Chapter 594: Ariman: Please, Don

Everything faded in an instant—the war-plowed earth turned from ash-brown to pure gray-white, the fire-stained sky lost its color, the Adeptus Astra Militarum uniforms looked washed too many times, and the silver bodies of the Necrons dulled to lifeless gray.

Even the fragment of the Burning Star-God hanging midair lost its hue; the flames around him became blocks of black and white, no longer hot or searing, leaving only a dull, lifeless silence.

Xie Mohe stared at this scene in utter confusion—the anti-subspace field before him, represented by intersecting grid lines, trembled and roared wildly, like a sea undergoing an undersea earthquake.

He felt everything within him slowing, fading, growing hollow.

This was not a trick of time manipulation; Xie Mohe was certain of that.

It was more as if his own existence had thinned, as if his existence had stalled.

All around him receded like a tide—the sounds of the battlefield drifted to the distant horizon.

He faintly heard human cries, prayers, and praises—they were chanting the Emperor's name—but their very presence had also grown thin.

It was as if every entity on this battlefield—whether machine or flesh, memory or soul—was falling into isolated, mutual abysses.

Only that human girl, the one named Jeanne, walked barefoot across the stony battlefield.

Fire—the fire that burned reality—flowed beneath her skin, then broke free of her fleshly bounds, surging forth like a roaring tide.

Jeanne opened her arms, and flames poured from her body, tearing through her skin and manifesting in reality.

Everything crackled, but unlike the Burning One's fire, the golden flames around Jeanne burned with a soft sound—like silk gliding over water, like silent death.

Fire poured from her eyes; Jeanne slightly opened her mouth and exhaled starlight, interweaving linen cloth and solar prominences like layered ribbons lifting her body, carrying her into the sky.

Her body blackened under the fire's heat, yet the radiance around her grew ever brighter, like a star during an eclipse.

The Burning One let out a roar, struggling and twisting within the gray-white-black mass, drawing energy from reality—and for an instant, regained some color, sparks of orange-red flame erupting around him.

But Jeanne, suspended midair, merely lifted her face slightly; the flames nearly consumed her features, her eye sockets sunken deep, her flesh shriveled to near dryness.

Even the Necrons, immune to the Subspace, could feel it—Jeanne was almost a vessel for a god.

Humans, whose perception of the Subspace was keener, saw behind her—within the blazing golden flames—a faint figure seated upon a golden throne.

The Burning One roared, charging toward Jeanne with crimson and orange flames, the primordial heat of the universe melting everything in its path; countless Necrons dissolved into molten iron under his roar.

Jeanne did not dodge or retreat—only in her hand, somehow, appeared a dagger forged from obsidian.

The Ritual Dagger—a fragment of the weapon used in humanity's first murder, forged into a Subspace artifact.

She raised the dagger in one hand and swung it down hard toward the Burning One.

Instantly, the dagger transformed midair into a colossal, blazing golden sword—vast as a continent—crushing down upon the Burning One.

For a moment, even the Burning One's Star-God body seemed insignificant before that golden blade.

Xie Mohe's nonexistent heart suddenly thudded.

He remembered something.

The Tomb-Techs had warned him—if the Black Stone Spire were pierced by intense Subspace energy, it would reverse polarity, shifting from suppressing the Subspace to amplifying it.

No no no, it's fine—the Black Stone itself suppresses the Subspace and is extremely hard.

Such a massive black stone spire can't be easily pierced, can it?

Xie Mohe suddenly realized something.

He saw Jeanne's blazing golden sword pressing down, driving the Burning One straight into the Black Stone Spire.

The Burning One's scorching body slammed into the Spire, emitting a piercing shriek—his surrounding flames melted the Black Stone Spire outright.

The immense Subspace energy concentrated on Jeanne surged into the Spire like a flood.

Scorching golden flames poured through the melted gap in the Spire, flooding inward.

The surging Subspace energy clashed violently against the Black Stone's suppressive properties.

The Black Stone now acted like a tiny plug holding back a dam's rupture, straining desperately to stop the Subspace flood from spilling into reality.

But the flood from the Subspace was too powerful—the Black Stone's polarity reached its limit, then, like a compressed spring snapping back, it reversed violently.

At this moment, the polarity of the Black Stone Spire reversed.

The dam built to block the Subspace shattered—and instead, it unleashed an endless torrent of Subspace energy.

A grotesque Subspace rift formed atop the Black Stone Spire, flickering with boundless stillness and searing golden flames.

In an instant, even the Burning One was swallowed by the rift, drowned in the Subspace flood, lost to wherever it carried him.

Then the rift collided and expanded, releasing even more Subspace energy—suddenly engulfing everything around it in that tidal surge.

Humans were unaffected; instead, their spirits grew fiercer, their emotions more exalted, they chanted loudly in praise of the Emperor and Saint Doraemon—and their praise itself strengthened the Subspace energy.

The Necrons, however, began to burn under the Subspace energy's wash—as if ritually slaughtered, countless Necrons were drowned and obliterated in this tide of flame.

Viceroy Xie Mohe could not escape the Subspace flood's wash. He gazed at Jeanne, suspended midair like a blazing star, at the figure that seemed divinely possessed by the roaring flames—and on his metallic face, an expression bordering on disbelief appeared.

"Your race is truly insane," Xie Mohe sighed, then was swallowed by the Subspace flood—his living metal body turned to ash and vanished in an instant.

The Subspace rift spiraled along the planet's orbit, continuously venting Subspace power into the material universe.

Because Xie Mohe had concentrated the effect of the Exorcism Dead Zone entirely upon the planet's surface, the Subspace energy spread unimpeded in all directions across the star systems.