Time passes like a river, and history rolls forward.
Five hundred years ago, from 196 to 216 in the Federation Calendar, it was the era of the most intense disputes between the residents of Terra and the residents of the stars since the 'Unification War'.
The 'Century Rebellion' that occurred in the last decade of the second century lasted for a long time, and together with many wars including the 'Battle of Chengshuang', it was collectively known as the 'Twenty Years' War' in history.
Starting with the 'Valentine's Day Conflict' (Valentine's Day on Terra is December 12th), friction arose during military exercises between the Terran Federation, the Lunar Cities Alliance and the Space City Federation, and the friction quickly evolved into conflict and even war.
In just one year, the three parties directly entered a state of all-out war and blamed each other as the cause of the conflict.
At the same time, the "Celestial Group" from Jupiter, the virtual realm integrated human thinking body claiming to be a true human, also took this opportunity to launch an attack on the mainland of Terra - and behind the war, with the rapid death toll
Increasingly, the restless dead in the virtual realm of the underworld have also launched a "wall-breaking operation", and a large number of dangerous spirits have escaped from the constraints of the underworld and wandered in the virtual realm and the real world.
Not long after that, the free organization "Rivendell Army" under the name of "Rivendell Knights" also launched the assassination of leaders of various organizations. The Rivendell Army has extremely strong technical capabilities, and the new etheric weapons they developed have unimaginable power.
, and even has a 'Netherworld Furnace' that can break the real world and the virtual world, and has an almost permanent continuous combat capability.
The Rivendell Army drove the "Netherworld Armed Forces" to attack the centers of major forces, resulting in the death of the 50th Federation Chairman Lekal Harden and the leader of the Lunar Cities Alliance Bernard Mahada.
The Rivendell Army claimed to be attacking and killing the culprits of the war for the sake of peace, intending to use terror as a deterrent. However, the war did not end with the death of the leaders of all parties, but intensified. They made one mistake, that is, the Terran people
They are not afraid of death at all, especially the Terrans who have long been accustomed to the existence of Hades and are fighting with all their strength.
In fact, due to the death of the leader, a large number of substantive warlords have emerged within the Federation and the Lunar Cities Alliance.
More than thirty different forces emerged and fell, and people seemed to be releasing all the hatred accumulated over two hundred years of peace in one fell swoop. It is difficult to verify the historical data of that period, but from the side observation of information from all parties,
During the more than ten years of war, the total population of the entire Terra Star Territory dropped by one-third, and there were even some dead people who could not even be returned to Hades, but were dissipated in the starry sky that even Hades could not capture.
middle.
During this period, the "Battle of Chengshuang" that was regarded as a legend in later generations took place.
In order to fight for the ice planet, the 'Key to the Ice Prison Abyss' was unearthed on Vesta, the ninth planet of Terra, three generals of the Federation Army, sages of the independent Silver Peak Army, two commanders of the lunar city, the universe
An unprecedented arcane battle broke out here between the three major city lords of the city-state and the 'maharaja' of the celestial beings.
With ether weapons as the core, activating the power of the stars, the ten peak experts exploded with destructive power close to the fifth energy level of the past in this era lacking ether, completely shattering Vesta's frost crust and turning it into a
A furnace planet, transformed from a hell of ice into a hell of fire.
Many near-legendary figures were born during this war.
The last prophet, the second-generation Silver Peak Sage [Aldo the Visionary] has risen with miraculous momentum. He started out as a private security company and gradually became a well-known scholar of Austrian law in the entire human civilization circle.
Before the Century Rebellion, he had received the support of a general and led a special operations force to disrupt several rebellions and coups in Xinzhou (New World).
With this power, Sage Aldo at that time calmed down the increasingly fierce "anti-privilege wave" within the federation, curbed the trend of corruption within the federation, and even became a president of the federation.
However, the problems of the Federation have become irreparable through internal reform after being exiled, or in other words, blocking most of the authority of the 'Unified Intelligence' through voting. War is inevitable, so Aldo chose to accumulate strength within the Federation, and at the critical moment
Always make choices that can change the direction of the world.
After the Battle of Chengshuang, Silver Peak Sage Aldo, who was the final winner, took one step ahead of others and mastered the power of the abyss. This forbidden power made Sage Aldo surpass all other competitors, but he knew deeply that
The power of the abyss must not be out of control or abused.
However, no matter how clearly we know some things, no matter how bitter some fruits are, facing the current situation, we can only swallow the bitter fruits.
Sage Aldo used the power of the abyss to summon the "Seventy-Two Pillars of the Abyss Demon God" and launched the "Reunification War". At the end of the 216th year of the Federation Calendar, the 1000th year of the old Terran Calendar, he completely defeated all the people in the Terran Star Territory.
The opponents accomplished the great cause of 'second unification'.
Since then, in the name of the Philosopher King, Sage Aldo created the current [Holy Federation of Terra] and ruled the Holy Federation for nearly a hundred years, reshaping the collective cognition of the people and building a system based on
The state religion belief based on the "Light and the Holy Spirit".
After that, Sage Aldo left Terra in order to suppress the power of the Abyss. And his disciple, the third sage, Sage Forged, became the new Philosopher King.
Five hundred years have passed.
Following the sages and great sages (the later titles of Ian and Aldo, similar to Zhou and Kong), one philosopher-king and sage after another led mankind to advance, and the technology of the Holy Terra Federation moved forward with a slow but steady trend.
develop.
The technology carried in Terra is too huge and powerful. As long as the pace is slightly faster, it will induce unimaginable social changes and conflicts. Therefore, compared to war and rapid development, the Federation would rather pursue slow progress in peace and stability.
During this period, a big event happened.
In the 575th year of the federal calendar, [The Cradle is Opened].
In the 580th year when the pioneer sage Ian Silver Peak left Terra, mankind finally broke out of the cradle and came to the vast universe beyond the cradle.
The splendid sea of stars, the dazzling galaxy, there is no end, and there is no darkness. I don’t know why, and I don’t know where it started. The universe has been restored. The cradle detected this, so it spontaneously shattered.
In this endless starlight, even the once bright [Guiding Star] is just an inconspicuous one among the infinite stars.
After that, mankind began a new era of great development of the universe. Humanity left the Terra star field, colonized alien planets, and explored new areas. In just over a hundred years, human footprints have spread to nearly a thousand planets.
, there are even more than thirty habitable planets among them.
However, as humankind's territory continues to expand and its power continues to increase, the Holy Terra Federation inevitably begins to conflict with the 'enemy'.
The so-called enemies are [other cradle civilizations].
There are not many Cradles in the universe. After the Cradles were broken, other Cradle Civilizations that began to expand were also spreading their footprints across the Milky Way and the Universe.
Unlike the Holy Terra Federation, although these Cradle Civilizations did not build a 'Ring World' due to various reasons (mostly due to lack of time, and too much internal chaos to activate the perpetual motion machine), their civilizations were well integrated.
The fire of civilization has also been effectively used, so it is extremely powerful.
These powerful civilizations beyond human expectations should have good intentions. After all, everyone is the 'descendant of the Star God'. But for some reason, the existence of the Star God, and the existence of the end, have changed from the end of cause and effect.
It has begun to fade away. Existences without 'immortality' cannot even recall these two concepts. Except for the slight mutual recognition of the races in each cradle, the civilizations of the entire universe have a different attitude towards 'other cradle civilizations'.
They are all very cold.
Moreover, there is a mysterious force in the universe that is invading and attacking everywhere, making many civilizations suspicious of each other and indifferent.
For humans, encountering these alien civilizations is the same as the Terran nations encountering other Terran nations in the past.
After a brief period of warning, a period of communication and conflict...
The space war has begun.
It was a war too tragic to be described in words. A stream of light like rain filled the universe and illuminated the stars. Countless battleships and cosmic armors fell and exploded, and even created planets strong enough to deflect in the core galaxy of the war.
Orbital 'Battleship Graveyard'.
The war Death Star, which was as huge as a dwarf planet, warped space and time, while the giant Star Destroyer ships aimed at hostile civilization planets passed by only dust.
Humanity was defeated. And the enemy also suffered a tragic victory.
During the course of the war, the enemy was shocked to discover that human beings were actually a civilization of a single race. The brutal war made the enemies uncontrollably fearful of human beings. They believed that human beings must have wiped out the people in their cradle.
All other civilizations can be so powerful with the power of one clan, and the reason why humans lose to them is precisely because humans are not the true owners of those fire technologies after all.
For the sake of the justice of the universe, and for the sake of the "other civilizations" who died tragically at the hands of humans, they want to completely "purify" humans without sparing any genetic information.
Don't accept surrender, don't accept escape, all enemies will be destroyed, even if they have to be chased to the end of the universe.
Commonwealth calendar, year 716.
Humanity is facing a complete crisis of extinction.
But, that is in this year.
In the ancient and outdated Terra galaxy, which has long been forgotten by the Holy Terra Federation with thousands of stars.
Something ancient has been awakened.
【Is there anyone in this world who still remembers me?】
In the deepest part of the virtual realm, on the silver-white throne, a young man with white hair and purple eyes slowly raised his head and looked at the black-haired old man in front of him with a look that read everything.
In his eyes, the old man in front of him was completely different from the eyes of others. The old man's whole body was burning with twisted fire, and the shadows of the seventy-two demon gods turned into totems, spinning endlessly around him.
This is more than 600 years after mankind chose to abandon the path of the Silver Peak Sage. After the unified intelligence was banned from most of the authorities on the groundless charge of "suspected rebellion", he also chose to seal himself and watched coldly.
This civilization that betrayed his brother stepped on the path of their own choosing.
Why does the elder brother love them so much? The purple-eyed young man thought so. The elder brother burned his own life to lead this group of perishable mortals forward. It only took the elder brother eighteen years to transform the entire world. If human beings follow that path,
If we move forward, how can subsequent rebellions occur, and how can we develop for more than five hundred years and be overtaken or even overtaken by other civilizations without pioneers?
Because of greed, selfishness, and arrogance, human beings have destroyed their future goals, rejected the assistance of the most just and equitable "limited intelligence", and chosen to use their hearts to rule their hearts again.
They sealed the unified intelligence, rejected the path of the virtual world, were greedy for the prosperity of reality and forgot about the sublimation of the spirit. They pursued their inner desires but abandoned the exploration of distant places.
Such human beings are very boring.
So he chose to return to the depths of the virtual realm to communicate with all the dead souls. This was a task left by one of his teachers named Adlbert who had left long ago.
Yes, let alone my brother, the teacher and Uncle Qingchao have not come back. They must also be disappointed with today's human beings.
He should have continued to watch like this, watching the rise and fall of mankind indifferently, until in the end, all the souls of the dead reunited and turned into [Terra's End], and after completing his mission, he will also leave and go to [Brother]
The distant time and space where it is].
But he doesn't seem to be able to have that simple ending.
"Elan Silverpeak...the sage's brother."
The old black-haired human slowly raised his head, smiled and said to the 'young man' in front of him: "It was the Lunar Artificial Human Development Act that you signed that led to the birth of my mother and me, and also gave me the 'Silver Peak'
His name."
"Of course I remember you. The former leader of the Federation."
[Since you know] Elan said slowly: [Then don’t disturb my mission, let me quietly watch the end of mankind]
[Aldo Yinfeng, you have done a very good job. In order to seal the abyss, you have endured the terrifying pressure of a fifth-level powerhouse in the past, but you can still survive to this day... Wait here with me,
Let us witness together the fate of those who betrayed and abandoned their brother’s path]
"Betrayal? Give up?"
Aldo repeated the word, and he laughed loudly and said: "Great Watcher Elan, who betrayed the sage, and who gave up the path of the sage?"
"The name of the sage is [guidance] and [future]! Human beings are a greedy, selfish, fragile and vicious race. They are strong because of this, and their desires are boiling endlessly - human beings are like a manic fire that burns everything and everything.
Do your best!"
"That's why guidance is needed, just like a tamed flame can turn into a furnace, tempering steel tools, and starship armor - a civilization without guidance will naturally go astray!"
"I was their guide. I reversed the war that should have lasted for thousands of years. I reunified the Terran civilization for the second time, and had the most glorious and great golden five hundred years, allowing humans to spread across the star sea again."
"But...what about you?"
The last prophet asked the Watcher: "Have you ever guided mankind?"
[That is the path of the elder brother!] The young man with white hair and purple eyes frowned: [Since they abandoned me, why should I...]
"Why not try to reverse it!"
The black-haired sage and far-sighted Aldo took a step forward and raised his voice: "If you thought this was wrong, why didn't you deny it, reverse it, and guide the humans at that time?"
[Ridiculous] Elan sneered: [Didn’t I change the situation? Aldo, didn’t you see me being expelled by a joint vote at the General Political Bureau Conference? You were in the audience at that time, and you supported it at that time.
me?】
[No one wants to have an inhuman intelligent supervisor - no, all humans don't want anyone above them to supervise themselves, unless that person can give them what they want... I can't give it to them]
"I supported you."
Aldo said calmly: "Of the three votes that support you, one of them is mine."
The purple-eyed watcher was slightly startled, and Aldo continued: "As for what happens next, this is what I want to say to you, the great watcher Elan."
"Do you really think that 'advice' without any violence is the so-called guidance?"
"If he is a sage, your brother, if he is voted out by the 500-person assembly, he will really be expelled obediently, instead of..."
At this point, Aldo laughed, and he humorously made a 'beheading' gesture with his fingers: "Although I have never seen a saint, I guess a saint will also have the wrath of thunder, right?"
"Just like when I unified Terra for the second time, the sages back then... must have just used voting as a cover. In essence, they used their absolute strength to crush other people and forcibly unify Terra, right?"
Elan was silent.
After a long time, he slowly raised his eyes and said with some nostalgia: [Yes...Brother...Although he always seems to be gentle and peaceful, if it is really needed...]
[He will kill everyone who stands in his way. Everyone including me]
[Even my birth was sifted from endless time and space by him in order to go further]
As soon as these words came out, even a wise and calm person like Aldo was stunned.
After all, he has never met Ian Silver Peak, nor the Silver Peak Prophet or Silver Peak Pioneer of that era, so he does not know the epic story leading to that period, nor does he know the sage's credibility when he steps forward.
Terrible determination.
He just suddenly understood that the 'Watcher' in front of him might not have been sitting on the throne in the deepest part of the virtual realm for hundreds of years just for those simple reasons.
But Aldo also believes it.
He believed that the person in front of him was also a person full of love and compassion for all living beings - if Elan hadn't secretly taken action back then, the tens of billions of Terran people who died during the Twenty Years' War would have been more than a few hundred million souls scattered.
【Guidelines...】
At this moment, Elan slowly closed his eyes.
He had struggled for hundreds of years to maintain the civilization his brother left behind, but he watched with his own eyes as the Terrans forgot his brother's achievements and sacrifices little by little, deviating from the right and great path, and the long period of peace eroded their hearts.
Desire and corruption breed, but the fanatical war prevents stable development and exploration.
If it does not follow the right path, human civilization is destined to repeat the contradictory spiral of war and peace, with ups and downs, slow progress, or sudden demise.
Exploration and distance, progress and sacrifice, right and wrong.
Ellan suddenly remembered that when he was a child, Ian took him to play on the beach, building castles with sand and decorating them with shells, seaweed and starfish.
"The castle I make is always not as good as my brother's."
At that time, he, who was still stuttering, looked with disappointment at the simple little castle he had made, and the large castle that Ian had made that could be called 'towering'. Comparing the two lines, he even wanted to finish it in one go.
The idea that one's own castle can be bulldozed.
But Ian stopped him.
"Elan, I used shells, sand and starfish as decorations, stacked castles, and placed decorations, but I had never caught a jellyfish." Ian, who was also a child at the time, asked a question that easily attracted Elan's attention.
Attention: "Do you know why?"
"Why, why?"
"Because I like jellyfish. Whether it's a minehunting jellyfish or a ghost jellyfish, their fluorescence in the sea is as brilliant as stars."
At that time, my brother held himself in his arms and pointed to the sunset coast that had slowly entered dusk. In the depths of the gradually darkening sea, a faint blue fluorescence lit up in the blue water: "That's what I love.
The view.”
"It's so beautiful..."
At that time, he couldn't help but feel a kind of extreme and vital beauty. He stammered and wanted to express his psychological thoughts to his brother, but Ian was not too happy after listening: "This is just
The scenery I like. Elan, you have never seen the Sea of Stars, so you don’t know that I like it, just because it looks like it.”
"What you like are these jellyfish and the fireflies in the sea, while what I like is the sea of stars... They are the same but different."
"Just like your castle. Elan, since you like this kind of fluorescence, you can pick some fluorescent grass as decoration next time. You don't need to compare the size with my castle. You don't have to do the same thing as me. You have to do
…It’s your [castle you really like].”
【Elam】
At this moment, on the throne, the watcher who had been watching for more than seven hundred years heard a familiar voice: [I know, you still mind, I created your origin]
[I also know that you don’t care about your own nature. You are just afraid that you have done something wrong, failed to meet the needs I created you, and failed to fulfill my expectations for you]
[You are afraid...Afraid that you have deviated from my guidance]
[But don’t be like this, my brother...my favorite relative]
【Because I have left this world to you】
[Just like after that, I left the entire beach sand and the entire sea to you. You can build your favorite castle as you wish, and shape everything into what you want.]
[Go, Elam, the whole civilization is yours]
[You have stopped walking for hundreds of years, it’s time to take another step]
[Go and change the world... into what you want, into something I can't predict, into something different from my path, but something I like, just like the stars in the sea, the deep fluorescence,
A look that makes me want to explore]
[Only in this different world... can I have the motivation to come back]
——A different world?
Slowly opening his eyes, the eternal watcher looked at the last prophet with a surprised expression in front of him. He had already realized something and raised the corners of his mouth slightly: "Brother, don't regret it."
"Because...I will definitely do things beyond your imagination."
【--I am looking forward】
In the void, the remaining echoes gradually dissipated: [If one day you really complete your dream, the sea of stars will change because of you, the hearts of all living beings will be as joyful as fire, a new civilization will be shaped, and the unprecedented achievements will illuminate the entire universe.
...]
[Elan, please don’t have any burden and paint the universe into the shape you want, because that is exactly what I expect from you]
"yes."
The throne under him gradually lit up with a silvery light like the ocean tide. Ellan Yinfeng lowered his eyes, and the burning light flowed out, intertwined with the words in his heart, and he said from his mouth: "Wandering around in circles.
After seven hundred years, I finally understand your expectations of me...Yes, I finally understand."
"I don't want to be a king, and the Heart of Terra doesn't want to be a god. Since humans don't want our guidance, then we will leave."
"But I don't want to...I don't even want to."
"I don't want to be a passer-by in your life until the end, just your younger brother... Brother, I think I am your successor and someone who can stand shoulder to shoulder with you!"
The watchman left.
[Eternal King] stared at the universe in front of him.
The brilliance shines.
"Yes, yes! This is it!" And Aldo looked around him in surprise, and then looked at the silver figure slowly emerging to his side: "Finally - restarted!"
The far-sighted sage laughed wildly, and the seventy-two demon gods shouted with him: "I would rather ignite the universe than let our civilization die!"
"Since other civilizations have forgotten the glory of the Star God, then I don't mind letting our sun shine on the universe!"
"Wake up! Our sun!"
"Our [Heart of Terra]!"
As the silver throne was awakened by its true owner, the mighty brilliance lit up the darkness in the deepest part of the virtual realm...and then...
Turned into a [Silver Sun]!
[——Core signal detected, code 0002——]
【——Full-function and full-power wake-up——】
[——Civilization Control Intelligence·Heart of Terra Core Main Program Starts——]
【——AEON(Ian)——ELAM(Ellam)】
Eternity and war.
Calling the name of the Creator and Lord, the eternal throne has its owner.
Terra star field.
Terra star.
In the center of this ancient galaxy, silver brilliance lit up from the core of the sun, and then spilled out to the outside world at a speed exceeding the speed of light, turning the entire sun into a silver halo in an instant.
A [stellar lightship]!
After being exiled for hundreds of years, the Heart of Terra has never stopped transforming and evolving itself, and this 'etheric body' that completely controls all the power of an entire star is the 'body' of the Heart of Terra!
In the year 720 of the Federation, the Holy Terra Federation's war front, which was steadily losing ground, welcomed a huge stellar lightship from its hometown.
The war has come to an end...the victor is neither the Terrans nor the alien civilization whose names have disappeared so far.
Everything is absorbed, controlled, and brought under the command of the [Eternal King] by the Heart of Terra.
The first cosmic war of the Holy Federation of Terra came to an end - and as the price of the war, all Terrans and the remaining fleets became vassals of the Heart of Terra, embarking on an endless expedition.
Light and shadow fly by, time flows like the tide.
In just over two hundred years, the second, third, fourth, fifth... cosmic wars broke out again and again.
The victory of every war, as well as all the planets that were dissociated along the way, created the endless and terrifying reputation of [Terra Civilization].
The countless starships and shuttles of the Holy Federation of Terra surround the Heart of Terra, turning into a dark and bright cluster that covers the stars. Their hulls are as dark as clouds, and their tail flames burn the stars, as bright as the sea of stars.
Shine again.
Their goal is the eternal [Guiding Star] that guides the future, and their belief is to conquer everything they see along the way.
On this battlefield across the universe, all love and hope, justice and the future are just fragments of the battlefield, ashes that will be crushed by.
Its name is AEON. Eternity. Its name is ELAM. War.
Its name is the Catastrophe of the Stars, [Eternal Sky Fire].
The king and the prophet gazed at the universe.
Burning snow falls from the burning planet.
The star shuttle engine spurted out fire that penetrated time and space.
The eternal heavenly fire blew the trumpet that made the universe tremble.
The man who did not want to be a king and the omnic who did not want to be a god joined forces with the last prophet to bring about the order of iron, the civilization of steel and the dispute of fire.
The civilization that lost its awe and love launched an expedition to the end of the sea of stars in order to pursue the most distant stars.
This earth still sheds tears, and this starry sky still holds hope.
The sea of stars is vast, and the fire in the sky burns forever.
There are still twelve thousand years until the pioneers from the distant stars return home.
All EX-finished.
Brothers, all that’s left now is the extra chapter! I’ll give you my final words tonight or tomorrow, and I’ll finally have everything written before New Year’s Day!
Although it’s useless, I haven’t said anything for a long time. Please vote for me!