Chapter 17 — Echoes from the Higher Dimensions

The golden light erupting from the black box shot upward like a colossal blade, plunging straight into the massive, pitch-black Astral Rift suspended above the canyon.

In an instant, the air deep within the canyon seemed to freeze. All gravitational constants plummeted to zero. The shattered remains of starships and scrap iron hovering nearby began to drift upward, weightless. At the jagged edges of the pierced rift, the golden holy light and the pitch-black dark energy entangled violently like boiling magma, emitting a high-frequency roar that made the soul tremble.

"Warning! High-dimensional radiation field exceeding measurable limits!"

A blinding shower of sparks exploded from Lyra's rune-plate beside the hover-car. Ignoring her scorched fingers, the young girl watched in horror as Elias pressed his bare palm flat against the violently overloading sensor interface of the black box. Her pupils shrank, the blood draining from her face in a heartbeat.

"Elias! Let go! The high-dimensional negative energy will burn right through your meridians!"

Screaming, Lyra tried to throw herself forward to sever the energy channel, heedless of the danger. Caleb grabbed her roughly, pinning her behind the hover-car's anti-radiation armor plating. "Kid! It's too dangerous! Stay back!"

"Let me go! He's going to die! He'll die!" Lyra struggled wildly against Caleb's iron grip. Her eyes went red instantly, tears streaming down her face. Her silver-dusted fingers clawed frantically at the lead plating, unable to look away from the steadfast yet fragile figure of the boy bathed in the blinding light.

But Elias could not hear her pleas.

In the moment he recklessly channeled the high-dimensional negative energy into the black box's sensor array, "Vespera," standing behind him amidst the howling wind and surging energy waves, gently raised a single fingertip.

It was an impossibly subtle pulse of high-dimensional dark matter. Operating on a physical frequency entirely imperceptible to mortals, Umbra silently flicked it into the core lattice of the black box, erasing the final layer of anti-tampering shackles placed by the Divine Court before the cataclysm.

Go on and look, you Anomaly of the astrolabe... Umbra whispered in her mind, a cold, high-dimensional dark gleam flashing in the depths of her eyes. Look at how the home you were so proud of was truly erased from this star map.

BOOM—!!!!

With the seal completely shattered, a high-dimensional sensory echo of indescribable magnitude cascaded through the negative energy channel in Elias's palm, pouring directly into his mind!

Elias's vision instantly plunged into a blinding, sterile white.

There were no flat surveillance feeds, no cold numerical reports. Under the combined effect of his Anomaly trait and the high-dimensional dark energy, Elias's entire soul was instantly dragged into a visceral, space-time echo of the night Tartarus was destroyed!

His senses expanded to infinity in that split second.

He "saw" it, and he "experienced" it.

It was three hours before the annihilation of Tartarus. The sky was not night, but shrouded entirely by an eerie, golden-pink halo. At the very zenith of the heavens, the phantom projection of the Highest Sanctum hung like a colossal mountain of gold at the edge of the universe, gazing down coldly at the bustling, fragile mining world.

CRACK—!

Accompanied by a violent tremor that echoed through the high-dimensional space of the entire star system, a golden rift spanning tens of thousands of kilometers tore the sky apart.

Astra, the God of Light—her towering, sacred avatar woven from laws and flowing with boundless, pure holy light—cast down a massive beam of law from the celestial dome, brimming with vast mercy for the mortal lives below.

In Astra's will, she had seen the death throes of Tartarus's planetary core decaying from energy depletion. She could not bear the thought of billions of mortal souls being extinguished in agony. Thus, defying the warnings of the Inner Cabinet, she recklessly poured oceans of high-dimensional holy light into the planetary core, attempting to use the power of light and healing to forcefully "stitch" the collapsing core back together!

"That's... the power of Astra, the God of Light!" Elias's soul trembled violently within the echo.

He intimately felt that warm, boundless light radiating endless compassion. Any other mortal would have instantly fallen to their knees in worship of such a magnificent miracle.

Yet, the cruelty of high-dimensional physical laws far exceeded the goodwill of a god.

Because the holy light Astra injected was too massive and extremely unstable, the already fragile planetary core did not regain its balance after receiving this forceful infusion. Instead, like a thin-skinned water bladder forcefully pumped full of high-pressure gas, its internal gravitational constants spiraled wildly out of control!

The planet's crust fractured inch by inch under the berserk pressure. High-energy mineral veins in the mantle triggered a chain detonation. The entire planet wailed from the inside out!

Astra's "healing" had not saved Tartarus; rather, it had pushed the planet to the brink of an instantaneous core explosion—one that would have caused a total collapse affecting three neighboring star zones!

"No... it wasn't like this..." Elias's soul convulsed violently.

But in the flow of the high-dimensional echo, the second, far more cruel and despair-inducing act crashed down upon him!

In the final moment before the holy light collapsed and the over-pressurized core could detonate the entire star zone, the once-brilliant starry sky above was abruptly swallowed by a boundless, absolute pitch-black.

A cold, exterminating darkness devoid of the slightest trace of life's warmth poured down like a tsunami of ink!

It was Umbra, the God of Darkness!

Within the high-dimensional sensory records left in the black box, Elias clearly "saw" the god who commanded the end of all things. Unlike Astra's conflicted, agonizing mercy, Umbra's descent carried zero hesitation, zero emotional fluctuation, not even a single superfluous word.

Under the ruthless framework of the Divine Court, to prevent Tartarus's core over-pressurization from triggering a cascading physical collapse, Umbra decisively and coldly executed the Annihilation Strike.

She unfurled her high-dimensional dark energy like a merciless, colossal hand, tightly strangling the neck of the entire planet Tartarus. Then, the ink-black dark matter coalesced into a high-dimensional scythe light-years long, plunging savagely into the planet's heart!

"Sever. Erase. Uproot."

The cold, high-dimensional decree vibrated heartlessly through the void.

Elias watched with his own eyes as, above the wasteland camp where he had grown up, that pitch-black, silent dark energy crashed down like apocalyptic waves. Countless mortals simply evaporated before that darkness; steel structures melted away like snow.

And within that dead silence swallowed by the dark, he saw his little sister Aira again!

The seven-year-old girl stood before the collapsing shelter, her clear, wide eyes filled with absolute despair and terror. In the exact moment she reached her small hand out toward him, the ink-black, exterminating dark energy swept right through her tiny body!

There was no stroke of luck. There was no agonizing scream.

Under the physical pruning of the highest dimension, his sister's flesh, bones, and even her soul disintegrated inch by inch within that dark energy, turning into a silent, freezing flurry of faint stardust dancing in the void!

Only the half of the star-core pendant she had clutched fiercely in her palm slipped through the frequency of erasure, carving a desperate arc through the void before crashing into his chest!

"AIRA——!!!!!"

Deep within the physical canyon, Elias let out the most harrowing, blood-curdling roar of a trapped beast!

Dense, blood-red veins instantly burst in his eyes. He collapsed heavily beside the black box like a mad animal, his hands clawing so desperately into the crystallized rock that his ten fingers were stripped raw and bleeding!

The high-dimensional echo silently dissipated above the black box, the dark and golden lights slowly receding.

But the entire process—torn and crushed by high-dimensional laws, and ultimately slaughtered by the cold hand of the God of Darkness—had already been branded into the deepest depths of his soul like a scar seared by a red-hot iron, never to be erased.

"Why..." Elias's body trembled violently, his forehead pressed against the freezing rock, blood and cold sweat mixing as they dripped onto the ground. "What maintaining balance... what cosmic order..."

"That wasn't a disaster... that was a pure, unadulterated massacre!"

The fierce wind raged through the canyon.

In the distance, Caleb and Lyra were frozen by that utterly tragic roar, too stunned to even step forward.

Only "Vespera," standing behind him, quietly watched the mortal boy kneeling in the mud, convulsing from excruciating pain and despair.

Within her eyes, dark as the deepest night, high-dimensional dark gleams flowed endlessly.

Phase one of the experiment was complete.

The truth had been unreservedly laid bare. This mortal boy had finally seen with his own eyes how she—Umbra, the God of Darkness—had personally destroyed his home and his kin, crushing them as easily as an ant.

Come on, mortal, Umbra recited in her mind, her voice calm and freezing. Before this cruel truth... let me see you break.