Under the adulation of the masses, Lu Jingming remained silent for a moment before finally accepting the crown and the jade belt.
He did not offer many hypocritical words of refusal. He simply turned, ascended the steps, and slowly sat down upon the vacant imperial throne.
The moment he sat, an invisible, world-dominating aura emanated from him, enveloping the entire hall.
"Long live the Emperor! Long live, long live the Emperor!"
The mountain-shaking cheers of worship rang out once more, announcing that the Star Luo Empire had welcomed a new master.
After ascending the throne, Lu Jingming issued his first and most important imperial decree.
"From this day forward, the Star Luo Empire shall be renamed the 'Astral Empire'."
"Simultaneously, with the Astral Empire as its core, the 'Astral Alliance' shall be established. All who join the Alliance shall be brothers, watching over each other and creating peace together."
Lu Jingming became the first Emperor of the Astral Empire and the first Leader of the Astral Alliance.
His gaze was no longer confined to a single nation, but cast toward the broader future of the entire continent.
The day after the decree was issued, the newly enthroned Empress of the Sun Moon Empire, Zhang Lexuan, announced to the entire continent: The Sun Moon Empire would join the Astral Alliance as a founding member state, pledging eternal loyalty.
The Sun Moon Empire—the massive war machine that had once made the entire continent tremble—thus became the second pillar of the Astral Alliance.
The landscape of the continent seemed to have settled. Everyone assumed that what followed would be a long period of peaceful development led by the Astral Alliance.
However, everyone underestimated the speed of change brought about by Lu Jingming in this era.
One month after the founding of the Astral Alliance.
Above the ruins of Old Mingdu in the former Sun Moon Empire.
In the skies over that land which had been utterly destroyed by the Holy Grail War and remained deathly silent to this day, space began a violent, silent distortion.
A gargantuan rift in time and space, appearing as if the sky itself were being torn in two, slowly opened. The other end of the rift was not the void or chaos, but another Douluo Continent.
A city so magnificent it defied the imagination—constructed entirely of gold and holy light—appeared on the other side of the rift.
At the highest point of this city stood a woman clad in golden armor, with holy wings unfurled behind her, beautiful beyond the realm of mortals. Her gaze seemed to pierce the boundaries of time and space, meeting Lu Jingming's eyes far away in Star Luo City.
The Spirit Empire of a parallel world.
The Angelic Goddess, Qian Renxue.
Her arrival did not trigger war. Qian Renxue led her equally powerful Spirit Empire to formally announce their entry into the Astral Alliance. At this moment, the two worlds began a true contact and fusion. The Spirit Empire became the third pillar of the Astral Alliance.
Following closely behind, the former Eldest Princess of the Heavenly Soul Empire, Wei Na, led the remaining forces of the Heavenly Soul Empire and the Body Sect to formally submit their application to the Astral Alliance, announcing their total surrender and incorporation into the Astral Empire's territory.
A few months after the establishment of the Astral Alliance, as the order of the entire continent gradually restored calm and prosperity under the joint maintenance of the three pillars—Astral, Sun Moon, and Spirit—an even weightier piece of news detonated across the world.
The Co-Lord of Soul Beasts, the Silver Dragon King Gu Yuena, led the Great Beasts out of the Star Dou Great Forest and arrived at Star Luo City.
Witnessed by all the top powerhouses of the continent, Lu Jingming, representing humanity, and Gu Yuena, representing soul beasts, formally signed the "Human and Soul Beast Non-Aggression and Peaceful Development Agreement" in the central plaza of Star Luo City.
The Soul Beast race officially announced their entry into the Astral Alliance to coexist peacefully and develop together with humanity. The Star Dou Great Forest would serve as an autonomous region for the soul beasts, becoming the fourth pillar of the Astral Alliance.
Thus, the bloody strife between humans and soul beasts that had plagued the Douluo Continent for countless years was brought to a peaceful conclusion by Lu Jingming.
The framework of the Alliance was complete; next came the filling of flesh, blood, and soul.
At Lu Jingming's suggestion, with experts in commerce and law such as Ningguang, Changli, and Cerydra at the core, the "Astral Alliance Supreme Legislative Council" was established. They began to reference the advanced experiences of various worlds, combining them with the actual conditions of the Douluo Continent to draft a brand new, supreme set of laws applicable to the entire Alliance.
After everything in the Alliance was on the right track, an event occurred that shocked everyone on the continent and could only be described as a miracle.
The headquarters of the Astral Alliance was the super-metropolis Sea Abyss City—a city filled with the aesthetic of future technology.
On a certain clear morning.
The entire city suddenly emitted a low, distant rumble.
Then, under the shocked, horrified, and incredulous gazes of countless people across the continent, tens of thousands of giant anti-gravity soul tool engines—as bright as suns—lit up at the base of this massive city, which spanned thousands of square kilometers and housed ten million people.
The earth began to tremble violently.
Then, under the watch of billions of citizens, the entirety of Sea Abyss City, along with its massive foundation, slowly and steadily detached from the ground and rose into the high heavens.
It rose higher and higher, piercing through the clouds, finally hanging suspended ten thousand meters in the sky, like a kingdom left by the gods in the human world.
Beneath the city, a gargantuan space station engine designed by Genius Club #83, "Herta," emitted a soft azure glow, maintaining the stable hovering of this Sky City. A more advanced ecological cycle shield, enveloping the entire city, was activated simultaneously, providing the Sky City with air, temperature, and gravity identical to the ground.
Sea Abyss City, the city built by Lu Jingming himself to symbolize the technology and dreams of a new era, became the first and only Sky City in the history of the Douluo Continent on that day.
When that Sky City—the pinnacle of human wisdom and dreams—hung high in the ten-thousand-meter firmament, the entire Douluo Continent fell into a collective silence mixed with awe, shock, and fanatical devotion.
People on the ground, regardless of where they were, only needed to look up to see that island in the sky emitting a soft light. It became a new coordinate, a new totem, a living miracle announcing to the world that a new era had arrived. Old common sense, nations, and racial barriers seemed tiny and fragile before this "Impossible City."
An unprecedented, unified, and powerful era named "Astral" had descended upon this planet with an indisputable posture.
Within the Star Gazing Chamber of Sea Abyss City, which symbolized the Alliance's highest authority, Lu Jingming did not immerse himself in the joy of making history. His gaze, looking through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooked the magnificent mountains and rivers below that resembled a chessboard. In his mind, he was already planning the next and more far-reaching step for this newborn Alliance.
"A unified regime is only the beginning of peace. To make peace endure, we need unified resources, a unified territory, and... unified laws. Not just the laws for the living, but also for the dead."
He whispered to himself. Immediately, two orders were transmitted from this office through the network of the celestial computer with total precision.
The first order reached the Silver Dragon King Gu Yuena and Hysilens.
"Gu Yuena, Hysilens, I need you two to go to the ocean."
"Go tell the soul beasts of the deep sea that their King has returned. Go tell that boundless azure that its new master has arrived."
The two did not hesitate for a moment upon receiving the order.
Gu Yuena's figure transformed into a silver light, soaring from the Lake of Life. Her pressure as the Co-Lord of Soul Beasts was no longer restrained; it swept across the entire continent like a storm, finally descending upon the ocean.
When her noble silver dragon horns and purple eyes appeared over the sea, every sea soul beast within a thousand-mile radius—whether they were thousand-year, ten-thousand-year, or the overlord-level existences with over a hundred thousand years of cultivation hidden in the deep sea trenches—felt an irresistible trembling and submission from the depths of their souls, originating from the very source of their bloodlines.
That was... the pressure of the Co-Lord.
"AWOOO—!!!"
A giant whale over a hundred meters long, resembling a moving island, surfaced from a trench ten thousand meters deep. Its massive head, capable of swallowing an entire fleet, lowered respectfully and humbly before Gu Yuena, emitting a mournful cry of submission.
Following closely, countless strangely shaped and gargantuan sea soul beasts converged from all directions like pilgrims, turning the entire sea area into their domain. However, they did not stir up any waves; they only used the most humble posture to express their respect toward the silver figure on the coast.
On the other side, Hysilens's figure appeared directly at the exact center of the ocean. She did not release any pressure; she simply extended her slender, fair finger and lightly tapped the azure surface of the sea.
Hum—
An invisible divine will, centered on her, instantly spread to every ocean and every drop of seawater on the planet.
At that moment, the oceans of the entire world stopped flowing. All tides, currents, storms, and whirlpools were put on pause. The oceans of the entire planet became like a vast, smooth blue mirror, so silent it made one's heart skip a beat.
This was the authority of the Sea God.
Gu Yuena used bloodline to conquer the bodies of the sea soul beasts. Hysilens used authority to control the heart of the ocean. One internal and one external, one hard and one soft.
In just a single day, the vast ocean—which occupied seventy percent of the Douluo Continent's planet and held endless resources and secrets—was completely and indisputably brought under the control of the Astral Alliance. Countless precious marine mineral resources and an unimaginably large deep-sea fleet composed of sea soul beasts became new trump cards in the Alliance's hand.
Lu Jingming's second order was delivered directly to the core Artificial Intelligence of the celestial computer—"Hatsune Miku."
"Miku, initiate the 'Global Explorer' project. Using Sea Abyss City as a base station, mobilize all Alliance satellite resources to perform a total, dead-zone-free scan of the Douluo Planet. I need to know if there are other undiscovered landmasses on this planet besides the continent beneath our feet."
"Command received, Master."
A crisp, sweet, synthesized electronic voice devoid of emotion rang in Lu Jingming's mind.
"'Global Explorer' project initiated. Mobilizing the Heavenly Eye satellite system... Analyzing data... Generation of global uncensored high-definition geological map estimated in 17 hours, 42 minutes, and 31 seconds."
In the following dozen or so hours, the terrifying technological power of the Astral Alliance was displayed to the fullest. Dozens of Heavenly Eye satellites hovering in outer space simultaneously activated high-precision detection modes. Their emitted detection waves combed through every corner of the planet like a fine-toothed comb.
Seventeen hours later, a massive and complete 3D planetary projection appeared before Lu Jingming. On it, the Douluo Continent plate they were familiar with was clearly marked. But besides that, in two other regions of the planet, two brand new continental plates were starkly visible.
"Organize the Pioneer Fleet immediately."
Lu Jingming looked at those two new continents, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes. "Our goal is to spread the glory of the Astral Alliance to every corner of this planet."
A few days later, three massive fleets composed of the latest Astral-class destroyers equipped with spatial jump engines departed from the docks of Sea Abyss City. Guided by the millisecond-precise navigation of the AI "Hatsune Miku," they headed for those two undiscovered continents.
Facing these steel giants that looked like descending gods and the terrifying power the fleet displayed—power capable of easily destroying their entire civilizations—the natives of those two continents offered no effective resistance.
Faced with an absolute, crushing gap in strength, they very wisely chose... to join.
In just half a year, the flag of the Astral Alliance was planted in every corner of these two new continents. New laws, a unified currency, advanced soul tool technology, and the Alliance's official language began to spread across these ancient and closed lands at an unprecedented speed.
At this point, the Astral Alliance finally, in both name and reality, completely controlled the entire Douluo Planet. A true, unprecedented global unified regime was born.
And while the entire world was cheering and seething over this magnificent process of unification, Lu Jingming, the creator of it all, quietly vanished from public view.
He arrived at a place that only a very few people were qualified to enter.