For the first time, Lin Feng's gaze, those eyes that contained the birth and death of stars and the eternal void, truly fell upon Alice Moon Song.

"Avengers?" Lin Feng repeated the three words with amusement, his voice not loud, but clearly drowning out the heartbeats of everyone in the palace.

He slowly rose from the throne, and that seemingly casual movement caused a momentary, nauseating distortion of the spatial laws within the entire "Heavenly Throne" palace. General Qin Yue and the others felt as if their internal organs had been gripped and roughly squeezed by an invisible hand, nearly causing them to collapse on the spot.

Lin Feng ignored them. He took a step forward, his figure disregarding spatial distance, and appeared directly in front of Alice, who was lying on the ground.

He leaned slightly forward and extended a finger. That finger was long and perfect, like a work of art sculpted by a master craftsman, yet it carried a chill that could freeze the soul.

"Your revenge," he asked softly, like a patient teacher questioning an innocent student, "is it based on what? Is it based on your weak, long-extinct faith in the moon goddess? Or is it based on the so-called 'elven magic' in your hands, which cannot even pierce my skin?"

His finger gently touched Alice's forehead.

In that instant, Alice felt as if her soul had been ripped from her body. The world before her shattered with a deafening crash. No longer was it a magnificent palace, but an endless, pitch-black void. And before her, Lin Feng's figure had become enormous, like a nebula giant spanning the entire universe.

"Let me tell you what power is." Lin Feng's voice resounded directly in her soul.

He reached out his hand and gently clenched it in the air.

"Buzz!"

A beautiful, azure planet materialized in the void. Alice recognized it; it was her homeland, the land of holy light five years ago, untouched by war. She could see Silvermoon Forest, Sky City, Ironforge, and even the Temple of the Moon where she had once prayed.

"This is your world, it's beautiful, isn't it?" Lin Feng's tone carried a hint of cruel tenderness. "It operates according to its own laws. There is gravity, there is time, there is the cycle of life."

Then, he gently blew a breath toward that beautiful planet.

That breath transformed into an invisible, conceptual storm of telekinetic energy.

Alice witnessed the most terrifying sight of her life. The planet's gravitational laws were instantly reversed. Mountains, rivers, cities, and forests were torn from the earth's surface and sent flying into the sky by an irresistible force. The oceans evaporated instantly, like boiling water, revealing dry, cracked seabeds. The planet's core was forcibly extinguished, and in a mere second, the entire world transformed from a vibrant, green planet into a cold, lifeless gray rock.

“Now, it’s dead.” Lin Feng’s voice was calm and undisturbed. “I only need a thought, a thought simpler than breathing. That is my power.”

The illusion vanished, and Alice snapped back to reality. She was breathing heavily, her body drenched in cold sweat, as if she had truly experienced the destruction of the world.

"No...no..." she shook her head in despair.

“Look, your sorrow, your hatred, even the existence and destruction of your entire civilization, are meaningless to me.” Lin Feng withdrew his hand and looked down at her. “The reason I’m still letting you live and let you stand here is not because I’m merciful, but because… your song just now and your overconfident look stirred a ripple in my stagnant heart.”

He paused, a cold smile curving his lips.

"So, as a reward for pleasing me, I've decided to give you a 'chance'."

He turned around and glanced at General Qin Yue, who was kneeling on the ground, pale with fright.

"Qin Yue".

"Your subject... Your subject is here!" Qin Yue's voice trembled uncontrollably.

“This ‘work of art’ is mine from now on,” Lin Feng said calmly.

Then he looked at Alice and announced his "reward" to her: "From this day forward, you will become my personal handmaiden. You will live on my 'Heavenly Throne' and witness my life, my power, and how ridiculous your so-called 'revenge' is."

"You will watch your hope being crushed bit by bit. You will watch your will being worn down day by day. Until one day, you will fully understand that the difference between you and me is not the difference between a mortal and an emperor, but the difference between dust and the universe."

“At that time,” his voice was like a devil’s whisper, “you may become my most perfect collection—a beautiful soul with a heart full of vengeance, yet forever begging to my mercy.”

Having said that, he looked away from everyone, turned around, and walked back to his throne, step by step.

The entire palace was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Everyone was deeply shocked by the emperor's unpredictable methods and his ruthless, manipulative cruelty. The way they looked at Alice was no longer envy, but filled with pity and fear.

They knew that for this elf, death might be the merciful release. What she would face next was an endless mental torment, a thousand times more despairing than hell itself.

"Resource Zone Seven" is located on the edge of the New Chengtian Continent. This area, once a fertile plain, has now been transformed into a vast industrial wasteland. Thousands of towering "material conversion towers" ceaselessly spew out thick black smoke day and night. The air is perpetually filled with a pungent odor—a mixture of metal, machine oil, and chemical reagents.

This is where the Empire processes "D-level labor resources".

Tens of millions of humans who survived from the Land of Holy Light were concentrated here. Like cogs in a machine, they were assigned to various assembly lines, performing the most arduous, dangerous, and utterly unskilled jobs.

Irelia is one of these tens of millions of "parts". Her number is "hU-".

Five years ago, when the Empire invaded, she was only twelve years old. She watched as her parents were torn to shreds by a laughing lesser demon. Her brother, a young apprentice knight, raised his fragile longsword to protect her and charged at a dinosaur, only to be smashed into a bloody pulp by a single claw.

It was her brother who pushed her into a dry well at the last moment, which saved her life.

But sometimes, surviving is more painful than dying.

She was found by the Empire's "Population Resources Census and Allocation Force" and, along with other survivors, was transported to this dark and gloomy place.

Five years have passed, and she has grown from a frail girl into a seventeen-year-old woman. But her eyes no longer resemble those of a young girl; they are those of an old woman who has long since seen through life and death—numb, empty, and devoid of any light.

Her daily work involves working sixteen hours a day on a massive "mineral sorting assembly line." Under the glaring bright lights, she uses the naked eye to distinguish, from the conveyor belt, the trace amounts of rare elements mixed in with the ore that the automated machinery cannot identify.

This kind of work is extremely tedious and causes enormous, irreversible damage to eyesight. Many of the workers who came with her had already been sent to the "organic matter decomposition center" as "defective products" due to their failing eyesight.

Irelia has survived until now only because she is silent enough, numb enough, and also... lucky enough.

Today, as usual, she dragged her tired body off the assembly line under the watchful eye of the supervising robot. She received her food for the day—a piece of sour, grayish-green nutritional paste.

She walked to a corner of the dormitory area, curled up, and nibbled on the piece of food that was worse than pig feed.

Just then, a figure even smaller than her approached. It was a little boy of only seven or eight years old named Thomas. His parents had both died on the assembly line. It was Irelia and a few other coworkers who still retained a shred of humanity who secretly shared some of their food with him, allowing him to barely survive until now.

“Sister Irelia…” Thomas said timidly, looking at the nutritional paste in her hand and licking his chapped lips.

Irelia's heart skipped a beat.

She looked into Thomas's eyes, which appeared unusually large due to long-term malnutrition. In those eyes, a glimmer of something she had long since lost remained—hope.

She remained silent, broke off a large portion of the already meager amount of nutritional paste from her hand, and handed it to Thomas.

"Eat quickly, don't let the foreman see," she whispered.

Thomas took the nutritional paste and wolfed it down, stuffing it into his mouth.

Seeing him like that, Irelia's heart, which had long been numb, felt as if it had been gently pricked by something.

Why……

Why do we live this kind of life?

Why are those executioners who destroyed our homes allowed to stand high above us, while we, the survivors, are forced to live like insects in this gutter?

Has that "light" that protected us for thousands of years truly disappeared completely?

Just then, a slight commotion arose not far away.

Irelia looked up and saw several Imperial guards roughly dragging an elderly man with white hair.

The old man, Irelia knew him. His name was Jacob, and he used to be the kindest priest in the church in her hometown.

"Let me go! You lackeys of the devil!" Father Jacob, though physically weak, still spoke with great power. "You can imprison our bodies, but you can never imprison our faith in the light!"

"Shut up, you old bastard!" A security guard slammed his rifle butt into the man's back.

Father Jacob groaned and collapsed to the ground. But he still struggled and pulled something from his pocket.

It was a holy emblem, long since tattered and dimmed.

"Light...is with us..." he murmured, his voice growing weaker and weaker.

Irelia's heart was gripped tightly.

She remembered that when she was a child, this same kind old priest would stroke her head and tell her, "Child, no matter how dark the darkness, never give up hope. Because the light is in the heart of each of us."

However, reality is so cruel.

The security guard snatched the badge, threw it contemptuously on the ground, and crushed it under his feet.

"Light? Your false god, along with his light, was crushed long ago by our great Emperor like an insect! Hahaha!"

The surrounding workers all lowered their heads, daring not to speak out against their anger.

However, at that moment, the smallest and most inconspicuous Thomas suddenly picked up a stone from the ground and, with all his might, threw it at the sheriff who was desecrating the emblem.

“You’re not allowed to…bully Grandpa Jacob!” he cried out.

Everyone was stunned.

The security guard paused for a moment, then a sinister smile appeared on his face.

"Oh, there's another fearless little bastard here?"

He raised the particle rifle in his hand and aimed it at the seven-year-old child.

"No!"

Irelia's pupils suddenly contracted.

In that instant, she seemed to see again the moment five years ago when her brother raised his longsword and charged towards the Deinonychus.

No!

don't want!

I can't stand by and watch any longer!

A force, which she herself did not know where it came from, suddenly erupted from the depths of her heart.

"stop!"

She screamed and lunged forward, standing in front of Thomas.

Time seemed to slow down at that moment.

She could clearly see the cruel smile on the guard's face. She could see the deadly energy flashing from the dark muzzle of his gun.

Am I going to die?

That's good... that way, I won't have to suffer anymore...

However, the expected excruciating pain of being pierced by the energy beam did not come.

"Buzz..."

Suddenly, a warm, soft, golden light burst forth from her chest.

The light was not dazzling, yet it possessed an indescribable, sacred majesty. The energy beams fired from the particle rifles, upon contact with this light, vanished silently, like ice and snow melting away.

Everyone was stunned. Including the security guard who fired the shot, and even Irelia herself, who was standing in front of him.

Irelia lowered her head, staring incredulously at her chest.

The source of that golden light was a small, wooden pendant that she always kept close to her body, hidden inside her clothes.

It was carved by her brother himself for her tenth birthday. The pendant was shaped like a small, rough sun. Her brother smiled and said to her, "Irelia, from now on, I will be your knight, your sun, and I will protect you forever."

At this moment, this wooden carving, which carries the brother's last will to protect, is radiating a warm and magnificent light that even the real sun pales in comparison.

Father Jacob struggled to lift his head, and when he saw the golden light, a burst of frenzied, unbelievable tears instantly erupted from his cloudy eyes.

“Holy…Holy Power…” he trembled, reaching out and pointing at Irelia, “It’s Holy Power! The Light has not abandoned us! It…it has chosen a new successor!”