stonecrandall Chapter 72 Holding the Sun and Moon, Plucking Stars
Chapter 72 Holding the Sun and Moon, Plucking Stars
"Luo Lan! Wake up!!"
A neutral synthesized sound vibrated in Luo Lan's mind, and she suddenly saw her left hand being bitten by the kitten, her clothes disappearing, and her flesh and blood fading away.
All that remained was a piece of stark white skull claw, its alloy-textured knuckles gleaming coldly under the warm yellow light of the rented room.
The blue-eyed Ragdoll cat, its soft, smooth fur disappearing after a violent distortion of light and shadow, reveals a finely detailed skeleton glowing with eerie blue fire.
The Blue Star rental house in front of Luo Lan looked like shattered frosted glass, peeling off piece by piece.
The old wallpaper smelling musty, the bowl of thick soup smashed on the ground, the dim incandescent light overhead... all lost their color, turning into translucent afterimages that slowly drifted upwards.
The ceiling then cracked open, revealing the dark background of space behind it.
The mother remained standing there, her face hidden behind her hands. Glistening tears still clung to her kind face.
But the "hollow" in her mother's chest was expanding, its dark edges slowly engulfing her body. It spread from her heart to her shoulders, and from her shoulders to her neck.
Her lips moved slightly, as if she were saying something, trying to persuade Luo Lan to stay.
But Luo Lan couldn't hear it.
After a brief moment of distraction.
Luo Lan discovered that her soul was still suspended in the vacuum of space, and before her eyes was still that huge "void" flowing with amber liquid.
The surrounding galaxies continued to sing, their voices echoing through the vacuum, chaotic yet devout.
The only difference this time was that, beside Luo Lan's translucent soul, there was a small cat spirit emitting a ghostly blue light.
"Ah Cat? What brings you here?"
Luo Lan turned her head to look at it, her tone relaxed and casual, as if she were still drowsy from sleep.
"Perfect timing, let me introduce you to my mom."
Luo Lan pointed at the "void" in front of her, which was devouring light, and then pointed to the cat spirit floating beside her.
"Yes, that one."
The "warmth of a loving mother" that strikes deep into the soul still lingers in her cognition, and Luo Lan's translucent soul face is adorned with an eerie serenity.
The kitten's eyes flashed with a deep blue light, but it did not immediately correct Luo Lan's mistaken perception.
Freed from the constraints of the "Colorful Star Barrier" that covered Akquad, He was also briefly liberated from the overwhelming power that His people had once possessed during the Fourth Age.
After careful calculation, He decided to adopt some more efficient methods.
[Liberation power: 13%]
The kitten's spirit hovered in the vacuum, emitting a few short "meows":
"Alright, Luo Lan. You've been outside of 'Stars' for too long. Get some sleep."
After saying that, the kitten spirit nimbly leaped onto Luo Lan's shoulder.
A cat's tail, composed of pale blue light particles, gently swept across Luo Lan's translucent face.
Luo Lan's azure eyes instantly lost focus and slowly closed.
[Fate Skill: Eternal Sleep and Stasis]
Not only vital signs, but also spirits, souls, subspace projections... all individual information existence, and even the concept of "Luo Lan" itself, are temporarily suspended at the information level by this skill.
Luo Lan's soul remained suspended in place with its eyes closed, trapped in the deepest level of eternal sleep, quieter than any inanimate object.
The sacrificial ceremony, which was supposed to push Luo Lan into the "embrace of a loving mother," was forcibly interrupted.
The enormous "void" began to tremble—the entire star field, space itself, was shaking.
From the boundary of the "void" that devoured all light, a colossal entity on a celestial scale slowly emerged.
The Throne of Thorns rose from the edge of the "void," its bones immeasurable in scale, each composed of the skeletal remains of countless planets.
He sat quietly on the throne of thorns.
His long, gray hair hung down from the top of his head to his knees, and his skin was also gray, like a rock that had been weathered for millions of years.
From the torso to the extremities, life gradually fades away, and the hands and feet turn into withered bones.
With her eyebrows curved and her face kind, her expression carried the tenderness unique to a mother gazing at her children.
Two streams of clear tears flowed from her pure white eyes, gathering into amber-colored teardrops at her chin.
Amber-colored pus and blood continuously seeped from the "hole" in his chest, flowing down the curve of his abdomen, soaking his plump knees and legs, and then falling into the deep space below.
"Children, we need... Order Dust and Chaos Essence."
As soon as He appeared, His ethereal yet viscous divine voice reverberated and spread throughout the entire star field.
The chants of beings from dozens of surrounding star systems rose in volume at the same moment, and countless believers bowed down, their foreheads touching the ground, witnessing a miracle.
Suddenly, a tremendous suction force, powerful enough to tear apart galaxies, emanated from the "hollow" in His chest, attempting to forcibly pull Luo Lan's stagnant soul, along with the surrounding space, into it.
The cat spirit perched on Luo Lan's shoulder raised its deep blue eyes and stared directly at the enormous deity.
[Liberation power: 34%]
Without the slightest fear, the kitten meowed a few times at him:
"Immortal divine entities from elsewhere, please leave. This is not advice, it is a warning."
The kitten's meow was silent, yet it stirred up visible ripples of gravity in the vacuum.
[The Law: The Sound of Entropy Silence]
Where sound waves reach, all movement of matter is silenced.
All matter.
The free hydrogen atoms ceased their thermal motion, the Brownian motion of interstellar dust returned to zero, and the propagation of photons was frozen in mid-air...
Centered on Luo Lan's soul, a spherical "dead zone" expanded outwards, with its radius rapidly increasing to several astronomical units.
Absolute zero. Absolute silence.
A truly forbidden zone has appeared in the universe.
The terrifying suction force that was pulling at Luo Lan's soul by the huge "void" was also blocked outside this "forbidden zone".
"The void is closing in... Children, to survive, you must obtain..."
The ceremony was thwarted time and again, and His voice changed, from ethereal to urgent.
With a wave of his greyish-white arm, he drew several chains woven from thorns from the thorny throne beneath him.
Each link of the chain was seeping with amber liquid, spanning light-years and piercing straight into Luo Lan's soul.
However, when the tip of the chain touched the edge of the area shrouded by the [Voice of Entropy Silence], it seemed to have hit an insurmountable wall, making it difficult to advance any further.
"Stop. This is the last piece of advice!"
The kitten's voice carried an undeniable firmness.
Those thorny chains did not flinch despite the kitten's warning.
Like wildly growing white bone vines, they clung tightly to the barrier of the [Voice of Entropy Silence], desperately trying to penetrate it. The immense force caused dangerous, net-like cracks to appear throughout the entire universe.
Seeing this, the kitten's voice turned completely cold:
"Negotiations have broken down... Don't say you weren't warned!"
The Star Undead, who dominated the Fourth Age, were not some skeletons, cats, or dogs.
What is a "Star Remains Necromancer"?
It is an immortal undead whose limbs and bones are made of endless stars!
In the era before the Necromancer Dynasty was shattered, all living beings in the world had another, even more revered title for them—Star Gods.
[Liberation power: 78%]
The kitten's spirit instantly disintegrated, disintegrating into countless streams of dark blue spiritual energy that surged towards various parts of the starry sea.
The psionic gravitational waves were awakened in several star systems, spreading out like a piece of silk being unfurled among the stars.
Those celestial bodies that never gave birth to life or were already dead were stripped from their orbits by psionic gravitational waves and swirled toward the same center.
The rocky planets collided first, their shattered outer shells melting into a liquid silicate ocean upon impact, which then solidified into their skin after cooling.
Hydrogen and helium from gas giants are compressed and undergo fusion reactions at their core, then injected into the thoracic cavity to serve as the energy source for blood circulation.
The water ice that broke apart from the ice giant transformed into its cold, white skull processor, which dissipates heat at low temperatures.
The star's core, rich in iron and nickel, was compressed into a metallic protective garment.
Waves of psionic gravitational energy, powerful enough to warp space, rippled around Him.
Matter and antimatter were ignited by psychic energy at His fingertips, transforming into a ghostly blue soul fire that pulsated across the starry sea.
A ring floats overhead, with a vortex of light at its center distorted by gravitational lensing, and a stable wormhole passage is bound within it.
The Star Giant's gaze swept over the gray-white colossus on the Thorn Throne, then casually reached out to the circular wormhole binder above its head.
From an infinite distance, through a wormhole, He retrieved several "small spheres" that shimmered with a cold light.
Each one is only tens of kilometers in diameter, but its mass is so great that it can cause the surrounding space to collapse inward.
Neutron star, the corpse of a collapsed star.
Corpse, or dead body.
[Dead Remains Assembly lv.9]!
Several neutron stars, like glass marbles, tumbled in the giant's palm.
The outer shell of the degenerate matter was penetrated by psionic energy, and the internal neutron fluid was disassembled to the quark level under precise manipulation, recoded, and reassembled.
Within seconds, several neutron stars were broken down and reassembled into trillions of blue-gray nano-flying insects, each carrying a set of instructions for "star-devouring replication".
Psychic gravitational waves replaced sound, vibrating out a message:
"Execution: Star Extinction Order, Gray Wind Nanomachine Swarm."
An endless swarm of blue-gray machines poured out from between the fingers of the Star Giant, transforming into a world-destroying wave capable of engulfing the sea of stars.
The nanobots are spreading at near the speed of light in the vacuum of space, heading toward the galaxies teeming with intelligent life around the "void".
Each small cluster of gray wind nanomachines is strong enough to decompose a star into raw materials for replicating itself within minutes.
Amber-colored liquid poured out from the "hole".
Each drop of liquid transformed into an amber-colored spear of light, flying backwards to collide with the oncoming swarm of nanomachines.
One drop meets another cluster, they dissolve into each other, annihilating into a shimmering white light.
But there are too many nanoorganisms.
Amber-colored lights and blue-gray dust intertwined in the sea of stars, forming a shimmering battle line.
Eight or nine out of ten Graywind Nanomachines were intercepted, but a small portion still managed to break through the defenses.
Each surviving nanobug is enough to engulf a galaxy.
"Ah! Children..."
The grey-white deity, seated on the Thorn Throne, no longer cared about the soul of Luo Lan, which was still suspended in the vacuum.
They pulled back all the spiny chains and chased after the swarm of nanobots that had slipped through the net.