Luna once again looked at the Rubik's Cube beside her.
This was likely her final chance.
The others had no idea what she had been doing; they assumed researching consciousness was her primary task.
Only she knew she was planning an escape.
So, could this thing truly help her get away?
Just moments ago, at least a hundred Divines had tested their various possibilities, only to fail. Their own squad had devised and executed a plan of destruction, which had indeed been completed, but now it seemed it would have been better left undone.
Blacklight put away his weapon.
"The guys I killed have all come back to life!" he said with eerie calmness.
It was a staggering blow to him.
Previously, they had all believed a Type 2.8 civilization was manageable. As Divines, they thought that even if they couldn't destroy it, they at least possessed the ability to disrupt it.
But when he saw how few individuals were actually flying toward them, Blacklight realized his thoughts were mere delusions—daydreams.
"You guys are far too calm."
"There hasn't been a sense of urgency from the very start."
One Sword Immortal finally spoke. He revealed the third reason why he hadn't fled.
His words were simple: Everything had been too smooth.
Facing such a powerful civilization, the execution of every plan felt as effortless as eating or drinking. They hadn't been blocked in any way.
An elephant doesn't notice an ant biting its skin; the ant bites a single millimeter of the ten-centimeter-thick epidermis and believes it can topple the elephant.
"We had more communication during the first battle than during this entire mission. Because everything went so smoothly, everyone even thought about holding back."
One Sword Immortal looked at Blacklight, then at Luna.
Blacklight had kept his technology to himself.
Luna seemed to be doing nothing, yet she was actually the one who had accomplished the most—and in the end, she had brought nothing to the table, just standing by and watching.
Everyone had their own hidden agendas, which should have been impossible in such a high-pressure mission.
Yet, it had happened.
"Are we just going to chat here?"
"Can we prepare to die now?"
Blacklight spoke with feigned indifference.
"Haven't you realized yet? Those you killed have been resurrected!"
One Sword Immortal truly couldn't understand Blacklight's mind.
"But this is the only way we can resist, isn't it?" Blacklight countered.
One Sword Immortal fell silent.
True.
This was a battle devoid of passion. The disparity in strength was too vast. The only thing they could truly do was commit suicide.
One Sword Immortal looked toward Luna again.
Blacklight followed his gaze, looking at Luna as well.
"What are you looking at me for?" Luna felt the gaze was incomprehensible.
"You're the only one who has ever truly killed them," One Sword Immortal said. "You absolutely have a trump card. Even if we, as Divines, don't fully grasp the gap between us and this civilization, the people at the top definitely do."
"And yet, they still deployed us here."
"Perhaps you are the key!"
Luna felt this was going too far.
She was just like everyone else—a Divine who had clawed her way up from the bottom. If every other Divine in this mission was powerless to resist, what could she possibly do?
She moved the Rubik's Cube in front of her.
"My method is very simple: escape!"
"Though I don't even fully understand what this object in my hands is, the higher-ups said I could use it to flee."
Blacklight and One Sword Immortal felt like she was playing a joke on them. Both grew slightly angry.
"What about your actual strength?"
That was the reason they had stayed by Luna's side all this time. Hearing these words now felt like a betrayal of their expectations.
Luna found it ridiculous.
"I've said it many times: I don't know what happened back then. That wasn't my power at all; perhaps the upper brass did something to the warship."
As she spoke, a cluster of Home Civilization lifeforms congregated in the distance and began moving toward them. It seemed the Divines further away had already committed suicide.
As those creatures drew near, dark energy gathered and discharged toward them. The three had no choice but to dodge. Those energy bursts couldn't be seen in advance; they could only move in erratic, desperate patterns.
One attack eventually struck One Sword Immortal, and his outer shell actually began to melt. Blacklight was stunned by the sight.
"They have other ways of dealing with their own kind..."
He had never observed this before. This proved these units were indeed toying with them.
Although regulations prevented these lifeforms from acting without sufficient evidence, it didn't stop them from watching these jumping Divines like monkeys in a cage.
Divines?
Clowns, more like.
Even though the opponent had barely exerted themselves from the start, everyone could feel the contempt radiating from them. After striking One Sword Immortal, the creatures ceased their assault on him and focused their collective attention on Blacklight and Luna.
"Damn you!"
One Sword Immortal finally unleashed his full power.
He channeled his Divine force.
Countless blades of light manifested around him, soaring forth like a torrential rain pouring down upon the Home Civilization lifeforms.
And yet, there was not a single result.
The blades of light couldn't even leave a scratch on their bodies.
One had to remember that in the physical world, One Sword Immortal had once used his blades to destroy a planet; his swords of light possessed energy levels on a planetary-extinction scale.
How do you defeat such an opponent?
Blacklight charged directly at the entities, his body overflowing with energy to the point of dissipation—he had prepared himself for self-detonation.
Meanwhile, Luna lunged toward the dimensional gateway. She had deliberated long enough and finally intended to trust the message on the Rubik's Cube.
Just as she was about to cast the cube into the gateway, chaos suddenly erupted among the enemies; they began attacking one another. It looked like a long-premeditated rebellion. The number of defectors appeared to be over a hundred.
This reminded Luna of the super-officers.
They hadn't received a single transmission from those officers since the beginning; she hadn't expected them to remain hidden until now.
But if they had already earned the enemy's trust, why choose this moment to strike?
While Luna was lost in confusion.
A transmission reached her.
"Do not toss the Rubik's Cube into the dimensional gateway! Do not go to the third dimension! It is a conspiracy!"
Luna froze, staring at the cube before her.
In truth, she had been hesitating all along.
It wasn't because she didn't want to choose this escape route—who would choose death if they could live?
However, it was all too discordant.
Having experienced so much in Hyperdimensional Space, she shouldn't have been this terrified.
Hyperdimensional Space even contained Type 4 civilizations.
Failing a mission there resulted in erasure just the same; the difficulty and stakes were no different from this mission. Many life-and-death crises there were even more terrifying than this one.
Yet she had never felt like this.
Escape!
That unsettling sensation had reached its peak after Blacklight spoke his piece.
What did mission failure mean for a Divine? She believed the same applied to her: if she simply fled back, would the Federation's upper brass see any necessity in keeping her?
So what was the point of escaping? True Lord was right not to flee toward the dimensional gateway; even wandering aimlessly in the fourth dimension was better than returning to the third to be erased.
Though many forced explanations could be made, it still felt off. That was why she had waited until the very last second to act.
And now, with that transmission, all her doubts were suddenly resolved.
But...
How did those people know this?
Luna looked toward the super-officers, who, like them, had taken on the forms of the Home Civilization.
They were desperately fighting to hold back the enemy.
Faced with an overwhelming numerical disadvantage, they were retreating steadily; dozens were lost in the blink of an eye.
At that moment, an individual flew toward her.
Luna grew wary.
The entity transmitted a message.
"At this stage, the Divines have basically finished executing their plans, and not a single one has truly stopped the enemy. According to the mission protocol, we are moving to Phase Two."
Luna remained on guard, unsure if the person was telling the truth.
"What is Phase Two?"
"I don't know, but this is our mission. You are the core of this operation."
These words echoed the expectations of Blacklight and the others. Having just experienced that sense of discord, Luna did not trust the person before her.
"Stay back!"
"If I am the core, then just tell me what I need to do."
Luna looked past him into the distance; they were being annihilated by overwhelming force. Countless stray shots were streaking toward their position. Though they couldn't be observed in advance, the faint interaction forces as they zoomed past were palpable. They could hold the line for a few minutes at most.
"I don't know what you're supposed to do. My mission is simple: get close to you."
The super-officer continued forward, closing the distance to Luna.
"Your only choice now is to trust us."
"If you pass through the dimensional gateway, you'll be taking this Home Civilization body with you."
"You must realize how powerful this body is!"
"Perhaps you think you can let our human civilization research this thing."
"But what if, instead, it's they who use you to enter the third dimension and research three-dimensional space and human civilization?"
"The object in your hand is a Dimensional Bridge. Home Civilization technology allowed you to build such a compact Dimensional Bridge in just a few years; therefore, their entry into the third dimension would be effortless."
Luna began to retreat.
Even though the other party had said so much, it wasn't enough to earn a person's absolute trust. The super-officer's words were, in fact, reality; the Home Civilization was too powerful, and invading the third dimension was nothing to them.
"If they can do it themselves, why would they need to use me?"
This was the flaw Luna seized upon in an instant.
The super-officer replied: "Coordinates!"
"As three-dimensional beings, even if we've lost our three-dimensional flesh, we still possess three-dimensional thinking. Everyone can feel that overwhelming sense of discord, but few have considered its true source, instead choosing to blame it on other things."
"The true source of that unease is this: we look like we've entered the physical shells of the Home Civilization, but in truth, we are still being isolated. Although the Home Civilization lacks powerful consciousness-related science, they have existed for so many years that they have found defensive measures."
"This resulted in one thing: all of us are still existing within a three-dimensional perspective. Have you truly seen the fourth dimension?"
This single question shattered all of Luna's previous confusion.
She looked around blankly.
Three dimensions!
It was still three dimensions!
Correct—she hadn't even noticed this glaringly obvious fact.
It was the easiest thing to overlook.
Because no one truly knew what the fourth dimension looked like, and during their ten thousand years in four-dimensional space, they had naturally grown accustomed to the way their eyes perceived their surroundings.
"We haven't seen it. The core we focused on wasn't the true core of the fortress."
Therefore, they had never been taken seriously from the beginning.
Meanwhile, the Divine who triggered the data black hole was viewed with more significance, because black holes within four-dimensional space are also a form of ultimate power.
Everything clicked into place.
The Rubik's Cube, the perspective—they had been deceived all along.
Even if regulations prevented the Home individuals from killing them without sufficient evidence, it didn't mean they couldn't be manipulated.
She had taken far too much for granted.
"As beings who are still essentially three-dimensional, we find it much easier to return to the third dimension."
"The dimensional gateway can lead to all dimensions. If they were to explore it themselves, they wouldn't necessarily reach the third; it could be the fifth or even higher. To them, it's all unknown. Objectively speaking, they already know the current strength of our human civilization within three-dimensional space; thus, they could successfully invade the third dimension afterward."
"I know you won't believe me, but there's no choice—you must believe me now!"
The super-officer's tone was extremely forceful. He had no time for a detailed explanation.
He was even quite angry himself: why hadn't his superiors given him more detailed mission information? Perhaps the superiors themselves had held no expectations for this operation.
But why? They were the vanguard of all human civilization. Losing them would be a massive blow. The super-officer didn't understand; he only knew that at this stage, his only duty was to execute his mission.
Phase One was the Divines' battlefield; Phase Two belonged to them. And their mission was singular: reach Luna.
That was it.
Luna was a rebellious soul.
But now...
She found herself with no other choice.
If she truly returned, what awaited her would certainly be death—not rewards, and certainly not the betterment of humanity. She would gain nothing and instead expose human civilization to immense danger. She didn't fully trust the super-officer, but the possibility was there; was she willing to take that risk?
She looked at the remaining members of her team: Blacklight, One Sword Immortal, and Marionette Actor.
The three were currently allied with the super-officers, holding back the enemy together. They likely had no idea what was happening, but since they couldn't escape, they chose to fight!
"Once again, I'm forced to make this choice!"
"It feels exactly like being in Hyperdimensional Space."
In every Hyperdimensional Space mission, they had to make choice after choice like this; it was all too familiar to Luna. Many of those choices were mandated by the script—failing to follow the correct path meant death.
She detested these choices, especially when they were brought into reality; it was even more loathsome. But what else could she do? Be reckless? Persist in her own way?
The super-officer had closed the distance, arriving right in front of her in an instant. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Thank you for trusting me!"
Luna stared at him.
"And now what?"
The two stood there, staring at each other blankly. Nothing happened.
"..."
"..."
"There is no 'now what'!"
"That's it?"
The defensive line formed by the other super-officers had now collapsed; too much time had been wasted dispelling Luna's doubts. And now, the result seemed somewhat awkward.
At that exact moment, a particle attack struck the super-soldier standing before Luna. More than half of the soldier's body was instantly dissolved.
"Damn it, maybe my memory didn't transfer completely. It looks like fate is against us!"
The super-soldier turned around, drawing an identical weapon to fire back at the enemy. But soon, even more particle beams arrived, and his body was quickly torn to pieces.
"I didn't think I'd fail to accomplish anything before I died. I'm sorry!" After leaving these final words, the super-officer's life force completely vanished.
The entire event lasted only a few brief moments. Luna hadn't even had time to truly speak with him.
What was happening?
Luna felt as if everything was in chaos. From the beginning until now, had she done anything? Had she changed anything? Had she achieved anything?
No!
...
On the other side, Blacklight and the others were also in a state of utter despair.
The super-officers were almost all dead; they were being swarmed by hundreds of thousands of individual enemies, and their bodies were riddled with holes of all sizes.
"A bunch of bastards. They were playing us for fools from the very start!"
Blacklight fired continuously. This time, he realized his attacks were completely unable to kill any enemies. This meant that everything before had merely been what the enemy wanted him to see; it had all been a game.
"This mission should never have existed."
One Sword Immortal was also fighting for his life. He released his qualitative phase-force, only to find that the enemy could render all his efforts futile with just a slight disruption of the force transmission. It was a devastating realization.
Marionette Actor, meanwhile, was standing to the side, doing nothing. No one knew what she was thinking.
After just a few seconds, she suddenly lashed out, attacking the nearest person, One Sword Immortal.
"What are you doing?!"
One Sword Immortal was both shocked and enraged, turning to fight back against her.
"Clearing the obstacles for the glorious Home Civilization," Marionette Actor said coldly.
"You're the traitor!"
One Sword Immortal unleashed countless light blades, stabbing toward Marionette Actor. But a thin membrane appeared on the surface of her body, directly blocking the blades of light.
"It's useless. You have no idea of the Home Civilization's power; any resistance is futile."
"I once utilized the collective strength, and in that moment, I knew we had no way of defeating this civilization, and that the mission was just sending us to our deaths."
"I defected to them then and revealed all our information. They agreed to let me retain a portion of my memories after assimilation."
So, Marionette Actor had surrendered long ago.
Blacklight turned his head at this.
"So that's why you pressured me back then?"
He hadn't told the others, but this entire operation had been spurred on by Marionette Actor. She claimed she was ready and that the other Divines couldn't wait any longer to detonate the data black hole, urging him to gather everyone and proceed with the plan immediately.
"Correct!"
Blacklight was also consumed by rage.
"The traitor must die!"
With those words, he also turned to attack Marionette Actor, neglecting to notice several particle strikes hitting his body. Fortunately, his physical shell was merely a medium for releasing his Divine power, so his combat capability remained unaffected.
He hurled a pitch-black sphere, about the size of a crystal marble, toward Marionette Actor. The highly compressed energy exploded instantly upon contact. The force was equivalent to a planetary-extinction event.
The blinding white light lasted only a second, and when it faded, Marionette Actor was still standing right there.
"Useless!"
"The gap between us is too wide. Since you cannot unlock the full potential of your bodies, you certainly cannot defeat me."
"As for Divine power! What kind of weak, puny strength is that?"
She spoke with disdain.
"Welcome your death!"
As she spoke, a force field pinned Blacklight and One Sword Immortal in place, rendering them immobile. Then, their bodies inexplicably began to ignite. White flames sizzled continuously as their forms rapidly collapsed.
For Marionette Actor, this was something accomplished with a mere wave of her hand. Then, she turned her gaze toward Luna.
"Only one left!"
The way she spoke made it seem as if she had forgotten Luna's name. She had already distanced herself from humanity.
Marionette Actor, the master of playing with the heart, had ultimately duped everyone.
Of course, she wouldn't have it easy either. Betrayal was something that occurred only under desperate circumstances.
"Luna!"
Blacklight hadn't yet fully perished.
He looked toward Luna, hoping she could save them. Even now, he hoped she was just hiding her true strength.
"Pinning your hopes on others is the ultimate foolishness."
"It's no wonder you were the ones who trusted me most in the end. In fact, all the other Divines I interacted with harbored suspicions about me, which is why it took so long to get things moving."
To Marionette Actor, Blacklight seemed utterly foolish.
Of course, in the face of absolute strength, any scheme or plot would ultimately end as a joke. If the Home Civilization hadn't been so powerful, any one of those previous strikes could have caused the collapse of their fleet in this sector.
But there were no "ifs."
After saying so much, Marionette Actor noticed that Luna remained motionless, offering no communication whatsoever. Her eyes fell upon the Rubik's Cube still circling Luna.
"I originally wanted you to head to the third dimension. That would have been the best outcome, at least allowing you to buy some people's trust."
"Now it seems I'll have to do it myself. Consider it my entry fee into the team."
She closed in on Luna, simultaneously whipping out a slender filament.
This thread was so fine it was only the size of a single atom, and it lashed out toward Luna with incredible speed. She expected it to be a certain hit.
However, Luna's body tilted, and she actually dodged it.
"Still resisting?"
She halted her advance and then signaled the other Home Civilization lifeforms to raise their weapons.
"Kill her first."
Marionette Actor still felt a trace of wariness.
On the other side, Luna seemed to have finally regained her focus. She scanned her surroundings and then locked her gaze on Marionette Actor.
"Death is the finest end for a warrior. Fearing death, especially seeking refuge through betrayal, is merely an excuse for a failure."
"You failed to do what a Divine ought to have done."
"But I suppose one cannot entirely blame you. The initial Mortality Selection was not well-refined, and it wasn't updated afterward. That's likely why the super-officer project was initiated."
"But it doesn't matter. Regardless of how many die, Divines can always be cultivated again."
Marionette Actor had spent thousands of years alongside Luna.
Although they hadn't been together every day, they had spent over ten years in close contact. Now, she sensed a profound strangeness emanating from Luna.
"Who are you?"
As she spoke those words, the Home Civilization lifeforms in the distance were actually retreating. A first for them.
"Luna!"
"This name has appeared many times in human history. I didn't expect to be deployed to a place like this, but it's fine. The experiences in Hyperdimensional Space have sharpened my combat instincts, which will help me face the upcoming war."
"Still, Ayla is somewhat unscrupulous, pinning her hopes on me to resolve the fourth dimension."
Luna seemed to be answering her, yet also seemed to be talking to herself.
The dual memories had left her feeling chaotic, but they were now sufficiently integrated. Now, she would see if she could truly carry the weight of this role!
"So this was the secret of your previous outburst."
"However, what you face now is not a few dozen warships, but an entire fleet."
Marionette Actor didn't listen to what Luna said. To her, it was meaningless. She only wanted to kill the person before her.
"Save me!"
Blacklight's voice drifted from afar.
Although he couldn't hear the conversation between Marionette Actor and Luna, he could sense a shift in the atmosphere. He believed he could be saved.
But Luna did not respond to him.
To her, Blacklight was merely a failed element of a plan.
Countless such people died in Hyperdimensional Space, and she had no reason to save him. To say she had a good relationship with Blacklight was only relative. It didn't mean they were friends or anything more.
Luna didn't even spare a glance for Blacklight or One Sword Immortal.
"How cold-blooded!"
Marionette Actor mocked.
"After being together for so long, even if you aren't friends, you could at least look at them once."
She wanted to shake Luna's inner resolve, hoping to find a flaw. It was now one-on-one between her and Luna.
Strangely, the surrounding Home Civilization lifeforms didn't dare to step forward. This was clearly a situation of absolute technological dominance. So why?
Luna didn't show the slightest flicker of emotion at her words.
"Several thousand years to me is but a fleeting moment in a lifetime, and I'm sure it's the same for you."
"Don't use the rhetoric of a villain to constrain your idealized version of a good person. Their death is predetermined. For human civilization, this is a positive. The fall of old Divines, the rise of the new."
Marionette Actor found it laughable.
"Who would care about such things?"
"Just as human civilization doesn't care about our deaths, we have no reason to care about the fate of all humanity."
She assumed Luna was lecturing her, accusing her of choosing betrayal over the greater good.
"You seem to have misunderstood."
"I have never pleaded with a single person to care for human civilization, including you."
"Whatever decision you make has nothing to do with me."
"What I said earlier was simply a statement of what I am about to do."
Luna showed Marionette Actor no regard whatsoever. Marionette Actor broke into a shrill giggle: "Who do you think you are?"
As her voice trailed off, the space around Luna was suddenly filled with various threats. Weapons from the Home Civilization. It was a form of energy traveling hidden within space. Simply put, it created microscopic spatial stacks, allowing attacks to strike by surprise over vast distances.
The only reason Marionette Actor had spoken so much was out of wariness. She had been preparing long-range measures. Her assault was ruthless, surrounding Luna from every angle, ready to erase her existence from this four-dimensional void.
From a third-party perspective, it seemed as if nothing was happening, as these attacks were entirely transparent and operated on a sub-microscopic level.
Small size did not mean small power. It only meant these attacks were extremely concentrated.
However, Luna seemed long-prepared. A void opened behind her, and a surge of gargantuan energy leaked from within.
A wormhole!
A wormhole piercing through the cosmic membranes of the third and fourth dimensions. There was nothing strange about it. A wormhole is inherently an entity that breaks through space, and cosmic membranes pose no obstacle to it.
"You intend to counter my assault with Divine power? Ridiculous!"
Marionette Actor laughed as if she'd discovered something utterly hilarious. After all that talk, she'd expected Luna to have some formidable strategy, only to find her relying on that same old Divine routine.
But her laughter cut off abruptly the next instant.
Luna was not dead. She was still standing there.
"How? How could Divine power interfere with my attack?"
She was momentarily lost.
"This is indeed Divine power, no doubt. The source of Divine power is the energy generated by a true black hole. In reality, each Divine utilizes only a trillionth of the energy produced by that black hole."
"Even so, for an individual, it is still immense. After all, the gravitational energy generated by a single black hole is enough to sustain a Type 2.6 civilization's normal operation."
Luna's casual words allowed Marionette Actor to instantly deduce what had just occurred.
"So, you utilized even more powerful energy. No matter how advanced the technology, it still has its limits. You simply used overwhelming energy to wipe out my attack."
Marionette Actor was filled with shock and doubt. Luna didn't deny her reasoning.
"You've missed one more point."
"What?"
"There's been enough talk. You were waiting, and naturally, so was I. After all, my enemy isn't just you, but everything here."
Thus, Luna had been waiting for the energy deployment from the black hole. Ayla had specifically reserved a portion of power for her use.
This was the energy accumulated by that black hole over ten thousand years.
After human civilization entered the fourth dimension via the Dimensional Bridge, the investment in that dimension gradually decreased. The surplus energy was stored by Ayla, intended for use on the front lines. Following the appearance of the Home Civilization, Ayla used a portion of this energy once, then sealed it away, planning to bring it out for use now.
And the user was not all the Divines. It was only one.
As Luna spoke, terrifying energy surged from the wormhole behind her. Even from thousands of kilometers away, the impact of this energy made Marionette Actor's state unstable.
It was too vast!
The entire energy accumulation of a Type 2.6 civilization over ten thousand years was being fully withdrawn at this moment.
What was it equivalent to?
A sun releases 3.8 x 10^26 Joules of energy every second. That is equivalent to 3.8 Type 2.0 civilizations. A Type 2.6 civilization produces a million times more energy per second than a Type 2.0.
On top of that basis, with an accumulation of over ten thousand years, the energy Luna was currently wielding was equivalent to the total energy output of a sun over 2.6 billion years.
At this moment, Luna became an entity far more dazzling than the sun. It was energy bordering on a supernova. This was the mystery behind how Luna had previously destroyed dozens of Home Civilization warships.
A short-range, quasi-supernova eruption!
"It's fortunate that the Home Civilization didn't understand this last time. It took me a certain amount of time to withdraw this much energy, and your chat with me helped."
"Otherwise, I wouldn't have known how to hold out for these two minutes."
The star-like Luna spoke to Marionette Actor, who was shocked beyond words. This was, in fact, the only thing human civilization could currently field against the Home Civilization.
"Are you joking? Even if you can withdraw this much energy, do you think we can't block it?" Marionette Actor said, emboldened. She had already analyzed exactly how much energy this was.
"You should know that a single one of our warships contains a thousand times the energy you have right now." She had completely identified herself with the Home Civilization.
The energy within a Home Civilization warship was indeed equivalent to 100,000 years of output from a Type 2.80 civilization, far more than what Luna was currently unleashing.
However, how could that energy be applied?
Defense is a continuous process of input and output. It is impossible for any warship or any individual's defense to release all its energy reserves in a single instant.
But an attack can.
Therefore, without an overwhelming advantage, offense will always be stronger than defense. Of course, that wasn't all. Luna had finished her preparations, so she no longer provided any explanation to Marionette Actor.
"Annihilate!"
She compressed the energy behind her to its limit, allowing for a concentrated eruption.
"You're insane! You'll die too!"
Marionette Actor hadn't expected Luna to suddenly act so unpredictably. She had no way to dodge and became the first individual consumed by the energy surge.
Despite her desperate efforts to block it, the 100,000 years of energy stored by a Type 2.8 civilization belonged to a warship, the collective energy of tens of billions of individuals, not a single one.
She was submerged in an instant.
Her silhouette within the glare seemed to radiate disbelief. She had believed her defection was foolproof.
Her worst-case scenario was becoming a member of the Home Civilization, albeit without her memories. She never expected death to find her so quickly.
Luna bypassed the first wave of the energy shock.
But Marionette Actor hadn't been lying.
After this energy mass was released, it would undergo a second, even more violent eruption, which would inevitably consume Luna as well.
This was also why she lacked the memories from 1,800 years ago. That version of her had died, and the current her was a new version, a replica created from the remaining Metacellular.
In the distance...
Blacklight and One Sword Immortal were reduced to ash. Theoretically, of the original squad members, only Luna remained.
This was something Luna had always experienced.
She had once tried to integrate into the lives of ordinary people, but she saw only their struggles. She never saw anyone grow to a level sufficient to stand beside her.
They all died, one by one, and Luna had grown accustomed to it.
She was like an observer watching it all, and the only one truly able to stand by her side, gazing at it together, was Ayla!
In truth, she understood some of Ayla's thoughts.
And she shared those expectations as well.
Specifically, that these events wouldn't require her memories to intervene, that the Divines and super-officers would resolve everything here, whether through a single person's effort or their collective wisdom.
But reality proved this was a mere pipe dream. A Divine was a "Divine," in double quotes.
The failure of these expectations didn't leave Luna with any regrets. Time would continue to push human civilization forward, and more Divines would emerge, bringing more possibilities.
As the energy continued to pour out.
The Home Civilization warship in the distance reacted. This time, they didn't defend, they attacked.
Their previous attempt at defense had failed to stop such an assault, and they had learned their lesson. Faced with such a terrifying explosion of energy, even one lacking advanced technology, it remained devastating, capable of destroying the creations of a high-level civilization. The ultimate representative of this is a black hole.
Energy represents everything! Energy is everything!
So-called science and technology are merely techniques for utilizing energy. The ultimate result of those techniques is the energy itself. It was a clash of pure energy. Since that was the case, they would use a spear to strike a spear.
The Home Civilization lifeforms realized this, and they were simultaneously aware that their spear was far superior to humanity's.
Luna looked toward them.
She couldn't see the energy released by the Home Civilization, or perhaps it didn't manifest as light. Luna sensed it through her body. It was still a Home Civilization body, and it was truly powerful, even Luna marveled at it.
She felt the attack from the Home Civilization warship.
The reason she didn't see light was that the energy had been deconstructed into zero-dimensional points. An onslaught of countless zero-dimensional points struck, dismantling not the energy within the fourth dimension, but the very foundational matter of the fourth dimension itself.
Regardless of how high the dimension, one cannot escape the concept of "the small." Once a dimension is compressed to its limit, one perceives lower-dimensional space.
In other words, the relationship between first, second, third, and higher dimensions is not a micro-to-macro one. Otherwise, there would be no explanation as to why these dimensions exist simultaneously and independently.
A first-dimensional space contains only first-dimensional objects.
A second-dimensional space builds two dimensions upon the rules of the first, and a third-dimensional space builds three dimensions upon the second.
According to some theories, lower dimensions are the decomposition of higher ones, suggesting higher dimensions are larger.
However, there is another theory.
Zero dimensions form the periphery of a concentric-square space (the character "回"), and all dimensions are simply the result of defining more space within this region. Therefore, zero dimensions are the largest.
Using the character "回" as an analogy, the outer "square" represents zero dimensions, and the inner "square" represents one dimension.
The interior also contains zero dimensions.
Thus, one-dimensional creatures within that interior can also perceive zero-dimensional information, yet they remain in one dimension and cannot fully evade its influence within that inner boundary.
Consequently, even if they enter zero dimensions from the first, they are still affected by the first and cannot reach a truly zero-dimensional state.
Only by leaving the inner square and reaching the outer one can they enter a pure zero-dimensional world. This theory conflicts with many others, but it is one of many explanations. Science is the observation of phenomena, and a phenomenon can have many explanations, from the superficial to the profound, from theory to truth.
At this stage, human civilization has not yet uncovered the absolute truth of this aspect. Naturally, there are an infinite number of explanations.
The Home Civilization's zero-dimensional point attack represents an exploration into the zero-dimensional state within the incredibly minute world of four-dimensional space, utilizing it as an unstoppable method of attack. These zero-dimensional points could potentially bypass ordinary zero-dimensional energy points and react specifically with high-energy ones.
Luna, in truth, could not fully comprehend this.
She was only experiencing this passively due to her current body's sensations. It also deepened her profound realization of the Home Civilization's strength. This civilization had already mastered numerous spatial technologies. They could likely even produce something like a Dual-Vector Foil given enough time.
But was such a civilization truly only Type 2.8?
Luna had been influenced by many science fiction works from Earth's era, and she believed such technology should be controlled by even more powerful civilizations. However, combining her current knowledge, she knew the universe was far more vast than the imaginations of Earth's sci-fi authors, so-called terrifying weapons couldn't actually destroy the universe.
Unless it was a chain reaction, like fire spreading across a sheet of paper from a single point. But the universe's capacity for self-repair was beyond imagination.
The total energy converted from the mass of a sun is only equal to the output of a Type 2.6 civilization for 15.87 million years, or a Type 2.8 civilization for 158,700 years, essentially the energy stored in 1.5 Home Civilization warships.
A Type 2.8 civilization must possess the technology to harness this much energy.
That is the energy of an entire star. As a piece of technology, it was indeed beyond the limits of Luna's comprehension. It was like the dominance of the atomic bomb over an old industrial society. Who in an old industrial society could have imagined a weapon as terrifying as an atomic bomb?
As a member of human civilization, currently at Type 2.5, how could she possibly imagine the weapons of a Type 2.8 civilization? This filled Luna with yearning, yet it also made her even more determined to destroy the enemy before her!