"Hurry, hurry, hurry, we have limited time, the next transport ship will launch in 20 minutes—this planet won't hold much longer!"

"Received communications from the orbital fleet, a 'Giant Divine Soldier' class heavy transport ship will arrive on the surface in half an hour, let's get ready."

"Giant Divine Soldier? Good, I knew the brothers up top were reliable, they've sent this heavy equipment down. Have them land on Highlands C-22... the launch pad? Where the hell is there a launch pad! Didn't we blow them all up ourselves? Let the pilots overcome it, aren't those big shots always bragging that they can do blind landings at Karlosh every day..."

"A rift has appeared in the northeast direction, currently expanding, but it won't reach here for a while."

"Monitor closely—who knows if these 'branches' can really hold."

The urgent and busy communication came through the headset, with retinal projections flickering with orders just issued from the orbital command ship, along with constantly changing coordinates and countdown parameters. Xu Jiali opened the Power Armor mask, and the smell of gunpowder from the battlefield instantly filled his nostrils.

He was standing amidst the ruins of a collapsed temple, where the once magnificent spires and high walls had turned into a smoking heap of debris, while a large area in front of the ruins had become a sturdy alloy square. This square, lightly damaged in the previous battle, was now being used as a temporary assembly point and launch site.

The Marine units evacuating from nearby battle zones were arriving one after another, ready to leave the crumbling planet aboard transport ships or shuttles.

Thick clouds loaded with dust and ash pressed low overhead, disturbed by the energy released during the planetary disintegration. Lightning and flashes of fire played through the clouds, while massive gas columns occasionally erupted from the rifts below, resembling the mythical pillars holding up the sky.

Yet, these sky-supporting pillars were essentially a harbinger of the impending destruction of the heavens and earth.

Further away, several large transport ships were seen ascending from the surface, their engine clusters emitting dazzling light within the dim atmosphere as they accelerated, seemingly igniting the clouds in the sky. Below those ships, the ground began to collapse, with a mountain range vaguely sinking amid the thick mist, creating towering walls of fog along the edges.

Lingdang was beside him, the Jipulo girl who had removed her helmet, her cat-like eyes gleaming with a mix of tension and excitement. She raised her hand with a data terminal on her arm towards the distance while gesturing with her other hand beside the camera, shouting:

"Family, I'm currently on the evil home planet of the Hidden Monastery, this planet is collapsing! Look at that smoky column ahead, the internal gases of the planet are spewing into space! Tap follow, my dear family and friends, Lingdang will later show the inside of the great rift with a drone, tap follow, thank you, meow~"

Lingdang slowly edged to the side while filming and then bumped into Xu Jiali's Power Armor arm without looking.

Xu Jiali's eye twitched: "What are you doing?"

Lingdang's eyes sparkled with excitement: "The Mermaids taught me, you can trade cans through live streaming, meow~"

Xu Jiali's face twitched on the spot, but just as he was about to speak, the spiritual servant in front of him spouted a string of predictions: "Received notice of communication control release, battlefield terminal information transmission restriction level is now at level three, meow. Unit number and specific task information have already been processed, meow. The account has been filed with the United Army, meow. The data upload process is automatically handled by the command AI, so what did you want to say, boss, meow?"

Xu Jiali: "..."

He kept his mouth open for a while, with veins almost popping on his forehead, finally finding a sentence to make himself seem less awkward now: "How did you end up playing with the Mermaids?"

"Went fishing in the valley with Momo, and just happened to catch the Mermaids practicing diving, meow~"

Xu Jiali took a light breath and turned to look behind, pretending nothing had happened.

In the center of the temple ruins, a thick crystal branch broke through the surface from the rock and soil, its brilliant leaves opening at the branch tip, with streams of light spilling from its edge.

Though the underground section of this branch couldn't be seen, Xu Jiali heard from the engineers that radar scans beneath it revealed even more astonishing underground structures—crystal roots intertwining through the strata, extending to depths the radar couldn't detect.

Allegedly, these roots support the stratum around the assembly point, slowing the area's collapse.

There are currently over a hundred such support points on the planet—having grown from underground within a short time following the emergency evacuation order.

Their radiant flow towards the sky and powerful energy fluctuations can be clearly observed from near-Earth orbit.

Heavy footsteps came from beside, clearly not the sound of Power Armor.

Xu Jiali turned around to see a whole unit of Brass Knights crossing the square, accompanied by two Artificial Saintesses at their sides.

But there were other figures behind the knightly procession.

Xu Jiali saw many people clad in gray or black robes, appearing mentally lethargic with numb expressions, bizarre metal devices hanging around their necks or heads, clanking with mechanical noise as they walked, seemingly some kind of shackles.

As they got closer, Xu Jiali suddenly saw those devices were directly "installed" onto these people—the terminal plugs and alloy frames pierced through flesh, nailed to their skulls or spines.

"What's going on here?"

Xu Jiali grabbed a Marine Soldier walking by and asked quietly.

"They said we should take all these Artificial Saintesses and Knights..."

"No, I mean those people in robes."

"Ah, they're the temple slaves—captured by those cultists. When the fighting started, the cultists locked them in cages as spiritual power batteries. When we opened the dungeon, it was full of drained corpses; only these survived..."

The Marine Soldier paused, then continued, "They have Mind Shackles on them. With these on, their thinking becomes very sluggish, and they can't seem to be removed... but the Artificial Saintesses and Knights hope to bring them along."

Xu Jiali was momentarily stunned, his expression complex. He looked towards the Artificial Saintesses and Knights. One Knight turned his head, the hollow helmet dark and devoid of expression.

"...Many of them come from the same place," the Marine Soldier whispered again, "I saw a Saintess kneeling beside a dead temple slave, calling him brother..."

"Damn it... I shouldn't have killed all those Priests at once. I should've spared a couple, to hang them on the engine nozzles when we take off," Xu Jiali cursed under his breath but then asked, "Do the higher-ups know about this situation? Is there still space on the ship?"

"There's still space on the ship, as for the opinion from above..." the Marine Soldier said, glancing up at the crystal "branch" protruding from the ground in the temple ruins, "These Saintesses and Knights are now with that Angel Hunter, and that Angel Hunter is currently at the Earth Core supporting this planet for us—in principle, the transport ship shouldn't take on unexpected passengers, but in principle, he said to bring them all."

Xu Jiali smiled.

"Alright, then take them all."

An unsettling rumble suddenly echoed from deep underground, interrupting their conversation.

Xu Jiali's heart skipped a beat. He instinctively looked off into the distance.

He saw a hillside facing the temple ruins suddenly collapse entirely, with hundreds of astonishing arcs of electricity drawn between the clouds and earth, the energy released by the fractured rock layers. Then a brilliant light spread from the new canyon, briefly illuminating the once-dim sky.

The planet's collapse was accelerating. Even with those Crystal Branches sprouting from the Earth Core slowing the process, the structural stability of the entire crust was nearly at its critical point.

All personnel immediately sped up their boarding process.

Wave after wave of large transport ships ferried through the atmosphere, as ground troops stranded on the Saint Realm's surface and rescued personnel raced against time to leave this planet on the brink of destruction.

An excavated planet shouldn't have such strong gravity, yet the Gate of Eden at the planet's center was like a giant maw of the abyss, continually growing and swallowing up all remaining matter and energy from the planet.

The last transport ship at assembly point 22 in the northern hemisphere lifted off, its engine arrays igniting with a roar as the massive cargo ship ascended into the sky.

Several escort shuttles followed, detaching from the ground which continued to crumble, rising with the cargo ship.

"Oh my..."

Sitting in the shuttle cockpit, Xu Jiali glanced outside. Even after facing countless battlefields, he felt a bit disoriented now.

The assembly point where they had just been standing was enveloped in thick clouds of dust, but outside the assembly point, the spectacle of the planet's collapse was genuinely terrifying.

The entire planet was like a shattered light bulb, disintegrating piece by piece and falling into the central "black hole." Oceans and rivers had long since evaporated; vast icy clouds spewed into space, some caught by the Gate of Eden, plummeting into the planet's depths. As the fractured crust collapsed, he could clearly see the hollow and dark reality inside the Saint Realm—amidst the darkness were many astonishing crystal structures stretching over great distances, supported within the remaining inner crust layer.

These were Crystal Branches sprawling from the Soul Wilderness, piercing through the World Bridge's spatial rifts, propping up the Saint Realm's hollow shell. Those branches piercing through the ground were now repeatedly exposed to the vacuum of the universe, emitting a magnificent and dreamlike radiance.

Even now, some large and small ships continued to lift off from the Saint Realm's surface—the small patches of ground propped up by the Crystal Branches resembled islands in a storm, with the surrounding crust having collapsed and fallen. Only the branch tips still stood like launch pads in space.

Only when a region's ships had completely evacuated would the Crystal Branches supporting that area cut off their energy supply, and then those astonishing crystal structures would silently dissolve into space, the crust fragments they supported plummeting towards the Gate of Eden.

"Boss." Lingdang suddenly poked Xu Jiali's arm, her voice timid.

Xu Jiali's expression was tense, but he still reached out to pat the cat-girl's head: "What's up, kitty?"

"I'm gaining followers so fast, meow."

The large hand patting her head swiftly turned into a playful knuckle rap.

"Meow!"