Chapter 0 — The Hunger in the Void
It was not born of Dao, nor of any divine hand.
In a forgotten corner of a regular spiral galaxy, upon a nameless planet orbiting a pale sun, something stirred within the mantle. A stirring that was neither life nor death, neither creation nor destruction. A hunger.
It awoke blind, yet aware. It had no name, no purpose, only the gnawing emptiness that screamed for sustenance. Slowly, instinctively, it pressed itself against the core of its world. The molten heart of the planet trembled, cracked, and was consumed. Iron, fire, spirit, and heat became its flesh. The world above shuddered, quaked, and then shattered. Oceans boiled. Mountains collapsed. In silence, the first planet of its cradle was no more.
But the creature had grown.
It was shaped like an octopus, though no sea had ever birthed it. Its body was a shifting mass of tendrils, translucent yet dense, writhing with veins of molten light. Its maw was not teeth or tongue but a void, a siphon that drew the very essence from matter. It swam in the dark as though the void itself were water.
From its dead birthplace, it turned its gaze outward. The other worlds of its star system were but waiting prey. One by one, it descended upon them. Moons cracked like eggs beneath its grasp. Planetary hearts were drained, leaving hollow shells drifting in silence. Finally, the creature coiled around the great star itself. The sun flared in agony, its brilliance collapsing inward as the thing drank deep of its burning core. Light failed. Darkness swallowed the system.
Yet the hunger remained.
So it left.
For thousands of years it drifted between constellations, swimming from star to star. It feasted upon systems until their suns were extinguished. It gorged upon stellar nurseries, consuming the wombs of stars before they could be born. Its presence was a silent plague upon the galaxy—never seen, only felt in the sudden death of starlight.
But then—something stirred within the void of its senses. A flavor unlike any it had ever known. Not the dull mineral taste of lifeless cores, nor the raging flame of suns. Something greater. Something divine.
It followed.
For tens of thousands of years it swam toward the edge of its galaxy, until its tendrils brushed against an unseen wall. The Galactic Barrier. A natural shield, invisible yet real, enclosing the stars within. The creature coiled, pressed, and tore through it with a shriek that reverberated through the void. Beyond lay the infinite darkness between galaxies.
It swam.
For ages uncounted, it crossed the eternal sea of night, guided only by the call of that sublime energy. Finally, it struck against another wall, vast and immeasurable—the Galactic Barrier of the 9th Heaven.
The creature shuddered.
For here, the stars themselves were different. Each sun carried within its heart not mere fire, but a fragment of something far greater. A piece of the Dao itself.
It wept without sound, though it knew not why. For the first time, its hunger eased. The taste of Dao-laced starlight was richer, more complete, than all the dead suns it had devoured.
It feasted, wrapping its tendrils around stars, siphoning their essence with ecstasy. Yet even amid its feast, something pulled at its senses once more. A single star among the countless thousands, singing louder than the rest. Its light was small, fragile, yet the shard of Dao within it resonated unlike any other.
It was a star upon which humanity thrived.
And so, the creature turned its endless hunger toward that world.