I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

One month after the war.

The morning in the new Chang'an City carried a hint of early winter chill. The breakfast stalls along the street had set up their huge steamers again, and white steam, along with the aroma of meat buns and freshly ground soy milk, wafted through the air.

Among the crowd queuing to buy breakfast were many monks dressed in casual clothes. Occasionally, one could see specially made bandages with stitches still attached on their sleeves or collars—penetrating wounds left by spiritual pressure overload.

Under the trees lining the streets, the eternal flames lit by citizens a month ago have not yet been completely removed. Some lights have been extinguished, while others still flicker faintly inside their protective covers, mingling with the neon signs of the shopping mall that have just lit up in the distance.

The war is over.

But the entire civilization of Earth has not yet fully recovered from that near-annihilation catastrophe. People are trying to get life back on track, but everyone's steps are much heavier than they were a month ago.

Kyoto, Joint Control Room.

Wang Mingyuan sat behind his desk, looking noticeably thinner than he had a month ago, with sunken eyes and bloodshot veins.

A month after the war, he was no longer facing the passionate mobilization of the war, but rather a multitude of complex practical problems: the recovery and archiving of the Jupiter debris, the distribution of pensions to the fallen soldiers, the allocation of funds for the reconstruction of the Starfleet, and the absolute preservation of those extremely dangerous "divine blood rain" samples.

Each document is of paramount importance.

Wang Mingyuan picked up a red document, which was an application jointly submitted by several radical senior academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences—"A Preliminary Research Plan on Attempting to Analyze the Underlying Dimensional Logic of the 'Breaking Boundary Star Gate'".

Wang Mingyuan picked up a red pen expressionlessly, drew a huge "X" on the application, and then wrote two words: Rejected.

"Code name 'Breaking the Boundary Star Gate' is a top-secret project, not some kind of global mobilization or a nationwide carnival."

Participants in the Stargate Project were strictly limited to a very small number of core units.

Beneath the new Chang'an, in the first top-secret workshop of Interstellar Heavy Industry.

There were no grand oaths or rousing battle songs here. Only a sealed, massive dome, the pungent smell of psionic welding torches, and a group of highly skilled array technicians who had been working in shifts for half a month to fine-tune the system.

In the center of the workshop, a long, curved black and gold structure stretches silently for hundreds of meters.

This is not a complete door; it is merely one-twelfth of the outer ring base of the stargate. The material formula of this base is outrageously luxurious: the main body is purified crystallized lunar soil, and the outer layer is covered with a special pressure-bearing alloy imprinted with the dark gold patterns of the Nine Tripod Cauldrons.

The most crucial core keel inside was made from the remnants of "divine blood rain" collected from Jupiter's orbit, combined with the extremely cold abyssal iron from the deepest part of Earth, and forged through millions of hammering and melting processes.

Our gaze shifts to deep space, to the frigid base on the far side of the moon.

Wearing heavy protective clothing, Zhou Lan stood in front of the main control tower, staring intently at the Seventh District in the distance.

District Seven remains a permanently restricted area. Although the severed, deathly gray chain is now lifeless, no living person dares to set foot within a hundred miles.

The positioning of the stargate base is extremely delicate. It must use the "regular shadow" left in three-dimensional space by the broken chain on the far side of the moon as an anchor point, but it must never directly touch that broken chain.

Therefore, the isolation engineering team at the Guanghan base could only perform spatial positioning calibration bit by bit from the outside by remotely controlling thousands of inanimate mechanical puppets.

On the other side of the Guanghan base, a hazy mist was quietly spreading along the lunar soil.

That was the Yellow Springs Protection Team sent by the Netherworld.

Zhao Feng was always steady in his actions. Although the Yin army of the Underworld had not been fully replenished in this month, he still selected the most elite members of the Yellow Springs Expeditionary Camp and sent them to the far side of the moon.

Their mission was not to attack, but to add an "isolation layer" to the outer ring base of the star gate.

This is to prevent any unforeseen consequences. Once the Star Gate enters the connectivity test, no one can guarantee that the world outside won't suddenly be flooded with even more terrifying pollution. With this underworld firewall made up of the River of Oblivion and remnants of the Yellow Springs, even in the worst-case scenario, the pollution will be forcibly neutralized and filtered by the death energy, preventing it from immediately backfiring on the living.

Earth, the far side of the moon, and the underworld—several enormous machines—quietly meshed together in the first month after the war.

……

Three days later, in the top-secret workshop of New Chang'an.

The first pressure test of the outer ring base of the stargate has officially begun.

Wang Mingyuan personally arrived at the scene. He stood behind the explosion-proof glass, looking at the more than 300-meter-long black and gold arc-shaped structure, his hands tightly gripping the edge of the control panel.

"Attention all units, disconnect the external power grid. Psionic Well No. 1, begin low-power injection." The chief engineer issued the order.

"Buzz—"

A deep, rumbling sound of spiritual energy echoed within the workshop, and on the massive base, the dark gold patterns of the Nine Cauldrons began to glow faintly one by one.

There was no explosion, nor was there any blinding light.

However, in the third second after the spiritual energy flowed through the base in a major cycle, an extremely strange anomaly appeared throughout the workshop.

Wang Mingyuan's eye twitched suddenly.

He saw a spare steel bolt on the edge of the control panel. It was placed properly under the light, but the shadow it cast on the wall was strangely folded into a ninety-degree right angle!

"The space-time distortion coefficient is skyrocketing! Conventional detectors are malfunctioning!"

A nearby monitor exclaimed in alarm. He glanced down at the purely mechanical military watch on his wrist, and the second hand had actually gone backwards for three seconds in full view of everyone.

Even more terrifying, a ceramic water cup on a water dispenser in the corner of the workshop suddenly developed a semi-transparent crystallization phenomenon on its surface, just like the signs before the Seventh District was assimilated by higher-dimensional rules. In a short moment, the water cup returned to its original state.

This is not a flaw in the design of the formation. It is because the "frame" created by humans using three-dimensional matter has already touched the limit of the physical pressure that the low-dimensional universe can withstand when it comes into contact with even the rules of higher dimensions that have been reduced in dimension.

"Sever the psionic well! Stop the injection immediately! Clear the inner area!"

Wang Mingyuan felt a chill run down his spine and pressed the red emergency stop button without hesitation.

The piercing alarm sounded throughout the workshop.

The transmission of spiritual energy was forcibly cut off, and the light on the black and gold base quickly dimmed. The folded shadow on the wall instantly returned to normal, and the crystallized water glass shattered into pieces on the floor with a "crack".

The entire workshop was deathly silent, and all the engineers involved in the test broke out in a cold sweat.

Wang Mingyuan stared intently at the chaotic pressure readings on the large screen, his palms sweating profusely.

Human physical methods have their limits. This level of dimensional compression cannot be smoothed out simply by piling up materials and adjusting array patterns.

Just as Wang Mingyuan's brain was racing, trying to find an alternative solution.

High atop the distant Kunlun Mountains, deep within the Heavenly Palace.

Gu Qing, who had been in seclusion, slowly opened his eyes.

His deep, dark eyes seemed to pierce through mountains and rivers, directly seeing through the chaotic stargate base in the underground workshop of New Chang'an.

He simply sat on the futon, the dark gold vertical line between his brows flashing slightly.

An invisible array pattern, formed purely from the dimensional core power that Gu Qing had initially digested, instantly descended into the workshop of New Chang'an along the secondary Heavenly Dao network.

"drop--"

Suddenly, a dark gold line appeared out of thin air on the holographic projection drawing in front of Wang Mingyuan.

This stroke, like the finishing touch on a painting, is like a stabilizing force, directly wedged into the core entanglement point of that star gate base.

In reality, the hundreds of meters long black and gold base emitted an extremely dull metallic resonance, just like a wooden barrel that was about to fall apart being suddenly bound with an indestructible iron ring.

On the big screen, the red danger readings that were flashing wildly suddenly receded like a tide the moment the array fell, finally stopping firmly at the zero point of the safety scale.

The abnormal spatial distortion disappeared, and even the oppressive, stifling feeling in the air vanished.

In the workshop, the veteran workers and engineers looked at each other in bewilderment. Then, everyone's gaze turned to the dark gold line on the blueprint that exuded a faint sense of awe.

Wang Mingyuan let out a long breath, and his whole body almost collapsed into the chair.

Looking at the first segment of the stargate base that had completely stabilized, his voice was hoarse with relief: "The first step can be considered a success."

……

The first month after the war.

Earth is not in a hurry to embark on an expedition. This blue planet needs some time to recover.

But on the cold dust of the moon's far side, beyond the sight of mortals, the first threshold to all the heavens and myriad realms has been silently lowered.

The door was not yet open.

But from this moment on, in the vast multiverse, Earth is no longer just the prey that closes the door and hides in the house waiting to be knocked on.