I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

The seventh day after the war.

When the first rays of sunlight pierced through the still-lingering aurora borealis in the Earth's stratosphere and shone on the square in the center of the new Chang'an city, there was no commotion of gongs and drums, nor a grand victory parade.

On the huge holographic projection screen, the battle situation at the front line was no longer being shown. Instead, a list of millions of dead and missing people began to scroll silently at an extremely slow speed.

The square was filled with white paper flowers, though I don't know when it started.

One by one, the ever-burning soul lamps powered by low-grade spirit stones were lit by citizens and cultivators who came spontaneously.

Looking around, the city's squares, streets, temple entrances, and even the windowsills of every residential building were lit up with lights like stars.

People stood silent before the statues and paused outside the family quarters. The immense grief, delayed for seven days, finally coalesced from broken families into a profound lingering sorrow for the entire civilization.

But the massive war machine of Earth cannot stop turning in sorrow.

In this century-long tug-of-war, humanity paid a devastating price, but for the first time, it truly dragged those lofty gods down from their pedestals and tore off their inviolable crowns.

Jupiter orbit, Starfleet wreckage area.

Inside the temporary flagship's medical bay, Wang Kang was mostly immersed in a deep green, high-grade repair fluid. His meridians were largely burned, and he needed an array to assist him even in breathing, but his single eye remained as sharp as a hawk's.

"Commander, salvage ship number two reports that a large amount of solidified dark gold blood rain residue has been found in the wreckage area ahead." The communications officer's voice rang out in the channel.

"Proceed according to the highest-level emergency plan." Wang Kang's voice was weak, yet it carried the cold, steely resolve of a soldier. "I'll say it again: the search and rescue sequence must not be disrupted. Rescue people first, then collect the bodies, and finally the spoils. Have the engineering puppets cut through the blood-stained ship armor and place it into the highest-level spirit-sealing caskets. Anyone who dares to touch it will be shot on sight."

In space, hundreds of engineering puppets were working cautiously. Even without the will of a higher dimension, the dark golden blood rain still carried the terrifying residual poison of its rules. The salvage team danced on the edge of a knife, collecting the expensive yet deadly spoils of war, along with the remains of fallen soldiers, piece by piece, into the capsule.

The far side of the moon, the Guanghan base.

Inside the intensive care unit, Chen Xu leaned against the headboard, the horrific contaminated wound on his right shoulder already scabbed over.

He turned to look out the porthole toward Sector Seven. The once invincible, deathly gray broken chain that stretched across the lunar soil had now been reduced to nothing more than scrap metal. The eerie crystalline forest had also become dim and lifeless.

Chen Xu closed his eyes and carefully sensed the surroundings. The "echo" that once seemed to tear a hole in the depths of his soul had vanished. Deep within the Seventh District, only a dead, cold silence remained.

That thing was truly and completely killed by the Dao Lord.

The underworld, Fengdu.

Zhao Feng stood before the Hall of Heroes, looking at the countless newly added tattered military tags inside, his expression as hard as iron.

The living receive compensation, and the dead also have their own responsibilities. In order to filter out high-dimensional pollution on the far side of the moon, the underworld paid an unimaginable price, with a large number of underworld soldiers being completely annihilated.

"Your Excellency, the battle losses of each camp have been tallied," the judge reported in a low voice from the side.

"Understood." Zhao Feng turned around, his rugged face revealing neither joy nor anger, but coldly issued the order: "Order all departments to recruit civilian heroes for regular military service. As for the frontline supplies, which are in the greatest shortfall, open the gates of the eighteen levels of hell, select one hundred thousand vicious and wicked souls, and brand them with the 'death row inmate mark'."

Since they were guilty in life, let them atone in death, and send them to the front lines. Rebuild the framework of the Yellow Springs Expeditionary Force for me.

Although the battle was over, Zhao Feng's intuition told him that the army of the underworld would sooner or later embark on an even more distant journey.

……

Kyoto, Joint Control Room.

Wang Mingyuan sat behind his large desk, rubbing his bloodshot temples with both hands.

On his desk lay two starkly different lists. On the left was a shocking global roster of war damage and casualties, framed in black; on the right, a list of spoils of war with gold trim.

Humanity won miserably, but it did indeed become rich overnight.

Wang Mingyuan knew better than anyone that the "Dimensional Core" obtained by the Dao Lord was the greatest reward of this war. But it was also the ultimate taboo that humanity's current scientific and cultivation systems were simply not fit to touch.

He dared not think about it, nor could he analyze it. All he could do now was to engineer the "scraps" that Gu Qing had given away and that were allowed for human use, as quickly as possible.

Even scraps are enough to allow Earth's civilization to leapfrog several eras.

Wang Mingyuan's gaze fell on the list on the right. Behind those cold, impersonal names of supplies lay an immeasurable and terrifying value:

[Residual samples of divine blood rain from Jupiter's orbit (inferior state): a total of 3,400 samples.]

The think tank's preliminary assessment report indicates that these blood rain essences, having lost their higher-dimensional will, can be used as top-tier medicinal catalysts after being diluted ten thousand times. Not only can they be used to refine high-level spiritual materials that allow Nascent Soul stage monsters to reshape their physical bodies, but they can even be used to develop special potions that touch the "edge of the laws."

[Crystallized lunar soil in the seventh region on the far side of the moon: Initial extraction quota of 500 tons.]

This thing is completely immune to conventional three-dimensional physical attacks. If it were integrated into the base of the Taiyin Locking Spirit Array, or used as an armor layer in a new generation of interstellar capital ships, Earth's civilization's defense capabilities would undergo a qualitative leap.

[Data on the dark gold pattern imprint of the Nine Tripods: Preliminary modeling has been completed.]

This is a high-dimensional array mark forcibly imprinted on the Nine Cauldrons by the Dao Lord using the energy of judgment. It directly created a brand new branch called "high-dimensional pressure-bearing structure" for Earth's traditional Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams system.

In addition, there is that half of the deathly gray broken chain. Although it is listed as an absolutely forbidden object, as long as its appearance and force field are observed through the Yellow Springs Domain, it is enough to become an excellent prototype for mankind to develop "rule-level weapons".

Furthermore, the cores of those damaged ships that miraculously retained data traces after undergoing high-dimensional erosion in Jupiter's orbit will directly drive the comprehensive iterative upgrade of the interstellar fleet.

Not to mention the Earth, now several times larger thanks to the replenishment of spiritual energy, and the spiritual materials and mineral veins that are growing wildly and rapidly across the mountains and plains.

They are rolling in money.

They are truly rolling in money.

But Wang Mingyuan couldn't bring himself to smile as he looked at the list.

Because he knew that every item on the list, every inch of the array pattern, was obtained by risking one's life.

"Professor Wang, those old guys from the Academy of Sciences are practically crashing the communication lines. They're all clamoring to apply for the first batch of divine blood samples for research..." the assistant said cautiously from the side.

"Shut them up!" Wang Mingyuan slammed his hand on the table, his eyes chillingly cold. "Tell them that anyone who dares to jump out and steal credit at this time will be granted a pardon and arrest warrant by me personally! All spoils of war must be allocated in a tiered manner in strict accordance with the established strategic plan of the Civilization Cluster."

Now, I hereby issue my supreme executive order: all assets are immediately placed in the "Heavenly Number" secret vault for indefinite storage and placed under complete lockdown. No one is permitted to disrupt the overall plan; anyone who tampers with it will be prosecuted for treason!

……

At the summit of Kunlun, deep within the Heavenly Palace.

The outside world is a mix of noise and sorrow, but here, it is shrouded in a deep, deathly silence, isolated from the world.

No one dares to approach within a hundred miles of the main peak of Kunlun.

During the days Gu Qing was in seclusion, the spacetime above the Heavenly Palace became extremely unstable. Occasionally, unfamiliar star projections would appear in the sky without warning, or the shattered remnants of some unknown civilization struggling painfully in the black tide.

The oppressive feeling emanating from this made all the cultivators guarding the outskirts of Kunlun feel a genuine sense of unease.

Inside the main hall of the Heavenly Palace, Gu Qing sat cross-legged.

His long hair, streaked with white, had not faded, and the fragment of the dimensional core hidden between his brows, embedded in his flesh, emitted a faint, dark golden light with each breath.

[Warning. An extremely large amount of unauthorized rule data has been detected.]

[The system database is currently offline. The host must immediately grant access to their consciousness sea, allowing the system to intervene and analyze the dimensional core; otherwise, the lower-dimensional soul may collapse.]

In the deepest, darkest corner of the sea of ​​consciousness, the system, like a prisoner locked in an iron cage, flickered with a faint scarlet light and issued extremely covert probe commands.

Gu Qing didn't even open her eyes.

The global sub-heavenly network transformed into an insurmountable iron curtain within his sea of ​​consciousness. With a soft "bang," the wisp of instruction code that the system had sent out shattered instantly, like an egg hitting an impenetrable wall.

Access failed. Insufficient permissions.

The system interface flickered twice and then went completely dark.

A cold smile curled at the corner of Gu Qing's lips. The origin of this system was far too bizarre. Although he couldn't completely detach it from his sea of ​​consciousness yet, until he truly digested this dimensional core, it wouldn't be able to glimpse even a trace of its core secrets.

As Gu Qing continued to analyze the core of the dimension, his vision had completely transcended the solar system.

The weak layers between those planes, the polluted paths left by the harvesters, the spatial folding patterns in the cosmic interlayers... all this information is being forged in his sea of ​​consciousness by the humanistic karmic fire that has merged with the origin of higher dimensions, into a set of rules and logic belonging to Earth.

"That's about it."

After an unknown amount of time, the snow that had been stagnant atop Kunlun Mountain began to fall again.

Gu Qing slowly opened her eyes.

Knowing that humanity at this stage could not decipher higher-dimensional logic, he directly mobilized the computing power of the secondary Heavenly Dao network to transform the higher-dimensional rules, stripped of their dangerous attributes, into a pure infrastructure blueprint. All construction parameters, energy array arrangements, and specific post-war strategic plans were encapsulated within a jade slip.

With a flick of a finger.

The jade slip instantly vanished into the void, heading straight for the capital.

Kyoto, Joint Control Room.

Wang Mingyuan was reviewing the draft plan for the allocation of supplies when a spatial ripple suddenly appeared on the table, and a jade slip emanating a faint aura of power appeared out of thin air.

He was startled and immediately dismissed those around him, activated the highest level of isolation formation, and probed into it with his divine sense.

The moment his divine sense touched him, Wang Mingyuan was struck dumb, frozen in his chair.

A massive amount of detailed engineering information and decrees flooded his mind instantly, and he immediately understood the Dao Lord's entire arrangement:

Humanity doesn't need to delve into the dimensional principles that drive people mad. They only need to pour all of civilization's industrial and cultivation resources into constructing the physical foundation and outer shell of this "Star Gate" step by step. As for the core high-dimensional rule lock, it will be opened by the Dao Lord himself.

This is not a formation at all, but a path that allows them to actively walk out of this confined glass tank!

"The entire No. 1 Engineering Department and Xingji Heavy Industry Group are hereby ordered to cancel their vacations."

Wang Mingyuan suddenly stood up, pressed the highest-level red communication button on the table, his voice trembling slightly with extreme excitement.

"The infrastructure project codenamed 'Breaking Boundary Star Gate' has been officially approved!"