"First, use the spirituality cultivation path to refine their potential, then follow the Archetype Ascension and its mastery of electromagnetism, followed by the Sage technique: Nine Transformations of the Dragon Gate.
With the complete 'Sage King link' I've provided, in the countless eons to come, these humans will surely overturn all hundred trillion stars of the Milky Way."
With a faint smile, Seraphine ceased her observations of the future. She turned her gargantuan form toward the boundless cosmic void and stepped forward.
There was no further need to watch; the future of the new Milky Way was firmly within the grasp of humanity. Seraphine was certain of it.
While the evolution path she created, the "Sage King link", wasn't an easy road to travel, it was a path to the summit.
As long as one persevered with relentless effort, even the most talentless fool could eventually ascend to the level of a Sage.
As Seraphine departed without looking back, the new Milky Way finally broke free from its two-million-year-long predestined orbit, surging toward an infinite future of possibilities.
BOOM!!!
Her massive feet, each spanning over a hundred thousand light-years, slammed into the infinite starry firmament. The impact instantly triggered cataclysmic space-time tsunamis that rippled out across millions of light-years.
In an instant, dozens of massive galaxies within a radius of tens of millions of light-years were caught in the wake, crushed into torrents of radiant light that spiraled out into the infinite void.
The distant, vast firmament churned like a black sea under Seraphine's violent tread.
Simultaneously, the boundless spirituality within that space transformed into a stream of light, surging into her body to be instantly sublimated.
In a single step, Seraphine crossed over a hundred million light-years of space.
If judged by the standard of Warp factor 10, this speed would rank above 9.7 but below 9.8.
In this single stride, she hadn't even utilized the Light of Infinity.
After all, with its eighty-million-light-year range, it usually couldn't bridge a hundred-million-light-year gap in an instant.
Seraphine's terrifying speed was actually due to the [Endless Scale Net].
The Endless Scale Net refers to the infinite space-time topological fragments at the sub-microscopic level that she had been tirelessly researching and exploring.
In truth, these infinite space-time topological fragments support the eternal existence of all things in the cosmos, constantly intertwining, shifting, overlapping, and twisting at every single moment.
At a glance, it resembled a boundless, infinite net woven from countless, infinitely dense dragon scales.
Thus, Seraphine dubbed this sub-microscopic space-time structure, quadrillions of times smaller than a hydrogen atom, the Endless Scale Net.
The terrifying power to cross a hundred million light-years in a single stride was the result of her deep manipulation of this Endless Scale Net, using a series of large-scale resonances with the universe's space-time fabric.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three more steps.
Amidst the cataclysmic space-time roars that shattered and annihilated tens of thousands of galaxies with every step, Seraphine finally reached the boundary 500 million light-years beyond the new Milky Way, the boundless, shimmering cosmic barrier: the South Pole Wall.
Upon arrival, Seraphine realized that this cosmic wall, which stood like a colossal arm blocking the Laniakea Supercluster and the Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex, was actually a massive gravitational node for the cosmic undercurrent she was currently in.
Vast swaths of galaxies, galaxy clusters, and superclusters from the surrounding void were all slowly hurtling toward it.
Seraphine also noted that although she was now far larger than the entire Milky Way, she still appeared minuscule when compared to the South Pole Wall, which stretched 500 million light-years wide and 1.4 billion light-years long.
Sweeping her Eye of Transcendence across the expanse, Seraphine could clearly see the interior of this gargantuan wall. In every direction within that misty void floated vast, beautiful swaths of radiant universes.
The components of this infinite sea of light were not tiny stars, but millions upon millions of galaxies, each containing countless brilliant suns.
Galaxies. Oh, galaxies.
To ordinary intelligent life or even advanced civilizations, the massive galaxy they inhabit represents everything. It is the sum of all matter, space-time, and every possible final frontier.
Anything larger or further away simply holds no practical meaning.
To these intelligent beings, the galaxies beyond their own are as distant and unreachable as a dream.
Forever unreachable, forever irrelevant.
But these beings could never know that the galaxies they inhabit, and even those surrounding them, are, to Seraphine, merely hazy smoke rings barely larger than her open palm.
With a mere thought or a casual wave of her hand, these galaxies would instantly turn to ash, annihilated into nothingness. Countless civilizations and infinite lives within them would vanish in a heartbeat. The disparity between them had become utterly absurd.
Standing by the South Pole Wall, Seraphine's face, vast and hollow like a cosmic galaxy, resembled a rippling great mirror. It effortlessly gathered the brilliant starlight traveling across millions and billions of light-years, refracting it into endless, chaotic shards of light that made her appear ethereally beautiful.
"South Pole Wall... you are truly beautiful!"
Overwhelmed by its unparalleled beauty, Seraphine opened her gargantuan arms, treading through the vastness of space to embrace the cosmic wall.
She crushed it in a heavy, violent hug!
BOOM!
Instantly, the colossal space-time fabric for countless light-years around her vibrated with a violent roar. From the sub-microscopic to the macro-cosmic, every entity, including tens of thousands of massive galaxies that had endured for tens of billions of years, disintegrated like fragile, flickering mists. They dissolved into torrents of light and heat, devoured completely by Seraphine.
SWOOSH
Boundless rivers of spirituality light erupted, surging into her massive body at speeds hundreds of millions of times faster than light.
The aftermath of Seraphine's hug was so monumental that even after everything was annihilated, this hundred-million-light-year void of three-dimensional space-time continued to boil and churn relentlessly.
Yet, Seraphine didn't care at all. Instead, she laughed: "Shattered after just one hug... it seems I'm still the more beautiful one, after all."
Indeed.
Power is beauty. Greatness is beauty.
To her, possessing unfathomable power and magnitude meant her beauty was naturally peerless.
If anyone disagreed, she would simply beat them to death.
After a moment of silence, and with a single thought that smoothed over the turbulent space-time, Seraphine strode deeper into the South Pole Wall.
No, she wasn't just walking; she was brutally tearing through it, piercing straight through the South Pole Wall!
With every step, her form blurred as she instantly crossed a hundred million light-years of cosmic void.
Furthermore, the vast space within ten million light-years of where her foot landed was violently scoured by a boundless torrent of Chaos Calculation. Every galaxy, macro-material, and micro-particle within her sight collapsed and dissolved into searing currents of light, scattering into the infinite dark firmament.
Nothing could obstruct her path; everything was physically crushed and returned to nothingness.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Every second, Seraphine took a step. While generating colossal space-time tsunamis that engulfed millions of light-years of space, she crossed tens of millions of light-years.
In this process, every second saw hundreds or even thousands of galaxies, large and small, shatter and vanish into annihilation.
Simultaneously, immeasurable amounts of Root Spirituality condensed into radiant rivers of light billions of miles long, drifting slowly before surging into Seraphine's body to accept her compassionate blessings and become her blissful subjects.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Two minutes passed slowly.
Having advanced over a hundred steps, Seraphine completely pierced through the colossal South Pole Wall, leaving it far behind as she finally halted in the deepest reaches of the universe.
By this point, she had suddenly distanced herself from the new Milky Way by a staggering 120 billion light-years.
Seraphine's journey had carved out a gargantuan cylindrical vacuum corridor, 10 million light-years in diameter and 120 billion light-years long.
Within this vast, overheated corridor, split into over a hundred segments, matter and energy were thinned to an infuriating degree. Aside from the sparse scattering of photons, electrons, protons, neutrons, and neutrinos zipping back and forth, nothing else remained.
She stopped because... the System had activated once again.
Just like before, Seraphine felt time around her go still. She entered an abstract state, plunging into a boundless, infinite Abstract Domain.
Under the majestic power of her Transcendental Perception, Seraphine once again 'saw' the infinite distance at the edge of the [Essential Realm]... suddenly beginning to boil.
The moment that boiling began, it instantly crossed the infinitely vast obstacle between the [Phenomenal Realm] and the [Essential Realm], rushing straight toward Seraphine.
She concentrated and activated her [Change] Authority, which immediately erupted with endless, mysterious light.
BUZZ
The two forces simultaneously exerted themselves upon Seraphine.
The attribute interface vibrated once more, the data becoming a chaotic blur.
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
An instant later, the interface finally settled.
[Host: Seraphine]
[Physical Strength: 200 Million Galaxies]
[Soul: 200 Million Galaxies]
An attribute value of 200 million Galaxies...
This represented the total mass and power of 200 million Milky Ways, or the combined mass and power of three hundred quintillion suns.
This value was so gargantuan that it far surpassed ordinary human perception and understanding. At a glance, it would leave one feeling dazed and bewildered because it was simply too far removed from the normal world.
To grasp it by force, one could consider it this way:
A power of this level meant Seraphine... could physically drag two thousand Laniakea Superclusters through the vast cosmic void single-handedly.
And this was just the manifestation of her Physical Strength. If she utilized her Soul power simultaneously, her might would undoubtedly double once more.
"200 million Galaxies, huh..."
Seraphine slowly raised her colossal hand, spreading five fingers as thick as the Orion Arm.
She suddenly clenched them into a fist.
BOOM
In an instant, a hundred million light-years of cosmic void centered around her vibrated violently, triggering cataclysmic space-time tides that engulfed the firmament in every direction.
Immediately, tens of thousands of massive galaxies within this vast expanse shattered and perished. Amidst the roaring, violent churn, they transformed into an infinite sea of radiant energy. Then, at speeds billions of times faster than light, they streaked across this hundred-million-light-year vacuum, suddenly coalescing into three gargantuan characters, each hundreds of thousands of times larger than the Milky Way.
The three characters were:
POWERFUL!
AND!
FORCEFUL!
"Powerful and forceful! Powerful and forceful, indeed!!"
Seraphine threw her arms wide and laughed toward the heavens. "This is how I surge! Surging! Raging! Rising! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Seraphine's laughter was so haughty and overbearing that it felt as if the universe itself, were it to manifest, would be beaten to death by her.
Under the extreme force of her laughter, even the vast swaths of three-dimensional space-time around her trembled violently, erupting with thousands of radiant currents of energy, each massive and hot enough to incinerate entire galaxies.
SWOOSH
As the high-energy currents churned, Seraphine's laughter gradually subsided.
She suddenly felt a hint of loneliness.
A loneliness born from the lack of a single physical enemy she could punch to vent her will.
"How boring."
Seraphine sighed softly. With a powerful wave of her hand, she smoothed over the turbulence and chaos that had engulfed the hundred-million-light-year expanse.
The misty void instantly returned to its previous state of absolute stillness.
Only the giant characters, each brushstroke spanning a hundred thousand light-years, remained, drifting quietly in the infinite vacuum.
"Whatever. Back to the story."
Shaking her head, Seraphine reopened the historical records of the God of Hunger race to read the past of the Houiste Federation.
In truth, while observing the long future of the new Milky Way earlier, she hadn't stopped reading the historical scenes.
It was just that the initial history of the God of Hunger, Houiste, descending upon Earth was simply too dull.
The content mostly consisted of him disguising himself as a deity, granting small amounts of power to mortals, incorporating these transcendent humans as subordinate gods to form a pantheon, and then orchestrating various schemes to toy with mortals, a game played across millennia, tens of millennia, and hundreds of millennia.
Seraphine had already seen this kind of "plot" millions of times in the historical records; it was just the typical, wanton behavior of every God of Hunger on every planet they visited.
She had long since lost any sense of novelty for such things.
The only thing that was fresh was that on the ancient Earth where the Houiste Federation eventually emerged, the duration of this "toying" was a bit long.
It lasted for hundreds of millions of years.
Under the manipulation of the God of Hunger named Houiste and his malicious kin, ancient Earth gave birth to hundreds of civilizations.
Each time human intelligence sprouted on Earth and a new civilization was born, it was separated by many millennia.
And each time a civilization emerged, those Gods of Hunger would thoroughly toy with it, ruin it, and break it before finally extinguishing it in a fit of satisfaction.
As for what kind of "games" these Gods of Hunger played, well, one would need the darkest possible imagination.
For example, the entire human population might be forced to transform into snowy maggots for a collective battle of survival, followed by twelve hundred years of Sodom, ending in mutual, ultimate degradation until death.
Or perhaps the entire human race would collectively degenerate into rotting, foul-smelling, yet immortal sewer mermaids. Billions of these "mermaids" would then be linked head-to-tail to form a human centipede and be "fed" until death.
In short, every despicable, filthy, and insane method imaginable was inflicted upon the billions of humans in ancient Earth's civilizations by these Gods of Hunger.
The scenes were so shocking and disgusting that even the usually indifferent Seraphine was astonished by how perverted these Gods of Hunger could be.
"Is it because being trapped in the CMB radiation for so long led to absolute psychological pathology? Or is it because seeing other humans on Earth, they felt envious that these people hadn't suffered the same disasters they had, so they vented their malice like a flood?"
Seraphine didn't know the root cause of the God of Hunger race's behavior; she could only use this line of reasoning to explain it.
Otherwise, being of the same human origin, no matter how deep the hatred, it shouldn't have reached such a sickening extreme.
Ultimately, all this suffering was the fault of the Annihilation Traveler!
However, as the saying goes, misfortune is where blessings lean, and blessings are where misfortune hides.
Because the humans of ancient Earth suffered such immense torment and underwent so many modifications, their genetic and soul structures underwent violent and terrifying evolutions.
In terms of both physical strength and soul, these ancient humans from that incredibly distant era possessed unparalleled potential and resilience.
Once ignited, they were destined to advance at a rapid pace.
However, using this as capital to oppose the Gods of Hunger was far from enough.
Instead, this great resilience and potential became the bargaining chips for the Gods of Hunger to intensify their cruel games.
And so, year after year, generation after generation passed.
In the blink of an eye, several hundred million years had gone by.
Eventually, the God of Hunger named Houiste left this part of the universe, heading into the deeper cosmos.
Only the transcendent humans, subordinate gods, he had modified remained on ancient Earth, faithfully helping their master continue the enslavement of humanity.
During the era when Houiste traveled the universe, after the ancient humans had been toyed with and extinguished over a thousand times, whether as a backlash of fate or a punishment from the cosmic will, a being was born on that ancient Earth who would eventually terrify every God of Hunger to the core, the Holy Emperor of the Human Race: Augustus Clayiman.
At this stage of the progression, the historical records became blurred and chaotic.
It was as if information regarding the Holy Emperor was taboo.
From these fragmented historical records, Seraphine vaguely deduced that the Holy Emperor was born an incredibly powerful superpower user, a natural immortal possessing an unimaginable iron will and infinite wisdom.
There were many theories, or rather, possibilities regarding his origins.
One was that during the early stages of that particular human civilization, hundreds of Shamans, for unknown reasons, accidentally 'saw' the dark and terrifying history of humanity's hundred-million-year torment during a mystical sacrificial rite. In their utter despair, they performed a collective, primitive, and barbaric self-sacrifice, ultimately creating an infant born with peerless potential and innate knowledge.
That infant was the Holy Emperor.
Of course, this was just one possibility. No one knew the true facts; even the Gods of Hunger, after their investigations, couldn't truly figure it out.
Regardless of the Holy Emperor's true origin, throughout the long history that followed, he pushed for the development and progress of human society to varying degrees.
The fragmented historical records show that the figure known as the Holy Emperor already existed during the early stages of that particular Earth civilization.
Furthermore, from the moment he appeared on the world's stage, the Holy Emperor possessed a fierce desire to protect, guide, and lead all of humanity.
Driven by this fervent desire, he had conquered and ruled a significant number of tribes, city-states, and kingdoms even in his youth.
But in the end, the Holy Emperor would always leave his territory and seclude himself from the world.
This was because he felt a profound confusion and revulsion toward humanity's tendency to revere anything unknown, magnificent, or powerful as a god or a demon.
Especially since the world truly did contain hundreds of powerful gods and demonic armies, as well as a legendary being said to have created all humans, all gods, and even the entire world, the so-called Creator Deity, Houiste.
Regarding this, the Holy Emperor felt deep loathing and hatred.
Since he gained consciousness, he believed that things like religion, prayer, sacrifice, and faith, even those so-called gods and demons, were poisons that used fear and superstition to hinder human evolution and development.
The Holy Emperor found that these things never united humanity; instead, they created more ignorance and division.
To the Holy Emperor, this was a monumental evil.
An evil that made him so angry he felt like going insane.
Furthermore, he never believed in the existence of gods.
In the Holy Emperor's eyes, those so-called gods and demons, those so-called divine powers and mana, were nothing more than enhanced versions of superpowers.
Ultimately, it was just the strong bullying the weak.
He believed that once a power surpassing that of gods and demons emerged, then those beings would inevitably fall into the same pathetic situation as mortals.
The Holy Emperor looked forward to this deeply.
But he was also soberly aware that, given the overall physical and spiritual poverty of humanity, it was essentially impossible to destroy the numerous religious faiths existing across the globe.
This was in direct opposition to the Holy Emperor's long-standing desire, or rather, his hope.
He wanted to lead humanity toward greatness.
The Holy Emperor wanted to annihilate anything that threatened this vision.
Thus, Augustus, the future Holy Emperor, personally embarked on a path to uncover the secrets of the gods, seek the truth, and implement it.
After thousands of years of arduous effort, the Holy Emperor finally found that path: it was science.
"Such an extraordinary character. Interesting, using science to defeat the God of Hunger race."
Brilliant light flickered within Seraphine's Eye of Transcendence. "Perhaps this Holy Emperor's spirituality, was naturally powerful to an extraordinary degree."
She continued reading.
The historical records showed that at the end of the classical era of that ancient human civilization, the Holy Emperor flew into space in a chemically-powered spaceship he designed and built himself. After a long journey, he finally landed on Mars.
Heaven only knows how he achieved this in an era where even the steam engine hadn't been born.
In any case, after landing on Mars, the Holy Emperor encountered and slaughtered a Subordinate God modified by Houiste.
That's right, the Holy Emperor, possessing peerless wisdom and talent, had evolved to a transcendent level within a human society whose average power level was extremely low. Furthermore, he effortlessly crushed a 'Deity' of the same rank.
For the next few hundred years, no one knew what the Holy Emperor experienced in space.
In any case, after descending back to Earth via unknown means, he had already become the Overlord of the Milky Way.
At that point, the Holy Emperor decided to reveal his existence to the entire human world.
Immediately after, he began the conquest of the entire Earth.
The Holy Emperor's method of dealing with all human factions and nations was simple and brutal.
Submit and live, resist and die.
Anyone who dared to oppose him, even if only through verbal complaints, would be wiped out.
After a series of bloody wars, the Holy Emperor finally unified Earth.
This period was regarded by later Houiste people as the Unification War.
During this time, the many 'Deities' and 'Demons' existing on and around Earth sensed the threat posed by the Holy Emperor.
Consequently, they launched a series of conspiracies and ambushes against him.
Later, they were all swept away by the Holy Emperor like autumn leaves in a gale.
These gods and demons were all reduced to experimental subjects on the Holy Emperor's dissection table.
Immediately after, the Holy Emperor began a global de-religionization movement.
He believed that there were no gods or demons, no supernatural phenomena, and certainly no magic. Everything could be interpreted through science. Humanity, armed with reason and wisdom, could conquer anything. Nothing deserved worship; all concepts of religion and deities should be thoroughly eradicated.
In other words, human greatness demanded the overthrow of all monsters and gods.
Based on the blurred historical records and Seraphine's own deductions, the Holy Emperor, driven by his fervent belief, performed actions and orchestrated events during this de-religionization process that would be considered extreme even by most atheists.
But the Holy Emperor didn't care.
He believed that as long as the goal was righteous, the means were irrelevant. Every sacrifice was worthwhile, even if the methods were radical.
Appreciation flickered in Seraphine's eyes. "Scrupling at nothing to achieve his goals, cold and unfeeling toward individual things yet possessing a singular love for all of humanity."
"Haha, this Holy Emperor... is another person who possesses Great Love."