The fight between the Expeditionary Army and the divine envoys was a sharper blaze than before, steel flickering like rain, at least one of ours finally moved instead of hovering like a statue.
But the outcome never wavered, like a river set on its course; they didn’t care if the enemy wore a pretty face, only one creed mattered: crush anything that blocked the road.
Watching the two envoys crumble into drifting ash like snow in a cold wind, Ed stood still; he’d met them, one an archangel of the Divine Realm, famed as a top-three beauty.
He’d once wondered what fate a captured angel-beauty might meet, a morbid curiosity like moths circling a lantern; reality answered coldly—no special treatment exists before this army’s boots.
Years of war had hammered the Expeditionary Army into iron; they didn’t go soft at a smile, didn’t play romance with enemies, didn’t turn blades into dove feathers.
Yeah, wishful thinking.
For the Expeditionary Army, there’s no mercy for an enemy; that’s the Void Messenger’s order, carried out without a blink, until the last hostile spark goes dark.
When the two envoys fell, a roar rolled across the heavens like thunder breaking stone.
“Who dares slay the envoys I sent?”
A vast vortex bloomed in the sky like a dark whirlpool, and a single eye stared down, cold as winter on black ice.
Justice Bro looked up and curled his lip; disdain pricked like a thorn. “Tsk, tsk. For pure showboating, this guy’s S-tier. With that aura, I almost thought a Primordial Deity dropped by. Whoa, I’m shaking.”
He was divine-level himself; even if the owner came in person he wouldn’t flinch, let alone a shadow on the clouds.
To the Expeditionary Army, it was the first clown stepping onto the stage; to this world, it was a calamity, wind and cloud changing color as mortals shivered like reeds.
Justice Bro frowned, trading glances with his crew, ready to drag the poser out by the ear. Then a pillar of fire lanced from Alfred Castle, a spear of flame that stitched the sky and punched through the world’s shell.
A scream broke from the vortex, raw as torn cloth, and the great swirl unraveled, fading like ink in rain.
“That’s… the Fire that Threads the Sky. First Squad Captain Ovisen’s signature flame!” Justice Bro stiffened; a captain at apex divine burned straight through the barrier of two realms.
Ovisen apprenticed to a bandit chief at ten, trained five years, then rode into the bandit world at fifteen, a young wolf with bright teeth.
On the First Continent, Mapleleaf led the FFF Brotherhood and blasted him to death; the Blackwater Bandit Group turned to soot and memory.
Later, when the FFF Brotherhood expanded from a few hundred, Ovisen came as a ghost to apply, brave as a moth to a forge, and passed to join the banner.
When Thomason became regiment leader and General Commander, Ovisen earned First Squad Captain with sharp work, like a blade tested on armor.
“You lot, return to formation!”
A voice rang over the Holy City like a bronze bell. Justice Bro and the rest snapped from slouch to steel and shouted to the sky, “Yes!”
Inside Alfred Castle, in a grand hall, Ouyang, Dufei, and Glenza stood around a table. Three projections floated above the wood like moonlight on water: Jade Rabbit, White Cat, and Christo.
With a lineup like that, Ouyang couldn’t imagine what snag forced them to beam in and ask him.
Jade Rabbit spoke first, babbling like a brook in flood; Ouyang’s thoughts blurred like wet ink. He cut the rabbit off with a sigh and gestured to White Cat.
“It’s not that hard. We found a world—very interesting, but that’s not the point. Its world-will evolved into a Star Spirit. We’re too strong, so it rejects us. If we force entry, the Star Spirit plans to self-destruct.”
This Star Spirit had spine; on its star, it wouldn’t allow giants like White Cat and Christo to tread. If it couldn’t win, it would go down in flames and take you with it.
The Star Spirit waved self-destruction as a threat to bar the gate. But if White Cat’s side couldn’t gain a single scrap, they’d rather burn the place out; if nothing can be had, then blow.
Helpless under that resolve, the Star Spirit compromised; it allowed their projections to enter, but their projected power must obey rules it set in stone.
“And then? You called me for that little mess?”
“No, that’s just background. The world has massive strategic value. Azure Bird’s rough math puts it at S-class.”
White Cat spoke, yet even it was shaken inside. Strategic value: the old Other Shore was SSS; when Divine Continent and the Underworld split to form the Divine Realm and the Underworld, those were SS. You see how weighty this is.
“That world’s Star Spirit is abnormally strong; first estimate says it reached great-deity combat power in the last tens of thousands of years. Frankly, aside from the old Other Shore, I’ve never seen a Star Spirit like this.
Its growth outruns ours like lightning outruns cart wheels. To climb that high, it’s likely existed for untold hundreds of millions of years.
And the world itself has been cultivated for over a hundred million years.”
“There’s a crucial rule there. The humanoid natives can communicate with beings from other worlds. In the Star Spirit’s name, they sign a contract. Then they can summon outsiders to fight.
The outsider stays as long as the host feeds it power. Cut the feed, or run dry, and the summoned snaps back home.
From what we saw, the species they summon are wildly diverse, like a market of stars. That means they’re tied to many, many worlds. If we can send people in, talk to those outsiders, and get the spacetime coordinates of their worlds, our exploration gets easy.
No more drifting blind through the Second Space.”
White Cat laid it all out. Ouyang tapped the table softly, thoughts rising like mist and cooling like steel.
“You three, come back first. We’ll hold a meeting and decide.”
He understood the weight. A world tended by a Star Spirit for so long would touch a forest of other worlds.
Think of the ancient Other Shore, boasting as the universe’s center, ruling more worlds than you could count. This unknown world had centuries upon centuries of grooming; its links must be plenty. With those coordinates, why break our backs pioneering the Second Space?
But it won’t be simple. The Star Spirit won’t be baited; its will to go down together is iron.
When they’d finished, Ouyang saw Christo still had words held like a blade behind her back. He asked, easy as driftwood, “Cat-eared girl, what’s up?” He never bothered to be solemn before the Hell Lord Christo.
She hesitated like a cloud snagged on a peak, then spoke.
“I’d like your advice on sounding the world’s anthem…”
Hell Lord Christo came from an ancient time, not as old as Jue or the Ancient Turtle from the last cosmic epoch, but she’d existed since Hell first opened its eyes.
And even after ages like mountains, she’d never set the world’s anthem ringing.
“About that… can you see the staircase that shows in the sky, and that door?”
“Mm. Sometimes. I don’t know what it means.”
“That staircase is the Ladder. Only deity-class can glimpse it. Weaker great deities can only see; to them it’s a mirage you can’t touch.
To stronger great deities, it’s real underfoot. When you can lay a hand on a step, you’re qualified to reach higher.
When you step onto it, you’re already on the road to strike at the true god’s throne. But the ladder is long, and the road looks endless. Some fall. Some never reach the top.
When you crest the summit, you become a Tiered Being. At the top is a platform, and a gate. If you stand there and can’t approach the door, that’s the First Tier.
If you can approach and lay hands on it, but can’t push it open, that’s the Second Tier. When you can push it open and enter the root of all things, that’s the Third Tier.”
That door is the Gate of Truth, the Supreme Law made flesh. Ouyang had gone through, but not by his own strength; the Law opened for him. Otherwise, he’d need Third Tier power to force it.
As for stepping onto the Ladder—he’d never lived that scene. His soul already sat at that level, his body forged from primal chaos; when he set the world’s anthem ringing, he didn’t climb—he took the elevator.
What he told her were the Void Watcher’s steps, cached like constellations in his mind.
Ouyang shared it all with Christo. He hoped she’d succeed; another Tiered Being on their side would be best. But his hopes stayed cool; the odds were a candle in wind.
As he’d said, some fall for no reason, and some walk a lifetime and never see the end.
“Thomason, move. Finish up here. We’ve got bigger tasks when we’re back.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
General Commander Thomason saluted Ouyang, then strode out to rally the Expeditionary Army.
