Ye Chui’s words struck the Golden King like pure mockery. He scrambled up from the ground, roaring as he charged at Ye Chui. By now in the battle, Ye Chui had already revealed enough power to shock the Golden King deeply. The Golden King refused to believe Ye Chui still had any hidden moves left. He must be bluffing.
In his fury, the Golden King wanted nothing more than to tear Ye Chui apart with his bare hands.
Just as his body was about to reach Ye Chui, another petite figure suddenly flashed in front of him, blocking his path. It was Debbie. She raised one leg in a flying kick pose. The next instant, with a bang, her foot slammed into the Golden King’s forehead.
The Golden King’s body spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees as he flew backward.
Debbie landed, then leaped again with a boom, chasing after him. Her voice echoed faintly on the wind: “This feels amazing.”
Ye Chui’s expression turned somewhat strange as he watched the Golden King, completely powerless to fight back, take a brutal beating from Debbie. Cracks began to spread across the Golden King’s seemingly golden-forged body, as if it were rapidly crumbling. By this point in the battle, more than half of Golden City’s golden warriors had been wounded by the Ultron puppets. The outcome was decided.
“No.”
Ye Chui suddenly sensed something and looked up. In his view, the golden rift in the sky was widening further. A golden fragment world was slowly emerging. The scene resembled the fusion of two worlds, yet it felt far more cold and terrifying. Golden City was about to collide with the Stan world.
Under the powerful divine artefact’s influence, the entire Golden City had transformed into a realm of solid gold, incredibly hard, like a fearsome interstellar warship. If it struck the Stan world directly, the Stan world would surely be reduced to ruins.
This was the Golden King’s ultimate trump card: Divine Domain Descent.
Given the current situation, even if Ye Chui defeated the Golden King and the Golden Legion, he might not be able to stop Golden City’s arrival.
“Mr Ye Chui, this looks troublesome,” Celus said as he walked to Ye Chui’s side, his voice tinged with worry.
Golden City had shifted from illusory to real. Its surface glowed red-hot, like a meteor burning through the atmosphere as it fell toward Earth. Its terrifyingly massive form was hurtling down toward the Stan world. If the two worlds collided, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Ye Chui glanced at Celus and sighed. “Then it seems I have no choice but to use my trump card.”
Trump card?
The Golden King, still being pummelled by Debbie, heard Ye Chui’s words and roared in mocking disbelief. “What trump card could you possibly have left? With the divine artefact’s blessing, Golden City carries the attributes of the Golden God. It will smash the Stan world directly. You cannot stop it.”
“Stop it now,” Debbie demanded, grabbing the Golden King by the neck and lifting him up. Due to the height difference, she had to raise her arm high and stand on tiptoe.
“I cannot stop it. Once Divine Domain Descent is invoked, it cannot be halted. Even if you kill me, you cannot prevent the Stan world’s destruction. Ha ha ha. You brought this on yourselves,” the Golden King shouted, almost hysterically.
“Hmph. Then I will flatten you into a gold pancake first,” Debbie snorted coldly. She flung him away, leaped into the air, caught up with him, and began a merciless barrage with her small fists. At the same time she called out, “Ye Chui, stop standing there. Get on with it.”
Ye Chui had already begun preparations. He applied several high-level magic scrolls to himself, instantly maximising his magic reserves. Then he pulled a card from his pad.
The card depicted a bald man with dead-fish eyes, looking utterly listless.
For the inhabitants of the Stan world, today had been an extraordinarily long day.
When the people from Golden City first appeared, everyone panicked, convinced the Stan world was facing its end. The mysterious Golden City, ranked first among the lower worlds, looked overwhelmingly powerful from their gleaming golden attire alone. They had come with only thirteen people, which only proved their confidence.
Then those thirteen were beaten senseless.
Well, it seemed the Stan world was still quite strong after all.
Soon afterward, however, Golden City deployed the Golden Legion: three hundred golden warriors. The spectacle was blinding. Few had heard of the Golden Legion’s reputation, but the previous twelve golden warriors had already been formidable. A legion of three hundred would multiply that terror exponentially. Many people involuntarily felt doom approaching once more.
Then the Ultron puppets appeared.
The Golden Legion was powerful, but each Ultron puppet could take on five of them, and there were over three hundred puppets. The tide turned again, making every resident’s heart pound wildly.
For the first time, they witnessed the true strength of Ye Chui, Debbie, and the others. Previously, their power had come from magic-modified firearms; with those, anyone could become an expert. Now, seeing Ye Chui thrash the Golden King, Debbie summon the krypton-gold female swordsman, and then shatter the Golden King’s indestructible golden body with her small fists, revealed strength beyond imagination.
On the outer Castro Continent, Ye Chui and his companions stood at the absolute pinnacle. The residents finally understood what that truly meant.
Yet their elation did not last long before a new crisis emerged.
Golden City had been summoned, descending from the sky like a gigantic meteor about to strike the Stan world.
If they collided, the Stan world would instantly become rubble. How could anyone resist such a terrifying threat?
Some people plunged from ecstasy into despair, collapsing to the ground in anguished tears.
Yet more instinctively turned their eyes to Ye Chui. He had already shown them countless miracles. Would he create another one now?
Sure enough, a new miracle appeared.
Accompanied by the rousing BGM of the One-Punch Hero Spirit, a figure in yellow with a bald head materialised in mid-air. He landed, borrowed force from the ground, and with a boom exploded a massive crater. Then, like a cannonball, he shot skyward toward the falling Golden City.
At that moment, every eye was filled with shock.
At that moment, the Golden King was spitting out several golden teeth, his vision clouded with confusion.
A streak of yellow light rose from the ground and collided head-on with the descending Golden City.
Those with sharper eyesight could clearly see the bald man’s fist smash into the falling Golden City.
A ripple of spatial distortion spread through the sky. Time seemed to pause for an instant. Then Golden City shattered.
Yes, shattered.
Golden City was a fragment world, a piece of continental land transformed into gold under the divine artefact’s influence. Every part of it, buildings, ground, even the stones and gravel, was pure gold.
Yet now cracks spiderwebbed across this golden world, like porcelain on the verge of breaking. Every section began to disintegrate under the impact of that single punch.
Golden City, a divine domain blessed by a divine artefact.
The bald hero spirit had destroyed a divine domain with one punch?
“No, no. I must be dreaming. I must be dreaming,” the Golden King cried out in disbelief as his body crashed heavily to the ground, his toothless mouth gaping.
Golden City’s meteoric descent halted under the force of the One-Punch Hero Spirit’s blow.
Was the crisis over?
Ye Chui’s brow remained furrowed.
Though he had summoned Teacher Saitama to stop Golden City’s momentum, that punch had been a serious one with all power unlocked. The One-Punch Hero Spirit was a fictional character, but once summoned by Ye Chui he possessed all the abilities from the fiction, those unreasonably overwhelming powers fully realised in reality.
The One-Punch Hero Spirit’s power attribute was one-punch certain kill.
It was a rule-based attribute guaranteeing severe damage to any target struck. Now that rule applied to Golden City, causing it to begin collapsing and disintegrating.
Golden City had only temporarily stopped falling, but it was breaking apart. It would soon fragment into countless pieces, each carrying meteor-like impact force, turning into a rain of golden meteors about to bombard the Stan world.
The crisis was not resolved. It had grown worse.
“Uh, maybe I should have told Teacher Saitama to hold back a little? That punch seems to have been a bit too strong,” Ye Chui said helplessly, watching Golden City disperse in the sky.
His words struck yet another devastating blow to the Golden King’s psyche.
A divine domain shattered by a single punch?
Golden City’s divine domain had been transformed by that divine artefact. Its power naturally could not compare to the true divine domains created by the gods in ancient times, yet even so it possessed terrifying might. To think there existed a force capable of directly smashing such a fearsome divine domain.
The Golden King now lay in utter misery, his body riddled with cracks and heavily wounded. Yet the deepest injury was to his spirit.
Boom.
The bald man descended from the sky. He looked somewhat bewildered at the disintegrating Golden City, glanced around innocently, then turned to Ye Chui. Scratching his bald head, he gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Oops, I think I hit a little too hard.”
“You did great. We do not need you here for now. You can go,” Ye Chui replied. He had no reason to blame Teacher Saitama. He withdrew the summoning card, and the One-Punch Hero Spirit vanished into thin air.
Then Ye Chui looked back at the sky, frowning as he considered countermeasures. Turtle Treasure’s seal had already been unlocked to three layers. He wondered if she could now deploy a protective barrier strong enough to withstand Golden City’s falling debris.
As he pondered, a flash of white light appeared beside him. Old Merlin materialised at his side, breathing heavily and steadying himself on Ye Chui’s shoulder. “Miras and Kuba have returned from the Mine world. They brought the components needed to operate the divine artefact.”
“They are back already? Perfect,” Ye Chui said, joy lighting his face. The dwarf and elf had returned at the most crucial moment. Hope surged within him. “If we can activate the divine artefact, we might be able to use its power to resist Golden City’s fall.”
With that, he hurriedly teleported with Merlin to Green Forest Square, where the divine artefact was kept.
Debbie continued tirelessly trying to pulverise the Golden King.
The Golden King’s spirit was ashes. He had long abandoned resistance. Hearing Ye Chui and old Merlin’s words, a mocking smile crept across his face. “Operate the divine artefact? Do not dream. The most vital part of a divine artefact is not those magical constructs, but its core Order of God. That is the very foundation of what makes gods divine.”
“Shut up,” Debbie snapped, kicking him in the face to silence him. She grumbled, “Your indestructible golden body is such a nuisance. An unbreakable punching bag.”
The Golden King: “Punching bag?”
Ye Chui and old Merlin quickly teleported to Green Forest Square. Miras and Kuba were waiting there. Ye Chui wasted no time on greetings. He took the data cables from Miras and rushed to the divine artefact’s location.
He pulled out his pad magic book, plugged one end of the cable into the pad, and swiftly connected the other to an interface on the artefact.
The data cables Miras brought closely resembled the ones Ye Chui had redeemed, only thicker and engraved with intricate magical runes. Once the pad linked to the artefact, those runes lit up. Ye Chui took a deep breath and, following Miras’s instructions, activated it.
At that moment, everyone’s faces were filled with nervous anticipation.
Above, Golden City’s disintegration was unmistakable. Small golden fragments had already begun to fall. People could even see golden structures atop the city collapsing.
The golden warriors’ fighting spirit had vanished entirely. They were being soundly thrashed by the Ultron puppets.
The Golden King lay dying on the ground, letting Debbie kick and punch him at will. Yet a mad smile twisted his broken face. He had never imagined his life would end here. Golden City’s dream of returning to the upper worlds was over. Still, perishing together with the Stan world offered him considerable consolation.
Then, at that precise moment.
Ding-dong.
In Green Forest Square, accompanied by a pleasant startup chime, the divine artefact the dwarves had crafted in imitation of Golden City’s was fully activated.
The screen lit up.
The entire process took only a dozen seconds.
Ye Chui even saw a divine script message appear on the screen: You have successfully activated the Order of God – Super God Edition Exclusive to the God of Gods. Activation time: eleven seconds. Congratulations, your startup time has beaten the divine artefact. Note: You have earned the title of Super God Divine Artefact.
Ye Chui stared at the screen, speechless.
