In the endless, dark void surrounding Yinglong, hundreds of medium-sized multi-barreled laser turrets and dozens of electromagnetic railgun batteries stood guard.
Any one of these terrifying fortifications was more than enough to handle a standard third or fourth-turn Ascension expert.
But today, every barrel turned toward a dark stretch of space littered with starship wreckage.
A silhouette bathed in blinding white blade-light was hurtling toward them at extreme speed.
That silhouette was Seraphine.
BEEP! Target locked.
BEEP! Target locked.
BEEP! Target locked.
Permission to fire!
Following the orders from the Royal Guild's Yinglong base, every turret aimed at Seraphine erupted. Millions of high-energy lasers and thousands of super-alloy slugs surged forward simultaneously.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
In less than a second, this torrent of light and metal crossed the vast distance, hungrily striking at the void.
At that same instant, from ten thousand miles away, Seraphine swung her blade with blinding speed. A massive tide of millions of razor-sharp blade-qi flashes roared forth, devouring the incoming storm of lead and lasers. Before the turrets could even react, the void was swept clean—every battery shredded and evaporated into nothingness.
The blade-qi tide didn't dissipate; instead, it condensed into a surging river of energy, manifesting as a white Blade Dragon. The beast, ten thousand meters long and covered in jagged, translucent scales, let out a silent roar as it dove toward Yinglong.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
As it tore through the atmospheric layers, the massive Blade Dragon emitted millions of blinding flashes.
SHINK! SHINK! SHINK!
With pinpoint accuracy, it struck every floating defense platform across the planet's surface, shredding them into scrap and incinerating the remains to ash.
By this point, the Yinglong base had lost all organized anti-air defenses. They could only watch helplessly as the blinding white Blade Dragon above grew larger, plummeting toward them like a scorching comet from the heavens.
A second later, the roaring, radiant dragon "struck" the earth.
CRACK!!!
It was pure doomsday.
Heaven and earth turned white as endless heat and blade-qi erupted. Under the blinding light that could sear the eyes of ten million people, Yinglong City and the surrounding hundred kilometers of plains and mountains were instantly "carved" thousands of meters deep into the earth. The entire region was sliced, shredded, and melted into a gargantuan abyss of crimson lava.
The Yinglong base and its million Royal players were annihilated.
Across the sector, players hidden in various spacecraft watching via remote surveillance were paralyzed with fear, their minds buzzing in disbelief.
On the Game Forum, which was tracking the battle, countless threads exploded. Every player watching the livestream screamed: "Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"
In deep space, Seraphine had already turned and accelerated into the void.
She didn't need to check the results; she knew that after that strike, there would be no survivors. Everyone was dead.
After five full hours, Seraphine's understanding of the game's rules had deepened. Even with just one part of her power, she could warp the rules to unleash the effect of ten thousand parts.
At that very moment, the custom "cheat" she had tailored for herself was finally complete.
"Not easy," she mused. "The rules and mechanics of Brilliant Games are indeed quite complex."
With a thought, Seraphine opened her newly forged exclusive cheat.
DING~
Following a crisp, pleasant sound, a sleek black interface with gold trim—though still a bit rough around the edges—appeared in her vision.
‹«{ Cheat 1.0}»›
〈1〉[ Add 1,000,000 Skill Points ]
〈2〉[ Add 1,000,000 Free Attribute Points ]
〈3〉[ Quicksilver Mode ]
〈4〉[ One-time Grant: 10 Billion Currency ]
〈5〉[ Anywhere Portal ]
〈6〉[ Noclip Mode ]
〈7〉[ Modify Item Quantity ]
〈8〉[ Infinite Weight Capacity ]
〈9〉[ Global Random Color Swap ]
〈10〉[ Grant Random Interplanetary Spacecraft ]
"Hahaha."
With a delighted laugh, Seraphine spammed the second button on the Cheat interface without pause.
DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING...
Click after click after click...
After a satisfying spree of several thousand presses, she finally stopped.
Under the cheat's influence, her Free Attribute Points skyrocketed into the billions. Without hesitation, she dumped the entire pool into her Strength stat.
Instantly, her Base Damage value shifted to:
3,276,002,935 + 1,228,800.
Roughly 3.277 billion.
HUMMM—
Perhaps the stat boost was too intense, as even the vast void around her physically glitched for a split second.
Seraphine couldn't care less. She immediately moved to Cheat button #1 and started spamming it.
DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING...
Clicking relentlessly, with absolute focus...
Anyone who's used a cheat knows that watching your character's attribute and skill points skyrocket is incredibly satisfying. It's addictive; you just keep clicking, never wanting to stop.
Seraphine got carried away, clicking the button over 20,000 times before finally quitting. Her total Skill Points ballooned to a staggering twenty billion.
As was her routine, she opened the [Aura Condensation] skill interface and began another upgrade spree.
DING DING DING DING DING DING DING...
Upgrading any Class Skill from Level 0 to Level 1 costs only one Skill Point, and Level 2 costs only two. But from Level 2 onward, the cost increases exponentially.
Level 2 to Level 3 costs four points; Level 3 to Level 4 costs eight; Level 4 to Level 5 costs sixteen. With this exponential surge, the cost for [Aura Condensation] became terrifying.
Relying on her massive pool of over 20 billion points, Seraphine boosted [Aura Condensation] from Level 13 all the way to Level 33. Of course, this surge consumed over 16 billion Skill Points.
The [Aura Condensation] interface now read:
[Aura Condensation] 〔33〕(Level 60 Class Skill): Killing intent enters the body, slaughtering all foes.
Reduces Max HP by 2,576,980,377,600, increases Damage attribute by +1,288,490,188,800. Costs 214,748,364,800 MP per second.
With [Aura Condensation] constantly active, Seraphine's Base Damage jumped to 1,291,767,420,535.
Simply terrifying!
In the entire history of Brilliant Games, no player had ever possessed such a monstrous Damage value.
But she still had over 6.8 billion Skill Points left. Seraphine opened the [Ruthless Blade Qi] skill interface and began dumping points there.
DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING...
With relentless clicking, she boosted it from Level 11 to Level 30. The skill interface updated:
[Ruthless Blade Qi] 〔30〕(Level 70 Class Skill): A heartless being, loving only the blade in hand.
Unleash physical blade-qi (Base Damage × 8.2). Costs 3600 MP.
With the 1.5x damage multiplier from [Blade Intent] added on, Seraphine's damage per blade-qi hit shockingly exceeded fifteen trillion, nearing sixteen trillion. Compared to the damage she dealt at the Pixiu base five hours ago, her power had surged by tens of millions of times!
Yet, she still had 4.8 billion Skill Points left. It would be a waste not to use them.
After some thought, Seraphine chose to upgrade [Abstruse Truth of the Blade]. As a Path Unique AoE skill for the Path of Pure Damage, it was worth the investment.
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!...
With every level, the domain's diameter expanded by fifty meters. Finally, after burning over 4 billion Skill Points, Seraphine pushed [Abstruse Truth of the Blade] to Level 31.
The skill info updated:
[Abstruse Truth of the Blade] 〔31〕(Level 90 Class Skill): The mind understands the pinnacle of the blade, manifesting weaponry in all directions.
Creates a Blade-Qi Domain (1600m diameter). Enemies within the domain suffer continuous blade-energy attacks (Base Damage × 6.1). Costs 3,221,225,472,000 MP. Duration: 3 seconds. Can be toggled for continuous automatic use.
After finishing, tens of millions of Skill Points remained, but she had no other skills she cared to upgrade, so she let them sit.
Suddenly, she noticed colorful mosaics flickering constantly in the void around her.
These dense, multi-colored cubic diamonds drifted around her like living things, circling her relentlessly.
It was as if the server space itself could no longer contain Seraphine's presence, as if it were trying to exile her into the outer void.
"Maybe my attributes are just too off the charts."
Seraphine opened her player interface:
Name: Great Demon King Seraphine
HP: 9999999999999999
MP: 9999999999999999
Strength: 3,276,002,980
Agility: 280
Constitution: 280
Spirit: 280
Level: ฿³√ᶞ Heaven § Class ( ᑬ ёŸ┫ Ro Transfer )
Experience: #& Joy % Sub ¥è/฿∯ ㄞ ¿ Eight £
Class: Slaughter Ascetic - Frenzied Intent - Solitary Blade
Damage: 3,276,002,935 + 1,288,490,188,800
Defense: 325
Speed: 280
Weight Capacity: 280
Evasion: 27.0%
Critical Hit: 27.0%
Free Attribute Points: 0
Skill Points: 300,753,209
"No wonder there's mosaic," Seraphine chuckled, shaking her head. "Even the level and experience bars have turned into garbled code."
This meant that experience points no longer mattered; she could no longer level up through normal means.
But it didn't matter. "Level" could no longer define Seraphine's true power. She had played Brilliant Games to a point that was truly unprecedented and would never be surpassed.
WHOOSH—
Letting out a long sigh, Seraphine stood in the void, gazing at Yinglong—larger than a standard rocky planet—and suddenly drew her blade, delivering a diagonal slash.
BANG!!!
With a blade-hum that nearly shattered the cosmic void, Seraphine unleashed a gargantuan streak of blade-qi from her Crimson giant blade. It stretched tens of thousands of kilometers, as thick as the Himalayas, crossing millions of miles of space in seconds to strike Yinglong head-on.
BOOM!!!!!
Like a watermelon rigged with a high-yield detonator, the entire celestial body of Yinglong exploded. It collapsed into countless roaring, red-hot streams of fire, hurtling into the dark abyss of space.
The numerous war correspondents (players) witnessing this doomsday event and the countless "viewers" on the Game Forum were collectively stunned.
One slash to blow up a planet? This is beyond ridiculous.
This level of destruction was usually only possible when a Star Destroyer fleet spent ages charging up, maintained a perfect formation, and burned massive resources for a coordinated strike!
Now... it was pulled off by a single player?
Absolute madness.
It wasn't that these people were overreacting; the Dimensional Artist was just too stingy, setting the ceiling for individual combat power far too low. Without interstellar fleets carrying specialized planet-killing weapons, players in Brilliant Games could never experience what "planet-busting" actually felt like.
That [Ruthless Blade Qi] didn't even dissipate after destroying Yinglong. Instead, it maintained sub-light speed, tearing through everything in its path as it rocketed into deep space.
Seeing how its mass and momentum hadn't changed after obliterating a massive planet, it would likely destroy dozens or hundreds more before finally coming to a halt.
After all, a blade-qi with nearly sixteen trillion damage wasn't something a planet or two could ever hope to wear down.
"As expected, the correlation between damage growth and visual power in Brilliant Games isn't linear," Seraphine noted. She glanced at the [Ruthless Blade Qi] fading into the distance and turned her attention back to the cheat menu.
"Let's try some other functions."
She clicked option #9: [Global Random Color Swap].
DING!
The moment the chime rang, every inch of dark space in Seraphine's vision, including the shimmering stars, turned... a stark, pale white.
Looking around, it felt as though every corner and vector of the infinite universe was now flooded with a dense, sourceless white light that erased all boundaries.
Everything was submerged in an endless, featureless white. There was nothing else.
This bizarre, surreal, yet grand and magnificent scene was indescribably overwhelming. The war correspondents scattered in the void were both mesmerized and terrified, staring in slack-jawed confusion.
Since time immemorial, even in the dreams of humanity, the cosmos had always been an infinite darkness. It was that very darkness that allowed the brilliance of stars and nebulae to shine.
But today, all that shimmering starlight and vast darkness had been swallowed by an inexhaustible, deathly white. In this infinite pale void, nothing existed but the color white itself.
Everything felt lifeless because of this overwhelming pallor. It was as if a suffocatingly massive cage of pure white, filled with solitude and silence, had completely encased this region of space.
This sudden, staggering anomaly was quickly broadcast to the Game Forum via the war correspondents. Within minutes, the forum exploded with threads: [WTF! Brilliant Games has a major bug!], [Devs, get over here! Your space wallpaper just faded!], [Is this a bug or a new instance?], and [Everyone look at me, I have an announcement to make]. The posts ranged from anxious to rowdy, from chaos-loving to pure trolling.
None of this concerned Seraphine. She didn't care at all.
She took a curious look around the white space, then turned her focus back to the cheat menu.
"Let's try the Anywhere Portal."
With that thought, she clicked option #5: [Anywhere Portal].
DING!
With a soft chime, a massive semi-holographic star map appeared in Seraphine's vision. The map was densely packed with markers for various superclusters and galaxy structures of all sizes.
She swiped her slender finger, expanding the small red dot representing her current galaxy cluster. Zooming in repeatedly, she quickly located the Royal galaxy.
Then, she expanded the Royal galaxy until she found the star system housing a super-large Royal Guild base, and finally, located the target planet, Pageo.
She confirmed the portal's destination and clicked.
HUMMM—
Following a series of spatial vibrations, a two-meter-tall, half-meter-wide rectangular brown wooden door materialized in front of Seraphine.
"This is much easier," she laughed, pushing open the door and stepping through.
The Anywhere Portal slowly closed behind her and faded into the pale white void, vanishing as if it had never been there.
In an instant, Seraphine crossed hundreds of light-years of vast space, arriving in the orbit of another planet.
Wasting no time, she drew her giant blade and unleashed another massive streak of blade-qi, ten thousand miles wide and as thick as a mountain range. It roared through the pale void, striking the blanched planet millions of kilometers away.
Indeed, the moment Seraphine arrived, this once-dark, deep space instantly turned a featureless white.
From a more magnificent, distant perspective, this terrifying pallor now covered a diameter of nearly a hundred light-years. Within this radius centered on Seraphine, every star, nebula, and planet—including their mountains, rivers, deserts, and forests—had been "coated" in a layer of ghastly white.
Only the countless panicked players within this area retained their original appearance. Seraphine was like a star of calamity; wherever she went, existence became silent and desperate, turning into a stark, lifeless white.
This was exactly what Leng Kangan, the leader of the Royal Guild, was witnessing.
In the distant central region of the Milky Way, at the Royal Guild's ultimate base.
WHOOSH—
Leng Kangan looked away from the livestream showing the explosion of yet another pale planet. He suppressed his boiling fury and let out a long sigh, closing his eyes.
"Damn you, Seraphine!"
Chief Cao approached slowly and whispered a report: "Highness, all precious materials from the other bases have been transferred to the central storage vaults within the planet's core via the super-space-time arrays."
"Good," Leng Kangan opened his eyes, his voice cold. "This Great Demon King Seraphine... single-handedly destroyed over a thousand bases in just five hours, including a super-large military base with a massive interstellar fleet and planetary defense systems.
This enemy can no longer be dealt with by conventional means, but... I am not afraid!"
He turned his head to look at Old Cao beside him. "Have the thirty-six main interstellar battle groups been deployed?"
Chief Cao's expression turned serious, and he nodded quickly. "By your command, the thirty-six battle groups, totaling 4,325 interstellar fleets, 9,465,200 starships, 8,500 Star Destroyers, as well as the Eden Neutron Dreadnought and the Titan Behemoths, are all perfectly arrayed in the space surrounding the central base, locked and loaded!"
"Good!"
Leng Kangan's voice was a low, fierce growl. "Seraphine, oh Seraphine. I don't know why you're so powerful, almost like a bug, and normal numbers of starships might be useless against you. But facing my fleet of nearly ten million ships, a force capable of sweeping across the entire Milky Way and annihilating countless stars, can you still maintain that calm of yours?!"
Beside him, Old Cao asked hesitantly, "Highness... are we just going to wait for her to come to us? What about the other bases? Are we just... leaving them?"
"Since her malice toward the guild is so great, she will inevitably seek out the central base. Other bases can be rebuilt if destroyed, but nothing must happen to this one; it is the most vital heart of both the guild and the empire.
Besides, the Royal Guild has hundreds of millions of bases. Even if Seraphine destroyed one every second, it would take her over three years. I don't believe she has that kind of patience or resolve. At most, she'll destroy a few thousand more before coming straight for the headquarters."
Leng Kangan spoke in a deep tone, "Our ancestors started from this very place, carving out a world with their bare fists. They overcame countless enemies and hardships to build the foundation of the Royal Guild.
The empire relied on the guild's power to dominate Plangu for over a thousand years. Because of our ancestors' massive contributions and fame, combined with the pressure from the Elder Council, successive emperors never dared to call themselves Emperor; they only styled themselves as Princes. The implication was that whoever sat on the throne remained beneath our founder, mere sons and grandsons. But I am different..."
Leng Kangan laughed coldly. "A blessing in disguise; good or ill fortune is often just a matter of perspective.
The emergence of the Great Demon King Seraphine is both a catastrophe and an opportunity. If we can eliminate her and turn the tide, I can use that fame to pressure those old fossils in the Elder Council, break free from all restrictions, and become a true Emperor; not a Prince shackled by tradition!"
"Your Highness is truly divine!"
Chief Cao gave a thumbs-up in praise. "That Seraphine, as terrifying as she is, will only become the sharp blade that carves your path to the throne! Your wisdom is truly peerless!"
BEEP BEEP!!
While Leng Kangan and Chief Cao were talking, the endless white on the livestream screen suddenly vanished, and the cosmic space returned to its infinite darkness.
Seraphine, after obliterating the Royal base on Pageo, hadn't left. Instead, she passed through a seemingly ordinary door, instantly crossing hundreds of millions of kilometers to reach the scorching surface of the star.
"This Seraphine..."
Chief Cao watched the screen, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. "Is she... trying to commit suicide?!"
"An unrestrained maniac like her wouldn't commit suicide," Leng Kangan replied coldly. "I want to see exactly what she's up to."
WHOOSH!!
Heat currents surged, and brilliant light flared. Beside the massive, slowly rotating star, an incredibly tiny figure, Seraphine, suddenly appeared.
Gazing down at the solar surface, which continuously erupted with infinite light and heat, Seraphine's expression was utterly indifferent.
She dove through the intense layers of the solar atmosphere, passing through the streams of charged particles and the thick corona, heading toward the chromosphere, the star's true surface.
SWISH!!
Seraphine moved with great speed, piercing through countless explosions and fire-streams until she reached the solar surface, a sea of pure light.
BOOM!!
Suddenly, a massive solar prominence, far larger than a planet and stretching over 100,000 kilometers, erupted from the edge of the sea of light, roaring toward her. It swept across the solar landscape, aimed directly at where Seraphine stood.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
As this terrifying prominence surged toward her with boundless, crushing power, Seraphine merely spared it a casual glance.
BANG!!!!
She drew her blade in an instant.
SHINK! SHINK! SHINK!
In a ten-thousandth of a second, Seraphine unleashed ten thousand streaks of [Ruthless Blade Qi], physically shredding the massive prominence into hundreds of millions of fiery streams. These currents were sent violently blasting back in the opposite direction, out into the vastness of space.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Trillions of flames pierced the void, and chaotic light swept through the firmament. The commotion caused by Seraphine's strike was so immense that, from deep space, it looked as if the star's surface were erupting in a magnificent, large-scale meteor shower of fire.
Once again, the war correspondents watching via various means fell into a state of shock. While they couldn't count exactly how many times Seraphine had struck, they could clearly see that her actions had disintegrated the massive solar prominence into a swarm of fiery meteors.
Ignoring the fresh wave of posts flooding the Game Forum, Seraphine stood on the solar surface and clicked Cheat option #8: [Infinite Weight Capacity].
DING!!
A crisp chime rang out, but no visible change occurred to her or her surroundings.
However, Seraphine knew that from this moment on, her inventory had an infinite storage capacity. In her estimation, this "infinite" wasn't truly limitless, but rather a value so unfathomably large it might as well be. Regardless, it was more than enough to carry stars, or even the entire Milky Way.
Her goal was simple: to pocket the star beneath her feet.
She didn't know why the Dimensional Artist, Coo, hadn't patched this deep-seated flaw in Brilliant Games' rules, but Seraphine didn't care. She simply extended her palm toward the colossal star below and thought:
"Collect."
HUMMM!!
The void vibrated violently.
In a single instant, the massive yellow dwarf, 1.5 million kilometers in diameter and weighing countless sextillions of tons, was transformed into a tiny, brilliant orb icon within a single slot of Seraphine's inventory.
The space that had been flooded with brilliant light suddenly plunged into darkness. The source of all that light, the star itself, had vanished.
The countless players witnessing this earth-shaking scene through remote surveillance were so stunned that even shouting "Impossible!" was beyond them. Seraphine's act had truly frightened them into a stupor.
Suspended in the dark, vast void, Seraphine opened the cheat menu again and selected option #7: [Modify Item Quantity].
DING!!
A chime rang, and her inventory interface appeared before her.
Items: Speedrun Strategy Guide (Player-made) x1 / Yellow Dwarf x1
"How many should I change it to..."
Seraphine gazed calmly at the '1' next to the Yellow Dwarf in her inventory. "Let's go with... one trillion."
SWISH!!
In an instant, the inventory information updated:
Items: Speedrun Strategy Guide (Player-made) x1 / Yellow Dwarf x1,000,000,000,000
Next, Seraphine opened the cheat menu and selected option #3: [Quicksilver Mode].
DING!!
Following a crisp chime, her outfit shifted into a silver-themed look. She wore a black graphic tee under a silver collarless leather jacket, silver-black pleated khakis, and silver high-top Air Force 1s.
"Alright, let's get to work."
Seraphine rubbed her hands together and put on the wired headphones that came with Quicksilver Mode. As the melodic strains of "Time in a Bottle" began to play, the flow of time around her slowed nearly to a standstill. Her movement and reaction speeds skyrocketed to a terrifying degree.
In a single second, after a rapid series of positioning calculations, Seraphine opened 100,258,254,854 Anywhere Portals within the vast void. These densely packed doors were arranged in a perfect grid, forming a massive brown square nearly twelve kilometers long and wide.
Then, moving like a blur of light, Seraphine spent a single microsecond pulling open an Anywhere Portal. She stepped through into the vast space on the other side, warped through space at faster-than-light speeds for a million miles, and arrived outside the atmosphere of a Royal base on Pageo. From every possible angle, she yanked one thousand colossal, scorching stars out of her inventory and placed them in the void. Then, she surged back another million miles to return through the portal.
She repeated this entire sequence exactly one million times in a single second.
In other words, Seraphine had placed one thousand scorching stars above each of one million Royal bases.
She maintained this high-frequency stellar deployment for exactly one hundred and twenty-six seconds. Two full minutes.
DING~
Quicksilver Mode ended. The hundreds of millions of Anywhere Portals collapsed and vanished, and time resumed its normal flow.
Simultaneously, nearly two billion Royal players across 100,258,254,854 bases in various sectors of the galaxy discovered, with dazed horror, that the once-infinite sky above had been completely blotted out by an endless sea of fire.
No matter what color the sky had been, it was now dominated by a blinding, absolute white.
The crushing weight of it caused the hearts of the millions of players on the ground to race; the atmospheric pressure was so intense they lost the ability to breathe. Not that it mattered. They didn't have time to breathe anyway.
The brilliance of the infinite sea of light was so fierce and scorching that, in the very first instant, two billion Royal players were vaporized into nothingness. Over 99.99% of them were killed and force-logged instantly. Buildings, skyscrapers, weaponry—everything turned into wafting heat and vanished.
Even the mountains, plains, forests, and plateaus across every planet were incinerated into boiling seas of lava within seconds.
In the space surrounding the headquarters on Pageo, more than half of the majestic fleet of nearly ten million starships was instantly evaporated by the terrifying heat of the thousand suns. Only a few top-tier vessels, the neutron dreadnoughts, and the Titan behemoths remained, struggling to survive.
"Suns?? They're suns!!"
Leng Kangan, standing on the molten earth like a piece of charcoal, looked up and screamed in despair. "Seraphine... you... you actually summoned suns?! You... ARGGGHHHH!!"
In his state of unbelievable agony and despair, Leng Kangan was killed and logged out.
At this point, the Royal Guild was completely annihilated.