Axe-light poured through the gap, and the entire defensive line was torn open from within, leaving a long, narrow rift.
Dozens of systems had no time to react, not even time to draw so much as a thread of rule power from their origins to build a defense, before they were swallowed by that pure axe intent.
Light flared in an instant, then went out in the next.
The spiritual intellects of dozens of Rule Cores were just like that, hacked to death by brute force, leaving empty husks tumbling through Chaos.
"Close it! Hurry, close it!"
The Karma System's purple light flashed madly, origin power pouring out as it desperately pulled the torn-open rift inward.
The Punch-in System and the Judgment System moved to fill the gap at the same time, gray and silver rule threads interweaving as they plugged the breach.
For the first time, the Salted Fish System also cast off that lazy posture, pressing all of its rule power into the weakest point of the defensive line.
The defensive line closed again.
A new light shield condensed into shape at the rift, sealing that fatal gap.
But every system understood—
This new defensive line was a full layer thinner than before.
The dozens of systems taken away after that axe had broken the defense just now were not numbers. They were solid, real support nodes.
With every system lost, the defensive line weakened by one degree.
This was an irreversible depletion.
And the man opposite them did not even seem inclined to catch his breath.
The third axe followed close behind.
The axe-light landed with precision on the junction between the new defensive line and the old.
That was the suture line where two rule systems had been temporarily pieced together, the most fragile point.
Boom—