The backlash from the Destruction Heart Core came faster than Saine had expected.
The Realm-Suppressing Ring wreckage had only just completed its second round of node severance when the jet-black, heart-like entity deep within suddenly gave a violent throb, as though provoked.
If Saine had previously only observed the existence of the Destruction Heart Core from afar,
then now, the Destruction Heart Core told Saine in the most direct manner that it was not some dead object lying quietly in the depths of Destruction Time-Space, allowing outsiders to study and dismantle it at will.
It could react.
And it could reject.
To a certain extent, it even possessed a self-protection mechanism more primal and more immense than that of the Destruction Supreme.
This protection mechanism did not think.
Yet it was deadly enough.
That throb was no ordinary tremor.
Rather, the entire outer region of the Destruction Core collapsed inward for an instant.
The Shattered Continent was crushed into dark-gold powder.
Countless Destruction crystals that had originally lain dormant seemed to be infused with life anew, growing madly outward.
Several advanced reconnaissance squads from the Mechanical Civilization had not even had time to withdraw before they were encased in crystals, their signals vanishing in an instant.
These advanced reconnaissance units were special models whose databases and sensory modules Saine had personally adjusted.
Every one of them could withstand rule impacts at the level of a Level-10 Being.
A few cutting-edge models even carried backup cores that could survive briefly on a level-11 battlefield.
Yet before the backlash of the Destruction Heart Core, their losses still seemed utterly abrupt.
The final image captured by Skynet showed jet-black crystals growing from within.
Those crystals had not wrapped around the mechanical reconnaissance units from the outside.
They had blossomed directly within the rule