BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Millions of brilliant stars fell; the vast firmament surged and boiled.
In that expanse of void, where nearly a thousand scorching suns exploded every second, every millisecond released vast amounts of radiant energy into the cosmos, far exceeding the magnitude of any gamma-ray burst.
From a distance, the area looked like an incredibly brilliant super-sun, radiating wave after wave of pure light and heat in all directions.
However, the sunlight erupting from this turbulent vacuum was far more intense than that of any ordinary star. It was so potent that 99.9% of life in the universe would not survive a single second of its exposure.
Yet, for the God of Hunger race, this terrifying light and heat were the ultimate food. The group of God of Hunger nearest to the chaos stood motionless within the tides of energy. Faced with this continuous deluge, equivalent to a supernova strike every second, they didn't even flinch, allowing the energy to buffet them freely.
As the energy reached them, it vanished without a trace, swallowed whole.
Strictly speaking, this bit of light and heat was merely a gentle breeze to them.
And that was indeed the case.
In reality, over 90% of the energy generated by the explosions of those millions of stars was consumed by the newborn God of Hunger at the heart of the storm. The majestic tides of light and heat seen from afar were merely the crumbs splashed during his meal.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
After twenty minutes of enduring the continuous bombardment of a million stars, the newborn God of Hunger reached his peak state, shedding the weak, pale appearance he had at birth.
He possessed a human-like form with a face, skin, and limbs.
Interestingly, this newborn God of Hunger took the shape of a young otaku, wearing a shirt printed with anime characters, thick glasses, and a messy bowl-cut hairstyle.
At this point, Tu stepped across trillions of kilometers, appearing before the newcomer. He smiled warmly and said:
"Hello, brother. Welcome to the new era. Feel better now that you've eaten?"
The newcomer looked at him blankly, his voice stammering as if he were unfamiliar with speaking: "Who... are you?"
"You're asking who I am, right?"
Tu's voice was relaxed. "First, let me introduce myself. Like you, I am an Earth human. My name is Tu. I am the Chief Military Governor of Shelter 101 of the New Era Human Federation, responsible for the safety and defense of the entire shelter, as well as external strategic research and guidance."
"Then..." The otaku God of Hunger tapped his head, looking lost. "Who... am I?"
"The answer to that question can only be found by you," Tu said calmly.
"Me... myself?" The otaku stood there dazed, slightly clumsy. "I... don't know... anything. I know nothing."
"Haha," Tu laughed patiently. "Then think carefully. Really think. Think about where you came from, who you used to be, and what things left the deepest impression on you."
"Most importantly..." Tu narrowed his eyes, his voice deepening. "Your name. Try to remember your name. That... is the most important anchor for your existence in this world."
"My... name?" The otaku's speech became slightly more fluid. "I have no impression of it. Not a single trace."
"Hmm," Tu's brow furrowed. "Do you remember anything else?"
"I remember the Earth United Government... the sun beginning to expand rapidly... the helium flash..." The otaku spoke one word at a time. "I remember I lived in the Cathay... Yuehacwng District. I... I think I participated in a... a scientific project."
"It was the [Nirvana] Project. I participated in it too," Tu smiled. "Since you have awakened and appeared here, it proves the project succeeded. I am a survivor, and so are you. So... any other memories?"
"No." The otaku shook his head blankly.
"I see," Tu mused. "You need a name. Since you can't remember your old one... why not choose a new one yourself?"
"Choose a name?" The otaku was stunned. "I feel like... my head is a mess. How do I choose a name?"
"Hmm."
Tu evaluated the otaku's clothes and noticed the print of a beautiful girl in a school uniform with short, light-blue hair and a cold, calm expression. He couldn't help but ask: "Who is this girl?"
"Ayanami Rei!" the otaku blurted out.
After speaking, he froze on the spot and muttered, "I think... I just remembered a few more things."
"That's normal," Tu explained. "Your source-information is still in the transitional phase of awakening, so deeply ingrained memories will release bit by bit over time. However, usually, if you can't remember your name at the start, you won't remember it later."
He then gave the otaku God of Hunger a sincere suggestion: "How about this? Since the name Rei has left such a deep impression on you, why don't you just call yourself Ayanami Rei from now on?"
"No, no, no, no, no!" The otaku God of Hunger waved his hands frantically. "That won't work, absolutely not! Oh, wait, I think I remembered something else!"
Tu nodded and smiled. "Go on, tell me."
"Genshin!"
"And, and..." he rambled on, "And Arknights... and Honkai: Star Rail."
Tu frowned. "What are those things?"
"I don't know." The otaku shook his head blankly. "I just remember them... they seem very important to me."
"Genshin, Arknights, Honkai," Tu said slowly. "In that case, from now on, why don't you call yourself... Genarkrail? How does that sound?"
"Genarkrail?" The otaku God of Hunger lowered his head and whispered the name a few times before nodding. "Okay. From now on, my name... is Genarkrail!"
...
In the vast void, Tu looked at the row of God of Hunger standing before him and spoke leisurely. "We have waited so many years, planned for so many years, and the seeds scattered across so many galaxies have matured one by one. It is time to harvest the results."
"Ancestor Tu," the Elder God of Hunger, Salipana, asked. "You have roamed the Primordial-Reach so many times over the years. I mean, have the Houiste people truly vanished without a trace?"
Hearing this, Tu shook his head. "The River of Primordial is too massive; even I cannot traverse every reach. However, in the many galaxies I have roamed, there is no longer any sign of the Houiste.
Moreover, according to the rigorous deductions of the strategic research lab and the cosmic intelligence department back in the Shelter, after the Houiste Federation accidentally awakened the Evil God slumbering in the Dark Ocean, they were likely annihilated by it. The probability of this... is as high as 90%."
"Then is there a 10% chance that..."
Salipana spoke with some concern, "Is there a 10% chance that remnants of the Houiste's power still exist somewhere in the reach? I mean, shouldn't we remain in hibernation for a while longer to be safe..."
"Ah."
Tu's expression turned icy. "It seems you don't quite agree with the decisions of the Chiefs in the Shelter. Do you think your minor concerns outweigh the precise deductions of so many experts and departments?"
"No, no, no!" Salipana shook, waving his hands frantically. "Ancestor Tu, that's not what I meant. I just..."
"Hmph. It seems you've grown too accustomed to a comfortable life," Tu interrupted coldly. "The Shelter has been in hiding for too long, so long that you've lost even the courage to conquer the universe. Like this time: two high-level God of Hunger couldn't take down a single high-tier Sage in several days. Truly pathetic!"
After venting his frustration, Tu looked at the group of God of Hunger, who were as silent as winter cicadas. His expression softened slightly, and he said calmly, "I know everyone fears the Houiste. I know you have anxieties regarding this exploratory harvest.
But the deduction that the Houiste are extinct was reached by the Shelter hundreds of thousands of years ago. We only continued our hibernation for all those years out of an abundance of caution. One doesn't need 100% certainty to act; risks must sometimes be taken."
Following this speech, Tu waved his hand dismissively. "Fine, meeting adjourned. Imolda and Salipana, you two continue the 'Fruit' harvest operation. One goes to System 15 (the Milky Way), the other to System 17 (the Triangulum Galaxy). Neither galaxy has a High-tier Sage, and our clansmen have been lying in wait there for a long time. You should be able to settle it easily. As for the rest of you, follow me back to the Shelter."
"Yes!" the group responded.
Right then, a super-space-time ripple with a tiny curvature but an extremely high energy level swept past them at millions of times the speed of light.
SWOOSH!
"Hmm?!"
Tu's eyes widened, and he snapped his head around, staring into the distant void in the direction from which the ripple had come.
At the limit of Tu's sharp vision, a shimmering, oval-shaped barred spiral galaxy hung at an angle in the boundless void, untold light-years away. That was the Milky Way. Or rather, it was the "past-tense" optical image of the Milky Way, formed by light that had traveled over two million light-years to reach this sector of the Andromeda Galaxy.
What Tu saw was the Milky Way as it existed over two million years ago. In an instant, he calculated the propagation speed of that super-space-time ripple: 50 million times the speed of light.
"That speed... how can it be so fast?!"
"This super-space-time ripple... such a high energy level and speed... did it come from System 15? What the hell happened there?!"
Tu stared intensely at that distant, shimmering Milky Way, his voice low and heavy:
"Since this ultra-high energy ripple has such a tiny curvature and is so smooth, its overall coverage must be massive. Calculating based on the curvature, the propagation diameter of this spherical ripple is... Hiss! It's over two million light-years!
And after traveling such a vast distance, the ripple still maintains such a high velocity... 50 million times the speed of light!"
Tu's brow locked in a tight frown, his pupils trembling: "But... facing the endless 'neutralization' force of cosmic space-time, how can this ripple maintain such hyper-velocity and energy levels after traveling so far? Just what kind of high-energy event occurred at the ripple's point of origin?!"
Closing his eyes slightly, he began to reverse-engineer and simulate the birth and propagation of this super-space-time ripple in his mind.
In a flash, a massive virtual space appeared in Tu's consciousness. Suddenly, the entire virtual space boiled over as if it had exploded, generating wave after wave of colossal, tsunami-like super-space-time tides that violently swept toward the infinite void. The speed of that expansion far exceeded light-speed by hundreds of billions of times.
"Initially over a hundred billion times... and after traveling two million light-years, it still clocks in at 50 million times light-speed? This..."
Tu's mind immediately mapped out a dual-function graph of the ripple's distance versus its velocity decay.
"Based on the data... this violent space-time disturbance event occurred... two days ago."
In Tu's long-standing experience, any high-energy event creating a super-space-time ripple, no matter how terrifying its strength or speed, should act like ink dropped into the ocean.
Once born, it should be surrounded by the vast three-dimensional vacuum, continuously weakened, diluted, neutralized, and eventually annihilated.
Normally, even if a ripple's initial speed reached hundreds of millions or billions of times the speed of light, it should plummet below light-speed within a minute and finally settle down.
Furthermore, the propagation distance usually isn't that far; at least significantly shorter than the radius of a large galaxy.
Yet that colossal tide just now possessed terrifying amplitude, strength, and speed from the moment of its birth. It managed to stubbornly resist the powerful neutralizing and diluting forces of cosmic space-time, spreading in all directions at hyper-velocity across such an immense distance.
This challenged the very foundation of his understanding.
Tu guessed in shock: "Is this... a complete distortion of the lowest-level subtle structures of space-time?!"
Driven by his alarm, Tu immediately deployed multiple super-luminal monitoring skills, Causal Farsight, Quantum Probing, and Space-Time Resonance, aiming them directly at the distant Milky Way.
He had to see what had happened there.
BUZZ!
In an instant, divine light erupted from Tu's eyes. He began to look backward through the flow of time and information, looking at the Milky Way as it was two days ago, and the vast space surrounding it.
Then, a cosmic giant, several times taller than the entire Andromeda Galaxy stood upright, appeared within Tu's super-luminal vision. Surrounding this unimaginably massive giant were the shards of shattered galaxies.
"This... what is this?! Where is System 15? Why is it gone?!"
While Tu was reeling in shock, the giant suddenly clenched its fist.
BOOM!!!
The super-luminal vision shuddered violently. Tu watched in horror as the giant clenched its fist, and the entire cosmic void across millions of light-years... boiled over completely.
And all the galaxies within that expanse... were instantly converted into endless light and heat.
"This scale of devastation... this magnitude of destructive power..."
Tu, still observing the past images of the Milky Way from two days prior, narrowed his eyes and spoke in a heavy tone. "No mistake. That is absolutely a Sage King!"
A mere clenching of a fist to effortlessly shatter and annihilate every macroscopic object within a million light-years. To be honest, this level of destruction was something Tu knew he could replicate without much effort.
After all, he was a Gluttony King, a being thousands of times more powerful than an Ultimate God of Hunger, possessing a Holographic Domain that spanned over a million light-years.
In the millions of years since the collapse and disappearance of the ancient Houiste Federation, during all his travels across the boundless cosmos, Tu had only ever encountered a double-digit number of existences at this level.
This level of power, known within the Sage hierarchy as a Sage King, represents an existence situated far above the Peak Sage tier.
Every Sage King is a supreme hegemon, a being whose majesty awes countless high-level civilizations across vast stretches of the starry sky and innumerable galaxies.
To a king of space like Tu, a Peak Sage—already so rare that they are hard to find among thousands of galaxies, and capable of obliterating a trillion stars with a single full-power strike—was no harder to kill than a fledgling chick. They could be extinguished in an instant.
However, while achieving such a massive scale of destruction, that cosmic giant had also destabilized, and even "severely wounded," the deepest foundational structure of the cosmic space-time fabric across a million light-years. The resulting high-energy super-space-time ripples were able to propagate through the void with such stability and speed.
This level of extreme influence over and terrifying control of the three-dimensional space-time structure was something Tu admitted he could not replicate.
This wasn't something that could be achieved through raw power alone; it required incredibly formidable perception and an unfathomable precision of force.
Tu believed that among the other space hegemons residing in the deep reaches of the universe, very few could match this feat.
Furthermore, by his judgment, this powerful super-space-time ripple would likely cover hundreds of millions of light-years, perhaps even more, before the continuous "neutralization and dilution" of the vast three-dimensional space-time could finally drop its velocity below sub-light speeds, eventually causing it to vanish into the deep cosmos.
During this journey, any interstellar civilization within that vast range possessing quantum monitoring capabilities would easily detect this ultra-high energy surge. Following its unmistakable spatial vector, they could reverse-engineer the path and point of origin, turning their shocked and terrified "gazes" toward the distant Milky Way.
It could be said that with a mere clench of a fist, that unknown cosmic giant had shaken countless civilizations and trillions of sentient lives across countless light-years. A single strike had made the entire universe aware of its existence.
Beyond all this, what truly left Tu in a state of wordless shock was the giant's sheer size... it was simply too massive!
How could it be... so gargantuan?
It was larger than his own true form, a black hole residing within the Realm of Phantasm with an event horizon diameter of six trillion kilometers, larger by tens of quadrillions of times. Compared to this giant, Tu felt as minuscule as an atom.
It was simply inconceivable.
"What kind of fundamental structure... could allow for a biological entity larger than a galaxy?!"
Tu could neither comprehend nor imagine it; he only felt a sense of utter disbelief.
Logic dictates that no matter the material or structural method, a mass of that magnitude would inevitably undergo gravitational collapse and become a black hole.
Even by utilizing technologies like the Black Scepter Array to puncture the barrier between the material world and the Realm of Phantasm, blurring the lines of reality and warping the fundamental laws of the universe, it should be impossible to achieve a physical presence spanning five or six hundred thousand light-years.
How was it done?
"Could it be... some lost super-technology from the Houiste Federation's ancestral lands?" Tu wracked his brain, but this was the only plausible theory he could summon.
"But that Lost Land is rumored to be located far downstream on the River of Primordial, at a distance unimaginable. How could this giant have traversed the cosmic void to find it?"
Gripped by mounting anxiety and curiosity, Tu could no longer restrain himself. He activated his super-luminal observation abilities to "pierce" through the veil of past-time information, aiming to look directly at the cosmic giant as it existed in this very moment.
He knew he might alert the entity.
Observation often carries the weight of interference, much like the Observer Effect, it is a factor that an observer cannot fully control. No matter how faint the influence, it remains a presence. Perhaps that is simply the law of the universe.
But so be it.
"As a Gluttony King, as a supreme powerhouse of the new era of humanity..." Tu let out a chilling laugh, "I fear nothing."
In an instant, his eyes erupted with brilliant divine light.
BUZZ!
A super-luminal sensory wave, rooted in the quantum plane and the space-time fabric, surged outward from Tu. It raced toward the void over two million light-years away at a speed quadrillions of times faster than light.
Yet, even at such a staggering velocity, it could not cross that vast distance instantly. It would still take a minute or two to reach its destination.
...
Meanwhile, over two million light-years away, the cosmic giant Seraphine stood in the misty void. The attribute interface, which had been vibrating violently due to the deep influence of the Authority of [Change], finally began to stabilize.
BUZZING!
The attribute data displayed on the interface had changed exactly as Seraphine had hoped... a world-shattering shift.
[Host: Seraphine]
[Physical Strength: 6.66 Million Galaxies]
[Soul: 6.66 Million Galaxies]
Shock! Absolute, incomparable shock!
She had actually succeeded in influencing the daily doubling multiplier of the [Infinite Attributes] system!
The attribute values, which should have doubled from 100,000 Galaxies to 200,000, had suddenly skyrocketed to 6.66 million Milky Ways.
In this moment, even the perpetually cold and distant Seraphine couldn't contain her joy. She threw her head back and laughed wildly toward the heavens.
"Ahahahaha! Heh heh heh... Hahahahaha!!!"
This unrestrained, ferocious laughter caused the Dirac Sea, hidden "behind" the surrounding hundreds of thousands of light-years of void, to boil violently. It sent wave after wave of super-space-time tsunamis through reality, forces powerful enough to wash away the structural integrity of entire galaxies.
BOOM! BOOM!
The massive void, once so silent that time itself seemed still, was instantly plunged into a hellish, chaotic turmoil. This wasn't something Seraphine did intentionally; it was simply because her physical form was too immense, and her power too terrifying.
Even without a shred of malice in her mind, her simplest movements, a wave of a hand, a kick, or even a single breath, would trigger catastrophes on a galactic scale.
Seraphine had become too powerful.
Even the majestic, sprawling Milky Way was nothing more than loose dust she could blow away with a huff. She was so powerful that she had lost the desire to even attempt communication with the many interstellar civilizations roaming the stars.
They were too small.
Simply too minuscule.
Whether it was an interstellar civilization like the Mercury Race occupying thousands of planets, or a top-tier empire ruling over an entire spiral arm, to Seraphine, they were merely viruses and bacteria living in the dust.
The only difference was their scale: one was a virus, the other a bacterium.
"It's all the same. There's no difference."
Seraphine's laughter slowly subsided, and she spoke calmly. "They are nothing more than dust to be wiped away with a single slap."
She looked out at the infinite universe. The stars were as brilliant as a painting; the boundless cosmos was mysterious and magnificent.
"And yet..."
Suddenly, a wave of loneliness welled up in Seraphine's heart.
"Looking across the vast cosmos, as great as it is, all I see are ants and dust."
She sighed softly.
This, too, was a form of solitude, the unique loneliness of the strong. The strong always walk alone; only the weak gather in packs.
"Hahaha~"
Seraphine suddenly chuckled. "I enjoy this loneliness."
As the smile faded, she began to experiment with her Authority of Change once more.
"Change..."
She applied the power of the Authority to the [Infinite Attributes] system interface.
BUZZ!
She tried repeatedly, but there was no reaction. The "6.66 Million" following the colons for physical strength and soul remained unchanged, not budging an inch.
"Is it because the system hasn't reached its activation time?"
Seraphine focused her thoughts, guessing. "Is it because I have only held the Authority for a short time and cannot yet penetrate the Essential Realm? The root of this system lies within the Essential Realm, so when the system isn't active, I cannot influence or modify the attribute values?"
"Essential Realm... Essential Realm..."
After a moment of reflection, Seraphine immediately activated her Transcendental Perception.
BUZZ!
Instantly, under her formidable awareness, the vast material universe blurred and faded, appearing incredibly "narrow" and "shallow." In a heartbeat, Seraphine stood, or rather, appeared, within an extremely abstract domain.
She did not know if this domain she perceived was an actual physical extra-dimensional space-time, or a phantom environment birthed from her personal perspective and imagination.
Everything was unknown.
Seraphine only knew that the moment she appeared in this abstract environment, surrounded by a void so dark and deep that neither boundaries nor size could be defined, there was a "distance."
It was a direction that could not be described by up, down, front, back, left, right, nor even by the metrics of four-dimensional or five-dimensional space.
In that "distance," the hazy silhouette of something appeared, an infinitely vast expanse that defied all numbers; an infinitely exalted state that defied descriptions of weight or majesty; an infinite... something that could not even be categorized as infinitely complex or infinitely pure... the Far Shore.
"The Essential Realm..."
She gazed calmly toward that infinitely distant Essential Realm, her heart burning with intensity.
"Time, space, matter, energy, information, all of these are phenomena. Infinite phenomena clustered together form a boundary. This Phenomenal Realm seems to exist beneath the Essential Realm. So, are all phenomena merely..."
Seraphine murmured softly, "Is it possible that these infinite space-times, all these realities, and all things, are just the overflow of the Essential Realm? A projection? An emanation? Or an evolution?"
"Then, if I were to become a being of the Essential Realm, would I completely transcend time, space, matter, energy, information, and all other phenomena?!"
"It's highly likely!"
Her emotions surged. "Transcendental Perception is the product, the sensory organ, of spirituality after it has undergone a grand, divine metamorphosis. Every thing created has a purpose; perhaps the purpose of Transcendental Perception is to allow me to peer beyond the Phenomenal Realm into the Essential Realm! Therefore, the next stage of my spirituality's evolution must be linked to this Essential Realm."
BUZZ!
The Transcendental Perception deactivated. Seraphine left the abstract environment and returned to the physical universe, where she began to test her Authority of [Change]. She wanted to see just how miraculous this power truly was.
"Change..."
Seraphine suddenly looked at the empty, pitch-black universe around her.
No, that wasn't quite right. It wasn't completely empty.
There was still a little bit of "stuff" left. Just a tiny bit.
At a distance of about 200,000 light-years, roughly "an arm's length" away, was a "tiny," fragile-looking star system.
This star system was quite ordinary, but one of its tiny rocky planets, was not so ordinary.
Or rather, Seraphine chose to see it that way. This planet was Obast, once a precious mineral mining site for the Agate Clan's empire.
On this planet, saturated with intense nuclear radiation, lived an intelligent race that was entirely unremarkable in terms of technology and evolution: the Lead Simians.
The spacecraft, Godshell's Divine Throne, had been lost on this very planet. It was retrieved only because of the life-risking adventures of a young Lead Simian native.
Fragile life forms like the Lead Simians should have had nothing to do with Seraphine and, by all logic, should have been devoured. But as the owner of the Godshell, possessing Tiyan's memories and information, Seraphine decided to grant Obast a chance for independent development.
She had always admired those with unyielding resilience.
"Since the cultivation techniques granted by the Godshell allow for evolution, I will give you some resources."
As Seraphine's thought shifted, the void surrounding the star system where Obast resided, at a distance of about three to four light-years, instantly fluctuated, and another star system appeared.
Then, Seraphine channeled the power of the Authority of [Change], suddenly enveloping that newly appeared star system.
"So-called change is often linked to quantity."
"Let me see if [Change] can alter the quantity of a star system."