"I know that!" Skynet nodded, undisguised disdain in her tone. "But your upper limit is still too weak. All those flashy tricks are no better than juggling. You need to keep strengthening."
She raised a finger, faint particles of energy flickering at her fingertip. "At the very least, your left hand should deal high damage, your right hand even higher damage—capable of shattering a star with a single blow. Only then would you barely qualify."
"..."
Hua's lips twitched violently, frustration filling her chest, yet she found no words to refute it.
Shatter a star in one strike!
Did this girl think she was the Final Herrscher or something?!
The Finality Empire could mass-produce weapons capable of destroying star systems. With her current combat strength, within the Empire's military sequence, she would at best count as a slightly stronger foot soldier.
Su suddenly turned his gaze toward Red Queen, his voice calm and even. "May I ask you a question?"
"Hm?"
Red Queen lifted her eyes slightly, her tone unreadable. "What is it?"
"If this universe's Earth refuses to submit to the Finality Empire, what will you do?" Su asked bluntly.
Saintess Kallen also looked over at once, a trace of tension flickering in her eyes.
Before Red Queen could answer, Wesker let out a low chuckle and stepped forward leisurely. "Though rare, we already have contingency plans for such situations."
All eyes turned toward him.
Unhurried, Wesker raised a hand and swiped across a virtual light screen, pulling up a set of weapon data. "The Empire would deploy the 'Global Pacifier'—a weapon capable of projecting a permanent transparent barrier around the target planet. Once activated, the planet would become a completely isolated prison."
"You would imprison an entire civilization on its homeworld forever, letting it fend for itself until extinction?" Su's voice grew heavier.
"You could put it that way." Wesker inclined his head, his tone detached to the point of cruelty. "That is already mercy. At least we would not simply reduce the planet and everything on it to cosmic dust."
He glanced at the group. "From the moment our fleet entered the solar system, this star system became territory of the Finality Empire."
"If the lifeforms of Earth refuse to submit, then the instant they step even half a pace beyond their planet, it constitutes an invasion of Imperial territory."
"Allowing them to struggle on their own planet is already the Divine Emperor's mercy."
The logic was airtight, leaving no room for rebuttal.
Saintess Kallen pressed her lips together and ultimately fell silent.
She understood all too well that the ownership of land had always been decided by force, never by reason.
Across the entire solar system, there existed no power capable of standing against this Finality fleet.
Ten days passed in the blink of an eye.
Earth, Far East Theater.
Kevin stepped forward slowly.
In an instant, the allied forces of humans and parasites launched a fierce assault. What they fired were not lethal live rounds, but anesthetics and nerve-paralyzing gas.
Yet when those attacks struck Kevin, they were like stones sinking into the sea, failing to stir even the corner of his clothing.
His steps did not halt. Black ice crystals spread wildly beneath his feet. A biting gale swept up goose-feather snow, blanketing the entire battlefield in moments.
His right hand clenched slightly, and he threw a casual punch—
A hundred miles frozen solid!
Charging soldiers and roaring tanks were instantly sealed into lifelike ice sculptures. Deathly silence spread.
Inside the Far East command room, Reiko Tamura gazed at the scene on the screen and murmured, "Truly... terrifying."
Beside her, Shinichi Izumi remained calm.
The carefully constructed defensive line had proven utterly fragile before that man.
"Prepare. All-out assault!" Shinichi Izumi ordered.
He had always known Kevin was powerful, but he had never imagined a single person could reach such a level.
Boom—!
The explosives buried around Kevin detonated simultaneously. Towering flames and shockwaves surged outward, attempting to swallow him whole.
On the airport runway, dozens of bombers roared into the sky. Dense clusters of bombs poured down like rain.
Thunderous explosions shook the heavens. Shockwaves swept across the world, overturning the entire frozen field.
Yet when the smoke cleared, Kevin still stood upright like a pine. His black robe fluttered wildly in the heatwaves, not a single wound upon him.
He was like an immovable demon god, strolling across the ravaged battlefield. Missiles exploded at his side, yet his expression remained indifferent.
Even humanity's ultimate trump card—nuclear weapons—failed to harm him in the slightest.
A megaton-class nuclear warhead detonated directly above his head. Radiant light tore through the atmosphere. Sand fused into translucent glass. Hundreds of meters of earth were lifted and hurled by the shockwave, sweeping away everything in its path.
And Kevin stood at the very center beneath the explosion, black robe whipping in the wind, utterly unharmed.
The live satellite broadcast plunged the entire world into silence.
Leaders of every nation froze before their screens, pupils contracting, the color draining from their faces.
One man withstands a nuclear blast head-on!
Were all these aliens... this absurd?!
How were they supposed to fight this? Might as well surrender!
Wait.
It seemed... they did not even have the right to surrender?
Well then.
Saintess Prayer.
Red Queen rapidly processed the data. Streams of characters flickered across the light screen—records of humanity and parasites of Earth, driven into desperation, forcing their technological tree to tilt wildly toward "fusion evolution."
"So boring." Skynet yawned, slumping back in her chair in utter disinterest. "This one-sided slaughter is no fun at all."
"Data collection complete. No high-dimensional interference detected," Red Queen reported, closing the light screen without a ripple of emotion.
Su's eyes lifted slightly at her words as he turned toward Wesker. "Have you encountered high-dimensional interference before?"
A trace of meaning flickered in Wesker's eyes as he nodded slowly. "My world was like a novice village favored by those higher-dimensional beings. In parallel universe observation records, reincarnators and transmigrators descended more than once."
"Those people were nothing more than ordinary individuals. But the fact that they could cross world barriers meant—"
Wesker's tone grew meaningful. "They had backers."
He continued, "Come to think of it, the Empire's Divine Emperor is, in essence... not so different from them."
Su's pupils constricted abruptly, and he fell into prolonged silence.