At this moment, within the sea of light, the tall figure clad in black light-armor remained where it stood.
But there was no light upon him.
Or rather, the overflowing, dazzling golden radiance was departing from that body, flowing and shaping itself beside him, automatically coalescing into a humanoid form. This light-forged figure appeared almost identical to the body left behind, though within the glow, the faint image of sharp, heavy armor took shape, making it appear much taller than a normal man—even though that original body was already exceptionally tall and robust.
Lei Ting had stepped out of his own body. Literally.
This was not a common occurrence. In fact, to anyone else, it would be the stuff of legends: a non-psychic specialized esper releasing their soul from the shackles of a living organism to act independently. In the past, this was a privilege reserved only for high-ranking psychic espers, the likes of whom had not appeared for centuries.
Then, the figure followed by a halo of light turned his head. He looked at his own hands, which still bore faint black markings, and reached out to pat the shoulder of the body he had left behind.
The body stirred. A moment later, it turned around and opened its eyes.
Those eyes lacked whites; they were pits of profound darkness, each containing a single golden ring of light, resembling a total solar eclipse. Simultaneously, the black metal that had been spreading across the face ceased its growth. A line of golden light was "inlaid" along its edge, blocking the erosion while clearly inflicting immense agony upon the body's current controller.
However, both of this body’s masters—though the current one was only temporary—shared a lack of aversion to pain.
"You know why I allowed you to come to the surface," Lei Ting said indifferently, the light upon him gradually drawing inward. "Help me temporarily maintain the erosion of 'Khemist,' and I will grant you an independent life afterward. What are you thinking?"
The Xenobeast wore its peculiar smile. "What I’m thinking is... I’m not human. What makes you think I’ll cooperate with you?"
"Fine," Lei Ting nodded.
He had no intention of further conversation. He had only been testing the other's emotional response from the start. Even if the creature had agreed, the result would have been the same.
He suddenly flickered, his entire form teleporting across a distance within his own radiant domain. He reached out and clamped a hand around "his own" throat.
An excessive concentration of powerful energy released from his palm, like a nova exploding in his grip.
The Xenobeast’s smile was still pinned to its face. It had not anticipated Lei Ting’s actions at all—how could a sentient being, whose thought processes were preset by external influences, ever predict the shortest path chosen by a machine?
*Don't worry, I won't kill you.*
Lei Ting no longer spoke as a "living organism." His formless will surged from that power. It wasn't even a mental link; it was a form of resonance: *You are still useful.*
Centering on the signal transceiver wrapped in Khemist’s mycelium, a blinding light erupted. The intense radiance surged in Lei Ting’s hand, twisting as it swallowed the body. Then, in a flash, it appeared within Khemist. Flesh and blood came into direct contact with the now-gigantic fungal sphere. The power of "Immovability" flowed continuously from Lei Ting’s psyche.
A power more stable than iron and stone, the power that controlled Lei Ting’s current emotions, the formidable strength that allowed him to maintain a stable mental state for his preparatory work and rendered him unshakable by any external influence—he stripped it away without hesitation.
It was a pain that tore the soul. Without a body, without hormones or physical self-protection, this agony—like being finely shredded like a piece of paper—acted unreservedly upon Lei Ting’s spirit.
Like snapping a biscuit, broken crumbs fell from such crude treatment. They plummeted into the Spirit's Depths like the falling of a golden star-curtain.
In this process, Lei Ting’s emotional responses gradually began to activate. A nearly pathological sense of guilt, sorrow, and despair welled up. Within the golden sea of light, figure after figure began to emerge once more.
They—those innocent dead, men and women, the vast majority of them Orionites—stood in the ocean of sunlight, hurling the harshest accusations and the vilest curses at the executioner who had put them to death. But no one could accuse them in return, for they... were truly innocent.
Lei Ting did not utter a sound.
His figure remained upright, even as the pain reached the depths of his soul, even as he personally tore himself into two pieces.
Ultimately, he forcibly ripped out ninety-nine percent of the "Immovable" power. It was dumped wholesale into his body, yet deliberately retracted.
The body was being eroded by Khemist’s mycelium—those seemingly tiny threads pierced through the metal armor and the flesh and bone of the Limit-Breaker, beginning the usual process of "assimilation."
But an unprecedented anomaly occurred: despite both being carbon-based, when faced with a more powerful and stable individual and energy, the organism automatically began to transform its own nature, turning itself into the likeness of a Type-1 carbon-based biological flesh and nerve system.
This was because Khemist, as a "Final Project" and a biomass ark for countless small and medium-sized civilizations, naturally possessed a mechanism to automatically correct and control the direction of its mutation. Not only was it impossible for a biotech civilization to lack such technology, but the universe itself was ever-changing. What if the environment changed one day and even fungi could no longer survive?
Simultaneously, a terrifying power finally erupted from Khemist.
This force swept across forty star sectors. They were shattered, destroyed, and pulled back by that power, swallowed and assimilated in an instant. The fungal deity that stirred all things released a domain—
The vacuum fell silent.
The "Silent Kingdom" descended. Dark red or pale mycelium splattered—the former in abundance, the latter sparse. A power capable of devouring galaxies caused more and more regions of the Milky Way to suffer distorted gravity, and the dangerous zones of space grew larger and larger!
A chaotic sense of hallucination began to invade Lei Ting’s spirit. His keen perception and unprotected psyche, facing the boiling power of his current surroundings, were like a natural dry sponge in a bucket of water.
Beside him, the light shrouding more than half of the Galactic Core was slowly spreading—but this time, it no longer flowed like water. Instead, it gradually became more violent and unstable, like a raging fire!
In the distant Human Federation, the statue of the "Gazer" stirred.
It woke once more from its slumber. Dim, rust-like colors flowed around it, but the iron statue’s shell still reflected a magnificent gold. That was the wheat field left by the "Recorder," which shrouded the entire Federation star region and the corresponding area of the Spirit's Depths.
Simply put, it added a layer of protection for the entire Federation against the "Cosmic Scar created by Carrigan."
And the Gazer stood within this protection, gazing into the ancient, starless darkness of the distance.
After a long time, it slowly closed its eyes.
*Crack.*
The crack on the visor gradually widened. Quiet figures emerged from its edges, and then, they—men and women—watched the world outside the iron statue through that rift.
Void darkness spread from the crack, gradually swallowing everything.
There should have been a person there.
The Gazer raised its arms, cradling the Steel Earth in its embrace. It slowly pulled back, taking the stance of one about to hurl a shot put or a javelin.
"The last time..." it murmured. "I think, we shall have no more..."
"No more what?" a will asked.
The Gazer sensed no hostility from this voice. It subconsciously pulled back its strength and looked nearby. When it saw the figure floating there, it was visibly stunned.
Evenheiler was buckled into the "Single-person Space Jump Experimental Craft XIV001." A sliver of golden light shimmered upon it, accompanied by the flickering of fine, white stardust.
He looked at the Gazer and its posture—as if it were about to use a literal "Earth Throw" to perish together with something. His eyes lit up with starlight as his gaze pierced the distant darkness, seeing...
"...A Xenobeast and a ball of fire? ...Forget it," he quipped. "You, you just want to say a few cool last words, don't you?"
The Gazer remained silent.
A moment later, it resumed its stance and, with a burst of power, hurled the Steel Earth!
*CRACK!!!*
At that moment, in the minds of almost every Orionite, the exact same sound of a hard object cracking rang out.
Broadcasts intended to soothe the public still echoed through local networks. The local forces of various fringe planets not yet back under Federation control mostly used their own methods to cope.
In the Federation Council Hall, Yongdai’er was still leading her people in focused work.
"So why are we still working at a time like this?" someone whispered. "Everything ultimately depends on what happens at the Galactic Core."
"Because if they succeed, we must immediately provide plans and follow-up actions to expand the victory. If they fail, we must handle the aftermath as quickly as possible and prepare for the worst," Yongdai’er said indifferently from the head of the table. "If we weren't so short-handed these past two years, I wouldn't have allowed someone who asks such questions to even step into this hall."
Soon after, the fusion of flesh and mycelium was complete.
Lei Ting’s body no longer existed. It had been used to counter-erode Khemist, allowing that near-infinite proliferation to combine with the power of "Immovability" to construct a new entity.
Now, it was not as massive as the original Khemist. It was a dark red, perfectly spherical mass of flesh. Its outer layer displayed a strange, soft material, with fine stardust-like polarized light occasionally flowing between the eerie structures of flesh, making it look like an abyss devouring the stars.
All these changes were displayed openly before the eyes of the galaxy. Those close by were too busy saving themselves, while those far away observed a peaceful starry sky—aside from the numerous disasters caused by strange gravitational anomalies, there were no major issues.
This was the reborn form of Khemist after combining all existing conditions. Now, it had no name, for all its past—except for its technical database—had been erased by Lei Ting.
Perhaps this was cruel. Those civilizations only wanted to survive, using every means possible; they had no subjective intent to harm any civilization or galaxy. Why would he not even allow their memories to remain?
Lei Ting did not want to explain to anyone, nor did he need to.
Just as he did not want to think, nor did he need to... in this moment of agony that made him want to fall into silence, to place himself somewhere and erase his consciousness, never to think or do anything again, he could not afford to think too much.
But even so, he forced himself to beckon with his hand.
Within the nameless star of black flesh, gravity-adjustment technologies were activated. Its perfectly self-consistent internal structure ensured smooth operation.
Upon the giant star, regular, neat golden glowing lines began to spread across the inlaid metal structures within—horizontal, vertical, and slanted like swords—though they were mostly obscured by the flesh structures that infinitely proliferated and infinitely vanished.
The star itself gradually descended, unfolding its structure according to the light patterns until it completely encased the black hole weapon at the center of the Galactic Core.
As it unfolded, a figure identical to Lei Ting stood within—it was not his body, but an image reconstructed by the giant star following his guidance.
Its controller was not the Xenobeast born from Lei Ting’s psyche, but the portion of "extreme rationality" from his psyche that he had torn away.
When it finally closed, Lei Ting ripped away his last sliver of "Immovability."
Amidst the violent pain thundering and exploding in the depths of his spirit, he remained expressionless, casting that golden light into the giant star of flesh he had forged with his own hands—like tossing the final log, or a crucial flame, into a pyre.
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 灵之底 | Spirit's Depths | A metaphysical or spiritual plane, often referred to as the Limbus or the bottom of the soul realm. |
| 不动 | Immovability | A specific power or state of mind representing absolute stability and emotional suppression. |
| 灵思 | Psyche | Refers to spiritual thought, mental energy, or the noosphere of an individual. |
| 异魔 | Xenobeast | A monstrous entity born from mutations or psychic manifestations; "Strange Demon." |
| 解限体 | Limit-Breaker | A high-level evolved human or esper who has surpassed normal biological limits. |
| 静默国度 | Silent Kingdom | The domain or field generated by the transformed Khemist. |
| 钢铁地球 | Steel Earth | A literal or symbolic representation of Earth held by the Gazer. |
| 单人空间穿梭试验机XIV001 | Single-person Space Jump Experimental Craft XIV001 | The specific vessel used by Evenheiler. |
| 永戴尔 | Yongdai’er | A high-ranking official or leader within the Human Federation. |
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