Chapter 258: The Thief
As these Angels collectively sang hymns of prayer to Michael, holy light, visible as fine threads, converged from the wings on their backs towards Michael at the center of the concentric circles.
These Two-winged Angels and Four-Winged Angels were themselves combat puppets created from the power of faith through Paradise Mountain, a divine artifact. The power from their energy cores converged towards Michael.
The thousand-meter-tall Michael had now completely transformed into a ball of light. The twelve pairs of wings of light on his back spread open, covering an increasingly vast area. Beneath the wings of light, over hundreds of miles, white snow fell in abundance.
Looking at the white flames drifting in the sky that could melt metal, and hearing the Angels' prayers echoing in their ears,
Some Kree inside the space fighters looked at the mountain-sized Michael suspended in the air with despairing eyes. Some Pilots with weaker psychological resilience directly pulled out their energy pistols and pulled the trigger against their foreheads.
Ronan the Accuser was so enraged by the sight of his Subordinates committing suicide under pressure that he almost vomited blood. Dragging his body heavily injured by Michael, he returned to the damaged Dark Star and directly used the highest clearance to control the Star Annihilation Cannon inside the Dark Star to enter charging mode.
The Gun Barrel, dozens of meters thick, slowly extended. Inside the high-energy Star Annihilation Cannon's cannon bore, a deathly white radiance faintly flickered.
Michael's massive body, glowing like a Star and enveloping Knowhere, didn't require Ronan, who was personally controlling the Star Annihilation Cannon, to aim deliberately.
As Ronan issued the firing command, the Star Annihilation Cannon, which drained nearly half of the Dark Star's energy source, roared towards Michael.
Unlike the main cannons on ordinary Spaceships and warships, the energy pillar fired by the Star Annihilation Cannon was white, a dead, pale white, like the radiance of withered life.
Half of the Dark Star's energy source was converted into energy representing molecular fission. The destructive power of this energy was ten times greater than that of Earth's largest nuclear bomb, the Tsar Bomba.
Moreover, unlike scattered nuclear bombs, the Star Annihilation Cannon's destructive power was concentrated into a single point. The Star Annihilation Cannon, originally capable of penetrating thousands of kilometers of the Ground and mantle to finally detonate the Earth's core energy, was now aimed at a single person (deity)! The pale fission death ray shot straight out. Along the straight line from the cannon bore to Michael, all the Angels in the way were vaporized into gas by this pale ray.
Michael clearly noticed this pale death ray fired by the Star Annihilation Cannon. He held his left hand horizontally across his chest, and a square shield condensed from holy light appeared in his hand, directly meeting the death ray.
The pale death ray directly struck the shield held by Michael. The rose patterns on the shield's surface instantly burst forth with holy light, faintly forming a phantom of a white holy mountain, which was precisely the six-layered Paradise Mountain opposite Heaven's Gate.
Michael's appearance as recorded in the Bible is holding a shield in one hand and a sword in the other. The shield in his hand is also a divine artifact no less formidable than Mjolnir.
The pale death ray was blocked by the phantom of the white holy mountain, but the continuous decomposition force from the pale death ray constantly pierced through the holy light defenses of the Paradise Mountain phantom. Michael had clearly underestimated the power of the Star Annihilation Cannon. Even in the Kree's Armory, the Star Annihilation Cannon was a great killer weapon second only to the black hole bomb, on par with the anti-matter annihilation cannon.
Even Michael's proud holy shield only resisted the pale death ray for a few breaths of time before being directly pierced through.
The pale death ray struck Michael's body of light. The decomposition force from the pale death ray instantly shattered the holy light that formed his physical body, piercing a hole dozens of meters wide through his archangel true body.
"Pfft!"
Michael spat out a mouthful of golden blood from his mouth. The blood just touched the air of Knowhere and immediately turned into white holy light and dissipated.
"Keep firing!"
Ronan the Accuser, who had succeeded in one attack, had a glint of excitement in his eyes beneath his dark circles. How many years had it been? Since that woman who betrayed the Kree Empire, he hadn't suffered such a great loss.
Ronan touched his faintly aching chest, just as he was about to take action and shatter this birdman in one go.
Before his Dark Star could gather its final energy source, Michael had already reacted. He raised the God of Fire's Sword in his hand, and the holy power of a million surrounding Angels condensed on the blade. A thick holy light pillar swayed towards the horizon, like the staff of that monkey next door that grew and pierced the sky.
Ronan the Accuser looked through the Dark Star's porthole at the Holy Light Mountain Peak, hundreds of meters thick and stretching out of sight, and controlled the Dark Star, wanting to escape.
But as Michael swung the longsword in his right hand, the white holy light pillar crashed down. The Ground cracked open into a Canyon hundreds of meters wide, dozens of meters deep, and stretching for an unknown distance.
With one sword strike, the entire Knowhere seemed to have been given a middle part.
Crack, crack!
Beneath the rock layer of Knowhere, the Celestial Head that had existed for unknown years, under Michael's critical hit, actually cracked open. This crack spread continuously throughout Knowhere with a series of crisp cracking sounds.
"This little fellow is really ruthless. It seems Yahweh is determined to get this lost Paradise Mountain?"
Inside the Castle, the Collector Tivan's light and shadow screen displayed images of the entire Knowhere. Looking at the middle part carved into Knowhere and the continuously cracking Celestial Head.
He said with some regret, "It seems I have to find another Place. This Lost Heaven Continent is a Treasure I found in the Ruins of the Last Universe, a rare Collection Item. It's a pity that other parts were taken first. Little fellow, do you think it's possible for me to get the remaining six layers of Paradise Mountain from Heaven?"
Without waiting for Star-Lord to answer, he stroked his chin, "It's a bit difficult, but not necessarily impossible. This little fellow under Yahweh has offended the Kree and Thanos. I can try to attract the flames of war to the Heaven Dimension..."
The Collector was very pleased. Unlike his brother, the Grandmaster, he didn't like bloody gambling matches and wasn't interested in fighting and killing. The only thing that could attract him was Collection Items.
And his little things, if used properly, could have effects beyond imagination.
Just like this Continent that can manufacture Metal Wingmen, it should be part of a divine artifact, incomplete. After obtaining this incomplete item, the Collector constantly wanted to complete it.
Unfortunately, the other parts of this divine artifact fell into the hands of the Heaven Dimension and became the foundation upon which the Heaven Pantheon expanded. Tivan wanting to obtain this Collection Item would undoubtedly have to go against the strength of a pantheon, but this was definitely not Tivan's style of doing Matters.
However, now!
Through the light screen in front of him, Tivan watched as Michael's sword strike buried dozens of Kree warships, along with the Dark Star and its Cobra Commander, and a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Sometimes, things don't need to be done personally.
The Passage leading to the Collector's Treasury was lined with murals of strange styles. The half-body images of Three-Eyed Beings in the murals turned their heads, and the gemstone-like eyes on their foreheads emitted an invisible psychic energy, scanning the entire Castle back and forth, preventing possible Intruders.
"Turning into such a big guy, such an obvious target, isn't that just asking for a beating?"
Tang Song walked towards the Collection Vault inside the Castle with his hands behind his back, completely uninhibited. He was as strange as a ghost. Not a single detection mural lining the Passage could discover him. Tang Song occasionally reached out to touch the murals on both sides, splitting his attention, his divine sense focused on the situation of the battlefield behind him.
Michael gathered the strength of a million Angels, and one sword strike annihilated most of the Kree Fleet. Ronan the Accuser was also reduced to dust by the sword strike.
But this powerful sword strike was not without price.
Beside him, the nearly million Angels surrounding him and constantly singing hymns had their strength drained by this attack.
Four-Winged Angels devolved into Two-winged Angels, and Two-winged Angels directly dissipated into light rain. Nearly three-quarters of the million Angels were lost in one sword strike. Before Michael could catch his breath, the attack from the Dark Fleet anchored in Outer Space followed closely. "Tsk tsk, one should be low-key! Look at me!"
Tang Song commented on the Angels who were currently in a bitter battle outside, shook his head, and walked through the Collector's magnificent Castle.
Putting aside the decorations, the sheer variety of strange guards inside the Collector's Castle was astonishing. Ordinary decorative paintings hanging on the walls might be divine artifacts with detection magic.
Statues that looked like ordinary sculptures, when scanned by Tang Song's divine sense, faintly showed gears turning inside, and there were also energy fluctuations of some kind of black magic.
Not only that, but the Collector seemed to value the safety of his Collection Items to the extreme. Tang Song detected dozens of mechanisms alone, including black magic, magic, divine art, defense robots, and other protective measures.
However, in front of Tang Song's divine ability, Two Realms Intangibility, none of these protective measures could detect his trace.
"Woo woo!"
Star-Lord's mouth was stuffed with a ball gag, forcing him to listen to the Collector boast about his Collection Items, that Continent that was continuously flying out six-winged Metal Wingmen.
Just as the Collector pointed to the center of the Continent and introduced the principle of manufacturing Metal Wingmen on this Continent, Star-Lord suddenly saw a head peek out beside the Collector, bending down curiously to look at the Continent in the bottle.
Star-Lord was sure he saw it clearly, that shadow was right beside the Collector.
He stared intently at the things in the Collector's hand as if no one else was around.
He was clearly there, even reaching out to touch the bottle in the Collector's hand, but the Collector seemed unable to see the person standing beside him, still chattering endlessly and showing off his Collection Items to him.
This shadow, following Star-Lord's gaze, tilted his head and looked at the Collector.
A playful, strange smile appeared on that handsome face.
He raised a finger to his mouth, making a shushing expression towards Star-Lord.
Then, with light steps, he walked into the Collector's Treasury.
Because he wanted to show off his Collection Items to Star-Lord, Tivan adjusted Star-Lord's sitting posture. At this moment, Star-Lord sat inside the crystal coffin and watched with his own eyes as that creature, who looked very much like a Chinese Earthling, moved through the Collector's Treasury as if no one was around.
He occasionally bent down, seemingly appreciating Tivan's Collection Items very carefully.
Then, his right hand actually reached straight into the transparent display case on the shelf, which looked incredibly sturdy at first glance, as easily as taking bird eggs from a bird's nest, grabbing Tivan the Collector's Collection Items one by one and stuffing them into his wallet.
His flat wallet seemed to be eternally unfillable. In no time, Star-Lord watched with wide eyes as he swept away more than half of Tivan the Collector's Collection Items.
At this moment, the Collector was still immersed in his plan of killing two birds with one stone. He smiled smugly, pursing his lips.
"Thanos, this little fellow's strength is not weak, plus the Kree Empire, even the Heaven Dimension won't get off lightly. When the time comes, I'll follow behind, and maybe I can complete this Paradise Mountain. No, no, it can't be called Paradise Mountain. Knowhere is on the verge of destruction, so this Knowhere Mountain will replace it and become the largest Black Market in the Milky Way Galaxy, collecting Collection Items from the entire Universe for me! Even Collection Items from another Universe, right, little fellow!"
The Collector Tivan laughed wildly with pride: "I am truly brilliant. Truly wise."
Star-Lord looked at the empty shelves behind Tivan, and a strange smile also appeared on his face.
"What are you looking at?! Hmm?" After laughing wildly, the Collector Tivan finally noticed Star-Lord's abnormality. He followed Star-Lord's gaze, and his first reaction was that he was seeing things. He subconsciously rubbed his eyes, then looked again.
Looking at the empty shelves in the Treasury, he almost fainted directly.
"Damn it! There's a thief! Guards, Guards, Guards!"
Amidst the Collector's excited roars, the guards in the Collection Vault finally reacted. They began to patrol everywhere. Some robots activated their detection scanning systems, but after scanning the entire Collection Vault, there was no shadow of the thief anywhere.
At this moment, Tivan, who had recovered from the pain of losing his collection and nearly fainting, finally came to his senses. He gritted his teeth and waved the transparent long rod in his hand.
The end of the long rod flashed with colorful radiance, and then an invisible vibration enveloped the entire Collection Vault.
Tang Song only felt a special frequency vibrating in front of him, which actually forced him out of the crack between the two Dimensions.
Seeing Tang Song reveal his figure, the guards in the Collection Vault finally reacted. Everyone shouted and launched an attack towards him.
Four alien guards, over three meters tall, clad in heavy armor, and resembling gorillas, appeared from somewhere, raising thick high-energy cannons and blasting towards Tang Song.
Behind the gorillas were a dozen Three-Eyed Beings piloting strange-looking armed robots resembling octopuses.
These Three-Eyed Beings sat in the Driver's Cab in the center of the robots, pressing their hands tightly on a transparent blue crystal ball. Visible strong light continuously poured into the blue crystal ball from inside their bodies. These armed robots raised their tentacles and sprayed streams of extremely fine but terrifyingly penetrating psychic energy towards Tang Song.
It was psychic energy impact, not ordinary high-energy light beams.
At the same time, in mid-air, a low engine sound continuously came from all directions above the Collection Vault. Hundreds of armed robots, the size of human heads, rushed out from all sides. They frantically pounced on Tang Song, a sharp, unbearable electronic voice constantly screaming hysterically: "Intruder, Intruder, Eliminate, Eliminate!"
Seeing these chaotic attacks from the Collection Vault about to rush towards Tang Song, "Interesting!" Tang Song just looked curiously at the transparent long rod in Tivan's hand.
Facing the attacks from all directions, he chuckled lightly. His true essence was poured into the two sword pills. Two clusters of white sword light silently rose into the sky with dazzling white radiance.
The fine sword light, carrying a chilling aura, swept across the entire Collection Vault. Silently, robots were split into two, and the Three-Eyed Bald Heads had their three eyes on their foreheads pierced by the thread-like sword light.
As for the ceiling of the Collection Vault, the dense, constantly firing high-energy lasers and deadly ray launchers had already been destroyed by the sword light transformed from the sword pills at the first opportunity.
All the guards rushing towards Tang Song were reduced to dust in the sharpness of the two sword pills.
Even the sturdy Star Stone shelves in the Collection Vault were shattered into fragments by the sword qi of the sword pills.
(end of chapter)