Chapter 344: Fourfold Annihilation! The Great Eras!

'Gone?'

Seeing Fang Can vanish, all the martial artists fell silent for a moment.

Then, a strong sense of relief burst forth from their hearts.

All fourth-transformation martial artists were beings with strong personalities—intense, stubborn character traits.

Even Yang Xiao felt pressure from having an immortal looming over her.

Though this did not affect her loyalty, with Fang Can’s departure, she could not help but feel a faint comfort.

But immediately, a new question arose: Had Fang Can truly left?

Before this thought could spread, a series of light laughs emerged from a woman’s mouth.

“Hahaha, that immortal master is finally gone,” said a woman clad in medieval armor, smiling lightly.

She was Delis, not a fourth-transformation martial artist from the Central Plains, but one discovered later by Yang Xiao and others on other continental civilizations.

With her were seven or eight other fourth-transformation martial artists from around the world, each laughing with evident relief.

“Delis, Anifa, what’s so funny?” Yang Xiao said coldly.

“Nothing much, I just think we should seriously discuss the division of the mortal realm,” Anifa replied with a cold smile.

“We have such immense power—how can we keep submitting to others?”

Delis clenched her fist gently: “The strong deserve everything; those people need only submit to us.”

Her words triggered a wave of silence around her.

The thousand-plus martial artists on the Path to Heaven now all inwardly agreed with her words, yet felt they were spoken too hastily.

But in the next instant, every person present furrowed their brows.

For they saw countless rocks and explosives hurtling toward them from space.

“Look, these former Transparent Faction members have launched war against us,” Delis sneered.

“While we gathered here waiting for Fang Can to leave, they prepared their final desperate struggle—launching a rebellion against us.”

“Those martial artists must have climbed up via the space elevators we built across the world. Clearly, these ascension channels must remain firmly in our hands.”

Delis and the other martial artists watched the rocks hurtling toward them from afar, unable to suppress their cold smirks.

It seemed they had been too gentle for too long—allowing these mortals to harbor delusions of matching them in power.

Such mortal attacks could be effortlessly erased with a flick of the finger.

But as Delis’s expression shifted, she noticed sheets of paper embedded in the rocks—Surrender Documents.

Hesitantly, she reached out and pulled one rock toward her.

But in the next instant, every face present turned pale.

For they felt their inner power plummeting at a frantic rate.

Though they were in space, it felt as if they had returned to the ground.

Some first- and second-transformation martial artists, exposed to the vacuum of space, suffered from pressure imbalance—gasping in agony, their blood beginning to boil.

‘What’s happening?’ Instinctively, Delis panicked and tried to communicate via Mind Mirror.

But she discovered in horror that her Mind Mirror could not transmit outward, and she had lost her flight ability—her voice, too, could not propagate in the vacuum of space.

In an instant, these martial artists had become lambs awaiting slaughter in the void.

The answer was—Sixth-Transformation Restriction!

After arriving in this world, Fang Can had been curious: How exactly did the Sixth-Transformation Restriction function?

Martial artists entering within ten thousand meters of a planet were suppressed.

But if the planet were split in half, would the planetary restriction still hold?

Where exactly was this Sixth-Transformation Restriction inscribed? Was it tied to the planet as a whole concept, or to some physical substance?

Out of curiosity, Fang Can decided to investigate this restriction using scientific reasoning.

Thus, one day, Fang Can attacked the empty land from outer space, continuously digging deep into the crust.

Finally, after penetrating several kilometers beneath the surface, he discovered a previously unseen, glowing green stone.

The entire mantle was nearly saturated with this steel-hard stone, visible everywhere.

Simply carrying this stone—even inhaling its dust—would suppress martial artists, triggering severe rejection reactions even if they fled to outer space.

Due to its unique effect on martial artists and being its first discoverer, Fang Can named it “Kryptonite.”

Of course, if you insist on calling it “Hailou Stone,” that’s fine too.

The larger the piece of Kryptonite, the greater its range of influence and radiation.

Because the mantle was saturated with this stone, the entire region within ten thousand meters of the surface was affected by Kryptonite’s range.

Clearly, the Sixth-Transformation Restriction had been inscribed upon this stone.

Fang Can speculated that originally, this stone had been a single massive block; after the Sixth-Transformation Restriction was applied, it had been shattered by Ying Han and entirely embedded into the planet’s mantle.

Now, these martial artists had used ropes and other tools to remotely bind Kryptonite and launch it into the atmosphere, then hurled it—along with fragments and dust—at fourth-transformation martial artists at over ten times the speed of sound.

Caught completely off guard, the fourth-transformation martial artists lost their ability to command wind and rain, their power plummeting once more to rock bottom.

“You are not great—humanity is great!”

Far away, the woman Fang Can had appointed Empress of the Empire stared coldly, speaking through Mind Mirror.

As she spoke, surrounding martial artists filled the area around the fourth-transformation martial artists with Kryptonite dust.

Reality does not resemble the movie version of Justice League—Superman, once recovered, would not give Batman a second chance to fire a Kryptonite bullet.

This entire operation relied on the surprise of intelligence-based first-strike.

Had the fourth-transformation martial artists been slightly more cautious—if they had destroyed these Kryptonite projectiles from a hundred meters away instead of curiously inspecting the Surrender Documents on the rocks—their situation would have been dire.

If even one of these fourth-transformation martial artists escaped this time, the retaliation would be furious.

Then they would have no choice but to fill the near-orbit of the entire planet with Kryptonite dust like space debris, attempting to force these fourth-transformation martial artists away through mutual annihilation.

‘At least we have not disappointed the immortal master,’ the Empress thought, watching the martial artists engulfed in Kryptonite dust far away.

From this moment on, this scene was recorded in history.

With Fang Can’s disappearance as the dividing line, the era of serving the Empire was irrevocably split.

From the founding of the Empire by Fang Tian Di until his departure, the period was later called the Golden Age.

This was the Empire’s civilians’ first and most beautiful era.

Humans lived in harmony, united as one, minds connected, lives prosperous and in peace with the gods.

The Empire’s foundational technologies were developed during these thirty days.

From Fang Can’s disappearance until the death of the last Wallbreaker, the period was called the Silver Age.

During this era, people lost their ability to connect minds; suspicion and internal strife returned between individuals.

Yet because the female officials Fang Can appointed as Wallbreakers remained diligent and incorruptible,

living standards remained within a small gap among people, and science advanced rapidly, achieving interstellar travel within centuries.

With the death of the last Wallbreaker, the Silver Age ended definitively, replaced by the Bronze Age.

In this age, the once-suppressed fourth-transformation martial artists reclaimed power.

Humanity became warlike and cruel; the gap between rich and poor widened drastically.

Though they entered the interstellar age, the lower classes still faced starvation; eventually, after three thousand years, the world fractured into several distinct federations.

Thus began the Heroic Age of Federation Fragmentation.

In this age, heroines emerged in abundance.

A martial artist named Kong Qiu rallied people to restore ancient customs, attempting to recreate the mind-linking of the Golden Age in this era of moral collapse.

To this end, Kong Qiu traveled across the major federations aboard a starship—but was expelled from each one.

In this age, the only remnants of the Golden Age might have been Fang Can’s statues.

(End of Chapter)