Chapter 838 469: Interstellar Corps, Your King Has Returned

One day earlier, at the Masked Ball.

At that time Xue Dili was still fighting the Mimic Venerable King, and just as he had fused the flesh and blood of the Lord of Mist, the Lord of Mist's assault went straight for the Masked Ball, which had always kept itself out of worldly disputes.

No one could have imagined this—that the Masked Ball, base camp of the Void, would become one of the very first targets attacked by the Lord of Mist in the entire Cosmos.

Unlike other factions, the Masked Ball could now be considered absolutely neutral.

As the Void's base camp, these people weren't trying to be clowns for fun; it was that the erosion of the Void forced them to use laughter to resist that corrosion seeping into their bones and souls. Only laughter could fill the Void that was gradually gnawing away at them.

So they gathered together like this, constantly making fun of each other—both to mess with the others, and to keep both themselves and everyone else from sinking into the Void.

If any one of them wanted revenge on the Cosmos, they could hide in some dark corner and turn themselves into a Great Void, and by the time the Interstellar Corps discovered it, the Great Void would probably already be beyond control.

But none of them chose to do that. They neither became a Great Void, nor let their Void corrosion spread to more people. Instead, they shut their doors and amused themselves, never meddling in the affairs of the world.

None of them had long lifespans. Even though Hassan in the past, and Xue Dili now, both had the ability to absorb a portion of the Void's erosion, their lifespans were still at the very bottom tier among the powerhouses of the Cosmos.

Once the Void eroded them past a certain point, there was no saving them. At that time they would usually hold a grand farewell ceremony, and then that member of the Masked Ball would head into Subspace, becoming the purest Great Void, merging completely with the Void.

This was also why Hassan could sense the true body of the Void when he went exploring Subspace.

They had always clung to the idea of "drink while there's wine today"—every extra day they lived was a day earned—letting joy and beautiful memories drown out every future moment of their lives.

So even they hadn't thought they would be attacked.

That day, fleets, Divine Trees, and swarms all descended together, not even bothering with any negotiations, and directly launched long-range bombardment at the Masked Ball's base.

The flames lit up everyone's masks. Perhaps in that moment they understood: many times it's not that you want to be happy and you can be happy. There are plenty of dog-breeds in the Cosmos who just can't stand seeing others live well. They insist that others feel pain, accept pain, endure pain.

You lot who only want your own happiness are fated to clash with those dog-breeds, and even doomed to become their prey.

No matter how much you run, as long as they don't die, the ones who die will be you.

So that day, even though Hassan was gone, even though Xue Dili couldn't be reached because he had fused with the Lord of Mist's flesh and blood, they chose to put on their true masks.

Since the dog-breeds want to play, then let's give them something big to play with!

Let's put on for them the biggest firework show in the entire Cosmos!

A firework called "Void"!

And so, that day, the Masked Ball was completely devoured by a Great Void. The attacking fleets, swarms, Divine Trees, and every unit that came along with them were all torn apart by the Great Void and reduced to dust outside the Cosmos, then cast into Subspace.

The Masked Ball was utterly annihilated within the Cosmos.

But the members of the Masked Ball did not vanish. Instead, they called themselves "Fools," put on their laughing masks, and started making trouble for Apostles all across the Cosmos.

Although each of them was weak in basic stats, as long as they didn't care about their own lives, they could turn into the most troublesome cosmic mega-bombs, instantly summoning those monsters from the Void.

This region here was one of the areas they saved. Even though they'd been very careful to keep the Void's range confined to the Apostles' forces and not affect the Interstellar Corps, it still caused large-scale contamination.

Not only Captain Xing Jia'er—Xue Dili could feel that many others also bore the marks of Void erosion on their bodies.

It was an unsolvable contamination. Even if Xue Dili used Cursed Blood to draw all the pollution out of them, it could only treat the symptoms, not the root. Once you were marked by the Void, you were destined to step into the Void—it was only a matter of time.

That said, Xue Dili had no grounds to blame them. They had already done more than enough, whereas he, the nominal boss, had been tripped up by other issues after the incident. The endless trances of spirit-vision, plus the swarms on Eden Star, had kept him from noticing what was happening here.

All of this was also because the Mimic Venerable King became a God of Order, causing the communications system to fail and leaving people all over the Cosmos unable to contact each other, completely ignorant of the situation on the other side, leading to severe information lag.

Was this also part of the Lord of Mist's plan?

Xue Dili didn't know whether the Lord of Mist had calculated that once the Mimic Venerable King ascended to Godhood it would cripple the Interstellar Corps' communications and create informational delays, thus giving it the confidence to launch a large-scale assault, or if it was simply seizing a convenient opportunity to strike the enemy.

In any case, the first thing he had to do now was restore communications!

At the very least, restore them to a barely functional level, so they wouldn't be running around putting out fires just because of info gaps and intelligence gaps.

After Cursed Blood temporarily treated Captain Xing Jia'er and the other contaminated team members, Xue Dili said directly, "I have a shard of the Mimic Venerable King inside me. The Mimic Venerable King isn't dead yet, but it was forcibly elevated into a New God on par with a Venerable King, which is why all the devices it left behind have failed."