10^3003...
That represents a 1 followed by exactly 3,003 zeros.
This number is so massive it borders on the surreal.
In comparison, even the so-called Googol is practically zero.
What shocks Seraphine even more is that this is merely the String Emperor stage. To think that in a single Eka-citta, one can fully control, warp, destroy, and reshape 10^3003 Static 3D Great Boundaries with such terrifying power.
And there are still several stages above the String Emperor level.
This surge in magnitude isn't just about breadth, the sheer number of space-times, as it also manifests in strength and precision.
Strength determines the scale of the effect, while precision determines the depth of penetration.
To a String Emperor, a King String's power is likely more porous and full of holes than a gentle breeze, much, much more so.
Furthermore, the destruction wrought by a String Emperor isn't just about wiping out matter or energy. It obliterates the massive 3D space-time of vacuum zero-point energy, which, even within a space the size of a single proton, contains energy equivalent to the total matter of the observable universe.
Keep in mind that those static Great Boundaries are real cosmic space-times, with diameters reaching 10^132 light-years, containing a Matter Sea of 10^252 observable universes, each with an average mass of hundreds of trillions or even tens of quintillions.
Truly... simply terrifying.
Compared to the 9th stage King String, the 10th stage String Emperor represents a cliff-like leap in power. To a String Emperor, there is effectively no difference between a King String and the weakest Zero String.
In fact, the gap between the King String and String Emperor tiers is even more massive than the distance between a common mortal and a 6D King String.
In a String Emperor's eyes, 100 octillion King Strings or a cluster of paramecia on Old Earth are identical, trash to be annihilated in a single Eka-citta.
Above the absurdly powerful 6D String Emperor, there are three more tiers: String Sovereign, String God, and String Ancestor. Seraphine senses that the gap between each of these final four tiers is just as astronomical, far exceeding the combined multiplier of all previous levels.
From Lavender's shattered memories, she discovered an even higher supreme existence above the String Ancestor: the Eternal String. Yet, just like the mystery of the String Sovereign's power, Lavender had no clue how strong an Eternal String truly is.
They are held as absolute, supreme deities within the String race civilization.
"Eternal String..."
Just seeing the term triggered a violent warning from Seraphine's Transcendental Perception, sending shockwaves through her sea of consciousness. It was as if merely acknowledging them invited a lethal threat.
It wasn't just danger, it was the certainty of instant death. Only the threat of immediate annihilation could cause such an extreme reaction from her Transcendental Perception.
Facing an Eternal String as an enemy now would mean a 100% chance of death.
"Will they truly... be that terrifying? Interesting." Seraphine's Eye of Transcendence gleamed. "If a String Emperor is already this powerful, what about a String Sovereign, a String God, or a String Ancestor? And the Eternal String that sits above them all, just how strong can it be?"
This was a question her Eye of True Revelation and Chaos Calculation couldn't yet solve.
She could only reach one vague conclusion: an Eternal String's power likely defies all conventional logic.
This raised a question in Seraphine's mind:
"If I complete my metamorphosis and undergo a long enough Self-Surge... could I face one of those so-called Eternal Strings head-on?"
After a moment of silent deduction, she still couldn't find a definitive answer.
"Fine."
Casting aside the clutter in her mind, Seraphine continued to sift through Lavender's shattered memories. After skimming through mundane recollections of life, education, work, combat, and debt collection, she stumbled upon something fascinating.
The "Space-Time Uniqueness" of the String race.
This property means that every individual in the String race, much like the unique 6D space they inhabit within the Swarm, possesses a trait similar to Seraphine's: the ability to remain "permanently unique" throughout the continuous shifts of time and space.
Simply put, they don't passively create infinite parallel-world variants due to the splitting of lower-dimensional timelines.
Space-time is infinite, yet they remain one of a kind.
"No wonder the String race holds such contempt for lower-dimensional beings. I think I get it now."
Seraphine realized the source of the intense disdain she'd sensed from Genarkrail, Coo, and Lavender toward 3D, 4D, and 5D life forms. It wasn't just a matter of power; it was about the uniqueness of their existence.
The 6D beings likely look down on everyone else because, outside of themselves, every other form of life in the infinite space-times, no matter how strong, unavoidably possesses endless parallel versions... like countless weeds.
Actually, infinitely more than weeds.
That's why they are so dismissive. The existence of infinite parallel variants effectively deconstructs the meaning of any lower-dimensional life.
Everything becomes a joke.
Think about it.
At any given moment in an intelligent being's life, the mechanism of time creates infinitely many identical parallel versions of them.
When infinitely many "thems" are identical in physical body, soul, memory, family, love, friendships, life experiences, and even root spirituality, who is the real "them"?
Who is the true subject?
The answer is brutal.
For lower-dimensional beings, there is no true subject.
It's a tragedy.
To the 6D String race, and to Seraphine, who also possesses Space-Time Uniqueness, life in the lower dimensions lacks subjectivity. No one is special; they are just common, ordinary lower-dimensional weeds.
For instance, if a heart-wrenching, tear-jerking tragedy of life and death plays out repeatedly before a high-dimensional immortal, would they be moved?
The first time, the immortal might feel benevolent and use their power to turn the tragedy into a happy ending. But what about the tenth time? The millionth? The quadrillionth?
Would they eventually grow bored? Would they want to see blood flow instead, killing everyone, regardless of whether they are good or bad, happy or sad?
The answer is subjective.
Regardless, in the eyes of the 6D String race, the countless civilizations and races of lower-dimensional space-time are seen exactly that way.
Whether benevolent or cruel, it makes no difference. Even if they kill a legendary good person in a lower-dimensional space-time, slaughter their family, blow up their planet, or even vaporize the entire Matter Sea and destroy that 3D Great Boundary, what does it matter?
There are infinitely many identical versions of that person still living perfectly fine. Destroy one universe, and there's always another parallel one to take its place.
There are infinitely many identical universes. You can never kill them all; you can never destroy them all.
Ultimately, reality is just that absurd and nihilistic.
To a 6D being, no matter how moving, glorious, or earth-shattering a lower-dimensional life may be, it is merely a mundane phenomenon that infinitely "replicates" itself every single second.
It is both clumsy and utterly meaningless.
Of course, this is just the String race's perspective. Compared to those "lofty" native 6D beings, Seraphine, a latecomer to the 6D stage, holds a slightly different attitude.
In many lower-dimensional cosmic civilizations, there is a common conclusion: that the essential meaning and greatest purpose of life is survival.
Seraphine isn't sure if this holds true. In fact, she leans toward it being false.
Logically, from a pair of contradictory premises, one can always deduce any number of propositions. Intelligent beings, or "humans" in the broader sense, love to convince themselves, and firmly believe, that their existence isn't a farce by citing the value and meaning of life.
In reality, inventing meanings for things has been a tireless obsession for countless civilizations and life forms since ancient times. They love to talk about purpose, essence, and the meaning of life, wrapping it all in grand, lofty rhetoric.
Ultimately, it all trickles down to those three ancient questions: "Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?"
If one wants to be superficial, the meaning of life can be anything, surviving, traveling the world, seeking truth, getting rich, chasing models or heartthrobs, or even hoping for a better reincarnation. You can use any of those reasons to get by.
But if you are searching for a true, a priori, absolute meaning, Seraphine believes it likely doesn't exist.
The fundamental meaning of a thing must be explained and defined by a higher entity. But that higher entity's meaning, in turn, must be explained by an even higher one.
This "path of explanation" has no end.
Nothing that exists within the constraints of logic can ever possess a supreme meaning.
Unless... that thing transcends the limits of logic and becomes a nearly omnipotent existence.
Ultimately, Seraphine believes that all life, including her own, the 6D String race, and the infinite space-times, likely possesses no meaning at all.
Everything is absurd and groundless.
This isn't nihilism, nor is it pessimism. It is precisely because Seraphine's spirit is strong enough that she can hold such a belief. She doesn't need some "meaning" to justify her actions.
In fact, she believes that any life form that needs a so-called meaning to keep moving forward is the one that is truly fragile.
...
As time drifted by, Seraphine's refinement and metamorphosis were nearing a successful conclusion.
There were less than three seconds left.
"Speaking of which, if the 6D String race holds such contempt for lower-dimensional space-time, why are they so obsessed with using lower-dimensional beings, specifically Earth's civilization, for all these bizarre experiments?"
Seraphine tilted her head slightly, murmuring in confusion. "Is it... just for fun?"
Indeed, in Lavender's shattered memories, she saw that his fellow String race members had conducted countless experiments across every lower-dimensional space-time.
There were experiments involving the transmigration of individual humans, and others involving thousands or even quadrillions of people.
There were large-scale simulations involving otherworldly invasions, system attachments, gamifying entire universes (Matter Seas), and supernatural awakenings.
The variety of experiments was staggering, numbering in the thousands.
Even Lavender himself had experimented on Earth's civilization in a certain space-time, running something called a "National Challenge."
Yet, in these memories, the motive behind why the 6D String race conducted these experiments was missing. Or rather, the memories regarding those motives happened to be the ones that were lost.
"Tch... only half the story," Seraphine muttered, annoyed. "That's a bit pointless..."
BUZZ!
Before her words faded, 2,500 presences, each as immense and vast as Lavender's, suddenly descended into this expansive Great Boundary. All of them were positioned exactly 100 octillion light-years away from Seraphine.
Immediately following, another five terrifying presences, each hundreds of quintillions of times stronger than Lavender and likely at the Ultimate String level, materialized in the cosmos surrounding Seraphine.
Under the crushing weight of these thousands of boundless auras, the infinite void across a radius of ten trillion tresvigintillion light-years ground to a complete standstill. Even the quantum vacuum ocean, which normally surges even at absolute zero, turned deathly silent, as if flash-frozen.
Pinned down by the overlapping suppression of thousands of 6D fields, Seraphine was as motionless as the frozen void around her.
"Seraphine!"
A thunderous voice suddenly erupted, shaking the entire 3D Great Boundary.
Countless civilizations across myriad Matter Seas looked to the heavens in mortal terror, desperately searching for the source of the sound.
They had no way of knowing that the source originated from beyond countless space-times.
This voice belonged to a terrifying high-dimensional life form, an entity capable of erasing their entire existence with a mere fraction of its power.
"Let me introduce myself. I am Heavenly Hegemon, the master of the Lavender you killed."
The thunderous voice rang out again, vibrating through Seraphine's colossal cosmic form like ripples on water.
"Earlier, my benevolence led to the death of my subordinate and allowed you to foolishly believe you had a chance to turn the tables. That ends now," Heavenly Hegemon spoke with arrogant authority.
"In exactly one second, your ascension and metamorphosis will conclude, will they not?
Are you wondering how I know? Hahaha, a soon-to-be corpse has no right to answers.
I'm telling you, Seraphine, I will not give you the chance to grow. From now on, my will dictates your fate and the basis of your existence.
In a few seconds, at the precise moment your transformation finishes, 2,500 Ancient Strings of your level and five Ultimate Strings, novemdecillion times stronger than you, will strike simultaneously.
And you will be utterly powerless to resist.
I want you to plunge into the abyss of despair at the very moment hope arrives! Hahahaha!"
The voice that shook the universal space-time ceased.
Simultaneously, Seraphine's metamorphosis reached its end.
At that very instant, as the thousands of String race experts poised across distant space-times prepared to strike "slowly," Seraphine remained calm and composed... and triggered the Authority of Change.
"Authority of Change: Erase one year of my own time."
BUZZ!
Everything, from the flow of energy and information to the smallest space-time fluctuations, instantly froze.
The thousands of vast, cold interference fields locking Seraphine down vanished into thin air.
Simultaneously, the 2,500 Ancient Strings and the five Ultimate Strings, novemdecillion times stronger than the former, who had stood poised throughout the void, vanished as if they had never existed.
Even more incredible, the infinite void around Seraphine, previously home to hundreds of quintillions of Matter Seas, fell silent, abruptly turning into a pure, empty expanse.
This sudden, deathly silence suggested that Seraphine had been completely abandoned by this universe's space-time.
Of course, the truth wasn't that simple.
Yet, following that line of thought wasn't entirely wrong either.
By erasing her own time, Seraphine had entered an empty space-time lasting three hundred and sixty-five days, where she alone existed in isolation.
This might be hard to grasp or imagine.
But from a higher perspective, beyond physical reality and above the River of Time, the phenomenon becomes clear.
One would see a thin, long stream of starlight emerge from a single point in the surging, eternal River of Time.
This shimmering stream curved like a slender white snake, soaring upward into the dark firmament before suddenly snapping back 180 degrees. Like an Ouroboros devouring its own tail, it plunged back down, merging into the exact spot on the river's surface from which it had first emerged.
Exactly so.
From an overall view, a spot on the surface of the vast, boundless River of Time looked as if a tiny, elongated crystal "coil" had been tightly attached to it. Pulled by an invisible force, it pressed flat against the river's surface, fluttering like a dandelion seed.
This slender "coil", emerging from the river and curving into two nearly parallel straight lines, was the micro-tributary of time created after Seraphine erased her own. It existed for her alone.
The total length of this micro-tributary was exactly one year.
Its starting point was the very instant she used the Authority of Change to erase a year.
Its endpoint was also that exact same instant.
Beginning and end existed in the same moment.
Essentially, that segment of time Seraphine erased, or rather, the tributary pulled from the true River of Time and bent back upon itself, stood in relation to real time like a Y-axis perpendicular to an X-axis.
The flow of real time (the X-axis) remained unchanged; only Seraphine's own time (the Y-axis) underwent a massive shift.
She alone entered a "lost" timeline that lasted one year, a state neither truly real nor false.
After that year passes, this short branch of time might vanish into nothingness, or it might remain embedded forever in the surface of the River of Time.
Seraphine wasn't sure what the outcome would be.
She only knew that she had to remain in this void, this silent space-time, for a full year before she could return to real time.
Of course, that didn't matter.
With Seraphine's defiant spirit and supreme patience, let alone one year, what would waiting for a Googol of years even matter?
She treated it as ordinary.
At the same time, this isolation in a phantom space-time suddenly reminded Seraphine of a work she'd seen in her previous life titled " 5-Oku-Nen Button ".
In that work, with its explosively ugly art style, a lazy protagonist finds a mysterious button and a manual.
According to the manual, a simple press would grant him 1 million yen instantly.
However, the moment he received the money, he would be transported to an infinitely vast, empty phantom space.
Under the conditions of not needing food or sleep, being unable to age, die, faint, or commit suicide, he would remain perfectly conscious there for exactly 500 million years.
Meanwhile, time in the outside world would remain absolutely still.
After the 500 million years, his memories of the void would be wiped, he would return to reality, and receive the 1 million yen.
In the story, the protagonist recklessly pressed the button and was instantly transported to that void.
After the initial shock, he spent some time in a daze before frantically searching for an exit.
After running for three full days and nights, he realized the truth: there was no escape. He was truly stuck for 500 million years.
Following months of madness, regret, and longing, he began inventing games to kill time, playing Rock-Paper-Scissors against himself, word-chains, or even pulling out his own teeth to throw and fetch them back.
He cycled through endless games out of desperation.
After a year of mind-numbing boredom, he began hallucinating a beautiful girl to play various erotic games with.
He entertained himself this way for 40 years before becoming utterly disgusted.
His body and appearance remained unchanged, but after suffering for 40 years, he no longer wanted to do anything but endlessly regret his foolish decision.
The seemingly eternal time ahead filled him with pain and despair.
He spent a hundred years wallowing in regret and staring blankly into space. After a slow calculation of the time, he sank deeper into his despair and resumed his daze.
For the next 12,000 years, he gradually stopped thinking. Like the frozen Kars, he lay motionless on the ground, a deathly silence surrounding him.
However, the mechanism of that mysterious button ensured that even if he didn't think, he could still clearly feel every second drifting slowly away.
There was nothing but despair.
Another five million years passed, and the protagonist's mind began to churn with philosophical questions about the world, fate, and reality.
Driven by these questions, he began a long, deep journey of philosophical contemplation.
He used his teeth as a pen to write, thinking and carving without a second's pause.
On his path to truth, after countless failures, he reached enlightenment and summarized a vast amount of scientific knowledge.
After 20 million years, 50 million years, and finally 100 million years, the protagonist suddenly comprehended the truths of the universe.
By the 376 millionth year, after a magnificent enlightenment, he merged with the phantom space, becoming a god-like super-being.
Finally, at the 500 millionth year, the protagonist's memories were entirely wiped. He was cast down from godhood to a mere mortal and returned to the real world.
Back in reality, he was dazed for a moment. Having completely forgotten everything from the phantom space, he simply rejoiced over the stack of cash in his hand.
Immediately after, the unlucky fool grabbed the button and pressed it sixteen times in a row, beginning a grueling journey of eight billion years of suffering.
Essentially, the situation Seraphine faced after erasing her own time was much like that of the protagonist in that short work. She was alone in a vast, empty void.
But unlike that suffering, ugly protagonist, Seraphine enjoyed every second spent in the phantom space. Because with every passing moment, her strength grew.
One hour, three hours, five, ten... the time ticked slowly by.
Soon, a full day had vanished.
The diameter of Seraphine's interference field skyrocketed from 10^62 light-years to 10^158 light-years.
It wasn't just a simple expansion of breadth.
Her precision and strength magnitudes also surged by ninety-six orders of magnitude, reaching a terrifying level.
Since the diameter of a Static 3D Great Boundary is 10^132 light-years, 10^26 times smaller than Seraphine's current field, after one day of Self-Surge, her interference field could now control approximately 10^78 such cosmic space-times. (The cube of the ratio of the diameters of two 3D spheres equals the ratio of their volumes.)
This meant that in a single Eka-citta, Seraphine could traverse boundless space-times via hundreds of quintillions of quantum foam clusters or Real Number Channels. In less than a Planck second, she could warp, reshape, destroy, or annihilate 10^78 static 3D universes, each 10^132 light-years in diameter and containing 10^252 Matter Seas of various sizes.
At this point, she could finally, modestly, pose as a so-called Multiversal-level expert.
In addition, through the effects of Self-Surge, Seraphine's Physical Strength and Soul attributes ballooned from 10^85 to as many as 10^181 Matter Seas.
Although after becoming a true 6D spatial lifeform, the core of her Interference Force no longer strictly required attributes for support.
The sheer energy density of her multi-dimensional form was enough to project boundless power into the external world.
This energy constituted the primary component of Seraphine's 6D interference field intensity.
Still, she wouldn't turn down extra power; a king never refuses more territory.
But then...
Exactly twenty-four hours into her Self-Surge, the [Infinite Attributes] system, which shouldn't have been active, suddenly kicked into gear.
"Huh? What's happening?!"
Seraphine was stunned, but her reflexes were sharp. She immediately channeled the Authority of Change to force a connection with the attribute system.
BUZZ!
The system interface shook far more violently than ever before.
Seeing the frantic vibration of the interface, Seraphine mused: "Hmm... I think I see why. It must be that after my Root Divinity reached its supreme stage, the power of the Authority of Change spiked.
This likely scrambled the system's external time detection. Within this 'lost' time branch, neither real nor fake, the system now recognized that I'd experienced a full day synchronized with the real world.
But... even if the system was tricked, I'd already spent several hours before entering this branch. Why did it still take a full twenty-four hours to trigger the attribute doubling?"
Amidst her confusion, the system's attribute surge finally concluded.
The values on the system interface stabilized, and Seraphine began to piece together the reason for the system's strange behavior.
It was simple: the [Infinite Attributes] system's time-detection mechanism had been completely scrambled by the evolved Authority of Change. Upon entering the "lost" timeline, the system's internal clock had likely been forcibly reset.
Consequently, the system's importance in Seraphine's eyes plummeted once again.
"Tch, truly useless," Seraphine shook her head with a laugh. "I thought you'd hold out until a much later stage before I could break you. I didn't expect... I'd accidentally breach your defenses this time."
As she spoke, she glanced at the attribute interface.
It displayed:
[Host: Seraphine]
[Physical Strength: 10^281 Matter Sea]
[Soul: 10^281 Matter Sea]
This value indicated that under the influence of the Authority of Change, Seraphine's attributes had skyrocketed by exactly one Googol orders of magnitude.
At this point, Seraphine's Physical Strength and the physical power within her Soul had completely surpassed the entire static 3D universe, by unknown millions of times.
Based on Seraphine's calculations from hundreds of quintillions of Matter Seas, the average mass of a Matter Sea in this Static 3D Great Boundary was roughly tens of quadrillions of observable universes.
Logically, the total mass of the Verdant Ancient Matter Sea was roughly 100 million times lower than the average mass of all the Matter Seas (10^252) in this entire 3D Great Boundary. It was like a cripple or a premature infant.
Overall, the total mass of all Matter Seas within Seraphine's 3D Great Boundary was approximately equal to 10^260 Verdant Ancient Matter Seas.
Therefore, after the Self-Surge and the system boost, Seraphine's Physical Strength and Soul attributes could be converted into 10^21 Static 3D Great Boundaries.
As she finished her calculations, the data on the system interface quickly updated.
It now read:
[Host: Seraphine]
[Physical Strength: 10^21 Great Boundary]
[Soul: 10^21 Great Boundary]