecting the birth and death of billions of stars, containing an unspeakable vastness and indifference.
She 'heard' Hexi's unspoken words and felt that suppressed rage and cold killing intent.
She did not respond to Hexi, nor did she make any move. She just quietly and completely opened her eyes, and then, slowly, closed them again.
This closing of the eyes was completely different from before.
The moment she closed her eyes, the entire Merlot Heavenly Court—no, the entire Angel Nebula—every Angel Warriors loyal to the order of justice, believing in Holy Keisha, and devoted to the Angel Civilization—whether they were guards on duty in the Heavenly City, ancient veterans training at the Guixu Barrier, fleets patrolling the starry sky, or even lone Angels performing secret missions in distant star sectors—felt as if a warm and vast light had gently brushed across the depths of their souls.
There were no specific instructions, no clear words. There was only a feeling, a calling, a resonance originating from the deepest parts of their bloodline and faith.
All Angels, no matter what they were doing, stopped their movements at the same instant. They looked up in unison toward the direction of the Merlot Heavenly Court, their right hands slowly rising, clenching into fists, and gently pressing against the position of their hearts on their left chests.
No words were spoken, no slogans shouted. But an invisible, formless, yet real 'thing' began to rise from every Angel Warrior.
It was their will, their conviction, their adherence to justice, their protection of their home, their loyalty to the Queen, their camaraderie with their comrades, their yearning for beauty, their hatred for evil... it was the most refined 'essence, energy, and spirit' accumulated over the billion years of their existence as 'Angels'!
At this moment, under the guidance of Keisha's will that transcended time and space, and supported by the yet-to-be-fully-verified but incredibly bold core framework of the 'Mental Image · Light Wings' theory, the spirits and convictions of these millions of individual Angels scattered across the Universe began an incredible resonance, aggregation, and sublimation!
They crossed physical distances, ignored energy barriers, and like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, they surged toward the Merlot Heavenly Court, toward the figure sitting quietly with closed eyes upon the Holy Throne!
This was not a superposition of energy, not an infusion of power, but a higher-dimensional aggregation of spirit and information!
Inside the Angel Hall, Keisha's figure remained seated. But behind her, behind the throne that should have been empty, a 'light' so dazzling it was impossible to observe with the naked eye and could only be barely captured in outline by spiritual sense or top-tier detection instruments, was slowly unfolding.
That 'light' was initially just a point, then it stretched and spread, transforming into an indescribably vast and unpaintably brilliant phantom of 'wings' composed of pure light and conviction! The wings flapped gently, and every tiny rise and fall seemed to tug at some underlying rule of the entire Known Universe, bringing a silent shock.
And Keisha's form, set against these 'Mental Image · Light Wings', seemed to become infinitely tall and infinitely profound. She was no longer just a powerful individual life; she was more like the incarnation of a civilization's will, the manifestation of a noble ideal, a multi-aggregate of the essence, energy, and spirit of a million Angels!
She still had her eyes closed, but her 'vision' had already penetrated the endless sea of stars, precisely locking onto that Styx Galaxy hidden in the shadows of the Universe, emitting the aura of death and the void.
Then, she reached out her hand.
She didn't call upon the armory, didn't activate the Heavens Blade Judgment, and didn't even mobilize a single shred of Dark Energy.
She simply extended her right hand and made a grasping motion.
With her movement, the magnificent 'Mental Image · Light Wings' suddenly burst with light! Countless flowing points of light, fragments of conviction, and stars of will, as if receiving a final summons, peeled away from every 'feather' of the wings, aggregated, and frantically poured into her grasping palm.
The light compressed, condensed, and took shape in her palm...
The outline of a sword gradually became clear.
It was not physical, nor was it energy. It flowed entirely with a warm and pure light, the blade seemingly composed of countless tiny, dancing conviction runes. At the guard was the Angel wing emblem, and the hilt was wrapped in materialized patterns of countless beautiful concepts like protection, justice, sacrifice, and courage.
This was a 'Sword of Conviction', the product of the aggregation of a million Angels' essence, energy, and spirit. it was the first, and perhaps the most violent, practical application attempt of the 'Mental Image · Light Wings' theory!
Keisha finally opened her eyes.
At this moment, in her eyes, there was no sorrow or joy, no anger or resentment, only a pure, indifferent, absolute calm, like the Universe itself looking down upon a speck of dust.
She held the 'Sword of Conviction' and locked her gaze onto Styx.
There was no roar, no declaration, not even an extra expression.
She simply swung the'sword' in her hand from top to bottom, in a simple motion, toward that distant death star sector that made countless civilizations pale at its mention.
Slash.
The movement was simple and unadorned, like a woodcutter chopping wood or a farmer swinging a hoe.
However, the instant she swung the sword!
Above the Merlot Heavenly Court, the starry sky illuminated by the eternal sun was suddenly filled with an indescribably brilliant, vast, and majestic radiance! A phantom of Holy Keisha, so massive it defied any unit of measurement, composed entirely of light and conviction, emerged as if from the root of the Universe, standing between heaven and Earth, looking down upon the galaxy!
The phantom also held a massive sword of light, perfectly synchronized with Keisha's own movements, and slashed down toward the direction of the Styx Galaxy!
There was no world-destroying torrent of energy, no terrifying spatial ripples, no multicolored energy spectrum.
There was only a'sword qi'.
A'sword qi' purely formed from highly condensed and sublimated 'conviction', 'will', and'spirit', transcending the scope of conventional matter and energy attacks.
It was formless and intangible, yet it truly existed. It was not restricted by spatial distance and ignored all stars, dust, and energy fields along the way. It was as if from the moment it was swung, it was already 'destined' to hit its target.
Its speed could not be measured in light-years; it was a conceptual 'certain hit'.
The vast distance of the billion light-years from the Merlot Heavenly Court to the Styx Galaxy seemed non-existent before this 'conviction sword qi'.
Swing, slash.
Hit.
The entire process, from Keisha grasping and condensing the Sword of Conviction, to the swing, to the sword qi crossing the billion light-years to hit Styx, took...
Less than one second.
There really were no 'fancy' special effects.
Only the swing and the hit.
And then...
The Styx Galaxy, that massive galaxy shrouded in eternal silence and shadow, possessing countless undead Planets, the halls of the Death Song Academy, the Taotie home Planet, and even God of Death Karl's lair, the Death Song Academy...
After that one second, abruptly and completely, from the star maps of the Known Universe, from the energy monitoring networks, and even from the perception of all god-level civilizations...
Disappeared.
It wasn't destroyed; it wasn't blown into fragments.
Its very 'existence' was 'erased'.
It was as if someone had used an eraser to gently wipe away a smudge on a painting. Or like a small patch of shadow under the sun being completely 'purified' and 'evaporated' by the purest light.
There was no explosion, no debris, no energy aftershocks.
In that star sector, only the purest, most void-like cosmic space remained, along with... a faint, almost hallucinatory warm afterglow of countless Angels' convictions slowly dissipating.
The Styx Galaxy was struck from the records.
In an unprecedented way that transcended the understanding of all civilizations, it was 'erased' from the Universe.
...
In the deepest part of the Death Song Academy, Karl's eternally calm phantom body seemed to'see' that light composed purely of conviction and will, which was extremely warm yet also extremely cold, a billionth of a second before the sword qi hit.
There was no pain, no struggle.
Only a 'feeling'... of being completely covered and dissolved by a grander, more fundamental 'existence'.
Then, there was eternal silence and void.
The Styx Galaxy, along with all the secrets hidden within, all creations, all undead and believers, including that God of Death Karl who studied the void, plotted god-slaying, and believed he had glimpsed the truth of the Universe...
Together they became history, became an 'erased' symbol.
...
The Angel Hall.
The magnificent 'Mental Image · Light Wings' phantom behind Keisha slowly faded and dissipated into nothingness. The 'Sword of Conviction' in her hand also turned into a sky full of light points, returning to the depths of every Angel Warrior's conviction.
She leaned back onto the throne and closed her eyes, as if that world-shaking strike that erased an entire galaxy was just a casual dusting of her robes.
Only her face, which turned slightly pale for a moment, and the fleeting exhaustion deep in her eyes proved that it was not without cost.
In the communication channel, Hexi's voice came through, still cold, but the anger had subsided, leaving only absolute calmness:
"Experimental data has been fully recorded. 'Mental Image · Light Wings' theory verification... successful. Power assessment: transcends all currently known strategic-level strike methods. Recoil and mental load... within acceptable limits. Recommendation: classify as the civilization's ultimate deterrent; prohibited except in extreme circumstances."
"Mm," Keisha responded faintly.
After a brief silence, Hexi's voice sounded again, carrying a hint of subtle complexity: "...With this, the Universe should be 'quiet' for a while. It will also let certain people re-remember what is meant by... an Angel's 'favor' and 'wrath'."
Keisha didn't answer, just sat there quietly.
But the entire Known Universe, all god-level civilizations and ancient existences capable of observing what just happened—or rather, observing the result of the 'disappearance of the Styx Galaxy'—were now plunged into a deathly silence and unspeakable fear.
They didn't know specifically what happened, didn't know what methods the Angels used. They only knew that the Styx Galaxy, which had been an enemy of the Angels and coveted what the Angels protected, had been completely 'erased' from the Universe in less than a second.
No warning, no declaration of war, no process.
Only the result.
A simple, crude, and soul-shuddering result.
At this moment, all the gazes hidden in the shadows involuntarily moved away from Earth and from Artoria in extreme terror, casting toward that star sector still bathed in eternal holy light, with only one thought remaining in their hearts:
The Angel's 'guest'... must not be touched.
Absolutely, must not be touched.
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