Chapter 822: A Chaotic Strike
[Warning! Warning! Warning!]
[Special Unit: Black King has entered the battlefield.]
[Emergency Mission Issued: Forced Extraction]
[Mission Details: All Reincarnators in this world may now immediately terminate all active missions and initiate extraction while out of combat. Based on the survival status of Special Units Archetype of Terminus and Genesis and Heaven's Pilgrimage, mission rewards and penalties will adjust accordingly.]
[Mission Rewards: If both Archetype of Terminus and Genesis and Heaven's Pilgrimage survive, the final mission evaluation for this world is locked at S-Rank. If Heaven's Pilgrimage falls, the rating drops to C-Rank. If Archetype of Terminus and Genesis falls, the rating drops to D-Rank.]
[Failure Penalty: If both Archetype of Terminus and Genesis and Heaven's Pilgrimage perish, the evaluation is locked at E-Rank for three consecutive mission worlds, accompanied by a 75% reduction to all base attributes across the next three deployment intervals.]
Black and red notifications pulsed urgently across the interface, but Fenrir, embedded deep inside a fractured mountain wall, could scarcely keep his thoughts coherent. The staggering aura and concussive shockwaves had left his consciousness reeling.
He almost wondered if he had wandered onto the wrong stage entirely. While he understood that Reincarnators—being the quintessential short-lived species—scaled their power at an evolutionary speed far surpassing typical transcendent races, that explosive growth was theoretically confined to the stages prior to the Third Step.
Once a Reincarnator crossed the threshold of the Third Step and came into contact with the true power of the gods—Authorities—even they had to reckon with Authority affinity, comprehension, and execution.
Consequently, most Reincarnators plateaued as high-tier operatives.
That was the tier populated by the vast majority of the Space's powerhouses: individuals who commanded Authorities, possessed an arsenal of high-tier capabilities, and reigned supreme within lower-tier worlds. By chaining Authorities with peculiar skill enhancements, they could even pose a lethal threat to top-tier plot characters in certain realms.
Yet that remained their absolute ceiling.
[Strong], but strictly limited to that definition—the boundary of the Strong tier.
To truly evolve into a top-tier Reincarnator capable of single-handedly holding modern nations hostage—to step into the [Fierce] tier, whose mere presence inspired primal dread—an instinctual mastery over Authorities was mandatory.
Top-tier Reincarnators making widespread contact with the [Fierce] tier had only become common recently. Just one cycle ago, even the Sovereign Monarchs were merely hovering around this baseline.
Yet now, Fenrir lacked the vocabulary to describe the spectacle unfolding before him.
A Reincarnator was exchanging blow for blow with Kakarot, and the mere residual shockwaves of their clash had obliterated an entire island, hurling a contingent of supposedly apex Reincarnators dozens, if not hundreds, of kilometers away.
[Disaster]!
Without question, Lord Mercenary Tao stood firmly within the [Disaster] tier. And this was no tentative step across the threshold or a lower-Disaster classification; he had stepped into an entirely different realm of existence.
Amidst his trembling shock, Fenrir found the Space's emergency mission almost bitterly comedic.
How in the world were they supposed to protect figures like Mercenary Tao and Yoko?
What qualifications did they possess to guarantee their safe return to the Space?
And on top of that...
The Black King Association!
Those monsters—it really was those monsters!
Concussed and overwhelmed, Fenrir couldn't tell whether the arrival of the Black King Association was connected to Empress Yoko's hidden trump card. His analytical faculties were fraying under the strain.
Snow and Aka found themselves in a similar state.
Energy Tyrant Aka had shifted entirely into an elemental state. As the strongest among the three, he remained in the best condition.
Yet Aka could feel that the ambient elemental currents—whose dominion had earlier been forcefully seized—had completely collapsed into chaotic frenzy.
Far across the horizon, the elements were collapsing directly into the palms of that heaven-striding titan.
The Third Sequence God Kings of the Void Paradise had lost their ability to strip and govern the elements. The fires and thunders that had defected to the divine pantheon the instant the God Kings arrived were now thrashing in total anarchy.
Aka could not command them, nor could the solar God King!
Mercenary Tao... just what kind of Reincarnator is he...?
Can martial arts truly achieve something like this...?
Or is that... an Authority?!
On the opposite flank, dense currents of electricity crackled through the aerospace fleet in the wake of the localized detonations. Surgical streams of data lanced from several flagships, neatly slicing away the burning hulls like scalpel incisions.
It was unlike any conventional slash used by Reincarnators, resembling an automated surgical resection that excised only the warped, detonating components, cleanly preserving the functionality of the surviving vessels.
The three Emperor-tier units belonging to the Machina Court's Planet-Buster Sequence spared not a single byte of their sensory and computational processing power.
They maintained an unbroken, flawless surveillance over the clash below.
A Super Saiyan Kakarot from a specific timeline and the Third Sequence unit God of Martial Arts: Archetype of Terminus and Genesis from the fragile Observer known as the Infinite Dimensional Space were engaged in an anomalous confrontation.
According to output calculations, the combat rating of the God of Martial Arts: Archetype of Terminus and Genesis had surpassed standard Emperor-tier assets.
His physical density exceeded most known alloys, his offensive yield had bypassed continental-plate thresholds, and he wielded a martial doctrine that transcended standard technique—the very reason they formally designated him a God of Martial Arts.
The thoroughly digitized Machina Court recognized concepts that could not yet be quantified by raw data. Consequently, anomalous, unknown variables capable of threatening their existence were always monitored with supreme priority.
"Initiate assembly protocol for the Planet-Buster Cannon. Prepare targeted erasure strike against designated unit."
Planet-Buster Singularity transmitted the directive. Several aerospace battleships initiated spatial warps toward extra-atmospheric orbits.
A genuine Planet-Buster Cannon was astronomically colossal, impossible to deploy upon the chassis of a standard aerospace battleship.
Instead, the cannon required a planetary body as a chassis, with the bare minimum requirement being a satellite of sufficient mass.
This planet possessed such a satellite. Much like most bio-simulated worlds designed with an Earth template, an analogue to the Moon orbited above.
It was likely a computational margin left by the Observers, a convenient shortcut to streamline their environmental projections.
And it suited the Planet-Buster Sequence perfectly.
Within the Machina Court's Third Sequence, the Planet-Buster Sequence stood among the most renowned divisions.
Every Emperor-tier unit within its ranks commanded the technology and operational capacity to purge worlds, capable of executing assembly, mounting, and firing cycles within a remarkably tight timeframe.
And when required, they wiped the target world clean.
Though these field-assembled cannons could rarely shatter the planetary core of high-tier worlds in a single strike, they were more than sufficient to reduce a biosphere into a barren dead world, extinguishing civilizations and lifeforms down to the microbe.
Facing the God of Martial Arts: Archetype of Terminus and Genesis, Singularity deemed engaging him in close-quarters combat entirely irrational.
That was the folly of the arrogant God Kings of the Void Paradise.
Since computational modeling indicated his data profile exceeded any single Emperor-tier asset, prolonged combat introduced the risk of defeat in detail.
To eliminate that contingency, an orbital strike via the Planet-Buster Cannon was the optimal solution.
Reincarnators and humans were, at their core, short-lived organisms lacking sustainable deep-space combat capability.
As for the planetary will's inevitable retaliation, contingency protocols had already been drafted.
If necessary, Emperor-tier frames were expendable; as long as the [Doorway] remained out of foreign hands, the Court would fully reimburse their losses.
This cognitive consensus required no verbal exchange; the three Emperors finalized their operational parameters in a fraction of a millisecond.
Dividing the labor reduced the assembly timeline of the Planet-Buster Cannon by roughly a third, while leaving sufficient processing bandwidth to guard against a sudden strike from Heaven's Pilgrimage.
Naturally, the hyper-arrogant God Kings of the Void Paradise were factored into the defensive perimeter as well.
Crack!
Black-red lightning seemed to tear in from beyond the world itself.
An aura of incomprehensible magnitude—something entirely beyond the processing logic of binary code—erupted from an untracked coordinate, punching through spatial boundaries and blowing out the sensory modules of the fleet in an instant.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of internal concussions rocked the line. The battleship housing Singularity transformed instantly, the multi-thousand-kilometer hull shifting into a towering, sky-piercing automaton.
Electric arcs coursed across the automaton's hull as its forcefield generators redlined, projecting an impenetrable barrier that purged all foreign energies from its perimeter.
A vast dome of blue luminescence stabilized outside the fleet formation.
Singularity's analytical suites ignited in rapid sequence.
Biological scan, spiritual scan, negative energy scan, spatial scan...
Against the diverse ecology of the cosmos, the Machina Court maintained countermeasures for every classification.
Yet the next instant, the scanner resolved no exotic entity, but merely a black-haired human male standing somewhere on the world's surface.
As if feeling the sensor lock, the figure turned his head.
[Warning: Special Unit Black King detected. Execute immediate evasive protocols.]
Singularity's computational core spiked with thermal overload. Strings of prioritized warning scripts flooded the diagnostic readouts—protocols archived within the shared Emperor-tier database.
Every time an Emperor fell, the telemetry of their killer was permanently inscribed into the Court's central core to ensure future units would not repeat the disaster.
A Black King... this is also a Black King?!
Singularity had crossed paths with a Black King in an earlier secondary world: a female entity with platinum-blonde hair wielding a golden holy lance.
Before his Planet-Buster Cannon could finish calibration, a single thrust of that lance had obliterated the entire operational theater.
The Machina Court's fleet descended into tactical disarray.
The Manifestation of the Cosmic Heavenly Deity was no crude gigantification, nor did it carry the conventional vulnerabilities of sluggish mobility.
To the contrary, it was a supreme transformation that unleashed an entity's complete energetic reservoir, yielding exponential kinetic and conceptual amplification.
Even within the mythological records of the Journey to the West, it was an esoteric divine art mastered by only a select few.
Under normal conditions, Kaito Shirogane lacked the baseline energy pool to sustain it independently. Only through the multiplying leverage of the Kaio-Ken could he cross the threshold.
Yet the Kaio-Ken already placed an astronomical strain upon his physical vessel; stacking the Manifestation of the Cosmic Heavenly Deity on top of it was biologically unsustainable.
Thus, this theoretical apex form had remained inaccessible.
Until his ascent on the Stairway of Miracles and Destiny within the Little Garden world, where the [Key of Miracles] finally granted him the structural stability to support that bursting pressure.
Yet Kaito Shirogane rarely encountered an adversary demanding the absolute limits of the Kaio-Ken, let alone stacking the Manifestation of the Cosmic Heavenly Deity atop it.
Fortunately, he had found one today!
The radiant white light bleeding from his form was an indistinguishable blend of overflowing soul essence and materializing data streams dragged in by his Limit-Break Spiral and Martial God's Ultimate Intent.
Kaito Shirogane focused every shred of mind, flesh, and spirit into this single motion. An Abyssal Art was a sovereign technique operating entirely beyond the divine sphere.
Beneath the Twin Sala Trees, he had caught only a fragmentary glimpse of it. Under standard parameters, [Singularity of Terminus] was impossible to execute.
He simply lacked the capacity to force so many divergent forces, elements, laws, and Authorities into conceptual collapse; theoretically, an Abyssal Art was the exclusive domain of Three-Digit entities who had crossed into the Realm of All-Authority.
Yet in this fleeting, miraculous state, Kaito Shirogane finally tasted absolute sovereign dominion.
The terrifying sensation of holding everything in his palm purely because he was strong enough to crush reality inward allowed him to entirely disregard the violent tremors tearing through his flesh.
The Sea of Miracles expanded beneath his feet. Every passing second sustained by the Key of Miracles burned through a myriad of condensed miracles.
Only the convergence of infinite miracles allowed him to throw this strike against a Super Saiyan.
BOOM!
The heavenly titan brought his foot down. The sea vaporized with an apocalyptic roar, the surface collapsing into an empty trench that exposed the bare tectonic seabed before the foot even made contact.
Suspended above the sea, the golden Ki between Son Goku's cupped palms had condensed into a singular, blinding star. Sensing an attack that represented the absolute pinnacle of an alien martial doctrine, his focus remained utterly unshaken.
He thrust his hands skyward, and an apocalyptic eruption of Ki burst forth.
The golden blast tore through the heavens, forcibly casting aside the chaotic forcefields, magnetic grids, cosmic laws, and ambient elements.
Pure, unadulterated Ki parted reality itself, surging unimpeded toward the astral titan above.
Bathed in golden brilliance, Son Goku looked like a radiant god of war.
Kaito Shirogane drove his fist straight down with absolute clarity. Pitch-black spatial fractures tore open, only to be dragged into the collapsing epicenter of the descending knuckles.
An infinitely complex nexus of forces imploded before Kaito Shirogane's fist into a dense, black sphere—a singular orb no larger than a mortal fist, utterly devoid of light.
Yet the moment it materialized, Goku's scalp prickled with sharp alarm. The sheer density of compression far exceeded Krillin's Destructo Disc.
In terms of pure technical execution, this strike operated on a plane far beyond it!
The black orb vibrated violently. The moment it decoupled from Kaito's fist, it contracted with agonizing intensity.
Anticipating the vector, Goku angled the Kamehameha to intercept it head-on.
Yet before the Ki blast could cross the distance, the black sphere detonated.
Pitch-black light engulfed the world in an instant.
Sound, vision, and sensory reality vanished into absolute nothingness.
Goku felt as though he had been cast into the dead center of the primordial cosmos, surrounded by total, suffocating darkness, the crushing weight of an entire universe bearing down to snuff him out.
His consciousness flared, and his golden Ki detonated with savage fury. His hair lengthened rapidly, cascading down his back as a transcendent aura shattered the cosmic shroud.
The anomalous void was blown apart, leaving behind only the detonating hulls of the fleet in the stratosphere, and the titan burning and crumbling into the wind.