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Red.

A red so searing it made retinas ache.

The Two-Dimensional Foil, once crystal clear and beautiful as a work of art, had torn away its disguise.

It was no longer a sheet of paper.

It was a Singularity collapsing out of control.

An eye of destruction about to open.

Out in space.

The Two-Dimensional Deception Field Yang Yu had built from sword intent and alloy.

Before that violent red energy.

Was like fresh snow meeting lava.

It hissed.

Then melted and vaporized in an instant.

Not even a trace of ash remained.

Space wailed.

That was no figure of speech.

It was a wail in the physical sense.

The Void across tens of thousands of kilometers.

Unable to withstand the impending pull into two dimensions.

Made a teeth-grating sound like shattering glass.

Crack.

Crack.

Pitch-black fractures in space.

Spread from the red light at their center.

Racing wildly in every direction.

Like a spiderweb.

Or a vast net cast by the Death God.

Blue Star.

The Supreme Joint Command Center.

Red warning windows covered every screen.

The piercing alarms threatened to burst everyone's eardrums.

"It's over..."

Yun Ruoxi collapsed to the floor.

The electronic tablet slipped from her hand.

It struck the hard alloy floor.

Its screen cracked into a spiderweb.

She stared blankly at the image overhead.

As a scientist.

She understood what was happening better than anyone.

"It's overloaded..."

"It's abandoned a precision strike..."

"And chosen to self-destruct..."

Yun Ruoxi's voice was hoarse.

Like two rusted sheets of metal scraping together.

"The potential energy released when space drops from three dimensions to two... is immense."

"Once it's released."

"All matter within a light-year."

"Will be annihilated."

Even a single atom.

Would be crushed into a two-dimensional plane.

Despair.

Spread through the crowd like a plague.

A young