Chapter 46

Lin Fan moved

Space rippled as Lin Fan's ki flared to life. Before him, the Nova Corps' elite formation gleamed like a constellation of impending violence. Their quantum armor thrummed with starlight energy, each warrior poised for annihilation.

He couldn't afford carelessness.

With a sharp inhalation, Lin Fan snapped his palm forward. Not a grand technique - just a focused Ki Blast, compressed to piercing intensity. The sphere tore through the vacuum, leaving fractal distortions in its wake.

The Nova Centurions reacted with flawless coordination. Their unified counter-barrage lit the void as fifty starlight lances intercepted his attack.

CRACK-SSSSHHHH!

The collision birthed a miniature supernova. Lin Fan's eyes narrowed behind the glare as his Ki Blast shredded through their defenses like monomolecular wire through flesh. The lead Centurions had milliseconds to register failure before-

POP. POP. POP.

Their armored forms burst like overripe fruit, viscera flash-freezing in the vacuum. The survivors scattered, their formation shattered but not broken. Lin Fan felt no triumph - only the prickle of dozens of target locks activating across his skin.

Then the darkness moved.

From the void's edge, the Shi'ar Imperial Fleet emerged like steel ghosts. Not mere warships - planet-crackers. The lead dreadnought's belly yawned open, revealing the pulsating maw of a Star Destroyer Cannon already humming at 97% charge.

Lin Fan's survival instincts shrieked.

He barely raised a ki barrier before the universe turned white.

The beam struck with the fury of a collapsing star. Planets would have wept at such power. His barrier held for exactly 0.3 seconds before failing catastrophically. Then came the pain - not the clean burn of energy, but the quantum unraveling of his very molecules.

When the light died, there was no planet. No debris. Just an expanding cloud of atomic dust where a world had been.

On the Shi'ar flagship's bridge, Deathbird's smirk faltered as the tactical hologram flickered. "Report. Now."

The sensor officer's voice cracked. "Multiple hull breaches in sectors-"

BOOM.

The first explosion tore through a Kree battleship like parchment. Then another. And another. Each dying vessel's death throes illuminated the same impossible figure - pink flesh reforming from cosmic dust, beady eyes burning with terrible understanding.

Lin Fan flexed newly materialized fingers as the last of his cells regenerated. The fleets' frantic distress signals tasted like copper in his mind.

They'd made a fatal mistake.

They'd shown him their best weapon.

Now he'd show them true annihilation.

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