Beyond the River of Primordial, deep within the void region.
Standing silently in the infinite void, Seraphine stood 560,000 light-years tall. After the Authority of Change activated, her majestic body suddenly shuddered and collapsed inward, instantly transforming into a massive, chaotic vortex. It was composed of infinite points, lines, planes, volumes, hyper-volumes, and ultra-hyper-volumes, all rotating continuously at bizarre angles and abnormal proportions.
The moment this vortex appeared, it flared with brilliant radiance and exploded outward, expanding into the surrounding void at extreme speed.
As it expanded, the delicate underlying structure of the void tightly bordering it underwent a violent and malignant collapse. Instantly, the vast, silent, and empty abyss was filled with overlapping, continuous waves of distortion, upheaval, and roiling corruption.
The distorted space-time surrounding Seraphine's rapidly expanding body accumulated and layered until the quantitative shift triggered a qualitative explosion. Millions of layers of super-space-time tsunamis, each spanning millions of light-years, erupted. With the force of a world-ending cataclysm, they roared outward, sweeping through the vast firmament in every direction.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In a flash, the omnipresent Dirac Sea behind the infinite void, caught in the path of the FTL tsunamis, was violently agitated. It spontaneously gave birth to quadrillions of beams of radiant heat and light, with energy levels far exceeding gamma-ray bursts, which shot across the universe in all directions.
Yet, just a ten-thousandth of a second after these blazing torrents emerged, the continuous super-space-time tsunamis from Seraphine's body caught up with even greater speed. They pulverized and swallowed the energy beams, surging toward the wider void with even more savage intensity.
Simultaneously, wherever the tsunamis swept through the fragile void, massive clusters of millions of high-dimensional, pure-energy topological geometric forms emerged, each spanning tens of thousands of light-years.
These indescribable, geometrically warped high-dimensional energy entities acted like inter-dimensional demons. Some gathered in hordes, others stood alone, all roaring as they crushed the infinite void in every direction at speeds quadrillions of times faster than light.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In just three or four seconds, the vast, misty void across a radius of over a billion light-years was trampled and ravaged into a state of absolute chaos by these high-dimensional geometric forms.
Had the Laniakea Supercluster been drifting within this empty region, it would have been shattered into infinite septillions of particles within a single second under the crushing weight of these cosmic geometric entities. Every civilization and living being within it would have been reduced to cosmic dust.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
These millions of high-dimensional geometric energy forms, trampling every corner of the universe, lasted for about half a minute before being barely diluted and neutralized by the vastness of 3D space-time.
However, this massive expanse of the void, spanning over ten billion light-years, had been ravaged into a state of total disorder, nearly reaching the brink of a universal apocalypse.
At the epicenter of this chaotic space-time region, Seraphine, who previously appeared as a cosmic titan, had now blurred and expanded. She had transformed into a multi-dimensional, super-space-time vortex, a nearly perfect sphere with a diameter of several million light-years.
HUM...
Suddenly, across the sphere's surface, which was transparent as diamond yet shimmering with a kaleidoscope of colors, emerged millions of layers of ripples and waves, much like the surface of a disturbed pond.
Under the high-frequency vibration of these space-time waves, the surrounding cosmic void in every direction heaved like a great tide, oscillating without end.
After another dozen seconds, the massive vortex, having expanded several times more until its diameter exceeded that of the Local Group, suddenly collapsed and condensed. It took the form of a cosmic giant, twelve million light-years tall, seemingly forged from the convergence of the infinite dark void and billions of brilliant stars. The titan radiated endless light and overwhelming majesty.
This giant was Seraphine, her mass having suddenly exploded ten million-fold.
"Hmm..."
She slowly opened a palm vast enough to hold six or seven Milky Ways side-by-side and laughed joyfully. "Interesting. The Authority of Change can make me this massive. I wonder just how large I'll become once I reach 6D."
As she spoke, the Eye of Transcendence, the most brilliant light at the center of her nebula-covered face, flickered and flared. She gazed into the distant space, toward the direction of the unimaginably remote River of Floating Deities.
HUM...
In a flash, the dark void across a diameter of fifty billion light-years was captured within her gaze.
Such a colossal observation range suddenly surpassed half the scale of the observable universe.
Yet, Seraphine was not particularly satisfied with this data.
"After such a massive increase in this body's mass, the cosmic field of vision of the Eye of Transcendence... has only increased by a dozen times?"
Somewhat displeased, Seraphine once again invoked the Authority of Change:
"Increase the cosmic field of vision of the Eye of Transcendence... by ten thousand times."
Silence. No reaction.
The observation distance of the Eye of Transcendence remained fifty billion light-years.
"Beyond the Authority's scope?"
Seraphine shook her head slightly and tried again. "Increase the cosmic field of vision of the Eye of Transcendence... by a thousand times."
Still no change.
"Tsk, still not strong enough."
She invoked the Authority of Change once more. "Increase the cosmic field of vision of the Eye of Transcendence... by a hundred times."
HUM...
A boundless, profound, multi-dimensional visual power suddenly erupted from Seraphine's brilliant eye. At speeds exceeding light by quintillions of times, it instantly pierced through the endless dark abyss.
FLASH!!!
As if bypassing all physical processes, the vision from the Eye of Transcendence instantly spanned five trillion light-years of the vast void. She saw a gargantuan, brilliant torrent, over a hundred billion light-years in diameter, forged from the convergence of countless billions of radiant Galaxies. It curved and wound through the abyss, its origin and end beyond sight.
Surrounding this cosmic river was an even more massive expanse of boundless darkness, showing no boundaries or traces of light.
"So that is... the River of Floating Deities."
Across the five-trillion-light-year distance, Seraphine gazed calmly at the River of Floating Deities suspended in the remote void, murmuring softly: "I didn't expect the distance between Gravitational Primeval Rivers... to be so vast."
Adding the distance she had already traveled from the River of Primordial to her current location, the gap between these two Primeval Rivers was a staggering seven trillion light-years, enough to line up seventy-five observable universes side-by-side.
The distance... was simply suffocating.
"If the gap between just two Primeval Rivers is this vast, then just how large is the entire universe?"
Seraphine scanned her surroundings, her gaze instantly sweeping through multiple sectors of cosmic space, each five trillion light-years in depth and breadth.
With her upgraded Eye of Transcendence, she could see every single one of the billions of galaxies, each with its own unique color, shape, and scale, within that massive expanse.
"Even if I can see five trillion light-years at a glance, I still can't see the full picture of this universe, nor do I know where the true end of the River of Primordial lies. This is truly..."
Seraphine suddenly grinned. "Too interesting."
She feared neither the unknown nor the challenge. On the contrary, the larger the universe, the more intriguing it became.
With that, Seraphine turned and began walking back toward the River of Primordial.
Every step she took spanned 3.6 billion light-years, just exceeding Level 9.9 Warp.
Her top priority remained finding the ancestral home of the Houiste, whose location was still unknown, to obtain their probability-manipulation technology. With the five-trillion-light-year vision of her Eye of Transcendence, finding them wouldn't take much longer.
Parallel to this, her second task was to uncover the secret hidden deep within the Brilliant Games that could expand the breadth of her external influence.
At the same time, her Transcendental Perception caught a subtle premonition.
By clearing the three Supreme Instances: [Mechanical Sanctuary], [Primal Abyss], and [Cataclysmic Firmament], completing the ultimate mission, and receiving the game's highest official reward, Seraphine might gain an opportunity to peer into the secrets of the Brilliant Games itself.
"So, I'll just crush these three instances. Speed is key."
"Let's start with the Mechanical Sanctuary."
...
Server 375, Edge of Space.
Here, deep within a purple nebular cloud spanning a hundred trillion kilometers, sat a silver-bright mechanical megastructure. Thirty million kilometers in diameter, its surface was covered in intricate carved structures and tens of millions of dense, sharp spikes, floating silently in the void.
WHOOSH...
Blazing winds howled as billions of azure plasma streams blanketed the sky.
At this moment, nearly 100,000 interstellar warships from the [Thunderbolt] guild were following a set route, patrolling the perimeter of the silver megastructure.
This was the Lebogan Nebula, the location of the Supreme Instance known as the [Mechanical Sanctuary].
Since the game's official announcement of the ultimate mission, this scorching, previously desolate nebula had become a battlefield for major gaming guilds.
After millions of player deaths, the top-tier guild of Server 375, [Thunderbolt], allied with several other guilds to forcefully seize the area. They issued a server-wide announcement on the world channel:
"With the exception of Thunderbolt members, our allies, and brother guilds, no one is allowed to approach the Lebogan Nebula. Violators will be hunted down until they are reset to Level 0!"
Such tyrannical behavior naturally drew immense backlash from solo players.
The official game announcement had removed all entry restrictions for this instance, meaning any person or group could enter at any time. Theoretically, with enough people, even low-level players could sneak in and farm some currency, items, and equipment.
Solo players never dreamed of defeating the Boss or obtaining Divine Artifacts; they just wanted a share of the scraps. But the Thunderbolt guild and its allies refused to let even the smallest profit slip through their fingers, locking down the entire area.
Solo players couldn't endure such treatment.
They flooded the game forums with rage and curses. Some hot-headed players organized their peers, gathering a fleet of various ships to jump through the ancient Star Gates to the outskirts of the Lebogan Nebula, launching desperate strikes against the Thunderbolt blockade.
However, after a series of major battles where the Thunderbolt fleets repeatedly tore through their ranks, the solo players were forced to face reality. They turned their sights toward the other two Supreme Instances, only to find that [Primal Abyss] and [Cataclysmic Firmament] had also been ruthlessly occupied by top guilds.
Facing these top-tier guilds, which had absorbed many high-level players and fleet assets from the former Royal guild, the solo players were utterly despondent. Aside from venting their fury on the forums, they had no other recourse.
SWOOSH...
A deep-space defense ship belonging to the Thunderbolt guild, its engines trailing blue particle flows, was on a routine patrol.
Inside the scouting pod of the lead ship, a Thunderbolt player named 『Thunderbolt → Wild Bulgy Man』 was patiently monitoring the space outside the nebula through precision instruments. Suddenly, he detected an extremely faint data signal on his light-screen.
The signal was so faint it indicated an object of very small volume moving toward the nebula.
"Hmm? That small? Could it be some stray micro-missile?"
Puzzled, 『Thunderbolt → Wild Bulgy Man』 nudged his drowsing companion, 『Thunderbolt → Xuanao』, and pointed at the screen. "Quick, look at this data. Something's coming."
"Really? Let me see."
『Thunderbolt → Xuanao』 jerked awake. Still groggy, he operated the console and activated his class skill.
Interstellar Explorer - Ship's Companion - Seer of the Unknown: Level 80 Class Skill [Eye of Beyond].
HUM...
Instantly, his vision turned pure white and vastly expanded. He could "see" every object within the pitch-black void, even those beyond the reach of normal sensors.
He "saw" a brilliant white gas cluster, sixteen hundred meters in diameter, trailing a streak of cosmic blood-light. It was continuously warping space-time, hurtling toward them at faster-than-light speeds.
"Incoming attack?!"
His expression paled as he slammed the alarm button on the console.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
The piercing alarm wailed throughout the entire ship.
From a distance,
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
Seraphine, shrouded in the [Abstruse Truth of the Blade] and constantly warping the game's rules as she flew at FTL speeds, saw the dozens of defense ships hundreds of thousands of kilometers away unleashing thousands of light beams at her. Calmly, she clapped her hands forward.
FWOOSH!!!
In an instant, hundreds of twisted air vortices, each spanning a hundred kilometers, shattered the nebular dust and roared forward.
CRACK!!
Seraphine's deeply warped and modified [Earth-Shattering Great Mudra] instantly twisted the warships into scrap metal. The strike then plunged into a massive, suddenly manifested gate, crossing a hundred million kilometers to slam into the portal of the Mechanical Sanctuary instance.
BANG!!
The instance barrier, which should have been indestructible for players, was blown open, leaving a massive jagged hole.
"DING! Congratulations, you have discovered the instance [Mechanical Sanctuary]. Here, the story..."
"Skip."
Seraphine casually skipped the introduction and stepped into the jagged hole in the massive portal, which flickered with distorted, brilliant light.
As she entered the instance space, she found herself instantly transported to the center of a boundless, silver-bright continent made entirely of an unknown alloy.
Directly above her, millions of feet high, stretched an infinite metal firmament. From this metallic sky hung tens of millions of massive elevators, looking like thin threads descending from the heavens.
"Hmm. It looks like players would normally have to take these elevators to ascend to the upper worlds, likely meeting certain conditions first," Seraphine realized instantly. "I see. This is a multi-layered magic tower-style instance. One must fight their way up floor by floor to reach the final Boss at the very top."
She lowered her gaze to find that across the alloyed surface and throughout the sky, millions of intelligent mechs of various types were patrolling. These mechs, shimmering with a metallic sheen, reacted instantly. Upon detecting Seraphine's sudden appearance, they launched a coordinated assault without hesitation.
In a heartbeat, millions of high-energy light beams converged on Seraphine's position like a torrential downpour from every direction.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
As she stood bathed in this kaleidoscopic "rain" of high-energy lasers, several system notifications flashed before her. The messages warned Seraphine that she was being subjected to heat-flow drenching, Nano-viruses, ultra-strong magnetic fields, and high-energy radiation. These debuffs would remain active until she left the instance entirely.
"Meaningless."
With a cold scoff, Seraphine looked at the swarms of mechs, buzzing around like flies near and far, and slowly drew her blood-colored blade. She spun her body, unleashing a horizontal slash in all directions.
[Spiral Slash] + [Ruthless Blade Qi].
FLASH...
As she struck out, a massive, jagged mountain range of blade-qi, composed of quadrillions of brilliant white blades and large enough to fill the entire world, manifested beneath her edge. It swept across the metal landscape in every direction with violent force.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Under the weight of this super-giant blade-qi, the world turned upside down as metallic mountains crumbled. Millions of mechs and mechanical monsters were shredded into quadrillions of tons of metal dust. This debris was whipped up by shrieking winds into thousands of tornadic vortices that bridged the ground and the sky.
In this man-made cataclysm, 99% of the monsters within this mechanical world, a level larger than the surface of the sun, were annihilated, dropping countless items and equipment.
Standing at the center, Seraphine had no intention of collecting these things.
For her, levels, skills, and equipment had become utterly meaningless.
Glancing at the surrounding chaos, Seraphine had no plans to fight her way through the levels to reach the Boss.
She instantly transformed into a colossal sphere of light filled with endless blade-qi and soared upward. She pierced through the thin air heavy with the scent of metallic dust, crossing millions of feet to brutally slam into the infinite metal firmament above.
BANG!!!
The sky roared as a vast, white-hot vacuum spanning thousands of miles exploded.
In the depths of this vacuum, millions of sparks flew, and thousands of molten streams dripped down.
SCREECH! HISS!!
The horrific, sharp sound of friction lasted only a fraction of a second before that super-alloy "firmament," dozens of kilometers thick, was forcibly bored through. Seraphine carved a long, narrow tunnel glowing with bluish-white flames and high-temperature plasma.
With that, she successfully reached the metal continent of the level above.
She did not stop. She ignored the mobs and the scenery, and she killed nothing. Seraphine simply rocketed upward again, once more becoming a sphere of blade-qi to violently strike the infinite metal "firmament" of the next level.
BOOM!!
SCREECH!!!
The sharp, piercing sound of friction rose again.
In a fleeting moment, another layer of super-alloy firmament, hundreds of kilometers thick, was forcibly breached.
In the time that followed, layer after layer of increasingly thick metal skies were ruthlessly pierced by Seraphine as she drew closer to the highest level of this massive instance.
After continuously tunneling through exactly 1,000 levels, she finally reached the summit of the [Mechanical Sanctuary];
A dark silver continent, spanning eight million kilometers in diameter, with its walls and sky encased in thick metal.
At the very center of this dark silver land was a blazing, misty stellar embryo, confined within layers of concentric rings.
Its gaseous surface was covered by tens of millions of carved mechanical structures, each as vast as the Eurasian continent.
On the outer faces of these devices, countless mechanical arms and long-barreled cannons of various shapes were mounted.
At that moment, tens of thousands of high-level Thunderbolt players were gathered on this dark silver continent. Clad in top-tier gear or piloting super mechs, they followed complex tactical patterns, launching a fierce assault on a Celestial-Class mechanical giant. This Boss, half-grown out of the stellar embryo, was the focus of their siege.
At the edge of this vast battlefield,
"Is this the Mecha-God?"
Indifferently evaluating the instance Boss, which looked somewhat like the Quintessons from Transformers, Seraphine stood at the periphery of the metal continent and chuckled. "This Dimensional Artist really loves plagiarism, always using elements from human culture for their creations."
Suddenly, a Thunderbolt player named 『Thunderbolt → Mythic Human-Human Fruit Father Form』, piloting a massive six-winged three-headed dragon mech, spotted Seraphine through his long-range skill. He recognized her instantly.
"Holy crap! No way!"
Inside his cockpit, he began to stammer in terror.
Face pale with shock, he urgently shouted over the team channel: "Brothers, look at me! I have an announcement! That monster, 『Great Demon King Seraphine』, is here to hijack the instance!"
The Thunderbolt leadership on-site: "??!!!"
『Thunderbolt → Magnificent Presence』 (Guild Leader): "Do not engage! Absolutely do not attack!"
『Thunderbolt → Invincible Little Lever-Star』: "What? Don't attack? We just let her take it? We've spent so much time, energy, and resources..."
『Thunderbolt → Brave Brave My Friend』: "What else can we do? This person is using cheats; who can fight her? Why don't you go then?"
『Thunderbolt → Invincible Little Lever-Star』: "I..."
『Thunderbolt → Never Signs IOUs』: "Our ten thousand members can't compare to the Royal guild. If we piss her off and she starts a guild war, Thunderbolt is finished!"
『Thunderbolt → Peeled Shrimp Champion』: "This is ridiculous! Why won't the devs do something about this?!"
『Thunderbolt → Is Buddha Coming』: "The forums said it already, there are so many bugs and the devs don't care. They probably pulled their funding and just left an AI to run things."
While the team channel erupted in shouting, complaining, and bickering, 『Thunderbolt → Magnificent Presence』 (Guild Leader) spoke again:
"Fine. We're withdrawing from the instance."
『Thunderbolt → Invincible Little Lever-Star』: "Ugh, this is so frustrating."
『Thunderbolt → Brave Brave My Friend』: "He told you to withdraw, so just do it. Why all the talk?"
『Thunderbolt → Magnificent Presence』 (Guild Leader): "Enough arguing. On the count of three, everyone withdraws together."
『Thunderbolt → Magnificent Presence』 (Guild Leader): "1... 2... 3, withdraw!"
In the next moment, every Thunderbolt player on the scene flared with light and vanished from the instance, leaving Seraphine standing alone.
She blinked, scanning her surroundings. "I was just getting ready to move... why did these people run away so fast?"
Millions of kilometers away, the instance Boss, Mecha-God, embedded within the scorching stellar embryo, didn't hesitate. It immediately switched targets, locking its massive crimson eye onto Seraphine.
CRACK!!!
Instantly, a torrent of laser energy over a thousand miles wide, powerful enough to pierce Jupiter, erupted from the heavy cannon in Mecha-God's chest, hurtling toward Seraphine's position.
She responded by swinging her blade, unleashing several streaks of [Ruthless Blade Qi]. They converged into a stream of pure white brilliance, meeting the incoming laser head-on.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The million-kilometer-long crimson laser torrent was effortlessly sliced through by the white river of blade-qi, which plunged directly into Mecha-God's chest cannon.
Like a cosmic collapse, the Mecha-God, the massive stellar embryo beneath it, and the countless megastructures surrounding it all glowed white-hot and exploded simultaneously.
BOOM!!!
In a flash, the entire dark silver continent was filled with an ocean of infinite, blazing light. Every bit of matter within was instantly incinerated into millions of surging torrents of ultra-high-temperature plasma.
WHOOSH...
Amidst the heat and chaos, Seraphine retrieved a shimmering silver, brain-shaped mechanical component, the Mecha-God Core. Then, radiating endless blade-qi, she brutally slammed into the alloyed walls surrounding the dark silver land.
SCREECH! HISS!!
Amidst a deafening, sharp screech of friction, Seraphine, shrouded in her Blade Domain, pierced through the star-thick walls and the "indestructible" instance barrier, flying out into the vast Purple-Blue Nebula.
SWOOSH...
Without a second glance at the retreating fleet in the distance, she opened a Magic Portal and stepped through.
Next target: [Primal Abyss].
...
Deep in space, a supermassive black hole stood silent. Surrounding it was a colossal, glowing accretion disk. This disk, composed of septillions of tons of high-temperature matter, was as vast as a sea of light, stretching endlessly into the dark void.
Strangely, both above and below the surface of the disk lay massive clouds of black mist, measurable only in astronomical units. As these clouds collided and layered, they generated friction that unleashed billions of bolts of brilliant lightning, each thicker than the diameter of the old Earth, striking out in all directions.
Beneath the flashes of those billions of lightning bolts sat a gargantuan black vortex, over ten billion kilometers in diameter, shrouding the extremely dangerous black hole within.
WHOOSH...
This immense black vortex was grand and majestic, its heaving edges licking the event horizon like flickering flames. Within the vortex, millions of violent, surging currents chased one another, spiraling rapidly around the central black hole.
Tumbled within these black rivers were various massive, glowing geometric structures. Blazing, blinding jets erupted from the center of the vortex, piercing straight into the depths of the universe.
The [Primal Abyss], one of the three Supreme Instances of the Brilliant Games, was located within this massive vortex.
SWOOSH...
At that moment, a tiny point of light suddenly surged out from the dark space beyond the accretion disk.
Once this speck of light, shimmering with brilliant radiance and a sharp aura, appeared, it warped space-time, traveling at thousands of times the speed of light. In just over half a minute, it reached the massive vortex and plunged straight down into it.
Ten minutes later, over ten thousand top-tier mechs of various shapes and sizes scrambled out of the dark vortex. They hovered for a brief moment until a large interstellar ship performed a jump to their location. Without a second's delay, the mechs boarded the ship, which jumped again and vanished.
Less than two minutes later, the original tiny speck of light also emerged from the dark vortex, hurtling back toward the dark void beyond the accretion disk.
SWOOSH...
Bathed in starlight, the Blade Domain surrounding her rapidly dissipated. Seraphine gazed at the glowing crimson octahedron in her hand, murmuring softly:
"I have the Mecha-God Core and the Divine Spark of All Evil. Now I'm only missing the last one: the Emperor's Head."
Indeed, the tiny point of light that had plunged into the dark vortex was Seraphine. In less than two minutes, she had completely torn through the Primal Abyss, which possessed a haunting, 4D labyrinth-like style.
The players who had just fled were from another gaming guild. They were as sensible as the Thunderbolt guild; the second they saw Seraphine, they abandoned the instance and decisively retreated.
It was pure, absolute terror.
This was understandable, though. The interests and profits of a large guild were far too vast to be sacrificed for something as trivial as "face." Since Seraphine had annihilated the Royal guild, not a single organization in this universe-sized server dared to stand against her.