After devouring the Galactic Continent and its inhabitants, and obtaining their vast troves of data, Seraphine finally understood the history of the Milky Way and the answers to her many lingering questions.
By cross-referencing the logs within the super-structure's intelligence system, the complex historical records of the six races, and the information she had previously collected from the thousands of civilizations across the Milky Way's spiral arms, a clear picture emerged.
Eons ago—at least millions of years in the past—Saknussim, bearing a mysterious mission from the Houiste Federation deep within the universe, had piloted the Divine Throne across billions of light-years to descend upon the Milky Way.
Of course, it was also possible he had simply donned his Divinity-Frame and flown across the vast cosmos at faster-than-light speeds, as the Divinity-Frame was far quicker than the Divine Throne.
As for why Saknussim had chosen the Milky Way among the infinite galaxies in the cosmos, whether by chance or intent, that remained unknown.
In any case, upon reaching the center of the Milky Way, Saknussim immediately activated the [Black Scepter Array]. Through the power of this god-tier technological device, the boundary between reality and illusion within the Galactic Core and portions of the galactic bulge was instantly scrambled. The harsh physical laws of real-space were blurred.
Overnight, the four fundamental forces and various physical parameters and structures around the Galactic Core became significantly "looser."
As Seraphine processed this, she recalled the anomalies she had noticed upon first entering the region. Specifically, under normal circumstances, the Realm of Phantasm should have vanished entirely beyond the reach of the Sentience Realm, accessible only through stray branches of the Creeping Sea or flickering inter-dimensional portals.
Yet, within the Galactic Core and parts of the galactic bulge, the Realm of Phantasm had "leaped" over the barrier between the two realms, directly "fusing" with the material world.
In some areas, the material world and the Realm of Phantasm miraculously overlapped at high ratios. It was as if the entire Galactic Core region and its surrounding space were filled with thousands of accessible inter-dimensional portals at every moment.
"Black Scepter Array... Houiste..." Seraphine mused calmly. "Truly terrifying technology."
After activating the Black Scepter Array to warp reality and blur physical laws on a massive scale, Saknussim stirred the vast Dirac Sea "behind" three-dimensional space. Creating colossal waves within that sea, he used a Dirac Ocean Extraction Engine to seize an unimaginable amount of energy. Through mass-energy conversion technology, he transformed this energy into a staggering, terrifying volume of matter.
Normally, such a dense mass would collapse under its own gravity, evolving into a dangerously massive black hole. But under the influence of the Black Scepter Array, this cataclysmic event was prevented.
Saknussim then used this "vast ocean" of matter, enough to encompass countless stars, as raw material to construct a Penrose sphere surrounding the central black hole of the Galactic Core, a marvel of cosmic engineering that became the Sanchegues super-structure.
With the super-structure complete, Saknussim tirelessly began the long process of laying down the Milky Way Sentience Realm Hallway network. Taking Sanchegues as his transportation hub, he spent tens of thousands of years constructing 3,600 long, continuous high-level hallways.
These radiated from the Galactic Core, stretching across tens or hundreds of thousands of light-years to reach the farthest ends of the Milky Way's spiral arms.
Upon completing this task, for reasons unknown, Saknussim "installed" several devices at the remote tips of each spiral arm. These were similar in function to the Black Scepter Array but far less powerful, a sort of "pseudo-black scepter" array.
Using these primary hallways as a framework, he then built 1.8 million mid-level hallways that branched into every sector of the spiral arms. Finally, from these, he constructed a staggering one billion low-level hallways, thoroughly covering every corner and edge of the Milky Way.
Thus, a vast and complex network of hallways, resembling the human circulatory system, spread across the entire galaxy under Saknussim's diligent labor. The birth of this colossal faster-than-light "transportation network" laid the foundation for the prosperity of the countless intelligent civilizations that would follow.
During his travels while building these galactic "highways," he also steadily fulfilled his greatest passion: the creation of intelligent life. It was this hobby that brought so many races into the world, allowing them to perceive themselves and the universe.
In a sense, Saknussim truly deserved the title "Cosmic Sower."
Statistical analysis showed that over a million years, he created nearly 3,000 different intelligent races. These diverse species were spread across the vast Milky Way and scattered throughout the timeline of those millions of years.
Seraphine noted that the time gap between the earliest and latest races created by Saknussim spanned over a million years. More surprisingly, Saknussim's first biological testing ground in the Milky Way was Experiment Ground No. 137, the Solar System.
The Aurora clan were Saknussim's initial creations. Interestingly, this grand biological experiment triggered the massive evolution of species on Earth, eventually giving rise to the early ancestors of humanity, the ancient apes.
In other words, Earth's humans were a derivative product of Saknussim's first sequence of life-creation experiments.
This solved a long-standing mystery for Seraphine: why did humans on Earth share the same physical form as Saknussim, an entity from deep space hundreds of millions of light-years away, differing only in size by a factor of tens of thousands? She realized this miraculous coincidence was likely linked to that ancient biological experiment.
Had Saknussim wanted to create a sufficiently powerful race that shared his own likeness? Perhaps, or perhaps it truly was a coincidence. Regardless, the Aurora clan were likely the earliest versions of the Iain and Arnel races from the Galactic Continent.
In a sense, Earth's humans shared a "relative" connection with these two Galactic Core tribes. From this perspective, Saknussim truly could be considered the "father" of the many races of the Milky Way.
However, this conclusion only held when viewed from the perspective of low-level civilizations. Seraphine believed that from Saknussim's own perspective, the creation of the Sentience Realm Hallway network likely served a different purpose.
This purpose was probably the primary reason the Houiste Federation had dispatched him to the Milky Way, though that reason remained unknown.
Within the data, Seraphine also saw the construction process of the hallways and the materials Saknussim used: obsidian-like Space-time Gems, an ocean of Phantom Crystals, and various unrecognizable artifacts.
"Space-time Gems... Phantom Crystals..."
These materials brought to mind the image of Saknussim from Vassago's inherited memories. She also recalled the memories within Mycenae's Memory Realm, specifically the vision seen by the guy from the Aethelgard Dynasty regarding the destruction of various worlds within the Realm of Phantasm by a mysterious, annihilating force.
"According to that vision, when the ancient nations created by Archaic Myths collapse, they spray out a few Space-time Gems and vast amounts of Phantom Crystals.
Thus, behind Saknussim's seemingly senseless destruction of the Gendaya Nation... could his true motive have been the collection of Space-time Gems?
And that mysterious force that systematically wiping out countless realms in the Realm of Phantasm... were they Saknussim's kin?
Specifically... the Houiste Federation?"
Excited, Seraphine activated her Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation, deducing the answers hidden within the cosmic mystery.
Because of the abundance of data, the Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation provided a clear answer in less than a nanosecond:
[The Great Annihilation of Mythic Realms in the Realm of Phantasm millions of years ago was the work of the Houiste Federation.]
As expected!
Seraphine continued her deduction: "So, was this massive mobilization solely to collect Space-time Gems and Phantom Crystals?"
One nanosecond later, the answer surfaced in her mind:
[The Houiste Federation executed these actions to gather sufficient raw materials for the construction of Otuben Networks.]
Seraphine pushed further: "Are they building these hallway networks across many different galaxies?"
This time, it took a full second for the answer to emerge:
[The Houiste Federation has established Otuben Networks in more than one galaxy.]
Seraphine deduced again: "Exactly how many galaxies have they networked?"
This took approximately ten seconds before the answer slowly surfaced:
[The total number of galaxies involved in the Houiste Federation's hallway networks is at least over one billion.]
"Over... a billion?"
This number plunged Seraphine into deep thought.
She knew that the largest known structures in the current universe were Superclusters. Before the Milky Way was devoured, it belonged to a Supercluster named Laniakea, which contained roughly 100,000 galaxies.
But the scope of the Houiste Federation's "Highway Construction" plan involved a number of galaxies equal to ten thousand Laniakea Superclusters.
Incomprehensible.
Furthermore, the deduction included the word "over," implying that the number could be far more than a billion—two billion, five billion, perhaps even ten billion.
This was beyond impressive; it was godlike.
Exactly how many Sage-level individuals did the Houiste Federation possess to be this reckless? Could these "infrastructure fanatics" really intend to network every single galaxy in the observable universe?
Stunned, Seraphine once again activated her Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation.
Every action in existence has a cause and an effect. A move of this magnitude couldn't possibly be a meaningless artistic gesture. That would be foolish.
She wanted to know the ultimate purpose behind the Houiste Federation's grand design.
This time, however, she received no answer. The available data was insufficient for the Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation to produce a result.
Despite the lack of an answer, Seraphine wasn't discouraged. She continued scanning the data. She wanted to unravel every mystery of the Milky Way's past, to know the stories behind all worldly things, and to savor the memories of bygone eras.
Peeling back the barriers of time to seek and understand everything was one of her greatest passions.
According to the massive records:
Millions of years ago, after Saknussim completed the construction of the hallway network but before officially activating it, he left the Milky Way for the deep reaches of space.
During the eons following his departure, the civilizations of the Milky Way lived and developed normally. Aside from a tiny minority of powerful races, most civilizations didn't know—or even realize—that their true creator had left for a place that the beings of the Milky Way could never hope to reach.
But the various civilizations had little attention to spare for such things. They had discovered the Sentience Realm Hallway.
Rejoicing, the civilizations of the Milky Way launched a grand "Age of Discovery" that blanketed the entire galaxy. Time flowed silently—centuries, millennia, tens of millennia...
Thanks to that perfect hallway network, the millions of civilizations in the Milky Way entered a "Golden Age" of explosive growth. In this era, there were no "Broken Sectors" or "Galactic Blind Spots."
The incredibly convenient and rapid faster-than-light hallways allowed any civilization that had just stepped into the space age to traverse every corner of the Milky Way without hindrance.
Faster-than-light travel was so effortless and swift it rivaled the world of "Star Wars".
In just ten thousand years, the various star civilizations established a massive alliance covering the entire Milky Way.
Within this Milky Way Alliance, the four giants holding supreme power were the ancestors of the current Iain and Arnel races; a joint civilization of the Pelodi Life Tree and Loveling races; and the precursor to Didrogutin—the Diderot Federation.
These four civilizations established a system of master and vassal races. Under their rules, any civilization refusing to submit faced unavoidable sanctions.
The Milky Way was vast, but under the Sentience Realm Hallway network, there was nowhere to hide. Thus, the four giants used this system to control millions of civilizations and rule the entire galaxy.
Another ten thousand years passed.
Just as the Milky Way Alliance reached the peak of its glory, the galaxy was inexplicably overwhelmed by a mysterious, gargantuan faster-than-light Great Tide from an unknown direction in deep space.
The energy and material structure of this Great Tide were utterly alien; the civilizations of the Alliance were unable to comprehend them. Its scale was so vast that the entire Milky Way seemed like a tiny, lonely boat before it.
The galaxy rose and fell with the waves.
Fortunately, because the scale of this inexplicable disaster was so absurdly large, its impact on "tiny" things like star systems was minimal.
However... the massive Sentience Realm Hallway network, spanning the entire galaxy, was shattered into fragments by the continuous jolting of this world-turning tide, nearly disintegrating. Consequently, the glorious ten-thousand-year Milky Way Alliance collapsed.
The radiant scene of the galaxy's united civilizations vanished forever. Many races and civilizations were unfortunate enough to fall into the suddenly appearing Galactic Blind Spots, drifting into decline and eventual extinction.
It was during this turbulent time that the first Evil Eye Cultists inexplicably appeared in every corner of the Milky Way, beginning their terrifying play.
It was also then that a mortally wounded Saknussim returned from beyond the galaxy.
For reasons unknown, after concealing his Divinity-Frame, he entombed himself deep within the Ancient Rubik's Cube in the Dark Void Battlefield. Sensing its master's death, the Galactic Core super-structure, Sanchegues, slowly fell into a state of total dormancy.
Amidst the extreme chaos of that era, the Iain and Arnel races—who had long coveted the super-structure—demonstrated their terrifying strength as Saknussim's most powerful creations. After smashing the Diderot Federation, which had also been eyeing the prize, the two races invaded and occupied the now-masterless Galactic Continent.
Following closely behind were the Loveling and Pelodi Life Tree joint civilization, whose strength was only slightly inferior and who willingly submitted to the others.
Thus, the four races occupied the Galactic Core.
The Milky Way turned the page to a new era.
"Twenty thousand years after Saknussim left, the Great Tide appeared, destroying the hallway network and giving birth to the Cult of the Evil Eye."
"This clearly suggests that the so-called Great Tide is connected to that Great Eye. It's too obvious."
As she thought, Seraphine spread her immense palm. Within it appeared a mechanical serpent, pitch-black and ferocious, as thick as a star.
This was the Alefen Colossus she had discovered in a primitive nebula beyond the wormhole in Marie's space-time, near the Oort cloud of the Solar System.
The Alefen Colossus is one of the six great calamities of the Milky Way.
Created at an unknown time by an unknown civilization, it is a race of pure mechanical life—possessing powerful intelligence but devoid of spirit—that has harbored an endless murderous intent toward all organic and inorganic life since the day of its inception.
These mechanical behemoths emit a Corruption Field. Within the range of this radiation, any machinery, whether simple or complex, gradually transforms into a killing machine. Even an electric razor, after prolonged exposure, would become a horrific mechanical killer out of a horror movie.
Yet, the Alefen Colossus cannot be fully described by "powerful artificial intelligence." It is more like a mechanical plague—a distorted lifeform or phenomenon manifesting in mechanical form.
This was Seraphine's previous assessment. But now, having attained the Light of Infinity, she found that assessment somewhat superficial.
Within the consciousness and the crude or complex components of this mechanical dragon, she suddenly detected traces of Warping Power.
It was similar to the conceptual immortality that created Mox, and the fifth fundamental force—the warping logic—used by the Dark Archbishop Ogulafata of the Cult of the Evil Eye. The former came from an unknown entity, while the latter clearly originated from the Great Eye.
So, who nurtured the Alefen Colossus, which exists both in other space-time and as an isomorph in the Prime space-time?
During Seraphine's journey devouring the Milky Way, she had occasionally encountered Alefen Colossus individuals. But those individuals were all annihilated by the violent space-time waves surrounding her as she traversed space, leaving not a single component behind. Thus, she wasn't sure if the Alefen Colossus in the Prime space-time differed from its counterparts in other dimensions.
However, she did have a suspicion.
Could the Alefen Colossus have been bred by the Great Tide unleashed by the Great Eye millions of years ago? If not, then another unknown entity lurking in the Darkness was involved. Much like the perpetrator behind the second Solar System within the Light-Year Dragon at the edge of the Orion Arm... acting in secret for unknown reasons to influence and manipulate reality. Perhaps the creator of the second Solar System was the one who made the Alefen Colossus.
Of course, that's just one possibility.
Because if the Alefen Colossus truly were a product of the Great Eye's immense malevolent power, it would raise another question.
Does the Great Eye exist in other space-times?
Does this kind of Evil God exist across all dimensions?
Or is the Great Eye part of a species of Evil Gods spread throughout the multiverse?
Or could these Evil Gods across different space-times be avatars or projections of a single being?
There were no answers. Even with the combined deduction of the Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation, Seraphine couldn't get even a vague result. It remained an elusive, unknown mystery.
Shifting her focus, Seraphine considered another issue:
"It seems the Houiste Federation's Final Order plan directly threatened the Great Eye's safety. Or at least, it interfered with some of its major interests; otherwise, why would that entity react so violently?
From this perspective, the Great Eye's power... might truly be far beyond that of a so-called Peak Sage. How else could it release a Great Tide covering unknown millions or even billions of light-years? Does this mean that the Peak Sage level isn't the evolutionary endpoint in this space-time universe?
Is it just that individuals like Ogulafata and Cadelon, limited by their relatively narrow perception, assumed the Peak Sage was the end? And what exactly is the Final Order? What result does it aim for? Could the construction of the hallway networks across at least a billion galaxies be a part of this Final Order?"
Seraphine murmured calmly, "From this perspective, the Final Order could have succeeded or failed—though failure seems more likely. Otherwise, why would Saknussim have fled back to the Milky Way like a stray dog?"
After some reflection, Seraphine also discovered something from the massive data logs of the Galactic Core: among the six races, the Yonruk and the Ponret were not native to the Milky Way. These two races hailed from a companion dwarf galaxy located 4,200 light-years away.
The Milky Way has dozens of satellite galaxies. Given the high density of intelligent life within the Milky Way under the influence of Ether, it was likely that these surrounding companion galaxies also harbored many civilizations.
As for why these two powerful races crossed the vast void to the Milky Way over two million years ago, Seraphine found the answer within the memories of the Yonruk high-ranking officials.
The primary reason was that the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy was "heavily infested with evil." By "infested with evil," they meant the Cult of the Evil Eye.
After the Great Tide erupted from the Great Eye millions of years ago, not only did the Cult appear in the Milky Way, but the nearby Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy was also unable to escape this demonic plague.
Perhaps because Canis Major's scale was too small, its civilizations too few, and its technological and evolutionary levels relatively weak, there were no powerful races left aside from those two. Thus, the devastation caused by the Cult of the Evil Eye there was even more severe than in the Milky Way.
Of course, those were merely the surface-level reasons, or rather, the reasons the Yonruk revealed to the other Galactic Core races.
The deeper reason was that the seemingly ordinary, albeit powerful, Yonruk were actually a branch of a Light Species' servant race: the Gravitational Dragons.
Indeed. That legendary mystery of the Milky Way, one of the six great calamities that Cadelon had sought for years to battle but never found, the Gravitational Dragon, was her own people.
"Light Species..."
Seraphine recalled the Solar Squid she had seen in Marie's space-time, that gargantuan octopus resting deep within the Sun. From the thoughts of the Yonruk elites, she learned that the Solar Squid could continue to evolve toward its true ultimate form: the God of Hunger.
Unlike previous evolutionary stages, transitioning from a Solar Squid to a God of Hunger required immense preparation. Most importantly, it required a ritual known as [Newborn from Death]. Although called a ritual, it had nothing to do with witchcraft or magic. Its core tenet was: Only by experiencing death can one attain new life.
The process was simple in concept but extremely dangerous: The ritual's facilitator had to carefully select a black hole with the appropriate mass, angular momentum, and electric charge.
Next, the bodies of several peak, Stage Ten Overlord-class Solar Squids would be completely torn apart to extract their brains and neural networks, the physical vessels containing their conscious information.
The term "several" referred to a number between ten and one thousand. The exact number depended on the mass, angular momentum, and electric charge of the chosen black hole, the three characteristics that differentiate one black hole from another.
The facilitator would then stand outside the black hole's event horizon, risking being pulled in, and cast the Solar Squids' brains and neural networks into it.
Upon success, these biological components would be incinerated by the "Firewall," the dense collection of high-energy particles surrounding the black hole.
The conscious cores, now stripped of their material vessels, would be shattered but not destroyed. In a state of pure information, devoid of mass and energy, they would enter the "Ocean of Information" on the event horizon: a two-dimensional information state encoded with everything the black hole had ever devoured.
From there, everything was left to time and fate.
The success rate of the [Newborn from Death] ritual was not high. A ritual lasting tens of thousands of years might still end in failure. Consequently, according to Yonruk records, the Light Species adopted a broad strategy, dispatching numerous servant races throughout the universe to find suitable black holes for the ritual.
Out of a thousand or ten thousand attempts, one would eventually succeed.
If successful, over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, these pure information states would gradually merge and condense into a brand new, stable consciousness that inherited none of the specific traits of the original Solar Squids.
This entity was a God of Hunger Infant.
This infant, possessing only simple instincts and lacking a fully developed self-awareness, would instinctively use the two-dimensional information "ocean" on the event horizon.
Through a bizarre holographic "resonance" between material world information and Realm of Phantasm information, it would bypass the black hole's mechanisms and limitations.
Its blurred consciousness would cross the barrier between the two realms and scatter within the infinite void of the Realm of Phantasm.
This blurred information might be noticed and captured by lifeforms other than the Light Species at certain times, but they would be unable to decipher it.
To them, it would seem like a charred encyclopedia, containing information, but unintelligible. Only the Light Species and their servant races could identify and decode it, realizing the ritual had succeeded and a God of Hunger Infant had "hatched" on the event horizon.
Then, the servant races who had waited for eons would risk everything to return to the event horizon and cast in several more Solar Squid brains and neural networks to stimulate and activate the infant's growth.
After multiple offerings, the [Newborn from Death] ritual would reach completion.
The fully grown God of Hunger Infant would then rapidly envelop and consume the two-dimensional information "ocean" on the surface of the event horizon. Using the holographic resonance between the real world and the Realm of Phantasm, it would, without touching the extremely dangerous singularity at the black hole's core, partially take control of the entire black hole from the outside in, becoming a terrifying cosmic monster capable of wielding the black hole's immense power.
Thus, a God of Hunger is born.
Seraphine noted that the rebellion previously incited by the Yonruk on the Galactic Continent was connected to this ritual. Shortly after arriving millions of years ago, they had secretly infiltrated the super-structure, risked their lives to fly near the event horizon of the Galactic Core's black hole, and, at the cost of several lives, offered the first wave of Solar Squid brains and neural networks, initiating the ritual.
For the next two million years, the Yonruk lived normally on the Galactic Continent, with no further suspicious activity. They assumed things would remain this way until recently, when the Galactic Core's black hole suddenly emitted continuous blurred information into the void, rendered accessible by the Black Scepter Array's blurring of reality and illusion.
This meant the ritual had succeeded.
Filled with joy and anxiety, they once again infiltrated the super-structure to offer the newly prepared batch of Solar Squid brains and neural networks. However, this time, they were discovered by the other Galactic Core races, triggering the war.
Seraphine noted that the Yonruk, or rather, the Gravitational Dragons, were not born in a nebula. According to the memories of the oldest individuals, they were born within the high-temperature, high-energy accretion disk surrounding a supermassive black hole.
That black hole was itself a terrifying God of Hunger, one of an astronomical scale that seemed impossible: a God of Hunger with the mass of a trillion Suns.
Its name was [Tu].
It existed within the Great Attractor, countless light-years away from the Milky Way.