"Well now, this is truly unimaginable!"
Seraphine muttered in astonishment. "The Houiste Federation... actually has such an origin."
Earlier, she had been wondering why, when the universe had been plunged into such a dark and chaotic state by the God of Hunger race, the Houiste people hadn't emerged to restore order and deliver righteous justice to those Gods of Hunger.
Now she understood. They... hadn't even been born yet.
And these Houiste people were also Earth humans—humans born billions of years earlier than Seraphine's Earth.
No wonder.
No wonder Saknussim looked like a human.
Because he... was fundamentally a human.
Just... a human who had evolved for a few billion more years.
But... within this same cosmic space, separated only by billions of years, two distinct Solar Systems, Earth-Moon systems, and Earth Civilizations had emerged.
This kind of... absurdly bizarre phenomenon probably couldn't be fully explained even using Poincaré recurrence.
It was too coincidental, too deliberate.
Could it be... another Observer meddling?
But if it was an Observer's doing, why were they so focused on Earth Civilization?
What made Earth Civilization so special that it warranted these Observers intervening time and time again?
Her curiosity fully piqued, Seraphine immediately activated the Eye of True Revelation, Chaos Calculation, and Transcendental Perception.
She wanted to capture... the traces that could answer the myriad questions in her mind.
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
Her five-dimensional Primordial Soul vibrated continuously as the three great deductive abilities operated frantically.
One minute, five minutes, ten minutes...
This deduction took an exceptionally long time.
So long that it lasted for over half an hour.
But the answer that emerged from this lengthy deduction left Seraphine astounded.
She even found it hard to believe.
[ There is a 99% probability that the Houiste's 'Earth' and the later-generation Earth were naturally formed, and a 1% probability that they were deliberately created by artificial means. ]
"Naturally formed? This kind of coincidence... is far too eerie."
Seeing this answer, Seraphine instantly fell into deep thought. "Something isn't right. There must be some secret hidden here, only... I currently lack the means to decrypt it."
To be honest, Seraphine did not always fully trust the results of her own deductions.
She knew that her three great deductive abilities were absolutely not infallible, omniscient powers.
When fundamental clues were severely lacking, the results were often limited. While not entirely wrong, they were usually far from the complete answer.
For example, when she had previously deduced how many Sentience Realm Hallway networks the Houiste Federation had built, the answer Seraphine received was... one billion.
However, after deducing it several more times, she found that the number in the answer increased with each attempt.
In her most recent deduction, the answer even indicated that the number of Sentience Realm Hallway networks... was a staggering 193.5 billion.
Compared to the initial result, this was nearly a two-hundred-fold increase.
This number was almost one-tenth of the total number of galaxies in the observable universe.
More importantly, the Houiste people were selective about which galaxies they built Hallway networks in, specifically, medium to large galaxies like the Milky Way.
They simply looked down on ordinary dwarf galaxies.
Yet, within the observable universe, the number of galaxies with scales and masses not inferior to the Milky Way was roughly in the range of a hundred billion.
In other words, the Houiste people, hundreds of millions of years ago, had somehow built a Hallway network across the majority of medium and large galaxies in the entire observable universe.
Of course, there was a high probability that this number was still not the final one.
After all, in the vague and incomplete memories of the God of Hunger race, the River of Primordial, which encompassed the entire observable universe, spanned at least several hundred billion light-years from end to end.
Furthermore, beyond this colossal Reach, there existed an unknown number of other Gravitational Primeval Rivers of unknown scale.
Therefore... if calculated this way, the true volume of the universe must far exceed the so-called observable universe.
The total number of galaxies with Hallway networks established by the Houiste people would also certainly far exceed 193 billion.
Thinking of this, Seraphine couldn't help but sigh: "The universe... is truly vast."
As she marveled at the immensity of the cosmos, an impulse to explore it all arose in her mind.
Amidst this swelling emotion, Seraphine suddenly lifted her colossal foot and stamped down toward the distant expanse.
BOOM
In an instant, her magnificent body, standing 560,000 light-years tall, abruptly appeared 80 million light-years away.
"But, as a backward race on a tiny planet that hadn't even invented a steam engine, how did the Houiste people manage... to defeat the God of Hunger race who ruled over countless galaxies, and then thoroughly crush them underfoot with no chance of resistance?"
Seraphine was extremely curious about this point.
Because, frankly, the gap between the two was simply boundless.
So vast that no matter how much of a handicap the God of Hunger race gave, it was impossible for them to lose.
Just think about it: one side was the God of Hunger race, a civilization that had experienced countless ages, the changing of eras, and the reset of the universe, beings who were born as powerful as gods. The other side was a carbon-based human race that hadn't even managed to popularize iron tools, with an overall evolutionary level that was pitifully low.
There was fundamentally no comparison between the two.
A single, lowest-tier God of Hunger could descend upon the Houiste planet and let those humans attack as they pleased. Even if they fought for 10,000 years, it was doubtful they could inflict any damage on that God of Hunger.
"Interesting."
Seraphine murmured with curiosity, "What soul-stirring events did the Houiste Federation go through to finally ascend to the top of the entire universe?"
Intrigued, she was about to "open" that tangible memory again.
But at that moment, Seraphine casually turned her Eye of Transcendence and noticed the solitary Obast star system floating in the dark void 80 million light-years away.
After the repeated torment from Seraphine, this once relatively "bustling" vast space had tragically transformed into a great cosmic void with a diameter of over 100 million light-years.
The Obast star system was located at the very center of this void.
If the Lead Simian race ever truly emerged from their "cradle" and stepped into interstellar space many years from now, they would be horrified to discover that the outside universe... was desolate and lonely to a soul-crushing degree.
No planets, no stars, no nebulae, no alien civilizations... Not even a single atom. It was utterly and completely empty.
The Lead Simian race would be completely trapped within this vast void, with no hope.
Because the nearest star system to them was 120 million light-years away.
Such a vast distance, even if the Lead Simian race exhausted all the resources and energy of their entire star system, it would be fundamentally impossible to reach.
They would have no way out except for infinite internal stagnation, degenerating into a dead-end Cyber Civilization.
Upon thinking of this, an idea suddenly arose in Seraphine's mind.
"The Lead Simian race, huh..."
Her eyes flickered. In an instant, she peered across the vast, dark void and into the depths of that star system, into a tiny rocky planet within.
"Tiyan..."
Under Seraphine's faint gaze, the young Lead Simian named Tiyan was currently squatting with another adorable young Lead Simian girl in the desolate ruins of a shrine at the bottom of an extinct volcano. They were looking up with infatuation at the boundless night sky, at the thousands of brilliant stars.
Although the sources of this starlight... those countless stars had long been utterly annihilated because of Seraphine, in the eyes of mortals like Tiyan who lacked superluminal vision, the vast starry night sky still hung quietly in its place, as if nothing had changed.
"Lucky kid. Before I go..."
Seraphine calmly looked at the distant Obast star system, as tiny as a dust mote, and suddenly grinned. "I'll give you a little gift."
As she spoke, the space-time surrounding the star system, which hung quietly in the universe 80 million light-years away, suddenly began to undulate and churn, flashing with endless light that illuminated the dark cosmos.
That light was the vast Dirac sea, boiling and roaring.
BUZZ
In the serene void, light-years away in every direction from the Obast star system, layers of ripples suddenly emerged, as if stones had been cast upon a calm lake surface, raising wave upon wave.
Within the vibrations of these overlapping ripples, infinite high-energy particles, under Seraphine's will, spontaneously emerged from the vacuum.
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
These dancing, soaring, and infinite high-energy particles, upon their appearance in the cosmic void, began to automatically condense. From the microscopic level, they constructed step-by-step up to macroscopic and cosmic scales.
Ultimately, they created one scorching, complete celestial body after another.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!!
In the dark firmament surrounding the Obast star system, far and near, along with bursts of high temperature and intense light radiating in all directions, countless massive stars appeared out of thin air in an instant.
Like countless blooming, gorgeous flowers, or like countless flickering bonfires being ignited, they jostled and shone, releasing bright and scorching light.
An instant later, a sky full of stars began to flicker violently in the endless void.
Then, dozens of rocky planets and gas giants, along with their moons of all sizes, appeared together. Like variously colored, gem-like pieces on a chessboard, they were scattered around each of the countless stars at distances ranging from tens of millions to tens of billions of kilometers.
These planets were far from each other, each leisurely soaring in its own orbit around its star, which in turn provided them with life-giving energy and light.
Each planet displayed its unique surface features. The rocky planets were covered in thick, rocky crusts, their surfaces rugged as if carved by giants. The gas giants were cloaked in vast, majestic layers of gas clouds, like boundless oceans of fog.
Finally, at a distance of trillions to tens of trillions of kilometers beyond these countless stars, a thick nebula appeared silently out of thin air. Like a protective ring, it completely enveloped and surrounded each star and all the planets orbiting it.
Just like that, hundreds of millions of star systems were born in an instant. They surrounded the Obast star system, forming a disc-shaped dwarf galaxy with a diameter of several thousand light-years.
Within this dwarf galaxy, countless star systems shone with a hazy light. In the vast gaps between them, endless interstellar gas and dust also appeared out of thin air under Seraphine's will. They shifted in shape and color, like exquisite works of art, constantly decorating and embellishing the entire dwarf galaxy, making it appear even more brilliant and magnificent in the cosmos.
"It feels... still not enough."
Looking at everything that had just manifested in the distance, Seraphine was still not satisfied.
In her colossal eyes, a divine light flickered.
Thus, under her will, the void surrounding that dwarf galaxy vibrated once more.
RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
Space-time roared wildly, and mass-energy surged.
The vast universe on all sides of the dwarf galaxy instantly erupted with countless brilliant starlights, their radiant colors and shapes simply too dazzling to take in.
Along with this continuous flickering of kaleidoscopic starlight, colossal space-time ripples, measured in units of a million light-years, suddenly propagated through the vast cosmos faster than the speed of light.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
The space-time ripples swept across continuously.
In almost half a second, a hundred trillion complete star systems of all shapes and sizes, both large and small, were baselessly birthed from the vacuum's fluctuations. They completely enveloped the initially created dwarf galaxy, thundering into place to form a spiral Supergiant Galaxy with a diameter of 5 million light-years.
This Supergiant Galaxy was so immense, so vast, that it could easily contain several thousand Milky Way galaxies.
If the Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud, the Andromeda galaxy, and the Triangulum Galaxy were still intact at this moment, they would be completely swallowed and enveloped by this creation.
In fact, Seraphine's inspiration for this creation came entirely from her observations of the deep cosmos.
1.05 billion light-years away from her, there existed an incredibly massive galaxy named IC1101, with a diameter of 5 million light-years and a mass of a hundred trillion suns.
This was currently the largest galaxy in the observable universe in terms of scale and volume.
And at the very center of this Supergiant Galaxy, Seraphine, with a mere thought, also created a supermassive black hole with a mass of one hundred billion suns and an event horizon diameter of six hundred billion kilometers. It would serve as the galactic core, providing gravitational support for the entire galaxy.
Of course, to rely on its own gravity propagating at the speed of light to influence and manipulate the outside world would take an eternity.
But because of Seraphine, the moment this super black hole was born, its unparalleled gravity ignored the shackles of the speed of light and instantly influenced and "supported" the core structure of the entire galaxy.
Thereafter, Seraphine's eyes flickered, and she leisurely gazed at that massive black hole.
RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
In an instant, in the region trillions of kilometers around the event horizon of this super black hole, countless mechanical megastructure plates, each with a surface area of trillions of miles, suddenly materialized.
The moment they appeared, they overlapped and merged, rapidly constructing a colossal mechanical device that completely encased the black hole.
This was a Sanchegues, an optimized version.
This structure, casually created by Seraphine, like the old Galactic Continent, also possessed an extremely high level of technology and scientific content.
Within it lay an unknown number of folded, colossal pocket dimensions; countless femtometer-scale, intelligent, autonomous protons dancing and hovering; and a matrix of suspended wormhole tunnels, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of them, interweaving to form a massive and complex super-space-time transportation network.
Beyond these, encompassing the entire super-structure inside and out, was an artificial virtual field based on a multi-layered, complex space-time structure deeply intertwined with the four fundamental forces, the Galaxy Blade defensive system.
It also contained multiple interconnected faster-than-light induction beam cannons, the Boundless Device, Sector Eraser equipment, a multi-layered Milky Way Smelter phase-shifting device, multiple sets of Universal Collapse Engines, an optimized Black Scepter Array, and various other super-technological projects, some for offense, some for defense, some for rule-warping, and some for matter and energy production.
Theoretically, once all the functions of this entire super-structure were activated, any life form that had not reached the Sage level would die upon entering the 100,000 light-year space surrounding its center, unable to even get close.
Of course, any life form that could pass the test and enter the super-structure would also receive a rich reward left by Seraphine, the "Hyper-Archon" Sage cultivation method and absolute control over the entire new Galactic Continent.
"Although to me, it's all just meaningless garbage," Seraphine laughed heartily, "but for a Sage-level life form, it's more than enough to be joyful about."
Immediately after, starting from that super-structure, countless Sentience Realm Hallways, systems of interconnected real and virtual barrier walls, suddenly emerged. Like a dense network of blood vessels, they crisscrossed, instantly blanketing every star in every region of the vast galaxy, establishing an incredibly immense, detailed, and complex faster-than-light transportation network system.
Under the coverage of this super-space-time network, composed entirely of high-end hallways operating at tens of thousands of times the speed of light, all the star systems within the vast galaxy would no longer be restricted by the shackles of distance and light speed. They could achieve rapid, interconnected communication.
It was foreseeable that the many civilizations born in this galaxy in the future would undoubtedly usher in a golden age of prosperous development.
"This will do."
After finishing everything, Seraphine turned to leave with satisfaction.
But just as she lifted her foot to depart, she instantly froze.
"However, in such a superior environment, I am very curious,"
Seraphine turned her head to look at the Obast star system, saying with interest, "To what extent can you unleash your own potential, and the potential of your race?"
As she spoke, she engaged her powerful perception, completely enveloping this Supergiant Galaxy that existed solitary in the center of the great cosmic void. From the cosmic, macroscopic, to the microscopic levels, from matter, energy, to information, she covered it all. She then activated the Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation, beginning extreme calculations.
Indeed, with her curiosity piqued, Seraphine wanted to play Laplace's Demon. She wanted to calculate and foresee the future evolution of the Lead Simian race and this entire vast new Milky Way.
One should not think this was a fairy tale.
For the current Seraphine, once she fully deciphered the laws of any physical process and gathered enough information, she could use the initial state as a center point. With her terrifyingly unmatched computing power, she could predict its entire evolutionary process from the past to the future, ultimately calculating the precise result.
For example, if Tiyan casually tossed a coin on the Obast planet right now, when the coin landed, would it be heads or tails?
The result seemed random and unknown, fundamentally impossible to predict with 100% certainty.
But if one thoroughly grasped all the information in Tiyan's entire tossing process, such as the position of every molecule making up the coin; the position and state of every air molecule in the surrounding environment; all of Tiyan's neural activities and muscle movement states, etc., then one could precisely calculate the result of every coin toss without any error.
However, reaching this step is generally the limit of calculation for various macroscopic and even cosmic objects and phenomena.
As for the microscopic, that's an entirely different concept.
Of course, many might naturally assume that by simply grasping the initial state of a particle, one should be able to easily calculate its state at any given moment in the future, right?
Or by taking the initial state of a closed system as a center point, one could deduce the state of the entire closed system at any given moment in the future, right?
Even thinking carefully, the entire universe is just an accumulation of more particles. So, couldn't one predict the future evolution of the entire universe by fully grasping the future states of all particles?
If a certain entity truly existed that could obtain all the information of the infinite particles in the entire universe, wouldn't that entity be able to calculate the entire state of the universe at any given future moment?
For instance, where a star will be born, which planet will harbor life, and all events about to occur in the future universe, including what every living being will eat tomorrow morning, or what every being will be thinking a second from now.
With a mere flick of the fingers, everything would be crystal clear to such an entity.
However, can this truly be achieved?
"The fantasy is beautiful, but the actual universe is far from being that simple."
Seraphine let out a soft laugh. "What truly governs this universe has never been classical physics, but quantum physics, which is filled with anomalies, randomness, fluctuations, probability, entanglement, complexity, and chaos. All order and so-called solid reliability are forever just illusions."
Indeed, under her powerful perception, that new Milky Way 77.5 million light-years away was as clear as the lines on her palm.
But once she broke through the macroscopic boundary and delved into the extreme microscopic level, Seraphine could no longer predict with 100% accuracy the future position of any single tiny particle.
If this bizarre situation is understood through the Schrödinger wave function equation from a mathematical perspective, it can be described like this:
Before a microscopic particle is observed, it exists as a probability wave dispersed within the vast space-time of the universe.
Furthermore, Born's rule and the Projection Postulate indicate that even these wave functions cannot fully represent the actual physical matter itself. When observed, those defined wave functions will collapse with a certain probability into any random corner of the vast space-time.
Ultimately, even if an observation is made, due to the quantum uncertainty principle, it remains impossible to precisely know both the velocity and position of any single microscopic particle simultaneously, meaning one cannot know the complete state of a particle.
Therefore, the instantaneous position and velocity of these microscopic particles, including when entanglement will occur, when decoherence will happen, when they will decay, and when they will be annihilated, even someone as powerful as Seraphine cannot predict with 100% precision. She can only ever calculate an approximate reference value.
This kind of precise, perfect particle state, at least within this universe, fundamentally does not exist.
At the same time, the so-called precise present state of the universe and a 100% accurate future likewise do not exist; they are forever impossible to predict.
For a chaotic system like the universe, even a slight change in the initial data used for calculation can lead to massive fluctuations in the deduction process. This leads to incomplete and inaccurate data, ultimately making the deduction itself meaningless.
This is quantum uncertainty.
However, it is precisely this uncertainty that prevents this universe from being completely ruled by [ Predestination ], allowing living beings the luck of a certain degree of freedom.
"Using various material-level deductions and perceptual abilities to make 100% accurate predictions is indeed difficult."
Seraphine tilted her head slightly and suddenly smiled. "But if I add idealistic abilities, it becomes easy."
In an instant, Transcendental Perception was activated, and the Light of Infinity, capable of perceiving and manipulating various real rules, leisurely began to operate.
BUZZ ——
Suddenly, all the uncertainties within that distant new Milky Way became certain to Seraphine.
In that Supergiant Galaxy, at least a hundred million light-years away from other cosmic space-time and structures and containing over a hundred trillion star systems, Seraphine achieved a 100% precise prediction.
SWOOSH ——
In this moment, like a cold master of destiny standing beyond universal space-time and observing the mortal realms, she instantly saw the countless future evolutionary scenes of the new Milky Way as it surged from present space-time toward future space-time.
This included all the life experiences of the infinite civilizations and countless intelligent beings yet to be born within this Supergiant Galaxy, all were clearly seen by Seraphine.
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
In the first instant of observing the future, Seraphine saw a vision:
Nine hundred and fifty years from now, the Lead Simian race would completely colonize the entire Obast star system.
In the vision, the Lead Simian race was working hard to decrypt a small portion of the technology hidden within the Agate Clan's relics. This matured their sub-light speed spacefaring technology. After occupying all the planets and integrating the various resources, they finally struggled through the thick nebula and discovered the Sentience Realm Hallway stretching behind the vast physical void, becoming a true interstellar civilization.
Tiyan, as the Emperor of the Lead Simian Empire, would at that time ascend to Transcendent Stage Ten, becoming a powerful being capable of shattering a planet's surface at full strength.
During the same phase, across the tens of trillions of star systems in the new Milky Way, intelligent life would emerge in large quantities on countless planets, catalyzed by the miraculous Ether.
In the second instant of observing the future, Seraphine saw that 7,900 years later, the Lead Simian Empire had decrypted and fully understood the technology hidden within many of the Agate Clan's relics. After thoroughly integrating it into their own technical systems, they ascended to become a Mercury Race-level interstellar civilization.
But by then, Tiyan, now an old, decrepit simian who had failed to break through to the Overlord stage over the past 7,000 years, would die of old age, filled with immense regret. Following his death, the throne of the Lead Simian Empire would be inherited by his eightieth-generation descendant, Irome.
At the same time, across various sectors of the new Milky Way, a total of 30 million intelligent races would step into the phase of their first industrial revolution.
"Tiyan actually died of old age?"
Seraphine was slightly surprised. "And he couldn't even break through to the Milky Way Overlord-class in his entire life? I thought he would be the first to ascend to Sage and enter the new Galactic Continent to receive those rewards. Ah, the unpredictability of life, destiny truly is impossible to guess."
After a brief moment of reflection, she looked once more into the future of the new Milky Way.
In the third instant of her observation, Seraphine saw that the Lead Simian Empire would stall at the Mercury Race-level interstellar civilization phase for a full 50,000 years.
During those 50,000 years, the science of the Lead Simian Empire developed very slowly.
But relying on the convenience of the Sentience Realm Hallway network, they occupied half of a galactic spiral arm, controlling tens of millions of star systems and becoming the undisputed hegemon of the new Milky Way.
And although their technology developed slowly, in those 50,000 years, the Lead Simian Empire finally produced Milky Way Overlords, four of them, in fact.
One was the current Emperor of the Lead Simian Empire, Tiyan's two-hundred-and-thirtieth-generation descendant, Tieong.
Also during this time, the Lead Simian Empire discovered the massive forbidden zone at the center of the new Milky Way. But after suffering heavy casualties, they suspended their galactic core exploration plans.
Finally, during the latter half of these 50,000 years, over 200 million intelligent races across the entire new Milky Way would step into the space-faring era.
An enthusiastic Seraphine continued to look into the future.
In the fourth instant of her observation, she saw that a full 120,000 years later, after long ages of effort and development, the Lead Simian Empire had finally become a powerful interstellar civilization, nearing the level of the Didrogutin.
Simultaneously, eleven other interstellar civilizations had emerged in the new Milky Way, capable of competing with the Lead Simian Empire. Although none could face the Lead Simian race alone, by joining forces, they could barely hold their own.
Thus, the Lead Simian hegemony waned; the era of their undisputed monopoly was gone, and the new Milky Way entered a new period of contention among various civilizations.
These twelve interstellar civilizations, including the Lead Simian Empire, were collectively known by countless other intelligent races as the Twelve Giants of the Milky Way.
Rather interestingly, three of these Twelve Giants were actually civilizations that had split off from the Lead Simian race itself.
Curious, Seraphine observed closely and discovered that during those 120,000 years, the Lead Simian Empire had been plagued by repeated internal strife.
In a series of tragic civil wars, Emperor Tieong had fallen.
The empire's territory had shrunk by nearly half, and its vital essence was heavily damaged.