Chapter 199 The True Face of the Cardinal

"Hiccup—"

This burp was earth-shattering, even more deafening than the nuclear explosion that had failed to detonate just moments ago.

The blinding white light did not expand, and there was no mushroom cloud expected to swallow everything. That ball of antimatter energy, capable of physically formatting the entire stellar system, was like water flushed down a toilet—swirling in a bizarre vortex before, with a slurp, it all went into Lin Yuan's stomach.

The hall was terrifyingly quiet, with only the whirring sound of the exhaust fans.

Lin Yuan stood in place, his skin as red as a boiled shrimp, and scorching steam was puffing out from the top of his head. He patted his rounded belly; he didn't look like someone who had just swallowed an antimatter bomb, but rather like someone who had just devoured two hundred skewers of lamb at a roadside stall.

"A bit salty."

Lin Yuan smacked his lips, looking at what he was holding with an expression of disdain. "And it was cooked too long, it tastes a bit burnt."

What he was holding was the Cardinal "Jealousy," who no longer looked human.

Or rather, a biological specimen consisting of a head attached to half a spinal column.

The act of consumption just now hadn't killed "Jealousy," but his magnificent dark gold armor and the mechanical prosthetics he used to show off had all been digested by the void engine as a side dish.

Now exposed to the air was the true face of this "demigod."

It was not some perfect mechanical ascender that had evolved to the extreme.

It was a lump of flesh.

A severely atrophied, deformed lump of rotting flesh with skin as wrinkled as dried orange peel. On that torso, only the size of a basketball, were densely packed transparent IV tubes, and inside the tubes flowed a turbid, golden-yellow liquid—this was "star marrow" extracted directly from the core of a star.

This guy was barely maintaining his vital signs by sucking on the star's marrow like a parasite.

"Ugh—"

A Ji had just leaned in to see the results, but after one glance, he covered his mouth and ran to the side to retch. "Boss, you just... ate this thing? You're really not picky at all!"

"Bullshit! I only ate the energy; I didn't even touch this lump of rotten meat!" Lin Yuan was also thoroughly disgusted, quickly throwing the thing in his hand onto the ground, as if he were discarding a leaking bag of trash.

The "meatball" on the ground was still wriggling.

"Jealousy" had lost his vocal cords and could only emit a sizzling electrical sound through the electronic generator plugged into his throat tube: "Blasphemy... you... have blasphemed against God..."

"Screw your blasphemy."

Lin Yuan stepped on the tube that was still delivering nutrient solution and crushed it with force.

Splat.

Golden-yellow liquid splattered everywhere. "Jealousy" immediately began to convulse violently like a fish out of water, his ugly face filled with pain and terror.

"Alita, broadcast this footage to those bastards outside." Lin Yuan pointed to the lump of flesh on the ground, a malicious smile curling at the corner of his mouth. "Let them see what the 'God' they kneel and kowtow to for protection every day actually looks like."

"Understood."

Alita's fingers danced rapidly in the air, instantly cracking the Mechanical Papacy's encrypted communication frequency.

The next second.

On the periphery of the Ring Fortress, the Mechanical Papacy fleet currently confronting the pirate coalition, as well as every pilgrimage ship loaded with believers, saw their screens go black simultaneously.

Immediately after, the image that would remain unforgettable to all believers for the rest of their lives popped up.

There was no holy light, no majesty.

There was only a man in a tattered undershirt, stepping on a deformed lump of flesh covered in tubes, like a butcher at a wet market displaying a piece of spoiled pig offal.

"Hey, hey, hey, can you hear me?"

Lin Yuan's cavalier voice echoed through the cockpits of tens of thousands of spaceships via the all-channel broadcast.

"This is your so-called bullshit Cardinal."

Lin Yuan bent down and grabbed "Jealousy's" few sparse hairs, forcing that ugly face to look directly into the camera. "See clearly now? Brain atrophied, limbs degenerated; if not for these few tubes, this thing wouldn't even be as good as a stray dog on the side of the road."

"The money you saved and scraped together, even sacrificing your lives, was just to support this piece of trash that survives by sucking blood?"

Dead silence.

The battlefield, which had been filled with gunfire, fell into an eerie silence in that instant.

Those fanatical believers who had just been shouting "For glory" and "God loves the world" while launching suicide charges were now staring at the screens, stunned and motionless.

Faith is the kind of thing that is sometimes as hard as a diamond, and sometimes as fragile as a soap bubble.

As long as you poke through that layer of sacred window paper, the stench inside is enough to make anyone sober up instantly.

"No... impossible..."

On the bridge of a capital ship, the cross in the captain's hand fell to the floor and shattered. He watched "Jealousy" wriggling like a worm under Lin Yuan's foot on the screen and felt his entire worldview collapse.

Is this the "ascension" he had dreamed of?

Is this the so-called "Eternal Silence"?

To become this kind of neither-human-nor-ghost monster—it would be better to just die!

"Damned heretic! That is a forged image! That is a demon's illusion!"

"Jealousy" on the ground was making a final struggle, his electronic voice screeching with distortion. "I am the chosen one of God! His Holiness the Pope already knows everything! The Great Purge... the Great Purge is coming! You will all die!"

"All die?"

Lin Yuan laughed.

He crouched down, his high-frequency dagger gently tapping against "Jealousy's" swollen skin.

"I hate two things most in this life. First is wasting food, and second is people threatening me."

A cold stream of data flashed in the depths of Lin Yuan's eyes.

"System, scramble this bastard's brains for me. I want to know all the backdoors to this shitty place, and where that so-called Pope is."

【Received. Brute-force cracking mode initiated.】

【Suggest host covers your ears; the screaming might be a bit piercing.】

Zzzzzz—!

A visible stream of blue electricity followed Lin Yuan's finger directly into "Jealousy's" cerebral cortex. There was no gentle reading; this was completely like using a sledgehammer to smash data on a hard drive.

"Ahhhhhh—!!!"

The shrill screams were enough to make anyone's scalp tingle, even through the screen.

Less than ten seconds.

"Jealousy's" eyes rolled back completely, foaming at the mouth, and he had completely turned into a drooling idiot.

【Ding! Data extraction complete.】

【Obtained: "Mechanical Papacy" internal structure map (complete version).】

【Obtained: "Blazing Sun Star" gravity defense node key.】

【Obtained: Pope's private channel code (but he seems to have blocked you).】

Lin Yuan casually threw "Jealousy," who had become a piece of trash, to A Ji who had hurried over. "Take it to feed the dogs... never mind, I'm afraid the dogs will get a stomach ache. Throw it into the reactor and burn it."

"Boss, it's done."

At the console, Alita let out a long breath and wiped non-existent sweat from her forehead. "The gravity lens has restarted. Although two stabilization polar axes are broken, it's barely usable. The red giant's reaction is subsiding."

As her voice fell, on the holographic projection in the center of the hall, the red star that had originally looked like it would explode at any moment finally calmed its turbulence, and the millions-of-kilometers-high flame fountains on its surface began to recede.

Only then did Lin Yuan breathe a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, it was saved.

If it had really exploded, the belly full of antimatter energy he had just eaten would have been for nothing, and he would have had to pay with his life.

【Ding! Task completion settlement in progress...】

【Congratulations to the host for killing "Seven Deadly Sins · Jealousy".】

【Obtained loot: Damaged stellar-class gravity lens (Epic-grade junk).】

【Obtained special drop: Pseudo-Divinity Shard (this thing tastes like low-quality plastic, suggest not eating).】

"Tsk, another shoddy product."

Lin Yuan looked at the grey, cinder-like "Divinity Shard" in his hand and curled his lip in disdain. The last one, Gluttony, was also a fake, and this time, it was even more ridiculously fake—it didn't even have any energy fluctuations.

"Better than nothing."

He casually threw the shard into the system warehouse to collect dust.

Just then, Alita suddenly let out an exclamation.

"Boss! Something's wrong! Look at the sun's surface!"

"What is it now? Isn't it not exploding anymore?" Lin Yuan turned around impatiently.

"It's not exploding, but..." Alita's fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard, her expression turning extremely poor. "The energy shock from just now was too intense, causing a huge hole in the star's corona! A super-high-energy coronal mass ejection is forming!"

On the big screen, a shocking wound suddenly split open on the surface of the huge red sun.

Endless liquid plasma surged out frantically, as if a high-pressure cooker had blown its lid. It was not an ordinary solar storm; it was a giant whip of fire hundreds of millions of kilometers long, carrying the momentum to destroy the world, lashing out fiercely in a specific direction.

A Ji took one look at the coordinates, and his face instantly turned green.

"Holy shit! That's... that's the sector coordinate where Earth is located!"

"If this energy hits, let alone Earth, even the Moon could be knocked away like a billiard ball!"

The atmosphere in the hall froze instantly.

Just finished dealing with a lunatic who wanted to blow up the sun, and now the sun itself is throwing a tantrum?

Who the hell can you reason with about this?

"Can you use the gravity lens to deflect it?" Lin Yuan asked in a deep voice.

"No! The lens is already overloaded; it can only barely maintain the star so it doesn't disintegrate. There's absolutely no extra power to control a coronal mass ejection of that level!" Alita was so anxious her electronic eyes were almost turning red.

An energy torrent of that level—even if the current Lin Yuan tried to swallow it whole, he would probably be stuffed until he exploded on the spot.

"Then what do we do? We can't just sit here and watch this thing go to Earth for a barbecue party, right?" A Ji paced around anxiously. "How about... how about we notify Earth to move now? Although there's only an eight-minute light-speed delay..."

"Move your grandfather, does Earth have legs or wings?"

Lin Yuan rolled his eyes, but there wasn't much panic on his face.

He looked at the giant dragon of fire extending wildly on the screen; not only was he not afraid, but he looked as if he had seen some rare, big toy, a gleam of excitement flashing in his eyes.

"Since it wants to run around, wouldn't it be fine if we just put a halter on it?"

"Put... a halter on it?"

A Ji and Alita looked at each other, completely unable to keep up with their boss's jumping train of thought.

That's the sun!

It's not a husky raised in your backyard!

What kind of halter could hold onto that kind of multi-million-degree plasma stream?

Lin Yuan didn't explain, just reached into the system warehouse and rummaged through a pile of miscellaneous junk for a long time.

"Found it."

He chuckled and took out something that looked like a black metal ball.

The thing wasn't big, only the size of a fist. There were no complex patterns on its surface, only a few slowly rotating silver rings, looking like a slightly exquisite desktop ornament.

But the moment it was taken out, the space in the entire hall twisted slightly, as if something extremely heavy was pressing down on everyone's hearts.

【Item Name: stellar-class Gravity Capture Net (one-time consumable)】

【Quality: Legendary】

【Description: Even the wildest star has times when it wants to be embraced. When deployed, it can form a strong gravitational binding field, specializing in treating various stellar hyperactivity, coronal spraying, solar flare incontinence, and other difficult diseases.】

【Note: Never use it on yourself, unless you want to experience the feeling of being pressed into a two-dimensional piece of paper.】

This was a treasure Lin Yuan had swiped from a high-level dungeon called "scavenger" before; he had kept it at the bottom of his box, unable to bear using it.

Didn't expect it to come in handy today.

"Let's go."

Lin Yuan took the metal ball and turned to walk towards the smashed-up door, his silhouette looking surprisingly like that of a cool, lone hero.

"Where to?" A Ji asked subconsciously.

"Exit the cabin, get to work."

Lin Yuan waved his hand without looking back, the black void engine armor covering his whole body again, and the thrusters spewed out ghostly blue flames.

"The sun is acting up, and as the director of the Earth Demolition Office, don't I have to go teach it a lesson?"

"Tell it that this starry sky..."

"Is under my jurisdiction!"