Two Emanator's of Preservation stood quietly, watching the man before them.
They did not know much about this chairman. The only thing they could be certain of was that anyone who had come through those distant years and built the Interastral Peace Corporation into such a vast empire could not be an ordinary figure.
"Heh heh, the state of the cosmos really is something even a person like me can't quite make sense of anymore."
There was one thing, however, that left him especially puzzled.
Leaning shamelessly on his seniority, he could say this much: among the countless beings of the cosmos, large and small, there were very few he could not speak of with some familiarity.
Whether it was strange relics, all kinds of interstellar phenomena, or colossal beasts. Living long had its advantages.
You saw a lot, you knew a lot.
But that also meant that when something appeared that he knew absolutely nothing about, the very experience he once took pride in would instead drag him into even deeper confusion.
"As for Godzilla, the Astral Express seems to know quite a bit. Almost all known information about Godzilla in the cosmos comes from them." Diamond spoke up.
"Is that so? Perhaps. And what do the two of you think?" Louis tilted his head slightly, turning his gaze toward the two at his sides.
They both understood what the chairman was really asking.
After a moment of contemplation, Taravan spoke. "Based on the current situation, Godzilla doesn't appear to have any intention of interfering in the balance. He only strikes when someone trespasses upon his domain, or truly angers him."
"Other than that, his biggest activity is probably rolling over while he sleeps in his territory."
"Is that so…" Louis nodded faintly, lifting his head to gaze at the stars. After a long silence, he finally spoke again.
"What a pity." If Godzilla had been willing to actively practice Preservation, the cosmos could have enjoyed peace and recovery for a long, foreseeable future.
But since Godzilla had no such intention, then so be it. Forcing the issue would be ugly, and if someone really tried to force him, it was hard to say who would suffer first.
Even so…
"At the very least, the cosmos can have some peace and quiet for a while."
Ahead of them, the region of distorted spacetime remained utterly impassable. Over a long stretch of time, it would continue to press down upon that area, unchanged.
Until some far distant future.
…
The rampaging mechanical calamity finally halted its advance, but the aftermath of the event continued to spread.
According to post-incident statistics compiled by relevant organizations, more than half of the cosmos had been affected by this disaster. The extent of the damage varied depending on the situation of each star system.
In the most severely affected places, as much as two-thirds of the region lay empty and desolate.
As for why, despite such a massive range, even the worst cases only reached this level… that was something to ask those whose entire star systems had already been assimilated and destroyed.
Regardless, the catastrophe had finally come to an end. Countless refugees who had fled were now beginning preparations to return home and rebuild.
During this process, friction between organic life and inorganic life was inevitable.
But that was only natural. The solution was simple.
Let time pass.
Wait for the scars of the incident to fade from memory.
Most life in the cosmos was short-lived. Long-lived species tended to have a dulled perception of life and a more open-minded temperament.
Before long, the impact of this event would drop to a minimum, and things would return to their former warmth and familiarity.
Incidentally, throughout the reconstruction process, the Interastral Peace Corporation was never absent. After all, they were among those who suffered the heaviest losses this time.
Only by restoring market stability as quickly as possible could the IPC hope to offset its losses.
The ones who truly suffered, however, were the lowest-ranking employees, crushed under endless pressure and overtime.
As time passed, one thing remained impossible to avoid when discussing the conclusion of this event.
The enormous rift that spanned three entire galaxies and caused spacetime distortion continued to dominate discussions on interstellar news and forums, hotly debated by countless people.
Godzilla, the one responsible for it all, monopolized the top headlines.
For a time, Jarilo-VI, which had already begun to gain fame across the cosmos as a vacation destination during its gradual recovery, became the absolute focal point of attention.
…
Jarilo-VI, Belobog.
"Mhm, yes, understood. I've already sent people to receive them."
"Diplomatic relations? Of course that's fine. Jarilo welcomes every friend who comes with goodwill."
"Buying the planet? Every inch of Jarilo-VI belongs to Godzilla. We have no authority to make that decision."
Inside the office, ever since Jarilo-VI's name climbed into the spotlight, Bronya had been run ragged. She was so busy that she was practically sleeping in the office.
After hanging up yet another call, Bronya rubbed her aching wrist and smiled wryly.
Finding amusement in suffering, that was what this was.
Bronya had always wanted to revitalize Jarilo. After Godzilla used overwhelming power to suppress all dissent, Jarilo truly did see revival. Tourists and investors from every corner of the cosmos flooded in.
This world, once steeped in stagnation, burst forth with vitality.
That period had been busy too, but Bronya had been prepared. From the moment she officially took office, she pushed through reforms and policies with decisive speed, leveraging Jarilo's connection to Godzilla to drag every metric sky-high.
But this time was different.
"Great Guardian, there are still several documents that need your signature. Hm? Are you very tired?"
Just as Bronya finally found a moment to rest, Pela entered with a stack of documents, only to see the weary look on Bronya's face.
Bronya wanted to say she wasn't tired, but reality was merciless.
Rubbing her wrist, she said weakly, "Yeah. I thought it would be about the same as before, but it's so exhausting. Every time I finish talking with one person, the next call comes in immediately. There's not even time to think."
The strain of nonstop mental processing was terrifying, even more exhausting than leading multi-day campaigns against Fragmentum creatures in the past.
She felt like her hands didn't even belong to her anymore.
"And then there are people who want to buy Jarilo. It's such an absurd idea."
At this, Pela frowned slightly.
There really were a lot of rich people in the cosmos. Buying a planet as casually as buying groceries.
It wasn't hard to guess that they planned to build it up themselves afterward. The cost of that would far exceed simply buying an ordinary habitable planet.
"For people like that, just reject them," Pela said softly. "Jarilo is Lord Godzilla's territory. We have no right to decide for him."
That was the shared belief of everyone on Jarilo.
Godzilla had brought light to Jarilo and protected it. Therefore, Jarilo was his domain, beyond question.
"I rejected all requests like that," Bronya nodded, "but they immediately turned around and started asking about residency rights."
Her eyes were filled with helplessness. In short, those people were determined to move into Jarilo, whatever it took.
Under the protection of Godzilla, Jarilo was one of the few worlds completely untouched by the disaster.
With Godzilla himself stationed here, even Emanators would not dare cause trouble lightly. It was easily one of the safest regions in the entire cosmos.
Naturally, it held immense appeal for those with wealth in their hands.
Especially now, just after a major crisis.
As they spoke, Bronya finished reviewing the last few documents.
"That may be true," Pela said with a light smile, "but you still need to rest. After all, you're the Great Guardian."
"Don't worry. This little difficulty won't stop me. It's all for building a better Jarilo." She said that, but she was really, really tired.
…
Fatigue in the world was balanced. Where someone was exhausted, someone else was at ease.
"Jarilo is so lively now. I wonder if anyone likes rock music. With so many people, there should be some, right?" Fiddling with her instruments, Serval pondered.
As she thought, she looked up at Godzilla, utterly unaware of the magnitude of what he had done, sleeping soundly. She couldn't help but smile.
"That's really something."
At the same time, on Ruan Mei's experimental planet.
Vegetation here was extraordinarily lush and massive. Giant trees thousands of meters tall blotted out the sky, and from time to time, enormous creatures darted through the forest.
This entire planet was Ruan Mei's creation.
A biological planet continuously modified and enhanced, with Godzilla as its blueprint.
"No wonder I haven't seen Ruan Mei lately. So she's been hiding out here."
A magic-carpet-like skiff slowly came to rest atop the crown of a colossal tree. Looking down at the bizarre lifeforms below, Herta raised an eyebrow.
An entire biological planet wasn't rare. If she wanted to make one, she could. For a genius, there was no barrier at all.
But once that planet bore Ruan Mei's name, even something normal had to become abnormal.
Herta was intensely curious about Ruan Mei's experiments.
The flying carpet sped toward the coordinates Ruan Mei had sent. Along the way, Herta noticed that the planet seemed to be… breathing?
Well then. Ruan Mei had added all sorts of strange things to the planet itself. Still, even if something went wrong, it wouldn't matter.
Herta thought indifferently. Life experiments always came with a bit of risk.
Standing on the flying carpet, it didn't take long before Herta spotted Ruan Mei tinkering with something. Beside her was a bouncing cat-shaped cake, keeping her company.
Who knew how many of those cat cakes she had created. They were everywhere now.
The flying carpet descended, and Herta called out, "Yo, what are you doing? Making an entire planet like this, don't tell me it's some dangerous experiment."
As she spoke, her gaze fell on the enormous virtual projection before Ruan Mei. It was packed with formulas and data, so dense it made one dizzy.
After reading a few key figures, Herta raised an eyebrow.
"So you're researching this." Displayed before Ruan Mei were data from the spacetime-distorted zone.
"Mhm. You're researching it too, aren't you?" Ruan Mei nodded slightly, her voice soft.
"Of course. With such beautiful data laid out in front of me, how could a perfect genius like me let it slip by?" Herta laughed.
Time and space. She had devoted herself to studying these wonders that ordinary people would never touch in their entire lives.
And in these two fields, her achievements could be described as surpassing the cosmos's understanding.
There was no helping it. She really was just that perfect. And someone as perfect as her naturally couldn't refuse such exquisite data.
Using flesh and blood alone to wield an attack that shattered spacetime had already surpassed the biological realm.
If it were the result of some technology, she might have merely praised the birth of yet another genius.
But this was achieved purely through a living body.
And it was the result of rapid evolution within a short span of time.
In the eyes of Herta and Ruan Mei, the period from Godzilla's first appearance in the cosmos to his rise to fame and universe-shaking presence was no more than the time taken for one of their experiments to conclude.
Both of them were at the fore-front in their respective fields. Although Herta had not delved as deeply into life sciences as Ruan Mei, her achievements there were in no way inferior.
And Ruan Mei was a true authority in life sciences.
It was no exaggeration to say that the time they had devoted to this field far exceeded the time Godzilla had spent evolving.
Yet in just that brief span, Godzilla had leapt from his former state to become the top dog of the cosmos.
Shielding the sky itself. Truly standing at the very pinnacle of the cosmos.
Naturally, Ruan Mei's already deep interest in Godzilla only intensified further, becoming impossible to shake.
"No matter how much we analyze these data, we can only infer how much power Godzilla used at the time to achieve such an effect. And trying to replicate it with devices would be extremely difficult. At least for now, research into combining those forces has no way of producing the same result."
Herta stated matter-of-factly.
As for why she understood this so well, and even knew what level would be needed to approach similar effects… don't ask.
"Which is exactly why we need deeper research." Ruan Mei's gentle eyes shimmered like water, ripples spreading softly, beautiful beyond words.
"Do you remember the information we gathered from that world ravaged by the disaster known as Honkai?"
"If that information is accurate, or if it was simply some high-dimensional projection cast there, then does the emergence of the phenomenon imply something else entirely?"
Ruan Mei's voice was soft and ethereal, but Herta could clearly see the bottomless yearning within it.
It was the endless thirst for her field of study, the resonance unique to geniuses.
"That's a very interesting idea. It aligns perfectly with my own thoughts, so…"
Their gazes met, and each saw the answer they sought reflected in the other's eyes.