A planet slowly turning to desert like Verminstar was actually one of the luckier worlds.
The Swarm King and Its endless offspring did not simply devour every planet's "food." Their very arrival was, in itself, a pollution and distortion of the very foundations of life.
They rewrote the basic genetic sequences of a planet's organisms, remaking a vibrant, thriving world into a colossal living hive that endlessly spewed forth fresh brood!
And yet, this was merely the prelude to disaster.
Far more terrifying was that Tayzzyronth itself had begun to self-replicate!
Though these replicas lacked the might of the Aeon proper, their sheer bulk had already grown vast enough to blot out the heavens. Like living mountain ranges adrift in the sea of stars, their unimaginable mass alone could crush continental plates with ease and wipe away every trace of surface civilization.
These monstrous Aeon-clones often served as the vanguard of Destruction for the Swarm's invasions, grinding to dust with absolute force any defensive line a planetary civilization had painstakingly built, clearing the way for the flood of the Swarm-tide to follow.
In the 13XX Era of the Amber Era, Propagation ascended to godhood.
The Swarm was like a kindled, never-dying karmic fire—surging, seething, breeding without cease.
From the first bug bearing Its will taking wing, to the terrifying tide that drowned entire galaxies, only a handful of years passed!
Then this torrent of Destruction swelled at an exponential, despair-inducing pace, sweeping toward every corner of the cosmos!
Their line of march was a scar across the universe, sweeping past one flourishing galaxy after another, scouring clean every planet along the way.
Flowers? Trees? The sky? Clouds? The sun? Oceans?…
Everything gnawed away to nothing.
The wreckage of civilizations?
The ruins of cities?
Nothing but garnish for the next meal.
Even the human corpses fallen into the dust were gnawed hollow and empty.
A small, delicate starship drifted aimlessly through the boundless deep space, like a mote of cosmic dust.
"Whew… finally, quiet. Can't hear a single bug chittering anymore."
Asta's voice carried the relaxation of someone fresh from a bath.
A white bathrobe was draped loosely over her, her snow-pale skin glowing with a soft allure under the lights, pink hair spilling free, eyes like clear water, unadorned by artifice—she radiated a freshness and purity like a lotus after the rain.
—if one ignored the faintly visible triangle beneath the robe, and the collar that had slipped slightly open with her movements, baring an exquisite collarbone and the tempting swell and valley beyond.
That naturally unadorned, pure beauty, set against the offhand hint of subtle sensuality, seized a certain Stellaron spirit's gaze like a magnet, instantly engaging "High-Precision Auto-Aim Lock-On" mode.
Asta didn't notice right away.
She let out a long, contented sigh, spread her arms, and stretched luxuriously to her heart's content.
The motion pulled the loose robe taut in an instant, tracing out every graceful, undulating curve of her figure without reserve.
Only then did she catch that burning, fixated stare, and a look of helpless amusement crossed her face.
She shook her head gently and turned her eyes toward the far end of the bridge—where a gray-haired youth lounged lazily against his seat, both feet propped brazenly on the control console, the very picture of boredom.
"Caelus."
Asta's voice was warm and soft after her bath. "About how long has it been since we left Verminstar?"
"Right now? Let me check…"
Like a jaded veteran player of Sword Art Online, Caelus casually waved a hand through empty air, and a holographic panel bathed in faint blue light unfolded at once.
The Simulated Universe wasn't a game, and he wasn't a Beater but a Tester—so this wasn't a player panel but a tester panel.
It didn't have many functions: just checking the time, adjusting the internal time flow rate, emergency console calls, and the like.
Caelus's eyes swept across the time readout on the panel, and one brow arched slightly. "Huh, looks like half an Amber Era has gone by already."
The number of years in each Era of the Amber Era varied with the speed of Qlipoth's hammer-swings, ranging roughly from 76 to 240 years.
"I can't—feel it at all!"
Wrapped in a blanket beside them, curled into a silkworm cocoon, Stelle wriggled and squirmed like a maggot swaddled in the covers.
The Simulated Universe had entered Warp-Style High-Speed Time Flow Mode, and for Caelus and Asta within it, the felt passage of time had been blurred to an extreme.
This was a necessary Cognitive Protection Mechanism—otherwise, actually living through the long span of several Amber Eras in full inside the Simulated Universe would accumulate enough memory and experience to completely reshape a person's personality. They might well come out as someone else entirely.
Moreover, under this accelerated mode, Herta, Ruan Mei, and Screwllum couldn't tap in to observe the whole process from within either—it amounted to an interlude in the program's run.
Unless the Star Rail crew came into close contact with the Aeon and tripped a preset trigger, at which point the time acceleration would halt instantly, and the backend would notify Herta and the others to connect immediately.
"It feels like… maybe a little over three days have passed?"
Tangled in her blanket, transformed into a squirming grub, Stelle wriggled over to Asta's feet and wound the blanket around the other girl's shapely legs, wrapped in their thin silk stockings.
"It really does."
Amused by the antics, Asta hopped back a light step, and Stelle immediately came grub-crawling after her. The two chased and fled, giggling as they circled Caelus several times over.
In the end, Asta collapsed laughing onto the soft sofa, while Stelle clung to its edge like a koala.
"But thinking it over, even though it felt so brief, I also feel like I went through so many… deeply memorable things."
Asta leaned back into the sofa, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger, those deep blue eyes gazing out the viewport at the eternal starlight, her look a little distant, as if lost in memory.
"In all sorts of ways…"
Like the Green Hill Bonsai Planet—a world built by a certain Genius to satisfy his fanatical urge to observe tiny intelligent life.
And yet the entire Green Hill Planet was stomped flat by a single enormous True Sting-Bug!
Earlier, when they'd received a signal from the Garbage Mountain Galaxy's Synesthesia Center, Stelle had immediately maxed out the speed-control system, determined to go save the Garbage Planet.
But by the time they arrived, the Garbage Mountain Galaxy had already fallen.
Asta had also witnessed a spectacle beyond human imagination: dozens of different bug species entwining, mating, then giving birth to entirely new offshoots.
Offshoot joined with offshoot again, like a rose shifting through forms, its petals coupling with one another.
The Swarm's breeding was like a flower giving off pheromones of different honeyed scents, the hideous and the sweet stacked one atop the other…
"A cosmic catastrophe from a hundred thirty thousand years ago… truly, seeing it once beats hearing of it a hundred times."
In reality it was the 2158th Era of the Amber Era; the Swarm Disaster had occurred nearly 800 Eras earlier. Taking a median of 158 years per Amber Era, that came out to roughly a hundred thirty thousand years ago.
"Truly a wondrous experience, this Simulated Universe."
Genuine admiration bloomed across Asta's face. "Lady Herta really is amazing!"
Sure, it was a project done in collaboration with other Geniuses—but who could blame Asta for being the Chief Little Hater?
"After all, to use Herta's own words, it's a universe of real data."
Caelus brought the starship to a stop, then beckoned to Asta, a mysterious smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Come here, I've got a gift for you."
"A gift?"
Asta's eyes—clear and blue as a mountain stream—widened at once with delight, long lashes fluttering. "What is it~"
"Come."
Caelus took Asta's hand and led her to the very top of the bridge, where the view opened up widest, and lightly touched the control panel with his fingertip.
The solid alloy dome slid silently apart to either side and folded away, like petals opening, baring the boundless deep space beyond.
"This is…!"
A whole sky of stars came pouring down, utterly unobstructed!
The dazzling river of stars was like a flowing waterfall of light, filling the girl's entire field of vision in an instant.
Her already crystalline blue eyes now mirrored the radiance of hundreds of millions of stars, shimmering brilliantly.
"Compared to the noisy Swarm and the deathly silence, this quiet, star-filled sky suits you far better."
Caelus tilted his head back and gazed upward.
This was a perfect stargazing spot he had spent a long while deliberately seeking out.
The deep black canopy of the heavens was like the purest velvet, studded with countless uncountable stars.
They were not still, but shone in rivalry across the infinite dark, flickering and shifting, as if radiant rivers of stars were surging soundlessly overhead.
Cradled tenderly by this vast sea of stars, the youth and the girl stood quietly upon the bridge, as if meeting the universe's gaze.
"So beautiful…"
Asta murmured, almost without sound, all her awe, her feeling, and a barely perceptible trace of fragility melting into that soft sigh.
"From any angle at all, the universe is always so enchanting."
Born into an eminent household, no matter how doting her parents were, many things in Asta's life were destined never to be like an ordinary girl's—especially with the Family caught in such turbulent, ever-shifting times of late.
Herta's shelter had let Asta stay temporarily removed from all the scheming and intrigue, but she knew full well—this was only the calm before the storm.
The moment that great-grandmother who held the delicate balance together let go of life would be the moment she had to return and face it all.
And so Asta's soul was always deeply immersed in this splendid, eternal starry sky.
It was her harbor from the storm, her solace.
Asta seemed approachable, her smile warm, her manner toward others beyond reproach—yet in truth she kept everyone at a subtly perfect distance, and those she could truly regard as close confidants were pitifully few.
They could be counted on one hand.
That was one of the reasons she loved chatting with Caelus.
"I remember there's a poem that goes like this—"
Caelus's voice rang especially clear across the silent sea of stars, reaching Asta's ears like a stone dropped into the lake of her heart, making her turn instinctively to look at him.
Caelus gazed into the boundless deep and slowly recited, "After a certain moment, we no longer walk, but fly."
Asta's reply was gentle and sincere.
With steps that seemed steeped in starlight—tender and a little bit joyful—she walked to Caelus's side, sat down on the floor as he had, and leaned her shoulder lightly against his arm, gazing up at this vast tableau together with him.
"I love that poem very much."
Asta walked over on those tender, buoyant steps and sat down beside Caelus, gazing up at the stars with him.
"When I first left home, when I truly set out on a journey of my own… that's when I finally understood what that poem meant."
Bidding farewell to the mockingbird chatter of home, dodging the ever-present spears and daggers, flying free among the stars.
That was the loveliest thing the girl longed for in the depths of her heart.
"Fly whenever you want to fly. You won't be locked in a cage."
Multi-core, multi-threaded—while Caelus was off wandering the Xianzhou, the female body often used his main account to chat with Asta, so he knew a thing or two about the little rich girl's Family.
"Caelus…"
Ripples of light stirred in Asta's blue eyes, as if they brimmed with stardust.
The youth beneath the stars right now had shed his usual flippant, absurdist air, revealing instead a calm, dependable quality—a contrast so vast it was like the difference between a fixed star and a moving one.
Used to Caelus's absurdity, his sudden turn to seriousness left Asta almost at a loss for how to respond.
Then Caelus grinned wide. "I'll go be a kept man to Herta, Ruan Mei, and Bronita, and get all three Geniuses to back you up! Guaranteed those noisy characters in your Family will never dare yap like dogs again."
"Pfft—haha~! What are you even saying~!"
Asta's little pink fist thumped Caelus's shoulder with mock indignation, not too hard and not too soft.
Mm, that was the right flavor.
"Then wouldn't I be the one living off you?" she teased right back, laughing.
"How could that count as living off me?"
Caelus went with it and lay flat on his back, hands pillowed behind his head, pointing lazily at the stars twinkling all across the sky, spouting nonsense with a perfectly straight face. "Fine, ten thousand steps back—isn't it wonderful for us to live off each other? Look, the stars are all nodding along!"
"What~ The stars never said any such thing."
The girl pouted her tender pink lips and grumbled softly, as if a touch displeased—but those faintly upturned corners of her mouth, and the smile she couldn't hide no matter what at the bottom of her eyes, gave away her true feelings.
For some reason—perhaps it was the blurred sense of time after entering the hyper-accelerated flow—the memories of the Stelle-Asta fusion from the earlier, normal-speed period were unusually vivid, carrying a habitual sense of intimacy.
Or perhaps the starlight in this moment was simply too tender.
Her body tilted slightly, and she gently rested her head against Caelus's chest, her forehead pressed to the warm line of his jaw.
An unprecedented, intoxicating sense of security and ease spread through every limb and vein of Asta's body.
The vast stars turned soundlessly overhead.
And he was right there beside her.
The stars and you, all here at my side.
This feeling—it was wonderful.
"Did I come at a bad time?"
The familiar voice pulled Asta out of the Stelle-Asta fusion's memories. She jolted back to herself, two intoxicating flushes of red rising on her cheeks.
She turned to look—Stelle was standing there, utterly deadpan.
The blank face, of course, wasn't from jealousy or anything of the sort. Stelle had been peeking here for quite a while, and just now she'd kept shooting Caelus-cub meaningful looks.
Such a heartwarming mood—hurry up and kiss her already!
And that rotten Caelus-cub had actually ignored her?
Stelle couldn't hold back any longer.
"No, you came at exactly the right time."
Caelus opened his other arm toward Stelle.
"Ribbit!"
Stelle pounced with a frog-hop.
Behold, the captain of the Head-Pushing Squad!
Kiss her, now!
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