"Hey! Lord Yang Ying, Lord Dao Feng, can't you see! Can't you hear! The Flin people on this planet are howling tragically, and it is precisely because you wish for my downfall that all this has come to pass. The number of people injured on Bei Hu Star today, the number who died—it is all your responsibility!" Kalagounis roared, his voice like a thunderclap. "How many people are on this planet? One billion, two billion, or even more? But regardless of the exact number, if you attack me again, every one of them will die. Under these circumstances, can you still cling to your actions with a clear conscience?!"

As he spoke, Kalagounis flung out a burst of malevolent flame, which transformed into a boundless sea of fire. Harnessing the fierce heat from the subterranean magma, it swelled suddenly, sweeping toward Yang Ying and Dao Feng in an overwhelming deluge.

For a time, Yang Ying and Dao Feng found themselves encircled on all sides by the blood-red, malignant flames. Not only that, but the countless wails of the Flin people across the planet acted as fuel for the flames, causing the conflagration to burn ever more fiercely.

The malevolent flame, inherently a mixture of intense heat and negative psychic attack, found the boundless resentment and curses generated by intelligent life in their dying moments to be one of its finest fuels.

"Stop wasting your efforts, Kalagounis. You and I are both Tier Four beings; you should know that this pale threat cannot deceive me. You are the one killing them! To try and pin your slaughter on me—that is a grave mistake!" Facing the towering inferno that threatened to engulf the sky, Yang Ying merely extended one hand to block the sea of fire. Astonishingly, the blaze immediately halted before his palm.

Yang Ying flipped his hand, and it seemed a black hole manifested in his palm, into which the sea of fire poured like a thousand rivers entering the ocean.

In the blink of an eye, Yang Ying had drawn the entire fiery expanse into his hand, condensing it into a scorching ball of fire. Then, with a gentle squeeze, he extinguished it.

Kalagounis burst into maniacal laughter: "Ridiculous! Preposterous! I kill people, and you blame me; you killed Hardek, and you blame me! I am merely using your own logic, and you have the audacity to call me gravely mistaken!"

"Truly worthy of being an old fellow who has lived for over ten thousand years; your rhetoric is certainly impressive!" Yang Ying conceded. "But you have missed one crucial point! Hardek was my enemy. Killing him was both necessary and unavoidable. If you had not controlled him to invade the Solar System, I would have traded places with him, admired his ideals, and never have killed him. However, the Dylin rebels are your allies. When facing an enemy, you kill your own allies as a threat and then attempt to shift the blame onto the enemy? Throughout the entire universe, this logic holds no ground. No matter how eloquently you speak, you cannot change this fundamental fact."

"Throw out as many arguments as you like!" Kalagounis erupted with malevolent flame from both hands, raising them high above his head, and commanded, "I only know that if you wish for the people of this planet to live, you only need to abandon the pursuit of me. And for me to let them live, I must pay with my own life as the price!"

In that single declaration, the essence of a ruthless warlord was laid bare!

"Indeed, a true warlord. You are a man of firm will. There is nothing more to discuss between us. Now, unleash whatever ultimate techniques you possess. If you have none left, then know this: just now, I used only a fraction of my true strength. Now, I shall get slightly serious. Prepare yourself!"

Yang Ying flashed forward instantly, closing the distance to Kalagounis. From his hands erupted twin swords of lightning, nearly a thousand meters long each, slicing down upon Kalagounis in a flurry as rapid and fierce as a summer squall. Thousands upon thousands of sword shadows dazzled the eye, while Kalagounis wielded his malevolent flames, shaping them into various weapons to defend himself, only to have them cleaved apart by the lightning swords.

"Kalagounis, let me make it clear: it is not fate that seals your death, but I! Fate cannot command your life or death, but I can!"

Suddenly, with a flash of his sword light, a blinding ray of lightning pierced the defense of the malevolent flames, and the lightning sword plunged deep into Kalagounis's chest, twisting viciously. Space itself seemed on the verge of being shredded by that single thrust.

Kalagounis shrieked, a massive hole ripped through his chest, managing only to explode a small cluster of malevolent flame. He flipped backward and retreated, pushing his power to its absolute limit under the threat of death. With a burst of speed, he shot into the sea dozens of kilometers away, creating distance between himself and Yang Ying.

Yang Ying pursued immediately, moving even faster than Kalagounis’s desperate flight. He caught up on the ocean surface and brought his sword down in a heavy arc.

Kalagounis felt a wave of weakness, the sign of being near utter exhaustion. He glared heavenward and roared, "All ships, open fire! Target unrestricted! Make this planet pay the price for his actions!"

He scoured his inner reserves and spewed forth another surge of malevolent flame, shaping it into a massive hammer, which he hurled at Yang Ying.

But the lightning sword clove the flame-hammer in two with a single stroke, its momentum unbroken. The blade continued its trajectory, slicing Kalagounis from his left shoulder straight across to his right abdomen.

This strike hurled Kalagounis deep into the ocean. Due to his colossal size—a full twelve hundred meters—and the fact that this was near the coast, supported by a continental shelf, the water depth was barely over two hundred meters, insufficient to cover his entire body.

With a deafening impact, Kalagounis’s body splashed up hundreds of millions of tons of seawater. The resulting tidal wave soared thousands of meters high, and the sweeping deluge of water droplets knocked down the Kusta air force units that had been swarming around Yang Ying. Various fighters and aircraft plummeted into the sea by the thousands, raining down like metal hail.

They had been circling like flies overhead, bombarding the area with beams and missiles, filling the entire sky. Both Yang Ying and Kalagounis, despite their immense physical power, possessed the ability to command forces that could overturn mountains and drain seas with every movement; the residual shockwaves alone were enough to flip the fighters in the air. Yet, the enemy was seemingly endless.

As the tsunami subsided slightly, tens of thousands of aircraft lay wrecked. The sky grew momentarily quieter. In the distance, millions more Kusta military craft remained, but they scattered in panic as if they had seen a ghost.

Because, at that very moment, an entire contingent of one hundred thousand warships from the Kusta fleet in orbit opened fire. An uncountable mass of colossal energy beams descended from the heavens, instantly vaporizing hundreds of millions of tons of seawater into steam!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

What happens when hundreds of millions of tons of water vapor violently expand?

It is the end of the world!

Ordinary minds could not possibly conceive of such a scene—an irresistible force driving everything outward. The shockwaves from the air currents reached tens of thousands of meters high, still managing to shoot down Kusta fighters at that altitude. Aircraft loitering at lower levels were ripped into fragments by the turbulent air, the immense pressure tearing everything apart.

Several suns rose over the sea surface, radiating infinite heat and light. Blistering winds converged into unprecedented mega-tornadoes—not just one, but countless of them!

The sky turned crimson. Rain, wind, thunder, and lightning raged without restraint. Subterranean magma spewed forth. Water and fire, black smoke and white steam mingled together, causing the ambient temperature to climb relentlessly.

Crack, crack, crack. The tectonic plates shattered completely. The continent where the Kusta headquarters lay was ripped away from Bei Hu Star. From space, the planet was visibly fractured into two main pieces, large and small, revealing the mantle and core through the fissures. Some seemingly insignificant floating fragments were, in reality, the size of hills.

A complete apocalypse unfolded.

The attack from the hundred thousand warships was not solely focused here. In fact, the spectacle of destruction witnessed was caused by only ten thousand of those ships. The remaining ninety thousand vessels had their targets dispersed across the entire planet, as Kalagounis’s final order was for the whole world to pay the price for Yang Ying's actions.

Although the majority of the seawater had boiled away and the surrounding environment was violently unstable, Kalagounis was still alive. He pulled himself out of the shrunken sea, his voice laced with terrifying venom: "This is the consequence of you trying to kill me. Billions of Flin people, all dead because of you!"

A gaping hole was punched through his chest, piercing from front to back. A gaping incision ran from his left shoulder to his right abdomen, rendering his appearance grotesquely scarred. Neither wound bled a single drop, an unnerving sight. These were the permanent injuries inflicted by Yang Ying moments before—injuries that would never heal!

Though Kalagounis, as a Tier Four entity, could survive such wounds, they would remain on him forever, scars that could never mend.

In the distance, Feroie watched the shattered sky, his hands dropping listlessly. "Lord Kalagounis actually brought himself to the point of destroying the entire planet... this is truly, truly..."

Dao Feng let the electrical energy in his hands dissipate. "Lord Feroie, it seems you still possess some conscience. That is good. Just watch from the sidelines now."

Yang Ying pointed the lightning sword in his right hand at Kalagounis. "I can sense it; your power is at its absolute nadir. After this long battle, your psychic reserves must be utterly depleted. The next move will take your life! For millennia, you have led the Kusta race in wars across the cosmos, conquering countless species. The blood you spilled is enough to fill the seas. Today, you shall pay that debt!" With that, a flash of electrical light enveloped Kalagounis in an infinite spray of sword shadows.

"All ships heed my command, open fire on me!" Kalagounis shouted loudly. If he died under the artillery of his own fleet, it would not be true death. His body was merely a projected container. Though destroying the projection would temporarily cast him into the dark side of the spirit world, he could be reborn once he accumulated sufficient power.

Only a Tier Four being could truly kill another Tier Four being.

In an instant, the Hundred Son Kusta Fleet in space unleashed its full firepower, and countless beams roared downward!

"I will take you with me!" Kalagounis mustered his last reserves of strength and expelled a final burst of malevolent flame, attempting to ensnare Yang Ying so that the fleet’s bombardment could send them both into the dark side of the spirit world. "Die!" Yang Ying saw through his scheme as clearly as if it were written in the sky. He uttered only a single word, and the light of his lightning sword erupted blindingly. In this entire battle, he had never utilized his full power, and even now, he was not! But it was enough!

The lightning sword sliced through the malevolent flame like breaking through rotten wood. Yang Ying's hands instantly erupted with countless sword shadows, hundreds, then thousands of strikes landing on Kalagounis in rapid succession. The very air exploded under the pressure of his movements, and space itself was cleaved by the edges of his blades.

Kalagounis’s expression froze. In that single instant, all vestiges of life fled him. Yang Ying's sword completely annihilated his projection and his very essence; he was utterly erased.

The boundless beams rained down from space. In the distance, Dao Feng pulled Feroie, transforming into a streak of electrical light, and vanished in a flash. Yang Ying, taking advantage of the split second before the beams struck, became a bolt of lightning and fled the planet.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Bei Hu Star and Kalagounis, accompanied by the colossal sound of planetary explosion, were eternally consigned to history.