Chapter 32: The Child Who Drank the Galaxy
Location: Deep Space – The Ruins of the Iron Star
The universe was quiet. It was the terrified silence of a jungle after a predator has roared.
Jiang Chen floated in the void, his new EX-Rank body radiating a soft, pearlescent glow. The wreckage of the Dyson Sphere drifted around him like metallic snow. He had just crushed a solar system with a thought, but he didn't feel exhaustion. He felt... incomplete.
He looked at his hands. The Grandmist, the Dragon, and the Phoenix were perfectly fused. He had reached the absolute peak of the Mortal Realm.
[Rank: EX (Sovereign)]
[Status: The Limit of the Material Plane.]
"Is this it?" Jiang Chen whispered. "Is this the ceiling?"
DING.
A sound echoed in his soul. It wasn't the usual System notification. It was a deeper, older chime—the sound of the Second System awakening. The same system that had summoned Mo You and Feng Xi at the very beginning of his journey.
[System Reboot Complete.]
[Condition Met: Host has conquered the Mortal Realm.]
[Reward: The Final Summoning.]
A rift opened in front of him.
Jiang Chen braced himself. He expected a Weapon of Mass Destruction. Or perhaps an Ancient God Beast to serve as a mount.
Instead, a small object floated out of the rift.
It was an egg.
It was completely unremarkable. It was the size of an ostrich egg, pure white, with a texture like matte chalk. It had no mana fluctuations. It felt... empty.
"An egg?" Feng Xi's voice came over the comms. She was peering through the viewport of the Void Piercer. "Is it breakfast?"
"No," Jiang Chen reached out and caught the egg.
The moment his skin touched the shell, a description flooded his mind.
[Item: The Primordial Origin Egg]
[Grade: Transcendent (Beyond System Classification)]
[Description: The Blank Slate of the Universe. This egg contains no DNA, no soul, and no destiny. It is the clay from which a Creator God is made.]
[Hatching Requirement: The Blood Essence of the Sovereign Trinity.]
[Warning: The Embryo will inherit the exact traits of the donors. Choose wisely.]
Jiang Chen's breath hitched.
It wasn't a pet. It was a vessel.
"Mo You. Feng Xi. Get out here," Jiang Chen commanded, his voice trembling slightly.
"What is it, Husband?" Mo You teleported next to him, her eyes scanning for threats.
"It's... the future," Jiang Chen held out the white egg. "It needs us. All three of us."
He explained the description.
Mo You stared at the egg. Her cold, abyssal eyes softened for the first time in history. "A child? Of our blood?"
Feng Xi flew over, her wings retracting. "A baby? A real baby? Not a summon?"
"A real one," Jiang Chen said. "But we have to make him."
The Ritual of Three Bloods
They floated in a triangle around the white egg.
"Ready?" Jiang Chen asked.
"Always," Mo You slit her palm with her nail.
"Ready!" Feng Xi bit her finger.
Jiang Chen summoned Nightfall and made a small cut on his hand.
Three drops of blood floated toward the egg.
* The Black Drop: Heavy, cold, containing the essence of the Abyssal Dragon and the concept of End.
* The Gold Drop: Blindingly bright, hot, containing the essence of the Solar Phoenix and the concept of Life.
* The Purple Drop: The Grandmist. The Sovereign. The concept of Order.
The three drops touched the white shell simultaneously.
ZZZT.
The shell didn't crack. It turned transparent.
Inside, a tiny spark ignited.
Then, the hunger began.
[Alert: Embryo Formed.]
[Alert: Energy Required for Gestation.]
[Source: Ambient Universe.]
The egg began to spin.
At first, it was a gentle tug. The loose mana from the destroyed Dyson Sphere was sucked in.
Then, the tug became a pull. The solar radiation from the nearby blue star was bent, flowing into the egg like water into a drain.
"It's hungry," Feng Xi noted nervously. "Really hungry."
"It's not stopping," Mo You took a step back. "Husband, the gravity... it's increasing."
The pull became a Devour.
WHOOSH.
The egg turned into a vortex.
[Energy Drain: 1%.]
The star system they were in went dark. The blue sun was extinguished instantly, its mass consumed by the egg.
[Energy Drain: 5%.]
The shockwave of suction traveled faster than light.
In the Andromeda Market, millions of light-years away, the golden lights of Oasis-4 flickered and died. Ships dropped out of warp as the mana in the fabric of space vanished.
[Energy Drain: 20%.]
On Terra Nova, the defense shields failed. Tiny the Behemoth looked up at the sky and howled as the constellations blinked out one by one.
[Energy Drain: 40%.]
The Galaxy itself began to dim. The spiral arms of the Milky Way grew faint. Nebulas that had burned for aeons were sucked dry.
The Void Lords at the Galactic Core screamed in confusion. Their food source—the ambient energy of the universe—was being stolen right out from under their noses.
"WHO... DARES... DRINK... THE STARS?"
Jiang Chen watched in horror and awe. The egg was vibrating violently. It had consumed nearly 50% of the Galaxy's total energy reserves.
"That's enough!" Jiang Chen shouted, placing his hands on the egg to stabilize it. "You're going to starve the universe before you're even born!"
He poured his own EX-Rank Grandmist energy into it to cap off the feeding.
The egg flashed blinding white.
CRACK.
The sound was louder than a supernova. It was the sound of a new law being written into reality.
The shell shattered into dust.
Floating in the void, surrounded by a halo of stolen starlight, was a baby boy.
He didn't cry. He didn't squirm.
He was perfect. His skin was like porcelain. His hair was black, shifting to gold at the tips. His eyes...
His left eye was a black hole. His right eye was a blue sun.
And resting on his head, fused to his very being, was a physical object.
A Golden Crown.
It wasn't metal. It was solidified Authority. It pulsed with a power that forced even the surrounding space dust to orbit around him.
[System Analysis Failed.]
[Re-calibrating...]
[Name: Jiang ???]
[Race: Primordial Celestial]
[Cultivation Rank: Spirit Lamp (Stage 1)]
Jiang Chen froze.
"Spirit Lamp?"
He knew the ancient texts. Above the Mortal Realm (EX-Rank) was the Spirit Realm. The first stage was the Spirit Lamp—where the soul becomes an eternal flame.
Jiang Chen had fought through hell, fused bloodlines, and destroyed stars just to reach the peak of Mortal.
His son was born a God.
The baby looked around. He saw Mo You. He saw Feng Xi.
Then he looked at Jiang Chen.
The baby smiled.
Giggle.
The giggle released a shockwave that cracked a nearby planetoid in half.
"Oh no," Jiang Chen whispered, floating forward to catch the child. "He has no volume control."
He held the baby. The weight was immense—not physical weight, but the weight of existence.
"He is... strong," Mo You hovered closer, looking at the child with intense fascination. She poked the baby's cheek with a claw. The baby grabbed her finger. His grip was strong enough to crush diamond. "He has the Dragon's grip."
"And the Phoenix's warmth!" Feng Xi cheered, touching the baby's feet. "He's like a little toaster!"
"And the Crown," Jiang Chen touched the golden circlet on the infant's head. "He was born a King."
The baby yawned. The ambient mana of the sector rushed into his mouth.
"We need a name," Feng Xi said.
Jiang Chen looked at the dim galaxy around them—half the stars gone, sacrificed to birth this one life.
"He drank the stars," Jiang Chen said softly. "And he will rule the chaos."
"Jiang Xing,**" Jiang Chen declared. "Star."
The baby cooed at the name. The Crown on his head glowed brighter.
[Entity Named: Jiang Xing.]
[Status: The Crown Prince of the Galaxy.]
Suddenly, the baby's stomach grumbled.
RUMBLE.
It sounded like tectonic plates shifting.
"He's hungry again," Jiang Chen paled. "He just ate half the galaxy. What do we feed him now?"
Mo You pulled a Divine Grade Void Heart (the spare one from the Crimson Emperor) out of her inventory.
"Here," she offered it to the baby.
Jiang Xing grabbed the corrupted, evil, SSS-Rank heart. He put it in his mouth.
Crunch. Crunch. Gulp.
He ate it like a cookie.
He burped a cloud of purple smoke.
Jiang Chen looked at his son. He looked at the terrified universe around them.
"We need to get to the Galactic Core," Jiang Chen said seriously. "Not just to stop the Void Lords."
"But because if we don't find the Primordial Source soon... my son is going to eat the rest of the universe as a snack."
[System Update]
[New Party Member: Jiang Xing (The Gluttonous Prince).]
[Current Objective: Feed the Baby (before he eats a solar system).]
Jiang Chen held his son close.
"Welcome to the family, little monster."
(End of Chapter 32)