Stella was no longer the "Cosmic Catastrophe" with a dying galaxy inside her. Her body was now a living cosmic event. Her skin, transparent like black glass, contained not dying stars, but countless tiny, pulsating singularities, each a seed of a miniature universe, ready to expand or collapse.
Her white hair was now primordial streams of matter and antimatter from before the Big Bang, silently undulating. Her eyes were two Genesis Abysses, where all physical laws melted into pure, creative chaos.
She had existed through a series of big bangs that formed universes, stealing the elemental Essences within. What she absorbed the most was not destructive energy or light, but the Essence of Absolute Black - the most primitive, intangible, and mysterious raw material in the universe.
She had deciphered the ultimate secret: Absolute Black was not the absence of light, but the "mold," the "primordial void" from which the first particles of matter, waves of energy, and space-time were cast and expanded. It was the first draft, the "memory of nothingness" before the Big Bang. Whoever controls Absolute Black holds the on/off switch of the Universe itself.
And Stella, with her endless hunger, had devoured enough Essence of Absolute Black to become a "Quasi-Primordial Genesis" - a mobile Big Bang, a God of Chaos.
She had no "Archetype Body." She herself was conscious chaos, the perfect counterbalance to Kael'than's absolute order.
Kael'than's energy hand stopped. For the first time, a hesitation, an unsolvable equation, appeared in his will.
She is the embodiment of Beginning and End, of the Zero state from which all things are born.
Stella looked up at the gigantic hand and smiled faintly, a smile full of sorrow and power.
"You think you're the only one who knows how to absorb energy, carver?" Her voice echoed, not through minds, but by directly shaking the fabric of reality.
She raised a hand. Her palm emitted no light, but created an invisible suction force. Immediately, the bright golden energy lines on Kael'than's hand began to unravel, swirling towards Stella like water flowing into a depression.
Kael'than tried to resist. He adjusted, repaired, but Stella's absorption rate was exponentially faster. She wasn't just absorbing energy; she was absorbing the very order he created, turning it into fuel for her own chaos.
Kael'than's colossal Archetype Body trembled for the first time. Its bright golden color began to fade, while Stella's body grew brighter and more terrifying with the continuous stellar explosions inside.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" An angry and incredulous message came from Kael'than. "You are... a Cosmic-Level Destruction Glitch!"
"I am Stella," she replied, her voice icy. "I am not a glitch. I am the genesis of infinite universes."
Stella opened her palm wider. The suction force now became terrifying. Kael'than's entire Archetype Body began to warp and convulse. Massive chunks of energy were torn from it, swallowed into Stella's body. He could not resist. His power, based on order and logic, was useless against an entity that devoured everything like a conscious black hole.
Within minutes, the colossal Archetype Body was completely drained, dissolved into Stella's darkness. Only Kael'than's small point of light remained, now extremely faint, hastily shrinking and disappearing into space, leaving a deathly silence.
Stella slowly descended, her gigantic form radiating terrible heat and energy. She turned to look at the unconscious Celeste, the unconscious Ember, Teron trying to reboot, and the still-faint Echo. Her eyes no longer held sorrow, but an immense emptiness.
"I told you," she said to the small Celeste, her voice now echoing throughout the Trash-Dragon. "I have devoured too many worlds... and now I am an Omniversal Carver. My hunger is no longer for destroying worlds. Now, I hunger for... 'Ideas'. 'Principles'. I hunger for those who call themselves Creators, like him. And this place..."
She looked at her hand, where Kael'than's energy still swirled, her gaze swept around the Trash-Dragon, the very space beginning to turn chaotic under that mere glance. "This place... will also be a fine meal."
The small Celeste looked at Stella, tears welling in her eyes. She no longer saw a savior, but a catastrophe even greater, a future she never desired.