Lei Ting had only been sitting in his lounge at the apex of the ‘United Starport’ for a brief moment, and had not yet decided the fate of two contaminated planets in a distant, desolate sector, when he discovered that those two far-flung celestial bodies had detonated simultaneously.
Powerful energy surged from within them. Amidst the scattering, flower-like spray of meteorites, the energy coalesced into ring-shaped acceleration channels the size of planetary cores.
Scans from the unmanned fleet’s observation systems confirmed them to be some form of energy stepping and acceleration devices, exhibiting a blue spectral signature.
At the same time, a sharp sense of crisis forced him to snap his head up. He flickered out of existence, reappearing amidst the crimson torrent of energy to gaze toward the piercing blue light in the distance.
That light flickered in and out of view, though not due to atmospheric interference—before it, a dense, black-and-red tide was emerging from the void, advancing from the direction of Abri-Sark toward the Galactic Core.
Those were... Abyssal Demons, temporarily manifested from the ‘Bottom of the Spirit’ via the energy fluctuations triggered by those blue rings.
They appeared directly near the ‘Ring World’ in the heart of the galaxy, their numbers nearly infinite. Interspersed among them were ‘Starry Sky Behemoths’ and ‘Abominations.’ These glowing, energetic titans acted like mobile lighthouses, leading the black tide toward worlds within a five-hundred-million-kilometer radius.
Lei Ting triggered the starport’s alarm system.
This time, the siren didn’t just blare a few times and stop. Instead, his pre-recorded voice rang out across the station: “Enemy attack. Non-combat units, evacuate to safety. Defense systems, initiate self-check. Battery crews, initiate self-check. All units, organize internal operations. Prepare for battle.”
In that instant, the ‘United Starport’ roared to life.
Researchers scrambled into the starport’s core areas for shelter. Combat personnel rushed to their posts; even those off-duty sprinted from lounges or entertainment districts, injecting status-adjusting stimulants as they raced toward their assigned combat units.
Out in the vacuum of space, the agony of collapsing flesh caused Lei Ting to raise his hand. He looked at his arm through his armor—the blackness on his skin was rapidly spreading toward the un-eroded areas.
Good... the enemies hiding in the shadows hadn't wasted this vulnerability. They were trying to force the decisive moment to arrive early, using ‘pollution’ to make the ‘Sun Star’ defect mid-battle, or more simply, to force him to undergo ‘Corruption’ into a new, absolutely powerful Abyssal Demon.
...And this was exactly what he wanted.
***
“Report current status,” the ‘Commander’ ordered.
He stood before a massive cannon accumulating blue radiance. Behind him, over a thousand figures belonging to intelligent Abyssal Demons busied themselves between the wide halls and towering pillars. These pillars were embedded with massive computer arrays, their exteriors completely devoid of cabling—a clean, sleek futuristic style that felt somewhat jarring when contrasted with the term ‘Abyssal Demon.’
But just as there is chaos within ordered civilizations, the seemingly chaotic ‘Abyssal Demons’ naturally possessed their own internal order. The opposition and interdependence of chaos and order were always vividly displayed in the world of the demons.
“Energy system cycle normal. Output normal.”
“Energy export path normal.”
“Target locked.”
“Stepping rings adjusted. Ready for jump-strike at any time.”
“...Are you certain this can affect the Galactic Core?” someone beside the Commander asked. It was the demon Ebon. “The ‘Sun Star’ is right there.”
“No matter how strong the ‘Sun Star’ is, he is still an ‘individual,’” the Commander replied. “Even in the worst-case scenario where he blocks most of the energy, as long as a ‘small portion’ successfully reaches the target, or the ‘Sun Star’ enters the countdown to ‘Corruption’ due to excessive output, we will have reached the threshold of victory.”
Though it seemed overly cautious—even cowardly—to avoid a direct confrontation with the Sun Star, those who achieve great things must know when to preserve themselves. Charging straight into the Sun Star’s face without even a long-range greeting? That was just seeking death.
“Through the millions of ‘stepping rings’ deployed in space, the energy cannon we fire at the ‘Galactic Core’ will become a key because it carries the power of ‘Kaligan.’ Its purpose is to activate the emergency acceleration system of the black hole weapon.”
The Commander pointed to the massive cannon before him. Though it was ‘massive,’ it could hardly be called a ‘gun’ compared to the black hole weapon of the Galactic Core, which was so grand that even the most beautiful epics could barely describe it.
“If we attacked directly, it wouldn't even be able to scratch the ‘Ring World’ itself. But... it comes from ‘Kaligan.’”
The Commander chuckled softly.
“You know, to this day, that war has not ended. Therefore, all emergency response mechanisms related to it are still in effect!”
As for how this energy would reach its destination...
“Countdown start!” the Commander barked.
Digits composed of points and lines flickered one by one. He stared at the massive cannon, his eye sockets brimming with a light as crimson as blood.
***
*BOOM!!*
A massive blue ring shattered. Its physical structure, composed of asteroids, was violently twisted apart, and the blue light was disrupted by a golden disturbance, exploding into a celestial firework in an instant.
But simultaneously, even more rings lit up across the galaxy. If not for Lei Ting and the former ‘Emperor’s Blade’ members’ continuous cleanup efforts over the years, there would have been even more.
The war began at close quarters. In the deep void, various weapons quickly wove a crisscrossing, three-dimensional web of fire.
Around the Galactic Core, the ‘Architect,’ who had been working tirelessly for years, began structural reinforcements with methodical precision.
‘Fire Wine’ arrived at Lei Ting’s side. A mental link was established, and Lei Ting accepted it reflexively.
...The next second, it was severed.
‘Fire Wine’ shrieked, retreating several thousand meters away from Lei Ting. “?!”
—Why did it sense a crisis from this man that was so intense it was almost terrifying?!
What was wrong with this guy?!!
From a distance, it saw Lei Ting turn his head, offering a mechanical smile.
Then, he spread his hands.
A patch of the starry sky fluctuated briefly in response.
***
The primary consciousness of ‘Chemister’ had not existed for very long.
In truth, the original ‘primary consciousness’ and its various personalities had vanished tens of thousands of years ago. The consciousness existing now couldn't even be called a complete ‘individual will’—it was merely a mimetic program generated by this massive fungal mass for the sake of that former ‘primary consciousness.’
But even so, it possessed the most basic concept of survival.
Because death and destruction were so terrifying; the end of nothingness was the enemy of all life.
And ‘Chemister’ was born to escape it.
In the starry sky, ‘Chemister,’ which was efficiently converting matter into energy and energy into fungal thickets, shuddered minutely.
Though it was called ‘minute,’ for an entity of such staggering volume, even the slightest deviation from its planned path was a shock to the cosmos.
“What is that...?” It ‘heard’ a lifeform in a certain civilization’s internal network ask. “Is the sky... moving?”
It was exposed.
Chemister’s primary consciousness remained unperturbed. It knew that single shudder was enough to expose it to the entire galaxy, for when the stars shifted out of place, its form would be framed against the celestial canopy.
Thus, it canceled its mimetic exterior and descended toward the location of the civilization where that lifeform had first questioned the sight.
A colossal, pure white, flawless living fungus. Its surface was devoid of pits or craters, beautiful to the point of being divine...
...But it was too large.
At a quarter of the size of the Milky Way, when it canceled all camouflage, its own gravity was enough to pull at the stars across the sky.
As it descended, the galaxy began to warp. Clumps of matter floating in desolate space began to be pulled toward it, like a reverse meteor shower.
But no one noticed that behind the seemingly flawless megastructure of the fungal mass, two stains were spreading.
Both were black in the center with dark red edges, emerging from within Chemister’s shell. Deeply buried within the mycelium were the cores of pollution: one was a pitch-black mushroom, and the other was...
...A metallic signal transceiver?
Beside the ‘Galactic Core,’ beneath Lei Ting’s armguards, a faint sound echoed.
The sound was like the hardening of some substance—Lei Ting knew it was himself.
Amidst the swirling black mist, his own limbs were being completely converted into a pitch-black metallic texture.
This was the erosion of the polluting powers from the ‘Bottom of the Spirit.’ Awakening, Sublimation, Boiling—he had already passed through these three stages that every galactic superpowered individual must experience. Now, he was undergoing the final stage: ‘Corruption.’
Or rather, it was a forced transformation of his individual nature by a power from beyond the universe, one that had been improperly utilized by ordered civilizations.
*Soon...* he thought.
Soon, the moment he had been waiting for would arrive.
***
The black-and-red stains spread silently.
Soon, they met... and a victor was decided in an instant.
The pollution belonging to the metal firmly suppressed the black fungus. It devoured everything it touched without restraint, spreading out in the blink of an eye!
If one looked closely at the edge of that black-and-red domain, they would find a sliver of eye-catching golden light being pushed outward at the very perimeter.
It was precisely its presence that made this polluting power unstoppable!
—‘Immovable’!
Lei Ting closed his eyes.
—Where exactly did the galaxy’s problem lie?
Was it the chaos of total fragmentation after the Starry Network ceased service? Was it the constant years of conflict? Was it the Abyssal Demons? Or was it the ‘Silver Stars’ and the contingencies they left behind?
While these certainly seemed excessive... don't worry, the truly excessive part was yet to come.
—Had anyone ever imagined it?
A weapon whose basic principle was the elementary knowledge that ‘the acceleration of an object is proportional to the force acting upon it’—if it used the gravity outside the boundary of a black hole’s accretion disk as a slingshot, how much momentum could it give the stone on that slingshot?
And what if... the artificial black hole at the center of that weapon, born from the start to be weaponized...
...For some reason, lost its external weapon structure and regained the near-infinite expansiveness it was meant to have?
To be honest, even Lei Ting had to admit that the aftereffects of ‘Kaligan’s’ attack on the ‘All Stars’ were truly terrifying.
The terror lay in the fact that... regardless of whether it would happen again, or how many times it might happen if it did, when it first grazed the galaxy, the ‘Starry Network’ was not its primary target.
Its primary target was the black hole weapon. Or rather, the black hole weapon’s safety and stability system!
—Just dismantling the communication network? That was impossible... Kaligan and the All Stars had fought for tens of millions of years. If they were going to sabotage each other, how could it just be a slap on the wrist?
The current black hole weapon was, in fact, completely unable to stop running.
And ‘last time,’ Lei Ting had seen it... after that thing actually fired, how the galaxy, with the ‘Ring World’ as its center, shattered into a field of ruins.
Therefore, this time, he had allowed himself to be eroded. At first, it might have been to bait the enemy, but in the end, he intended to use the power of ‘Corruption’ to pollute and control the entirety of ‘Chemister’!
Its volume was certainly large enough, its energy sufficient, and its ability to proliferate was perfect—as long as he made it a part of himself, ‘Immovable’ could spread indefinitely, even transferring onto it entirely.
And it would become the Galactic Core’s new safety valve!
***
