After Seraphine crushed the constellations with a single hand, she stood in a void spanning millions of light-years: a space so barren that not even a single proton remained.
From a distance, her form towered fifty-six thousand light-years high, treading upon the boundless vacuum like a primordial giant from some forgotten myth. Her entire being radiated a majestic, serene, and divinely hallowed aura.
Her massive body, constructed from the warped geometry of 2,560 three-dimensional unit cells, shimmered with a ghostly light. Across its surface, countless nebulae and star clusters of all shapes and sizes flickered in and out of existence every second.
If a spacefaring civilization with sufficient tech were to discover these glimmers and build Dyson-sphere arrays around her, they would instantly leap into an era of infinite energy, catapulting themselves to a higher tier of civilization.
At the core of these swirling celestial clouds, deep within Seraphine's chest, which was as vast as a galaxy, lay a kaleidoscopic vortex tens of thousands of light-years in diameter. It pulsed with a brilliant mix of deep azure, violet, and blinding white light.
Composed of infinite points, lines, and planes, this incomprehensible multi-dimensional whirlpool rotated in every direction at once.
This surreal, magnificent vortex was the seat of Seraphine's Four-Dimensional Exterior. Deeper still lay her true heart: the Five-Dimensional True Form.
Inside her Immortal Primordial Soul, that shimmering Root Spirituality was undergoing a profound metamorphosis, evolving into something greater: Root Divinity.
[Universe Collapses, Will Unwavering].
According to Seraphine's calculations, reaching this stage would not only massively boost her Light of Infinity's ability to warp the width, strength, and precision of reality but, more importantly, her Root Spirituality would touch upon something truly transcendent: [Authority].
BUZZ
The collective history of nine full galaxies, the rise and fall of countless civilizations, and the memories, thoughts, and perceptions of trillions of sentient beings converged into a massive, infinite Memory Realm.
A sliver of Seraphine's spirituality divided into infinite phantom selves, diving into this cosmic ocean of consciousness to roam freely.
As she drifted through this Memory Realm, endless versions of Seraphine experienced the lives of every single being and the history of every race.
In a sense, the life of every individual was both their personal story and a microscopic component of the grand, overarching history of their species.
Because these countless micro-histories almost never exist in isolation, they cross, intertwine, and tangle, and they eventually fuse into a grand river representing the entire civilization.
Seraphine's goal was to endure the forging of endless time alone. She would carry the crushing weight of countless eras and absorb the nourishment hidden within these microscopic and macroscopic rivers of history.
She used this essence to shed the last of her mortal constraints, pushing her Spirituality toward a sudden leap to touch [Authority] and ascend as a god.
But why absorb the nourishment of history?
What value does history hold, and how does it aid the evolution of Spirituality?
To answer that, one must first ask: What is history?
From a physics perspective, history is the record of an isolated system over a period of time, documenting its changes in state.
Imagine particles in a sealed black box: they will expand according to the second law of thermodynamics until they reach thermal equilibrium.
Whether they eventually form a black hole or fluctuate between states due to Hawking radiation, the system will always have a specific state at any given moment.
Connect these states, and you have that system's History.
Of course, that's just a superficial example, a visualization of history's essence: the chronological order of events and the transformations they undergo.
True, complete history is the record of all those past changes viewed from the present or future. It consists of three parts:
The past developmental journey of an intelligent civilization.
The record of all events across past time.
The perception and reflection on history by intelligent beings.
The first type covers everything from the grand scale of societal structures and scientific breakthroughs to the tiny details of an individual's joy, anger, and personal drama.
In this regard, history is an objective existence known as [Original History].
Where there is [Original History], there is also [Non-Original History]. Objective [Original History] is something lost to time, anchored in a past that can never be reclaimed.
Generally speaking, time on a macroscopic level neither stops nor reverses.
For sentient beings, the objective [Original History] is a phantom: a thing that once was, but is no longer.
Consequently, to grasp the past, they must rely on vessels or mediums. These are the records and relics salvaged from the wreckage of time.
The most vital among them is history captured in text: [Written History].
This constitutes the second type, the non-objective, Non-Original History.
In other words, beings perceive history through the eyes of others, learning about the past through someone else's lens. This is indirect knowledge, a filtered reconstruction of [Original History] through various carriers.
Collectively, [Written History] serves as the data set for understanding the past: historical evidence.
Whether this evidence accurately records [Original History] or is riddled with lies, its existence remains an objective fact: the ultimate foundation of historical knowledge.
Even if a being's perception perfectly aligns with [Original History], the past cannot be resurrected.
[Written History] may look like a restoration, but it is merely a copy of the original.
[Original History] is beyond the question of belief; it simply is.
[Written History], however, can be trusted or doubted based on how closely it mirrors the truth.
The relationship between them is that of the prototype and the image. One is objective reality; the other is subjective perception.
Or rather, the act of writing history is an objective event, but it records a subjective interpretation. Theoretically, all [Written History] is the result of an intelligence's subjective mind trying to grasp an objective reality. A subjective perception can never perfectly overlap with its objective target.
This applies to everything.
Therefore, any Truth learned after the fact is merely a relative truth. Between it and the Absolute Truth, there will always be an unbridgeable chasm.
For instance, when nature becomes history, it exists only within the records of intelligent beings. Thus, natural history is, in a sense, the history of an intelligence's interaction with nature.
In a broader scope, geological surveys, astronomical studies, and cosmic exploration are also parts of that history: deep excavations into the nature of existence itself.
They reveal the duality and connections between time and space, subject and object, mind and matter, reason and emotion, spirit and substance.
Dualism.
Everything contains this inherent duality.
Every event, every object, every state, and every phenomenon possesses two-sided properties. This duality manifests between the self and the other, the mind and the body, the internal and the external.
All of this is simply an intelligence's perception, understanding, and materialization of the infinite cosmos. It is the eternal conflict and unity between the Ideal Reality and Existing Reality.
This conflict and unity is called [Change].
History is intrinsically tied to time. Without time, history has no foundation, no place to reside. Time exists at the lowest level of all things, supporting and driving every living creature and object.
Time is the measurement of change; without change, there is no time.
The rotation of the old Earth creates a day: its orbit creates a year.
The lunar cycle gives us the lunar calendar, the solar cycle gives us the solar calendar, and the aging of the human body gives us age.
The fundamental unit of time in daily life is the second.
Originally measured by the swing of a pendulum, then by the Earth's rotation and orbit, and finally by the radiation cycle of an atomic structure: specifically, the multiple of the electromagnetic wave cycle from a Cesium-133 atom.
Clearly, change produces time; time does not cause change.
Change is an objective physical reality, whereas time is a human definition.
From a sensory perspective, the fact that the phenomena of all things change step by step away from what they once were is what forces sentient beings to notice the passage of time.
Conversely, a still photograph does not change; thus, it captures and "freezes" time.
Therefore, if everything in the universe stood perfectly still, change would cease to exist, time would vanish, and the very concept of measurement would lose all meaning.
The "nourishment" Seraphine sought to absorb from these countless rivers of history was the essence within all these things: Change.
The journey of every living being from birth to death contains infinite instances of Change. The history of every race from its dawn to its collapse is built upon Change.
Within these historical segments lie endless, kaleidoscopic events, objects, states, and phenomena: each containing processes of formation, development, transition, and conclusion.
Every Process is a form of Change.
Does this so-called Change possess mass? Energy? Volume?
No. They are intangible: void-things.
Yet, in Seraphine's eyes, within these dizzying, nearly idealistic void-things lay the power to break through all materialistic constraints.
Because [Authority]..... was originally a thing of the void, devoid of mass, energy, or volume.
[Change] is the necessary condition for altering everything. It is the decisive force behind development, evolution, derivation, and metamorphosis: moving from small to large, weak to strong, decline to prosperity, and death to life.
Change is causality; it is the bridge where extremes meet.
It is the ultimate goal of thought and perception, the beginning of the great river of time, and the finale of the cosmos.
It is the central contradiction, the internal and external motion.
It is the absolute darkness within absolute light, the ceaseless vitality within absolute darkness.
It is the premise of all being and non-being: the entire process of self-ascension.
Even the doubling of attributes is change; the leap between dimensions is change; the metamorphosis of Spirituality is change.
Everything, in all its forms... is Change.
To master this [Authority] of Change... is to inevitably possess the power to alter everything, transform everything, and transcend everything!
BUZZING
Deep within the five-dimensional Immortal Primordial Soul.
Millions of Seraphines soared through millions of historical rivers.
Constantly experiencing, constantly enduring, constantly absorbing... drinking in that infinite Change. Refining Spirituality, ascending toward godhood!
Second by second, time ticked away.
And bit by bit, Spirituality transformed.
...
One hour...
Three hours...
Ten hours...
Twenty hours...
After a full day and night had passed, the [Infinite Attributes] system activated once more.
BUZZ
Attribute Interface:
[Host: Seraphine]
[Physical Strength: 100,000 Galaxies]
[Soul: 100,000 Galaxies]
At this moment, Seraphine's attribute values doubled again. Her physical power expanded instantly to match the total mass of one hundred thousand Milky Ways. Her soul surged in kind.
But Seraphine no longer cared for these numbers. She poured her entire focus into the grand metamorphosis of her Spirituality.
BUZZING
Within that seemingly endless, miraculous transformation, every fleeting millisecond brought countless magnificent visions to Seraphine's mind.
No, they didn't just appear. Seraphine became them.
She became the boiling, roaring magma deep within a rocky planet's crust.
She became the shattered solid hydrogen blown apart by terrifying cyclones in the thick atmosphere of a gas giant.
She became a basic scavenger shrimp drifting beneath the thick ice of a ten-thousand-mile frozen sea.
She became the storm that raged for a million years, blurring the line between heaven and earth...
And she became more.
Seraphine became the great river of time itself, surging from the chaotic, distant past and branching out into infinite possibilities.
She became the boundless expansion of space, manifesting from nothingness, eternally surging and covering all directions.
She became the Ocean of Matter residing within space-time: macrocosmically solid and real, yet microcosmically ethereal and uncertain.
She became the torrent of energy, flowing through space-time and matter in a thousand forms, splitting and dispersing only to weave back together.
She became the web of information existing between all things and all spirits in the infinite universe, turning the random and the uncertain into the definite.
Seraphine became everything.
She became every object and every phenomenon in the universe, experiencing, over and over again... the cycle of formation, existence, decay, and void.
Leviathan, the original master of the Hell of Pain, had his spirit and consciousness completely eroded by merely sixty-eight billion years of dark, lonely memory. His mind and thoughts were washed away entirely.
But Seraphine... in every passing moment, experienced quadrillions of years.
Moreover, she experienced those quadrillions of years through countless perspectives: as myriad objects and myriad creatures: each second, minute, hour, day, month, and year rendered with terrifying, vivid precision.
Amidst this nightmarish metamorphosis, time slipped away. Another day and night slowly passed.
Deep within the Immortal Primordial Soul.
At the center of a void surrounded by millions of spiraling, phantom historical rivers: within a vast emptiness transcending reality and matter: resided Seraphine, her spirit possessed of an anti-entropic heart. Like a divinely noble, eternal god, she endured the crushing weight and smelting fires of endless time.
In her form of pure Spirituality, she walked step by step along a misty, infinite Path, evolving and gracefully ascending toward the next level.
With every step, she caught glimpses of the Path's end: the wondrous, alien realm of Divinity. There, within that brilliant, magnificent domain, an entity so sacred and ethereal it defied all language and description stood waiting: a thing of the void, a marvel of existence.
"The Authority of Change!"
Seraphine, her phantom form shimmering slightly, smiled and continued her patient stride.
With every step, millions of chaotic storms: heavy as clouds and ancient as the sea: surged toward her. These winds, born from the surrounding phantom rivers of history and laden with the weight of trillions of years, could not topple her. They could not dissolve her, nor could they make her falter in confusion.
She maintained her steady rhythm, her footsteps firm, moving step by step toward the end of the Path.
TREAD!
TREAD!
TREAD!
With the echo of her steps, she moved ten, then a hundred paces. Finally, Seraphine reached the end, standing at the threshold of the Divine Domain.
Slowly, she lifted her foot and stepped inside.
BUZZ
In a flash, within the infinite void, Seraphine's form trembled as she crossed into this brand-new domain. Her phantom body suddenly fractured with countless fissures.
CRACK! CRACK!
From those cracks, infinite strands of brilliant starlight erupted, shattering the long "Path" she had just traversed into stardust.
SWOOSH!!!
Suddenly, the essence of the [Authority of Change] shot forward like an electric bolt, plunging into Seraphine's fractured chest.
At this moment, her Root Spirituality thoroughly metamorphosed into Root Divinity.
In that very instant, Seraphine lost all traditional perception.
Or rather, she suddenly gained something inexpressible through words or text, something transcending both sensation and logic, a category beyond matter, energy, or information: [Transcendental Perception].
Through this transcendental perception, Seraphine instantly sensed that behind this universe's time, space, matter, information, energy, rules, and fields, there existed a boundless, indescribable realm: the [Far Shore].
That vast, infinite Far Shore seemed to transcend every event and phenomenon, existing almost purely as a conceptual plane.
It was not an absolute two-dimensional plane, nor a vast three-dimensional land, nor could it be described by four or five dimensions. That Far Shore seemed to encompass much, much more.
By comparison, through her transcendental perception, Seraphine felt that this [Near Shore], the world built of space-time, matter, energy, and information where she stood, was shallow and primitive to the extreme.
Furthermore, between these two shores, she clearly felt a vast, infinite "Barrier." There was no open path connecting them.
No, that wasn't quite right.
Through the transcendental perception granted by her Root Divinity, Seraphine could vaguely sense that between the Near Shore and the Far Shore, there existed a connection that defied all logic and conventional understanding.
A certain link.
"This is..."
Seraphine stood in a daze. "Behind all the space-time, matter, energy, and information of the universe, there is a Far Shore? Then what is this so-called Near Shore, or rather, the reality of the universe itself?"
Her thoughts raced, infinite ideas clashing like thunder within her mind.
"If time, space, matter, information, and energy, all these things, could be expressed by a single concept, what would it be? What should it be?"
With that thought, Seraphine suddenly remembered something: Ether.
Once, driven by a burning curiosity, she had performed countless experiments on the Ether that exists between all things in the vast universe.
This transcendent substance that allowed the trillions of lives and infinite objects of the cosmos to manifest all sorts of beautiful miracles, what exactly was it?
What was its fundamental structure? What was it made of?
To study this, Seraphine had conducted a massive number of experiments on Ether during different periods. She subjected Ether to varying levels of electricity, magnetism, resonance, radiation, gravity, heat, cold, mechanical energy, light, and chemical reactions.
She found that Ether responded with different properties and parameters in every experiment. But these results were meaningless.
Seraphine discovered that the mass and density displayed by Ether were in a constant state of irregular, high-frequency fluctuation.
One moment, its mass and density were enormous; the next, they dropped to zero. It was like a phantom substance, defying all logic.
Furthermore, even using her powerful mental perception, capable of probing and manipulating subatomic particles, Seraphine could not detect Ether's basic structure. It was as if Ether, like fundamental particles, were a point-particle without volume or size.
Yet even fundamental particles possessed physical attributes.
Ether, however, only possessed statistically measurable traits like activity and coherence; other attributes simply didn't exist. It was even simpler than a black hole, which is characterized only by mass, angular momentum, and electric charge.
If one had to find something in the entire universe similar to Ether, it would probably be dark matter. Both could freely permeate through other matter and were invisible and intangible.
However, at least dark matter had mass and was affected by gravity.
Ether had nothing.
Long ago, when her research into Ether yielded no results, Seraphine had reached a tentative conclusion:
Ether might be a transcendent phenomenon that exists separately from, or overlays, space-time, matter, energy, and information.
A transcendent phenomenon?
Later, Seraphine had also researched the principle behind her system's attribute doubling. Her strength increased clearly, yet it never caused the mass and density of her physical body to surge until she became a neutron star or a supermassive black hole.
Nor did it cause any change in the atomic radius, mass, ionization energy, electron affinity, spectral wavelengths, radioactivity, electronegativity, spin, magnetic moment, or electric charge of the trillions of atoms and cells making up her body.
The change occurred solely in the "factual expression" of her physical power.
So, why?
With a curious heart, she had delved into long-term research. After countless experiments and deep reflection on the resulting data, Seraphine theorized that her attribute doubling...
Was likely the [Infinite Attributes] system ignoring the Law of Conservation of Mass and the fundamental natural logic of the universe. It wantonly warped and modified her physical body and soul, turning them into a "Result without Cause," an effect manifested in reality without any underlying principle or reason.
An anomaly, a phenomenon displayed in the real world without a cause or process.
Especially after she discovered her miraculous Light of Infinity could create all sorts of eerie "effects without causes," Seraphine became even more convinced: the attribute doubling of the [Infinite Attributes] system was undoubtedly an influence exerted upon so-called [Phenomena].
"So..."
Seraphine hesitated slightly. "Space-time, matter, energy, information, these all belong to [Phenomena].
But what about that Far Shore?"
A phrase suddenly came to her mind: Look through the phenomenon to see the essence.
"Then that Far Shore, which transcends [Phenomena] yet remains subtly connected to them, must be the Essence! The essence of the universe, the essence of all things!"
"So, this Near Shore where I exist, built from the stacking of all phenomena, is the [Phenomenal Realm]. And that Far Shore, which transcends all phenomena, is the [Essential Realm]!"
In an instant, Seraphine felt a dawning realization, as if she had uncovered one of the grand truths of the cosmos.
At the same time, she felt as if she had found the path to the next level.
Right at that moment, the [Infinite Attributes] system activated once more. A full day had passed since the last activation.
BUZZ!!!
In this instant, even time seemed to stand still. Through the profound awareness of her Transcendental Perception, Seraphine watched in shock as the Far Shore...
No, the coastline of that infinite, transcendent [Essential Realm] suddenly began to "boil."
"Could it be?!"
The moment this "boiling" began, it instantly crossed the infinite "Barrier," surging like a flame toward Seraphine, who stood within the [Phenomenal Realm].
Instinctively, she channeled her Authority of Change.
BUZZ!!!
The [Authority of Change] vibrated violently, erupting with boundless, brilliant light. And the "boiling" from the [Essential Realm] arrived on Seraphine's form as if there were no intervening process at all.
BOOM!!!
As a result, the [Infinite Attributes] system, which even the Light of Infinity had failed to influence, and the attribute interface displayed before Seraphine's eyes, under the power of the Authority of Change, shuddered for the first time!
CRACK! CRACK!
On the shimmering attribute interface, the numbers and units behind the colons for [Physical Strength] and [Soul] suddenly blurred into chaos!
...
While Seraphine was undergoing her dimensional ascension and divine metamorphosis, a world-shattering event was taking place in the Andromeda Galaxy, over two million light-years away.
At the heart of the Andromeda Galaxy, a massive system containing a trillion scorching stars, just outside the region of the central supermassive black hole with a mass of 100 million suns.
A great battle was underway.
A pack of Gods of Hunger was besieging a High-tier Sage.