Chapter 37 — Null Error

The Highest Sanctum of the LinBoo Astrolabe — The Computational Core of the Divine Court Central Star-network.

This was the hub of the universe's laws, the absolute high ground that stood above any star sector.

Above a void dome as vast as a galaxy, hundreds of millions of golden law-runes flowed quietly in the boundless dark blue starry sky, forming a web of destiny that filled mortals with awe and dread. Countless arcs of light surged like living creatures within the rune network, representing every living planet in the universe and the trajectory of every mortal soul born under the astrolabe at this exact moment. Where the trajectories converged was the heart of the LinBoo Astrolabe—that massive [Sundial of Destiny], operating silently day and night, never resting.

Divine Court Central Star-network Inspection Bureau, Level One Alarm Seat.

The Duty Star Official today was a mid-level Star Official covered entirely in a golden carapace, with complex and dense divine markings. He had already waited in this position for hundreds of cosmic physical hours, long accustomed to ordinary alarms—riots, plagues, and resource struggles erupted every day in the mortal worlds on the astrolabe. These minor disturbances were nothing more than a few fleeting, slight ripples.

But today was different.

Beep—

A faint anomaly signal from the Aries Star Zone landed on the inspection disc before him.

He lazily reached out and clicked it open, his pupils shrinking.

11th House Sky Sentinel Fortress, Aries Defense Sector · Royal Guard Divine Envoy Patrol Squad, Unit Alpha-Four: Signal cut off.

He frowned slightly, raised his query clearance by one level, and retrieved the final transmitted data of the squad:

Signal cut-off time: This Epoch, Physical Epoch Day X, Hour of the Ox, Third Quarter. Last transmitted content: Anomaly discovered in blind spot, proceeding to...

And it cut off there. No follow-up report, no distress signal, no residual law waves. Nothing at all.

The divine envoy squad had vanished into the vast data torrent of the Star-network just like that, as if they had never existed.

His fingers paused. He quickly called up the high-dimensional scanning records of that patrol area, cross-checking repeatedly.

The result chilled him to the bone—at the location where the divine envoy squad disappeared, the high-dimensional law scanning wave showed a brief but clear [Physical Interference Anomaly]. He had never seen that kind of ripple before. It wasn't a clash of divine energy, nor a collapse of laws caused by a high-dimensional conflict. It was like some kind of... bizarre "digital void" generated when the Star-network automatically tried to fill a data gap after something was completely erased and swallowed by an unknown power.

His fingers didn't tremble, because professional training suppressed his instinctual fear. But when he stood up and walked toward the higher-clearance query terminal, the slight sluggishness in his legs betrayed his psychological state.

He continuously retrieved the high-dimensional law detection data of three nearby star zones, hoping to find a counter-example—perhaps it was a probe malfunction, perhaps a transmission error, perhaps just a technical false alarm.

But all the data told him the exact same thing in the same language: those four divine envoys had thoroughly vanished from this universe without any omen, without any residual waves of law collision.

He stared at that isolated, pulsing blood-red annotation on the screen, his mind roaring.

This annotation only had two words:

Null Error

Since the establishment of the Divine Court, the death of a divine envoy had always left a traceable residual law wave—because the collision of laws would carve physical marks on the Star-network. Not a single fall of a divine envoy had ever left a "Null" on the astrolabe, because a "Null" meant that the power causing the death didn't even have the qualification to be registered in the Divine Court's law archives. It was like a hand reaching in from outside the operational order of the astrolabe, silently wiping away four chess pieces, and then retracting.

And this was the first time.

From the first chapter of the Divine Court's Epoch Calendar until now, this was the first time.

"This..." He muttered to himself, then immediately raised his volume and shouted sternly to the high-level Recording Divine Official nearby, "Report to the Center! A Level One unidentified Null Error has appeared in the Star-network data of the Aries Star Zone! A divine envoy squad encountered an unregistered energy event, the entire squad's signal annihilated, and the Star-network physical layer is temporarily unable to complete self-healing and supplementation!"

The message traveled at the speed of light along the clearance chain of the Divine Court Star-network.

From the Level One Alarm Seat, to the Level Three Cross-Star-Zone Monitoring Core, and finally to the Divine Court Inner Cabinet Information Hub.

Layer by layer, like a stone dropped into an abyss that should have been forever calm, stirring up ripple after ripple.

---

LinBoo Astrolabe Inner Cabinet Assembly Hall, High-Dimensional Round Table Room.

When the message arrived, God King Jupiter was handling the planetary Chief God agenda for this epoch—the annual review of the mineral tax rate share in the Aries Star Zone. The Divine Court had thousands of such political affairs every day. Usually, God King Jupiter only needed to stamp the Divine Court's golden seal on the optical disc, and subordinates would forward and process it level by level.

But the moment the two words "Null Error" appeared, God King Jupiter's originally nonchalant, spiral-shaped pupils suddenly shrank.

He quietly put down the golden long pen.

The several planetary Chief Gods in the hall also fell silent.

"Null Error..." Saturn's gaunt, pale lips curled into a cold arc. "Everyone here knows what these two words mean, right? That is a system error generated after the astrolabe's law circuits encounter a physical interference that cannot be categorized. In the history of the Divine Court, it has only appeared under one circumstance—when a power completely outside the jurisdictional scope of the LinBoo Astrolabe's laws causes substantial physical damage to valid nodes on the Star-network."

"A divine envoy squad falls collectively, leaving no residual law waves, and leaving no soul marks either." Saturn's voice was dry and chilling. "This means—they were erased by a power that even the Star-network cannot identify, record, or trace."

Silence permeated the massive circular hall.

"The blind spot near the 11th House Sky Sentinel of Aries..." God King Jupiter tapped the table and spoke slowly, his tone revealing an imperceptible profundity. "That is a dead corner naturally formed by the Star-network after the Tartarus annihilation strike. Originally, there should have been nothing left there."

"But as it happens..." Saturn's tone was cool and thin. "Something survived."

God King Jupiter closed the optical disc in his hand and shifted his gaze to the other side of the round table—where a seat composed of pure golden light hovered. That was the seat exclusive to the Twin Gods.

Astra did not attend the Inner Cabinet agenda today.

But God King Jupiter knew she would not be unaware of everything that happened in the blind spot.

"Issue an order." God King Jupiter's voice was deep and unquestionable. "Immediately retrieve the full-segment high-dimensional scanning records of the Tartarus blind spot for the recent epoch and submit them for the Divine Court Core's review. Simultaneously, issue a formal Inner Cabinet directive to the Aries Lord: lock down all peripheral nodes of the blind spot and dispatch high-level Investigating Divine Officials to investigate the Null Error event on-site."

"Furthermore," God King Jupiter paused for a beat, a deeply meaningful profundity flashing in his eyes, "If Lady Astra happens to be observing in the direction of the blind spot right now... pass word to her that the Inner Cabinet requires her attendance."

Directives sped like sharp arrows throughout the entire Divine Court administrative system.

---

Sanctum · Private Stargazing Platform of the Proxy of Light.

At this moment, Astra stood alone on the circular star-platform suspended in the zero-gravity void. Her long, golden, wavy hair drifted slightly in the windless high-dimensional space, gentle and tranquil, as if forever aloof from the world's strife.

Her [Starlight Spindle] hovered at her fingertips, emitting extremely faint golden light waves—that was her way of plucking and perceiving the threads of destiny.

And right now, her gaze fell on the Destiny Water Mirror in the center of the star-platform.

Reflected in the mirror was a pitch-black star sector in an absolute dead corner—the Tartarus blind spot.

She already knew. The news of the Null Error had spread throughout the Divine Court. No Star-network node could keep a secret from her.

She gazed at that darkness in the mirror. Her long, slender fingers quietly pressed on the top of the spindle, clenched tight, and then slowly released.

She thought of the night Tartarus was destroyed. That Epoch Day. The law of darkness Umbra brought down was precise, cold, and flawless, turning all living beings of a planet into nothingness in an instant. She had once thought that if she had persevered a bit more then, if she had used a little more light to stitch things together, the planet might not have reached that point.

But she also knew—Umbra was right. That planet had reached an unsalvageable critical point. Stitching it with light was merely delaying death, not salvation in any true sense.

She just... didn't want to accept that answer.

This was her limitation, and also her wound.

Ever since the annihilation strike, she had been using the faintest, most unnoticeable star-track perception to quietly gaze toward that blind spot.

She knew there was a surviving mortal soul there.

That soul's frequency was not on the astrolabe's predetermined trajectory. Like an embroidery needle completely detached from its thread, it freely pierced through the darkness, yet stubbornly wouldn't be identified by the astrolabe or locked onto by the laws.

Anomaly—the Orbit-breaking Anomaly.

She had kept this definition saved in her memory for a long time.

Every time the Inner Cabinet pushed a proposal to purge the blind spot, she found a way to shelve it. Not because she knew what dangers lurked in the blind spot, but because her intuition—that deep-seated, compassionate intuition—told her: if the Divine Court's purging armies were allowed to step onto that wasteland, that tiny light of a soul would be completely extinguished in broad daylight.

She didn't want that.

Even if the astrolabe couldn't explain its existence, even if the Inner Cabinet's logical system had no room for this exception, she didn't want it.

She knew this was weakness.

She also knew this was the only, insignificant shelter she could offer right now.

When the divine envoy squad fell, she sensed that momentary, faint ripple. Four sparks of law abruptly extinguished at the same instant, so clean that almost no traces were left behind.

She chose to remain silent.

Not because she didn't care. But because—she knew all too well that if she stepped forward now and truthfully reported everything she sensed in the blind spot to the Inner Cabinet, what awaited the survivors on that dark wasteland would be the crushing purge of the entire Divine Court's military might.

Right now, she faced a nearly unsolvable dilemma:

If she spoke, the blind spot was doomed; if she didn't speak, the Divine Court's wrath would eventually burn its way there on its own due to the spread of the Null Error.

"My Lady."

A cold, clear voice sounded behind her. It was the report of an Inner Cabinet Messenger Divine Envoy. "His Majesty God King Jupiter summons you. Inner Cabinet Assembly Hall, immediately."

Astra slowly turned around. A god-like, tranquil smile of compassion graced her gentle face, the broad, flowing sleeves of her golden robe hanging down.

That smile was a shield she had cultivated through countless Inner Cabinet clashes—it never showed contention or debate, but merely gently, tenderly wrapped all sharp interrogations in an irrefutable holiness and mercy.

"I understand."

She gently put away the Starlight Spindle, quietly pressing her final glance at the blind spot deep into the bottom of her heart, and followed the Messenger Divine Envoy toward the Assembly Hall.

And after she left, that pitch-black blind spot in the Destiny Water Mirror continued to burn in silence.

The fire of mortals was burning hotter and hotter.

Only, the Divine Court had not yet realized—this time, it was no longer just a tiny star-candle, but a star gathering momentum. An orbit-breaking star quietly accumulating power in the depths of the blind spot, whose trajectory even the astrolabe could not predict.

The first Null Error record in the Divine Court's history rested quietly on the blood-red light screen of the inspection terminal, awaiting an inevitable storm. And the source of this storm was a name even the astrolabe couldn't lock onto—Anomaly, the Orbit-breaking Anomaly, a mortal. The ironclad laws of the Divine Court showed their first crack here. That crack was as fine as a hair, yet it was the starting point for the collapse of the entire astrolabe's order.