Nothing had changed.
King Valen rose from his throne, his mechanical eyes focusing on Grey as he approached.
The king bowed slightly in respect.
"Greetings, Senior," King Valen said. "It is an honor to wele you to our humble universe, it is a rare privilege for a Dao Generation Realm expert to visit a place like this. It’s been so long I’ve forgot how powerful a Dao Generation Realm is."
He decided not to interrupt, instead he allowed the introduction to proceed naturally while carefully observing everything around him.
Elder Kaelor stepped forward and spoke respectfully. "Your Majesty, this is Senior Grey, he arrived with his panions seeking knowledge about our civilization."
King Valen nodded graciously. "We are honored to share what we know, please feel free to ask anything, Senior."
Grey smiled politely, deciding to test something first. "Thank you, I would like to know more about your civilization’s history, how long has your species existed in this universe?"
The king’s expression remained perfectly normal as he answered. "Our records date back over ten million years, though we believe our civilization existed long before that, ancient history is difficult to verify because our oldest archives were lost during the Great Glitch War."
Grey nodded slowly, noting that nothing unusual happened. "The Great Glitch War? What was that?"
"A catastrophic conflict that nearly destroyed our entire species," King Valen explained calmly. "Reality itself became unstable during that period, entire planets glitched out of existence, we barely survived by adapting our technology to stabilize space itself."
Alan listened curiously while Alissa stood close to Grey, her eyes scanning the hall with quiet interest and not knowing she had been here before already.
Grey quietly noted that ordinary topics did not trigger whatever caused the collapse before.
Finality’s voice echoed in his mind. "It seems safe topics do not activate the reset, you can continue."
Grey slowly steered the conversation toward cultivation. "I noticed your people follow the Cyber Chaos Evolutionary Path, I am curious about how it works."
King Valen’s expression brightened with pride. "Ah, yes, it is the foundation of our entire civilization, every Alogian cultivates through harmony between machinery and Chaos."
"Our bodies naturally evolve by integrating increasingly advanced technology," the king continued enthusiastically. "Unlike ordinary cultivators who abandon their physical forms, we believe flesh and machinery should evolve together, eventually we bee living embodiments of Cyber Chaos itself."
Grey raised an eyebrow. "That is fascinating, how does the integration process work?"
"It begins at birth," King Valen explained. "Every Alogian child receives their first implant when they reach five years old, as they grow stronger their bodies naturally accept more advanced technology, Chaos energy flows through both flesh and machine equally."
"The stronger we bee, the more our bodies transform," he added. "Eventually the line between organic and mechanical pletely disappears, we bee something entirely new."
Grey found this genuinely interesting. "Has anyone reached the peak of this path?"
The king’s expression became respectful but slightly sad. "Unfortunately, no, the strongest person in our civilization only reached Ninth Rank before disappearing long ago."
"Disappearing?" Grey asked carefully.
"Yes," King Valen nodded. "His name was Grand Master Tevor, he vanished over one hundred thousand years ago while attempting to reach the Tenth Rank, we never found his body or any trace of where he went."
He decided to push further.
"Tell me, who was your first evolver? There must have been someone who discovered this path originally."
King Valen thought for a moment before answering. "The earliest records mention a group of pioneers called the First Engineers, they were the ones who successfully merged Chaos energy with technology for the first time."
"How did they discover it?" Grey asked.
"Through experimentation," the king replied. "They studied the natural Chaos fluctuations in our universe and realized machinery could channel that energy safely, over many generations their techniques evolved into our current cultivation system."
Grey nodded, carefully watching everyone’s reactions. So far, nothing unusual had happened, the conversation remained perfectly normal.
He decided to push closer to the dangerous territory. "Who found your cultivation system? Was it one person or a group effort?"
The king smiled. "It was definitely a group effort, the First Engineers worked together for centuries before achieving their first breakthrough, unfortunately most of their names have been lost to history."
Grey narrowed his eyes, watching King Valen’s expression closely. "What about the cultivation techniques themselves? Who created the first manual?"
"The earliest techniques were passed down orally, from what we know" the king explained. "Eventually they were piled into written form by the Council of Engineers, that council still exists today and oversees all cultivation advancements."
Alan frowned slightly, he could not understand why Grey kept circling around the same topic.
Alissa squeezed Grey’s hand gently, silently asking if something was wrong.
Grey ignored them for now, focusing entirely on his experiment.
He asked another careful question. "Before your cultivation system existed, what did your people do? How did they survive?"
King Valen answered naturally. "They relied purely on technology without Chaos energy, our ancestors built massive machines to defend themselves, but those machines were not nearly as powerful as our current cultivation-enhanced technology."
Grey nodded slowly.
During that time, Finality once spoke in his mind. "You are getting close, be careful."
Grey took a deep breath, deciding it was time to trigger the reset intentionally. "Tell me, King Valen, who created the Cyber Chaos Evolutionary Path? Not the Founders, but the one behind its existence. Since what you all did was just discover it."
The moment those words left his mouth, everything changed.
King Valen froze mid-breath, his mechanical eyes stopped moving, his metallic fingers locked in place. The warm expression on his face became pletely blank, like someone had suddenly turned off his consciousness.
The guards stopped moving, and their weapons held perfectly still.
Then, King Valen’s mouth moved slowly, repeating the same words over and over. "Who created it... who created it... who created it..."
The guards began chanting the same sentence in perfect unison. "Who created it... who created it..."
Reality around them started losing color, the vibrant blue energy in the crystal pillars faded to gray, the polished floor dulled, and even the air seemed to drain of life.
The palace began glitching violently, sections of the walls flickered like broken screens, distorting into static before snapping back into place.
Alan’s eyes widened in shock. "Master, what is happening?!"
This time, Grey reacted instantly, he had been expecting this exact moment. Without hesitation, he unleashed World Breaking Source Power, a massive surge of energy erupted from his body, tearing through the fabric of reality itself.
Crack!
Space shattered like glass around them, jagged fractures spread across the throne hall, revealing something beyond the breaking universe.
Finality’s power merged with his, amplifying the attack even further.
Grey wanted to see if escaping was possible before the reset pleted.
The cracks widened rapidly, space itself splitting apart under the overwhelming force.
Through the broken reality, Grey glimpsed something impossible.
Not another universe, not the endless void, not even the multiverse beyond.
Instead, he saw pure gray static.
It looked like unfinished reality, like corrupted existence, like something that should not exist at all. The static pulsed and writhed, formless and chaotic, defying every law Grey understood.
His eyes widened in shock, but before he could investigate further, everything stopped.
The temporal reset activated.
The world rewound.
Grey suddenly found himself standing inside the Reality Ship’s mand bridge again, the familiar hum of the ship’s systems filled his ears.
Alan stood nearby, looking out the viewing window at the cube-shaped galaxies. Alissa was beside him, observing the strange universe.
The warning alarm began blaring loudly.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Red lights flashed across the bridge, hundreds of warships emerged from the galaxies, surrounding them in perfect formation.
The timeline had reset successfully.
Grey stood pletely still, processing what just happened.
He now confirmed three critical facts.
First, the reset was real, not an illusion or mental attack.
Second, the reset could overpower almost everything, even his Pseudo Tenth Rank power could not resist it.
Third, even World Breaking Source Power could not be used to escape before the reset finished.
Finality’s voice became noticeably more serious in his mind. "Grey, that gray static you saw, I have never encountered anything like it before, this situation is far more dangerous than I initially thought."
Grey’s expression darkened. "What do you think it was?"
"I do not know," Finality admitted grimly. "But whatever controls this universe is not normal, it is not even following the usual rules of reality itself."
Grey silently thought about everything, the problem was no longer simply finding the Chaos Emperor’s remains. This universe itself was behaving like a sealed prison, or perhaps a gigantic machine designed to trap anyone who entered.
Someone or something was preventing anyone from learning the origin of the Cyber Chaos Evolutionary Path.
Grey made a decision, the next loop would be different. Instead of questioning the king, he would investigate the world directly, perhaps there was somewhere the reset could not observe, or someone who existed outside the world’s script.
User Comments
0 comments from readers