The Bullet Shatters the Pope's Divinity, Leaving Qian Xunji Without an Intact Corpse!

Three inches.

That was the distance between life and death. It was also the final line dividing the Douluo Continent's decaying, ten-thousand-year divine order from the roar of modern industry.

Qian Xunji's handsome face, twisted by utter madness, stood out in every detail on Lin Fan's retina.

The Pope's Holy Sword raised in his hand blazed with level-ninety-five sacred Soul Power, condensed into a terrifying sword beam capable of cleaving a mountain.

Sacred chanting poured from the Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul, sending rings of golden ripples through the air.

This strike represented the absolute pinnacle of supernatural power: the old gods' final judgment upon mortal ants.

Yet Lin Fan neither retreated nor dodged the world-ending sword descending upon his head.

His work clothes, stained with machine oil and coal ash, snapped in the Soul Power storm. In his bloodshot eyes was only the absolute coldness of a tyrant of heavy industry.

He braced the special-steel, man-portable anti-materiel heavy sniper rifle called Twilight of the Gods and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Click!

The crisp, emotionless mechanical sound seemed utterly insignificant amid Qian Xunji's vast sacred chanting.

But in the next instant, that tiny engagement of machinery awakened the demon of physics sleeping deep within the steel!

The firing pin smashed into the primer.

High-purity solid Soul Power crystals and violent Smokeless Powder underwent a chemical reaction that defied this world's understanding, right inside the narrow, sealed chamber!

BOOM—!!!!

A savage roar beyond anything anyone on the continent had imagined erupted, like thunder from the nine heavens exploding inside their eardrums!

A scorching orange-red tongue of flame several meters long burst from the thick muzzle of Twilight of the Gods! Gases heated to over ten thousand degrees expanded and vented wildly!

Under chamber pressure powerful enough to burst inferior metal, the High-Explosive Armor-Piercing Shell—carefully machined from Tier-One Special Steel, wrapped around a dense Tungsten Alloy core, and packed with Yellow High Explosive—raced along the barrel's precisely spiraled rifling and gained a violent spin.

It left the barrel!

Five times the speed of sound!!!

At this distance, what did five times the speed of sound mean?

It meant absolutely no delay. Even the response of light and shadow seemed redundant!

Qian Xunji's Pope's Holy Sword had not descended a single millimeter. The cruelty and arrogance in his eyes had not even had time to freeze when the pointed Tungsten Alloy projectile, trailing a devastating crack through the air, struck the brilliant angel mark squarely between his brows—brutal, cold, and utterly devoid of Soul Power!

That mark symbolized the pope's divinity. It was also the core of Qian Xunji's Soul Power defenses, his most impregnable domain.

But before sheer kinetic energy and mass, even a god had to bleed!

SPLAT—!!!

There was no suspense. No stalemate.

The protective screen of Qian Xunji's Ninth Soul Skill, said to be god-given and impervious to all arts, was as fragile before that spinning Tungsten Alloy projectile as cheap tofu pierced by a red-hot steel needle!

The dark-gold screen failed to hold it back for even a thousandth of a second before shattering like glass!

The projectile tore through everything in its path, savagely pulverized Qian Xunji's brow bone, and drove deep into his brain!

Then, at the instant its kinetic energy reached its peak, the delay fuse inside the Tungsten Alloy projectile triggered precisely within his skull!

BOOM!!!

A devastating chemical explosion erupted inside Qian Xunji's head!

The gale in the great canyon stopped. It seemed as though every sound between heaven and earth had vanished.

Everyone standing before the hall, and everyone beyond the Firmament staring at the scene, saw a shocking cloud of blood-red mist burst above the armored train!

The crown of Qian Xunji's head, which had towered above all others as the emblem of Spirit Hall's supreme authority, along with every trace of supernatural pride, every ambition to rule, and every claim to sacred inviolability inside it, was blasted into red and white fragments by a few dozen grams of explosives and steel!

SCREE—!!!

As Qian Xunji's head burst apart, the Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul towering dozens of meters behind him let out a wretched, mournful cry, as though struck by some unspeakable heavenly punishment.

Its six golden wings, formed from sacred Soul Power, cracked inch by inch. At last they dissolved into golden motes that scattered through the smoke-filled canyon like a sorrowful rain of light mourning a dead god.

A pope of his generation.

A level-ninety-five Titled Douluo at the peak of the Power Attack System.

Dead on the spot, without an intact corpse!

Thud—

Without a head, his body could no longer maintain its godlike stance in midair.

Qian Xunji's mangled, headless corpse, dark-red blood still gushing from its neck, fell like a puppet with its strings cut. It struck the armored train's cold special-steel deck with a dull, lifeless thud.

Warm blood trickled along the seams in the steel, then dripped onto the black Railway Track, where the cold machinery swallowed it without mercy.

A god had fallen.

Executed face-to-face by a mortal with an iron tube!

Both within the Firmament and in the world beyond it, everything fell into a silence as absolute as the collapse of the universe.

The sight struck every supernatural powerhouse across the real continent like a world-ending divine punishment capable of obliterating the soul, smashing mercilessly into their skulls!

Heaven Dou Imperial City.

The imperial capital of Star Luo Empire.

Spirit City.

Every major sect.

Three billion mortals and the Soul Masters who stood above them were all left stunned and breathless, as though hands had closed around their throats.

In the real world, above the giant crater in Tack Town, Fasinuo Province.

Rain still poured down, washing over the muddy earth.

Sword Douluo Chen Xin hovered in midair, staring fixedly at Qian Xunji's gruesome headless corpse within the Firmament.

This level-ninety-six Peak Douluo, renowned for the greatest attacking power under heaven, had spent his life cultivating only the Seven Kill Sword. Yet his straight, pine-like figure now shook like a dying candle in the wind.

"Dead..."

"A level-ninety-five pope... A Six-Winged Angel with his Martial Soul Avatar unleashed..."

Not a trace of color remained in Chen Xin's lips. He looked down at his calloused hands, which had once wielded his sword to cut down countless formidable foes.

Now those hands were spasming violently.

All his life, he had cultivated the sword and regarded cutting through all things as the supreme path of his sword.

He had believed that with enough Soul Power and a pure enough sword intent, no defense in the world could withstand him.

But now his spiritual world—his conviction in the sword, held firm for nearly a century—had utterly collapsed!

"His divinity shattered... Ten thousand years of Meditation Cultivation, and the noble bloodline passed down by the gods..."

Tears of blood welled in Chen Xin's eyes. His voice sounded like a night owl crying blood. "Before that man's machine, before an iron tube hammered out by common rabble... He couldn't even leave behind an intact corpse!!!"

"Then what was the point of my seventy years of bitter training, or this Seven Kill Sword I took such pride in?!"

Pfft—!!!

That utter shattering of his beliefs sent the vast, ocean-like level-ninety-six Soul Power within Chen Xin completely out of control!

His Soul Power flowed backward, tearing wildly at his meridians.

Chen Xin threw back his head and spat a great mouthful of scarlet blood, staining the snow-white robes he had worn with such pride.

Crack—!!!

As Chen Xin's Sword Heart shattered, the Seven Kill Sword Martial Soul in his hand, famed for cutting through anything, gave a mournful cry in the real world. A dark fissure appeared along its blade!

The sword had broken.

A mortal's gunshot had frightened it into breaking across time and space!

"Uncle Jian!" Ning Fengzhi cried, his face white as paper. He desperately channeled the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda to stabilize Chen Xin's injuries, but terror had weakened his own legs so badly that he nearly fell from the sky into the mud below.

And it was not only the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.

Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan and Ghost Douluo Gui Mei, the two elders of Spirit Hall, had lost every shred of a Titled Douluo's dignity.

They did not even dare look at the Firmament again. They clutched their heads and let out despairing whimpers like beasts on the verge of death.

The pope had been killed with a single shot to the head. What were ordinary Titled Douluo like them before that demon called Lin Fan?!

The real world's entire supernatural order began a complete collapse the instant Qian Xunji's head exploded!

Meanwhile, within the Firmament's time and space.

The wind swept through the great canyon, finally dispersing the acrid gunsmoke. Sunlight broke through the heavy clouds and fell in patches across the steel ruins of Thunderclap Arsenal Base.

Aboard the armored train, Lin Fan set the hot Twilight of the Gods anti-materiel sniper rifle against the edge of the turret. Its fearsome recoil had left the entire right side of his body temporarily numb.

Unconcerned, he shook out his arm and wiped a drop of the pope's blood from his cheek with the back of his filthy hand. Then he looked down coldly at Qian Xunji's headless corpse by his feet.

There was no reverence on his face, nor any wild joy. Only the disgust and relief of a hardcore player who had finally cleared a level.

"Phew... Fuck, that lousy final boss is finally down."

"Pope or not, pile on as much armor as you want. One shot still blows you apart."

Just as Lin Fan exhaled a cloud of smoke, the system interface on his retina began flashing dazzling golden notices across its Holographic Screen like a waterfall!

[Ding! Warning! Extremely lethal strike confirmed!]

[You have accomplished humanity's first great feat of slaying a ruler and killing a god! The enemy's supreme commander—Pope Qian Xunji—has fallen!]

[Enemy morale has completely collapsed! Spirit Hall's punitive army is fleeing on all fronts!]

[Congratulations, host! The new mortal army of Thunderclap Arsenal Base has won a great victory!]

[Volume One's main epic quest: Surviving the Wilderness—completion: 100%!]

[The game's first campaign has officially ended in triumph! The industrial Core Flame has been fully kindled!]

[Connecting to data across all planes... Calculating the total votes for the two worlds' endings...]

Seeing the screen filled with glittering golden declarations of victory, and hearing the two thousand mortal youths who had survived below the canyon erupt in cheers loud enough to overturn the mountains, Lin Fan grinned broadly.

He kicked Qian Xunji's headless corpse aside without a thought. Then he climbed to the top of the train, raised the sword in his hand, and gave the mortal recruits spread across the hills the most stirring final order of Volume One:

"Brothers! The defensive battle is over! We survived!"

"Those gods who lord it over us are just hunks of rotten meat two tubes can take care of! Clean up the battlefield! Confiscate every Storage Soul Tool those Soul Masters carried and put it toward our war funds!"

"Fire up every Blast Furnace! Keep those lathes turning!"

Lin Fan's voice rang through the open canyon like the morning bell of a new age. "The age of Muzzle-Loading Cannons is over! Next, we build tanks! We build airplanes! We build Matrix Artillery! The age of us mortals has finally, truly arrived!!!"

"Long live the Sage!!! Long live truth!!!"

Within the Firmament, thousands of mortal youths raised their hot bolt-action rifles and fired into the sky!

Their deafening gunfire joined into a flood of steel, crushing the old gods' elegy beneath it.

And that fervent faith passed through the Firmament without restraint, sweeping across the real world like a tsunami!

The Heaven Dou Empire, the Star Luo Empire, Fasinuo Province.

Across the continent, oppressed rebels, blacksmiths, and refugees watched the Sage on the screen: a man in plain clothes, holding a sniper rifle in one hand and standing over the pope's corpse.

They felt no fear. Instead, a religious fervor hotter than the sun blazed in their eyes!

"Gods can die! The Sage killed a god!"

"With steel! With gunpowder! That's the power of us mortals!"

"Overthrow the nobles! Overthrow the Soul Masters! Charge!!!"

RUMBLE—!!!

If the earlier commoners' riots had been sparks, then the instant Qian Xunji's head exploded, the commoners' revolution sweeping the continent became a wildfire!

Countless mortals armed with crude iron tubes and farming tools no longer feared Soul Skills. They surged like a tide toward the nobles' estates and Spirit Hall's branch halls.

They shouted Lin Fan's name and threw their own bodies and crude firearms against the tottering iron curtain of the old age!

Atop the imperial prison in Heaven Dou Imperial City.

Xue Ye looked out at his empire beyond the walls, ablaze and as uncontrollable as boiling water. At last, the formidable emperor could bear no more. His knees buckled, and he fell heavily onto the cold city bricks.

He watched Lin Fan on the Firmament, smiling as he told commoners to "build tanks and airplanes." His face was utterly ashen.

The ten-thousand-year foundations of the Two Great Empires.

The iron curtain protecting the Soul Masters' exalted status.

After Lin Fan fired that shot, at the instant the special Tungsten Alloy projectile pierced the pope's skull, they had utterly and finally begun to collapse!

And a god's ruined corpse marked the most savage, bloodiest, most staggering end of all!