Chapter 55: Asaphis, the Firefly God

Whether it was the high-ranking officials of various nations peering at the sky through all kinds of instruments, or the ordinary citizens who had yet to take refuge and remained exposed to the outside world; whether it was the usually steady and unflappable elders or the vibrant and spirited youths, all wore expressions of utter despair at this moment.

Such a spectacle filled them with boundless terror.

"Could this be the scene of the apocalypse?"
"No!"
"Please, no..."

In this instant, all citizens plunged into panic.

No matter how they struggled, beneath this sickly green sun, their bodies and their spirits were undergoing distortion.

In the command center of the Black Eagle Nation's top brass, someone collapsed limply into a chair, as if their soul had been torn away.

"Good god, why has it come to this?"
"I... I am not resigned..."
"I still possess endless wealth... I still hold supreme power... I still have countless beau—"

Someone muttered to themselves, their tone brimming with unwillingness.

Before their eyes, that sickly green radiance blanketed the entire earth, twisting all things—truly resembling the end of the world. Every bit of this scene struck terror into their hearts.

"Is this time truly the apocalypse?"

Under the shroud of this sickly green light, such a thought arose in the minds of everyone.

"How many people will manage to escape this disaster this time, I wonder?"
"How many will survive to see the end of today?"
"Does humanity still have a future?"
……

Inside the underground conference room of Daxuan:

"Take advantage of the fact that communications have not yet been destroyed to broadcast an announcement to all citizens! Regardless of what the future holds, we must at least let them know."
"Perhaps humanity will not be annihilated in the future; at the very least, someone might be able to record these events."
"Or perhaps this is the end of everything. Letting everyone know the truth at least prevents them from perishing in utter ignorance..."

At this point, the voice suddenly paused.

"Humanity has encountered an unprecedented catastrophe. An unknown entity from the depths of the starry sky has descended. At this critical juncture of life and death, please, everyone, enter the shelters."
"May our Profound Star remain safe and sound, and may humankind endure forever."

As the supreme commander here, Jiang Yu stood up, his voice slightly hoarse.

At this moment, he knew in his heart that this notification might already be too late.

Regardless of whether it was too late, however, the message still had to be sent out.

"Perhaps it can grant a glimmer of survival to more people; perhaps among those people, some will manage to endure."

Such a sliver of hope flickered in Jiang Yu's heart.

The descent of the entity was so incomprehensible that it caught the various factions of the Profound Star entirely off guard. Leaving the nations no room to prepare, they could now only attempt a final, desperate rescue.

Jiang Yu gazed with profound eyes at the sickly green brilliance filling the sky on the screen.

"Have we... truly run out of choices?"

A white-haired elder seated in the primary seat asked softly.

"Indeed..."

Jiang Yu remained silent for a long time before finally speaking.

There was no earth-shattering tremor, no imagined destruction of heaven and earth. They hadn't even managed to see what the entity actually looked like.

Without uttering a word, without making a single move, it merely hovered quietly in the firmament, stripping the Profound Star of any power to resist.

What kind of despair was this? How terrifying was it?

Deep within Jiang Yu's heart, a fierce urge surged. He longed desperately to know what that entity truly was! Otherwise, he would never be able to reconcile himself to this fate.

The entity's posture bore a striking resemblance to a human walking down a path, inadvertently crushing a few ants beneathfoot. To a human, this meant nothing at all; it carried no malice, no deliberate intent. There was only dismissal, inadvertence, indifference, carelessness, and invisibility.

The ants never knew what had befallen them until the moment of their death. They never knew what the darkness obscuring their vision was, nor why such an event had occurred. Ultimately, they would never realize that this was merely an unintentional act, an accidental oversight by a human.

Likewise, in the end, they could never perceive what it was that caused their destruction.

Today, humanity faced the exact same fate.
……

Out in the open world, the green radiance swept across the heavens and the earth, and eerie, murmuring whispers echoed through the skies.

All things were twisting.

The green light, defying all laws of nature, blanketed the entire Profound Star, appearing utterly omnipresent. Wherever the tiniest gap or crevice existed, the green light seeped right in.

At this moment, forget about the houses where citizens lived; even the winding, twisting rat holes were engulfed by the green glow.

In an instant, countless threads of green light intertwined and crisscrossed across the Profound Star, filling the entire sky and saturating every unsealed space.

"I am Asafis, the God of Fireflies!"

Suddenly, a grand and majestic divine voice resounded across the heavens and the earth.

The divine voice pierced straight through every barrier in the world, carrying directly into the ears of every person and echoing even within the consciousness of every living being.

At this moment, regardless of the species, even if language barriers existed, the instant this majestic divine voice rang through the firmament, all living creatures naturally and instinctively understood the meaning of those words.

Simultaneously, they comprehended what that green sun hanging in the firmament truly was.

For a time, across the planet, whoever they might be, everyone felt a wave of inexplicable shock.

"This is a god?"
"Impossible, how could a true god possibly exist?"
"We must believe in science; this has to be fake!"

Someone screamed inwardly, refusing to accept the implications of the divine voice, feeling only that the worldview they had cultivated over a lifetime was shattering to pieces.

"Haha, my god has descended!"
"My god is the master of all things; the majesty of a god brooks no blasphemy!"
"My god is the first to descend upon the Profound Star; the future belongs to us!"

In several extremely remote corners of the Profound Star, several individuals currently wore expressions of fanatical joy.

That wheel of green sun was the entity worshipped by their sect of god-worshippers—the god in their hearts. To them, it represented an incomparable and supreme holiness. In their minds, anyone who offered sincere worship to the god would receive divine grace, bathe in divine radiance, and attain boundless power.

Filled with fanatical zeal, they cast all danger aside.

"O god, please grant us power!"
"I want to become a god, I want to become a god!"
"Supreme and sovereign god, bestow upon me infinite power so that I may make the world revere and worship you!"
"O god, please grant me supreme divine might; I am willing to preach for you among mortals and make your temple the most glorious palace on this planet!"

In their view, as long as they knelt and prayed with utmost piety, the god would sense it, bestow divine oracles, and grant them everything they desired.

At this moment, they had all plunged into a state of madness and excitement.