Mythus of Enigmata and Nous of Erudition argued over The Herta for a long time.
Meanwhile, Xipe of Harmony also had an idea after seeing Mythus of Enigmata bestow a blessing upon The Herta and grant her the power of an Emanator of Enigmata.
They could likewise bestow a blessing and make The Herta an Emanator of Harmony. Of course, They merely entertained the thought and did not actually act on it.
The reason was very simple. An Emanator of Harmony needed to become one of Their avatars, and that was something They could no longer accomplish.
After all, the Aeon of Spirituality had already appeared in the future spacetime of Finality.
Although They could not reach the present spacetime, The Herta was Their anchor. Even Xipe could not easily assimilate her and would need to spend a great deal of time doing so. Moreover, the moment the assimilation began, the power of the Aeon of Spirituality would most likely travel backward through spacetime and descend upon The Herta.
And once Xipe attempted to assimilate her, several Aeons of the true spacetime would inevitably intervene to stop Them.
After all, Mythus' blessing had made The Herta an Emanator of Enigmata, but that action likely would not erase The Herta's uncertain destiny, which transcended the universe itself.
But if Harmony assimilated The Herta, there was a very real chance that her elusive destiny as a variable would disappear entirely.
And once The Herta's destiny became fixed, the only remaining person capable of changing the universe would be Akivili—Stelle... Something the overwhelming majority of Aeons in the universe would be unable to accept.
Xipe even suspected that the moment They attempted to assimilate The Herta, attacks from the greater universe would come one after another. HooH, Aeon of Equilibrium, would furiously intervene.
Nanook, Aeon of Destruction, would also come with Celenova to make trouble and deliver a devastating blow against Them, the Aeon of Harmony!
Qlipoth, Aeon of Preservation, and even Mythus of Enigmata, who had only just bestowed a blessing upon The Herta, would intervene as well.
At that point, They would most likely end up being beaten to death just like the Aeon of Propagation had been back then.
After thinking this far, Xipe buried every such thought deep within Their heart.
...
Meanwhile, the other Aeons were quite pleased to see The Herta become an Aeon.
Qlipoth of Preservation believed that The Herta becoming an Aeon would benefit the universe. When the true dark crisis arrived in the future, Their side would have another ally.
Yaoshi of Abundance believed that The Herta was the Aeon of Spirituality, and spirituality nurtured life... More importantly, The Herta had previously researched many plants that resembled miracles of Abundance.
Yaoshi of Abundance believed that The Herta was, at the very least, a potential ally. Unlike Lan, Aeon of The Hunt, who did nothing but chase Them down.
Enough. No point thinking about this anymore.
Lan has picked up my trail again. I need to leave... Head somewhere even farther away and spread the power of Abundance there.
Thinking this, Yaoshi withdrew Their gaze, took a single step across countless galaxies, and scattered the seeds of Abundance in that distant world.
...
The entire universe was shaken by The Herta becoming the god of Spirituality, while The Herta herself felt that it was... nothing particularly remarkable.
After all, the Aeon of Spirituality from the future had already told her that the power of the Aeon of Spirituality alone was insufficient to change the despairing future brought about by the Four Apocalypses.
If she wanted the universe to gain even the possibility of salvation, she needed more power.
She still needed to continue researching additional projects, such as the Path of Enigmata and the power of an Emanator of Enigmata that she had only just obtained.
Of course, she could not research that yet. The Aeons were still watching her, and she still had unfinished business on her hands.
For now, she would exercise her authority as the master of a world—the master of Soul Society—and activate the power left to her by the future Aeon of Spirituality, The Herta, a power surpassing even the highest-ranked Emanators of Spirituality. Combined with her existing authority as master of the Warp, she would guide souls into Soul Society.
With that thought, The Herta waved the Herta Magic Wand in her hand and tapped it against her soul projection, the pitch-black sun.
Hummm.
At that moment, the black sun within the Warp erupted with countless streams of psionic energy and radiance from the Path of Spirituality.
Spiritual radiance exploded forth!
At the center of the Warp, the pitch-black sun poured down billions upon billions of streams of spiritual radiance like waterfalls, illuminating heaven and earth in every direction.
One soul after another rose from every corner of the Warp.
Among them were ordinary mortals native to The Blue's star system who had died natural deaths, soldiers who had perished during the war that destroyed the Eastern Federation, and even beings who had died in dozens of star systems beyond The Blue.
At first, the souls were somewhat frightened. But the instant the spiritual radiance enveloped them, an unprecedented sense of peace and warmth calmed them. They raised their heads toward the glowing pitch-black sun and understood everything.
Madam Herta is the one doing this. Madam Herta is calling us.
We don't know what Madam Herta intends to do yet, but she was the one who gave us our second lives. Madam Herta shouldn't mean us any harm.
The countless souls abandoned any thought of using psionic energy to resist the summons.
They were guided through the boundary separating the Warp from Soul Society.
Then they saw a desolate world. Yet despite its barrenness, all of them could instinctively feel themselves relaxing after entering this realm.
At that moment, they realized that this world was far better suited to their existence.
The next instant, The Herta's voice resounded within the minds of the deceased.
"This is a new dimension and new world that I created... a genuine afterlife. Unlike the Warp, the emotions within the Warp affect you and gradually make you increasingly obsessive."
"Soul Society is different. Here, you can retain your original personalities without being influenced by emotional energy. You can truly live a second life here. Of course, everything in this world is still in its infancy and needs to be built from the ground up."
"You can use psionic energy to construct your new homes."
After hearing this, the countless deceased souls immediately began circulating the psionic energy within themselves.
—So-called psionic energy meant mind over matter. This energy could be used for more than just attacking. Within Soul Society, it could also be used for construction.
The deceased souls circulated their psionic energy, causing the spirit particles within Soul Society to move in response. Houses began to rise one after another, and the first streets started taking shape.
Among the people busily working was an old man. He was a retired senior official of the Blue Federation and a relative of the diplomat Lanvelle, Edward. Gazing upon the newly born Soul Society, barren yet already filled with signs of life, he sighed inwardly.
He had previously died peacefully of old age and entered the Warp, becoming one of the first people to cultivate psionic energy by listening to the psionic formula recorded by Herta. Now that the souls were being guided into Soul Society, he had once again become one of the very first souls to settle there.
"I've lived one hell of a worthwhile life."
With that, Edward joined the tense and bustling construction effort.
Meanwhile, The Herta was still holding her magic wand aloft. Billions upon billions of streams of spiritual radiance continued to spread outward, already reaching the true spacetime and guiding the souls of even more deceased beings from distant star systems into Soul Society.
Every being who had ever died was drawn in by the overwhelmingly powerful spiritual radiance of the black sun within the Warp. Their souls continually ascended into the Warp before passing from the Warp into Soul Society.
Far away in the depths of the sea of stars, within a world that had already been destroyed by the Antimatter Legion, the great heliobus and Lord Ravager Phantylia, who was lying in bed recuperating, abruptly opened her eyes.
She raised her head toward the direction of The Blue's star system. In the depths of her perception, she heard a summoning voice that seemed intent on carrying her soul away.
Herta. It has to be Herta!
Herta activated the hidden measure she planted inside the Soul Gem. She's going to take me away, drag me into her laboratory, and subject me to all kinds of research!!
Phantylia hugged the Soul Gem and shrank beneath the covers, her voice trembling. "I refuse! I'm a Lord Ravager! I'm not becoming a test subject!"
Gritting her teeth, Phantylia began using the power of the Path of Destruction to resist the summons of the afterlife, only to discover that she actually succeeded.
A burst of excitement rose within her, and she cried out inwardly.
Herta, your hidden measure isn't so impressive after all. Hehe.
Yet the very next instant, something happened that left Phantylia dumbfounded. The souls of the hundreds of billions of beings she had slaughtered across several worlds actually broke free from the Soul Gems she had prepared in advance and began ascending into the Warp...
Recovering from her stupor, Phantylia immediately ground her teeth. "Damn you, Herta! You're actually trying to steal every soul I harvested... Wait. Is Herta activating the hidden measure in the Soul Gems across the entire universe? Is she harvesting souls too?"
"Or did she become an Aeon by harvesting souls?"
"Looks like this genius isn't particularly righteous either. More accurately, she's a hypocrite. Back when I tried to recruit her in the Yongmei star system and she refused, that was hypocrisy too."
Thinking this, Phantylia extended countless tendrils of destructive consciousness, attempting to drag all the ascending souls back down.
Just then, Phantylia heard the souls' voices.
"Please, take us away!"
"We don't want to keep experiencing those horrific dreams under the Lord Ravager and have our emotions harvested over and over again!"
"Whoever you are, please..."
Phantylia gave a cold snort. "You're nothing but soul batteries. Instead of obediently serving as healing packs so I can recover, you're crying and begging like this. You're courting death... Once I drag you back down, I'll use the power of Destruction to make you experience even more terrifying dreams and produce even more negative emotions."
...
At that moment, The Herta within the Warp noticed that a vast number of deceased souls were resisting the Warp's summons. Using spiritual perception that surpassed even that of an Emanator of Spirituality, she quickly sensed the situation in Phantylia's star system.
It was a dead star system whose sun had already gone dark, without a single Gaia world remaining—a completely lifeless world.
And within such a world, Phantylia had turned the souls of hundreds of billions of beings into medical supplies, extracting their emotions to heal herself, a great heliobus. Now that she had realized The Herta intended to use spiritual radiance to guide those deceased souls away... she had begun forcibly holding them back.
"Hmph. You think you can keep them?"
The Herta gave a cold snort and swung the magic wand in her hand. In an instant, a gate to the Warp opened within the destroyed world!
The pitch-black sun extended an enormous hand of spirituality and psionic energy that blotted out the sky. This hand was no longer limited to moving planets. Even stars and supermassive stars could be manipulated by it. Its power was terrifying beyond measure.
The moment Phantylia saw that hand, every hair on her body stood on end, as though she had encountered some kind of natural predator.
Run!
Without the slightest hesitation, Phantylia abandoned the hundreds of billions of souls and fled for her life.
When The Herta within the Warp sensed this, she merely gave a cold snort and did not pursue. Instead, she guided the hundreds of billions of souls into Soul Society.
...
Meanwhile, the fleeing Lord Ravager Phantylia was drenched in cold sweat.
What the hell was that hand?!
It felt like the natural enemy of the heliobus species, something born to suppress souls!
My instincts are telling me that if I actually fought it, I'd be suppressed enormously!
Phantylia carefully recalled what had happened. When the starry sky had split apart, a black sun radiating billions of beams of light had appeared within that otherworldly space, and the black sun represented the Warp and Herta...
More importantly, according to the information recently sent by her Lord Nanook, Herta had already become an Aeon in the future spacetime.
In other words, the one who had just acted was Herta.
Damn it. She only became a god in the future spacetime, yet she can already wield such terrifying power!
Run. I need to get farther away. At the very least, I need to get rid of this summoning force on me. Otherwise, once Herta locks onto me, I'm finished.
Phantylia continued fleeing.
The Herta paid no attention to the fleeing Phantylia. At that moment, she was still unleashing spiritual radiance and continuously guiding souls from throughout the universe.
However, as time passed, she began to feel that she could not keep standing there personally guiding souls. Her time was far too valuable.
Why not create a special device capable of guiding souls instead?
Got it!
After only a brief moment of thought, relying on her research stat of 4,500 points enhanced by Universal Genius, The Herta quickly devised a solution.
She would construct a Soul Astronomican within the Warp and Soul Society. This Soul Astronomican would radiate spiritual energy and guide souls from the true world.
Of course, an Astronomican capable of guiding the souls of the dead from more than half the cosmos would consume an enormous amount of energy.
Fortunately, the current The Herta was not merely an Emanator of Erudition and Enigmata. She was also the anchor of the Aeon of Spirituality. In terms of raw output, she could not compare to the Aeon of Spirituality in the spacetime of Finality, but she could use the energy of the Path of Spirituality without limit.
The energy of the Path of Spirituality was as vast as an ocean. Supplying an Astronomican with it would be effortless.
After thinking through everything in her mind, The Herta entered the Simulated Laboratory and rapidly transformed her idea into a practical project.
One system day later, The Herta left the Simulated Laboratory. This time, she did not purchase materials from the Interastral Peace Corporation. Instead, she directly used an existing Plasma Spark Tower as the base material.
With her psionic and spirituality formulas as her hammer—she upgraded the Plasma Spark Tower!
At that moment, the light spread by the Plasma Spark Tower could do more than create giants. It could also serve as an Astronomican, becoming a light visible to every deceased soul throughout the cosmos.
Version 3.0 of the Plasma Spark Tower could be charged by burning psionic energy or energy from the Path of Spirituality.
After completing the modifications to the Plasma Spark Tower, The Herta used the authority over the Path of Spirituality granted to her by the Aeon of Spirituality, Spirituality, to supply energy to the Version 3.0 Plasma Spark Tower Astronomican.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Countless torrents of energy from the Path of Spirituality poured into the Plasma Spark Astronomican, and the Plasma Spark Tower began to shine.
Ordinary living beings could not see this light. Only those belonging to the world of the dead could perceive it. At that moment, deceased beings across half the cosmos could see a light blooming from the world of The Blue's galaxy—a light that called to them and guided them onward.
Countless souls on the verge of dissipating and falling into Nihility reached toward that light and were guided by it into Soul Society.
The number of souls within Soul Society continued to rise until it reached an astonishing level. Chaos inevitably emerged as well, simply because there were too many people.
Gazing at Soul Society's population, which had already risen into the quintillions and was still increasing, The Herta silently thought, I need to find some people to manage this place. Otherwise, the afterlife is going to become a mess.
Herman immediately responded upon hearing her thought. 'Don't you already have ready-made administrators? All those Hertas on The Blue in the real world are perfect for the job.'
"Good point."
The Herta nodded in agreement and lightly waved the magic wand in her hand. A gate to the Warp opened inside the Soul Gem Factory in Herta City within the true spacetime.
Then The Herta's voice rang out.
"Hertas, you've got work to do. Your job is to manage Soul Society. Help the newcomers who have just arrived condense spirituality and psionic energy... Build this world into something better so it doesn't descend into chaos or Nihility."
Upon hearing this, all the Hertas revealed curious and interested expressions.
They had originally assumed they would be dispatched to different star systems to conduct scientific investigations and search for difficult research problems.
But now it seemed that Madam Herta had developed something new yet again—a genuine afterlife called Soul Society!
Moreover, Madam Herta wanted them to serve as its administrators.
"Me, me, me! I want to go!"
"Count me in!"
"Same here!"
One Herta after another eagerly raised their hands to volunteer before rushing through the gate to the Warp and using it as a transit point to enter Soul Society.
The moment the Hertas entered Soul Society, they received administrator privileges granted by The Herta, master of Soul Society.
Administrators possessed the authority to punish souls and even expel them from Soul Society. They also possessed the authority to reward benevolent souls with greater spirituality.
Of course, authority naturally came with obligations. They had to properly manage Soul Society and ensure that it flourished.
After discovering their administrator privileges, the Hertas immediately got into character. They contacted the Super Herta Astral Computer and had it retrieve a large collection of books on business administration, then began loading and downloading the relevant knowledge.
After all, the Hertas possessed the collective wisdom halo provided by the Brain-Brain Fruit. Naturally, they mastered the principles of business administration at remarkable speed and immediately began putting that knowledge to use.
With that, Soul Society's administrators assumed their posts, and the previously chaotic Soul Society began settling into order.
The Hertas began receiving each soul that entered Soul Society, explaining that this place was the afterlife known as Soul Society. If they wanted to live well here, they would need to work, condense psionic energy and spirituality, and contribute to the construction of Soul Society.
...
Meanwhile, Phantylia, who had already died once before, also noticed that an extraordinarily bright tower had appeared within the universe, radiating billions upon billions of beams of light that seemed capable of illuminating the very edge of the cosmos.
More importantly, the tower's radiance was exceptionally stable.
Phantylia began investigating and soon discovered that the thing was guiding deceased souls. And it was not merely guiding the souls of a single world, but those from ten, dozens of worlds at once.
In every world she visited, the souls of the dead would be guided away by the tower's light.
This immediately made Phantylia think of one person.
Herta!
This has to be Herta's doing!
But keeping such a tower permanently lit and allowing it to illuminate even the universe itself must consume an enormous amount of energy.
After all, even a sun burns through astronomical amounts of energy every second just to keep shining.
So where did Herta get that much ener—
Phantylia's thoughts abruptly froze. The reason was simple. She remembered that the future The Herta had already ascended and created a Path.
And the amount of energy possessed by a Path was unquestionably vast... Supplying a single tower and keeping it continuously illuminated would be effortless.
After thinking this far, Phantylia stared deeply at the Plasma Spark Astronomican, then fled even farther away to test something. To her horror, she discovered that no matter where she went, she could still see the Astronomican.
Even when she reached the very edge of the cosmos, it remained visible.
Is this the might of an Aeon?!
Phantylia could not suppress the shock in her heart. At that moment, she even began to suspect that the future The Herta had already projected her consciousness into the present, that the Aeon of Spirituality had personally descended into the true spacetime and created this Astronomican...
Meanwhile, the Aeons were still observing The Herta. They had witnessed the entire process of her constructing and lighting the Astronomican, so They understood that aside from its energy supply, everything about the Astronomican had been personally designed and manufactured by The Herta of the present true spacetime, rather than being created through the power of her future self, the Aeon of Spirituality.
Endless souls were gathering!
And immense torrents of spirituality were pouring into Soul Society as well.
All of this entered the gaze of HooH, Aeon of Equilibrium, causing Them to sigh inwardly that the birth of Soul Society had indeed brought the life-and-death balance of the cosmos closer to perfection!
The universe now contained not only a world for the living, but a world for the dead as well. Death was no longer nothing but empty void.
IX, Aeon of Nihility, stared blankly with Their mismatched eyes. Upon seeing the birth of the Astronomican and its limitless radiance guiding the deceased souls of half the cosmos... Their main body trembled once again.
Yet it was only a tremor. Clearly, They believed that a mere afterlife could not change the ultimate fate of the greater universe as it advanced toward the Four Apocalypses and eventually fell into Nihility.
Yaoshi, Aeon of Abundance, gazed at the countless souls that had once been waiting to dissipate, only to live second lives within Soul Society. A faint smile appeared upon Their sacred yet strangely sinister face.
Herta created a world after death, allowing countless living beings to live a second life after dying!
Without question, this is a continuation of life. How extraordinarily Abundant. She has already traveled an immense distance along the Path of Abundance...
After finishing that thought, Yaoshi glanced behind Them and discovered that a Lux Arrow was already approaching—a blazing projectile carrying enough concentrated energy to annihilate an entire region of the cosmic web, erasing millions of galaxies and the countless stars within them in a single strike.
Yaoshi immediately warped away.
Qlipoth, Aeon of Preservation, watched as Soul Society absorbed countless souls, preventing those souls from dissipating and instead protecting them so that they could live second lives. Their enormous stone head gave a slight nod.
Herta is protecting deceased beings and establishing order within the afterlife. Without question, she is walking the road of Preservation.
This is good!
That was what Qlipoth, Aeon of Preservation, thought.
And besides deceased souls and Aeons, there were also a handful of people capable of seeing the Plasma Spark Astronomican as it erupted with billions of rays that illuminated the cosmos!
Among them were Acheron, who was currently staying within the world of The Blue's star system and walking the road of a Self-Annihilator, as well as Xueyi, a member of the Ten-Lords Commission aboard the Xianzhou Luofu who had died once during the Battle of Cangcheng and now resided within a puppet body...