Chapter 558

The Phase-Shifting Demon absorbed Buddy's player essence, gaining advantages. On one hand, it acquired a physical form, enabling it to interfere with the real world more efficiently. On the other hand, it transformed from its original massive, weaknessless potato shape into a short humanoid form.

A humanoid form means its movements must obey physical laws; every punch and kick can be predicted.

Right now, facing Master Pi Fu, who was only half a head shorter, the Phase-Shifting Demon opened its left hand, condensing an energy cannon in its palm. Its right hand shifted into a blade, slashing diagonally downward.

【Bullet Hell Spectacle】 has no cooldown; the two attacks are simultaneously replicated dozens of times.

On the left, dense clusters of light spots, each as bright as a 200,000-lumen flashlight, far exceeding the blinding glare of a computer screen when a dorm mate plays CS2 at midnight.

On the right, impenetrable afterimages of palm-blades, coated with black smoke particles.

At such close range, there was no escape. Li Cheng swung his fist and struck— the Phase-Shifting Demon's arm afterimage, previously in quantum superposition, instantly collapsed.

Fist met fist. Li Cheng's radius and ulna cracked audibly; the shattered armor on his forearm spontaneously popped off, shedding the clinging black smoke.

The Phase-Shifting Demon's right arm bent backward, all bones shattered, held together only by a thin layer of skin and flesh.

Worse still, this punch contained a condensed qi implosion. As the qi detonated, the Phase-Shifting Demon's torso involuntarily twisted sideways.

At the last instant, it controlled the waist prosthesis's pivot joint on Buddy, rotating it 90° in an emergency, keeping the energy cannon still charging in its left palm—and its copies—still aimed at Master Pi Fu.

Zing—

Behind Li Cheng, the scorpion tail whipped forward, its sharp blade slicing upward through the Phase-Shifting Demon's shoulder.

In zero gravity, the Phase-Shifting Demon's right hand, propelled by inertia, spun outward, firing the energy cannon—barely missing Li Cheng, hurtling toward Earth.

Dozens of plasma streams cut cleanly through the atmosphere, vanishing into the dark side of the terminator, like a meteor shower descending from the sky.

The Phase-Shifting Demon showed no expression; black smoke erupted from its wound edges, all injuries healing rapidly.

It wasn't afraid of a war of attrition. Master Pi Fu's self-healing, derived from the Insect Lord's divine corruption gene, was strong—but cellular regeneration consumed energy, utterly unable to match the Phase-Shifting Demon, an advanced artificial weapon from another world.

What it cared about was time.

Human civilization's nuclear strike capability—including underground silos, ground mobile units, nuclear submarines—ignoring deployment and system testing, launching ICBMs directly from engine ignition, acceleration, atmospheric penetration, to reaching a 400-kilometer low Earth orbit, takes roughly 3–5 minutes.

If a transcendent above Level 35 acted, the time could be compressed further.

The Phase-Shifting Demon now had substance and could be struck by external forces. Master Pi Fu could afford to drag it out; it could not.

Without hesitation, the Phase-Shifting Demon raised both palms, touching the tips of its pinky to index finger, thumbs pointing down, forming a triangular outline.

Through the triangular frame, the Phase-Shifting Demon locked onto Li Cheng and roared, "Hah!"

Intense light instantly engulfed Li Cheng. The beam itself held no great destructive power, but the kinetic energy within flung him over ten kilometers away.

This technique is called 【New Qi Cannon】, originating from a self-created skill of the three-eyed martial artist Tien Shinhan in the Dragon Ball manga, converting all damage into control effects, locking down and suppressing targets far stronger than itself.

The only drawback is that repeated use drains its own life force and shortens its expected lifespan.

For players, this isn't a drawback at all. Across any main universe, the average lifespan of the player population doesn't exceed two and a half years—less than bodybuilders or trans women.

To gain immediate combat power, generations of players took perverse paths: swallowing pills, injecting bio-viruses, wearing gargoyle masks, sacrificing their kidneys to dark gods, implanting demonic spirits into their bodies.

Expected lifespan? What's that? Can you eat it?

"Hah! Hah! Hah!"

The Phase-Shifting Demon unleashed Qi Cannon after Qi Cannon, relentlessly pushing Li Cheng back. This time, it didn't need 【Bullet Hell Spectacle】 to replicate attacks—so long as the target remained within the triangular frame, the Qi Cannon arrived instantly.

The distance between them widened again. Simultaneously, the Phase-Shifting Demon's lower body rapidly melted, coalescing into a net-like structure.

Something strange was afoot. No time to wait for support. Li Cheng snapped his fingers and activated Familiar Swap.

Someone unwilling to reveal their name, Augus, had already turned into countless ice shards scattered across low Earth orbit, ineligible as a Familiar Swap target.

Thus, Li Cheng chose the Shadow Peregrine, long since released and hidden in the edge fighter's cockpit.

The thirty-kilometer Familiar Swap drained most of the spiritual energy Li Cheng had painstakingly restored.

The Phase-Shifting Demon lost its target, snapped its head up, and saw the edge fighter diving toward it. It hastily raised its arm, "Hah!"

The fighter was slammed away by the Qi Cannon, but Li Cheng had already jumped from the cockpit, twin mantis-arm bone blades, fueled by the fighter's dive momentum, slashing straight into the Phase-Shifting Demon's thoracic and abdominal cavity.

Dragon's Breath · Black Dragon.

A colossal dragon silhouette appeared above Li Cheng's head, spewing acid as potent as a high-pressure water jet, flooding entirely into the abdominal cavity torn open by the bone blades.

Filled from within by the Black Dragon's acid, even the Phase-Shifting Demon's self-healing could not repair it.

Black smoke dispersed and reformed, dispersed again, unable to maintain Buddy's form, regressing to its original potato shape.

Higher up, the edge fighter had regained stability and opened fire with its underbelly cannon.

At that moment, Li Cheng's peripheral vision caught something.

A satellite, hurtling at 7.5 kilometers per second from the ten o'clock direction. Its surface coating bore no mark of the Realm Earth Project—but…Starlink.

Li Cheng's pupils shrank sharply. The Phase-Shifting Demon fully extended its net-like lower body, precisely catching the Starlink satellite like a space station docking, then vanishing with it.

Previously, Li Cheng and the Phase-Shifting Demon's battle occurred in low Earth equatorial orbit, rotating with Earth, maintaining relative spatial stability.

But this Starlink satellite approached from a tilted orbit at ten o'clock. The Phase-Shifting Demon rode it away, instantly pulling dozens of kilometers from Li Cheng.

The Phase-Shifting Demon had planned this opportunity for a long time. It cut off its own limb, completely abandoning the portion contaminated by acid, melting its remaining body entirely and seeping into the satellite's interior.

The Realm Earth Project's satellites were jointly manufactured by GOC and the Whale Song Guild, already equipped with anti-transcendent force shielding. Starlink had none.

The Phase-Shifting Demon's corruption and assimilation proceeded unimpeded, connecting to the satellite's internal cable panels.

Then, an invisible force spread from this satellite at light speed across low Earth orbit (LEO), continuing unabated to medium Earth orbit (MEO) over 2,000 kilometers above ground, and to geostationary orbit (GEO) over 35,000 kilometers above ground.

A total of ten thousand Starlink satellites simultaneously began ejecting their stored propellant.

In low Earth orbit between 200 and 2,000 kilometers, trace atmosphere still exists. Satellites flying at high speed collide with these sparse gas molecules, creating drag that consumes kinetic energy, slowing speed and lowering orbit. Thus, low Earth orbit satellites carry propellant, firing it every few weeks or months to maintain altitude.

Satellites above 2,000 kilometers also carry propulsion systems to adjust attitude, avoid space debris, and deorbit after mission completion.

The Phase-Shifting Demon burned itself, sharing all its transcendent biological essence and power via network connection to every Starlink satellite, forcing all propulsion systems to accelerate beyond their theoretical maximum thrust, from slow to fast.

7.5 km/s, 8.9 km/s, 10.1 km/s—finally, the first Starlink satellite in low Earth orbit broke past 11 km/s, reaching the second cosmic velocity.

The second cosmic velocity means the satellite can escape Earth's gravity and enter deep space.

Satellites in geostationary orbit need only 4.3 km/s escape velocity to enter deep space.

This was the Phase-Shifting Demon's plan. After failing to hack Cloudflare, it chose to infiltrate Starlink, corrupt and assimilate the satellites, and expel them from Earth.

Ten thousand artificial satellites, launched into the deep void of space along different trajectories, cannot possibly be recovered in a short period of time by human civilization's own strength alone.

These satellites will become the Phase-Change Demon's "beacons," guiding the forces behind it to Earth's location.

Li Cheng immediately grasped the entire plan and instinctively drew in a deep breath.

Phase-Change Demon, you are one ruthless bastard. You hid yourself deeper than anyone.

Li Cheng raised his hand and summoned the Swarm in its half-mecha form. After the previous battle with the Alpha Python, the Swarm's battle damage had not only gone unrepaired but had actually grown worse.

Fortunately, there was no need for it to fight to the death now.

The Swarm mecha silently lifted Li Cheng onto its back. The chimney-like vector nozzles on its spine erupted with fierce flames, driving it to spin in place and continuously accelerate. Then, it hurled Li Cheng violently toward a higher orbit.

As altitude climbed, the Phase-Change Demon—which had already flown far along the orbital curvature—became visible once more. Li Cheng raised his hand and summoned the Alchemical Cannon, his gaze resolute.

The power of the Eight Trigrams Cannon depends on the extraordinary materials invested into it. Ordinary materials cannot kill the Phase-Change Demon, so then there is only...

The Mantis Blade Arm rose and fell in a single stroke, severing Li Cheng's left arm, both legs, and scorpion tail, and casting them all into the cauldron.

Hmm—

The Eight Trigrams Furnace shook violently. Scalding steam burst forth from every hollow structure within. Vast currents of air, as if drawn by an invisible force, began to whirl and converge madly, condensing at the furnace's apex from void into substance, ultimately coalescing into a crimson beetle horn roughly five meters long.

The long horn was entirely crimson, its rough surface bristling with spines and barbs. Even under the brilliant sunlight at the edge of the terminator line, it radiated a fierce, murderous aura.

The Multi-Thread Cerebral Domain technique activated at full power. The brain, running on the hexamer-based genetic system, rapidly calculated the orbital parameters—then fired.

So fast that no afterimage could be discerned, that crimson beetle horn vanished from the cannon's mouth in an instant, becoming a tiny point of light that caught up with the Starlink satellite.

Boom!

The satellite exploded mid-air. The grandeur of the fireball was such that even an ordinary person standing on the surface could see it clearly with the naked eye.

Li Cheng slowly lowered the Alchemical Cannon. The self-healing ability of the Insect God's Bane had long since activated—sealing blood vessels, regenerating cells.

Tiny droplets of blood, exposed to the vacuum environment, boiled violently due to their lowered boiling point, then froze into glittering ice crystals that drifted around Li Cheng.

Did it succeed...?

Tension and doubt rose simultaneously in the hearts of the upper echelons of the Special Affairs Bureau, Whale Song, the GOC headquarters, and every guild with the capability to observe the near-Earth orbital battle.

Everyone was watching that ball of explosive firelight with bated breath.

As the smoke slowly dispersed, what came into view was a battered, broken satellite wreck.

The Phase-Change Demon, whose volume had once rivaled a small mountain, had now shrunk to the size of a basketball, light enough to be easily lifted by hand.

It crouched pitifully on the surface of the wreck, the skin of its lower half spread flat into a thin sheet, wrapping around and protecting 30% of the satellite's core components.

It both succeeded and failed.

Nearly 8,000 Starlink satellites, having lost the energy remotely supplied by the Phase-Change Demon, saw their propulsion systems cease accelerating and were recaptured by Earth's gravity.

But 2,000 satellites had still reached the escape velocity required by their orbits. Without looking back, they drifted away from Earth, carrying the extraordinary essence the Phase-Change Demon had split off, heading in all directions into the cosmos.

"It's over. It's all over."

At Whale Song guild headquarters, a programmer in a checkered shirt collapsed backward in despair, dropping heavily into an ergonomic chair.

This Lv30 Whale Song executive, known as 【Black Trojan】, understood very well that players were powerful—reclaiming seas and moving mountains was but child's play.

But compared to the vast scale of the immense cosmos, players were also very weak.

Jupiter's storm cyclone, known as the Great Red Spot, is roughly 25,000 kilometers long with a vertical span of 12,000 kilometers, releasing energy every second equivalent to six of the most powerful hydrogen bombs in human history—the Tsar Bomba—all detonating simultaneously.

Meanwhile, an artificial satellite's escape velocity of 11.2 kilometers per second is equivalent to Mach 32, far exceeding the terminal velocity of even the most advanced hypersonic missiles. Ordinary players simply cannot catch up.

If a transcendent were to ride a multi-stage rocket, accelerating stage by stage in space, they could catch up. But that would mean racing against the forces behind the Phase-Change Demon.

The Phase-Change Demon knows this clearly as well. If it possessed individual will, its face should now be wearing a gratified smile, murmuring softly, "My mission is complete."

Ding—

A faint light suddenly flared in the pitch-black cosmos.

The Phase-Change Demon jerked upright, and Li Cheng also turned his head, looking toward the extreme distance.

A second, a third—pinpoints of light flickered and extinguished like fireflies.

Every point of light was the explosive flash of a satellite.

"Impossible?!"

The upper echelons of Whale Song and the Special Affairs Bureau guild cried out in unison. One must remember that Starlink, as a commercial enterprise's project, was distributed across Earth orbits at different altitudes and inclinations.

As the Phase-Change Demon provided additional thrust, these Starlink satellites departed their original orbits, separated from one another by hundreds or thousands of kilometers, distributed throughout three-dimensional space, and growing farther apart with every passing second.

Ding ding ding ding ding—the frequency of the light points flashing grew faster and faster. One must remember that when the first batch of Starlink satellites was launched, the Killing Field Game had not yet descended. The satellites absolutely had no remote-activated self-destruct devices installed on them.

In other words, it was a transcendent who was making the move.

The explosive flashes lighting up one after another resembled a constellation of stars. As the final satellite, beyond 35,000 kilometers from the surface in geostationary orbit, was destroyed, the night sky once again returned to quiet tranquility.

Step.

A foot, clad in silver-white metal armor, stepped onto the satellite wreck where the Phase-Change Demon lay.

Michael descended upon this place.