Chapter 447

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Protagonist:

Lin En

Lena

Lin En murmured softly to himself, the phantom of the Spine Great Sword floating and swaying at his side.

The originally rampaging and surging purple psychic power began to contract inward, transforming from towering waves into fine purple light threads as delicate as hair, spreading evenly along the sword blade.

Each thread of light carried the attributes of Devouring and Dominion, yet no longer spread recklessly, instead precisely condensing within three meters of the sword tip.

The moment the adjustment was complete, Lin En's wrist turned slightly, and the second sword slanted out in a slash.

This time there was no earth-shaking roaring, no sword mark traversing heaven and earth.

Only a slender purple light belt, thin to the point of near invisibility, like the sharpest surgical scalpel, cut along the boundary between the moth swarm and the cloud layer.

Where it passed, the Plague Moths were annihilated in large patches, not a single trace of Plague Power managing to leak out.

But when the light belt brushed past the Machine Soul Source's cloud layer, it merely touched lightly and withdrew, not leaking the slightest excess energy.

Phelps had just stabilized the collapsing Ghost Face when he sensed another deadly force attacking.

He instinctively drove the moth swarm to block, but unexpectedly this sword, though seemingly gentle, was even sharper than the previous one.

The outer layer of moths melted like spider silk meeting fire; the sword light advanced straight in, once again slicing away nearly one-tenth of his power.

What shocked him even more was that this time the opponent's power was terrifyingly precise.

All damage fell exactly upon the Plague Consciousness Body, not even half a fraction of the surrounding Machine Soul energy disturbed.

"Impossible……"

The Ghost Face twisted as it let out a roar, the outline formed by moths flickering unceasingly.

He had corrupted the Machine Soul for so long; he knew best how fragile this world's consciousness barriers were — even if he did not control the direction of the plague's spread at all, it would incidentally damage the Machine Soul Source.

Yet this purple figure that had suddenly appeared could actually control power to such a degree?

What he did not know was that the Machine Soul itself had also moved.

This steel ferocious beast that had been unruly for over a thousand years, though its mind had been thrown into chaos by the plague, still retained the most basic judgment.

It could feel that the first rampaging purple light, though it had struck painfully, had never targeted it.

Rather, those green-glowing moths were the true mortal enemies gnawing at its flesh and eroding its soul.

Especially when the purple sword light precisely exterminated the moths without touching its source in the slightest, the Machine Soul's hostility diminished considerably in an instant.

The lightning rampaging through the cloud layer began to condense anew.

No longer indiscriminate wild strikes, but strands of blue-white lightning thick as wrists, as if grown eyes, specifically smashing into the densest clusters of Phelps's moth swarm.

Lightning and purple light pincered from without and within; the number of moths plummeted at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Phelps was thoroughly panicked.

He was originally in a remnant soul state, relying on the Rust Plague to take root in the depths of the Machine Soul, on one side devouring the Machine Soul Source to strengthen himself, on the other relying on the constantly spreading plague to maintain his advantage.

Before, the more the Machine Soul resisted, the more he could borrow the other's energy to spread the rust, growing like a snowball.

But now it was different.

That purple figure's power carried a strange Dominion attribute; upon contacting the plague it directly erased it, not even half a point of energy feeding back to him.

The Machine Soul too seemed to have suddenly awakened; the lightning specifically struck his weak points, clearly intending to join forces with the "outsider" to kill him first.

He had to divide his attention to maintain the plague anchor point in the depths, preventing himself from being completely purged.

At the same time he had to frontally block Lin En's precise slashes, and also dodge the Machine Soul's lightning bombardment.

Under attack from three sides, his already meager remnant soul power was being consumed at terrifying speed.

"Despicable! Pseudo-Emperor's lackey! If you have the guts, fight me one-on-one!"

Phelps roared in frantic rage, the moth swarm surging madly, attempting to force their way close to Lin En's phantom at the cost of attrition, wanting to use Plague Power to corrode him at close range.

But Lin En simply did not give him the chance.

The Spine Great Sword danced in his hand like a butterfly weaving through flowers, each sword faster than the last, each sword more accurate than the last.

Purple sword light wove into an airtight net; any moths approaching within three zhang were instantly shredded into nothingness.

He did not even need to move his figure, simply standing in mid-air; no matter how Phelps charged, he could never break through that layer of purple sword curtain.

With every sword that fell, Phelps's aura weakened by a fraction.

The Plague Moth Swarm, from a vast green cloud covering the sky, slowly thinned, grew sparse, until only a few hundred scattered individuals remained.

Fluttering fearfully around that blurred humanoid silhouette in the center.

Upon the Earth, the dark green Mold Spots receded swiftly like an ebbing tide.

The metal Earth, corroded to looseness, once again revealed its cold, hard silver-grey base color; the rust-accumulated liquid in the Trenches evaporated bit by bit, transforming back into pure Machine Soul energy and refluxing underground.

The corrupt green dark clouds in the Sky gradually dispersed, revealing once more the dark grey base color of the Cloud Layer.

The lightning within the Cloud Layer also shifted from a sickly dark green back to clear blue-white; even the roaring sound carried a few notes more of unruly confidence.

The moment the last cluster of moths was shredded by the purple sword light, the entire World abruptly fell silent.

Phelps's Consciousness Body was completely revealed.

He could no longer maintain the moth Ghost Face form, leaving only a blurred humanoid outline.

The ruined body phantom was pitted and hollowed; the Plague Mark on the Chest was dull and lightless; the head position held only two clusters of turbid green light, flickering like guttering candles in the wind.

He staggered half-kneeling in mid-air, his figure so faint it seemed as if he would dissipate the next second.

The turbid green light stared dead at the purple phantom in mid-air, within it surging Fear, Reluctance, and a Disbelief deep to the marrow.

"Just what kind of monster are you……"

His voice was extremely weak, every word carrying the static of a collapsing consciousness:

"A newly born Evil God of the Warp? Then the Kindly Father... how could he not know?"

Lin En did not answer immediately.

He suspended in mid-air, the phantom of the Spine Great Sword slowly dissipating in his palm, yet his brow furrowed imperceptibly.

Phelps's question was precisely the doubt in his own heart at this moment.

From when did things start becoming more and more wrong?

At first it was only the system issuing strategy quests; he relied on the system to win over Lena, Sorin, and these people.

But as Lena's Affection Level grew higher and higher, he gradually discovered many abnormalities.

At night he would have bizarre dreams, dreams of boundless cosmic radiance, countless fragmented whispers calling his name.

When awake, occasionally approaching places rich in Warp Energy, he could also faintly sense an inexplicable pull.

And this time, the system even directly popped up the "Dominion" option.

Not strategy and raising affection, but naked Consciousness Domination.

Even the consciousness of non-human creatures like a Warship's Machine Spirit could be directly accessed, directly controlled.

A ridiculous yet inevitable conjecture surged forth uncontrollably.

Could it be... that the so-called system is fundamentally his own Warp Nature?

He is not a person chosen by the system, but he himself possesses some kind of Warp authority, and the system is merely the concrete interface of this authority?

The moment this thought emerged, Lin En felt a chill run down his back.

In the Warhammer 40K world, having too deep a connection with the Warp has never been a good thing.

The gaze of the Four Gods, the loss of humanity, ultimately reduced to playthings of Chaos...

Such examples are countless in the Empire's Heretic Archives.

If one day his "Essence" fully awakens, will he then still be the current Lin En Ke'er Wa Na?

Taking a deep breath, Lin En suppressed the surging in his heart.

At least for now, everything is still under control.

The system has not lost control, his will has not been distorted, he is still that ordinary person who wants to hold onto Brevis, who wants to live well in this dark era with his beloved.

As for the future... we'll talk about it later.