Chapter 50 — The Higher-dimensional Gaze

The higher-dimensional heavenly realm, the highest Sanctum.

This was a pure white star-temple floating deep within the zero-gravity void. Countless "causality strings" of varying thickness, radiating pure golden light, hung down from the endless heights of the void like the strings of a giant harp, weaving and converging into the massive, slowly rotating golden machine at the center of the temple—the LinBoo Astrolabe.

Every minute meshing of the astrolabe's gears was accompanied by an ethereal hum, like a choir's harmony. That was the melody of the love, hate, passion, and vengeance of ten billion mortal souls being forcefully extracted, filtered, and converted into the energy of the universe's defense net.

Astra, the God of Light and the Law-Incarnate, stood alone beside a star-weaving loom condensed from stardust.

Her cascading, curly long hair hung down to her ankles, undulating slightly with the gravitational tides of the higher-dimensional space, radiating an eternal, soft golden glow. Her eyes, as clear as gold, were currently brimming with an almost tangible agony and compassion. Her pale fingers hung in mid-air, grasping that starlight spindle forged from pure law, her fingertips trembling slightly.

Beneath her gaze, on the previously mirror-smooth golden projection map of the LinBoo Astrolabe, there abruptly existed a dark area that was dead, shriveled, and incapable of being illuminated by light—that was the astral blind spot.

It was a severed cosmic wound. And at this moment, on the edge of the blurry physical coordinates of the blind spot, a coarse strand of light representing Orion's destiny was faintly emitting an extinguishing dark gold glimmer.

The surroundings of that strand of light had already been tightly bitten into and strangled by two massive, heavy, cold, and dark-red gravitational orbits. The ruthless surveillance doctrines of Saturn had manifested into cold spikes, and the absolute annihilation laws of Pluto had manifested into merciless chains; they clashed violently at the crossroads of fate, brutally strangling Orion's lifeline into an unsolvable dead knot.

"Saturn-Pluto Heavy Penalty... the time of death has come."

Astra closed her eyes, and a tiny, golden-fluorescent divine tear slipped from the corner of her eye. Before the tear even hit the ground, it dissipated in mid-air into a wisp of pure dust of the law.

"Astra, you're looking at that blind spot again."

In the void, a majestic and indifferent voice resonated like a great bell, and the hanging golden strings of light around it let out a low resonance.

Accompanied by the twisted condensation of light energy, the massive projection of Jupiter, Chief Minister of the Cabinet, slowly emerged opposite the star-weaving loom. He wore a golden nine-pointed star robe symbolizing the power of the God-King, the purple collar standing high. His eyes, shaped like swirling vortices of a black hole storm, were gazing at this Law-Incarnate with exalted divine rank without a trace of human emotion.

"The cabinet has officially authorized the Aries Lord to conduct a carpet-style physical purification of that blind spot." Jupiter's projection lowered its head slightly, his voice carrying an irresistible, mundane legal authority. "The vanguard's escort shield ships have locked onto the coordinates. Orion's divine core has long cracked, and his fall is a system wear-and-tear that must inevitably be purged as the astrolabe runs to the end of this era. Any attempt to interfere with this operational trajectory constitutes a severe violation of the Law of Star-tracks."

"Jupiter, he was once the Divine Court's bravest protector." Astra opened her golden eyes, her voice like flowing water brushing over pebbles, carrying a trembling plea. "He shouldn't die in the Aries Lord's purification plan. There are countless mortals struggling to survive in that blind spot, they are merely trying to live in the aftermath of the astrolabe; why must we use the purification field to erase them all?"

"Because they are 'Null Errors' in the Star-network, viral codes that will cause the Aegis to collapse." Jupiter's eyes were as cold as a flatline without the slightest ripple. His palm gently swept over the top of the astrolabe projection, bringing up a wave of illusory data ripples.

"Astra, look at the scene outside the astrolabe. That primordial chaos of nothingness, Khaos, is constantly trying to tear apart our universe's defense Aegis. To protect the ninety-nine percent of mortal civilizations beneath this starry sky so they can safely endure, we must allow a small remaining portion of 'fuel' to be squeezed in the gears of the astrolabe, and we must also ruthlessly excise all tumors that deviate from the orbit. Your compassion is a lethal, slow-acting poison to this massive leviathan machine that sustains life's operation."

Jupiter's projection took a step forward, the immense divine majesty causing the pure white star-temple to vibrate slightly:

"Have you already forgotten the tragedy of the Tartarus mining planet?"

Hearing the name "Tartarus", Astra's face instantly turned as pale as paper, and even the starlight spindle in her hand nearly fell.

"That was you violating the laws for mortals." Jupiter spoke in an almost cruelly calm tone. "You used the light threads of your origin to force your way into that planet whose core had already collapsed, attempting to 'sew' the fissures in the core and save those mortal miners trapped hundreds of meters underground. But what was the result? The forceful infusion of your higher-dimensional law energy into a lower-dimensional physical core directly triggered a malignant overload of gravitational waves, causing the entire planet to suffer a chain thermonuclear collapse in an instant. Hundreds of millions of mortal lives vanished into nothingness in an instant within your 'compassionate light', their very souls torn to shreds by gravity. In the end, Umbra, the God of Darkness, had to step in personally and execute the most absolute Silent Strike, completely excising that entire star sector from the star-tracks, just to preserve the peace of the main network."

"Your salvation became the greatest executioner of those hundreds of millions of lives, Astra. Your soft-heartedness will only create even greater physical disasters in the lower-dimensional planes."

Jupiter's projection slowly dispersed, leaving only a final sentence echoing endlessly in the deathly silent star-temple:

"The Aries Lord's boots have already stepped onto the battleship. If you dare to use the privilege of the Twin Gods to deflect Orion's trajectory of destiny this time, the astrolabe's karmic backlash will no longer be limited to a single planet. This time, it will directly detonate the gravitational well of the entire Aries star sector, making tens of billions of mortals in several trading star-realms perish along with your selfish desires."

"Behave yourself, God of Light."

The empty star-temple once again returned to a death-like silence.

Astra stood alone before the star-weaving loom, her large, curly golden hair clinging somewhat messily to the side of her face. She leaned her hands on the cold stone table, her entire delicate body trembling slightly.

Every word Jupiter said was like a higher-dimensional heavy hammer, violently ripping open the most painful wound hidden deep within her soul once more.

The screams of those miners as they melted in the golden flames, the tiny hands of those helpless mortal children reaching out to her as gravity tore apart the star core, and the extremely cold eyes of her sister Umbra—eyes that looked as if she were looking at a piece of trash—when she brought down the blade of silence... all of this tortured her divine core every single day for thousands of years.

She was a mother who had made a mistake; her self-righteous love had become the poison that destroyed her children.

But...

Astra slowly turned her head, her golden eyes looking at that solitary lifeline of Orion in the astrolabe, currently being strangled by the dark red dead knot of the "Saturn-Pluto opposition".

That was Orion. He was the only confidant in this cold and hypocritical heavenly realm who had ever understood the questioning at the bottom of her heart.

For thousands of years, Astra, hanging high in the center of the Sanctum, had borne the heavy responsibility of patching up the universe's Star-network alone, but she also felt deeply exhausted by the Divine Court's cruel rules of exploiting mortal karma. Among the arrogant and hypocritical gods, only Orion dared to speak truthfully and advise, questioning the ruthlessness of the astrolabe. At the edge of countless observation towers, he had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her overlooking the dim light of the lower dimensions, giving voice to the doubts she hid in her heart and dared not speak, becoming her only listener and confidant. To protect her purity from being contaminated by the Star-network's karma, Orion repeatedly defied the cruel suppression orders of Jupiter and Saturn, preferring to bear the heavy crime of rebelling against the gods himself, ultimately having his divine core crushed, his divine rank stripped, and being exiled to this radioactive blind spot.

The night he was exiled, she was powerless to stop it; she could only secretly swear from across the cold star-tracks to use all her light to protect him. But that arrogant and tough hunter, upon learning that her divine core was cracking piece by piece because she used her origin light strings to cover his death-omen, actually used the most brutal method, right in front of her face, to tear away those life-saving strings of light one by one with his bloody hands, and plummeted into the blind spot. He would rather die under the Scorpion's venomous stinger than become a parasite who sucked his confidante's divine power dry to eke out an existence.

He clearly could have kneeled before the doors of the Sanctum and become a clay statue, yet he insisted on running into that dark, sunless wasteland blind spot, staying with those mortal bugs, holding a piece of broken iron to welcome the golden chariot of Aries.

"I cannot... watch you die."

Astra cupped her trembling hands, letting out a suppressed, despairing cry like a trapped beast. Deep within her eyes, as dazzling as gold, at this very moment, a trace of extremely faint yet resolute madness was quietly breaking out of the soil beneath the dead, cold ice.

She tightened her grip on the cold starlight spindle once more, and a wisp of pale golden, almost imperceptible origin divine light slowly seeped from her fingertips. She knew very well that she could not break the macroscopic physical celestial gravity of the "Saturn-Pluto opposition", but if she merely acted like a falling leaf, plucking the minute edge of that fate-track in the most microscopic dimension...

Even if the astrolabe's karmic backlash would tear her divine core apart inch by inch, she had to do it.