At the Stellaron Hunter base.
Rip—
The sound of paper being torn to shreds echoed through the room as a black cat burst into its spiny-dragon form.
"Ahhh! Who did this? My script, meow!!!"
Elio was completely numb.
The script for Onpharos was now total scrap, and the thing he hated most in this world was this kind of variable that messed with his script.
"Elio, do you want to delete the current time segment? We could even rewind everything back to when those guys first arrived on Onpharos."
Elio's script was something that would affect the entire cosmos.
"I don't know. I can't see it anymore. Maybe it's because of Truth. They're very likely outsiders who can influence the future."
Elio spoke, voice heavy with frustration.
"I just saw the Erudition's envoy Herta herself, together with Screwllum, the king of automatons, heading to Onpharos."
Kafka and the others exchanged looks.
They had read the original script for Onpharos and knew that there, a Lord Ravagers called Iron Tomb had not yet truly been born.
Now two days had already passed.
Should they reset the timeline back to what it was?
Iron Tomb might be a Lord Ravagers, but it hadn't fully awakened yet. There was no way it could stand up to the true bodies of two top geniuses.
"That big idiot Iron Tomb is probably done for this time." Silver Wolf blew a bubble with her gum.
An old hag like that Herta woman plus Screwllum, the king from Screwllum's homeworld… no faction in the cosmos would ever want those two teaming up against them.
"Forget it. Let's ignore that for now."
Elio had to think about what came next for his script.
Originally, the Stellaron sprite on Onpharos was supposed to be noticed by the Memory Aeon Fuli, then step onto the Path of Memory.
Now that things had been thrown off, Elio had to figure out a whole new way to guide that Stellaron sprite onto the Path of Memory.
...
"They said they wanted us to come help, but in the end we're not needed at all."
Mobius complained to Koji.
With how things were going, they honestly weren't needed for anything.
"Even if we don't need your help, you can at least watch. Mobius, don't tell me you didn't get anything out of this?" Koji asked.
"Of course I did. The Emperor's Scepters might not be much, but I still found a few interesting things."
Mobius smiled.
Don't be fooled by how isolated the Solar System was from the rest of the universe—its level of civilization in no way lost to the Star Rail universe.
Take the Second Divine Key, Thousand Realms One Cruise.
That thing could observe parallel worlds, and even reach the Imaginary Tree itself.
People from the Star Rail universe simply could not do something like that—only beings on the level of Aeons had the right to observe the Imaginary Tree.
Could some "Emperor's Scepters that simulate virtual worlds" compare to that?
Sorry—Elysian Realm was also a virtual world.
Before she came here, she had thought Earth's civilization would be behind.
But after arriving, she realized the civilization of the Solar System was ridiculously overtuned.
Koji had told her about the Xianzhou—that in order to become immortal they chased after the power of Abundance.
To Mobius, that was garbage.
Look at their fusion warriors: living ten thousand years was easy for them, and that was without relying on Mara-Struck bodies.
Even without becoming fusion warriors, there were still other ways.
For example, using the power of Black Abyss White Flower—Tesla and Einstein had achieved immortality precisely due to that power.
All she could say was: the Solar System was incredible.
If you didn't have some real ability, you weren't even qualified to step into it.
"I think the civilization of the Solar System could have become unimaginably powerful. It's just that the Cocoon of Finality locked it down.
If not for that, those Xianzhou ships and those big corporations wouldn't even be worth mentioning in comparison."
"Even so, if the Xianzhou really did enter the Solar System, I think that'd still be pretty fun."
Koji's view was similar.
Official materials had never clearly defined the true combat power of the Herrscher of Finality. In a conversation between Kiana and one of the Elysian Realm's rememberers, it was only hinted that a mere fluctuation of her consciousness was comparable to a Messenger—at the very least, she was the strongest being below an Aeon.
Moreover, even if Kiana had become the Herrscher of Finality, that didn't mean she was using the full authority of Finality.
When it came to authority, Finality had way too much.
It wasn't limited to just the twelve Herrscher powers from Reason to Corruption.
Those twelve existed only because the Cocoon of Finality had been deliberately restricted by the Flame Chasers heroes.
Otherwise, in the current era the types of Herrscher authority would have been even more varied and bizarre.
Take the Xianzhou's Hunt Aeon as an example—even if the Hunt personally visited the Solar System, it might still be unable to beat Finality.
Time itself was on Finality's side. Even the Hunt couldn't surpass Finality in that domain.
Xianzhou people: We're getting slandered this hard, and nobody's going to stand up for us?
"I'm kind of interested in those Xianzhou people you mentioned earlier. When are you going to grab a few lab rats for me to experiment on?" Mobius asked.
They weren't Earthlings anyway, so Mobius felt nothing at all about using them as experimental subjects.
It was said that because of the power of Abundance, Xianzhou people wouldn't die unless they suffered extremely fatal injuries.
That just made things better—they'd be reusable lab rats.
"That's not impossible. Before we head back, we could swing by the Xianzhou and grab a few people," Koji said casually.
He had no ties with the Xianzhou anyway.
Snatching a few of them would even ease their overpopulation problem a bit.
"You two are really bold. Everyone knows how vindictive the Xianzhou are. If you grab their people and experiment on them, the Xianzhou Alliance will definitely launch a hunt for you."
Herta's puppet chuckled.
She had been brought in by the real Herta not long ago and was connected to Herta herself, used to observe everything happening around Onpharos.
Those who walked the Hunt would absolutely never leave a grudge unsettled.
The Xianzhou really did have the ability to call down a strike from the Hunt.
"And what of it? Are you really going to tell me nobody in the Xianzhou does human experimentation?" Mobius sneered.
No matter how bright and righteous you made yourself look, the shadows beneath that light did not vanish.
"On that point, you're not wrong," Herta's puppet admitted.
She herself wouldn't go out of her way to provoke the Xianzhou, but she didn't think much of them either.
As long as they stayed in their lane, the Interastral Peace Corporation had no reason to touch them.
On the surface, the Xianzhou and the Interastral Peace Corporation stood side by side, but if not for the Corporation's fear of the Hunt Aeon, would the Xianzhou have grown this powerful?
The Xianzhou weren't nearly as righteous as rumor claimed.
They looked down on outsiders, calling them "outlanders," swaggering around on the basis of their centuries-long lifespan.
To Herta's puppet, that was extremely boring.
Needing the power of Abundance just to become long-lived, while she could rely purely on her intelligence to reverse her own aging—that comparison spoke for itself.
"Although the Xianzhou are very similar to my homeland, I still look down on them," Koji said.
"Wanting immortality is their own choice, but after they got it, they turned around and started hunting down the very Abundance they once worshiped."
The Abundance Aeon granted every prayer—but someone actually had to pray.
The Xianzhou had gotten their centuries-long lives, then turned around and started calling Abundance a plague god that brought disaster, even going so far as to decide they had to kill the Abundance Aeon.
That was the textbook example of biting the hand that fed you.
The Xianzhou had perfected the art of forgetting their roots.
If they were just hunting down those Abundance followers who committed atrocities, Koji really wouldn't have much to say.
After all, that would just be punishing evil.
But later in the story, the target became the Abundance Aeon themself.
At that point, what could you even say?
Herta's puppet snorted.
"That so-called Mara-Struck body has nothing to do with Abundance. The Xianzhou people might be decent fighters, but Mara-Struck itself is probably the handiwork of the Equilibrium Aeon."
The upper brass of the Xianzhou definitely knew this, but they would never go stir up trouble with the mysterious and unfathomable Equilibrium Aeon—that was someone the Hunt absolutely couldn't beat.
The Xianzhou simply diverted all that fear and resentment onto Abundance and their followers, all while pretending they were righteous.
In truth, they weren't half as upright as the stories claimed.
To outsiders, they were arrogant and saw them as lesser people, clinging to their own centuries of longevity as if that alone proved their superiority.
...
(End of Chapter)
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