A surge of linear power, so violent and incredible it defied belief, lasted for a split second so brief that even Seraphine could barely perceive it, let alone calculate it. Then, everything froze trillions of light-years away.
At first glance, it looked like a frozen movie frame, a sight both soul-shaking and bizarrely inexplicable.
Within this vast, universe-like yet hazy virtual time domain, only Seraphine could move and fly at will. Every other phenomenon, even the cataclysmic Big Bang, was forced into a motionless standstill, unable to twitch.
This was the supreme power of Instant Time Compression: All things fall silent; only I move eternally.
WHOOSH——
After a few seconds of this absolute stillness, the five-minute Instant Time Compression officially concluded, and Seraphine returned to the real world.
BOOM!!!!
At the exact instant she returned to real space-time, the Wind of World-Piercing birthed within that false time segment, along with the Genarkrail's Sacred Descending Form, which had been utterly vaporized during that same phantom interval, miraculously manifested out of thin air trillions of light-years away from Seraphine.
The moment this Wind of World-Piercing appeared, it tore away from the jagged space-time fissure, a scar trillions of light-years long that it had just brutally plowed into existence. It continued its relentless charge, roaring into the boundless void at speeds exceeding duotrigintillion times the speed of light.
Perhaps because the clear target, the Genarkrail's Sacred Descending Form, had utterly vanished, the Wind of World-Piercing began to change. While it maintained its linear, unidirectional surge, the scale and diameter of its physical form, resembling a pillar of blazing light, began to rapidly expand and swell outward.
In an instant too brief to be perceived, the Wind of World-Piercing, formed by 36 Singularity-like points through a qualitative transformation and chaotic mutation, exploded from a mere few meters in diameter to a terrifying scale far exceeding the observable universe.
BOOM! BOOM! ROAR!!!!
The vast space-time surged in a frenzy; the infinite cosmos wailed in agony.
The power of 36 Genesis-level Big Bangs contained within the Wind of World-Piercing was so horrific that even the empty cosmic void, once struck by its passing, dissolved into chaotic turbulence, spawning countless vacuum decay zones of varying shapes and sizes.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! ROAR!!!!!
In less than one-hundred-millionth of a yoctosecond, the Wind of World-Piercing violently and savagely punched through the entire Matter Sea.
Surging Gravitational Primeval Rivers, majestic structures spanning tens of trillions of light-years and housing countless brilliant galaxies, were ruthlessly snapped in half by the impact of this wind. In their wake, colossal chasms hundreds of thousands, if not tens of millions of times larger than the observable universe, were carved open.
From an overarching perspective, the Primeval Rivers fractured by the wind, including their countless internal galaxies, the microscopic matter forming these macro-structures, and the boundless light and thermal energy, were instantly erased by the sweeping inflation field, reduced to nothingness save for infinitely fluctuating, self-generating sub-microscopic quantum foam.
If one pulled their perspective infinitely far back to the edge of the ancient Verdant Ancient Matter Sea, deep within the boundless Dark Ocean beyond, looking back with a hyper-sensory perception, the scene was horrifying to behold.
The Wind of World-Piercing created by Seraphine was like the Gabriel's Horn of the apocalypse in the " Book of Revelation ", carrying infinite, terrifying malice and primordial inflation. At a speed that bypassed the concept of time itself, it exploded outward from the massive breach at the end of the River of Primordial. Trailing behind it were layers of massive, chaotic space-time tidal waves. It violently pierced from the inside out, completely drilling through the entire Verdant Ancient Matter Sea, a vast domain spanning several hundred trillion light-years, before roaring straight into the dark ocean outside, storming toward unknown, unknowable realms.
When this brief yet soul-shaking cosmic piercing concluded, a hyper-colossal, funnel-shaped vacuum channel was left in the Verdant Ancient Matter Sea. It measured three hundred and fifty trillion light-years in length, spanning just a few meters in diameter at its narrowest point, and ten trillion light-years at its widest.
Within this vacuum channel carved open by the Wind of World-Piercing, nothing remained except for countless vacuum decay zones and sub-microscopic quantum fluctuations.
Not even a single fundamental particle survived.
Indeed, light particles, electrons, and all other fundamental particles had been utterly wiped out by the terrifying might of the Wind of World-Piercing.
Not only that.
From this moment on, this colossal channel area might never again naturally manifest a single fundamental particle.
Because the Wind of World-Piercing was, in essence, a flow of non-normal, malignant, and mutated inflation born from the chaotic fusion of 36 Singularity-like points.
Consequently, the vast 3D void within this Matter Sea Cavity had suffered severe distortions and mutated disorders in its lowest structural layers of space, phenomena that current scientific theories could never perceive or explain.
Within these eerie space-time zones, far became near, large became small, front became back, and circles became squares. Everything, from the chain of logical causality to the very foundation of existence, was devastated and mutated into an unspeakable state.
No normal object or phenomenon could endure in these regions for even half a second. Even a Perfected Ungrateful Son entering this place would rapidly disintegrate; they would be unable to flee and would be obliterated on the spot.
In other words, Seraphine's Wind of World-Piercing had left a permanent, unhealable scar upon this 3D universe. This wound could even jeopardize the reincarnation cycle of the entire Verdant Ancient Matter Sea, potentially preventing its next reboot. Theoretically, in quadrillions of years, this Matter Sea might simply vanish forever.
As for Seraphine, she couldn't care less about the severe damage she had caused. How many alien lives died or how many galaxies were destroyed was of no concern to her. To her, this entire universe and infinite space-time were merely a playground for her whims.
"The power of the Wind of World-Piercing isn't bad," Seraphine smiled with satisfaction. "If only 36 Singularity-like points can achieve this, then... what about five million?"
BUZZ——
Amidst her laughter, her massive fingertip glowed once more as she manifested five million inflationary Singularity-likes, their volumes tending toward the infinitely small, out of thin air.
But in the next instant, Seraphine invoked the Authority of Change to wipe all five million Singularity-like points from existence.
The power of this move was simply too excessive; a benevolent soul like her wouldn't just deploy such a technique on a whim.
Unlike ordinary bombs or nuclear warheads, each of these Singularity-likes could birth a massive Matter Sea. With every additional core, the power of the Wind of World-Piercing increased by far more than simple addition.
According to Seraphine's research, a Matter Sea birthed from a single Singularity-like under normal conditions only inflates to a diameter of several trillion light-years in its initial stage, at most, reaching ten or so trillion.
The eventual size of several hundred trillion light-years is achieved through slow expansion over eons.
However, Seraphine estimated the limit for the Wind of World-Piercing, which is essentially a unidirectional linear inflation, to be at least tens or even hundreds of quadrillions of light-years, and likely far beyond that.
If only 36 Singularity-like points achieved such an effect, Seraphine herself couldn't fathom what five million would do.
Yet, even this was not the limit of the Authority of Change.
If she desired, she could stack Singularity-likes without end; since these things possessed no physical volume, they could be piled on top of each other infinitely.
Furthermore, through simulated testing, Seraphine knew her current speed for manifesting Singularity-likes out of nothing was roughly one hundred million per Kṣaṇa.
So if Seraphine had the patience to keep stacking for a whole day, she could potentially ignite a Wind of World-Piercing fueled by nearly 500 trillion Singularity-like points.
Ordinary beings wouldn't stand a chance against a hit like that. Honestly, even Seraphine felt like she probably couldn't tank it herself.
Meanwhile, the 999 Perfected Ungrateful Sons who had been watching this play out were paralyzed, their minds completely blown.
Since Genarkrail's Sacred Descending Form died in an essentially non-existent false time segment, and because the Wind of World-Piercing was impossibly fast, they couldn't even process what had happened.
However, the sheer scale of the space-time riot, a heart-stopping upheaval far more terrifying than any Big Bang, scared these Perfected beings to their very core. For a moment, they lost even the will to communicate their shock to one another.
"Fine, time to bounce."
Seraphine glanced at the nearby Sacred God Territory. With a thought, she willed her Hegemony Domain to excavate and preserve the core Deep Blood. After pulling the 999 Perfected Ungrateful Sons into her body, she stepped into the vacuum channel carved by her own attack.
This chaotic vacuum was a graveyard for Three-Dimensional Ungrateful Sons, but to Seraphine, it was nothing. She strolled through the channel with zero hesitation, charging toward the edge of the Matter Sea.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!——
With the power of the Hegemony Domain, just one second passed and Seraphine had cleared a distance of 14 quadrillion light-years. She smashed through the Destruction Layer, leaving the Verdant Ancient Matter Sea far behind as she plunged into the depths of the Dark Ocean.
The moment she entered the Dark Ocean, she felt the energy density of the boundless void drop off a cliff.
The further she ventured into the Dark Ocean, the more the Vacuum Energy density plummeted.
By comparison, any space the size of a proton within the Verdant Ancient Matter Sea contains Vacuum Energy roughly equivalent to the total mass and energy of an entire observable universe.
Furthermore, the total Vacuum Energy contained within a space the size of the Verdant Ancient Matter Sea is approximately equal to the total mass and energy of ten duotrigintillion observable universes.
But in the Dark Ocean, even in regions near the Matter Sea's Destruction Layer boundary, the Vacuum Energy density instantly plummets by a factor of a hundred million trillion.
And the deeper one ventures into the Dark Ocean, the more drastic the drop in energy density becomes.
"If it follows this downward trend..."
After walking for several minutes, Seraphine stood still within the infinite Dark Ocean, gazing into the borderless, pitch-black firmament that held not a single flicker of light. She pondered hesitantly: "It's highly likely that in certain deep regions of the Dark Ocean, the Vacuum Energy density drops toward the infinitesimal. This would result in vast zones of vacuum decay, and the scale of these danger zones... might even be far more massive than the Verdant Ancient Matter Sea itself."
Generally speaking, a Matter Sea is the universe as perceived by high-level life forms.
But in the shoreless, dark regions beyond the universe, there exist vacuum decay zones many, many times larger than the universe itself.
This... is truly unfriendly to any entity wishing to cross the Matter Sea to reach another.
Seraphine even suspected that beyond these vacuum decay zones of unknown size, number, and location...
There might even exist something more extreme: Nothingness Regions.
"So the universe, in a sense, is like a corpse so gargantuan it is borderless, riddled with countless holes and tears.
Wait... doesn't nothingness manifest Singularity-likes?"
Seraphine suddenly fell into a trance-like reverie. "Could it be... that some Matter Seas are born from within these regions of nothingness?
If that's the case, then the overall operational and existential mechanism of this cosmos... is truly profound.
The Matter Sea is the gathering of all Being, while the Dark Ocean is the gathering of all Non-being.
The infinite Matter Seas are Multitudinous Being, and the boundless Black Ocean is Multitudinous Non-being.
Beyond all Being lies the void, and within the void, Being is born. Being and Non-being eternally generate one another in an endless, ceaseless cycle."
Just as Seraphine was analyzing this boundless Black Ocean, a raspy voice abruptly descended:
"Well said. For a tiny 5D weed, you are truly extraordinary."
BUZZ——
In an instant, an interference field far more terrifying and vast than Genarkrail's previous force abruptly descended upon the area.
At the moment of its arrival, this interference field showed no mercy and gave Seraphine no chance. It completely froze everything within a five-trillion-light-year radius of her, from the Planck scale upward.
Under the crushing pressure of this massive interference field, all matter and energy movement within that five-trillion-light-year expanse, and potentially far beyond, fell into absolute stillness.
Even the already sluggish Dirac Sea behind the boundless 3D space was completely frozen solid, unable to produce even a single quantum ripple.
"Hahahaha, cool! Truly too cool!"
Dimensional Artist Coo, dressed in sharp attire with long bangs covering half his face and wearing golden shoes, manifested out of nowhere quadrillions of light-years away from Seraphine. He laughed loudly. "I told Genarkrail he'd sink his own ship, but he didn't believe me. Look at him now, just look! Hehehe, it's honestly killing me."
After his laughter subsided, he sneered in mockery:
"Discovered a 5D spatial lifeform? Hmph. That idiot thought he could hide it from my eyes? How utterly stupid. Aahahaha."
Then, with an extremely condescending posture, Coo glanced across the distance at Seraphine's frozen, motionless colossal body and grinned.
"Luckily, Genarkrail waded into the muddy water for me first, testing your true depth. Heh, how could someone who collapsed the Brilliant Games be that simple?
I haven't figured out exactly how he kicked the bucket just now, but I bet it had something to do with time.
Which means... you 5D weed actually possess time-type abilities. That is too cool! Explodingly cool!
Let me guess: Time Acceleration? Time Reversal? Or Time Stop?
Aahahaha, it doesn't matter what it is anymore. Either way, you're now completely powerless to resist."
Despite the immense distance between them, equivalent to nearly ten Verdant Ancient Matter Seas, Coo's casual words were transmitted directly into Seraphine's soul.
This proved that his interference field had completely blanketed and saturated this colossal region of the dark void.
"Alright, now I'm going to walk over to you, step by step, and then I'm going to tear you apart, piece by piece. What can you possibly do about it?"
Having spoken, Coo began slowly walking toward the paralyzed Seraphine, covering a hundred trillion light-years with each step.
As he walked, he spoke with great enthusiasm. "Hehehe, a 5D spatial lifeform... you know, I don't really care about the money.
But if I use you as the existential foundation and operational core... I can definitely create a dimensional artwork that is even more perfect and cooler than the Brilliant Games."
At this point, Coo couldn't help but clasp his hands together and tilt his head in daydreaming.
"Hmm~ a new dimensional art... what level will it reach? I'm thinking... will it be on the level of the [Dark Camp], [Samsara Train], [Space-time Society], [Phantom Hell Castle], [Ghost Streets], [Endless Prison], or the [Mortal Hunting Brigade]? It should be. Yes, highly likely.
Or perhaps even stronger... like the [Matrix Smelter], [Multiverse Fleet], [Nightmare Channel], [Anti-Reality Research Institute], [Malice Paradise], or the [Mist Circus]? Maybe even..."
Coo narrowed his eyes in reverie. "Maybe it could even reach the level of the... [Divine Space], [Corridor of Nothingness], [Court of Kronos], [Mystic Garden], [Torch Dragon Arena], or the [Pseudo-Hilbert Hotel]? Tsk tsk, that might be a bit difficult. My skill level might not be enough yet..."
While he was walking toward her step by step, Seraphine was calmly talking to herself in her mind:
"As expected. I knew that after that 'Puppet' retreated, a second 6D being would descend, either Genarkrail himself or an associate of his."
Indeed, since Seraphine had thoroughly analyzed Genarkrail during that five-minute false time segment, how could she not know the entity that had descended wasn't his true self?
That body lacked a Root Spirituality, possessed no complete or functional cognitive memory system, and its core consisted only of a tiny fragment of 6D energy. Its bulk was composed entirely of matter and energy from dimensions below the 6D.
How could that be considered a 6D being?
Most importantly, she had discovered an apparatus deep within Genarkrail's body that appeared to have cross-dimensional and cross-space-time cognitive link functions.
Wasn't it obviously a puppet being remotely controlled?
Since a first puppet had descended into the 3D universe, a second puppet was certain to follow.
Why?
It was simple.
Like a gambler who loses a hand, they invariably want to play another; many people simply cannot handle losing.
The weight of sunk costs relentlessly presses upon their minds, making them increasingly desperate and frantic. All for the sake of... turning the tables.
This was why Seraphine had abruptly fled the Verdant Ancient Matter Sea, racing at top speed for several minutes, and finally coming to a halt in the depths of this Black Ocean, nearly 3.65 quintillion light-years away from the Sacred God Territory.
First, she wanted to use herself as bait to lure Genarkrail or his associates to descend again, giving her a chance to probe their true depths.
Second, it was to protect the Sacred God Territory and the Probability Integration Array within its borders from being completely obliterated by the upcoming battle.
Although Seraphine had deciphered and studied that Primordial Integration Array extensively, she hadn't performed enough repeated analytical research yet.
Therefore, she couldn't guarantee one hundred percent that she truly understood every single technology contained within that hyper-colossal apparatus.
So, it was better to drag the battlefield as far away as possible.
Of course, if the next person to show up acted with zero class and insisted on obliterating the Sacred God Territory just to vent their rage...
That would simply delay Seraphine's research progress into the technologies of the Probability Integration Array, nothing more.
After all, Seraphine had already taken the core Deep Blood.
Aside from that main course, everything else was just side dishes. If you're missing the chili, garlic, soy sauce, or vinegar, you won't starve to death, right?
As for whether she could beat the newcomer, Seraphine had her own considerations.
In fact, while dissecting Genarkrail's puppet earlier, she had discovered an extremely faint fluctuation of Spirituality information within its control apparatus.
It was through this sliver of information, so weak it was nearly non-existent, that Seraphine deduced and calculated the level of Genarkrail's true body's Root Spirituality, located in some unknown space-time.
It was a relatively average... materialized Spirituality.
If the Spirituality was average, then his talent, potential, and natural gifts were naturally nothing to brag about.
Based on this, Seraphine boldly guessed that any associates who might appear would also only possess materialized Spirituality; they would just be ordinary people.
Why would a 6D being possessing Divinity ever associate with someone as mediocre as Genarkrail?
Seraphine, frozen in place and unable to move, used her Divinity to sense the interference field that completely blanketed and locked her. She chuckled inwardly:
"As expected. Judging by the Spirituality fluctuations faintly leaking from this interference field, this stranger is also just an ordinary person."
Indeed, in Seraphine's eyes now, any existence below the level of Divinity was just an ordinary person.
Even if their dimensional level was higher than hers, Seraphine maintained this attitude.
Furthermore, although her Multi-dimensional True Body, 5D Primordial Soul, and Hegemony Domain had all been completely imprisoned by the opponent's interference field, which far exceeded the precision limit of her own senses...
This did not mean Seraphine was truly blind or deaf.
Because her Light of Infinity, which had reached the level of Divinity, simply could not be imprisoned, suppressed, or locked by any power outside the realm of Spirituality or below the level of Divinity.
Similarly, the Instant Time Compression, whose original power was rooted in Divinity, would not be affected by this interference field. While powerful, the field was incapable of influencing the Root Divinity.
If Seraphine desired, she could manifest a five-minute virtual time domain at any moment and ORA ORA the opponent to death.
However, that wasn't what Seraphine truly wanted.
What she wanted was to conduct an experiment.
The subject was naturally that unknown 6D entity, whom she had only heard but not yet seen.
If the experiment succeeded, dealing with these puppets from 6D space in the future wouldn't be so troublesome; she could resolve them in a single move.
It would be a permanent solution.
So, for now, Seraphine, who appeared to be completely imprisoned and as still as a statue, even kept her Light of Infinity, which spanned a diameter of 3.6 billion light-years, intentionally frozen in the boundless void, as if it too had been frozen solid.
"Once you step within the range of my Light of Infinity..."
She whispered leisurely in her mind, "The experiment begins."
The content and name of this experiment were simple, summarized in just three words:
Un-plug-ging.
After waiting quietly for a dozen seconds, Dimensional Artist Coo, looking like a trendy young man from a small town and wearing an excited smile, abruptly appeared within the range of Seraphine's Light of Infinity.
At that exact moment, Seraphine invoked the Authority of Change without a second's delay:
"Erase one trillion years from this unknown youth's time."
BUZZ——
In a flash, Coo alone experienced a full trillion years. His smile instantly froze on his face, and the divine light in his eyes vanished.
Simultaneously, the terrifying interference field blanketing the quadrillions of light-years of the void vanished.
Seraphine was free.
The next instant, she crossed billions of light-years in a single step, appearing beside Coo, who remained frozen with a stiff smile, devoid of any vitality or spirit.
Wasting no time, Seraphine caught his unresisting body with a thought and raced back toward the Verdant Ancient Matter Sea.
As she flew at top speed, she began to rapidly analyze Coo's Sacred Descending Form.
The experiment had been a complete success. The unplugging plan was a triumph.
"Just as I suspected,"
Seraphine chuckled softly, dissecting and studying the various complex internal and external structures of Coo's Sacred Descending Form as she flew. "If it's a remotely controlled puppet, it naturally needs a network cable, otherwise how could it be controlled?
I don't know the form or state of this so-called cable, but as long as it's remote control between two different locations, creating a severe time desynchronization between this end and the other will naturally sever the cable completely."
Indeed, this was the permanent solution Seraphine had devised for dealing with those 6D puppets.
No matter how strong the puppet or how impressive its abilities, if she unplugged it, it would simply become her trophy.
Of course, if they were beyond the range of her interference field, Seraphine would be powerless. Therefore, her next task was to expand the diameter and scale of her own interference field.
"Once I've thoroughly studied these two puppets, my Hegemony Domain's range of influence will undoubtedly experience an explosive increase."
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
With each Kṣaṇa, Seraphine crossed 2.5 trillion light-years. In just one second, she could cover 14 quadrillion light-years.
As she traversed the boundless Dark Ocean, a small portion of the memory fragments she had harvested from Genarkrail's Sacred Descending Form were finally decrypted. This small portion happened to record detailed information about the 3D universe she inhabited.
"So... the universe I'm in is called the 3D Great Boundary?"
She continued her rapid flight while quickly scanning the information. The records detailed the type and diameter of this universe, the total number of Matter Seas within it, and the average distance between them.
First, this universe was a [Static Local-Inflation 3D Great Boundary].
As the name implied, the overall scale of this universe remained constant over long periods. Whether it was born at this scale or reached it after a period of growth and then stopped changing was unknown; the records didn't say.
Next came the most important part.
According to the records, the diameter of the 3D Great Boundary where Seraphine resided was explicitly stated as:
1 tresquadragintillion light-years.
In a more concise notation, the diameter of this 3D Great Boundary is 10^132 light-years.
The average distance between the various Matter Seas within this 3D Great Boundary is 1 quindecillion light-years.
Finally, the total number of Matter Seas within this boundary is approximately 1 tresoctogintillion.
That is, 10^252.