Falling—endlessly.
Bang!!
The two of them slammed hard onto a pitch-black stretch of ground.
The surface was unnaturally solid, jarring their bodies with dull aches and leaving their heads spinning.
“Haa… Where are we?”
Alban shook his head and straightened up, eyes sharp and alert as he surveyed their surroundings.
Everything around them—the roads, the buildings—was made of jet-black stone.
Sani, wincing as he sucked in a breath, joined Alban as they began to wander aimlessly.
Oddly enough, there was no visible light source, and yet… they could clearly make out every detail around them.
They had landed on a path.
Looking more closely, the ground beneath their feet was paved from irregular, pitch-dark stones, crudely stacked together.
On either side of the path stood buildings of uneven height—houses, perhaps—also made from that same bleak stone.
The silence was suffocating.
Only the sound of their own footsteps echoed faintly across the massive expanse, stretching out in all directions, vast and oppressive.
The road itself was extremely wide—at least a hundred meters across. But to beings like them, that distance was crossed in just a few strides.
Choosing a house in the center of the street, Alban stepped forward and knocked firmly on the stone door.
“Is anyone there?” he called out.
He knocked again. “If there’s no response, I’m going to open it.”
Still, no answer.
Sani narrowed his eyes, clenched his fist, and drove it into the stone door with a heavy blow.
Bang!!
A faint vortex of air spread out from the impact.
But the stone door didn’t so much as tremble. Not even a hairline crack appeared.
“Tch—what is this, harder than forged steel?” Sani muttered, shaking his hand in disbelief.
Clang ———
Suddenly, a narrow window beside the stone door creaked open. Within it appeared half of a translucent, jet-black figure.
Alban immediately stepped forward and spoke politely. “Excuse me—can you tell us where we are?”
The figure’s face was a void of pure darkness, indistinct save for two hollow, unlit eye sockets.
“Go… Open…”
A stiff, bone-chilling voice echoed directly inside their minds. It wasn’t a language either of them recognized—yet they understood it perfectly.
Sani frowned. “This… this isn’t language. It’s like… direct communication, mind-to-mind.”
By the time he turned back toward the window, the eerie figure had already vanished.
“Wait—hey! …Ugh, forget it.”
Seeing how unwelcoming their host was, Alban didn’t bother knocking again. He turned away and continued walking down the blackened street.
Sani sighed and followed him.
But now, the silence had changed.
Without warning, strangers—human in appearance—began falling from the sky with heavy thuds, landing sporadically across the ground.
Alban and Sani moved closer to investigate, trying to communicate, hoping for some kind of clue about this strange place.
But every one of these newcomers merely muttered senselessly, eyes blank, as though trapped in their own isolated worlds. No one responded to any question.
Slap!
Sani struck a middle-aged man across the face. The man let out a soft cry of “Pain,” then went right back to murmuring to himself.
“This place is insane. How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?” he sighed in frustration.
Suddenly—
Hum ———
The ground beneath them began to shift.
The entire path tilted, like an enormous seesaw—one side rising, the other dipping low.
At the same time, inexplicable gusts of wind erupted from nowhere.
Alban and Sani moved swiftly, anchoring their bodies with just a slight shift of their stance. They remained steady.
The others weren’t so lucky.
The blank-eyed people were immediately swept up, spiraling helplessly downward.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!!
The wind roared louder, and the tilt of the road continued to increase, growing more and more severe.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Time passed, and the path’s incline reached nearly fifty degrees. The winds were now so strong they could have torn ordinary people off the ground entirely.
More bodies fell from the sky—more strange, monstrous things alongside them.
There were shark-like beasts bristling with sharp, oversized ears.
There were giant locusts with human legs sticking out from both front and back.
There were six-legged wolfhounds, their bodies clad in shimmering fish scales.
There were four-winged birds, beakless, with gaping crimson flesh-holes where their faces should have been.
And there were even grotesque spiders, with more than ten elderly women’s heads sprouting like tumors from their backs.
The aura these beings radiated was oppressive—even dangerous, even for Alban and Sani.
As the moments ticked by, the street became increasingly choked with these nightmarish lifeforms.
Out of caution, the two had long since leapt onto the edge of a partially collapsed residence wall, pressing their backs to the stone and remaining still—watching.
Hum ———
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!!
The road was now tilted like a black cliff face, winds howling with violent intensity. It was enough to shred anything unanchored.
People and monsters alike were slipping, being dragged downward—toward that unknowable abyss below the street.
By now, Alban and Sani were nearly vertical, clinging to the wall. Their eyes stayed locked on the street, now a yawning black chasm.
It stretched far below, veiled in a thick, clinging mist.
Even with their extraordinary vision, they could see nothing clearly.
But what they could feel—deep in their minds—was a mounting, bone-deep sense of danger.
Thud thud thud thud!!
Just then, the path quaked again—tilting sharply to a 70-degree angle!
The wind roared to new extremes, lashing against their skin with such force that even the two of them felt a burning sting.
Screams rang out as weaker creatures were caught in the violent gusts, shredded into pulp and torn flesh midair, then hurled downward like ragdolls.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh ——
Ding ding ding ding ding!!!
Crouched tightly in a ruined corner of the crumbling room, the two curled into themselves, enduring the gale while frantically searching for a way out.
But beneath them, the stone floor—cracked open.
Alban and Sani’s expressions froze. They exchanged a horrified glance.
“No way?!”
Boom!!
The abandoned residence gave way all at once, crumbling into a cascade of jet-black stone. The two were dragged into the abyss, plunging at breakneck speed.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!!
As they fell, Alban twisted his body midair, then kicked downward with crushing force.
The air exploded beneath him—
Bang!
The now-hardened cliff road vibrated with a deep rumble. Chaotic wind burst outward, scattering the strange beasts tumbling with them even farther afield.
Using the rebound, Alban forcefully burrowed a few meters forward. One hand gripped Sani tightly, the other clawing into the jagged exterior of a collapsed stone wall.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh!!
The maddened winds howled with no end in sight. Above them, humans and monsters alike were swept down screaming—slamming into stone pillars, limbs torn off on impact.
Others were dragged along jagged walls, ground to a smear of blood and shredded flesh, splattering gore across the stones.
Splurt...
Crunch...
Bang bang bang...
The scene was an open slaughterhouse—blood spraying, limbs scattering, bones cracking.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh!!
The storm raged on. But within a shattered ruin, Alban and Sani—barely clinging to shelter—noticed something: the wind… was weakening.
It would soon end.
Sure enough, moments later, the gale died down, and the black cliff path gradually tilted back to its normal angle.
Then—click—countless stone doors lining the path swung open in eerie unison.
From within, hundreds of thousands of jet-black figures emerged.
They moved like shoppers in a butcher’s market, calmly inspecting the bloody remains strewn across the street.
Some picked up large chunks of flesh and carried them back into their homes.
Others squatted or sat right where they were, gnawing and tearing raw meat off shattered torsos.
The long, silent path—freshly washed in blood—reeked of a suffocating, almost human-like stench.
But strangely, it wasn’t only red.
Because compared to humans, the strange, nameless creatures had died in even greater numbers.
Suck, suck, suck —
The air was filled with grotesque slurping sounds.
Across the ground, the broken walls, even the very stone houses—blood of all colors was vanishing rapidly, as though everything had opened its mouth to drink.
Mumble mumble...
Chomp chomp...
The street echoed with nauseating chewing, sending chills down the spine.
Every slick-faced figure split open a jaw lined with jagged white teeth, ravenously devouring the bones and flesh clutched in their hands.
The entire scene was like a mural from hell—demons feasting in a pit of the damned.
Alban and Sani turned away, faces grim.
Without a word, they broke into a sprint down the path, hoping to make use of this brief lull.
Whoosh —
Whoosh —
Like arrows loosed from a bow, the two shot past hundreds of hunched figures still gnawing on corpses.
The wind howled behind them as they charged forward. The further they ran, the sparser the buildings became. The black figures also thinned, now appearing only occasionally.
With each powerful step, they soared dozens of meters. At full sprint, they could cover kilometers within minutes.
Even so, it took them a full ten minutes of nonstop sprinting to reach the path’s end.
The distance was likely tens of kilometers.
Finally, they arrived.
The area to either side still looked much the same.
But what greeted them ahead was completely different.
At the path’s end yawned an enormous pit—so vast its edges were lost to sight.
It was like the edge of the world, a black, bottomless chasm that consumed all vision.
Behind them stretched the winding, nightmare-filled road.
Ahead was a pit filled with unspoken horrors.
Faint mist wafted from its depths—like some infernal lava realm was endlessly boiling beneath.
The air grew thick with shadowy vapor. Even with their enhanced vision, they couldn’t see what lay beyond.
And as they stood at the pit’s edge—they felt it.
An invisible malice.
Subtle, yet stabbing into their minds like needles.
The longer they lingered, the heavier it pressed, suffocating their thoughts and weighing down their spirits.
Unable to endure it, they turned back, heading again toward the path.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
But then, a voice echoed directly in their minds.
Seraphine’s voice.
“Do not lose hope. If you wish to leave this place and return to the human world—this pit is your only path.”
“Huh?!”
It was Her Highness—her spiritual imprint!
Joy flickered in their eyes.
For the first time, it felt like they had a leader again—someone to guide them. The fear in their hearts faded instantly.
As if sensing their thoughts, Seraphine’s voice came again:
“The Sentience Realm is unstable. If I intervene directly, it will only get worse. You must escape on your own.
Just like the fiery carriage and the banquet hall, this path may be another similar structure.
And this pit—it’s likely the mouth.
Nothing enters without a way to leave. I suspect that after each ‘feast,’ this pit will ‘exhale.’
That exhale should be a burst of intense airflow—strong enough to carry you out.
When the time comes, I will detonate 99% of the spiritual imprints within both of you, shielding your bodies as you plunge into the surge.
Based on what I’ve learned so far, that airflow should carry you back to the previous layer of the Sentience Realm—a dimension one step closer to reality.”
“All you need to do now… is wait.
Wait for the path’s next ‘meal.’”
The voice faded into silence.
Alban and Sani exchanged a look, then turned and began scouting for relatively sturdy buildings that might offer shelter when the time came.
Time slipped by quickly.
Several hours later, the black stone path began to slowly tilt upward again.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Countless grotesque creatures slammed violently onto the hard pavement. Before they could even steady themselves, violent gales howled down from above.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh ——
The wind intensified, lashing against the creatures with terrifying force and sweeping them down the increasingly steep street.
"Ahhh..."
"Oof—!"
Thud, thud, thud—
One after another, creatures lost their balance and went tumbling down the slope, crashing, scraping, and splattering along the way. Many were shredded into ribbons of flesh long before they ever reached the bottom.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh ——
And at the end of the road, the scene had become truly apocalyptic.
A mountain of mangled limbs and broken bodies tumbled downward in waves, rivers of blood pouring in their wake.
And waiting below—
Was the massive black pit, devouring it all with terrifying greed.
Gulp gulp gulp gulp ——
The deafening sound of sucking, like a thousand vacuums tearing the air apart, echoed from all directions, threatening to rupture eardrums.
As more and more “food” flooded into the pit, its excitement seemed to infect the entire landscape—causing the road itself to sway and tremble.
Clatter clatter clatter clatter ——
Harsh grinding noises cracked through the air, like boulders being crushed under unseen forces.
Then, suddenly—
As if it had reached its limit, the pit ceased its inhaling. Its body convulsed and coiled inward like something about to vomit.
Bang! Bang!
In that instant, Alban and Sani sprang from the empty stone house they’d been hiding in and raced toward the edge of the pit.
Upon arrival, they discovered that the thick fog that had previously blanketed the pit had now completely dissipated.
Only now could they truly grasp the pit’s staggering scale.
Its diameter was vastly larger than the entire length of the black stone path—and not just by a little. The difference was enormous.
But what truly shook them was what surrounded it.
The black stone path... wasn't the only one.
On the far, far opposite side of the pit—barely visible in the distance—and on the far left and right sides as well, three other paths extended outward.
Four in total.
These four paths formed a perfect cross, each emerging from the abyss at precisely 90-degree angles from one another.
In that moment, a vivid image took shape in their minds:
An infinitely vast, blackened wasteland.
Four black stone roads, each stretching tens or even hundreds of kilometers long, locked in place like ancient arms wrapped around a bottomless, circular void.
Together, they formed a symmetrical cross, with the enormous abyss at its center—like a monstrous heart that everything revolved around.
The entire scene was eerie, surreal—utterly alien.
Alban’s voice cracked slightly as he shook his head and muttered:
"This place is... unbelievably strange."
Beside him, Sani’s face hardened. He cut in sharply, “It’s about to blow. Get ready!”
Alban’s expression tensed in an instant, his vital energy beginning to surge.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh —
The pit gradually fell silent, yet beneath the surface, a tremendous force continued to brew and swell — like the suffocating stillness before a volcanic eruption.
Then suddenly, Seraphine’s voice rang directly in their minds — soft, yet urgent:
“Jump!!”
Without hesitation, the two men widened their eyes, grit their teeth, and launched themselves with full force into the air above the pit.
Bang!!
Two deep craters, each half a meter wide, burst open where they had stood.
Whoosh—
Whoosh—
Like twin bolts of lightning, Alban and Sani soared two hundred meters into the air, arcing above the edge of the pit.
And then—
BOOM!!!
As if ten thousand thunderclaps had detonated all at once.
From the depths of the abyss erupted a colossal torrent of murky grey gas, its radius stretching over ten miles wide.
Rumble rumble rumble!
A violent, unstoppable current surged toward them mid-air, howling like a beast.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A brilliant flash—both men were instantly shrouded in luminous armor-like shields of radiant white-gold light, erupting from their bodies.
Bang!
The torrent slammed into the radiant shields with terrifying force, gnawing at them fiercely, yet pushing the two higher and higher into the sky.
The golden-white light made no attempt to resist. Instead, it flowed and adjusted gently, gradually allowing the two to merge seamlessly into the rising gaseous stream.
Pop! Pop!
With two soft pulses, Alban and Sani disappeared into the torrent. No longer battered by its fury, they were now passengers—propelled by the same energy that could’ve torn them apart.
As the torrent accelerated, carrying them upward at increasing speed, the two, suspended at immense altitude, twisted their heads downward.
And what they saw—
Froze the breath in their lungs.
Beneath them lay an endless, dim void. And through that darkness stretched a cracked, burning path.
A path with no beginning.
No end.
And sprawled across that desolate, mysterious road…
Lay an unimaginably massive, purplish-black whale.
The creature was beyond comprehension—so vast it seemed older than time itself, as if it had slumbered there since the origin of the universe.
With every breath, it exhaled an ancient, overwhelming aura that rippled outwards, shaking the fabric of space.
Even from afar, the two could clearly see—its titanic body was riddled with horrific wounds of varying depths, as though it had endured some cataclysmic battle eons ago.
And the pit that had just erupted?
It was nothing more than a breathing pore on the whale’s back.
The four black stone roads, each stretching tens to hundreds of kilometers, were merely folds of hardened skin encircling that breathing pore.
There were over a dozen such pores.
And right now, every one of them—
Was erupting.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh—!
Consumed by awe and confusion, the two men were hurled forward, carried farther and farther by the whale’s breath.
Hum—
Suddenly, two beams of light shot from their bodies, forming shimmering phantom silhouettes that streaked downward—toward the burning road.
They moved with impossible speed, reaching their destination the moment they were released.
These lightforms were fragments of Seraphine’s power, split from the men’s spiritual imprints.
Only after Seraphine’s spectral form arrived did she realize—
This “road” was no mere surface.
It was a massive cylindrical pillar, endlessly stretching through the void, like a divine solar column.
And it radiated an intense gravitational pull—hundreds of times stronger than Earth’s.
Even the star-sized whale—despite its vastness—was clinging tightly to it, as though strung along a thread.
Seraphine, now a translucent phantom, stood silently upon the radiant, burning path, gazing into infinity. She murmured:
“This path… what is it, exactly?”
She looked around. The ancient road, nearly as wide as a continent, extended endlessly in both directions—until it disappeared beyond the horizon.
Though she could estimate the diameter—roughly a thousand kilometers—its full length defied all calculation.
“All right… time to measure it with the Light Drifter.”
From her shimmering form, two beams of concentrated light shot forth in opposite directions, vanishing into the infinite distance.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
This was a spiritual technique Seraphine had developed herself—Light Drifter.
By condensing mental power into particles approaching light speed, the Light Drifter could traverse astronomical distances, allowing her to gauge vast structures like this ancient path.
Once it reached the outermost edges, it would record and transmit back its findings before returning automatically.
But she would have to wait.
Several long hours passed.
The left Light Drifter returned after 134 minutes.
The right, after 215 minutes.
“Left—1.2 billion kilometers. Right—1.9 billion kilometers.”
Seraphine furrowed her brow in thought. “And beyond both fractured ends lies the Sentience Realm’s void… Could this be some kind of interdimensional highway? Built by someone within the Sentience Realm?”
She scoured her memory—but found nothing.
This wasn't in the original work.
Or maybe… it was part of the story never revealed before the rushed ending.
Seraphine raised her hand. With two fingers joined, she thrust them down toward the blazing path below.
Hiss!
A small depression, several meters deep, suddenly formed on the surface of the radiant path. Faint light flickered within its depths, resembling molten gold and jade, shimmering like liquefied gemstones.
“It’s not physical matter… This path was forged from something magical—existing in the liminal space between pure information and energy.”
As she pondered, the small pit swiftly began to regenerate. Within seconds, the path was smooth once more—restored to its flawless, pristine form.
Seraphine stood in silent observation for a long moment before sighing with subtle regret:
“The energy will run dry soon... I’ll find another chance to study it later.”
With that, her phantom form dissolved into motes of light.
And so, only the vast, radiant path remained—stretching over three billion kilometers—drifting quietly within the depths of the Sentience Realm.
Several hours later.
At the distant edge of that ancient path, a pitch-black warship slowly approached.
Roughly one thousand meters long, the vessel resembled a massive spindle, its surface jagged with crimson, thorn-like spikes stretching from prow to stern.
Scars and fractures marred its hull—deep grooves and impact marks left behind from a recent battle.
As soon as the ominous craft arrived, it initiated a rapid scan of the surrounding space.
Ding!
[Remnants of a hyper-dimensional corridor detected. Classification: Class 3. Status: Severely Damaged. FTL function: Non-operational.]
Ding!
[Void Whale detected. Classification: Juvenile. Status: Near Death. Life Class: Transcendent Tier-10.]
“Void Whale?!!”
Inside the cockpit, a large, four-armed, four-legged creature snapped upright in its seat. Over five meters tall, its body was covered in intricately patterned tentacles. The dozen or so beady eyes on its oval-shaped head instantly widened.
“A legendary overlord-class entity from the Sentience Realm—and it’s still just a juvenile? We actually found one?” a leaner, but similarly grotesque crewmember exclaimed.
“That thing...” The captain’s facial tentacles writhed with visible excitement. “If we bring it back, we’ll be gods among insects. If we harvest it—how many peak-grade Etheric Battleforms could it produce?”
The thinner one hesitated. “Even if it’s dying, a creature like that is still far too dangerous… We’re just a scout-class ship. And with its size… how would we even move it?”
The captain let out a low, guttural laugh. “Who said anything about hauling it back? Just transmitting this Sector’s coordinates and intel will make us rich beyond belief. This alone guarantees a promotion for everyone on board—titles, upgrades, the whole package.”
His companion blinked, then broke into a wide grin. “Hah, I was thinking too small. You’re always ten steps ahead, Captain.”
The plump captain merely grunted in approval, his tentacles already moving fluidly over the holographic console. “Let’s get a full read on this Sector.”
Under his command, the ship re-scanned its surroundings.
Ding —
[Sector Ether Activity Level: Low.]
[Sentience Realm Thought Density: Above critical threshold.]
[Probability of indigenous intelligent species: High.]
“Perfect,” the captain murmured, eyes gleaming. “This trip’s payout won’t just be life-level advancement. We’re talking about full-tier elevation.”
The helmsman beside him lowered his voice: “If there’s a broken hyper-dimensional corridor… does that mean this Sector has its own civilization?”
“Exactly.” The captain chuckled darkly. “An isolated civilization—trapped by light-speed limitations. No contact with the galactic network. Their technology’s probably a joke.”
He tapped the console again. “Once we finish repairs, we’ll shift to a closer Sentience Realm layer and scan their homeworld for high-tier organisms.”
“But honestly… in a Sector with this low of Ether density? What could they possibly have? A few Tier-2s? Maybe one or two Tier-3s? We might be able to suppress their entire race with just this one scout ship.”
The helmsman rubbed his face tentacles, cackling. “Heh heh… if this pans out, we can legally claim this Sector under the Expansion Protocol! You’ll be Lord of an entire star sector!”
“Hm?” The captain’s smile tightened.
The helmsman quickly corrected himself. “Er—I mean you’ll be the feudal lord, of course! We’ll be your vassals!”
Satisfied, the captain’s grin returned.
But just as their laughter grew more raucous, the ambient Ether in the Sector began to churn.
Both froze.
The glow around them flickered violently.
Without a word, the captain activated the scanner again—eyes locked on the display.
The Ether reading, previously in the single digits—
Began to rise.
Ten.
Twenty.
Fifty.
One hundred.
In under three minutes, it breached triple digits.
The helmsman paled. “It’s… it’s approaching parity with the homeworld.”
He turned to the captain, voice shaking. “Captain… if the Ether level gets too high, HQ might classify this as a Core Sector. We won’t be allowed to claim territory here…”
“I…” The captain tried to speak, but then the Ether began rising again—faster, more violently.
Mouth agape, he stared at the readout.
The helmsman mirrored him, all dozen of his eyes locked on the screen.
Moments later—
The Ether stabilized.
The value on the screen now sat at five digits.
“…A High-Ether Sector,” the helmsman muttered, disbelieving. “This is a High-Ether Sector…”
“A dying Void Whale, an isolated civilization… and now a high-Ether Sector,” the captain whispered, shivering with excitement. “This time—this time, we’re going to ascend!”
He suddenly stood, voice cold and sharp:
“Alert the crew. Begin immediate hull repairs. We’re preparing for war.”
The helmsman blinked. “War?”
The captain’s face twisted into a grin. “Yes. Annihilation. A complete purge.”
BOOM!!!
Alban and Sani blasted through the veil—
And entered a vast, alien expanse of color.
It was like stepping into an impossibly huge three-dimensional painting.
Surreal, impossible textures twisted across the space, like divine brushstrokes cast in liquid oil and cosmic light.
Within this bizarre and boundless painting, a long, grey torrent continued to rise—from the depths below, surging ever upward.
It was the breath of the Void Whale—carrying them out of the deepest trenches of the Sentience Realm.
Hum hum hum hum—
At the torrent’s crest, the two men strained against the force, bodies trembling under the intense energy.
And then—
Through the blinding haze ahead—
They saw it.
A translucent veil. A wall of mist.
“That’s the World Layer,” a voice echoed in their minds. “You’re almost at the threshold... the dreams of all sentient life lie just beyond.”
Seraphine's voice echoed calmly in the minds of the two men:
“Don’t worry. Once you reach it, I’ll use my power to pull you back into the human world.”
The two, their bodies tense with anticipation, couldn’t find the words to respond—only managing the slightest nods.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh ——
The distance closed rapidly.
And then—collision.
Bang ——
In an instant, they were plunged into a dim, surreal void.
No sky.
No ground.
Only endless clusters of color, large and small, drifting freely through the air.
These were solidified fragments of dreams.
Just then, an immense surge of mental power appeared, seized the two drifting figures—and vanished.
Back in the real world.
Underground, beneath the Sentience Realm translocator of the laboratory—
Hum —
Alban and Sani suddenly reappeared, materializing from thin air and crashing onto the floor.
“You did well.”
Seraphine, dressed in a crisp white coat, strolled over with her hands in her pockets. Her voice was composed as she spoke to the rising Sani:
“I know you’ve expressed interest in the 【Cruel Shadows】 plan. Go find Yvienne—she’ll handle your assignment.”
Sani blinked, startled for just a moment—then stood tall, puffed out his chest, and declared in a booming voice:
“Thank you for your grace, Your Highness! Your subordinate will remember this for the rest of his life!”
“Hm.”
Seraphine paused. “But integrating a superpower framework is far more dangerous than inserting just a single component. There’s a real chance of death. Are you prepared for that?”
Sani nodded firmly.
“I am. With my limited aptitude, if I don’t risk a framework implant, I may remain a powerless civilian forever. That’s something I cannot accept.”
“Good. Very good.”
Seraphine gave a rare look of approval.
“I’ll be watching your growth. Go.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
With renewed determination, Sani turned and strode toward the elevator.
At that moment, Seraphine turned toward Alban, who was looking at her with anticipation.
She shook her head lightly and chuckled.
“You too.”
With that, she tapped a finger against Alban’s forehead.
He instantly froze. His vital energy surged wildly, rising and transforming into a purer form of Aether.
At the same time, within his mind, the full technique of 《Celestial Flute》 clearly unfolded.
Barring unforeseen accidents, Alban would soon break through the final wall of the Evershield Body realm and step into the Grand Realm of Mystic Aperture.
Meanwhile, Seraphine had already pulled out a set of documents and begun writing and sketching.
To Alban and Sani, the trip into the Sentience Realm had felt like little more than a dream—ephemeral, confusing, half-remembered.
But for Seraphine, who had observed everything from behind the scenes, it was entirely different.
With the aid of the Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation, she could analyze every detail of their journey, and from it, deduce the inner architecture of the Sentience Realm itself.
Her understanding of reality—and of the entire cosmic structure—had just advanced another level.
According to her current calculations and the insights granted by Chaos Calculation:
The universe she existed in could be divided into two fundamental aspects.
First, the material realm—the real world, where matter dominates.
This included trillions of galaxies, endless stars, and all the vastness of the observable universe.
Second, the informational realm, where information was dominant: the Sentience Realm.
The Sentience Realm itself could be divided into two subdomains: the Projected Layer and the Symbolic Domain.
The Projected Layer consisted of mental projections, spiritual reflections, and dreamlike images from trillions of sentient beings in the real world.
It was inherently unstable, constantly shifting under the influence of mental fluctuations and thoughtwaves.
When Seraphine had first entered the Sentience Realm using Sorren’s powers, her overwhelming spiritual presence had caused the Projected Layer to distort chaotically—resulting in an abstract, surreal journey.
Beneath that unstable layer was the Symbolic Domain—a far more stable realm composed of the natural projections of real-world phenomena.
It was the dark mirror of the material universe.
This was where phenomena like the endlessly-stretching banquet hall, the desert train concealing untold secrets, and the star-sized, dying whale existed.
These were beings Seraphine had classified as unknown species of the Sentience Realm—and they all dwelled within the Symbolic Domain.
“The universe is full of mysteries,” she murmured.
Seraphine lifted her head slightly, and within her mind’s Ocean of Knowledge, she began simulating the structural framework of the Sentience Realm—its origins, its nature, its evolution.
“In the beginning, matter reigned over endless space-time.”
“But given enough time, even miracles may bloom.”
“The overlapping mental projections, spiritual echoes, and ephemeral dreams of sentient beings began to converge—intertwining with the informational emissions of all things in the universe. Flowing, accumulating, fusing—at the dark fringes of reality.”
“Until eventually, they gave birth to a realm where spirituality could manifest.”
Her eyes grew contemplative.
“That place is the Sentience Realm.”
“But one mystery remains: everything must have a cause. What was the first cause that triggered the Sentience Realm’s birth? What force set it in motion?”
Immediately, her Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation flared to life.
She began deducing, searching for the elusive 【Answer】 in the ethereal domain beyond reality.
But even after a long period of calculation—nothing.
The answer remained hidden.
So, for now, Seraphine set the puzzle aside.
Coincidentally, at that very moment—nearly nine hours had passed.
And after tens of billions of spatial jumps, Seraphine’s main body finally underwent a change.
On the moon.
Standing silently at the edge of an impact crater, Seraphine’s forehead suddenly burst with radiant light.
Bang!!!
A violent pulse of energy surged outward like a tide.
Centered on her figure, a radius of a thousand miles trembled.
Despite the moon’s near-vacuum, the vibrations were so powerful that divine echoes rippled through the dust.
Clang clang clang!!!
Seraphine slowly closed her eyes.
On her smooth brow, a golden-red, exquisitely carved light pattern emerged—glowing brilliantly.
Her high-dimensional sensory organ had finally awakened.
This painstakingly evolved higher sense, now visible, took the form of an ornate, eye-like light symbol.
But it was far more intricate and multidimensional than any human eye—constantly shifting, flowing, flickering like a living algorithm.
The light pattern spanned her entire forehead, amplifying her already divine aura.
Seraphine, standing tall and motionless, now looked as though she had transcended humanity itself.
Buzz ~~~
As the symbol lightly trembled—
Seraphine sensed...
No—
The world itself dimmed within her field of vision.
In a flash, she glimpsed the outer shell of the World.
In ordinary speech, “world” might refer to Earth.
But what she now saw was no mere planet.
This ‘World’ was broader in scope—encompassing everything that is and everything that can be perceived.
The sum total of all matter, all energy, all time and all space—
The Universe.
And what Seraphine had just seen—
Was the outer edge of 【Reality】.
The veil that separated this universe...
From a Parallel Universe.
