Chapter 405: Neutron Warstar! The Great Rip! The Year of Famine!
The universe of Edge of Tomorrow did possess a fourth-dimensional space—but that was about it.
The freshly acquired Universe 008, StarCraft, had a Void plane that counted as a higher-dimensional space. Universe 007, Star Wars, still had the forest moon of Endor marked as a forbidden, uncharted zone—Li Ang hadn't delved too deep into it.
As for the rest of the multiverse under Universal Megacorp's rule, they were mostly fairly standard—one might even call them "rudimentary" models.
Perhaps, just as Amon had claimed, there truly was some kind of shackle enveloping these multiverse models—an invisible shell keeping each universe in check.
Everything here ran according to a predetermined program.
> "With this thing, Megacorp's civilization tier can rise by at least two whole ranks."
Li Ang mused.
Although the Celestial Navigation Spire couldn't directly help Li Ang transcend dimensions or leap beyond the universe, it could at least map out the dimensional structure of his current universe.
From this point on, Universal Megacorp's territorial expansion would touch upon the realm of dimensionality itself—potentially allowing them to make contact with other dimensional civilizations.
The existence of the Xeelee Nightfighter had already allowed Megacorp to understand the scale of the universe. Now, the Celestial Navigation Spire would bring insight into the depth of the cosmos.
With this megastructure secured, Megacorp was now just one step away from becoming a true god-tier civilization.
Once the Celestial Navigation Spire was in hand, Universal Megacorp would formally enter the age of multidimensional space, once again pulling humanity far ahead in its evolutionary trajectory.
Having finalized the design for the tenth-stage megastructure, Li Ang reined in his thoughts and shifted his attention back to the system's lottery interface.
The bad news: there was no Level-11 "Law-grade" guarantee in this draw.
The good news: he had two Level-10 guarantees instead.
> "Looks like I won't be pulling an Ultraman after all."
Li Ang shook his head with a sigh. If he had drawn a weaponized Ultraman, Megacorp would've saved a fortune in military expenditures.
Well, it is what it is—time to draw.
---
[Spin Results - 10-Draw Lottery]
Obtained:
Neutron Warstar (Level 10, Legendary - Rebirth of the Super Battleship, Sweeper Civilization)
The Great Rip (Level 10, Legendary - Big Brain Blast, The Empire)
Fungal Seals of the Four Gods and Five Plagues (Year of Famine)
Vocal Cord Worm (Metal Gear V - The Whisperers)
Perspective Gun (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Desperate Housewives Syndicate, Meditating AI)
"Your Life's Worth 3,000" (From Forbidden City Cop, by Da Vinci)
---
> "Neutron Warstar? A seventh-tier civilization's strategic-class weapon!"
Li Ang's eyes lit up. The moment he saw this interdimensional item, a particular web novel from long ago came rushing back to his mind.
This superweapon hailed from the Rebirth of the Super Battleship universe and had once been the bane of the protagonist—a final boss that drove him to the brink.
As the name suggested, the Neutron Warstar's primary structure was forged from neutron star matter. Thanks to its immense gravity and indestructible materials, it was practically invulnerable.
Not even the strong interaction-force-based "water drops" from the Three-Body Problem could do anything against it.
Li Ang quickly skimmed through the Warstar's specs and—just as he remembered—it was exactly as terrifying as described.
The Neutron Warstar's incredible gravitational pull allowed it to distort spacetime with ease, granting it faster-than-light warp travel.
Its physical durability also meant it could use the same attack strategy as the water drops: pure kinetic impact.
Only, in a head-on collision, the water drop—lightweight as it was—would be instantly obliterated by the Warstar's mass, reduced to cosmic dust.
Of course, ramming was just one of its primary modes of attack. It had another unique ability: Spatial Nova.
Spatial Nova worked by annihilating a localized portion of spacetime to forcibly shrink the distance between the Warstar and its target. The energy released from the annihilated space was then weaponized against the enemy.
Erasing space to reduce travel distance—it was eerily similar to the legendary "shrinking the earth to a single step" technique!
But that was just one side of it. The real essence of Spatial Nova lay in harvesting space itself as energy.
As is well known, space contains inherent energy. The collapse from 4D to 3D or 3D to 2D dimensions releases energy.
And space was the Neutron Warstar's power source!
It was the same philosophy that powered the Xeelee Nightfighter—extracting energy from spacetime to reach almost cultivator-like transcendence.
> "A gentleman's virtue lies not in what he is, but in how well he uses what's around him."
No energy is created from nothing. The true path lies in leveraging external resources to achieve one's goals—that is the ultimate wisdom.
> "This… this is the true flagship of Universal Megacorp!"
Li Ang nearly roared with excitement. The superweapons now at his disposal were enough to wage a divine-level "War of Heaven."
The Heaven-Scorching Divine Armament, the Xeelee Nightfighter, the Neutron Warstar—and even the mutually assured doomsday device known as Einstein's Equator!
Unfortunately, the Heaven-Scorching Divine Armament was still occupied with blowing up stars and harvesting dark matter to forge the Aether Phase Engine—so it couldn't be deployed just yet.
Still, just one Neutron Warstar was more than enough.
After clicking [Claim] on the Neutron Warstar, Li Ang's eyes drifted downward.
> "The Great Rip... This one's pretty damn good too!"
A pleased smile appeared on Li Ang's face. This item from the Big Brain Blast universe also counted as a Law-grade weapon in its own right.
Its core principle was somewhat akin to vacuum decay.
It extracted dark energy from the universe, concentrating and unleashing it in localized spacetime, which triggered sudden inflation and tore apart everything in the affected zone.
Just like thermal energy, dark energy in the cosmos naturally seeks equilibrium.
High-density areas gradually compress into low-density areas, forming a stretching force across spacetime.
From a macro perspective, this manifests as cosmic inflation. A less-than-perfect analogy: blowing up a balloon.
Universal expansion is always occurring, but within tolerable limits of what spacetime can handle.
However, if human intervention forces that expansion to exceed spacetime's limits, the result is catastrophic: spacetime rupture.
Gravity collapses within the affected region. Matter bound by gravity disintegrates in an instant.
In that moment, you'd witness planets drifting apart, disassembling spontaneously, colliding Infinityly—lifeforms within the blast radius shredded and flung across the fractured cosmos.
Theoretically speaking, the Great Rip could blow up the entire universe—but the amount of dark energy required was utterly astronomical. Even Universal Megacorp couldn't afford such a cost.
However, blowing up a single stellar system?
That was well within Megacorp's capabilities.
After claiming the Great Rip, Li Ang's gaze shifted to a particularly eerie fungus—the carnivorous fungus from The Year of Famine.
It wasn't supernatural in any way, but its effects were grotesque enough. It transformed people into ravenous, flesh-obsessed creatures.
Humans infected with this fungus would have their digestive systems completely restructured by fungal mycelia. The protein-hydrolyzing enzymes secreted by the mucosal cells would mutate, their protease activity dramatically enhanced.
These mutated proteases would then devour the other digestive enzymes in the gut, leaving only a single type behind.
The result? A biological dependency on meat—and only meat.
Once the society's productivity couldn't meet the sudden demand for meat, cannibalism would inevitably follow.
In The Year of Famine, when the Yan army attacked Suiyang during the An Lushan Rebellion, General Zhang Xun managed to hold off 100,000 enemy troops for ten months with fewer than a thousand soldiers.
Why?
Because this very fungus had broken out in the city.
The defenders had already eaten one another down to the last survivor before the Yan army dared set foot inside.
> "This thing is just like the Progenitor Virus from Blood Cross—twisted, but ultimately useless. What a waste of a draw."
Li Ang shook his head with a sigh. Given Megacorp's advanced gene-editing capabilities, reproducing such a fungus would be child's play—but completely unnecessary.
Straight to the warehouse it goes—to gather dust.
---
> "Vocal Cord Worm... now this is interesting!"
Li Ang chuckled.
As someone well-versed in the Metal Gear series, he knew exactly what this was. The Vocal Cord Worm was a unique microorganism that could parasitize a human's vocal cords.
During its dormant phase, it posed no threat whatsoever. In fact, it could enhance the host in several ways:
Granting the ability to breathe through the skin
Boosting physical combat abilities
Accelerating recovery from wounds
Even enabling rapid hydration-based regeneration
But once triggered, it would kill the host in seconds—causing bleeding from all seven orifices.
And the trigger? Spoken language.
Each type of worm was tuned to a specific language. Once that language was heard, the worm would activate.
> "Perfect for embedding moles in the Intelligence Division."
Li Ang immediately thought of its practical use. With these worms, even traitors could be kept in check—no second chances for double-crossers.
---
> "The Perspective Gun from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? That's basically a mind control device."
Li Ang read the item description.
The gun's effect was simple: it made others feel exactly what you were feeling. Thoughts, emotions—shared instantly.
A tool of compulsory empathy. A strange take on "universal understanding."
---
As for the last one—"Your Life's Worth 3,000"...
Li Ang burst into laughter.
It was a slapdash contraption made up of poisons, gunpowder, sulfuric acid, pistols, bike chains, grenades, bug spray… and all sorts of ridiculous junk.
> "What the hell is this? Just here to pad the draw count, huh?"
Still chuckling, he clicked [Claim All] and received all the drawn interdimensional items. Strategic-grade or not, adding a few heavy-hitters was never a bad thing.
The Neutron Warstar and Great Rip alone had broad strategic applications and would surely play key roles in upcoming unification campaigns.
Once all the items were processed, Li Ang followed his usual routine and checked the Stargate Interface. Having completed two Tier-3 missions, he now had a solid idea of which universes might show up next.
The most likely candidates were sci-fi universes involving psionic elements:
Star Wars with the Force
StarCraft with psionic energy
Both featured mysterious powers that transcended the material world.
Based on that pattern, only a handful of possible universes remained.
But it didn't matter. With this many strategic weapons, even gods could be slain.
> "If it's divinity you seek, Megacorp will show you divinity."
Li Ang thought to himself—and clicked the interface.
---
WARHAMMER —!
Of course. It had to be this one.
In an instant, a sprawling epic narrative bloomed in Li Ang's mind:
The Golden Old Man trying to unify the galaxy.
Handcrafting his sons to lead the charge.
Only to be betrayed by his "dutiful" son Horus—and thus began the grand tragedy.
The war ended in ruin.
The Emperor—maimed and entombed.
His sons—mad, dead, or damned.
Then there were the Chaos Gods—Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch—always stirring up trouble from the Immaterium.
There was only one word to describe the Warhammer universe:
> "Shit."
> "I just took down a Xel'Naga like Amon, and now I have to deal with the Chaos Four—Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch? Seriously?"
After a moment of thought, Li Ang made a decision: summon a high-level strategy meeting.
The Warhammer universe was more complex than any Megacorp had encountered before. This campaign would test not just his own micro-control...
But the coordination of every senior executive as well.
> "Loki, alert all department heads. Emergency meeting at Multiverse Base HQ. Right now."
[Understood!]
---
"I'm here for the meeting—what's the hold-up!?"
Chisaji Fox, head of the Science Nexus Division, stood outside HQ, yelling at the elite guards.
Even though the guards were nearly four meters tall and powerfully built, Chisaji Fox glared back fiercely, demanding to know why he was being blocked.
He had just summoned a group of new recruits for a research seminar—only to be stopped at the door.
> "Apologies, Director Chisaji Fox. The meeting room is currently occupied. It's an urgent internal conference—you'll have to reschedule."
Guard Commander Mann shrugged, explaining the situation.
Top executives from across Megacorp had already arrived, and judging by the tone, Universe 009's unification strategy was already taking shape.
> "The main room's in use?"
Chisaji Fox blinked—suddenly it all made sense. No wonder he couldn't find Director Alt Cunningham earlier—they were all already inside.
Got it.
He nodded and messaged the new recruits to cancel the seminar. For now, he'd wait outside, ready to speak with Cunningham the moment he came out.
---
Inside the conference hall, Megacorp's senior executives sat deep in thought, each staring at their holographic screens with different expressions.
Just moments ago, Supreme Executive Li Ang had walked them through the Warhammer timeline—but confusion still lingered. Everyone was quietly trying to piece the narrative together.
In the early days of the Warhammer universe, a godlike species called the Old Ones had emerged.
They could manipulate time and space, breed entire civilizations, shape planets, and weave faster-than-light pathways through the void.
But at the summit of any hierarchy, ambition was never in short supply.
The Necrontyr, unable to bear their own mortality, abandoned their flesh and became machines—the Necrons.
They allied with beings of pure energy—the C'tan, or Star Gods—and together they turned on their creators.
Thus began a war of gods across the stars—one that shattered the balance of the cosmos.
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