Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Those who have nothing to hold onto will accomplish nothing.

—But have I actually accomplished anything?

..............................

"This question still troubles me to this day. Perhaps it is because of its existence that I have been unable to take this final step. To find my own 'heart' and prove my own 'path'—it's strange, I have never considered myself a mortal, yet I have joined this God's Space that should only be accessible to mortals. I have never despaired, yet I have stepped into this Temple of Reincarnation that only the desperate are qualified to enter."

Ex opened her eyes, clenched her fist lightly, and muttered to herself—that's the downside of crossing the world barrier; the body can't come down, only the light of the mind can. Although reconstructing a vessel is very easy, it will inevitably lead to the leakage of some personal information. If there were no beings of equal caliber nearby, it wouldn't be a problem, but since a true god is waiting here, some information will definitely be leaked.

She blinked her golden eyes and looked at Sirin, who had landed lightly at the warehouse entrance, less than ten meters away from her.

"Can you answer my question? Miss Sirin, who was once a reincarnator from East America but now belongs to the Central Continent Team. You seem different from that 'kindred spirit' I met, Miss Alice, who was burdened with deep obsessions. You don't seem to have anything you're attached to. Perhaps you can offer me some inspiration from another perspective?"

She watched Celine quietly, showing no sign of aggression.

“This question is meaningless,” Celine replied. “It means a lot to you, but it’s useless to me.”

“No,” Ex shook her head slightly. “It’s useful. If you can answer this question, then there’s no need for a fight between you and me. I will return directly to the Main God Space, and the struggle for power in this world will be handled by your Central Continent Team.”

"Then you unlocked the fourth-tier advanced stage of your genetic lock, becoming a great being beyond the limits of the universe's natural creation." Sirin snorted softly. "Don't think I can't see it; you were only one step away long ago. That's why you participated in this competition, isn't it? Because this is where your opportunity for advancement lies."

“You’re right,” Ex nodded, not denying it. “But even so, there’s no irreconcilable, absolute conflict between you and me. Unless you’re willing to fight me.”

Do you know what I'm going to argue with you about?

“I don’t know. I don’t yet know what I’m really going to do. I only know that I will control everything and bring absolute order to everything.” She tapped the ground lightly with her toes. “If everything is under my control, perhaps I will understand what I’m still lacking.”

"You dare to do that?" Sirin sneered.

“What is there to be afraid of?” Ex tilted her head slightly. “He who has no attachments will accomplish nothing—do you think I would fear eternal death?”

"...So it seems there's no room for negotiation?"

“It’s you who can’t do it, and I’ve never cared.” Ex’s fingers gently touched together. Her eyes shimmered with a pure light that seemed to emanate from a five-colored wheel.

Celine sighed softly.

There's no point in continuing now that things have come to this.

The world trembled.

In an instant, all the atoms in Fuyuki City were pulverized, then transported back to their original places by immense magical power. Two streaks of light intersected and collided as they rose into the sky, covering a distance of thousands of kilometers in the blink of an eye. The next moment, the intersecting streaks of light pierced through the moon high in the sky!

Like peeling an onion, the moon's structure unfolds layer by layer, transforming from a sphere into an ellipse, and then into a pierced cone. The moment the two intersecting rays of light protrude from the far side of the moon, the distorted space brings a corrective force many times stronger than the restraining force, forcibly changing the shattered moon back to its original form at the instant the celestial body collapses!

The streaks of light continued to rush outwards, their speed even exceeding the speed of light itself. A series of bizarre phenomena, arising from the overturning of classical physical laws, occurred one after another, only to vanish into nothingness under the sheer power of the impact.

The world of Type-Moon is not the conventional material world.

Classical physics rules are not the norms of the universe, but rather products anchored to the surface of planets like stickers. The further away one is, the more useless physics becomes. And once separated from the Earth-Moon system, the old science as understood by mortals will also become a pile of waste paper.

Beyond the Earth-Moon system lies not outer space, but an extremely dense form of true ether.

It is phlogiston, it is SiN, it is an ocean of energy, it is primordial chaos. And within chaos, there are no rules.

But the celestial bodies still exist.

Each celestial body represents a different set of rules—they crossed Mars, traversed the asteroid belt, and first arrived at Jupiter. Anchors embedded in the planet's surface defined Jupiter as a world governed by 'air' as its underlying principle. Everything is composed of two opposing types of air, and in the next moment, a stream of light pierced through Jupiter's crust!

The gaseous earth collapsed, reverting to countless chaotic atmospheres. The original gaseous inhabitants of Jupiter screamed in terror, and countless gaseous humanoids of various colors scattered into a vast expanse of mist, emitting eerie cries.

A colossal ancient god, composed of black photon gas hundreds of kilometers long, awakened from the deepest recesses of the earth. In some online worlds, it is known as Aristotle, UO, One of the Infinites, or the Soul of a Star. It is a being capable of annihilating a world on its own, and even its fallen corpse is enough to incinerate continents. Its status is close to Gaia, and a pseudo-star is sealed within its body.

It roared at the two falling beams of light, but the next moment it was torn apart and shattered into scattered black gas by the aftershocks of the falling light—the moment it died, it seemed as if the whole world was mourning, weeping for the death of its eldest son and the impending destruction of the world.

A ray of light paused, and a slightly mocking will emanated from it.

"It seems your mercy is only directed towards humans, Sirin. Why are you so fond of them? They are just animals with similar body shapes to you."

Her voice echoed throughout Jupiter, and in the next instant, all the intelligent life forms on Jupiter screamed and went mad under the corrosive power of that voice. Those gaseous humanoids living on the far side of Jupiter, who had narrowly escaped the first wave of impact, screamed as they dug out their cores, collapsing into gas only to solidify again in the instant they dissipated into tree branches—a terrifying, nightmarish sight for gaseous life forms. And those solidified things then fell into the depths of the planet, eroding it as they fell.

"I want you to take care of it!"

Sirin's cold snort emanated from another radiance, and the distorted, warped gaseous figures broke free from the madness of the Dao Erosion and returned to their normal forms. They instinctively learned to worship the radiance, chanting Sirin's true name, and their forms rapidly expanded in the process of worship, becoming enormous and substantial.

The physical laws governing Jupiter's surface began to crumble, and endless threads of light cascaded down from the radiance of Exusiai. They pierced the sky, penetrated the earth's atmosphere, and eroded this world, whose underlying structure was based on light and darkness, into the form it desired. At the ends of the threads of light appeared enormous boulders, and these countless boulders expanded rapidly, peeling away from each other to form a sea of ​​stars.

The sky was pierced, and the true ether from beyond the world surged in and was entirely transformed into food for the true god. The illusory galaxy became real, and it expanded rapidly, extending to the length of a light-minute in an instant when time itself was meaningless.

One light sliver, eighteen million kilometers. Tens of thousands of neighboring planets cluster around dozens of Mars-sized stars. And Ex's radiance resides at the very center of this star cluster, ruling over countless celestial bodies like an emperor among stars. Countless civilizations of diverse forms are born from the star cluster with a roar, chanting the name of Ex and constructing thousands of fleets on the move.

This was Axe, Axe at full power. As her will crumbled, billions of cannons rained down from between the stars and the fleet, covering that 'tiny' Jupiter like a waterfall of light!

However, Jupiter did not collapse, because a black photon gas humanoid, more than ten times stronger than the dead UO, was born under Sirin's will. It roared and charged forward to block the truly sky-covering waterfall of light, before collapsing and decaying after holding out for a mere microsecond.

A massive, black, humanoid figure of photon energy supported a subtle structure.

Beneath Sirin's feet, a colossal black photon energy humanoid figure was ascending and worshipping her. Its number exceeded ten million.

This is her power, which she rarely uses, but which is not a non-existent power of death.

Her radiance expanded accordingly, and the true form of the Goddess gradually descended upon this planet where the original inhabitants no longer existed.

And the battle between the transcendent Herrscher and the interstellar overlord is about to begin.

Chapter 40: The Battlefield of the True God

In the void, Sirin unfolded her true form—thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions, or perhaps even more spatial bubbles of varying sizes. Within these bubbles might lie independent continents, boiling seas of clouds, desolate sandbars, or bustling floating cities.

Billions of heavens and earths, billions of spaces and times, converged together, their size exceeding even a fraction of a galaxy in terms of spatial scale. She manifested a form of existence entirely different from the ordered galaxy of Ex. This was because within the billions of spatial bubbles she possessed, there was no central core governing everything. Instead, her radiance flowed outwards, becoming the binding medium filling the spaces between these endless bubbles.

Ex chose to become the ruler, while Sirin became the connector.

Exus rules over the vast galaxy, while Sirin connects billions of timelines.

From the true divine form composed of those endless spatial bubbles, a sound, which could be easily transmitted to all parts of the universe without the need for a medium, gently resounded.

"The Collapse...is coming."

The erosion phenomenon then unfolded, but Jupiter, having been baptized by the cascade of light, accepted her will. Almost at the instant the second cascade of light descended, the gaseous Jupiter, possessing a physical form, also collapsed and dissipated, transforming into hundreds and thousands of space bubbles of varying sizes—they faced Sirin's true form and then easily merged into it, becoming a part of Sirin.

Sirin's scale expanded by a tiny increment, but quickly returned to its original level. The impact of the new plane and new civilization on her was present, but negligible. With the disappearance of the entire Jupiter world, endless True Aether poured in, filling this cosmic void. And under Sirin's erosion, it rapidly transformed into Honkai energy.

Sirin was once the messenger of Honkai, but now, Honkai has become a part of Sirin. The Dao Erosion phenomenon existing around the True God is a manifestation of the world adapting to them. And the instant the vast and boundless Honkai energy was constructed and generated by the Dao Erosion phenomenon, countless Honkai Beasts, Valkyries, spaceships, and even a considerable number of photon energy humanoids surged outward from the spatial bubble cluster, while the destructive black aurora surged and collided head-on with the pale third wave of light!

Onomatopoeia is insufficient to describe this. Even in the singularities on the Earth's surface, the ignorant creatures of the land can clearly see the bright star burning at the top of the sky—they don't know what it means, or perhaps they know that the truth is the real nightmare.

Almost at the very instant the light shone upon the earth, varying degrees of erosion reactions simultaneously appeared across the burned-out planet. Twisted creatures born from Ex's Force and mutated Honkai Beasts born from Sirin's Honkai Energy appeared out of nowhere on the dark earth, and then began to fight each other.

If this is the case on distant Earth, then the situation is even worse for other, relatively closer planets. Mars, which had narrowly escaped disaster before, could not escape its fate this time. Countless deformed and mutated creatures, mixed with Force reactions or Honkai effects, were generated from the air, from rocks, from water sources, and from living organisms—they began tearing and fighting each other at the moment of their birth, and their numbers were almost inexhaustible.

The surface of Mars was quickly covered by these alien creatures that appeared out of nowhere. Even when the Martian Undead used the powers granted by the planet to stop its rotation and repeatedly cleansed the surface with devastating floods and explosions, it was all to no avail. Gradually, even the Undead itself began to descend into madness. The Force and the Collapse, two completely different phenomena, appeared simultaneously within it, causing it to change and go berserk!

Come on, come on, let's fight!

Come on, come on, let's fight!

Mars remains largely unchanged, but the asteroid belt beyond it has long since succumbed. Erosion spreads rampantly across the cosmos, now devoid of any stellar spirit to protect it. It brings rocks to life, gives meteorites limbs, transforms cold steel into grotesque monsters driven by mechanical gears, and allows war to spread like wildfire.

The rules of the galaxy were redefined, and more and more True Aether was transformed into Honkai and the Force under the influence of the Erosion. Jedi Worms born from the Void swarmed, growing flesh and blood from the rocks. One after another, unclaimed asteroids cracked open, growing flesh and steel—they coalesced, meshing together like gears and tendons, becoming predatory behemoths capable of moving freely in the ocean of True Aether. And in the instant of their birth, they pounced on their eternal nemesis.

"I give you strength, I give you souls."

"I will give you a place to dwell, and a place to live."

They grow stronger with the infusion of the element of 'power' and become more agile and intelligent with the blessing of the element of 'soul'. Their very existence becomes the 'anchor of rules,' defining swathes of space as cosmic space in accordance with Earthlings' understanding. The infusion of the element of 'reality' amplifies the erosion phenomenon around them, transforming the energy ocean composed of true ether like an ant colony gnawing on remains.

They are the swarm, a swarm of Jedi Worms that govern the Force.

They are part of Ex, Ex's hands, Ex's eyes—one of Ex's billions of hands, one of Ex's billions of eyes. Their purpose is to throw themselves into endless war until they annihilate everything or their remains are corrupted by the Dao and become part of the enemy.

The battle between true gods leaves no remnants. For everything will be eroded away by the victor.

The battles between true gods are not quickly decided, just like those between extraordinary beings. As long as a victor is not determined at the outset, the war is destined to last for millennia—no, that's not quite accurate. Time has long since lost its meaning. Before a victor is decided, the war can continue from the beginning to the end of the universe, and after the victor is decided, even the process of the battle will be eroded by the victor's path, leaving not a trace.

One spatial gate after another opened, and countless Honkai beasts, like a cascading celestial river, rushed towards Ex's hands and eyes. They captured asteroids that had not yet been completely eroded by the laws of the Force, and then used themselves as a medium to inject Sirin's Honkai will into them.

"I have given you the desire of the wind, and the plague of fire."

"I give you the stillness of death, and the manifestation of reason."

The cold, dead rock transformed into fluid, and the redefined molecules moved and combined within it. They formed solid, living cells, and then the divinely bestowed war armor manifested on the outer surface of the aggregated life forms.

A small asteroid cracked open like an eggshell, from which emerged a pair of pure white hands. Faceless, slender maidens were born from the celestial body, unleashing immense power as they stretched their limbs—they possessed wings, bore sacred marks, wielded all known supernatural abilities, and possessed combat skills accumulated over a million years. Each of them was capable of suppressing an entire era. And their numbers, even now, exceed one hundred million.

They are Valkyries. They throw themselves into war, leading hordes of Honkai Beasts through space towards any direction that shows signs of Force reaction. They cleave through warships, tear apart death stars, and hunt down Exusiai's hands and eyes as if sweeping away trash. They are also annihilated on a large scale by Exusiai's will, just as easily as sweeping away trash.

A deafening tearing sound echoed from the interstellar space. Ceres, the largest dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, nearly a thousand kilometers in diameter and comparable to the Moon in astronomical terms, split open from its central axis. A pair of enormous, pure white dragon wings emerged from the rift, stretching outwards, their size even surpassing that of its 'cradle'. The eyes of the colossal dragon head burned with azure flames that stretched for hundreds of kilometers. A destructive breath followed, wiping out everything within a light-second radius in front of it that did not belong to Sirin.

Sirin's left hand, the dragon Benares, descended—at least a thousand of her simultaneously descended upon at least a thousand densely populated areas in the solar system.

She is the destroyer and the announcer. She destroys all existence that is not Sirin, and declares that all of space belongs to Sirin.

She flapped her wings, and from the rapidly collapsing True Aether, vast landmasses sprang up in the cosmos. Waters gushed forth, flowers and trees grew, and primitive nascent civilizations quickly appeared on the land, enveloped by spatial bubbles, and then, singing the name of Sirin, rapidly expanded the effects of the Dao Erosion to even more distant places.

Benares, located here, flew across more than a third of the asteroid belt in a brief moment. This third of the asteroid belt was transformed into huge space bubbles that were interconnected and linked together. The nascent civilization quickly matured, giving birth to trillions of Honkai beasts that surged in all directions of what was still space.

Trillions of life forms are born. Trillions of life forms perish.

One-third of the asteroid belt has transformed into spatial bubbles enveloping the earth; one-third remains in a stalemate; and one-third is completely enveloped by the Order Galaxy—the Honkai Beasts, composed of faceless Valkyries, and celestial life forms with Jedi Worms at their cores, manifesting as a coexistence of flesh and steel, are locked in a fierce battle. The numbers of deaths and changes every second are so immense that even calculation seems utterly cumbersome.

Jupiter has disappeared, and Saturn no longer exists.

Simultaneous eclipses occurred on Uranus and Neptune, with multiple Benares leading Valkyries and Honkai Beast legions in a fierce battle against the swarms of insects from the Order Galaxy.

The main battlefield is still moving, from Jupiter to Saturn and through Saturn.

The war of the gods leaves its mark.

God's trajectory alters reality.

A material corridor, composed of billions of floating continents, steel cities, nascent stars, space bubbles, and endless, ever-changing corpses, stretches from Jupiter, through Saturn, and continues towards Uranus. Its length and width are constantly increasing, and countless civilizations, some nascent and some mature, fight and vie for dominance along this corridor—an endless struggle.

The battle between the true gods continues, and the chaos within the solar system is gradually spreading to neighboring star systems.

..............................

"They're really courting death..." Meanwhile, in Mesopotamia, Zheng Zha, located in Ur, stared blankly at the exceptionally brilliant starry sky above—the incineration of humanity only burned the Earth, and the phenomenon of time overlap actually only occurred on the Earth's surface. In other words, no matter which singularity they stepped from and entered the celestial sphere, the universe they would eventually arrive at would be the same starry sky at the same point in time as 'Chaldea at this moment'—and then these daring explorers would face the power of the true gods.

Zheng Zha doesn't need to 'step into the starry sky'; he can see it clearly with his own eyes.

And it was precisely because he could see it that he understood just how serious the problem was.

Because this is not some wild universe without a master; this is the battlefield where sages contend—though it is the back side of the battlefield, the shadow under the sages' gaze. But everything here, everything that exists, every trace, is essentially a part of those two sages, insignificant, yet absolutely belonging to them.

The solar system is part of them, the galaxies outside the solar system are part of them, and even the true ether that fills the vast universe is part of them! The fact that Sirin and Ex are so recklessly unleashing the Dao Erosion is practically no different from courting death!

What is Celine trying to do?! Does she want to die?!