When the flesh-and-blood machine officially sealed shut, the ‘Lei Ting’ enclosed within—who could also be called the ‘Solar Star’—turned steadily in mid-air.
He was naked, gazing at Lei Ting from a distance. Two identical, cold, hard faces, and two pairs of ‘eyes’ projecting golden light, each reflecting the other’s image.
In truth, the current Lei Ting looked more like the legendary image of the ‘Solar Star’ than the actual ‘Solar Star’ did... and vice versa.
Then, the man with long black hair closed his eyes and lowered his head.
In the next instant, he suddenly straightened his body and spread his arms, and radiance exploded forth!
Within the vast cavity extending in all directions, mechanical structures twisted and ejected. Six wide pipes connected to his back, and protective flesh-and-blood tissue sprawled over them. Eventually, these pipes were completely encased and parasitized, turning into thick, black-red tentacles.
Those tentacles coiled around his body, occasionally embedded with silver-black mechanical structures.
Golden light-patterns flowed over them. Compared to the surrounding repulsive tissues that resembled those of an abomination, they brought out a strange, alienated sense of divinity.
The tentacles broke off from their point of origin and wrapped around the Solar Star’s body. They merged with him, decomposing parts of his limbs deemed unnecessary, turning everything below his waist into a cluster of thick tentacles integrated with mechanical structures.
He descended onto the mechanical platform of the nearby black hole weapon. The researchers and investigators who had been there had already been sent away; now, he was alone.
Thus, he could deploy all of this without restraint.
Countless tentacles pierced into the metal platform. The metal deformed naturally, forging a palace in space for its monarch.
That flesh and blood, its essence transformed from ‘Comist,’ should actually be called a sort of ‘biomass additive reinforcement unit,’ where every single unit possessed immense computing power.
Based on this, in a manner that could be called a profanation of life, he forced them to enhance his operational efficiency over this entire megastructure star.
This nameless giant star and the black hole weapon within would be perfectly integrated under his control.
Until its internal energy diversion system was officially established and interfaced, all of this would continue to run on the power of the black hole itself. However, it would begin to automatically sense, transmit, adjust, and transform the energy generated and accumulated within the black hole weapon.
And next, for a period as short as several centuries or as long as tens of thousands of years, the Solar Star’s primary task would be to gradually dismantle the energy of the black hole weapon and transmit it outside the giant star. Whether that energy was collected or dissipated into the starry sky thereafter would have nothing to do with him.
In this process, he had to maintain a state where his ‘processing speed was faster than the target’s generation’ at all times.
Therefore, he had to be sufficiently rational, cold, mechanical, powerful, and single-minded.
Even the Lei Ting of the past ten or twenty years could not guarantee he would definitely complete this task.
And if one were to wait for the various civilizations of the galaxy to achieve this through technological means... even setting aside the inevitable bickering and division of interests, it would certainly take at least several thousand years to build such a massive creation.
Thus, only one choice remained.
Self-severance. It was a necessary move.
Let the ‘extreme rationality,’ which was an acquired trait to begin with, shoulder the work. Let the remaining rationality and sensibility, which belonged to a normal level...
...shoulder everything else.
***
Lei Ting closed his eyes and lowered his head.
He was a little tired, and the sea of light burning around him began to spiral out of control.
This was because the constant state of ‘Immobility’ had already left him, and ‘Immobility’ was the essence of Lei Ting’s ‘Solar Star’ ability; metal manipulation was merely the sun’s corona.
He had cast the sun into the starry sky, leaving himself with nothing but a body of raging flames.
According to the pre-arranged plan, he was to suppress his power as much as possible so as not to become a fuel-air bomb within his own camp. Then, he should go to support ‘Fire Wine’ and win this war before the destined moment arrived.
Then he would leave this time, heading to the distant past, walking among the warriors charging toward the future, listening to the extraordinary visions of the future held by the scholars and politicians of that era.
He was prepared to deal with people he had never met, in the capacity of a ghost.
He would pass through the cracks of time to watch every key node, and he would leave an impression on many people. They might be recorded in history or remain obscure, they might achieve great things or accomplish nothing, but one thing was common: by now, they had all finished their life’s journey.
He envisioned himself becoming a notebook, a data strip. He would not waste this opportunity; he would record everything he saw and heard, extracting knowledge and benefits from it. At the very least, he would prepare it to bring enough emotional value to others. Whether he could return after that or not, he would feel immensely honored.
Something like that.
In short, he had achieved his projected short-term goal.
But his entire being had absolutely no desire to move, let alone restrain his power and continue with the next phase of the operation.
Yet, when the great fire in the starry sky began to damage buildings, and when members of unknown races in the ‘Ringworld’ began to scream, he still sighed and exhaled a mist of light. With a flick of his fingers, he made the flames roll back and flow into his body.
Thus, he became the brightest light source in the vicinity, his sheer brightness even destroying the lenses of many nearby military observers.
This caused a serious impact on the movements of many starships and spacecraft. Therefore, he soon allowed the light to gradually recede, maintaining it within an appropriate range.
After doing all this, he did not stay where he was. Instead, he flew in a random direction and landed on a certain planet shortly after.
This planet was too close to its star and was already tidally locked, but a city sat on its dark side.
Lei Ting went into that city. It catered to some larger-sized races, with rows of tall buildings in a simple and elegant style. However, the walls were dotted with scorched craters, from which spider-web cracks spread. The empty, deserted streets and plazas were shattered, and a huge pit lay right in the center of the city; he could feel cold magma surging within it.
*This was once a travel transit station,* Lei Ting thought.
Scorched footprints wandered along with his thoughts.
This entire city was a massive piece of artistic landscaping. Artificial spring water surged beneath the city. Every time it flowed through a node in the underground water system, the hydraulic power caused the chargers there to rise a fraction, until they finally made a faint sound.
That sound must have existed in the explanation of the blueprints, because the monotonous sounds produced by the intermittent movement of thousands of nodes presented a grand symphony to the world.
He could hear the entire symphony, just as he could imagine how people used to walk here. Here, on the edge of the battlefield, he was in a paradise that had once been far from the war. The wind swirled with dust, coating the towers and alleys, and billboards that were no longer bright were blown until they swayed.
Lei Ting watched it. He tried to count down in his heart as he had when he was a boy: *Three, two, one.*
*BOOM!!*
A billboard smashed a deep pit into the street, shards flying everywhere. A spring flew toward Lei Ting, aiming to pierce through his left eye, but it stopped in mid-air a meter away. Then it suddenly melted into water, hitting the ground and turning into a bright silver spot.
Melting, rather than evaporating or disintegrating at the molecular level. *He had become weak.* Lei Ting understood this in his heart. Whether in spirit or power, he was much weaker than he had been two hours ago.
It wasn't that he hadn't experienced this kind of weakness before. Back when he was still a child, or when he was a student, he had already gasped for breath countless times due to powerlessness, watching helplessly as facts he refused to accept unfolded.
Admitting that one is also a person who gets tired is a path everyone must take, just like life and death—‘Death,’ Lei Ting thought. He couldn't stop himself from thinking of this word.
He had understood in his childhood that everyone must die eventually, sooner or later, today or tomorrow, or at some unpredictable moment in the future.
But Lei Ting had never thought that on such an impressive day, in such a war-torn place, in such an inhuman form, he would once again think of ‘death.’
The silver spot on the ground formed by the melted spring had already been covered with yellowish ash. This planet must have been hit—or accidentally damaged—by chemical weapons, because those yellowish colors were corroding all surrounding metal with an overwhelming momentum.
There was a sunshade nearby, and Lei Ting sat down under it. Even for a psionic manifestation without a body, ‘sitting down’ was merely a performance of life. Furthermore, he himself was actually the ‘sun’ that ought to be shaded.
Now, the unmanned fleet belonging to the ‘Solar Star’ was completely stalled, and the current situation was silently clear in Lei Ting’s mind.
He had hidden it from everyone, willfully executing a plan. He had been doing this for twenty years:
‘Last time,’ the ‘Ringworld’ became a ruin... how did it become a ruin? Because of the firing of the black hole weapon.
He knew someone had to stop all this, and having spent four hundred years understanding its principles, he was the most suitable candidate.
Now he had successfully begun to reverse it. If nothing went wrong, under the protection of ‘Immobility,’ the ‘Solar Star’ would not fail. His success was not a multiple-choice question; it was only a matter of time.
And what about other problems... like the Aberrants? Like ‘Comist’?
Well, the King of Aberrants was currently wearing down ‘Fire Wine.’ They shared the same origin, and conflict was inevitable, but ‘Fire Wine’ wouldn't have to pass away for other reasons this time... probably.
And ‘Comist’—wasn't that his solution to the first problem?
Well, that thing wasn't actually the only solution, but it was the fastest and the one with the least drag on the galaxy as a whole. It could even create some value—energy or technology, or energy technology.
Messy thoughts flowed through Lei Ting’s mind. He smiled at his own absurd thinking, the smile remaining on the surface before quickly vanishing into the flames.
Next, there were two major problems the galaxy had to face. One was the negative products of the ‘Silver Star’ survival plan, like the Aberrants. The second was the possible secondary impact of the ‘Kalligan’ civilization’s conceptual weapon targeting the ‘All-Stars.’
Would a civilization like ‘Kalligan’ easily let go of its target?
Impossible.
Although ‘last time,’ everything ended shortly after the war in the Galactic Core began, and Lei Ting was fixed in a state where he couldn't move, and there was nothing around that could be destroyed a second time... so he didn't know if such a shockwave would come again.
He could only guess that it did indeed exist. Though it would be better if it didn't.
Lei Ting thought.
His thoughts moved too fast; the passage of all this information was but an instant. He even simultaneously grasped the current state of the entire planet, from the fissioning planetary core down to a single tumbling grain of dust.
And such thinking happened entirely passively.
He didn't actively think about any of this, but twenty-five years of full-power information processing had caused him to develop a terrifying momentum.
As long as he was awake, he had to think about something. Even if he deliberately emptied himself to try and feel better, countless thoughts would constantly flow through his spiritual body.
He couldn't allow himself to become a vacuum. Even if he yearned for such a future.
...Yearned.
Lei Ting was suddenly jolted awake. He realized he was yearning for nothingness amidst pain, suppression, sadness, despair, and near-infinite accusations—accusations that came from outside and those that arose spontaneously in his heart.
He realized where the problem lay. Extreme rational thinking hadn't allowed him to push everything to the most perfect state, because the lack of sensibility made it difficult for him to look after everyone. Even if the word ‘perfect’ was a false proposition to begin with, he still felt guilt in his heart.
Did this count as a kind of arrogance? An arrogance of believing he could do everything?
Lei Ting didn't know. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know anything; he just wanted to sit here.
He didn't want to go help ‘Fire Wine,’ even though the other needed help and that battle was very important.
He didn't want to go see Ivanheller, even though just thinking of the name could bring a tiny bit of peace to the depths of his heart.
He didn't even really want to extend his range of perception anymore, so he withdrew it. There was no need for it to expand further. Although the war continued, what he needed to do was mostly done.
Let it be. He thought. He didn't want to care about anything anymore, at least for now.
Under the sunshade, the shoulders of the figure with floating golden flames slumped slightly, no longer as upright as usual.
He decided to stay here until the future forced him to take action, regardless of whether such behavior was a mistake, and regardless of whether he had made many mistakes in the past that the future would continue to perpetuate.
He was very tired.
He wanted to rest for a while.
***
