HUMMM
The moment the [Infinite Attributes] system was "touched" by a mysterious power descending from the [Essential Realm], Seraphine immediately used the [Change] Authority to forcibly intervene.
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
The attribute interface shook violently. The values for Physical Strength and Soul surged amidst a blur of chaos.
A moment later, the screen stabilized, and the new attribute values appeared:
[ Host: Seraphine ]
[ Physical Strength: 6 Trillion Galaxies ]
[ Soul: 6 Trillion Galaxies ]
This time, her attributes had multiplied by exactly two hundred times.
Now, Seraphine's Physical Strength and Soul each possessed the immense power equivalent to the total mass of six trillion Milky Way galaxies. Combined, she wielded the power of twelve trillion galaxies.
This strength had abruptly reached, and even completely surpassed, the total mass of all matter within the observable universe.
In other words, Seraphine had finally reached the level of being a universe unto herself.
And coincidentally, today marked the 30th of January in the first year of the Eon Calendar. It had been exactly thirty days since the day she ascended the throne as Emperor.
In just one month, she had jumped from a small, fledgling star-system-level powerhouse all the way to an observable-universe-level existence.
"No, my current self cannot yet be considered a true observable-universe-level being."
Seraphine slowly raised her hand, her five fingers splayed, before snapping them into a tight fist.
BOOM!!!
Space-time shuddered violently. A hundred million light-years of the vast void centered around her heaved and rolled in a frenzy.
Amidst the violent tremors, this region of the void erupted from nothingness, blasting out septillions of light-speed space-time torrents that could vaporize all macro and micro matter. Like tens of thousands of raging tsunamis, they churned the chaos within a range of several billion light-years.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In the midst of this chaos, Seraphine slowly stood up and stepped into the pitch-black void:
"My reach over the external universe still cannot compare to a Three-Dimensional Ungrateful Son, especially that Houiste Holy Emperor who stands as a Perfected Ungrateful Son. The gap is still immense."
Though she said this, she was not in a hurry.
Because that miraculous Transcendental Perception had vaguely "sensed" a piece of crucial information: within "Brilliant Games", there likely existed a way to thoroughly resolve the predicament of her insufficient reach.
THUD
THUD
THUD
Striding across hundreds of millions of light-years, Seraphine thought leisurely: "This Three-Dimensional Ungrateful Son realm clearly holds many mysteries."
In her calculations, while this realm is undeniably powerful, the dangerous, near-suicidal nature of it places unimaginable mental strain on the practitioner.
One must remain constantly tense, meticulously maintaining the dynamic equilibrium of the four-dimensional body and Soul hovering precariously between stability and instability.
The slightest lapse or oversight would trigger irreversible consequences, eventually leading to a tragic self-detonation.
Even worse, Seraphine deduced that over time, the probability of the structure becoming unbalanced would increase exponentially. Once it reached a certain threshold, even if the practitioner did nothing but try to maintain stability, a sudden death would be unavoidable.
Seraphine "read" the visions of the past again: "Let me see, let me see... how exactly did Augustus maintain this unstable Perfected Ungrateful Son state for so long?"
She had a vague suspicion, and she meant to find out if this guess held any water.
The visions revealed that over the endless eons measured in billions of years the Holy Emperor had maintained that power capable of shaking the universe without a single moment of instability.
Meanwhile, the Houiste Civilization under his protection grew at a blistering pace.
In terms of technology, the Houiste Federation having inherited all the "legacies" of the ancient Civilization Fugitives had reached a point where every single individual could easily control a massive galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars.
Regarding life evolution, after thousands of modifications, the integration of the Fugitives' dimensional science, and the "plundering" of the God of Hunger race's secrets, the Houiste evolved into a race of Sages. From birth, they possessed the power to create or destroy at a super-star-system level, wielded control over at least one fundamental cosmic force, and had immense influence over the three-dimensional space-time, the Dirac Sea, and the Higgs Field.
Because of this, they were so powerful both physically and mentally that they had no need for concepts like marriage or family. They had abandoned gender; every individual was a neutral entity. The "primitive and fragile" method of sexual reproduction had been discarded billions of years prior.
The relationships between Houiste individuals were characterized by a deep, pure bond a mixture of friendship and brotherhood that surpassed anything known before.
In fact, Seraphine noted that in the countless advanced interstellar civilizations she had seen, the family and marriage systems inevitably vanished. These were social structures created by low-tech civilizations for species survival and labor distribution. Once technology is advanced enough, production is powerful enough, and the environment is safe enough for any weak individual to be protected, the family unit naturally dissolves.
Dismissing this minor detail, Seraphine finally saw what she was truly looking for.
During the peak of the Houiste Civilization hundreds of millions of years ago, Holy Emperor Augustus had taken the semi-materialized Spirituality unique to certain God of Hunger individuals and used it as an experimental control. He pooled the Federation's entire technological might, recklessly using countless intelligent races as experimental fodder to conduct massive, comprehensive research on the Root Spirituality of all living things. After collecting and categorizing vast amounts of data over tens of thousands of years, he developed numerous Spirituality metamorphosis techniques.
Though Seraphine couldn't discern the specific details of these techniques, the experimental results suggested that these methods weren't particularly powerful.
They probably weren't much better than the six metamorphosis techniques she had granted the humans of the new Milky Way. Even if practiced to their peak, it was unlikely they could even touch the level of semi-materialized Spirituality.
"How strange," Seraphine murmured to herself, somewhat puzzled. "Why, with such massive resources and research at his disposal, could Augustus only produce these subpar methods?"
When she created the technique "Cosmic Dawn", she hadn't had nearly the resources Augustus possessed. Augustus had multiple semi-materialized Spirituality subjects to use as controls, the entire resource pool of the Primordial-Reach, and his own immense scientific and evolutionary power yet all he could develop was a pile of trash that barely reached the third stage of Dawn.
It was truly baffling.
"Then again... the Annihilation Traveler went to all that trouble, and even then, only a handful of God of Hunger individuals developed semi-materialized Spirituality and even that was of a mediocre, low-tier variety. Perhaps there's no reason to expect the Holy Emperor to develop powerful spiritual techniques. But wait, why was it so easy for me?"
Seraphine pondered as she deduced the past. "Is Spirituality metamorphosis truly that difficult to develop? Is the sublimation of Spirituality truly that hard?"
Suddenly, she realized something was off.
Why? Because if something is clearly impossible for everyone else in the world to do well, yet one person manages to complete it easily and with far fewer resources, time, and energy then it defies logic.
Seraphine walked and meditated.
The Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation failed to deduce any relevant information. However, that vague Transcendental Perception, drifting beyond the Phenomenal Realm, "confirmed" her doubts.
There was indeed a problem.
Seraphine's success in spiritual research and sublimation was far beyond anything conventional. The degree of this anomaly couldn't be described by the word "talent" alone.
"Another mystery, it seems."
For some reason, Seraphine suddenly thought of her own inexplicable, absolute Uniqueness, and that giant hand that had once flicked its finger and sent the Phoenix of Profound Darkness spiraling into the upstream of the River of Time.
Right then...
"Oh?"
Within the visions, during one of Holy Emperor Augustus's actions, Seraphine suddenly noticed that he... actually possessed semi-materialized Spirituality. Furthermore, it was an incredibly pure level of semi-materialized Spirituality.
Though it couldn't compare to her own, it was vastly superior to the inferior Spirituality possessed by someone like Gluttony King - Tu.
"So that's it."
Seraphine realized, "So the reason Augustus could stably maintain the dynamic equilibrium of his form and spirit was by relying on the reality-warping power provided by semi-materialized Spirituality. He dedicated that entire power to maintaining his own balance, which is why he never revealed the unique nature of his Spirituality."
She continued to "watch."
In the visions, the Holy Emperor remained invincible for over a billion years; in the vast universe, there was no longer anyone worthy of him taking action. After completely securing the River of Primordial, the Houiste Federation turned its gaze toward the other Primeval Rivers.
The subsequent scenes could no longer be accurately deduced due to the lack of information. Seraphine could only vaguely gather that the Houiste Federation had made contact with other powerful civilizations in those other Primeval Rivers.
Furthermore, Holy Emperor Augustus had encountered other Three-Dimensional Ungrateful Sons in those distant reaches. Although the deduced information was blurry, Seraphine definitely "saw" the existence of other Three-Dimensional Ungrateful Sons. Whether the Holy Emperor had clashed with them remained unknown.
However, Seraphine felt that given the Holy Emperor's personality, a battle was almost certain.
During those long eons, for reasons unknown, the Holy Emperor had taken a Level 9.9 warp ship a peak technological creation of the ancient Fugitives and left the River of Primordial for a very long time before returning. (For Warp level settings, see Chap 82).
Seraphine couldn't deduce exactly where he had gone, only that by the time he returned, a hundred million years had passed.
"A Level 9.9 warp ship... that's equivalent to crossing 3.171 billion light-years every second."
She fell into deep thought. "Flying at that speed toward a specific location and returning immediately assuming a short stay one can roughly estimate that the Holy Emperor's destination... required flying at 3.171 billion light-years per second for about 50 million years. A year has 31.536 million seconds. By that calculation... didn't he travel five septillion light-years away? Is this universe... truly that large?"
In an instant, Seraphine discarded her previous guesses about the size of this universe. But... would 13.7 billion years be enough for cosmic inflation to reach such a colossal scale? She remained skeptical.
"Well, whatever."
After spending so much time observing the God of Hunger race's historical vistas and deducing the universe's past, Seraphine suddenly felt bored.
She stopped her march and activated the Authority of Change within her Root Divinity, beginning her experiments with the Authority. This was something she had intended to do for a while but had been delayed by her historical research.
"First, let's create a galaxy."
HUMMM
Without any massive ripples appearing in the Dirac Sea, a brilliant galaxy 200,000 light-years in diameter, rivaling the Milky Way was instantly birthed from the vacuum out of nothingness.
Seraphine then applied the power of the Authority of Change to encompass this primordial galaxy, which, despite its massive size, looked no larger than a "washbasin" to her.
"Time erasure... ten million years."
HUMMM
Under the divine power of the Authority of Change, within the various regions of this lifeless galaxy, millions of intelligent species developed to the space-faring age and an even greater number of low-tech planetary civilizations abruptly "manifested" without any intervening process.
The scene was miraculous. One second, there was nothing; many star systems and planets were in their natural, primordial state. The next second, the surfaces of a hundred million planets were covered in buildings and intelligent life. Interstellar vessels of all kinds suddenly appeared in the void, and even some scorched stars were encircled by thin, newly-formed Dyson Sphere shells.
It was as if the tens of thousands of civilizations within this galaxy had truly spent eons developing to reach this level.
But only Seraphine knew the truth: the past these civilizations supposedly experienced... never existed. They were the result of erasing the long development time and process, manifesting the outcome directly.
It was bizarre, but such was the power of the Authority of Change.
However, because the Ether activity in this vast void barely reached the Low-Ether level, while these civilizations were thriving technologically, they were pathetic in terms of cultivation and evolution. Within the entire massive galaxy, there wasn't even a single Overlord.
Furthermore, due to the light-speed barrier, their territorial influence was quite narrow. Most could only control a handful to a few dozen star systems. Even the rare few who had mastered warp drive technology controlled only four-digit numbers of star systems.
"What if I gift these interstellar civilizations the secrets of Spirituality metamorphosis and evolvable cultivation arts? How would they change?
Through fierce competition, amidst endless blood and the fires of war, would someone actually emerge, an expert capable of mastering semi-materialized Spirituality?"
Struck by this sudden inspiration, the light within Seraphine's Eye of Transcendence flared violently as she sat poised outside the galaxy.
HUM...
In an instant, the boundless universe shuddered violently as the quantum vacuum ocean surged and roared.
Within a single second, the diameter of this galaxy, originally the size of the Milky Way, abruptly expanded from 200,000 light-years to a staggering 1 million light-years.
Its original mass of several hundred billion stars exploded, multiplying to over a hundred trillion in an instant.
Suddenly, a massive Supergiant Galaxy, shimmering with infinite starlight and overlapping Dark Matter halos, was born within the endless abyss.
Next, a faint divine light flickered within Seraphine's Eye of Transcendence.
With a single thought, she condensed twenty methods of Spirituality metamorphosis, the six methods of Soul-Shell refinement, and thousands of evolvable cultivation arts across all ranks. She bundled the Path of Martial Saint from the "Archetype Ascension" along with the Sage arts of the "Nine Transformations of the Dragon Gate" into a single FTL data-tide.
Crossing hundreds of thousands of light-years, this information wave instantly blanketed the Supergiant Galaxy, sinking into the consciousness of countless beings scattered across every sector and star system.
Whether it was the thousands of powerful interstellar civilizations roaming space or the countless primitive tribes still shackled to planetary surfaces by gravity, regardless of what they were doing, every conscious mind simultaneously received this massive influx of mysterious information from the deep void beyond the system.
This data dump was so gargantuan it fried the brains of several lesser-intelligent races. It clearly and meticulously detailed the existence of Root Spirituality, its vital importance, its fundamental traits, and the various benefits of achieving Spirituality metamorphosis.
Moreover, the transmission included beautifully detailed instructions, breaking down every stage of the twenty-six metamorphosis methods into perfectly digestible steps.
Immediately after, with a single thought, Seraphine constructed a massive Sentience Realm Hallway system within this colossal galaxy, along with over ten thousand sets of Black Scepter Arrays that blanketed every corner of space.
Following that, she exerted her Authority of Change over the galaxy, instantly rewriting the Etheric activity of that space-time region, boosting it from Low-Ether to Super-Ether level.
"The territory is set, resources are ready, cultivation arts provided, Ether is rich, and travel is easy. Now, war is inevitable," Seraphine murmured leisurely.
Having completed these arrangements, she left a message within the dazed consciousness of the galaxy's trillions of intelligent beings:
"The stage is set. I give you 3 billion years. If, after 3 billion years, not a single person has mastered semi-materialized Spirituality, this galaxy will no longer have a reason to exist."
Ignoring how the countless lifeforms would react to this cataclysmic shift, Seraphine once again applied her Authority of Change to the Supergiant Galaxy and its corresponding Sentience Realm.
"Erase time, 3 billion years."
BOOM...
Through Seraphine's overwhelming perception, in just the blink of an eye, the radiant Supergiant Galaxy visibly shrank.
A quick scan of its mass revealed it had suddenly decreased by one-fifth.
That meant twenty trillion stars had vanished.
This loss was equivalent to the mass of dozens of Milky Ways.
"Oh? Fighting that hard, are we?"
Seraphine burst into laughter at the discovery.
Clearly, these vanished stars were the work of the powerhouses born within that gargantuan galaxy. These tyrants, wielding peerless strength on this cosmic martial stage, refused to remain idle, especially since interstellar travel had become so effortless that no corner of the galaxy remained truly isolated.
Furthermore, because the cultivation path of the "Nine Transformations of the Dragon Gate" is so blood-soaked and tyrannical, it was only natural for the countless experts of various civilizations to constantly shatter stars and annihilate worlds for their own ends.
This was exactly as Seraphine had anticipated; she felt not a shred of surprise.
Beyond that, Seraphine noted that in this massive galaxy where twenty trillion stars had been wiped out by warring powerhouses, megastructures dwarfing Dyson Spheres were everywhere, numbering in the hundreds of millions. Even Ringworlds, cosmic metropolises rivaling stars in size, exceeded hundreds of billions.
At this very moment, septillions of intelligent lifeforms across these cosmic cities were living out a myriad of lives, working, resting, arguing, or wandering.
However, the number of interstellar civilizations had actually plummeted compared to three billion years ago. Now, only about fifteen hundred remained.
But these fifteen hundred civilizations were each far superior in technology or evolution to the former six core galactic races. The strongest among them had even evolved into Overlord-class species, beings born with the power of a galactic conqueror.
The number of Sages in this Supergiant Galaxy was also abnormally high. There were 23,272 Low-tier Sages, 1,536 Mid-tier Sages, and sixty-eight High-tier Sages. Strikingly, there were three Peak Sages, beings capable of annihilating a trillion stars with a single full-power strike.
"Three Peak Sages, for this galaxy, that's a bit much. Never mind the lower ranks; these three alone could strip this entire galaxy bare,"
Seraphine observed the general state of this massive galaxy with a hint of interest. "It looks lively enough, yet surprisingly, in a galaxy this vast, there isn't a single semi-materialized Spirituality. Even though there's no shortage of those who've reached the 3rd stage of Dawn, what's the point of that?"
Disappointed, she shook her head and vibrated the boundless void, sending an FTL information-tide across the galaxy's myriad lives.
HUM!!
In a heartbeat, every living being within that colossal galaxy, from the lowliest interstellar drudge to the high-ranking Peak Sages, had their consciousness forcibly overtaken by a cold, ancient voice:
"Three billion years, and not a single one of you achieved semi-materialized Spirituality. You are all useless."
The verdict delivered, Seraphine had no desire for further dialogue, nor any interest in the terror of the trillions she had just condemned. Her massive face, drifting amidst shimmering nebulae, split open to reveal a maw of jagged, multi-dimensional fissures, cracks that shifted and phased through billions of dimensions every second.
She aimed her gaze at the Supergiant Galaxy and inhaled sharply.
BOOM...
A violent devouring force, striking directly at the fundamental structure of three-dimensional space-time, erupted from Seraphine's throat. At hundreds of millions of times the speed of light, it lunged toward the galaxy hundreds of thousands of light-years away.
WHOOSH!!!
The Supergiant Galaxy was instantly torn asunder. Tens of trillions of stars and septillions of intelligent lives were extinguished in a flash, vaporized into massive torrents of radiant energy. These currents, dragging space-time ripples that blanketed a million light-years, spiraled through the dark void from every angle before crashing into the depths of Seraphine's maw.
With that, she rose and resumed her journey toward the outer reaches of the River of Primordial.
The Supergiant Galaxy, with its three billion years of glory, its infinite civilizations, and its tens of thousands of Universal Sages, simply vanished, leaving no trace in the cosmic vastness.
"With so many advantages and three billion years, not a single one reached semi-materialized Spirituality," Seraphine mused in confusion as she walked. "Is it really... that difficult?"
Shaking her head, she focused on a space-time coordinate hundreds of millions of light-years away and once again invoked her Authority of Change:
"Swap space-time positions. Exchange my current location with the 3D space-time coordinates of that place."
FLASH!
Instantly, without any physical travel, Seraphine arrived over a hundred million light-years away.
"This distance isn't enough. Let's try again."
FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!
After several attempts, Seraphine realized that the Authority of Change's space-time relocation still had its limits. She had to know the specific coordinates of a significant point in 3D space to perform a position swap; otherwise, the execution would fail.
"In that case..."
Seraphine gazed into the infinite void ahead. "How about... changing the space-time scale itself?"
BOOM...
Suddenly, the endless expanse of the void ahead seemed to flatten into a two-dimensional state. Billions of light-years of depth were stripped away, allowing her to leisurely step across the gap.
However, this action caused the massive surrounding space-time bordering this "collapsed" zone to become extremely distorted. The resulting layers of space-time tsunamis rapidly spread, impacting an even larger portion of the cosmic abyss.
Fortunately, this multi-billion light-year stretch of the void was empty of galaxies; otherwise, they would have been shredded into nothingness.
"This works."
Glancing back at the billions of light-years of void that were rapidly "un-collapsing" and returning to their original state, Seraphine remained unsatisfied. She once again invoked the Authority of Change on the vast universe ahead.
BOOM!!
This time, the commotion was colossal.
She forcibly rewrote the scale of a ten-billion-light-year expanse, reducing its depth to nearly zero. Then, Seraphine took a casual step forward.
One step, ten billion light-years.
But this single step carried grave consequences.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Behind her, the thirty billion light-years of "collapsed" void expanded back to its original state with violent speed, triggering a chain reaction of 3D space-time shifts. This unleashed millions of FTL space-time tidal waves, each with the magnitude of a galaxy cluster, that swept back and forth across tens of billions of light-years of space.
Facing this chaos, Seraphine gave it only a brief glance.
"Fully restore to normal."
Like a divine decree from on high, the violent space-time upheavals sweeping across tens of billions of light-years behind her were instantly restored to their original state, no process, no reason.
It was as if the millions of gargantuan ripples that threatened to grind existence to dust, and the terrifying ocean of energy they contained, had been nothing more than an illusion.
Following this, Seraphine conducted four or five more scale-collapse experiments.
After trampling and agitating a massive portion of the cosmic void, she determined that the current limit of the Authority of Change's intervention was roughly thirty billion light-years.
Theoretically, under maximum output, Seraphine could traverse thirty billion light-years in an instant, a speed nearly ten times greater than Level 9.9 Warp.
"The travel speed is whatever," Seraphine noted, surveying the vast abyss. "But if I use this technique in combat, I could basically clear out the entire observable universe. It's on par with a full-power strike from a perfected Three-Dimensional Ungrateful Son."
Then, a more dangerous thought occurred to her.
"What if... I simply erase space-time altogether?"
Her Eye of Transcendence flared as Seraphine gazed into the void ahead, invoking her Authority of Change.
"Erase... three-dimensional space-time."
BOOM!!!
The universe heaved; the abyss shuddered.
Ahead of her, a massive expanse of space-time, millions of light-years across, simply ceased to exist. In its place, a formless, colorless, and inexplicable void of "nothingness", a negative dimension, emerged. It immediately began to pull at and corrode the surrounding space-time through an incomprehensible mechanism.
Although this "nothingness" was rapidly receding and collapsing as time passed, its bizarre consumption and corrosion caused the surrounding 3D space-time to flow toward it. Even the more distant regions, with all their intricate structures, physical laws, and causal logic, were violently destabilized by the void's ripples, warping into a myriad of grotesque forms.
Furthermore, within this indescribable and incomprehensible expanse of nothingness, several unknown "point-like" objects miraculously emerged, objects with zero volume, yet containing near-infinite energy density and infinite space-time curvature.
"Are those... Singularity-likes?"
Millions of light-years away, Seraphine's eyes twitched in shock. "Within the nothingness... Singularity-likes are spontaneously appearing?! And more than one! That means..."
Before she could finish, she realized a fatal problem.
Singularity-likes expand.
Which is equivalent to... a cosmic Big Bang!