Qlipoth knew the devouring of the great enemy was imminent. Light-year by light-year He poured concrete and raised walls without rest, sealing off the outer universe, isolating and shielding the worlds that still held life.
But even in the year 2158 of the Amber Era, the old man of Preservation's Heavenly Comet Wall came nowhere close to covering the whole universe—let alone eight hundred Amber Eras before that.
And so, It came.
[Voracity] Oroboros.
The never-sated Devourer of Worlds had descended!
An old Xianzhou proverb had said it long ago: as insects are to birds, as hares to wolves, as stardust to black holes, so are all worlds to the Voracity.
A churning sea of blood welled up in the void and rippled outward. From that viscous tide, a monstrous serpent's head rose slowly—scales bristling backward the wrong way, ominous purple flame leaping along them.
It turned toward the galaxy before it, the galaxy that had cradled countless Swarms, and opened a maw the size of a slaughterhouse, forever running with drool.
Inside that abyssal mouth there was only darkness. Endless darkness that swallowed everything.
Even Starbreaker bugs, capable of cracking planets open, were as small and helpless as dust motes before that darkness. They could not raise so much as a ripple of struggle.
Before It, life was nothing but algae flickering on and off in an ocean of void.
Amid the shrieking howls of the Swarm, amid the despairing wails of the multitudes—
that all-devouring maw crashed down. The sea of blood boiled and rolled backward with the swallowing; the stars of all worlds shuddered with the chewing.
An entire galaxy's Swarm vanished in an instant.
The churning blood sea did not disperse. The world-eating ancient beast did not leave.
A morsel like that wasn't even enough to pick Its teeth with.
The whole galaxy was, to It, a trivial little appetizer.
Then came a second serpent head. Then a third...
As the enormous serpentine skulls wove past one another, hissing, they parted to reveal the graceful woman among those ugly clustered heads. Her skin was the bronze of ancient days, carrying the ferocity of a rising tide, and she had covered her own eyes—yet nothing could hide a beauty that needed no adornment, or the elegance of that form.
"They're huge! They're really huge! That's way too f***ing huge!"
Stelle's eyeballs nearly popped out of her skull. She was staring at the pair of full peaks on that woman's chest, standing proud in the void, on a scale that dwarfed ordinary planets.
"Those—those are bigger than a planet!"
Asta, standing beside her, nearly choked. She lunged over, clamped both hands on Stelle's shoulders and shook her like a rag doll.
"Do you know what time it is right now! Stop thinking about that! Wake up! Look properly!"
"That's the Voracity! That's Oroboros, the one and only ancient-beast Aeon!!"
Yet Asta's voice was brimming with excitement she couldn't hold down, her clear blue eyes blazing.
Worth it!
This Simulated Universe run had been absolutely the right call!
Not only had she seen the fallen Aeon of Propagation, Tayzzyronth—now she was laying eyes on the ancient-beast Aeon of Voracity itself!
Even dying here would be worth the ticket price, ORAAA!
Oroboros was very pleased.
It woke from a nap to find that some kind soul had set out a meal right in front of It. Well then, It wouldn't stand on ceremony.
Buffet time~
I'm gonna f***ing eat, eat, eat, eat!
"Damn it! My Swarm! My Swarm! My fam!"
Watching the Voracity go to town on the bug sea across the cosmos, gnawing away a few galaxies as a side dish, Caelus let out a howl of rage.
He honestly wanted to imitate the Boom-Boom Crows of the islands and roll around on the ground in agony.
Pain.
So much pain!
Pain straight through the crown of his skull!
That was all my precious EXP!
"Boss! It's eating our family—go beat It up already!"
The power of an Aeon could only be resisted by an existence of equal rank, so Caelus immediately deployed his ultimate technique: calling a parent. His very own loli mom.
"[UNINTELLIGIBLE] Prop [UNINTELLIGIBLE] agation..."
Tayzzyronth let out a shriek in which ten thousand kinds of voices ran together.
The Seventh Emanator. Within the Swarm's hierarchy, Caelus ranked second only to the Swarm King—by the analogy of a Shenzhou imperial dynasty, he was the most doted-upon crown prince.
Now His baby was being bullied. He had to step up!
The Path of Propagation manifested in a lonely, piercing scream.
The Swarm King charged straight in.
Two Aeons warring to the desolate edges of the universe, the Great Dao itself ground away to nothing.
Pity. This wasn't the set of some xianxia epic.
Stelle and Caelus watched the clash of the two Aeons and were left rather slack-jawed.
Calling it a battle was a bit off, actually. To be precise, both of Them were simply practicing Their own Paths.
Tayzzyronth: I'm gonna f***ing breed, breed, breed, breed, breed, breed, breed, breed!
Oroboros: I'm gonna f***ing eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat!
"I told you to punch It, not to serve It an unlimited buffet!" Caelus groaned into his hands.
"For some reason I find It kind of adorable," said Stelle, batting her big cosmetics-commercial eyes.
Clearly, she had already gotten into the habit of picturing the Swarm King as a white-haired, red-eyed, baby-faced, massive-ch○sted loli mom.
You send your loli mom off to fight for you, and she shows up with a full imperial banquet she cooked with her own hands, planning to defeat the enemy with fine cuisine.
Put that way, isn't it kind of cute?
Except that thing is the Voracity!
Even with a ch○st that size, could you possibly feed It full?
"Tsk tsk. [Propagation] and [Voracity] really are natural-born nemeses! Wait a moment... [Memory] is here too?!"
The Herta dumpling's voice carried the thrill of someone discovering a new continent; even her pixel eyes seemed to brighten a shade.
"Where?"
"Where?!"
Stelle and Asta swiveled like radar dishes, scanning the pitch-black deep space around them for any trace of [Memory].
"Fuli has not intervened," came the Ruan Mei dumpling's cool, clear voice. Holographic screens beside her ran with waterfalls of data, most of her processing power still visibly locked onto Tayzzyronth.
"It is merely... present."
"By rights Fuli ought to be an aloof white-haired goddess, but personally I think It's more of a blonde delinquent type."
A five-star blonde security camera, basically~
Fuli had come, and Fuli did nothing—silent as always, like a genuine surveillance camera quietly recording everything It saw.
Caelus kept up the commentary while directing the Swarm to mass-produce troops at full speed through the biological neural network and the power of the Emanator of Propagation.
"There is a legend: the Path of Memory was born precisely within this twilight cataclysm that swept the cosmos, its original intent being to preserve the instant in which the stars of all worlds went to their end," Screwllum said, his tone as refined and gentle as ever.
"Sounds reasonable enough—but so reasonable it smells like something a fictional historian made up." The Herta dumpling bobbed in the air.
"Then how about this: [Voracity] and [Propagation] loved each other dearly, and to preserve the memories of their happy past together, they had a child named Fuli to record their bliss. Legit, right?" Caelus stroked his chin in silence and gave the Herta dumpling a look of grave academic inquiry.
"..."
One second of silence.
"Fine. You win. You're the real fictional historian," Herta admitted.
Now that was history with real flavor!
"Hahaha, I can vouch for that!"
Laughter arrived with no warning at all, joy sprouting arms and legs and dancing around everyone.
"Aha stakes his reputation on vouching for my dear, beloved friend~!"
The God of Games had simply shown up, bold as brass, spinning a circle in front of the Herta dumpling with a grin.
"This is the true history! Guaranteed genuine, money back if fake!"
"Tsk! Why is it you again?" Herta's face was pure exasperation.
Aha guaranteeing something on his reputation—not even a real fictional historian would buy that.
Also... what the hell does "money back if fake" even mean?
Can history be returned for a refund?
"Why is it always you."
"When a friend's in trouble, likes pour in from all eight directions! Aha came here to help my dear friend through his hardship, of course~!"
Aha clapped and roared with laughter, his ball and his playing cards embracing each other.
"Aha has always been the loyal sort, delighted to lend a hand. Oh~ no need to praise me, helping friends is merely one of Aha's many humble virtues~ Aha never shirks a duty~"
Before he had finished, Aha's divine shadow—formless, made of thick living shade—had one hand cradling the giggling mask-ball while the other arm draped itself over Caelus's shoulder with utter naturalness, best-buddies style.
"Hey, bro, need some outside assistance? Aha's got wild connections~!"
Caelus looked at the literally headless black presence beside him, then let his gaze drift sideways and locked eyes for two full seconds with the grinning mask floating nearby.
"I do. I absolutely do!"
"Hurry up, go round up some people—oh, some gods, I mean."
"No problem, leave it all to Aha~!"
Aha laughed as though he'd just heard the greatest joke in existence, arms flung wide like a dancer taking a bow.
Fun!
The next second, Aha was gone.
As abruptly as he had come, leaving no trace—only a faint aftertaste of delight hanging in the air.
"Proposal: we should adopt protective measures, suspend the Simulated Universe and check whether the System has been compromised," Screwllum said after several seconds of silence.
"Logic: [Elation]'s purpose in approaching Caelus is inauspicious. His intervention will, with very high probability, push the current event toward an unpredictable, uncontrollably large-scale state of chaos."
"Conclusion: this behavior carries a high risk of uncontrollable harm to all three Testers."
Aha was the most singular of all the Aeons. Every Aeon was bound by the driving force of its Path, but the concept of [Elation] was so sweepingly broad that Aha was very nearly unfettered.
He knew the version of himself inside the Simulated Universe was fake—and Screwllum did not doubt for one instant that, for the sake of a laugh, he would swap it out for the real thing.
"No need!"
Caelus grinned wide and waved a careless hand, his eyes glittering with the itch to try something.
"We'll be fine."
He could pull out Friend Support any time and go big!
But for the moment...
Caelus looked out at the bug sea still multiplying like mad across the cosmos, and his face took on the stubborn expression of a veteran player about to grind for score.
The bug count in the Simulated Universe wasn't maxed yet!
More to squeeze!
More to squeeze!
Caelus threw himself into full-front micromanagement of the Swarm—breeding, and a sprawling cat-and-mouse game of dodging the Voracity's maw. Under Caelus's control, the survival rate of the Swarm King's offspring soared, and He poured the power of the Path into Caelus like a burst dam.
Countless new classes and orders of bugs appeared. They traded pheromones the way flowers trade petals of different colors, and out of that came entirely new species.
Some for fleeing, some for resisting the devouring. The effect was slight, but every extra point was a point.
"This, this..."
Watching Caelus, utterly absorbed, Herta began plucking at the flower on her head, tearing off one petal at a time.
"This has already exceeded the scale of the real Swarm Disaster, hasn't it?"
Herta had no idea how much calamity the true historical showdown between [Voracity] and [Propagation] had inflicted on the Galaxy.
The map was shifting dynamically with every passing moment.
The Voracity ate. Propagation bred.
Caelus had the bugs near the Voracity scatter like a sky full of stars, then, the instant It opened Its mouth and locked on a target, whisked them away to backfill the regions It had already stripped bare.
Five-sixths of the cosmos's living regions were caught up in it. Countless galaxies perished.
Amid chaos on that scale, a certain god could no longer sit still.
An ancient majesty detonated through the cosmic vacuum. The living beings in that star region seemed to be strung up on invisible, gossamer-fine threads, every motion of theirs turned rigidly regular.
"Wow—!"
Herta's eyes lit up as if she'd spotted a diamond. "It's [Order], Ena—one of the most ancient Aeons."
"In the era before It fell, Its radiance was as holy as a gemstone. What did I tell you? There's no Nanook in this period! The ancient Path of Order kept a great many calamities suppressed."
"[Propagation] and [Voracity] are about to wreck the entire universe. Naturally Order can't stand by any longer."
"I suggest you get some distance."
Herta shot a glance at Caelus. The two Aeons' battle now spilled across six-sevenths of the universe, and Caelus's support of the Swarm had become indispensable.
"And who is this that weaves dreams and pulls the strings, infecting the will with transmutation? I shall command all that belongs to Order, and remove the disruptor from the board."
"Those who disturb the world shall not remain; the greedy shall not cling to life. Cunning, ever-shifting chaos—such is the filth and refuse of the universe."
Beneath Order an empire thundered, and Its faithful roared out in harmony.
It seemed to float, and yet Its form carried a crushing weight. Its face shone with the radiance of a hymn, and every word It spoke came stacked with vertically arrayed syllables, tinted in hues now dim, now opulent.
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