As a high-tier criminal syndicate boss specializing in fraud, narcotics, underground casinos, money laundering, counterfeit Spirit Crystals, predatory lending, and illicit arms trafficking, leaving mountains of String race corpses in his wake and despised to the marrow by countless victims, Heavenly Hegemon.
Naturally held a prime spot on the String race Security Department's Most Wanted list.
Yet how had he lived in luxury for so many years, smoothly running his operations and lounging in leisurely peace, without federal strike teams kicking down his door, slamming him into the dirt, and dragging him to court for execution?
Was Heavenly Hegemon so overwhelmingly dominant that he could openly flip off the String race's entire Security Department?
Obviously not.
If he were truly that untouchable, he wouldn't have spent eons hiding in this Non-Static Global-Inflation 3D universe, terrified of returning to 6D space.
The answer was brutally simple.
Heavenly Hegemon thrived solely because he possessed an ironclad 'protective umbrella.'
And the patron pocketing Heavenly Hegemon's regular 'tributes' happened to be a String Sovereign-tier executive within the String race's own Security Department.
That's right, reality is often that satirical, his ultimate umbrella was the direct superior of the very field agents tasked with hunting him down.
Seraphine gleaned from Heavenly Hegemon's memory archives that this patron, named [Kakimi], had spent centuries in Branch 1024 of the String Race Central Security Directorate, wielding executive power over high-dimensional weapons R&D while concurrently overseeing and auditing all budget allocations for the department.
Generally speaking, weapons designers are never strapped for cash, especially when developing bottomless money pits like dimensional armaments.
Any fabricated excuse could secure massive budget influxes.
What was even more absurd was that the department's entire treasury was managed personally by Kakimi.
And the subsequent audit verifying that spending was also conducted personally by Kakimi.
What a legendary racket.
Approving his own funding, then auditing his own spending.
"Is this a joke? Nobody ever audited this?"
Even Seraphine was left speechless. "Is the String race's internal oversight really this completely broken?"
She also noted that Kakimi, who had embezzled enough public funds to drown in luxury, held another heavyweight title.
Namely, a senior chief of staff to a String God-tier senator in the String race Lower House.
According to Heavenly Hegemon's memories, the supreme governing apparatus overseeing the near-infinite populace of the String race Civilization consisted of three distinct branches:
The Lower House, the Upper House, and the Elder Council.
The Upper House holds the authority to draft and interpret all governmental policies, comprising one Googol senators, all held by String Ancestors.
The Lower House holds the authority to amend and execute those policies, comprising 10^10^38 senators, all held by String Gods.
The Elder Council possesses absolute veto power and the authority to unilaterally institute any policy, comprising seven Supreme Elders, all held by Eternal Strings.
The names of these seven Supreme Elders, or rather, the seven Eternal Strings, were explicitly recorded in Heavenly Hegemon's memory banks:
Namely: Aoi, Gollaots, Jayou, Novara, Dionian, Hertzsprung, and Vivflanslun.
Yet regarding concrete intelligence on these seven Eternal Strings, Heavenly Hegemon only knew their names.
Deeper intel was reduced to vague fragments, such as Aoi perceiving all with a single glance, Jayou being imperishable and harmless, Hertzsprung holding the highest scale, and Vivflanslun commanding the absolute apex combat power.
Beyond these rumors, the rest remained completely shrouded in darkness.
"Only... seven Eternal Strings?"
Seraphine's gaze turned profound. "Even fewer than I originally estimated. I figured there would be thousands, or at least several hundred."
Indeed, she had previously assumed that the apex overlords of the String race, those Eternal Strings, numbered anywhere from a thousand to ten thousand.
To that end, Seraphine had mentally prepared herself for a protracted war of attrition down the line.
She never imagined the String race's roster of Eternal Strings... stood at a mere seven.
Why were there so few?
Was ascending to Eternal String truly that insurmountable?
Regarding Seraphine's doubts, Heavenly Hegemon's memory banks offered a vague explanation.
It appeared that... the String race, despite seeming ancient beyond comprehension, was remarkably young and green when contrasted against the truly primordial 6D civilizations inhabiting ancient Swarms.
According to unverified intelligence across infinite Swarms, the Eternal-tier rosters of genuinely ancient races could eclipse the String race by thousands, millions, or even trillions of times over.
For instance, Heavenly Hegemon's archives noted the [Geleton Swarm], a strategic ally of the String Swarm that was unimaginably older.
Countless 10^10^38 epochs ago, an Eternal-tier dignitary named [Monstrolf] from that Swarm arrived on a diplomatic envoy to the String Swarm, holding an amicable summit with the String race's seven Eternals.
In his archived remarks, he openly praised the String race as a vibrant, 'youthful' civilization brimming with raw potential, voicing massive confidence in their future while casually mentioning that his own civilization boasted... one million Eternal-tier existences.
That single number triggered massive shockwaves throughout the String race at the time.
One million Eternal-tier entities... Mobilizing even 1% of that force would be overkill to annihilate the entire String race, so why bother opening diplomatic channels with them in the first place? What was the point?
Heavenly Hegemon didn't know the answer.
Or rather, for someone of his social standing, knowing even this much was already punching well above his weight class.
However, he had once caught wind of an underground rumor.
Namely, the primary reason the Geleton Swarm established diplomatic ties with the String Swarm was tied directly to Vivflanslun, the undisputed pinnacle of the String race's combat power.
"Vivflanslun... the apex combatant."
Seraphine pondered with sharp focus, "Just how terrifying... is that monster?"
Filtering through the fragmented noise of these memories,
Seraphine realized that Kakimi, beyond having a direct line to a Lower House senator, was also on tight personal terms with several String race military generals and senior executives within the Central Technology Development Bureau.
Within specific corridors of the String race's governing apparatus, his connections reached the heavens, allowing him to pull strings across every major department.
Naturally, when it came to such sensitive dirty laundry, Kakimi would never lay his cards out for Heavenly Hegemon.
After all, while the latter could play god across infinite lower-dimensional space-times, in Kakimi's eyes, he was merely one among septillions of disposable 'black gloves', a fragile lackey who would disintegrate at the first sign of a real storm.
This classified intelligence was painstakingly assembled by Heavenly Hegemon over countless epochs by burning fortunes on discreet inquiries.
Moreover, after piecing all the puzzle pieces together, Heavenly Hegemon had deduced roughly how much dirty wealth his patron, that senior official Kakimi, had stashed away across the eras.
His total net worth likely hovered around tens of duodecillions of Spirit Crystal units.
Keep in mind that Heavenly Hegemon's entire liquid empire combined was roughly 1,000 Spirit Crystal units.
Namely, 10^1000 Spirit Crystals.
Yet Kakimi's colossal hoard of tens of duodecillions of Spirit Crystal units, converted into standard exponential notation.
Amounted to 10^10^40 Spirit Crystals.
A mountain of wealth Heavenly Hegemon couldn't even dare to fathom in his wildest dreams.
If a stray drop of grease slipped through the bureaucrat's fingers, it would gorge the lackey to bursting.
Yet, it was the relentless hustle of scumbags like Heavenly Hegemon that built Kakimi's obscene empire in the first place.
Without endless armies of 'black gloves' running street-level rackets and 'white gloves' laundering the proceeds to monetize his bureaucratic authority, where would that mountain of capital come from?
The two were a textbook symbiotic racket, the parasite and the predator feeding off the same carcass.
The parasite borrowed the predator's fangs to intimidate, extort, and build a petty hoard.
The predator used his swarming parasites to cash in on rent-seeking schemes without ever dirtying his own hands.
"So..."
Seraphine mused, "Working through Kakimi, securing data on those one Googol landmarks should be relatively straightforward. After all, the dozens of landmarks Heavenly Hegemon already owned came straight from him."
As for whether Kakimi would willingly hand over such an astronomical cache of landmarks, that wasn't even a factor in her calculations.
To the current Seraphine, any entity wielding Divinity or Spirituality below the Greater tier was an insect that could be soul-enslaved with a single glance, not even worth a second thought.
Naturally, this wasn't a standard power accessible to every Greater Divinity.
This was the tyrannical, domineering privilege exclusive to the Sixth Realm of Cosmic Dawn.
Shifting her intent, she wove refined filaments of power to instantly materialize a radiant silhouette draped in a blood-red overcoat before her.
Concurrently, she fabricated out of thin air Materialized Spirituality possessing resonance frequencies identical to Heavenly Hegemon's.
Indeed, prioritizing caution, Seraphine had zero intention of stepping into 6D space in person.
Her plan was to deploy a counterfeit Heavenly Hegemon, a puppet tasked with carrying her will and directives into 6D space to make contact with Kakimi, seizing the window to take total control of the bureaucrat's mind.
"However, there are still a few causal footprints that need a clean cover-up."
Seraphine turned her head leisurely, her gaze piercing across several 10^56 light-years in an instant to lock onto Heavenly Hegemon, who was still struggling inside the crocodile's belly; with a casual intent, she triggered the Authority of Change:
"Transfer all traces of Heavenly Hegemon across every layer of the causal network onto this Hegemon puppet."
HUM!
In a flash, far away where Heavenly Hegemon was still howling in agony inside the beast's stomach, the countless metaphysical imprints he occupied across infinite causal networks vanished into nothingness, re-anchoring in that exact heartbeat onto the Hegemon puppet Seraphine had crafted. (For causal network settings, see Chap 136)
From this moment on, any causal divination or tracking targeting Heavenly Hegemon across infinite space-time would strictly route straight to this decoy vessel.
A person is fundamentally the sum of all their social relations.
Under Seraphine's direct intervention, every single one of Heavenly Hegemon's social footprints was ruthlessly wiped out, reducing him to a hollow, irrelevant husk.
With that finalized, Seraphine's Greater Divinity split off thirty-one Divinity projections, embedding them directly into the waking Hegemon puppet's Spirituality, before issuing a cold command:
"I am sending you to 6D space. Once there, crack open the gateway to the High-Level Realm of Phantasm and launch these Divinity projections into the Creeping Sea Channel."
Before launching a full-scale offensive across that one Googol Singularity Swarms, she intended to deploy a vanguard of projections to test the waters across various sectors, analyzing which strategy yielded the fastest, most efficient harvest of Source Rules.
Seraphine had drafted three distinct operational models: the first was a bottom-up solo run, spawning as a nobody, speedrunning her evolution to the Swarm's absolute apex, and dissecting its Source Rules from an omniscient bird's-eye view at the top.
This route was a pure 'solo carry' playstyle, but mechanically the most straightforward.
Given Seraphine's peerless potential, even if she started as an Amazonian ant, she would rapidly snowball into a cosmic titan capable of physically dismantling higher-dimensional empires.
The second method was playing the System Architect, mass-distributing tailored systems across a cluster, using a blend of rewards and lethal penalties to drive legions of hosts to scout and extract rules on her behalf.
This approach was far more comprehensive, though its scaling speed might drag significantly compared to the solo route.
After all, humans are a mixed bag; across countless system hosts, there was zero guarantee of elite talent, bound to result in hordes of useless deadweight.
The third method was engineering a Lord God / Divine Space framework, conscripting armies of Reincarnators to invade diverse space-times, deploying strategic mission directives to have these squads map out and extract rules for her.
This paradigm synthesized elements of the first two, but was far more structured, institutionalized, and aggressively militaristic.
Compared to individual systems, the survival mechanics of a Divine Space were infinitely more cutthroat, maximally squeezing out the subjects' primal drive to survive.
Fail the mission, and your existence gets wiped on the spot.
HUM!
Space-time rippled as the dim cosmic firmament fractured.
Under Seraphine's absolute will, a radiant gateway slicing cleanly across multiple dimensions crystallized out of thin air before the Hegemon puppet.
"Done."
She looked at the Hegemon puppet and commanded indifferently, "The gate is open. Step into 6D space."
"Understood, Master!" the puppet responded with absolute deference.
With that, the Hegemon puppet stepped through the radiant gate, leaving the 3D universe behind and ascending straight into the 6D space situated 'above' the infinite 5D space-times.
...
Meanwhile, deep within the String Swarm's High-Level Realm of Phantasm, Genarkrail and Coo were advancing at extreme speed.
Their destination was none other than the Desolate Ancient Swarm.
"Just how much longer until we hit that 'back-alley' shortcut of yours?"
Having journeyed across vast expanses, Coo was growing impatient. "My gut tells me Heavenly Hegemon is already roadkill. If we keep dragging our feet, we're gonna end up in the exact same ditch."
"Spineless coward."
Genarkrail glanced sideways with a scoff. "Didn't I lay it all out for you? Option one: burn serious credits at the official border checkpoints to take legitimate transit to another Swarm. But you have to stomach border security scanning your identity core. Your record's clean enough, but mine is filthy, one scan and they throw me in a black site for eternity."
Option two: pay pocket change to take the smuggler's corridor. The route's rougher and carries some hazards, but nobody scans your identity core.
I laid both options on the table. You were the cheap bastard who refused to pay and chose to tag along on the smuggling run. You made your choice, pretty boy..."
Trailing off, he abruptly halted, his tone flat: "Alright, looks like... we've arrived."
The moment Genarkrail finished speaking, the vast, misty void of the High-Level Realm of Phantasm across all directions convulsed violently.
RUMBLE!!
Amidst the violent tremors, a colossal torrent of radiant Chaos Calculation light, wide enough to swallow tens of millions of universes, with no discernible origin, no visible destination, and unmeasurable length, materialized out of nothingness from illusion into reality, blazing 10^27 light-years directly ahead of Genarkrail and Coo.
"Finally made it."
Watching that roaring, surging torrent of light erupt into the void 'nearby,' Genarkrail let out a sigh of relief. "Thank the stars. The manifestation cycle of this Creeping Sea 'back-alley' hasn't drifted much; otherwise, tracking it down would've been a total nightmare."
"What a massive river!"
Coo stared with wide eyes, muttering in disbelief, "A colossal river like this... is considered a mere back-alley shortcut?
Besides, if this Creeping Sea is shaped like a river, why the hell isn't it called a river?"
Gazing at the roaring, turbulent Creeping Sea tributary raging in the distance, Genarkrail casually explained, "Beyond [Substantial Reality] and [Nothingness], there exists a state suspended between the two, yet completely distinct from both... [The Indeterminate].
The 'domain' dividing infinite Swarms is a domain of [The Indeterminate]; and what embodies all [Indeterminacy] across existence is that which spans the tangible with the formless, bridges the real with the ethereal, and threads clarity through the void, weaving together like uncounted tangled vines, tendril linking tendril, current merging into current, to form... the boundless Creeping Sea."
"Eternal String above..."
Coo stared in genuine shock. "You're telling me those infinite Singularity Swarms are all 'submerged' inside... a colossal 'Ocean' formed from endless, tangled tendrils? How could the Creeping Sea be that mind-bogglingly huge?! That makes no damn sense!"
"Hell if I know."
Genarkrail shrugged. "Take it or leave it. That's what the Creeping Sea smugglers running the black-market routes claim."
"Unbelievable..."
Coo let out a breath. "So the endless tributaries coursing through the various tiers of the Realm of Phantasm inside the String Swarm... all bleed in from the boundless Creeping Sea outside?"
Clearly, the revelation hit Coo with massive force.
Stunned, his mind instinctively rendered a staggering cosmic canvas.
Within a mysterious Creeping Sea, strictly boundless and infinite in every sense of the word, drifted an actual infinity of Singularity Swarms, each Swarm structured across multiple dimensional planes, and each dimension harboring infinite cosmic space-times.
Concurrently, every single universe within these infinite realms, at every passing infinitesimal point in time, fractured and spawned an infinity of parallel universes.
Then, each of those infinite parallel universes crossed another infinitesimal temporal node, branching once more to birth yet another infinity of parallel universes.
Perpetual branching, unbroken for all eternity.
Consequently, the infinite Singularity Swarms scattered across boundless coordinates of the Creeping Sea exploded in scale by true infinite multiples with every infinitesimal tick of time, ballooning outward at an unfathomable velocity.
Yet between these infinitely multiplying, eternally inflating Singularity Swarms... an infinite 'distance' remained preserved at all times.
Truly... inconceivable.
"Infinite Swarms plus the boundless Creeping Sea..." Coo murmured, "...only together do they make up the entirety of true [Substantial Reality]."
CRASH!
A chaotic cacophony of surging currents resonated as violent waves shattered through the void.
10^27 light-years away, that violently churning Creeping Sea tributary finally began to settle.
Monitoring the river's conditions, Genarkrail broke into a grin and turned to Coo: "Alright, the waters have calmed down. Let's move."
With that, he took the lead, traversing 10^27 light-years in a single stride and diving headfirst into that chaotic mega-river without looking back.
Seeing that the distant torrent had indeed stabilized, Coo didn't hesitate, bridging the vast distance in a single step to plunge into the Creeping Sea current.
SWOOSH!
The instant they breached the surface, Genarkrail and Coo felt as though they had plunged into an infinite cosmos of blinding radiance, swept up by tens of thousands of raging light currents, uncontrollably hurtling straight toward the abyssal depths of the Creeping Sea tributary.
SWOOSH!
During this hyper-accelerated freefall, countless vibrant, surreal vistas flashed incessantly across their perception.
Perhaps because the information payload carried by these kaleidoscopic sights was so overwhelming, both Genarkrail's and Coo's thoughts were scrambled into momentary chaos.
Right amidst this sensory overload, an ethereal voice pierced effortlessly through the turbulence, echoing directly within their consciousness:
"Genarkrail? Long time no see. Which Swarm are you headed to this time?"
HUM!
With the arrival of this ethereal voice, the blinding light currents swirling around the duo vanished as if alive, parting across the sea of light to clear an empty staging ground tens of millions of times larger than an observable universe.
Hovering serenely at the center of this colossal expanse was a serpentine entity a hundred million kilometers long, bearing three pairs of slender arms, armor-plated in countless platinum scales, and lined with radiant, iridescent plumage.
"Who's that?"
From behind, Coo eyed the platinum serpent and asked cautiously.
"A native entity from the Creeping Sea beyond the Swarms, a Realm Ferryman specializing in inter-realm transit,"
Genarkrail whispered a quick briefing. "Whether taking official channels or the smuggler's route, you have to go through them. The black-market run is just vastly cheaper, and nobody runs background checks."
"Ah, classic racket," Coo nodded knowingly. "Playing both sides to collect a double payout."
Genarkrail gave a silent nod of agreement.
Then, bridging a trillion light-years in a flash, he closed the distance to the platinum serpent.
He gave a respectful nod: "Honored Realm Ferryman Waka, trouble you once again. I'm bringing a partner on a run to the Desolate Ancient Swarm."
With that, he gestured to Coo, who had quickly caught up.
"Mm, I see."
The serpent named Waka cast a flat glance at Coo. "Standard protocol: two copies of the landmark data, sixty Spirit Crystal units per head."
"Wait, what?" Genarkrail blinked in disbelief. "Lord Waka... why the price hike? It was fifty units last time."
"Mm..." Waka nodded impassively. "No need to get into the weeds; that's the going rate."
In just two sentences, the transit fee effectively surged by ten billion times, without offering a shred of explanation.
"Sigh... fine." Genarkrail gave a resigned sigh, producing two radiant orbs, one large and one small, the landmark data and the Spirit Crystals.
Beside him, Coo followed suit, handing over his own pair of landmark data and Spirit Crystals.
HUM!
The void quivered faintly.
Securing the four light orbs, Waka nodded slowly:
"Very well. I shall 'craft your vessel' now. Stand by."
The platinum serpent raised all three pairs of slender arms toward the boundless ocean of Chaos Calculation light above, weaving an intricate, bizarre mudra before chanting in an obscure, otherworldly tongue, its voice ringing high and solemn:
"O God of the Creeping Sea,
Supreme and boundless,
Watcher over all realms and all souls.
You who bridge endless mortal realities,
Mother of all minds and all yearnings,
Severer of bitter sins and tribulations,
Fountainhead of all auspicious grace..."
As the long prayer echoed through the void, Genarkrail and Coo felt an unimaginably majestic yet faint force descend from nothingness, wrapping around them layer upon layer.
HUM!
Millions of radiant light filaments flared out, weaving tightly around them like crochet needles, sealing them within a dense cocoon.
As Waka continued the chant, the streams of light thickened rapidly, sealing Genarkrail and Coo inside a blazing hundred-meter-wide sphere of light.
Once the diffuse sphere of light solidified, Waka paused its chant and spoke flatly:
"My god's authority will deliver you to the Desolate Ancient Swarm. However, cross-Swarm transit severely destabilizes temporal and causal mechanics.
No one can predict how long you will spend inside the [Vessel's Time Slice] before reaching the Desolate Ancient Swarm.
To the outside world, it is a single instant. Inside the Divine Vessel, it could feel like ten thousand years or a million. Prepare yourselves."
With that, it resumed the incantation, applying layer upon layer of reinforcement coats onto the sphere of light.
Inside the sphere of light,
"Vessel's Time Slice?"
Coo asked Genarkrail in confusion, "What the hell is that?"
The latter explained casually: "This orb is a trans-oceanic Divine Vessel crafted through the authority of the God of the Creeping Sea, allowing Finite Count beings to cross an Infinitely Large distance in an instant.
However, the vessel's internal timeline is completely decoupled from the outside world. Once we launch, how much subjective time we experience inside is entirely up in the air.
At minimum, around ten thousand years; at maximum, usually no more than a trillion years. It always falls somewhere in that range.
Official channels use complex stabilization arrays and high-end dampeners to bypass this temporal drag, making the subjective ride feel instantaneous. On a smuggling run, we don't get that luxury."
"Ah, so that's the catch," Coo nodded in understanding. "And what about the hazards you brought up earlier?"
"Uh..." Genarkrail hesitated before continuing, "Since we're on the black-market route, this vessel is bottom-of-the-barrel tier. Zero radar, zero defensive shielding. If we run into anything out there, we have to raw-dog it ourselves."
"Run into what? What kind of things?" Coo's gut tightened with unease. "The way you're phrasing this is giving me a really bad feeling."
"Well..." Genarkrail added, "There's an astronomically low chance we cross paths with [Malignant Info-Beasts], low-intellect, high-dimensional predators mostly birthed inside apex Evil Gods like the [Gate of Filth]."
"The Gate of Filth?!"
Coo's eyes nearly popped out of his skull. "I heard that thing's full body is 10^100 times larger than a Non-Static Global-Inflation universe expanding for 10^100 years! Rumor has it that monster can go toe-to-toe with an Eternal String! How the hell... is it mixed up with smuggling routes?!"
"Ahem, that's just the reality of the crossing."
Genarkrail gave a dry laugh. "Relax. We're practically guaranteed never to cross paths with the main body; there's only an infinitesimal chance of bumping into its Familia, the [Malignant Info-Beasts].
Their attack potency is trash, but their swarm density is absurd. They never travel alone.
Trading blows with them exposes you to backlashes of the [Malignant Info-Torrent]. Soak that mental barrage for too long, and your brain turns to mush, shattering your Spirituality until you corrupt into another [Malignant Info-Beast], colloquially known as 'getting cream-filled'..."
"Ugh... is it too late for a refund?" Coo buried his face in his hands, full of regret. "Why the hell didn't you lead with that?"
Genarkrail shrugged. "You never asked. Chill out, we're not that unlucky. I've run this corridor dozens of times and never once hit a swarm."
Right at that moment, Waka finally wrapped up the incantation.
The cocoon of light enveloping the duo stretched and condensed into a thousand-meter-long vessel that looked decidedly crude and half-assed.
HUM!
Ripples tore through space-time as the trans-oceanic Divine Vessel powered on. Under Waka's blank stare, it vanished down the Creeping Sea tributary, shooting straight into the uncharted void.
Meanwhile, Realm Ferryman Waka stood still as a monolith, lingering in the quiet depths, waiting for the next batch of potential 'clients.'