Wisdom flickered intensely in Odin's single eye as he struggled to parse the incomprehensible army before him.
Their tactics and bizarre equipment defied everything he knew; it bore a passing resemblance to human technology, yet how could it possibly be this powerful?
His subordinates' rune magic was neutralized the moment it manifested, dismantled and countered by an invisible force field—some of it was even converted into energy that turned back against the casters.
It was a crushing defeat born of pure rationality and terrifying technology, a force unlike anything he had ever encountered.
On the other side of the battlefield, an alien war god renowned for his valor roared, his entire body wreathed in raging divine power. He charged headlong at a massive, scar-covered red-haired Primarch—Angron.
Before the war god's artifact could even make contact, Angron unleashed a non-human roar. A surge of physical brutality entwined with psychic energy tore through the war god's divine shield. Then, a massive power claw clamped shut around the deity's skull.
The head was crushed instantly. The hardened Godhood let out a strained wail in the face of absolute violence, shattering piece by piece.
In a final act of desperation before fading into nothingness, the war god detonated his Godhood—the very concept of "War"—attempting to pollute this blasphemous legion with the purest essence of conflict and slaughter.
However, this pollution, which would have plunged a mortal world into eternal chaos, didn't even cause a ripple among the Golden Legion.
Angron impatiently flicked the divine blood off his hand. Behind him, his warriors didn't pause for a second, continuing their efficient "cleansing."
To them, this level of "War" concept was laughably weak compared to the older, purer, and far more powerful Lord of War and Blood, Khorne, whom they had faced before.
The battle ended far faster than anyone had anticipated.
Within moments, not a single alien god remained standing. Bound by specialized energy shackles that completely suppressed their divine powers, they were herded like lambs to the slaughter and sorted into containment cells by the Custodes.
Inside the Nightwatch command center, the communicator in Yuan Gang's hand hit the floor with a clatter, though he didn't even notice.
The sight on the screen—the golden warship large enough to blot out the stars, and the Primarchs and Custodes who handled god-kings as if they were mere toys—shattered the worldview they had spent decades building.
The "War of Gods" that they believed required the full strength of Great Xia just to withstand... in the eyes of these people, it was perhaps nothing more than a "cleaning operation."
Sun Wukong retracted the Ruyi Jingu Bang. His Fiery Golden Eyes, capable of piercing through all illusions, were now fixed on the figure of the Emperor with an unprecedented level of gravity and curiosity.
He could clearly feel the magnificent power beneath that golden armor. It was a towering will that differed from every deity he had ever known—it was a power that belonged to "humanity" itself.
Ian let out a long yawn and stretched, complaining to the square-faced Emperor, "See? Your Custodes still aren't precise enough. They've trashed all the greenery; it's going to be a pain to clean up."
As he spoke, Ian casually snapped his fingers.
In the next instant, from the borders of Cangnan City to the distant frontier battlefields, time began to flow backward at a visible speed in every area affected by the fighting.
Shattered earth fused back together, collapsed mountains rose once more, and evaporated oceans converged.
Across battlefields nationwide, the wounds of fallen Nightwatch warriors and ordinary soldiers vanished. The breath of life reignited, and they stood up from the ground completely unharmed, looking around in confusion.
But it didn't stop there. The great power of time continued to backtrack. The spirits of Nightwatch members who had perished in missions long ago began to reform their physical bodies in familiar places.
In the Nightwatch camp, Xia Simeng stared blankly at the screen. Familiar yet strange faces—teammates who had been "confirmed KIA" in past operations—were appearing one by one, vivid and alive.
She covered her mouth, her tears finally breaking free and sliding down her cheeks in an uncontrollable, trembling sob of disbelief.
Having finished, Ian clapped his hands and turned to the stunned people of Great Xia with a relaxed smile. "Alright, the house is clean. Now, it's time to go 'visit' some uninvited guests in their own homes."
A short while later, the high-ranking officials of the Nightwatch and the gods of Huaxia were invited aboard the golden warship known as the *Indomitable Truth*.
Within a hall so magnificent it defied imagination, the Emperor stood silently before his throne, his deep gaze sweeping over the crowd.
"Outside of Great Xia, the vast majority of humans on this planet live under the yoke of so-called 'Pantheons,'" the Emperor's voice resonated directly within everyone's soul. "They treat humans as livestock, steal their faith, and hinder the progress of civilization. They are parasites—the greatest shackles on the development of human civilization."
As he spoke, the walls of the hall became transparent, revealing a map of the cosmos and various worlds shrouded in divine power.
The Emperor ordered that the captured primary gods, including Zeus and Odin, be imprisoned in transparent energy cages and suspended beneath the hall. Simultaneously, using faster-than-light communication technology, the trial was broadcast live to the entire globe.
Suddenly, every human on Earth, regardless of where they were, could see it clearly in the sky, in the reflection of water, or on any reflective surface: the deities they had once worshipped as supreme beings were now wretched prisoners.
At first, countless devout believers fell to their knees in tears, believing this was a special test of their loyalty.
But then, the Emperor used an irresistible telepathic surge to flood every human mind with the cold truth: how these gods had exploited human faith for millennia, viewed mortals as ants, and played with human joys and sorrows for their own amusement.
Global faith began to collapse at an unprecedented speed.
Despair, anger, confusion, and a sliver of terrified freedom from the shackles of belief bloomed in the hearts of millions.
In the ancient city of Rome, a red-robed Archbishop could not accept the blasphemy and rebellion of the people below. With a withered face and bloodshot eyes, he rallied the last of the Templar Knights. Before the cathedral, he sacrificed his entire life force and remaining faith to summon the projection of a legendary angel to punish the "blasphemers."
In the eyes of mortals, the summoned power was indeed comparable to a true god.
Without waiting for the Emperor's signal, a figure descended silently from the *Indomitable Truth*.
He possessed great, snow-white wings and a face as beautiful as a masterpiece painting—it was the Primarch, Sanguinius. He looked calmly at the struggling projection of the Seraphim, a trace of imperceptible pity in his eyes.
"A shoddy creation," Sanguinius spoke softly.
He simply unfurled his wings, and an aura far more divine, pure, and exquisitely noble than the angel's projection flooded the area.
Faced with this presence, the angel's projection couldn't even muster the will to resist; it collapsed instantly, dissolving into shimmering particles of light.
Witnessing all of this, Lin Qiye felt an unprecedented shock.
For the first time, he clearly recognized the gap between himself and the true peak powers of this universe.
But this realization did not bring discouragement. Instead, it ignited a fiercer longing—a burning determination to personally change this unjust world and protect everything he cherished.
Across the globe, divine miracles powered by faith began to fail on a massive scale. Grand temples lost their luster and began to crumble.
The Receding Tide
The power of the priests ebbed away like a receding tide. To the shock of the believers, they discovered that without a god, the world remained entirely unchanged.
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