Objective Achieved

Twelve silver-white pillars of light tore the sky above Furnace Star apart.

They plunged from beyond the atmosphere like spears of divine judgment. The ruins within several kilometers of each impact vanished instantly, leaving twelve bottomless craters rimmed with flowing magma.

Scorching shock waves warped the light, as though space itself groaned beneath their force.

Before the dust had settled, wild, aged laughter erupted from the central crater, carrying a pressure that made hearts quail.

"Hahaha... This is the place! I can smell it—the sweet scent of my comrades' blood and despair!"

Chu Hang hovered above the scorched earth, arms folded across his chest, watching coldly.

Twelve figures rose from the craters.

Every one of them was a burly Viltrumite. Their armor was far finer than that of the previous group, its dark energy glow dense and steady.

The eleven in front each radiated power no weaker than Craig, whom Chu Hang had already defeated.

But Chu Hang's gaze fixed only on the old man at the rear.

He looked to be in his seventies or eighties. Crisscrossing scars covered his weathered face, and a mechanical eye glowing crimson had replaced his left one.

He was almost short by Viltrumite standards, nearly half a head below the soldiers beside him. Yet merely standing there, he made the surrounding space tremble and buckle under the terrifying pressure he radiated.

Conquest.

An imperial war machine who had lived eight hundred years. A legend who had personally erased thirty-seven civilizations from the star charts.

The old man looked down. His mechanical eye swept over the drained remains of the Viltrumite soldiers, its crimson light pausing briefly on every detail.

"Fourteen imperial elites," he said in a rasping voice that betrayed neither anger nor grief, "slaughtered by one man."

Just then, one of the