880 million kilometers from Earth — Jupiter.

  Shaken by Seraphine’s recent breakthrough in cultivation, the colossal Great Red Spot—a storm larger than the entirety of Earth and raging for centuries in Jupiter’s dense atmosphere—suddenly collapsed, unraveling into nothingness.

  Its disappearance triggered a cascade of chain reactions. In the void left behind, within mere moments, dozens of massive anti-cyclonic storm clusters—composed of ammonia and methane cloud systems yet comparable in size to moons—rapidly surged into being.

  Jupiter’s atmosphere plunged into chaos.

  Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—

  Countless viscous cyclones, fierce enough to tear steel apart, howled without pause.

  All around stretched an endless yellow sky above and a dim, endless sea of clouds below.

  Towering spires of vapor, thousands to tens of thousands of meters tall, rumbled and roared. They rose and crumbled in ceaseless succession, erupting with violent gales of blistering heat that toppled spires far away.

  A realm like Hell itself, where no ordinary creature could endure for more than a heartbeat.

  And then—within the boundless, seething clouds—space suddenly twisted. A figure wrapped in radiant light emerged.

  It was Seraphine’s true form.

  Her eyes, cold and unblinking, swept across the nightmare-black and sulfur-yellow ocean of clouds. She whispered, almost lazily:

  “A bit noisy.”

  With that, she made no further move. Instead, she folded her legs beneath her and sat cross-legged like a hermit upon a mountain peak, eyes drifting shut as she sank instantly into deep cultivation.

  As Seraphine entered meditation—

  The endless cyclones around her, the unrelenting roars of storm and flame, all fell silent.

  Not only the sea of clouds in her immediate domain.

  The entire layer of storms within Jupiter’s atmosphere stilled.

  The vast ocean of high-pressure liquid hydrogen beneath the clouds stilled.

  Even the metallic hydrogen mantle buried still deeper, and finally, Jupiter’s innermost rocky core—everything—fell into a stillness colder than absolute zero.

  If one were to pull the perspective outward, ascending beyond the choking veil of atmosphere—

  Until one flew down to Europa’s surface and turned back toward Jupiter, the giant looked as if caught in a stasis spell—an impossible stillness imposed on a world that should be violently alive.

  The endless cyclones and churned clouds that normally raced across the planet, the ringed vortices like demonic eyes—all lay frozen, motionless.

  Yet none of this was a deliberate act by Seraphine.

  She had simply found the outside noisy. So the outside stopped being noisy.

  These shifts in the world were not an exertion of Divine Will, nor the product of material manipulation. This was the power of the Light of Infinity.

  After Seraphine felt the slightest irritation at Jupiter’s chaos, that ideal force acted autonomously—ignoring the operational rules of the material universe, cutting straight to essence, and by a near-mystical method ‘stagnating’ the whole of Jupiter so the outside would no longer disturb her mood.

  It was a terrifying capability: it relied on no energy, matter, information, field, or conventional method. With a single thought it could influence—and even warp—the ordinary functioning of nature.

  But for Seraphine, now sunk into the deepest level of inward cultivation, none of that mattered.

  The Light of Infinity and the new powers she’d gained could be examined later. What mattered now was finding a belief robust enough to sustain her endless ascent.

  It had to be solid, imperious, supremely arrogant—less a mere wish or vision than a systemic, audacious conviction that contained both.

  The introspective cultivation she was deliberating upon was called “Encountering Spirituality.”

  Within the ethereal realm, boundless chaos enveloped everything.

  There, two Seraphines sat facing each other—one real, one illusory.

  The illusory figure looked at the real one and said, “Before the introspection begins, there must be an agreement.”

  The real one asked, “What agreement?”

  The illusory answered, smiling: “When the question from the core of the self arises, the answer given by ‘Seraphine’ must be the true thoughts from the depths of her soul, consciousness, and mind—no concealment, no embellishment. Can you do that?”

  The real Seraphine nodded. “I can.”

  The illusory figure then asked, “Are you a good person?”

  The real one replied, “I would not call myself good—rather, absolutely bright and honorable, not a sly flatterer or schemer.”

  The illusory figure continued, “Do you love ‘benefit’?”

  The Real Figure answered calmly:

  “Benefit merely sustains my life, cultivation, and amusements as provisions; I… do not cherish it.”

  The Illusory Figure asked again:

  “Are you filled with curiosity about the unknown?”

  A faint smile touched the Real Figure’s lips. Her voice was gentle, unhurried:

  “Yes. I like to explore the unknown.

  All mysteries, the stories hidden behind ordinary things, the lost ages of forgotten times… all of these lure me to break through the barriers of time, to seek them, to understand them.”

  The Illusory Figure pressed further:

  “Do you believe in justice?”

  The Real Figure’s mouth curved slightly, her tone carrying a trace of mockery:

  “Justice is fabricated. People embrace philosophies or attitudes they favor, then dress them up as ‘justice,’ wearing them as part of their personal mask.

  Everyone’s justice differs, and people even reshape its definition depending on circumstance and time.

  In the end, humans possess a peculiar vanity: they want others—or themselves—to believe they pursue truth. But in reality, what they seek… is love.”

  The Illusory Figure asked with curiosity:

  “Then why do people wear masks when facing others?”

  The Real Figure, after a moment’s thought, spoke slowly:

  “Because every being born into this world is lonely.

  They can only communicate their thoughts through symbols—symbols that are never equal in weight, vague and uncertain in meaning.

  Even if one longs to gift the treasures of their heart, others cannot receive them.

  Human language cannot express truth; it is but a counterfeit of truth.

  Thus, all beings walk alone. They may lean on each other, yet they are never truly together, never truly understood, nor capable of fully understanding another.

  And so people need faith, values, meaning.

  They need what is different from themselves; they need some being or concept vast enough to encompass their ‘world,’ using it to verify and confirm their own existence.

  Put bluntly—the weak, to escape loneliness and frailty, must wear masks and labels, becoming slaves to some idea simply to survive.”

  The Illusory Figure pondered deeply.

  “Then… is there another path?”

  The Real Figure answered with sudden force:

  “Yes. To utterly dismantle one’s perception of the world, reducing all content—emotions, dignity, meaning, everything noble or base—to zero.

  The world remains the world, matter remains matter, but all meaning collapses, all value dissolves.

  Then, in spirit, one becomes utterly lucid, detached, unbound—independent of all things.”

  She gave a wry smile and added:

  “Or perhaps… one becomes nothing more than a meaningless shell.”

  The Illusory Figure hesitated.

  “Hmm… is there a third path?”

  The Real Figure paused, then answered softly:

  “Perhaps there is.”

  The Illusory Figure laughed.

  “Hahaha. Interesting.”

  The Illusory Figure clapped her hands and laughed, then pressed on:

  “Then tell me—do you believe in humanity? Do you believe in your own kind? What, in your eyes, should define a person?”

  The Real Figure, rarely folding her arms across her chest, pondered a moment before speaking:

  “I have always doubted human nature. I believe people are merely two-armed, two-legged, yet ungrateful animals.”

  The Illusory Figure blinked in astonishment.

  “Ah? Why would you say that?”

  The Real Figure lifted her head slightly, releasing a faint sigh.

  “Humans carry a flaw—no, a deficiency. A malicious quality buried deep within their genes, rooted even in the soul itself, ancient and enduring.

  This malice has lingered since primordial times, through the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, across the three industrial revolutions that rewrote human fate, and even the three Ether recoveries. It has never left them.”

  The Illusory Figure wavered.

  “Is that so? What sort of malice?”

  The Real Figure replied:

  “The answer is written in history.

  One may heap upon human history all manner of praise—magnificent, brilliant, great, radiant, fertile, splendid. Such words are possible.

  Yet one may also call it unbearably dull, savage and bloody, chaotic and vile. That, too, is possible.

  Every description may apply. But there is one word history cannot bear—‘rationality.’”

  The Illusory Figure frowned.

  “Rationality?”

  The Real Figure nodded coolly.

  “Yes. Humanity as a whole—both collectively and individually—is irrational.

  Through the vast expanse of ages, many humble souls have arisen, even figures who could rightly be called sages.

  Their conduct flawless, their actions noble. They set goals—some modest, some grand.

  And yet, before their final bell tolls, most will betray themselves sooner or later, falling into disgrace with a string of ugly, laughable blunders.

  In truth, almost everyone, at some point in their lives, ‘breaks their cultivation’—betraying their own supposed nobility.”

  The Illusory Figure fell silent, deeply contemplative.

  “…Is it truly so?”

  The Real Figure’s voice was steady, indifferent.

  “It is so.”

  The Real Figure spoke slowly:

  “Among humans, those who can spend a lifetime always looking upward, never bowing to fate or to death—are vanishingly few.

  Even if one were to grant a single person a life of boundless wealth, to pour upon them every happiness this world can offer—so that each moment of existence was nothing but eating, sleeping, or play—so that they need not lift a finger for toil, save to ponder grand matters such as the fate of all beings…

  Even if not just one person, nor one tribe, but all of humanity were submerged in an endless ocean of happiness—so vast that their joy would overflow only as bubbles upon the surface of that sea…

  Even then, with no worry, no burden, no cause for sorrow—the malicious quality within humanity would not disappear.”

  The Real Figure’s lips curved into a final, mocking smile.

  “Even with such happiness, they would remain ungrateful. They would still slander with malice, still commit deeds base and vile.

  They would gamble away the very benefits bestowed upon them, willfully performing absurd acts—harmful not only to themselves but to the whole collective.

  They would choose the most unprofitable, meaningless follies.

  They would wager all their joy, and deliberately shatter everything that was once beautiful and harmonious.”

  “Alas…” The Illusory Figure exhaled a soft sigh.

  “But why must it be so?”

  The Real Figure answered:

  “There is no why. They do it only to prove they can. To prove they possess the ability. To prove they are entitled.

  This is the flaw of short-lived beings—the mark of shallow Spirituality, bereft of a true 'subjective core'.”

  The Illusory Figure pondered deeply.

  “Then how can this be mended?”

  The Real Figure smiled.

  “It is simple. Extend their lives by tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold, even ten-thousandfold.

  If, in the realm of Spirituality—of thought and spirit—humanity could form an absolute, substantive subjective core, one that fills every chamber of cognition about life and the world… then they would not remain so irrational. Nor so malicious.”

  Hearing this, the Illusory Figure suddenly curved her lips into the same smile.

  “So, you wish to become that subjective core.”

  The Real Figure countered at once:

  “And you do not?”

  The Illusory Figure spread her hands wide.

  “I am you, and you are me. Of course I can.”

  At that, the two figures locked eyes and burst into laughter—laughter sharp and ringing, yet edged with ice.

  When the echoes faded, the Illusory Figure asked, voice low and cutting:

  “One final question.

  Seraphine—what, in the innermost chamber of your heart, do you truly long for?”

  Boom!

  The words struck like thunderclap and hammer-blow, like a dagger honed to perfection—driving straight into the Real Figure’s heart, making her whole body tremble.

  Her eyes widened. Slowly, she lifted her gaze toward the chaos that churned across the sky. Bewilderment, emptiness, and a hollow confusion spilled across her face.

  That question, alive and merciless, turned into a great fish—seizing Seraphine and dragging her to swim backward through the currents of time, plunging her into the abyss of memory.

  Gurgle… gurgle…

  She drifted weightless in the endless deep sea, where countless bubbles of memory shimmered with images faint and shifting.

  Gurgle… gurgle…

  One cluster of bubbles floated past. Inside was the vision of Seraphine’s harsh childhood—her difficult growth within the orphanage.

  Gurgle… gurgle…

  Another cluster of bubbles drifted near. Inside flickered her youth—endless hours of arduous study in a village school.

  But hampered by a poor teaching environment and her own middling aptitude, her grades never rose.

  Gurgle… gurgle…

  As a young adult she juggled work and study, eventually crawling her way to a diploma from a third-rate university.

  Graduation, however, only ushered in unemployment.

  No connections. No resources. No family to rely on. Not even close friends.

  Thrown into society in such a state, Seraphine could only serve as a beast of burden on the lowest rung.

  Gurgle… gurgle… gurgle… gurgle…

  The bubbles swarmed faster, pressing against her, making her brow knot tight, her body tremble faintly.

  Work. Competition. Overtime. Insomnia. Exhaustion. Debt.

  Colleagues’ bullying. Leaders’ scorn. Clients’ demands. Landlord’s sneers. A girlfriend’s cold indifference.

  Then came the economic crash. The incremental market collapsed into a devouring stock market.

  Like a drying puddle under the sun, the narrow space for real survival was squeezed and drained away by the online economy.

  A tidal wave of unemployment struck.

  Small and mid-sized electronics supermarkets, without strong cores to stand on, became the first casualties.

  And Seraphine, oh—“gloriously” unemployed.

  Then, in cruel melodrama, she collapsed from stomach pain. The hospital’s report was merciless: terminal gastric cancer.

  She left the ward clutching the paper, wandering blankly down the street. So dazed, she could not hear the cries of passersby—nor the violent shriek of brakes drawing near.

  Bang!

  The world tilted, spun.

  Her vision bled red.

  Then—black.

  Her short life had been a tangle of people, events, and factions.

  Layers of shackles and rigid rules wrapped her tight—no gaps, no mercy.

  On a miracle-free Earth, the mortal called Seraphine drifted like an empty shell—aimless, vague.

  She merely survived.

  Her meager strength and ordinary wit could not sustain the deepest longings of her soul.

  Until… transmigration.

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  Buzz—

  In the spiritual space, the Real Figure shuddered. Cracks spidered across her form and brilliant streaks of pure white light burst outward.

  Amid the violent trembling, she lifted her head and met the smiling Illusory Figure opposite her—perhaps the very Root of Spirituality.

  Bang!!!

  With a crisp crack, the Real Figure’s body—now pouring light—fractured and collapsed into fragments that slowly faded away.

  From the ruin rose a being of pure white light—so blinding it outshone the sun itself. She stood upright, flawless and radiant.

  The being of light turned toward Spirituality, a boundless, serene smile on her divine face, and spoke in a clear, icy tone:

  “I aspire to true, absolute freedom—freedom unbound by any phenomenon!

  I aspire to true, absolute eternal life—eternity untouched by circumstance!

  I aspire to true, absolute invincibility—invincibility unchallenged by any force!”

  “Absolute freedom, absolute eternal life, absolute invincibility…how arrogant!” The Illusory Figure rose slowly, voice deepening.

  “Your convictions are grand—but your power is nowhere near enough. You are weak.”

  The white being’s smile did not waver. Her voice stayed cool:

  “Then I will advance further—climb to the summit of endless space-time, and seize ultimate power!”

  Spirituality cocked her head and spoke louder, sharp as a verdict:

  “You will face countless opponents—many now, and more yet to come.

  There are prodigies and geniuses across endless space-time—monsters that cheat fate itself. Why should only you reach the peak?!”

  “Do you think they’ll just watch you keep rising? No—obstacles, ambushes, assassins… they will never end!”

  Spirituality’s lips curved in a slow, knowing smile.

  “The moment you give birth to such ambition, endless darkness and bloodshed will coil around you, until the instant your consciousness itself is snuffed out.

  What will you do then?”

  “Simple.”

  The being of light’s smile never faltered, but her tone dropped to a blade’s edge:

  “Kill them all.”

  Spirituality froze—then suddenly erupted in wild laughter.

  “Hahahahaha! Good! Beautiful slaughter! What a lunatic… what a glorious lunatic!”

  Her laughter ebbed, her gaze sharpening with fierce admiration.

  “Truly worthy of Seraphine… truly worthy of Me!”

  Bang!!!

  The Root of Spirituality blazed with ten thousand rays of divine light, stepped forward, and fused completely with the radiant being.

  From that instant, Seraphine’s consciousness no longer held layers—no outer, no inner, no subconscious.

  One absolute thought, whole and unbroken, flowed through her Spirituality — Mind — Soul — Brain, flooding them all at once.

  This was thought-consciousness of absolute oneness.

  Weakness, cowardice, hesitation, regret, naivety, despair—all those fractured human fragments dissolved into nothing before her monolithic will.

  In their place surged ruthlessness, merciless clarity, cold indifference, unyielding dominance, iron courage, decisive resolve—each flaring to the extreme.

  From this moment forth, Seraphine—whose nature had always been fierce and uncompromising—became an absolute wielder of will. A being who could crush through any obstacle with her whole strength.

  Not a false strong one propped up by borrowed power, doomed to collapse at the first true storm.

  Never again would she “break her cultivation,” never again betray her proud essence.

  She would be formidable in every dimension—body, soul, mind—flawless, without a single weak point.

  Here, 'Encountering Spirituality' came to its close.

  And at that very instant, coalescing from Seraphine’s boundless hunger and towering ambition, nine distinct, all-encompassing, and arrogant creeds were born in her mind:

  The Daoist Delusion: Heavenly law and cosmic order—all beneath my feet.

  The Demonic Delusion: Unchained, unfettered—following nothing but my heart.

  The Divine Delusion: To shepherd all beings, vast beyond measure.

  The Killing Delusion: Life and death in my grasp, annihilating the great cosmos.

  The Hegemonic Delusion: Across all heavens, in every universe, I alone am supreme.

  The Bestial Delusion: Primordial savagery, raging lust for death.

  The Wicked Delusion: Beyond good and evil, perverse, rebellious.

  The Evil Delusion: Forging boundless karma, reducing all dharmas to silence.

  The Human Delusion: Heaven-bestowed, intimate—yet all beings doomed to die.

  Once chosen, any one of these Delusions would remain eternal, unchangeable from the very beginning to the very end.

  And so Seraphine, seated cross-legged in Jupiter’s stillness, began yet another long, piercing examination of her soul.

  Dao. Demon. Divine . Kill. Hegemon. Beast. Wicked. Evil. Human.

  Each Delusion howled within her mind, colliding, clashing, demanding sovereignty.

  Indifference. Arrogance. Majesty. Ruthlessness. Tyranny. Wildness. Cunning. Malice. Compassion.

  Nine faces spun and twisted upon Seraphine’s features in turn.

  Which one creed would she bind herself to, forever and unchanging?

  Her lips curled into a cold smile.

  “I want them all.”

  Boom!

  At that single thought, the nine Delusions—once isolated—froze, then bared their fangs in unison, tearing into one another with primal fury.

  Roar! Roar!!

  Shrieks, howls, and unending screams. The nine titans of will, like caged beasts, tore into an absolute deathmatch.

  Blood and shadow rained down in torrents. Fangs clashed, claws ripped, a slaughter without mercy.

  And in that frenzy, something shifted—through the very violence of their collision, the nine Delusions began to merge.

  Time slipped away. Half a day passed in silence.

  【Host: Seraphine】

  【Physical Strength: 6.6 million Star】

  【Soul: 6.6 million Star】

  On January 9th, Seraphine’s attributes doubled yet again—her body and soul now wielding more than 6 million Star-level might.

  At the same time, a Delusion unlike the nine—woven of both light and darkness, both righteousness and evil—finished its gestation within her mind.

  And in that instant, it surged through Seraphine’s Spirituality — Thought — Soul — Brain, saturating her entire being.

  This ultimate Delusion, forged from madness, greed, tyranny, cruelty, arrogance, ambition, and unquenchable desire, was—

  The Delusion of Love.

  Not the foolish, fleeting love of mortals.

  But Love that transcends the soul.

  Love that defies reason.

  The ultimate, all-consuming Love—invading all, devouring all!

  In the external world, Seraphine slowly opened her eyes.

  Whoosh—

  At that single motion, Jupiter convulsed. From its raging atmosphere down through the liquid hydrogen ocean, into the crystalline depths of its solid hydrogen “underworld,” a miracle erupted:

  Every fraction of matter suddenly birthed radiant blossoms—dazzling flowers woven of nuclear flame, each spilling torrents of radiation light.

  In an instant, the titanic planet was wreathed in endless flickering blossoms, a world-dome of lethal beauty, veiled in waves of annihilating brilliance.

  And in that apocalyptic bloom, Seraphine herself stood enthroned, as though she had become the emissary of a Heavenly Realm of Absolute Beauty and Good.

  At the center of the boundless radiance, she appeared as the Lord of Heaven incarnate.

  “Splendid.”

  Seraphine rose slowly from the ocean of flowers.

  Her face—so long frozen in indifference and arrogance—softened, melted like ancient ice beneath spring, blooming into a smile of purest warmth and benevolence.

  Yet if one gazed closer, beneath that divine warmth, one would glimpse the truth: this smile was not mercy, but an edifice built of unfathomable cold.

  It was like the Milky Way itself, endlessly exalted by poets. From afar—sublime, holy, transcendent. Yet if a poet dared to cross the abyss of light-years to look upon it closely, she would discover that its beauty was forged not of peace, but of millions of roaring suns, each a terror greater than sky and earth combined.

  So too was Seraphine.

  In this moment, her presence had transcended the frame of human comprehension, breaking past the limits of language—ascending into the realm of the Indescribable.

  Feeling the countless flowers’ adoration—as their creator—an expression of love naturally settled on her face.

  Seraphine plucked a nearby flickering light-flower without hesitation, ignoring its faint, plaintive cries as it bled light.

  “A nuclear-energy flower—so beautiful.”

  She held the dying blossom before her face and inhaled deeply, savoring its scent. With a single breath she drew its life-force and the nuclear radiation—enough to wipe out tens of thousands—into her nostrils and mouth.

  Then, eyes half-closed, she whispered softly:

  “Death is the symbol of My love for you.”

  She tossed the crippled flower casually onto the luminous ground formed by the countless blooms, and her figure blurred and vanished.

  Buzz—

  Moments later she stood tens of thousands of kilometers beyond Jupiter’s atmosphere, high above the volcanic moon Io. Hands clasped behind her back, she looked out over the vast cosmos, emotion shading her gentle smile.

  “All things exist by love. I was born within the universe, comprehending My truths, absorbing all possibilities—an ocean of love surrounding Me.”

  She lifted her head, closed her eyes, and sighed with serene resolve:

  “I love this universe so deeply that the universe… must love Me back, exponentially!”

  At her command, Io’s infernal fires were stripped away from afar. Its burning surface cracked and froze into ice as thermal energy was torn out and dispersed.

  “I plunder all things.”

  Rivers of lava, once vast and spider-webbed across the surface, became veins of frozen liquid nitrogen in an instant.

  “I slaughter all things.”

  The killing cold instantly froze to death tens of thousands of high-temperature vital-energy beings, leaving them to perish in agony.

  In the void above, Seraphine extended her palm. Within it hovered a sphere of light, burning at its absolute peak.

  “I devour all things.”

  Her fingers closed. At once, all the thermal energy of Io was swallowed into her body.

  In the next breath, Seraphine stood amid the vast, snowbound wasteland below.

  Her gaze drifted to the frozen river. Encased in its crystalline prison was a six-finned vital-energy alligator, the size of a truck—its body locked mid-stroke, as if still alive, its form magnificent even in death.

  Seraphine’s smile softened.

  “If you had wisdom then, you would have rejoiced—because it meant I wished to kill you.”

  She snapped her fingers.

  Bang!

  Rumble, rumble—

  From beneath the iron-hard frozen ground erupted hundreds of thousands of colossal apes, each two to three meters tall, their bodies perfectly circular, sculpted from living frost.

  The moment they emerged, these cold-born beings turned toward Seraphine, their roars low, filled with reverence. One by one, they prostrated themselves, bowing deeply before her.

  In the blink of an eye, the endless white expanse was covered with kneeling, worshipping forms.

  In that moment, Seraphine rose like Nuwa—the mythmaker of humankind—receiving the homage of her creations.

  “Creation is love, destruction is love, slaughter is love…”

  She surveyed the thousands of towering apes, then drifted up into the dark sky.

  Once aloft, Seraphine looked out at the endless cosmos and smiled suddenly.

  “Everything testifies to My love for this universe!

  Therefore, every reachable ounce of space–time should belong to Me.”

  “However…”

  She lifted her hands and feet with a featherlight motion, and the surrounding space–time twisted to its limits in an instant.

  Buzz—

  Trillions of kilometers collapsed in a heartbeat. Seraphine found herself in the boundless deep of space; she raised two fingers, skimmed her gaze across the universe, and said, with cool detachment:

  “This Milky Way, the observable universe, the Grand Universe spanning infinite timelines, even the vast, unending multiverse—

  Each one is colossal, each teeming with mighty beings. Countless lives far exceed My strength, and their numbers are beyond reckoning!

  Those lives will block My path.”

  “Hm hm, ha ha ha ha!”

  She chuckled, then laughed louder; finally she threw her head back and guffawed, “I am Seraphine! Physical Strength and Soul grow unceasingly within Me! Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation only sharpen My power, always increasing! Even the most ancient entities born at the dawn of time—one day I will leave them far behind!

  To secure My everlasting, invincible might, I will stop at nothing. I will crush every being who refuses to bow. Anything that can further Me must be offered. If anyone disobeys—whoever they are—I will grant them no mercy! Because this is My Path!

  Some beings might refuse to accept it, but when I have annihilated every soul that resists Me, when everyone crowns Me the supreme, the ultimate existence—how could I be wrong?

  As long as every life dares not rebel and trembles before Me, how could I be wrong?

  “Hm hm hm, ha ha ha ha!”

  Amid her wild laughter, the space–time beneath Seraphine’s feet twisted to the breaking point once more.

  Boom!

  A spray of star-like detonations trailed behind her as her form reappeared in the Martian sky.

  She looked down at the planet’s tangerine surface and spoke again.

  “Right or wrong—With My wisdom and mighty power, I will grow strong enough to reshape space–time, to reverse past, present, and future.

  So if any life wishes not to die, if any existence wishes to avoid a tormenting Hell, they must revere Me, pledge fealty to Me, and worship Me!

  They must swear their allegiance even unto death; they must exist for Me!”

  After the disappearance of all other nations, Earth itself seemed to have expanded.

  Maybe its actual size hadn’t changed, but when every international dispute evaporated and only a single nation remained, when vast tracts of ownerless land, oceans, forests, and plains opened before the billions of subjects of the Emberlight Empire, everyone felt the world had become larger.

  In response, Emberlight’s ruling class moved fast. On one hand, they sent forces to seize territory, build transport networks, and exploit resources. On the other, they dangled opportunities for daring citizens—urging them to ride out, claim land, and stake new holdings.

  The objective was clear: bring the entire planet firmly under Emberlight’s control.

  In a short time, Emberlight society plunged into a fever of expansion and development.

  But that same rush of change brought a different, older unease; the bewilderment that follows sudden upheaval seeped into countless hearts.

  【The world is so vast, changing so fast, and I am so small and fragile—what then is the meaning of my birth and existence?】

  In truth, that hollow, nihilistic feeling—an emptiness gnawing at the heart—had first surfaced during the initial Ether recovery.

  Until now, Emberlight’s highly developed, stable social machinery had suppressed much of that internal anxiety and fear, forcing people to convince themselves that everything was normal, unchanged—that life carried on as before.

  But reality never hands out inherent meaning; people graft meanings onto life to make the absurd bearable.

  They cling to comforting beliefs—【human civilization ultimately has meaning, one's own existence ultimately has meaning】—so their inner sense of security remains intact.

  This search for meaning may be rooted in the biology of consciousness: a drive to detect patterns in incoming information and predict the future, improving adaptability—or, simply put, to feel secure.

  Yet when too many monumental events occur too quickly, each one eclipsing the last, that acute absurdity—the helpless, dizzying sense of meaninglessness—shatters the fragile “meanings” millions of people had long upheld. It collapses into fragments.

  Just as a great many were sinking into confusion, a second sun tore open the sky.

  Streaks of blinding light faded, and Seraphine’s form resolved in the heavens.

  She was colossal, magnificent—an existence so vast it defied imagination, instantly blotting out Earth’s sky, seas, and land.

  Under the pressure of that presence, billions of Emberlight souls stopped everything and looked up at once.

  No matter where they stood, they could see the godlike figure—the Empire’s Empress—looming above.

  “Since ancient times, three questions have haunted each of you.”

  Seraphine gazed down at Earth and spoke softly: “Who am I? Why was I born? And where am I meant to go?”

  Over two billion people, hearing those words, sank at once into bewilderment.

  Seraphine’s face softened with a compassionate expression as she spoke slowly and deliberately:

  “From these three questions I see your confusion before the world, your frantic lives, and the fear that rises in your hearts when you look to the cosmos.”

  Some on Earth grasped a hint of meaning; others could not fully comprehend.

  No one was irritated—only expectant and hopeful, as if Her Majesty’s voice mattered more than anything else. No one resisted. No one struggled.

  “Fear not. With Me here, I stand as a wall between you and the unknown. From Me you will gain peace. From Me you will gain security.”

  “Therefore, the answers to these three questions are now given.”

  Seraphine smiled, her eyes warm with benevolence as she addressed Earth’s inhabitants:

  “Who are you? You are My subjects—you must accept My eternal rule.

  Where do you come from? You came because of My design.

  Where will you go? You will go by My will.”

  As she spoke, the brilliant Spirituality at Seraphine’s core flared—billions of radiant beams coalesced with each word, pierced the atmosphere, and spread across the beings of Earth.

  Buzz—

  As that light descended, a ‘subjective core of meaning’ bloomed deep within the minds of billions.

  “My subjects, remember this: your reverence, your respect, your worship of Me must eclipse what you owe to parents, kin, and lovers. In this boundless Grand Universe, your confusion and fear will be carried by Me. Love Me. Be loyal to Me. From this moment on, I am your highest meaning in the chaos of existence; I am the ultimate meaning of human civilization.

  I am your Empress, your Savior—and even your Mother!”

  As those words settled, the Root of Spirituality buried deep in Emberlight’s peoples began to glaze over with a layer of dazzling, pure white light.

  Much like the bond between the Astralglow Tiger and the Black Gold Phoenix, in effect billions of Emberlight citizens had been folded into Seraphine’s Familia.

  High above, Seraphine—whose wisdom and knowledge already eclipsed countless beings many times over—suddenly found her perspective fracturing into countless new angles.

  Measured by values and insight, her mind and soul now outstripped all of Earth’s beings combined by billions of times.

  Yet unless Seraphine were truly omniscient—or unless her psyche were so uniquely partitioned that it housed hundreds, thousands, even billions of discrete, genuine personalities—she could never possibly account for every branch and twist of that enormous tree of knowledge.

  It was impossible.

  Infinite trial and error spawns infinite embedded information. Even though the observable universe’s information ceiling is enormous, layering infinite embedded information models onto any single particle would exhaust redundant capacity.

  If the observable universe’s information content clearly exceeded the Bekenstein limit, the universe itself would collapse into a black hole—something Seraphine’s observed universe curvature did not support.

  Unless one can transcend the universe outright, omniscience remains unattainable.

  Buzz—

  As billions of Earth’s citizens were folded into Familia, the vast constellation of imagination born from all beings—the countless modes of creativity and streams of thought that flare up under specific conditions, even the tiny sparks of wisdom born when two souls rub against each other—were reflected into Seraphine’s mind.

  This reflection was not ephemeral; it would persist forever.

  From that moment on, the sparks of wisdom from all beings would be ruthlessly harvested by Seraphine—more than half of them consumed as raw sustenance for her onward growth.

  And so the Skyroot Codex, which had once reached an apparent end, subtly began to expand again.

  “What is good? Anything that raises one’s power, will, and capacity to exist is good.

  What is bad? Anything born of weakness that drives you toward greater folly is bad.

  What is happiness? The steady growth and expansion of power—the sense of pushing past life’s resistances step by step. That is happiness.”

  Seraphine, preaching ceaselessly from the sky and converting countless souls across Earth, glowed with a divine wisdom that made her seem the very incarnation of Truth.

  Inside her four-dimensional mind, where an immense, boundless Divine Will surged, the explosive thrill of endless inspiration sparked countless new inferences and intuitions about dimensional concepts.

  She ravenously absorbed that Ocean of Knowledge; fueled by it, her rapidly turning mind began to spawn ever more possible theories about dimensions.

  Like building a towering pagoda to the heavens, each theory was a brick—stacking without end—raising the tower higher and higher in a single aim: to touch the high-dimensional Truth that lies beyond three-dimensional reality.

  Chaos Calculation, running in parallel, opportunely ‘told’ Seraphine that once she truly brushed against that Truth, the essence of her life would rise again— not a rise in quantity, but a leap in quality.

  Meanwhile, her sermon pressed on.

  Every word she spoke carried immense divine force—far stronger than the Mind Suppression Seal—converting minds without damaging the fundamental potential of their Spirituality.

  “…Do not squander your thoughts on petty trifles, nor waste your energy on minor anxieties.

  And do not be shackled by foolish doctrines of gentleness, patience, and tolerance…”

  As those words spread, a colossal, profound power wrapped the globe, punched through the atmosphere, and sank into the bodies and souls of every Emberlight citizen on the surface—continually fortifying, optimizing, and evolving them.

  Because Seraphine possessed the complete biological research of Sower Saknussim, the Aurora clan’s integrated gene sequence held no secrets for her—neither the superpower architecture nor the genetic encoding.

  Everything was as clear to her as the lines in her palm.

  If she chose, she could instantly, by manipulating the strong and weak nuclear forces, warp and correct humanity’s imperfect genome into the Aurora bloodline.

  At that point, every Emberlight person would boast fifty to sixty thousand tons of Physical Strength, dozens of superpowers, and lifespans stretched to five-digit—or even six-digit—numbers.

  But a full Aurora transformation would also contort human bodies into non-human shapes—grotesque and brutal.

  And to pilot such bodies would demand the Aurora soul’s primitive traits—barbarism, crudeness, filth, dullness—be injected wholesale into the souls of countless people, effectively spawning a new Aurora clan.

  That outcome repelled Seraphine.

  Her long-term studies had shown humans to be fundamentally inferior in physique and soul to many mighty races.

  Beyond the world-ending Aurora clan, even the Mercury Race—visitors from the far reaches of the universe—stood far above humanity.

  However, humans possessed one trait the other races could not match.

  They harbored an extraordinarily active, thriving Root of Spirituality.

  The delicate, precise sparks of wisdom that sprang from it—far more than mere data—played a decisive role in Seraphine’s evolution.

  So she chose the gentlest route: to nudge and catalyze the genes, thoughts, and souls of Earth’s inhabitants so they could evolve on their own.

  Her aim was simple: to narrow the gulf between humanity and those mighty alien races.

  Seraphine had decided to depart—to leave and journey into the distant depths of the Milky Way.

  What lay hidden inside the divine training ground opened by the Key of Heaven? She was burning with curiosity.

  A wish?

  Did such omnipotent power truly exist in the universe?

  Seraphine was skeptical.

  If it disappointed her, she would raze everything there.

  If it pleased her, she would seize that “thing”—use it or hoard it—and then still destroy everything there.

  But she had no intention of going alone.

  As Empress, how could she travel without loyal subjects at her side, without subordinates bowing in respect?

  If she had to handle every task by herself, that would be stingy.

  Yes—Seraphine intended to bring all of humanity with her.

  Her prior life had been as an Earthling; this life was also bound to an Earth much like the original.

  From the moment consciousness stirred, both of Seraphine’s lives had been inexorably tied to Earth.

  This place was her home.

  Even with all her power, nostalgia still lingered.

  She did not resist the emotions rising within her heart; they brought her comfort.

  Seraphine had never wished to become some cold, desireless immortal.

  And even if she ever chose that path, she would want to be the strongest! The most domineering! The ultimate! One who embraced desire and aspiration to the fullest—yet transcended them all.

  She saw pure willpower, faith and pleasure, love and hatred, creation and destruction as bridges leading toward Transcendence.

  To break free from every shackle, whether self-imposed or forced by others—escaping, shattering, and pressing on until burial and extinction—while casting aside the nihilistic essence of life’s meaning.

  And at the same time, to endow transcendence itself with the ultimate meaning along the path of transcendence.

  That was her relentless pursuit—her true shore!

  Therefore, Seraphine declared…

  “Who says one cannot take the Solar System and rampage across the universe?”

  She smiled softly. “I will take it.”

  And on Earth’s surface—

  In the wake of her actions, every human instantly became a source of Ether absorption, ceaselessly devouring the infinite Ether surrounding them.

  In the next instant, billions of Ether vortices erupted across the planet’s surface.

  Whoosh whoosh whoosh ——

  The intensity and amplitude of their Ether absorption grew so immense that they triggered global atmospheric upheavals.

  Seraphine’s words spilled forth in a torrent—majestic, domineering, like iron hammers, like Zarathustra’s maxims—pounding against the souls of Earth’s billions.

  Everywhere, people lifted their eyes skyward, faces alight with fervor, murmuring, chanting, endlessly repeating her words.

  In the heavens, Seraphine spread her arms wide, her expression both majestic and sacred, as though embracing the entire cosmos. Her being radiated a dense, overwhelming aura—grand beyond measure.

  Then, her eyes widened, sharp and profound, as if piercing through every heart, sinking into the very souls of countless beings. She spoke slowly:

  “I am a god. I am ultimate wisdom!

  I am the final meaning, the first cause of all!

  If I will you to die, you shall die with hearts aflame in supreme glory—rejoicing, exultant!

  For such is the mark of My love!”

  Whoosh ——

  On the surface, billions erupted. At her words, no one felt fear or dread; instead, they howled in ecstatic fervor, raising their arms and shouting in one voice:

  “To die for Your Majesty is our glory!!!”

  Some, driven beyond restraint, pulled out knives in broad daylight, grinning wildly as they slashed at their own heads.

  Others raised pistols, pressing them against their temples, and laughed manically as they fired—bang, bang.

  But these petty weapons could not pierce evolving flesh; blades and bullets alike bounced harmlessly away.

  Yet the bystanders did not recoil. On the contrary, they burst into laughter, clapping and cheering as if the scene were a festival.

  It seemed the world had gone mad, yet simultaneously ascended.

  Not insanity—no. From a biological, even pathological perspective, their minds and bodies now surpassed the past by hundreds, even thousands of times.

  What appeared as madness was merely the fevered joy of evolution in progress.

  Under Seraphine’s influence, the people shed their frailty. Weakness, timidity, despair, naivety, fear—all such emotions were stripped away.

  In their place arose ruthlessness, mercilessness, indifference, decisiveness, courage… sharper, harder passions that burned within every mind.

  Thus, the human evolution guided by Seraphine finally reached its first conclusion.

  In the span of mere minutes, over a billion Earthlings had transformed. Their Physical Strength and Soul attributes surged past one thousand, climbing to four or five thousand—tens, even hundreds of times stronger than the Evershield Body of the prior era.

  Their lifespans stretched into the thousands of years.

  And with such power came transformation of flesh: every one of the more than two billion humans stood above two meters, their frames packed with muscle and force—fierce men, fierce women, fierce elders, fierce youths.

  In an instant, the meek species had become a world of giants.

  “Excellent! Very strong!”

  Seraphine smiled, her voice resounding through the cosmos.

  “Goodness is evil sublimated to its highest state; evil is goodness twisted into brutish folly.

  You are born from My fervent expectation, therefore you are born with a noble purpose!

  And that purpose is to follow Me and—”

  She lifted two fingers, turned toward the boundless dark, and burst into wild laughter:

  “—ravage the entire damn universe!!!”

  The Earth shook with answering cries.

  “Follow Her Majesty—ravage the entire damn universe!!!”

  Buzz ——

  Light exploded from Seraphine’s form, tens of thousands of rays flooding out.

  The Three Realms Domain unfolded, piercing both physical reality and the Sentience Realm, expanding in an instant into an immense sphere with Earth at its heart—its radius thirty billion kilometers.

  That vast desolation had once been a colossal interstellar molecular cloud, 4.6 billion years ago, collapsing under gravity to birth the Sun.

  Thereafter, washed in the River of Time, lesser celestial bodies were born in succession.

  Four rocky worlds—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.

  Four gas giants—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

  Over five hundred moons, a million asteroids, and dwarf planets scattered through the Kuiper Belt, with Pluto among them.

  Buzz ——

  All of them, from the smallest asteroid to the mighty Sun itself, were seized at once by Seraphine.

  Threads of Divine Will, stretching billions of kilometers, bound every body within the Three Realms Domain.

  It was not mere external dominion, not simple control over mass or orbit.

  She commanded them from their foundation—at the level of the elementary particles themselves.

  If she wished, she could collapse the Solar System in an instant.

  With a thought, she could unravel every particle through the fundamental forces, transmuting all matter into pure light and heat—leaving only a single, blinding scar in the universe.

  Or she could grant each constituent particle liberty, letting them shatter their bonds and scatter as radiant torrents into the abyss, dissolving the Solar System into chaos.

  Or she could open uncountable Real Number Channels, swallowing the infinite lattice of particles and hurling them into foreign space-times—erasing the system entire.

  And this was merely the effect of a few non-offensive techniques.

  For Seraphine now, destroying the Solar System was as natural as drawing breath.

  Like the enforced calendar shift before, Earth’s people stood frozen beneath her Divine Will.

  But this time, no bewilderment, no fear.

  Only fevered anticipation.

  As if in answer, a tangerine planet materialized in the sky.

  Mars.

  It loomed suddenly overhead, oppressive, swallowing half the heavens.

  In the eyes of all beings, the firmament split cleanly in two—one half a deep, bloody red, the other a brilliant blue.

  Majestic. Absolute.

  Before their cries had even subsided, another world appeared—blazing white, luminous as polished marble.

  Venus.

  Its sulfuric shroud reflected the sun in full, gleaming like a celestial torch.

  Then came Mercury, blackened and seared.

  Jupiter, vast and orange-banded.

  Saturn, pale gold with its rings.

  One by one, the great planets emerged, surrounding Earth, occupying the entire sky.