The Silent King showed no reaction to the Star Gods' scornful mockery.
He was the one who had rebelled against them and crushed them into submission. As the victor, there was no need to heed the words of Star Gods who had failed and lost their freedom.
The half-man lion spoke:
"Silent one, can you not feel it? Your enemy's grasp of the warp has already surpassed yours."
That remark struck directly at the weak point of the Silent King's composure. The green particles flickering in his eyes quivered ever so slightly.
The half-man lion pressed on:
"That energy wave just now—it spanned nearly the entire star domain. It bore the properties of both the material realm and the warp. Were it not for you wrapping your tomb complex within your spirit projection, even you would already have been laid bare before his sight."
The half-man mammoth immediately chimed in:
"Surely you don't believe those fools of yours remained hidden because your arts were superior? No—the boy was clearly luring them closer, setting them up to wipe them all out in a single strike!"
The half-man roc said coldly:
"He has already unfolded a special domain across this entire system. Within it, the warp and the material realm almost completely overlap. That technique far outstrips your crude lurking in the warp."
"Yes, it must consume his psychic reserves at an extreme rate. But you—the mighty Silent King, the Reaper of the Galaxy—surely you don't intend to just cower here and hope to exhaust your foe?"
The half-man mammoth sneered:
"And why not? Have you forgotten how the great Silent King once deceived us?"
"Enough!"
At last the Silent King could no longer restrain himself. A torrent of psychic shockwaves erupted violently outward.
They crashed against the living-metal shells of the three Star Gods, then twisted unnaturally, piercing through the barrier between material space and the warp—striking directly at the Star Gods' spiritual essences within the immaterium.
A savage warp storm detonated inside their souls, battering them as if they were fruit in a blender, nearly shredding them to pieces.
Such an internal warp storm, if unleashed against another spirit projection, would at the very least shatter it—leaving its host's body in the material world brain-dead, or else reduced to madness.
But the three Star Gods betrayed not a flicker of pain. Instead, they laughed in chorus, dripping with mockery.
The half-man mammoth roared with laughter:
"Yes, that's it! Harder! Tear our spirits apart if you can—we'll only regenerate. Don't hold back, use your full strength!"
The half-man roc jeered:
"Pathetic! You need the conductive properties of living metal just to breach the warp's veil. How weak!"
"Look at your foe instead! He requires no medium at all. Within his domain, anyone can pass freely into and out of the warp!"
"Your strategic advantage is gone."
"Even here, in your own spirit-projection stronghold, it matters not. Your enemy can commune with his own projection directly—even across such vast distances! His energy transmission suffers almost no delay, beyond your comprehension!"
"You are finished, Silent One!"
As if to punctuate the roc's prophecy, a pyramid warship beyond the window suddenly erupted in a massive explosion.
Nearly half a corner of the pyramid was blasted apart. Countless fragments of its hull were hurled outward, flung ever faster in all directions by the force of the blast.
In the weightless, dragless void of this desolate star domain, those shards would only grow deadlier with time, their kinetic force increasing geometrically.
And due to the angle of the detonation, a great many of those fragments were now streaking straight toward the tri-linked pyramid tomb.
The green particles in the Silent King's eyes flared violently to their peak.
A surge of dark-green psychic force burst forth, sweeping up to intercept the thousands of incoming shards.
Aboard the Hades, Roya's spirit stirred—he sensed that unique, death-laden psychic wave of the Silent King.
"Perfect timing."
With a thought, the spiritual sense he had already spread across the center of the star domain split into countless fine threads, weaving into a vast net. It expanded swiftly, draping itself over the Silent King's unleashed psychic field.
In sheer volume of psychic power, Roya might not rival the Silent King. But in quality of perception, in the fineness of control—the Silent King could not begin to compare.
All the more so now that Roya had truly grasped the mysteries of the warp. His spirit sense could slip freely between the immaterium and the material world, almost without cost.
His connection to his own projection grew ever tighter, already beginning to display the warp's ability to transcend spatial distance entirely.
Thus Roya faced this foe with full confidence, unafraid of clashing head-on with the Silent King.
The great net of spirit threads descended. The Silent King reacted at once.
But already unsettled by the Star Gods' taunts, his psychic strike had been launched in anger—its control weaker than Roya's refined mastery.
He hastened to reshape his power, to shift it into a form better suited to break through the net.
Yet by then it was too late. The dark-green wave was already completely enveloped by the vast white web, faintly gleaming with golden light.
Its probing tendrils, normally so forceful, suddenly felt trapped in a dead end, unable to extend outward.
The Silent King's heart jolted in alarm. He tried to draw the energy back—but it was like pulling against a mire. The harder he strained, the deeper he sank.
"You wretched child!"
Caught unawares, the Silent King had stumbled into a trap.
With ruthless decisiveness, he severed his connection to that portion of power, amputating it like a mangled limb.
Deprived of its master, the mass of dark-green energy unraveled in an instant, decomposed by Roya's web into pure warp essence.
In this first direct clash, Roya had won a flawless victory.
Fury in the Silent King's heart was instantly drowned by the chill of looming defeat. Fear steadied his mind in an instant.
His thoughts raced:
"So this is why Roya allowed his followers to become entangled with my legions—it was all to sever my retreat!"
"Does he truly believe that a bit of luck, a few scraps of ancient technology stolen from the Old Ones, and some shallow insight into their warp lore are enough to defeat me, the Silent King? How naïve!"
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