Rumble rumble rumble!

  Countless beings standing upon Earth’s surface seemed to hear the ceaseless, thunderous vibration rolling down from the heavens.

  The once boundless blue sky—limitless even to a neck strained upward—was now entirely eclipsed by colossal masses, each larger than Earth itself.

  At a glance, every one of them was incomparably vast, each cloaked in its own hue, and their number reached into the hundreds, even the thousands.

  The serene azure dome was instantly usurped by the domineering surfaces of these worlds: grey, off-white, tangerine, murky orange, pale blue, earthen brown, and countless other shades.

  The distant expanse, stretching endlessly, was transformed into a canvas of color spanning tens of thousands of miles—an impressionistic masterpiece that could only be titled The Shock of Giants.

  Colossal, eerie, oppressive… one after another, crushing sensations weighed upon those below, as though the planets hanging in the heavens were not worlds at all but the cold, unblinking pupils of gods—or demons—gazing down on humanity with pitiless detachment.

  That feeling of insignificance, already born from their smallness, was amplified to a still more absurd degree by the sky-filling giants, and it nearly shattered the fragile courage evolution had only just bestowed upon countless beings.

  And then—just as minds were on the verge of collapse—countless lances of searing, incandescent firelight burst forth, piercing the gaps between planets and moons that choked the sky. They tore through layer upon layer of atmosphere, casting a blinding glow upon the bewildered, terrified faces below.

  Before anyone could respond, an immense, boundless ocean of flame and brilliance descended from the infinite beyond—from the heaven beyond the heavens. It came crashing down with force enough to rend the cosmos itself, enthroning itself above even the planets that filled the sky.

  The pupils of countless beings dilated, their breaths caught, nearly suffocated by the pressure.

  That boundless sea of flame and light burned so fiercely, so vast and absolute, that the hundreds and thousands of looming planets—their very sight enough to crush the mind—were now rendered dim, blurred, and insignificant.

  "It was the Sun."

  The beings’ fractured minds suddenly snapped awake in sheer astonishment.

  “It’s Her Majesty… Her Majesty has brought the Sun itself here!”

  “My heavens, Her Majesty is far too powerful!”

  Amidst the flood of heartfelt cries, an overwhelming tide of gratitude surged, bursting within their hearts.

  Gratitude for Her Majesty’s salvation.

  Gratitude for Her Majesty’s gift of evolution.

  Gratitude for Her Majesty’s defiance of the mundane, her refusal to bow to hollow hopes.

  For in truth, if given the chance, no one would willingly sink into the quicksand of mediocrity. No one had ever failed to give their all in the climb upward.

  People can resist the oppression of others—but never the burning impulse within themselves to move forward.

  And so, when one says aloud, “I conform to normalcy,” when one smiles with feigned indifference at success or failure, yet in deed constantly struggles against the ordinary—perhaps this is the true meaning of effort.

  But when those efforts meet only disappointment, when swollen ambition is worn down, when pleading for another’s understanding becomes a lost hope—despair follows naturally. One abandons the fight, surrendering at last to the ranks of the mundane.

  The mundane are tragic—watching the transformations of the age only vaguely, as if from afar.

  The march of an era never follows human logic. Or perhaps the logic of the world is simply too profound and hidden, like winding veins coursing secretly for a thousand li.

  Dramatic change never arrives with a warning. Even should one stand at the crossroads of such a moment, watching the tide of history surge, actively or passively making a choice—it would still feel like nothing more than an ordinary day.

  But now, everything is different.

  Now, a Majesty surpassing every god of legend has bestowed upon humanity unending evolution, and the ultimate hope of venturing into the cosmos.

  No one will ever remain mundane again.

  Under Her Majesty’s guidance, humanity will march toward the pinnacle—becoming a race truly 'Divine'.

  Rumble rumble rumble!

  Outside Earth.

  Venus, Jupiter, and the other planets—together with the most vital Sun itself—were drawn forth, along with a vast multitude of moons, comets, and even an innumerable swarm of asteroids, numbering perhaps a million.

  All of them were seized by the sweep of Seraphine’s unleashed Divine Will, ripped from every corner of the Solar System and forcibly translated across countless kilometers.

  Then, with Earth as the axis, they were gathered into concentric rings, stacked layer upon layer.

  The distances between celestial bodies were pressed so close that atmosphere touched atmosphere.

  Yet their enormous gravitational pulls, their magnetic fields, and even their blazing radiation were effortlessly erased by a single thought from Seraphine, brought into perfect harmony. Thus, in the boundless gulf of interstellar space, a colossal cluster of worlds emerged—millions of miles across—like a bunch of grapes. A phenomenon so impossible that no law of celestial mechanics could ever explain it.

  For a moment, within the thirty-billion-kilometer span of the Three Realms Domain across the Solar System, all became void save one thing: that central mass of countless planets heaped and bound together, veiled and obscured by the Sun’s endless, searing brilliance, taking on the silhouette of a singular, unfathomable celestial body.

  In truth, that planetary cluster was the distilled essence of the Solar System—its “physical” core—embodying 99.9% of its total mass.

  And there, one hundred thousand kilometers outside this true Solar System “entity,” Seraphine stood, hands loosely clasped.

  In volume she seemed infinitesimal compared to the colossal body of matter looming nearby—almost invisible.

  Yet the presence she exuded, whether deliberate or not, permeated the vast cosmic void with a grandeur millions of times greater than the majesty, the crushing weight, and the terror of the Solar System “entity.”

  It was as though the entire Solar System itself were nothing more than a speck of dust before her.

  Indeed—should a Milky Way Overlord appear and cast her gaze upon the scene, she would unhesitatingly conclude that Seraphine was immeasurably greater and heavier than the Solar System itself.

  Of course, upon witnessing such a sight, that Milky Way Overlord would likely have evaporated in an instant—snuffed out by nothing more than a flicker of displeasure in Seraphine’s mind.

  And the truth was exactly this: Seraphine, now wielding the strength of six million Suns, had surpassed the Solar System utterly, from every possible angle.

  If she so desired, she would not even need to act. A single glance, offered carelessly, could dissolve every elementary particle comprising the colossal Solar System “entity” into nothingness.

  “In the fat captain’s memory…”

  Seraphine’s lips curved into a warm smile as she gazed across the boundless distance of the cosmos, speaking with calm clarity:

  “Go straight in this direction—one hundred and five light-years. There lies a Sentience Realm Hallway that remains functional.”

  “Mmm… Then let us begin.”

  Her eyes flicked toward the immense Solar System “entity,” still hanging one hundred thousand kilometers away, and she snapped her fingers.

  Bang!

  At that single snap, within the void spanning countless kilometers, an infinite surge of negative energy erupted into existence.

  This ocean of annihilating force, vast enough to unmake the entire Solar System, immediately fractured and unraveled beneath Seraphine’s will, splitting into countless filaments of negative energy. Through instantaneous Real Number Channel portals, these filaments streamed outward, encircling the Solar System “entity.”

  Like serpents without end, alive with intent, each filament traced a path utterly unique—yet all together they wove through the abyssal vacuum like a storm of radiant electromagnetic arcs. From that core, the colossal Solar System mass, they expanded outward, layer upon layer, until they had raised a Lorenz-warped space bubble, fully enclosing a region of vacuum tens of thousands of kilometers across.

  At the apex of this vast, surging bubble, the countless filaments converged, fusing into a titanic sea of negative energy—greater in size than the Sun itself.

  When the warp bubble, unprecedented in scale, was at last complete, Seraphine cast a single glance at the empty husk of the “original” Solar System behind her—and then she triggered the warp.

  Boom!!!

  The tens-of-thousands-of-kilometers-wide warp bubble vanished instantly from its original position. In less than a second, it had crossed hundreds of billions of kilometers, tearing violently through the frail remnants of the Kuiper Belt at the edge of the Solar System, before racing onward toward the vast Oort Cloud—seven trillion kilometers away—at a velocity a million times faster than light.

  As it surged forward, every object that dared obstruct its path was annihilated upon contact with the negative energy ocean that girded the bubble’s prow. Each obstacle was vaporized into nothingness, transfigured in an instant into boundless light and heat, scattered into the cold, sparse wilderness of the cosmos.

  Just over twenty seconds later, the colossal warp bubble reached the Oort Cloud.

  In a heartbeat, that remote expanse—empty and desolate for billions of years—suddenly roared to life.

  Within a single second, amid that colossal nebula of shattered meteors, frozen comets, and drifting cosmic dust, a scorching tunnel was birthed. Its diameter spanned the breadth of ten Suns placed side by side. Its length stretched three hundred billion kilometers. And it continued to expand explosively, lengthening by another three hundred billion kilometers with every passing second.

  Inside this ever-growing tunnel, nothing endured but the fury of thermal energy—immense, infinite, sufficient to vaporize all ordinary matter. Every particle had been scoured away, obliterated by negative energy, transmuted into pure light and heat.

  Within just two minutes, the blazing tunnel carved its way across thirty trillion kilometers, shattering through the outermost edge of the Oort Cloud. The Solar System was left behind, abandoned, cast off. It had departed its ancient cradle, plunging into the terrifying vastness of true intergalactic space.

  Thus, the Solar System—born in the dark over 4.6 billion years ago—was declared gone.

  Apart from the fading traces of the Kuiper Belt and the ghostly Oort Cloud, nothing remained. What once had been a system of worlds was now reduced to a barren void, a desolation tens of billions of kilometers across.

  The true body of the Solar System, bound within that ten-million-kilometer warp bubble, had already fled into the boundless universe, receding ever farther from all that was once familiar.

  After only a short span of silence—

  Rumble rumble rumble ——

  Endless in all directions, Nebulae filled the heavens.

  Each Nebula contained tens of millions of stars, and within them countless sentient beings thrived.

  Surrounding these boundless stars stretched a vast, immeasurable void.

  Through this endless expanse, the warp bubble raced at a million times the speed of light. The shimmering glow of distant Nebulae, crossing infinite gulfs, reflected upon the warped, rippling surface of the bubble. Their light fractured and scattered with the chaotic fluctuations, unveiling a hazy, incomparable beauty.

  Every fragment of this “beauty” was nothing less than starlight—emitted countless ages ago, long before the Solar System began its flight. Having traversed cosmic time and space, they now entered the eyes of Earth’s beings within the warp bubble, inverted halos shimmering across their vision.

  Transcending space-time.

  Transcending life and death.

  Transcending love and hate.

  Within the ten-million-kilometer warp bubble, Seraphine stood in the foremost void, before all the stars. Overwhelmed by this unspeakable beauty, she instinctively spread her arms, as though to embrace the boundless, infinite universe—vast, radiant, and filled with limitless possibility.

  Since condensing and permeating the Delusion of Love, Seraphine no longer resembled a mere cultivation fanatic, nor the cold-faced, sharp-tongued herald of death.

  She seemed reborn—a vibrant young girl, brimming with vitality and emotion.

  Innocence and cruelty. Benevolence and ruthlessness. Focus and playfulness. Warmth and chill… all coexisted within her, layered yet whole.

  This was the form born after the nine delusions fused, condensed, and sublimated.

  And the answer to them all—the Delusion of Love:

  Laughing madly as the cosmos overturned, trampling and plundering the ancient heavens.

  Her heart surged with boundless, all-encompassing love—longing to claim, to embrace, to hold everything that exists and does not exist.

  Love is the greatest selfishness.

  Love is not only possession. It is also joy—joy born from the differences between oneself and others, joy in the existence of the other.

  Indeed, it was precisely because of these differences that Seraphine felt joy.

  For her, in this endless space-time, all things apart from herself—matter, energy, information—were “others.” Even the entirety of space-time itself was “other,” for all bore differences.

  And difference within difference gave birth to the unknown.

  Seeking difference within difference is exploration.

  Thus, Seraphine, with a flourishing and inexhaustible joy, would explore and enact a solitary, absolute possession.

  No guilt, no hesitation—possession was natural, use was natural, destruction was natural.

  Therefore, all these acts were nothing but manifestations of love.

  Upon formally stepping into the cosmic domain, Seraphine took a moment to draw from her Dimensional Pocket a basin-sized key—seemingly real, yet shimmering with illusion.

  This key’s origin was the Abraham Machine, or more precisely… a component of the Order Vortex.

  On the day she returned to Earth, she had willed the Abraham Machine to her through sheer Divine Will, summoning it from the Sapphire Research Institute.

  Then, relying on the fat captain’s memories, she bombarded Abraham with a special high-frequency photon beam for an hour. At once, invisible torrents of high-density information began overflowing from the machine. Using principles that Seraphine herself could not fully comprehend, these flows automatically wove themselves into a condensed, key-shaped object—half-real, half-illusory.

  When the key was born, the colossal machine, like an engine falling silent, utterly lost its ability to extract, recombine, and fuse superpower genes.

  This stirred some regret in Seraphine.

  Even now, she could not completely decipher the Abraham Machine’s most vital craft—the super-logical Black Technology of superpower gene extraction and fusion.

  Why call it super-logical and Black Technology?

  Because the Abraham Machine could, without barrier, extract so-called superpower genes from utterly different planetary systems and species, then seamlessly integrate them into any living being, leaving behind no side effects at all.

  At first glance, this might not appear extraordinary.

  But in truth, the ability to conduct unrestricted gene tailoring and recombination was a power unspeakably terrifying.

  For example—within Earth’s biosphere, aside from a handful of special animals or insects whose organs contain trace amounts of D-amino acids, all other life—bacteria, plants, animals, humans—is fundamentally carbon-based. Their amino acid backbones are overwhelmingly L-amino acids, that is, left-handed chiral molecules. In short, Earth’s life is L-amino acid–based carbon life.

  By coincidence, the wider universe also hosts D-amino acid–based carbon life. They belong to the same overarching family of carbon life as Earth’s, but they are D-enantiomers.

  Because their chirality differs, their chosen carbohydrate linkages, RNA configurations, and protein catalytic stereochemistry are all fundamentally distinct from those of Earth.

  This difference results in D-amino acid carbon life possessing genetic structures not arranged in double helices but instead in a zigzag, Z-DNA-like form, typically shaped as circular cylinders.

  To be precise: where an L-amino acid carbon life form’s double helix completes one full turn every ten base pairs, a D-amino acid carbon life form fits twelve base pairs into the same length. The outcome is longer, thinner genetic sequences. Correspondingly, their macroscopic bodies tend to be larger, more elongated, and slender—often resembling insects or arthropods in build.

  And to Earth life, every tissue of these beings is lethally toxic. Once absorbed, it causes instantaneous death. (Earth itself harbors only a minuscule number of such D-enantiomeric organisms, mostly bacteria or insects.)

  Yet the Abraham Machine can isolate and extract the superpower genes of these utterly alien D-life forms, then recombine and integrate them flawlessly into the genetic code of Earth’s L-amino acid carbon life—without a single complication.

  It can even extract genetic fragments from plasma organisms composed of high-energy photons and fuse them seamlessly into the genomes of nitrogen-based, low-temperature organisms—matter-state beings—allowing them to function perfectly, cold and heat in flawless coexistence.

  Or again: it can separate carbon-cluster gene segments from graphene semi-mechanical life—members of the carbon-based family whose molecular architecture simulates the chemical bonding of numerous primordial elements—and recombine these with the genomes of sulfur-based life forms found only on lava planets at thousands of degrees Celsius. The result is the same: flawless fusion, no disruption, no rejection.

  This… was simply beyond belief.

  The best example Seraphine had ever seen was Boss Monroe Holmes of the Frankenstein Company.

  This man had used the Abraham Machine to fuse dozens of superpowers into himself without detonating and dying. Aside from Seraphine’s own specifications, only the Witch King Mycenae could restrain him. Otherwise, given his troublesome nature, even the King of Aurora Cuan likely couldn’t secure a true victory against him.

  Thus, as long as one’s imagination was vast enough, the Abraham Machine could be used to grow rapidly stronger—and to achieve even stranger feats.

  Yet, in the fat captain’s memories, there were only ten such devices in the entire Mercury Race.

  Except for the Mercury Race’s Ninth Prince, who had escaped the imperial territory with one during a bloody succession struggle several centuries ago, the number of machines had never changed.

  This led Seraphine to harbor certain suspicions.

  She wondered if Abraham was not actually created by the Mercury Race at all, but rather a relic of some ancient Milky Way civilization, unearthed from an unknown site.

  Even the Mercury Race’s Etheric Machinery system of armed forces might in truth be a partial technological framework reverse-engineered from such a relic.

  One piece of evidence lay in the Etheric Battleform bio-plug-in tray worn by Monroe: his so-called bio-plug-in was essentially a cultivated organ, engineered through targeted superpower gene manipulation.

  The Mercury Race’s Etheric Battleforms possessed diverse abilities, each provided by different classes of bio-plug-ins.

  And the root of all this—

  Abraham… or perhaps a fragment of Order Vortex.

  Drawing on her deep research background and accumulated knowledge, Seraphine deduced that the seamless fusion ability of these superpower genes—found within some of the five parts—was most likely derived from shards of the so-called Key of Heaven.

  But why those fragments carried such power remained unclear. Even with the combined force of her Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation, she could only reach a hazy conclusion.

  【…Probability… Influence…】

  Within the warp bubble, Seraphine’s eyes gleamed with a sharp, relentless curiosity.

  “Could it be… a manipulation of the probability that a living being’s genetic sequence can adapt to external Transcendent gene segments? Truly miraculous technology. But how, exactly, is it achieved?”

  After careful thought, she found not a single clue within any of her existing technological systems.

  So Seraphine let the question drop, slowly extending her hand to caress the radiant key floating before her. A contemplative gleam flickered in her eyes.

  “It has no mass, no energy. Structurally, it resembles a microscopic Sentience Realm… yet it is information made manifest?

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Hmm… this is strikingly similar to that tablet embedded in the inner wall of the wormhole conduit. Perhaps both were forged with the same technology. But this key—its complexity, stability, and precision far surpass that tablet.”

  “Information materialized… a single lineage…”

  Seraphine’s eyes narrowed as she whispered, “…Final Order… Order Vortex… Divine Trial…”

  Ding!

  A jolt of inspiration thundered through her mind, instantly linking all the scattered concepts and fragments.

  “I see it now!”

  Her pupils flared with divine radiance, and she burst into delighted laughter.

  “So that’s it! Haha—so that’s how it was all along!”

  “That ‘Sower’ Saknussim, who descended upon Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago, and his affiliated ‘Houiste’ Federation—very likely they were what is called the ‘divine’. And the so-called ‘Divine Trial’ must be that unknown ‘Final Order’.”

  According to the tablet’s record, if the Final Order succeeded, he would surely return to Earth. But in the end, he never did.

  “In that case, he must have perished in what they called the ‘ancestral land’.”

  Delight welled within Seraphine as she pieced the puzzle together. She laughed softly to herself.

  “That unknown ancient civilization must have wielded technology on the razor’s edge. Haha… that so-called Divine Trial ground must be overflowing with priceless relics. After all, even the probability-manipulation ability hidden within this Key of Heaven is beyond my ability to study—beyond even my ability to master.

  And yet… since Saknussim fell there hundreds of thousands of years ago, it means that the ‘ancestral land’ is without doubt a place of great peril. Moreover…”

  She tilted her head slightly, musing aloud:

  “If just a single Mercury Civilization possesses all the Vortex parts—or perhaps fragments of the Key of Heaven—then logically, such relics across the entire Milky Way shouldn’t be few. Even if not innumerable, there should be at least a hundred and eighty… perhaps even eighteen hundred.

  Yet in the fat captain’s memories, the legend of the so-called Divine Wish has never faded. This suggests that the Divine Trial has either never been completed, or at best, only partially so.

  Otherwise, with the Milky Way’s active trade and constant movement, if the Trial had been completed—its treasures plundered—such an upheaval would have sent ripples across the entire galaxy.”

  Arms crossed, Seraphine fell silent, then lifted her gaze once more toward the distant horizon of her vision. At the warp bubble’s edge, vast currents of negative energy warped and twisted space.

  Through the shimmering ocean of distortion, her sight pierced forward—revealing a radiant sea of pure light, dazzling and immaculate.

  It was the peculiar phenomenon that occurred when the light ahead of the universe continually “stacked up” as the warp streaked past.

  The warp had already been running for half an hour.

  The distance covered now exceeded fifty light-years.

  Along the way, planets—and perhaps even stars—had been encountered, but all were devoured, burned away by the negative energy wall at the front of the bubble. They left no impression upon Seraphine, and of course, she gave them no concern.

  By her calculations, in another half hour—at a million times the speed of light—the warp bubble would deliver her smoothly to the high-Ether cosmic region preserved in the fat captain’s memory.

  There lay the advanced Sentience Realm Hallway—

  The Zciya Interstellar City-State.

  The Mercury captain had been there more than ten times.

  Sometimes his visits had been hurried official business, other times mere leisure trips.

  After enough journeys, even without deliberately gathering intelligence, with the fat captain’s mind—far keener than any ordinary Earth human—he came to know Zciya City as though it were carved into his palm.

  Thus, sifting through his tangled, cluttered memories, Seraphine, standing within the vast interior of the warp bubble, swiftly and vividly “saw” the city’s cultural landscape and architectural splendor.

  It was a city—a colossal city—suspended in the skies, held aloft by immense anti-gravity engines.

  The planet beneath it was named Drugana, a gas giant with a diameter of 120,000 kilometers.

  Its surface was eternally blanketed by endless sheets of pink and violet cloud.

  These two-colored layers stretched for tens of thousands of miles, colliding and heaving with titanic force like rolling ocean waves—splitting apart, merging again, then breaking down once more into innumerable clusters of pink and purple mist.

  The result was a spectacle of breathtaking magnificence—alien, dazzling, and utterly mesmerizing, whether viewed from the void of space or from within the planet’s churning atmosphere.

  Like most gas giants of the Milky Way, Drugana was formed of a central celestial core wrapped in three concentric elemental strata.

  At its heart lay a geological core six thousand kilometers in radius, forged of solid metal under unimaginable heat and pressure.

  Encasing it, the second layer stretched twenty-four thousand kilometers thick: an underworld of Ether-Crystalline metallic hydrogen.

  Here, primordial hydrogen, saturated for aeons by surging Ether currents, had undergone a miraculous crystalline transformation, turning into a substance with the shimmer and rigidity of true metal. The temperatures there, too, raged at extreme levels.

  Above that lay a twenty-eight-thousand-kilometer-deep ocean of liquid hydrogen, where the sheer pressure could crush a massive warship down to the size of a matchbox.

  Crowning it all was the uppermost layer: a two-thousand-kilometer-thick shroud of atmosphere.

  At the boundary where this heavy cloud mantle pressed against the liquid hydrogen ocean, temperatures soared to several thousand degrees Celsius.

  And yet, within this inferno of crushing pressure and blistering heat, rumors spoke of a nomadic, intelligent lifeform.

  What kind of species they were, whether they had forged a written culture of their own—remained a mystery.

  Thus, when Seraphine sifted through the fat captain’s memories, she paid little heed to such whispers.

  Instead, her “gaze” shifted upward, piercing layer after layer of storming cloud, until it reached the place where Zciya City resided.

  Here lay the true 【Habitable Layer】 of Drugana—the one region fit for most life to endure.

  Zciya City had been built within this band, which in its earliest days was nothing more than a cluster of settlements for collecting Ether-Crystalline metallic hydrogen.

  In truth, Drugana was a rare anomaly in celestial mechanics.

  For within its endless cloud seas lay a broad, stable atmospheric stratum suited to ordinary life.

  This habitable belt was one hundred seventy-five kilometers thick. Its temperature, magnetic field, pressure, and even oxygen concentration—all fell neatly within the range to sustain life.

  And though oxygen was not essential to every form of existence, in this stretch of the Milky Way, carbon-based life reliant on oxygen respiration still dominated.

  In those ancient times, this layer hosted nothing more than a few scattered gas-beasts adrift in the upper currents. No trace of intelligent life existed.

  Not until fifty thousand years ago—when, six thousand light-years away, within a Symbolic Domain buried deep in an unknown sector of the Orion Arm, something extraordinary occurred.

  There, a fragment of a high-level Sentience Realm Hallway, abandoned for uncounted millennia and left incomplete, suddenly began to repair itself. No one knew why—only that, across eons, time itself had somehow mended it.

  And once its function reignited, that fragment surged forward explosively, extending at millions of times the speed of light, driving into the vast unknown.

  Along the way, it linked with several other operational hallway segments—knitting together into a coherent, orderly network of cosmic passageways.

  It wasn’t just that.

  As it expanded and permeated, it also connected, activated, and repaired a vast number of abandoned hallway sections.

  Linked together, these fragments quickly formed a new interstellar traffic network, spanning a territory of six thousand light-years and stitching together countless forgotten or broken sector pathways.

  The sector containing Drugana marked the ultimate terminus of this revived high-level hallway—the point where the strange “resurrected” corridor finally ended.

  This sudden development immediately sent ripples through civilizations across the 20,000-light-year sweep of the Orion Arm.

  It meant opportunity—territory, resources, and fortune.

  And in such matters, the first to arrive reaped the most.

  For a time, driven by profit, wave after wave of interstellar navigators, adventurers, merchants, and pirates surged forward to seize the unknown path.

  This great “feast”—a saga of exploration, plunder, invasion, and colonization—stretched on for ten thousand years.

  In its course, untold numbers of adventurers and navigators perished in the dark depths of the cosmos. Meanwhile, weaker and Broken Civilizations were colonized, enslaved, trafficked, or simply annihilated.

  At the tail end of this frenzy, a ragtag band of desperate prospectors, aboard a patched-up interstellar freighter, finally stumbled upon Drugana.

  After a careful survey, they discovered the vast 【Habitable Layer】 and, below it, the planet’s twenty-thousand-kilometer-thick deposit of natural Ether-Crystalline metallic hydrogen.

  With reckless ambition, they built a crude floating mining platform—little more than a jury-rigged station suspended in the upper skies—designed to extract this high-energy substance. Ether-Crystalline metallic hydrogen, with its staggering energy density, proved a reliable fuel for space transport.

  Though not the most precious of resources, its sheer abundance, ease of extraction, and simple storage and transport made it immensely profitable.

  Over the years, the platform expanded, gained new functions, and evolved—until at last it became the first incarnation of Zciya City.

  Tens of thousands of years later, through countless cycles of renovation and upgrading, Zciya City had grown into a colossal floating metropolis. Anchored by massive anti-gravity engines, it hung suspended amid the dense, gentle cloud layers of Planet Drugana.

  The city was home to fifteen intelligent species drawn from across the stars, where dozens of common tongues echoed, and a population exceeding ten billion thrived. Here, science, technology, and culture intertwined, driving progress forward in great leaps.

  From above, Zciya City resembled a shamrock: two small leaves and one larger leaf. These represented its three vast residential districts—Southwest, Northwest, and the great Eastern expanse.

  In the southwestern liquid-state sector lived three aquatic races. Their slick-skinned bodies and exposed nerve bundles allowed them to communicate by direct neural contact. Masters of fluidic manipulation, they combined their innate body-fluid superpowers with exotic liquid-based technologies to cultivate living clusters of Ether-Crystalline elemental dust.

  Once harvested, they refined the glowing crystalline dust with blades of high-pressure water, shaping it into ornaments, trinkets, and art pieces for trade.

  To most species, primordial elemental clusters were dangerously radioactive—useless and harmful. Yet Ether-Crystalline dust clusters carried a strange paradox: their radiation field exerted a soothing effect on diverse life forms—carbon-based, sulfur-based, amino-based, silicon-based, and nitrogen-based alike.

  Especially when large clusters were displayed together within a chamber or dwelling, the ambient Ether Coherence subtly rose, enhancing absorption and tempering for any intelligent being nearby.

  In the northwestern gaseous district dwelled low-density, variable-temperature gaseous life forms—direct descendants of the ancient interstellar prospectors who had once founded Zciya City. Their domain was the mining of Drugana’s natural Ether-Crystalline metallic hydrogen, drawn from the planet’s deep strata.

  Compared to their ancestors, their methods were not fundamentally different, but over millennia they had refined scale, efficiency, and technique to an extraordinary degree. From extraction and shipment, to smelting, refining, storage, and maintenance, every stage was executed with precision and speed unmatched across the region.

  Their true mining hub, however, was not within the northwestern industrial complex, but at the city’s heart—where the three shamrock leaves converged. Beneath this central abdomen loomed a colossal structure, broad at its crown and tapering downward into an inverted spire of gleaming white, its sheer mass rivaling that of a mountain range.

  Embedded within the spire were one hundred and twenty-eight pairs of titanic guided beam emitters. These served three critical functions: anchoring Zciya City securely within Drugana’s tenuous habitable layer; drawing Ether-Crystalline metallic hydrogen upward from the planet’s depths into massive refining and storage facilities; and channeling vast surges of external heat into the city’s energy conversion arrays, sustaining both its power grid and dynamic support systems.

  At the spire’s sharpest point, a single slender support leg extended downward, glimmering with pale brilliance. It stretched tens of thousands of kilometers, plunging through over a thousand kilometers of cloud, through a 28,000-kilometer-deep ocean of liquid hydrogen, and into Drugana’s crystalline metallic hydrogen underworld.

  Through this pipe-like conduit, under extreme pressure, the guided beams siphoned Ether-Crystalline directly into the city’s refining arrays.

  Though the entire process of mineral extraction seemed intricate, laborious, and exhausting, in truth, the modern gaseous life forms bore little resemblance to their pioneering ancestors. Automation had replaced hardship; machines performed the bulk of the labor, sparing them both physical strain and mental fatigue. By every measure, they were fortunate.

  For the gaseous and indeed most intelligent species of Zciya City, mining itself was not the true challenge. The true danger lay in the planet’s own nature—its violent, ever-brewing storms. Within Drugana’s vast and oppressive atmosphere, cyclones could swell to encompass thousands of miles, their turbulent fronts often encroaching directly upon Zciya City.

  To survive such wrath, the city’s architects had, over millennia, engineered an audacious solution: a colossal ventilation shaft carved through the city’s heart, linking the three leaf-shaped districts and descending straight down to the long, slender support leg that anchored the city’s abdomen.

  This abyssal fissure howled ceaselessly with hurricane winds, diverting destructive gales away from the city’s structures. At the same time, it harnessed their force, channeling immense kinetic energy into Zciya’s power grids and feeding its colossal mechanical support systems. The shaft even doubled as a disposal system, swallowing the city’s waste into the endless storms below.

  Through the fat captain’s memories, Seraphine’s ‘gaze’ drifted across this chasm, leaving the liquid and gaseous districts behind, and fell upon Zciya’s largest quarter—the sprawling Eastern District.

  This was the seat of ordinary life, the true metropolis of the city, vast in scope and intricate in design. The district alone stretched 980 kilometers, with its widest span reaching 550 kilometers, and its structures rising as high as 130 kilometers.

  Along its outer ring, massive circular landing platforms accommodated the constant ebb and flow of starships. These converged upon a grand plaza, crowning the tops of soaring spires. Within, avenues and plazas shimmered with pure light and clean air, instilling the breathtaking sensation of walking upon wind and cloud.

  From Seraphine’s perspective, the architecture bore echoes of Earth’s ancient Eliondra classical style—white marble pillars, solemn gray spires, an elegance married with grandeur.

  Yet beneath this splendid plaza lay the true heart of the Eastern District. Its vast interior was divided into multiple tiers, each layer with its own purpose and function.

  From the topmost plaza, the Eastern District descended tier by tier, all the way to the one-hundred-and-twentieth floor.

  Spanning a staggering height of 130 kilometers, even divided into so many levels, the average distance between floors still measured over a thousand meters—each one practically a sky in itself.

  Floors 1–15 formed the commercial and entertainment belt. Here lay thousands of luxury hotels and inns, alongside specialized resorts offering every conceivable therapy—physio, hydro, electro, thermal, and magnetic. Vast themed shopping streets branched into labyrinthine bazaars, punctuated by colossal nightclubs, intimate taverns, museums, libraries, exhibition halls, and glittering casinos.

  Floors 15–30 were reserved for the city’s elite. High-end residential quarters housed interstellar merchants, state officials, and the wealthy managerial class. Entry was strictly forbidden to the poor, the entire zone shielded as a world apart.

  Floors 31–45 comprised the gubernatorial district—the administrative heart of the Zciya City-state. These levels were magnificent and imposing, filled with ornate halls, offices, and diplomatic chambers.

  Floors 46–60, by contrast, were the city’s oldest, most neglected depths—the infamous Gray Harbor. Crime here ran rampant. Medium and small industrial unloading docks served as cover for black-market casinos, illicit taverns, and gang territories. The slums, too, sprawled across these levels, a stark reminder of Zciya’s fractured prosperity.

  Floors 61–75 were packed with dense apartment blocks: the commoner and laborer residential zones. Though vast in scale, these floors were crowded and utilitarian, built to house the city’s poorest citizens.

  Floors 76–90 formed Zciya’s industrial complex—home to colossal factories in machinery, metallurgy, and chemicals. The shipyard and repair districts were also here, where both legitimate and shady workshops offered starship refits—some safe, others notoriously life-threatening.

  Floors 91–105 constituted the lifeblood of the city’s economy: the Ether-Crystalline metallic hydrogen processing plants, packaging hubs, and distribution corporations. Starship captains from across the galaxy came here to secure fuel orders. The district also doubled as the primary export port for Drugana’s mineral wealth, channeling its energy to the wider Orion Arm.

  Why such an important sector was no longer controlled by the gaseous life forms was a story written in forty millennia of conflict—marked by upheavals, bloodshed, and countless deaths.

  The truth was simple: the struggles of ancestors seldom shield their descendants. When the prize grows vast enough, the weak lose the right to hold the initiative.

  The fat captain only knew this much: Zciya City had long since fallen under the absolute dominion of some unknown power from the far depths of the Milky Way. Its control was so total that no one else could interfere.

  Thus, the gaseous miners—willingly or not—had long retreated from Zciya’s core authority. Now they concerned themselves only with mining, steering clear of greater affairs.

  Beneath all else lay the final span of the Eastern District.

  Floors 106–120 formed the city’s underbelly. Like the southwestern and northwestern districts, this foundation housed colossal guided beam arrays and anti-gravity generator complexes, the true pillars keeping Zciya City afloat within Drugana’s fragile 【Habitable Layer】.

  A vast labyrinth of transit tunnels threaded across more than a hundred levels, stretching north to south, connecting the city in a lattice of passageways.

  Seraphine’s eyes gleamed with quiet delight as she whispered, “What a fine place. I approve. Such a worthless governor… all true treasures belong to Me.”

  Withdrawing from the captain’s memory, she lifted her gaze toward the boundless sea of light ahead of the warp bubble. After a moment’s calculation, she murmured softly:

  “Only twenty minutes remain. We’ll arrive soon.”

  Her vision pressed forward.

  Piercing the gathering tide of negative energy folding space before the warp bubble. Through the dazzling brilliance of light stacked endlessly ahead. Across a staggering 360 trillion kilometers of the universe itself.

  And at the very farthest edge—

  A pink and purple gas giant turned slowly, silently, in the vast and dim abyss of space.

  Piercing through layers of dense atmosphere, descending further, the distance spanned only two hundred and eighty kilometers.

  A colossal floating city, shaped like a shamrock, slowly emerged into view.

  Zciya City, Eastern District, 36th floor.

  Within the gubernatorial district of this city-state stood a vast, continuous palace complex, dark blue in hue, sprawling like a mountain range.

  “Cadelon, just now you said... the Oracle Machine—the one that roams freely across the Milky Way—actually exists?! And you even encountered it?!”

  A towering figure, nearly three hundred meters tall, resembling a giant lobster, its entire body encased in layers of advanced machinery and bio-devices, trembled with indescribable shock. The six rod-shaped pupils set upon its triangular head shook violently as it cried out in excitement:

  “That ancient Oracle Machine—did you question it? Did it answer you?”

  Following its gaze, several hundred meters away stood another being, far smaller, only one-tenth the lobster’s size. This strange figure possessed four arms, two legs, and a single eye. Its body was likewise sealed within heavy mechanical armor, yet between the gaps in the plates, one could glimpse the seething interior: an entire form composed of dense, mobile, dark-blue high-energy plasma, radiating an aura reminiscent of star-annihilation itself.

  The bizarre creature stood quietly before a colossal floor-to-ceiling window, gazing out at the volatile atmosphere of Zciya City. At last, it slowly turned its head to meet the lobster-man’s desperate question. But instead of answering, it replied with a strange voice—layered from more than ten electromagnetic noise frequencies, overlapping into one:

  “Set that aside, Panei. After ten thousand years, you’re still stalled at Transcendent Stage Ten. Has the comfort of this overly generous world made you indolent? I begin to wonder if aiding you to ‘assume’ the position of Governor of this city was nothing but a mistake.”

  “Uh...”

  The rod-shaped pupils of the giant lobster-man, Panei, quivered. Deep down, he knew: if he dared answer “Yes,” then this old friend—absent for countless years—would shatter Drugana with a flick of her finger, forcing him into so-called “self-improvement.”

  So, with some reluctance, he muttered:

  “No, Cadelon. You know well that our By Reit race cultivates at an agonizingly slow pace, utterly unlike you Yonruk.”

  “That is no excuse.”

  Cadelon shook her head, her tone flat, indifferent.

  “You and I both belong to Transcendent races—born as Transcendent-level beings. Even if progress is slow, it is unthinkable to stagnate like those lesser species, who fail to reach Overlord level even after tens of thousands of years.”

  Panei let out a long sigh.

  “Alas~ my friend Cadelon, is it possible that because you’ve always been a genius, you assume everyone else must be the same? Oh, and—did that Oracle Machine answer you?”

  “Your attempts at digression are as pitiful as your life stage.”

  Cadelon dismissed him with a glance.

  “Never mind. Since you’re so content to abase yourself, I’ll not press further.”

  She folded her four arms across her chest and continued evenly:

  “That so-called Oracle Machine may disappoint you.”

  Panei blinked in surprise.

  “Ah? Why do you say that?”

  Cadelon replied coldly:

  “A true Oracle Machine could not be built, even by the ancient Star Eaters. The one I encountered, carrying that name, in truth resembled nothing more than a fortune-telling contraption.”

  “Uh...”

  Before this being, Governor Panei’s usual arrogance faltered. He stammered:

  “But... I once heard the elders of my clan say that the Oracle Machine could answer any question.”

  “Such absurdities are only legend. They cannot exist in this age.”

  Cadelon’s voice remained calm, detached.

  “Listen well: the counterfeit oracle that wanders the galaxy has but one function—it tells you when the most significant moment of your life will occur. To call it a fortune-teller is no exaggeration.”

  Governor Panei’s six pupils drooped, heavy with disappointment.

  “So that’s it... Then, Cadelon—your sudden arrival in Zciya City—could it be that the most important moment of your life... is here?”

  “No.”

  Cadelon shook her head.

  “Not here. But with the Mercury fleet, soon to depart from this place.”

  The Oracle Machine told me the destination of their voyage is where the most important moment of my life will manifest."

  "Is that so."

  Governor Panei considered for a moment. "I’ve got intel that those Mercury-based organisms may have discovered a high-Ether interrupted sector, and they even lost a small recon team there. So—there may be danger."

  "It’s not important."

  Cadelon spoke slowly. "Thirty thousand years ago I was already a top-tier Milky Way Overlord. Tens of thousands of years later, I am now over nine hundred times stronger than I was back then.

  Alas ~ I am excessively powerful; I cannot find a worthy opponent even after traversing the entire Milky Way. The few other top Overlords are as fragile as air to me—none can withstand a single finger.

  Even the six great scourges of the Milky Way… well, except for the elusive Cult of the Evil Eye and the seldom-seen Gravitational Dragon.

  Those mindless Milky Way Tyrants and the Alefen Colossi no longer force me to use a second move. Even grouped Solar Squids and Star-Burning Vultures pose no real threat."

  "You..." Panei faltered, at a loss for words. "There are countless geniuses among the myriad beings of the Milky Way—surely you’ve met some…?"

  "Geniuses?"

  Cadelon cocked her head. "I’ve clashed with many geniuses across eras. Roughly every ten thousand years, a new crop of them emerges—each one certain they’ll become the strongest in the Milky Way—so I must go out and deal with them.

  Yet every time I defeat them, they somehow reappear, and I must face them again.

  Over and over, the outcome is the same: victory is mine.

  To be frank, I’m tired of it. My life is saturated with boredom. I urgently need an opponent—an existence that can actually excite me."

  At that, Cadelon spread her four arms, voice sharpening with something like exhilaration: "I am so powerful, yet I can't fight a satisfying battle! My surging physical energy roars and rages, desperate for an adversary!

  Soon—very soon—this may become the most important moment of my life. It must be the arrival of something that finally excites me; otherwise I cannot imagine what could qualify as an 'important moment'!"

  Panei, sensing the surge in her emotions, spoke with a mix of dread and awe:

  “Cadelon… are you trying to approach—the realm of those old monsters?”

  At the mention of old monsters, Cadelon fell silent. When she spoke again, her voice carried a profound weight:

  “I am but one step from the threshold. I have a clear premonition: the moment I defeat that unknown existence—the one capable of stirring me—I will step into that supreme, ultimate realm.”

  “Hoo—”

  Panei’s six rod-shaped pupils drooped. “You truly are a monster, Cadelon. So you…”

  Ding! A crisp chime.

  A brilliant surface of light materialized before Panei’s eyes. Within it appeared a silicon-based lifeform, shaped like a massive metallic cockroach. In a piercing tone it reported:

  “Your Excellency Governor, Prince Yimier of the Mercury fleet has completed preparations and is ready to depart the Zciya City-State. They intend to enter a Deep Dive state and travel to the unknown interrupted sector.”

  “I understand.”

  Panei’s reply was low and measured. Turning his gaze toward Cadelon, he said:

  “They are preparing to leave.”

  “Ah… very good.”

  Cadelon nodded once. “Then farewell, my friend.”

  “Farewell.”

  With that, Cadelon’s form—wreathed in crackling dark-blue lightning—vanished from the governor’s mansion.

  Zciya City, Eastern District, topmost floor.

  A vast starship landing platform stretched outward.

  This colossal circular platform, seven hundred seventy kilometers across, was forged entirely from a special self-healing alloy. Beneath its thick plating, immense layers of gravity-reduction units had been embedded, designed to ease the crushing weight of arriving starships.

  On the resilient platform surface, quantum light-field technology—akin to an illusory light membrane—had been used to divide the expanse into 5,500 berths, each ten kilometers long and wide, covering more than a hundred square kilometers in total.

  Each of these immense berths, like self-contained towns, possessed every essential facility: energy replenishment, cleaning, beautification, basic repairs, and even minor modifications.

  This ensured that every starship docked here received the most comprehensive service imaginable.

  At present, more than 3,000 starships of varying sizes and designs were neatly arranged across the berths.

  Near the northern boundary’s largest docks, however, were clustered 600 black, spiked, shuttle-shaped vessels. Though similar in design and aesthetic, their scales and lengths differed sharply.

  Among them were thousand-meter-long scout ships, 3,600-meter-long interceptor ships, and 7,800-meter-long patrol ships.

  And towering behind them all lay a dark, colossal warship—thirty-five kilometers in length, twelve kilometers across—looming like a mountain range.

  The vessel’s sheer mass was so great that one berth could not contain it. Instead, it occupied eight berths in total—four horizontal, two vertical—just to fit its frame.

  At this moment, in a vast hall adjacent to the warship’s core control bridge, sat Yimier, Sixteenth Prince of the Mercury Race. His body was tall yet monstrously bulky, wedged into an enormous chair. One hand—ending in a sparking metallic claw—tore through food as he devoured it ravenously. With the other, he gestured irritably while speaking to the captain in a voice that was equal parts imperious and sulky:

  “Tell this prince—why does it take so long, 0.167 Glacurn, to reach that Sector-359-whatever-163?

  Such a tedious, endless stretch of time! This prince’s backlog of games will absolutely not survive it. How will this prince endure?

  Oh, and—this prince remembers those poor fools of Reconnaissance Vessel 8164 sent five-times-light-speed information pods to the Imperial Homeworld without taking so long! Explain it to me at once. Hurry!”

  “At once, Your Highness.”

  The thin, tentacle-faced, somewhat aged captain answered in a solemn, respectful tone:

  "Your Highness, there is something you may not know. The three information pods dispatched by reconnaissance vessel 8164 arrived so quickly precisely because they traveled through the wormhole route, crossing a thousand light-years in an instant to the Empire’s frontline against the Namora race.

  Even so, had the Empire’s defense forces not been continuously operating their Sentience Realm radar—and happened to intercept those pods—they might still be drifting within the Sentience Realm."

  "Then why aren’t we taking the wormhole? Why?!" Yimier slammed the armrest, voice sharp with irritation. "Do you think this prince’s time is cheap? To be squandered like yours on pointless drifting?"

  "Your Highness," the old captain replied evenly, "that wormhole… has mysteriously vanished."

  "Huh?" Yimier froze, tossing aside the metallic claw with casual disdain. Suspicion flickered in his eyes. "Wormholes can just vanish? Why has this prince never heard of such a thing? Wait—did that wretched crew of reconnaissance vessel 8164 leave a travel log in their pods?"

  As he spoke, he suddenly sat bolt upright, cackling: "Ha! I remember now! With this prince’s brilliant mind, I predict there must be traces of the wormhole’s collapse in that log!"

  "In truth," the captain said steadily, "the Imperial Academy of Sciences is still investigating the exact cause of its disappearance. As for the travel log Your Highness mentioned…"

  He shook his head with calm finality. "Regrettably, when the Empire retrieved the pods and decrypted all data, they did indeed find the log. But every internal record connected to the wormhole… had been wiped blank."

  "This… You’ve got to be kidding me."

  Yimier’s eyes widened. “Information structure can turn blank? That’s even possible?”

  His gaze sharpened, suspicion edging his voice. “This prince has been immersed in virtual server games for years. I know that if a game crashes, it either turns into total garble, or chunks of it become corrupted and the client won’t launch. But blank? What kind of nonsense is that? It doesn’t even follow information logic!”

  The captain’s expression stayed calm, respectful, and utterly unshaken. He spoke with quiet gravity:

  “Your Highness, in short, the wormhole’s disappearance is fact. After lengthy deliberation by the military’s interstellar route experts, the fleet has been ordered to change course—through the Sentience Realm Hallway.”

  “Alas—”

  Yimier sighed with theatrical despair, collapsing into the oversized chair like a bloated insect. With a dismissive wave, he muttered, “Whatever, do as you like! Order Vortex, Sentience Hallway, what does any of it have to do with this prince?

  This prince is only here to rack up some merit. Do whatever you want. Don’t expect this prince to lift a finger. This prince knows nothing—ah, absolutely nothing. All this prince can do is play.”

  He tapped a button on the armrest, summoning five hovering screens before his eyes, each flickering with a different game, each in its own outlandish art style. At the same time, a jagged, lightning-bolt hair tie appeared atop his plump head as he sank into a virtual reality session.

  The elderly captain beside him behaved as if none of this had happened—neither the prince’s surrender nor his lazy sprawl. He bowed low, his tone steady and formal:

  “At your command, Your Highness.”

  He turned to leave, but then—

  Buzz—

  The air split open. A blur of dark-blue lightning flashed into the chamber.

  Cadelon materialized, cloaked in crackling arcs, and without hesitation struck Yimier clean out of the massive chair. She seated herself in his place with unhurried composure, then leveled a cool gaze at the stunned captain.

  “What are you dawdling for?” she said flatly. “Get this ship moving.”