"Heh~" Robin sighed deeply, letting out a slow breath as he cast a long, lingering look toward the gate, his expression heavy with mixed emotions. "Well... thanks for ending that ordeal for -otherwise my story would've ended before it even had the chance to truly begin."
"..." The Cosmic Elder maintained his silence for a few long monts, his presence calm yet overwhelming. "I'm telling you about a catastrophe that tore the universe apart, about quadrillions of victims, and about the loss of most of my physical body-and sohow, you still managed to turn it all into sothing centered around yourself. What staggering arrogance." Then he suddenly burst into laughter. "I suppose you really do share a trait or two with Athena!"
"Drop that for now." Robin waved his hand dismissively several tis, clearly uninterested in the comparison. "Tell more about the space beasts' ancestor." His brows knitted together in deep thought. "If it was truly that powerful, then why didn't it break the barrier? Especially if there were more of them, just as you claid..."
"All I can offer you are speculations, unfortunately." The Cosmic Elder shrugged slightly. "The first reason may simply be that the power required to break the barrier is unimaginably imnse-and in a direct one-on-one confrontation, a space beast ancestor is actually a weaker than both and Athena."
He continued in a calm, reflective tone, "I once spoke with Athena about what truly happened... She told that during her first battle, the space beast ancestor remained in the back lines, attacking only from a distance, never daring to co close-allowing the other beasts to assault her and steadily drain her power. Otherwise, she would've killed it first without hesitation." A faint, knowing smile appeared on his face. "And don't forget-Athena had already shattered the barrier through brute force at that ti, and more than half of her energy was scattered to the winds. Had she been at full strength, she might have taken its head, destroyed the nest entirely, or at the very least forced them to scatter-just as you saw do now."
"... Even I was attacked by the space beast ancestor while I was in the final stages of preparing the array. It constantly tried to strike the array itself, not , and I was in an extrely poor defensive position. I deliberately took the blows upon my own body so the array I had built with such trendous difficulty wouldn't be destroyed. That is what pushed to hasten its
elimination using those sacrifices. If the fight had been one-on-one, a truly fair battle, the outco would've been different-at the very least, I wouldn't have ended up in this miserable state."
"Your description makes the progenitor of the space beasts sound... intelligent?" Robin said, frowning slightly, his expression filled with unease. "Very." The Cosmic Elder nodded slowly. "That thing was clever as a fox and treacherous as a serpent. The leap in intelligence it possessed compared to mature space beasts is genuinely terrifying. It was smarter than most of the beings who rule the universe today."
He inclined his head slightly. "And here we co to the second possibility... that the space beast ancestor can destroy the barrier-but deliberately refrain from doing so for so unknown reason."
"...?!" Robin slowly sat back down, his movents heavy, his thoughts spiraling. The second reason opened an endless number of questions-terrifying questions.
If one of them broke the barrier, would sothing happen to it? Would it be punished? And if so, by whom? Who ordered that the barrier must not be destroyed-and why? And who possesses that kind of absolute authority? If they truly care about the universe, why not simply cast the space beasts far away altogether? Or do they care about the universe, but... are waiting for a specific ti? A predetermined mont? What will happen then?! And what if
Robin violently shook his head, forcing his thoughts to stop. "...I think the first reason is more convincing," he said quietly. "Don't you?"
"Heh heh... believe , I truly wish that as well." The old man laughed softly, his voice carrying a strange mix of weariness and nostalgia. "Very well-let continue the account of what happened after the catastrophe... the era that followed the banishnt of all the space beasts." After a brief, heavy silence, he resud, "As you already know, I founded the Supre Council of the Stellar Academy to hunt down what remained of the escaped plague. I only banished the space beasts themselves-the numbers of the plague were far too vast for to banish them all. I neither possessed the raw power nor the necessary sacrifices to accomplish sothing of such unimaginable scale."
"And after that, I made sure the extermination operations against the plague began, in all its different forms and strains. I strengthened the academies, elevated them, and appointed them as the official police force of the universe. At the sa ti, I established several rules for the Behemoths of that era-and for the future ones as well-in an attempt to limit the bloodshed that the universe had grown sick of, saturated with, and almost vomited from its excess."
"...After that, I entered a state similar to Athena's condition before she destroyed the barrier," the Cosmic Elder lowered his voice, his tone heavy as he relived old mories. "I had reached the very peak of the universe at that ti. There was no one stronger than . No reason for conflict. No path available for to obtain the seventh degree of balance... yet I did not do as she did and tyrannize everyone through brute force. After laying down the foundations of everything, I began creating copies of myself and roaming the universe- personally exploring its history and attempting to foresee its future. You could say it eventually beca a strange kind of hobby."
"... And I always stopped at a certain point in the past, a point I could never go beyond." The Cosmic Elder frowned deeply. "At first, I believed that this was where creation itself began-but no..." His brows tightened. "What confird to that there had been civilizations before ours were those strange relics scattered across the Young Belt and the Expanding Belt-relics of terrifying power, relics that have absolutely nothing to do with our current era." "Relics?" Robin frowned in confusion. "Didn't you tell you found nothing?" "...I am speaking to you now as the third person who has breached the barrier- not as a child I am trying to take as a disciple," the Cosmic Elder replied calmly. "And yet, I did not lie to you. What I found, I do not understand. It is simply a mystery that joined the rest of the universe's mysteries."
"...I found massive stone structures, ancient in form, whose auras I cannot even trace back to the mont of their creation. Each one has a different function. Each one greedily demands to be fed sothing specific. Each one offers sothing irresistibly tempting-sothing that compels people to feed it whatever it desires. And each one transforms into sothing utterly unbelievable once it becos fully sated."
"Stone structures that look as if they're prehistoric..." Robin's mind scread in
alarm.
This is just like the stepped pyramid in Orphan's Blood, and the tower on
Specter Valley Planet.
It fits the description perfectly...
The stepped pyramid requires the sacrifice of thousands of people just to raise
a single person's level-or to produce elental pearls.
As for the Specter Valley Tower, Robin had personally observed it swallowing a portion of the soul of those sacrificed upon it-only a very small fragnt, as if it rely steals the imprint itself.
And even if he does not know what the tower provides to the Syndicate, it must be sothing enormous for so many people to be killed on it every single day
without pause.
"What do those ancient relics transform into once they gather what they
require?!" Robin asked rapidly, his voice tense with urgency.
The Cosmic Elder slowly turned toward him. "Where do you think I obtained
the seventh-stage planetary displacent gear that I handed to you?"
"......?!"
Robin's eyes widened to their absolute limit, shock flooding his face.
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