At the same moment.
Earth.
National Space Agencies.
Deep Space Monitoring Centers.
The piercing alarm had already torn through the tranquility, and red warning lights spun frantically in the control halls of various nations, illuminating faces pale with despair like ghosts.
“Target lost! Target Tango-17 lost! All signals gone! Repeat, all signals gone!!!”
At the NASA Deep Space Monitoring Center, the chief observer’s voice, distorted by extreme fear, screamed into the communicator, sweat soaking his shirt.
On the gigantic main screen, the red dot, labeled “Doomsday Hammer” and representing an absolutely destructive trajectory, had vanished.
A few seconds earlier, it had suddenly erupted in an extremely brief, yet terrifying energy spike that far exceeded the upper limits of all instruments.
Immediately after, all data streams representing its mass, volume, and trajectory were instantly zeroed out, as if erased by an invisible rubber.
Only the coordinates of that area remained, along with a blurry patch of noise symbolizing residual energy.
......
“Impossible! Absolutely impossible! Our interception fleet is still five minutes from the launch window! The super-heavy nuclear bomb codenamed ‘Poseidon’s Spear’ is still undergoing final calibration!”
The ESA Director slammed the control console in a fit of rage, his face ashen.
......
“Impact?! What did it hit? Space debris? A space station? Or another asteroid we hadn’t discovered?! But there’s no signal of any impact debris! Not even a large dust cloud!”
The Russian Space Center Commander roared into the encrypted channel, his voice filled with incomprehensible frenzy.
......
“Emergency reorientation of the deep-space telescope! Highest resolution! Quick!” The command rang out simultaneously in centers across the globe.
After a brief, suffocating wait, an even more despairing report came:
“Report! Deep-space telescope has locked onto the target area! There’s no… no impact crater! No large fragments! Only an anomalous, rapidly expanding cloud of high-temperature plasma has been observed! And… and extremely faint gravitational wave disturbances! Tango-17… it’s like… it was ‘vaporized’! Completely erased by some force!”
The observer’s voice was tearful, conveying a fear akin to witnessing a miracle.
“The energy analysis report is out… Peak energy cannot be estimated… Energy release pattern… unrecognizable! All models have failed! This… this is like pure matter annihilation! It’s… it’s a force we cannot comprehend!”
The data analysis supervisor’s voice trembled, the report in his hand slipping to the floor.
Dead silence.
Command centers across the globe fell into a deathly silence.
Generals, scientists, and dignitaries exchanged glances, their faces a mix of post-disaster bewilderment, bone-deep fear, and profound reverence for the absolute unknown.
The ultimate nuclear interception plan they had prepared, expending countless resources and pooling global wisdom, seemed so pale and ridiculous in the face of this sudden, inexplicable “erasure,” like ants trying to shake a mountain.
“Unknown force…”
A white-haired Nobel laureate in Physics slumped in his chair, muttering distractedly, his eyes unfocused behind his spectacles.
“We thought deep space was a silent battlefield… It turns out, it turns out we were just clowns on a stage. Something… is watching us, protecting us? Or… was it just an accidental ‘cleanup’?”
He could not speak further.
There was no evidence pointing to Zhou Qi.
Under the perfect shielding and interference of his planet-level Mental Energy field, all of Earth’s detection methods were rendered blind.
What was left for humanity was only a doomsday meteorite mysteriously annihilated in deep space, a mystery forever shrouded in the highest secret archives of various nations, and a silent declaration: above Human Race civilization, there existed an indescribable power far beyond the limits of their imagination.
Beneath the calm everyday, lay the unfathomable undercurrents of the Universe.
*
*
Outer space.
Beyond the Moon’s orbit, absolute silence enveloped everything.
Zhou Qi’s figure hung alone in this boundless ink-dark abyss, the beautiful blue planet not far beneath his feet like an exquisite glass orb, reflecting the distant sunlight.
He had just casually erased the meteorite capable of annihilating civilization, yet he was oblivious to the colossal waves it had stirred among Earth’s nations, and he disdained to know.
At this moment.
All his senses retracted inward, immersed in the magnificent power that surged like a river of stars, like the birth and death of celestial bodies—that was the great power of a planet-level lifeform.
Each heartbeat seemed to thunder on the drumhead of a planet.
Each breath swallowed and exhaled the cold energy of the Void Realm, transforming it into a torrent that nourished his Physical Body.
A thought, like lightning, cleaved through the mist of his consciousness: the outer shell of his power, those former “dependencies,” needed a complete overhaul!
They had once been the stairs that helped him climb to the peak, but now there were even more perfect choices.
With a slight thought, deep within his consciousness, a panel outlined in pure light silently unfolded, clearly listing the cornerstones of his power:
Host: Zhou Qi
Rank: planet-level lifeform
Race: Human Race
Gene: planet-level Human Race Gene
Life Essence: High-Energy Organism
Talents:
Five-star Talents:
Mental Power: This was the extension of his will, an invisible hand, controlling all things as if they were his limbs; where his thought reached, mountains shattered, steel twisted.
Faith Crown: The fervent beliefs of billions of Bug Clan Family converged across the Void Realm into the depths of his Soul like an invisible torrent, transforming into an inexhaustible source of Mental Energy, never to dry up.
Intermediate Titan Overlord Body: Granted him steel bones and iron muscles, allowing him to stand firm even against collapsing mountains and cracking earth.
Inferior Immortality: This was a chain of life; as long as his Divine Soul was not instantly annihilated, even the gravest injuries could slowly heal; whether in a sea of molten lava or at absolute zero, his Physical Body could tenaciously adapt.
Intermediate Titan Power: Pure, savage, terrifying power capable of moving mountains and filling seas, once his sharp claws for tearing apart strong enemies.
Four-star Talents:
Rank One Source Ability: A relatively crude method of mobilizing the basic energies of the natural world.
Life Strength: 105
Zhou Qi’s gaze swept over the list like a cold blade.
“Faith Crown and Mental Power are the root, the foundation, the source and scepter of power, irreplaceable!”
This judgment was instantly clear.
The former was an inexhaustible well of energy, the latter the authority to transform this energy into a destructive storm. They were symbiotic, far surpassing ordinary five-star talents, and were the absolute core of his power.
His gaze shifted to the remaining talents, like an emperor examining an armor that had accompanied him through many battles but now showed its age.
“Inferior Immortality, the fundamental means of survival, must remain.”
This granted him nearly immortal vitality and the resilience to adapt to the myriad dangers of the Universe, serving as his greatest confidence when exploring the unknown and battling those ancient, frozen monsters.
Without it, even the strongest power could capsize in a ditch.