Stronger with Crimson Modifier

It was willing to follow that entity, until the end of time.

And now, as the power from the source of the Alien Origin Bodies vanished.

It reverted to the heavily injured, dying cat it once was.

The scene was just like time rewinding, all the way back to that rainy day decades ago.

PATTER!

A drop of murky rainwater fell from the sky, landing right in the black cat’s dim, lifeless pupils.

The rain grew heavier.

The rising water submerged the black cat’s corpse.

In the downpour, everything in Kari City became a blur.

...

「At the same time.」

On Kapu Star.

All life forms previously bound to the Celestial Destiny System heard a mechanical voice.

[Alien Origin Body completely eradicated. Celestial Destiny System is disengaging...]

This situation.

It immediately caused a massive uproar.

While at first people had been resistant to the Celestial Destiny System that was suddenly forced upon them.

Over the past month.

The term "Celestial Destiny System" had become an integral part of their lives.

Coupled with the emergence of Power Users.

They had also witnessed the benefits of the Celestial Destiny System firsthand.

It is human nature to see value in anything that brings personal benefit.

Furthermore, the Celestial Destiny System never imposed any restrictions.

If anything, there was only the mission to contain Alien Origin Bodies.

But it never forced anyone to do so.

For everyone.

Therefore, the existence of the Celestial Destiny System was a beacon of hope.

It was also their only chance for fair competition.

But now, that chance was gone.

This news caused those who had been waiting on the sidelines, or who had yet to hunt an Alien Origin Body, to break down.

Some even collapsed to their knees, begging the Celestial Destiny System not to leave and vowing to go contain an Alien Origin Body at once.

As for the Power Users who had already contained an Alien Origin Body and received gifts from the system, their expressions turned grim as well.

This meant their chance to grow continuously stronger was gone.

Without the Celestial Destiny System.

They would stagnate.

However, they were relatively better off.

After all, the only good news was that the powers gifted by the system had not vanished.

This meant that these people would become the ones standing at the top of the pyramid on Kapu Star.

Part of their motivation for constantly getting stronger.

Had been the fear that others would eventually catch up.

Now, however, there was no need for such worries.

It was all because, with the loss of the Celestial Destiny System.

The number of Power Users could no longer increase.

Scarcity creates value.

When everyone is a Power User, the status of "Power User" means nothing.

It was like being a college graduate.

Once, college graduates were rare talents, held in high esteem.

But once higher education became widespread and the number of graduates surged, their degrees began to devalue, even leading to the predicament of "graduation means unemployment."

But now, the number of Power Users was fixed.

So, as long as these people didn’t do anything suicidally reckless.

They could all live lives of the elite.

...

This situation had occurred because the Alien Origin Bodies came from the picture book.

The many-eyed worm from within that picture book had already been devoured by Hu Qi.

Naturally, these Alien Origin Bodies dissipated as well.

The Celestial Destiny System was merely a tool Hu Qi had created to reap the Alien Origin Bodies.

Now that there were no more Alien Origin Bodies.

The so-called Celestial Destiny System naturally had no reason to exist.

Although the Celestial Destiny System was just something Hu Qi had created on a whim, and even if he wanted to.

It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to turn every human on Kapu Star into a Power User.

But he was no philanthropist, and such an act would bring him no tangible benefit. On the contrary, it would require a continuous expenditure of power to maintain the system, so he would naturally not do so.

...

Time flowed on, the sun and moon turning in their cycles.

In the outer space above Kapu Star.

A colossal, pale serpent was coiled into a massive sphere.

Its enormous body hung motionless, suspended in the cosmos.

It resembled a white celestial body, devoid of all Vitality, drifting in the eternal silence.

Suddenly.

At the center of the serpentine sphere.

The giant snake’s tightly shut eyes snapped open.

On its ferocious, serpentine face, an expression of surprise, identical to a human’s, appeared.

At the same time, a voice echoed clearly through the vacuum.

"So that’s how it is. To think that things like Void Creatures actually exist."

Normally, sound requires a medium to travel.

It should be fundamentally impossible for sound to exist in a vacuum.

And yet, a voice had indeed been heard.

The giant serpent was, of course, Hu Qi.

By now, after all this time.

He had finally finished digesting the vast trove of memories from the white worm.

He recalled.

When he performed a Soul Search on the Young Man named Wu Yang.

Although he had obtained some memories.

The backlash had resulted in the man’s death.

That was to be expected.

After all, Wu Yang was merely an ordinary person.

If not for the Alien Origin Body, he would have died long ago.

According to his memories.

The man had obtained the picture book in a very simple way.

He had found it on a mountaintop when he went home to offer incense at his ancestral graves.

It was raining at the time.

Strangely.

The black picture book and the ground around it were completely dry.

This aroused his curiosity.

He took it home and subsequently discovered the picture book’s purpose.

What the man likely never knew, even at the moment of his death.

Was that the picture book concealed a Void Creature.

The Void Creature, of course, was that white worm covered in eyes.

Its name was Gelie Mu Leita.

Void Creatures, as the name implies.

These beings were not from the Spirit Realm.

More accurately, they came from the void outside the Spirit Realm.

When Hu Qi first learned this, even with his mental fortitude, he was shocked beyond measure.

Throughout his entire existence, he had always believed the Sea of Sumeru was everything.

It was vast and boundless, infinite and unending.

It contained all things.

But now, from the inherited memories of this Void Creature, he had glimpsed a truth that upended his entire worldview.

The Sea of Sumeru was not boundless. It... had a limit.

No, to describe it as a ’limit’ was perhaps inaccurate.

To be more precise, beyond the Sea of Sumeru, on a higher dimension, there existed an even vaster Domain—the Void.

The concept of the Void was extremely abstract, difficult to fathom with conventional logic.

If one used an egg as an analogy, the Sea of Sumeru would be the yolk, and the Void would be the albumen surrounding it, or even the shell beyond that... or perhaps some even more external existence.

That black vortex, from the visions in the inherited memory.

Was a tangible manifestation of the Sea of Sumeru’s boundary with the outside.

And Void Creatures were born within this boundless Void.

However, the Void itself contained no physical matter.

For Void Creatures to grow, they must absorb energy.

And their method of gestation was, surprisingly, no different from parasitism.

Like barnacles in the deep sea, or parasites.

They must invade the Sea of Sumeru and devour the origin essence of a world within it to complete their gestation.

And the one previously hidden inside the picture book.

The white, many-eyed worm which Hu Qi had found and devoured, was one such Void Creature on the verge of completing its gestation.

There were many types of Void Creatures, each with a different form.

For instance, there was the giant worm, deathly pale and covered in a dense blanket of eyes.

Its Ability was to manifest illusions into reality.

Of course, this Ability was not without limits.

Each manifestation required an immense amount of energy to sustain.

That was precisely why it had sought out Wu Yang.

His personality suited its needs.

Its original plan was to create more Alien Origin Bodies through Wu Yang, gradually eroding the will of the world.

However.

Perhaps due to the subtle intervention of the world’s will, or perhaps because of the complexities of human nature.

Wu Yang simply wanted to make the world less boring.

Therefore, while creating Alien Origin Bodies.

He simultaneously helped humanity establish the White Pagoda and even dispatched the so-called "God" to protect them.

Ironically, Wu Yang never knew from beginning to end.

That he was merely a pawn in the game between the Void Creature and the will of the world.

Had things proceeded normally, however.

This world would have met its doom before long.

Because the appearance of the Alien Origin Bodies was, in itself, a form of Erosion upon the world.