Chapter 696 The People of Transcendence and the Prayers of the Nihilism Order (7200, Seeking Monthly Tickets!)

The Ascendant Empire is an ancient galactic nation with a history of 820,000 years, an imperial multi-ethnic, multi-elemental foundation country.

The origin of the Empire lies in the edge region of the galactic disk near the Small Magellanic Cloud, a remote area close to the galactic halo. In Earth terms, if the Shining Zone where the Sernoshtians reside is the second ring of the imperial capital, then the Ascendant Empire's origin is deep in the underground karst caves of the remote northwest mountains.

In this desolate place, there is no paradise for life. Within a vast area of nearly two thousand light-years in diameter, there are fewer than twenty star systems, and the only planet capable of nurturing life is a 'dead star' far from its parent star.

This planet has a harsh environment. It is enveloped in ice and snow, the oxygen concentration in the ocean is extremely low, and around the equator, numerous volcanoes constantly spew sulfur dioxide and other gases, catalyzing the gradual extremification of the icehouse effect—storms of minus one or two hundred degrees Celsius rage across the white, flat plains, creating rainbow storms like ice lanterns in the refraction of the sparse sunlight.

For other intelligent life, such an environment would be enough to trigger a mass extinction, and it would not be surprising for it to become a dead star.

But on this planet, a self-improving species emerged.

A 'crystal' life.

Not only heat can nurture life, nor is it limited to carbon-based, silicon-based, or elemental life involving psionic energy that can be born in such extreme environments—even in gas giants, in the turbulent and uninhibited stellar hurricanes, a consciousness belonging to the wind can be nurtured, let alone a more stable ice star?

As long as there is a structure that can stably self-replicate and record information, life is possible.

In the ice layers around the volcanoes, a crystalline life is being born. At the bottom of the frozen ocean, under high pressure, a crystal structure capable of self-replication and self-proliferation appears. It is similar to a gemstone, a self-deriving 'snowflake crystal'. Its molecular structure is dense, but its density does not change, allowing it to accumulate more information.

On this planet, which has quite active geological activity but is frozen by the distant solar environment, the ice crystals spread with plate movements, using the re-condensation of unstable discrete ice crystals and water as a breeding process. Due to volcanic activity, they are constantly dissolved, reconstructed, and undergo a slow 'evolution.'

Their evolution is very, very slow, just like the condensation of gemstones, requiring a long time to undergo an evolution, reconstruction, and advancement. However, with heat vibration and mechanical waves inside the ice crystals as a medium for information transmission, their 'reaction' is very fast. After the ice crystals initially formed a 'stable large-scale ice crystal' nearly equivalent to Earth life's 'multicellular life cluster' at the bottom of the planet's icy sea, they possessed initial intelligence.

Ice crystal life was born on this silent yet fierce, cold yet scorching planet. They used geological movements to spread their clusters, and even used the high heat in crustal fissures and the high pressure of the icy sea to accelerate their evolution.

Their tools were ice, methane ice, and pure ice crystals, all their materials. They used these tools to induce the planet's heat, burning and dissolving the icy sea, creating new living areas.

They worshiped the plate fissures spreading at the bottom of the icy sea, worshiped the volcanoes and the insignificant light in the seabed ice layers. This group of lives, which existed based on cold but yearned for heat and 'evolution', even created a primitive religion based on ice and fire, worshiping the gods that brought creation and destruction.

Because ice crystal life would turn into discrete ice crystals or water after death, and these materials would give birth to new ice crystal life, destruction and birth were one for ice crystal life.

And when they, yearning for light, advanced towards the top of the icy sea, it was already four million years after they gained intelligence.

Leaving the high pressure of the icy seabed, the structure of ice crystal life was no longer stable. It took a very long time for them to reconstruct a crystal structure that could adapt to low-pressure environments.

As for how shocked the ice crystal life was when they left the dark icy seabed and gazed at the ice storm that refracted rainbow light all over the sky under the distant sunlight, that was a 'beauty' that carbon-based life could not understand.

Just like all intelligent life, they became curious.

Curious about the essence of the icy sea and the planet they were on, curious about the origin of the rainbow storm, curious about where the light above the sky that seemed forever out of reach originated, and curious about the principle of their birth.

And how to get to the place they were curious about.

Ice crystal life has limitations. The temperature on the surface is higher than at the bottom of the icy sea, and the speed at which ice crystal life dissolves and reconstructs accelerates, but it is difficult for them to accelerate and send their fellows to the sky—the heat that accelerates birth will ignite their methane ice tools and melt the ice that allows them to exist.

For ice crystal life, there is only one way to explore the sky, the stars, and the mysteries of the distance.

That is to build a tower.

A tower over four hundred thousand meters high.

This is a long time.

Dissolving and moving the mass of the icy sea, and condensing a tower on the surface, constantly dissolving and reshaping, requires all ice crystal life to pay the price of generations of life. This process lasted for millions of years, and the time spent building the tower even exceeded the time it took them to reach the surface from the seabed.

And in the process of building the tower, they encountered many difficulties.

For example, the shaking of the wind, the geological movements caused by volcanic eruptions, the collapse caused by storm friction, the melting caused by the focus of sunlight at high altitudes, and so on…

The ice crystal structure is unstable, and reconstruction is required if the plan is wrong, the selected location is not on the equator, and it is affected by the planet's rotation, and so on…

However, these are just difficulties, not problems that cannot be solved.

In the process of building the tower, they gradually mastered the secrets of the planet, understood the essence of ice, and knew the limitations of their race.

They even knew that as residents of an ice star, the process of entering space was almost equivalent to suicide, and the light they yearned for was actually a scorching fireball enough to burn their entire planet, a hell enough to destroy all ice crystal life.

--But so what?

In the process of exploration, constantly dissolve yourself, recast yourself.

Transcend your innate limitations, transcend your original appearance.

In the process of building the high tower, make the tower better step by step, transcend your past peak height step by step, and even transcend all the peaks on this planet, transcend the atmosphere of this planet, and enter directly into the universe.

This is already the joy and meaning of survival for ice crystal life.

[Transcendence]

From the deep icy seabed of the planet, melt the ice layer step by step, and climb to the top.

Then, from the empty surface, where everything except light and storms is nothingness, build a tower of ice, transcend the planet's atmosphere, and go to the more empty vacuum of the universe.

Transcend the world of ice.

Transcend the planet's surface.

Transcend the turbulent atmosphere.

Transcend the vacuum of the universe.

When the life of ice, [transcended] the essence of its life, replaced part of its crystal body with mineral crystals, and achieved a 'mechanized' modification similar to that of humans, they embarked on a journey to the universe.

They began to transcend all shackles and rush towards the other end of the future.

Even transcendence itself became the purpose—regardless of freedom, strength, choice, regardless of anything.

[Transcendence] is not to be stronger than others, [transcending oneself] is a way of life.

This is the way of life chosen at the beginning of the Ascendant Empire.

Even though there are already thousands of different races in the Empire, even though the capital of the Empire has moved to a secret subspace realm in the Shining Zone, the core will not change.

Whether it is carbon-based, silicon-based, sulfur-based, amino-based, or crystal life like them, or plasma life on stars, or gaseous life on gas giants, the essence is the same.

Because transcendence is the essence of life, as long as you adhere to this view and sublimate the original self, 'ascend' to a higher level, it is the 'correct' path.

As for the process of transcendence, whether it is transforming into a giant of light, or transforming into an ultimate life through biological or mechanical transformation (henshin), or directly performing a super robot combination, that is another matter.

'Rainbow Crystal·Ninghhui' is the Ascendant Empire's ambassador to Earth. His name, in Earth languages, represents 'an ice crystal that can refract seven-colored rainbows under the sun's rays, and has the brilliance of eternal tranquility.' It is a very artistic name that sounds very culturally rich, but unfortunately, Earth languages cannot perfectly express this beauty.

The Ascendant Empire welcomes people who transcend themselves by any means, but this transcendence is not unscrupulous strengthening. They believe that systematically and regularly finding methods and channels to become stronger, and then transcending their limits step by step is the orthodox way.

Whether it is the transcendental sanctification of psionic energy, the comprehensive transformation of mechanization, the cultivation of information cluster substrates at the genetic level, or directly performing 'transcendental life elementalization,' all are paths to ascension.

Ninghhui is a traditional Ascendant Empire person. He looks like a silver-white humanoid model—of course, his body is actually an octagonal ice crystal prism, and his current body is just imitating the human body structure.

Like all imperial people, they all take constantly surpassing themselves as their life goal, and becoming stronger is their way of life.

However, even these seemingly very extreme Ascendant Empire people are unwilling to become stronger by the method of Twilight.

Even joining the Nihilism Order, which allows one to obtain various secret knowledge and inheritance at the fastest speed, and rapidly surpass the original self to become stronger, is the same.

Because that is not transcendence, but madness before nothingness.

Therefore, Ninghhui is shocked at this moment by Su Zhou's words on the screen in front of him.

[…What!?]

He turned his head first, and said in astonishment to the Earth representative, whose forehead was already sweating coldly: [Could it be that the Earth side has already joined the Nihilism Order?!]

Similar words also appeared in the mouths of ambassadors from other alien civilizations.

This is not surprising.

After all, Su Zhou's sentence [I faced the 'God of Twilight' directly] [I obtained the truly correct path of Dusk] sounded like a pronouncement of fundamentalist believers against revisionist believers—or vice versa.

In short, it has the flavor of an orthodox faction打击异端 (dǎjí yìduān - cracking down on heresy).

And isn't claiming to be orthodox saying that Zhuzhou thinks he is also a Dusk family member?

"Everyone, wait a moment!"

In response, the Earth representative, who was still sweating profusely behind his forehead even after reaching the Ruler level, was immediately in unspeakable pain, but he still excellently showed the composure of a diplomat: "Let's wait and listen to Minister Su Zhou's explanation!"

—And then kicked the ball to Su Zhou.

[Don't worry too much, everyone.]

In response, Su Zhou had long known that his words would definitely cause misunderstandings, but this was exactly the method he used to attract the attention of everyone present.

Facing the alien power ambassadors who were panicking and guessing whether he had already surrendered to Dusk, the young man replied with a smile: [I believe that in most civilizations, there should have been primitive religious beliefs, and there should have been distorted systems that are completely different from 'doctrine'.]

[Religions that require goodness, in turn, persecute good people; religions that encourage innovation, in turn, limit innovative methods; doctrines aimed at the welfare of all people, but are still distorted by people with greed in their hearts into organizations that plunder and exploit]

[What I mean is exactly this: All the ancient venerables, the 'evil gods' we are familiar with, most of them are essentially similar to those initial 'doctrines,' and there are countless intelligent lives, and each person interprets these doctrines according to their own desires, their own intentions, and their own understanding, which will naturally cause distortion]

[And the Nihilism Order is the most severely distorted one]

Saying this, Su Zhou signaled Shao Shuangyue to move the camera behind the dead star.

Immediately, all the alien ambassadors on Titan saw the End Ten Faces in the form of a 'Dusk Cocoon.'

[That's the Nihilism Annihilation Envoy, End Ten Faces, who destroyed nearly three thousand interstellar civilizations in 40,000 years!?]

Immediately, Ascendant Empire Ambassador Ninghhui exhaled a breath of cold air. It was difficult for him not to be shocked: [He, he was sealed by you?!]

The Ascendant Empire had also fought against End Ten Faces. At its peak, End Ten Faces carried the lament of thousands of civilizations and the blessing of the Nihilism Order. Wherever it passed, many star systems dimmed. In subspace, it looked like a dark shadow that directly obscured many stars. Just passing by would cause the destruction of some small civilizations.

The Ascendant Empire, which has always ignored race and regarded all life as seeds of ascension, would naturally be hostile to this annihilation envoy that destroyed the seeds of civilization. The two sides fought in various regions of the Milky Way for tens of thousands of years, with each having its victories and defeats.

But to completely seal an annihilation envoy?

How is that possible!

[No, I didn't seal him]

But Su Zhou's next words were unusually unreasonable: [I just debated with him, persuaded him, made him repent, and began to fulfill the true way of Twilight Dusk, and went into seclusion]

[Now, he is a cocoon, our research sample, which allows us to study the form of this Dusk family member, and better create various methods against the Dusk families]

Ninghhui: [???]

Debate?

A debate can persuade a former Ω-level psionic peak Nihilism Order Annihilation Envoy? Can this terrifying destroyer who destroyed thousands of civilizations and affected more star regions fall into self-isolation and become a cocoon himself?!

How could he believe it! How could there be a script in this world where you can win the final Boss with just a verbal barrage!

But the fact is so.

Su Zhou later showed on the screen the entire process of persuading End Ten Faces not to self-destruct, but to invest in the embrace of Dusk.

[This, this…]

Su Zhou's successful debate, which caused End Ten Faces to become autistic on the spot, even caused the ice crystal structure in Ninghhui's body to melt a little, and a gaseous life next to him expanded several times, obviously falling into great confusion.

And Su Zhou finally succeeded in making everyone believe that he did indeed have a 'Twilight Treasure' dedicated to 'members of the Nihilism Order' in his hands.

And barely believe that he had indeed met the true form of 'Dusk Twilight' and obtained the other party's true original 'canon,' so he could carry out a dimensional reduction blow to the Nihilism Order.

[The Nihilism Order's original meaning of Dusk has extremely significant flaws—in fact, I suspect that their backer is likely not Dusk]

After the presentation, Su Zhou solemnly announced to everyone: [Behind them, there are likely other ancient venerables posing as the People of Dusk...or even some kind of 'monster.']

Su Zhou didn't explain much about monsters, but the meaning was clear, and everyone could understand this.

[Just like a Nihilism Order reinforcements I saw when I cut off the wormhole, the 'Hong Demon' is similar to a monster. The civilization's race's intelligent souls are all blood food to support his existence...The real Dusk families, seeing this kind of existence, would have already let him return to nothingness. How could they join hands with the Hong Demon?]

In this regard, Su Zhou had long been confused.

The erosion of other great beings on the Nihilism Order, and even the substitution and distortion of the Dusk families, may have begun before a very ancient and long era.

For example, in the Eater of Stars' memory, the legendary 'First Generation Nihilism Order Pioneer,' the creator of the space-time rift in the Laniakea Supercluster, the earliest Nihilism Order pioneer, is very inconsistent with the definition of Dusk families or family members.

Why?

Nonsense!

The real Dusk family members, where did they get the time to hit the universe and create space-time cracks!

If there really is a super Dusk family member of that level, they would nest in the heat death universe and sleep, or sleep in the silent universe of great expansion.

If it really doesn't work, directly transform into a central super black hole, nest in the event horizon and watch the reincarnation of the universe, waiting for nothingness to descend!

The guy who hits the seals of other universes, can that be called a Dusk family member? Who has the time to move around for the real Dusk family member!

There is a very understandable analogy: who has ever seen Dusk himself impact the great seal?

No, right? Even if the great seal itself is cracked, Dusk is too lazy to walk out of the prison door.

The same principle.

Su Zhou has reason to suspect that either the Nihilism Order's most ancient pioneer himself was a Dusk family member who was bewitched and distorted, or he was faked by other great being's family members.

The news brought by the young man can undoubtedly shock the entire galaxy and even the universe.

It directly negates the foundation of the Nihilism Order's existence, negates the 'correctness' they insist on.

Compared with physical destruction, this lack of foundation can even cut off the possibility of the Nihilism Order reappearing in the future.

[This information must be passed on to His Majesty immediately!]

Ninghhui thought so. He couldn't bear it completely now and wanted to pass this information back to His Majesty the God Emperor of Shenqi Star.

However, a question asked by the Sernoshtian ambassador stopped this anxious ambassador (or lady, ice crystal life has no gender).

[Mr. Su Zhou]

The Sernoshtian said in fluent Earth language: [Although you showed the process of 'debating' and persuading End Ten Faces...but according to my observation, before he was persuaded, Ten Faces had been defeated by you and was on the verge of self-destruction]

[What I want to ask is...what level has your current strength reached?]

These words were like awakening a dreamer.

The originally slowly calming ecological hall suddenly became noisy.

—Yes, the previous situation was obviously the result of dealing with End Ten Faces after he had been defeated… Su Zhou's soul has not yet returned, and his body can defeat a former Ω-level psionic?

Then his strength…

[It's indeed almost Celestial Venerable]

Su Zhou also replied lightly: [After a while, maybe I can really advance to Celestial Venerable, it's almost there]

These words, which determined the fact, made the audience silent again.

Five years after the return of psionic energy, Su Zhou started from scratch and broke through the α-level psionic rank, which is already unbelievable. Apart from some special races, few carbon-based lives can accomplish such a great feat.

And after he went to another world for two years, when he returned, he was faintly about to break through the Ω-level psionic, the realm of Celestial Venerable?

Not to mention the Milky Way, the observable universe cannot find such an example!

Just when other former Celestial Venerables are still working hard to restore their peak cultivation, a brand new Celestial Venerable is about to be born from scratch...No matter how you think about it, it's a joke.

And the Earth representative's smile was especially stiff.

He did want to celebrate, but he froze halfway through the celebration because of excessive shock.

And behind the Earth representative, those Earth high-level officials who were synchronously viewing the entire meeting process had the same expression, but the emotions were the same shock.

And among them, Mi Luo Goddess's face was stunned.

This manager of the Preaching Tower felt that her ears were not working.

——Obviously, this little guy went to the Preaching Tower to inscribe cultivation methods, and breaking through the Heavenly Immortal seemed like yesterday, how can he break through the Celestial Venerable again?

——Did I accidentally fall asleep for decades or hundreds of years?

It's no wonder that Mi Luo Goddess is mentally trance, after all, she is the endless life of the small world consciousness, the spirit of the Preaching Tower, and the concept of time is different from humans.

And even humans would find Su Zhou's advancement speed incredible, let alone her.

And just when the three-eyed cyan goddess suspected that her time recording accuracy was off, Su Zhou nodded with a light smile as if he could hear the other party's confusion: [In fact, this time, meeting the Dusk Venerable did help my cultivation a lot]

[I have recast my cultivation method and revised my foundation of Daoism again—when I return to Earth, I will probably go to the Preaching Tower again and inscribe my new inheritance]

"Ah, this?"

Hearing this, Mi Luo Goddess's expression froze. Her expression seemed a little happy and a little painful: "Is it coming again?!"

Being able to record another brand new Celestial Venerable Heavenly Emperor level cultivation method is undoubtedly a good thing for the Preaching Tower.

This is the meaning of her existence.

However, Su Zhou's inheritance has a strange aura, containing the power of many ancient venerables, and every time it is recorded, it will make her feel very strange and weird…

It's hard to put into words.

And in the distant Earth, in Mi Luo Goddess's happy and tangled expression, Su Zhou calmly smiled: [In short, the Nihilism Order is no longer an unsolvable and terrifying opponent. Their mysterious veil has been stripped off by me, and they are just a group of sad people who have been distorted 'correctly']

[Now, I will return]

Accompanied by this announcement, the vacuum of the universe, the Judgement Death Star, began to shake and deform in the shining psionic lightning.

The seemingly solid all-metal spherical Death Star is now deforming under the will of the young man.

It began to rotate and lengthen, just like a dough ball being stretched by a noodle master, and gradually transformed into the shape of a long 'divine dragon'!

Length, fatness, thinness?

Meaningless!

Boom!

The warp engine was activated at the vertebrae of the divine dragon, and the cyan-blue brilliance shone on the dorsal fin, causing the entire metal universe divine dragon to emit a cyan-blue aura halo like clouds and mist.

[Get ready, everyone]

Ending the communication with the distant Earth side, Su Zhou transferred his will back to his body. He laughed loudly in Shao Shuangyue's cheers and the expectant eyes of Jiu Ming and Tang Yuan: [We're going home!]

The cosmic giant dragon roared, dragging a long cloud and mist light belt in the starry sky.

Then, ripple-like space fluctuations enveloped the divine dragon, and then, with him, went to the other side of the distant space and time.

Su Zhou, who had been away from Earth for two years, embarked on his journey home!

And waiting for them in the distance was the golden fleet of the Sernoshtians, who were late!

But it's not surprising, after all, the golden fleet and the patrols will always be late.

At the same time.

The other end of the universe.

Subspace, Trade Federation homeworld system, Trade Capital.

The dim yellow star illuminates the entire subspace star system.

And in the core of the completely mechanized planet, inside the pure and hot stellar furnace, six pairs of eyes shrouded in endless brilliance slowly opened, blooming ice-blue brilliance, and then closed again.

[End Ten Faces…has he really returned to nothingness?]

[Clearly, everything in this universe has not yet received the gospel, and he has returned to nothingness on his own…Ten Faces, you are really selfish]

Sighing like this, the Nihilism Order leader's ice-blue eyes were tightly closed, but his huge body shook slightly, but it drove the entire Trade Capital to shake violently, and the earthquake on the surface proved that his heart was not as calm as he showed.

After being silent for a long time, he opened his eyes again and made up his mind.

[Our way of nothingness is the true correct…if there is no nothingness, where does meaning come from? If there is no destruction, where does correctness come from?]

[I will pray…Twilight Light, guide me]

[Guide me in the right direction]

After a brief silence, a voice sounded.

[——No truth, no fate]

[——No way of heaven, no supreme]

[——No constancy, no immortality]

[——Absolutely no perfection, absolutely no omnipotence]

[——Everything, all colors and phenomena, absolutely no salvation, absolutely no meaning]

He began to chant, chanting ancient holy words of praise.

In front of the six pairs of eyes, complex geometric emblems began to emerge.

[——Praise Dusk, show me the final path!]

——He praised.

Thus.

The aura of the ancient and distant other side was received, causing the stars to rotate and transform into virtual shadows.

Finally, it was displayed in front of him.

Gradually recovering! Seeking monthly tickets!

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