(End of the month, asking for monthly votes, see, I didn’t forget this time! Those with monthly votes, hurry and cast them. There weren’t any double votes on New Year’s Day, so there’s no need to save them now, right?)

The work is proceeding rapidly. With Orelia’s effort and increasingly more Old Empire mysterious side commanders awakening and assisting, the facilities of the mother star in "New Xiang" have all been transferred to the Giant Dragon Kingdom. Now, Alaya and Sandora are setting new world parameters inside the Sky Tower, preparing to completely seal this space, forming the "Divine Country" space we previously envisioned.

This step does not involve the unique technology of the Old Empire’s mysterious side, so Orelia’s involvement is not needed; Alaya can complete it herself. As for Sandora, she’s just there to help, which is an Empire tradition. All Xyrin Apostles do not have "jobs" purely divided by "class"; everyone’s tasks are determined by whether executing a task brings maximum efficiency and value. Even the Imperial Leader, if determined to be more efficient in a specific task, must undertake it.

In recent days, many nerves across the Mother Continent have been tense. Even though we’ve minimized the impact on the mortal world through various means, the Mother Continent still went through its most tense half-month in history. The event of the Divine Country’s return, proclaimed by Crow God believers and Dragon God believers, indeed happened before their eyes—though they cannot visually see the so-called Divine Country, the abnormal phenomena across the world are clear:

All Lost Worlds are closed in one direction, exiting but not entering. It is said it will reopen only after the gods’ consensus; military forces stationed in Lost Worlds and colonial points there are forcibly expelled by relic guardians; unprecedented amounts of metallic demonic statues actively pursue "invaders" in relics, clearing them entirely. The only fortunate thing is these Giant Soldiers only aim to drive away, not massacre; otherwise, after the believers’ "schedule" ends, those stationed in relics would not survive. Ancient spirits and similar faith objects across the Mother Continent are in unprecedented active states. Ancient beings believed to easily destroy entire mortal civilizations have come out of their altars and temples, roaming the world. Dragon God believers and Crow God believers explain that this is the King of Gods inspecting his historically left "Walking Gods." Such explanations managed to suppress near-outbreak religious upheaval and global panic; the largest impact was powerful magic energy flooding from Lost Worlds’ one-way passages and quickly spreading throughout the Mother Continent. This energy is residual magic energy accumulated for tens of thousands of years left after Empire facilities were transferred to the Giant Dragon Kingdom. It greatly enhanced wildlife and plants near Lost World transport paths, fostering a batch of mutated monsters. In the last days, basically, all Dragon God believers and Crow God believers were busy exterminating these monsters and rescuing victims; another impact of these dispersed energies was the emergence of at least six to seven times more spellcasters on the Mother Continent within merely a few days. These spellcasters haven’t received systematic training, don’t know how to control their power, and aren’t bound by any rules from established caster associations on the continent. They recklessly expend their chance-inherited powers because the world is filled with almost inexhaustible active energy. These individuals caused damage even surpassing the mutated creatures—according to Lilina’s intel, it almost brewed a global tragedy for simultaneous screenings.

Imagine, if everyone on Earth suddenly had an RPG rocket launcher, what would the consequences be? If you happened to beat up the neighbor’s naughty kid last night, and today that kid comes at you with an RPG, what would happen—this is roughly the situation on the Mother Continent these days. Though they’re not as severe as worldwide RPG incidents, having "most naughty kids with RPGs" is more than enough. Initially, no one reacted, causing multiple malignant magic runwild incidents worldwide until the Dragon God and Crow God sects largely mobilized all their believers to suppress such events through Lilina’s advised "strict measures," easing the situation. Ultimately, Lin released a worldwide Divine Technique, temporarily restraining all spellcasters with punitive shackles, finally stopping the incident. But these are temporary actions; once "New Xiang" and Shadow Space are completely spliced, restoring order here will take a long time, allowing local ordinary people to adapt to shopping with RPGs...

A world that was relatively magic-normal becomes high magic-high energy overnight, ensuring no world war arises over a bun amidst this is unprecedented. Perhaps I should consider finding an experienced Governor from the Macro World, accustomed to a society where everyone has RPGs, to handle "New Xiang’s" mortal world security issues.

Currently, the Mother Continent has stabilized with two sects and one True God personally involved, so there’s no need to worry too much. Notably, Lilina also achieved the sense of accomplishment she desired: two previously unknown small sects developed into world-renown within months, aided by favorable circumstances. Though they can’t claim authoritative legitimacy, their influence expansion speed is enough for the girl to add it to her autobiography. I’ve seen her autobiography, and it’s titled "True•My Struggle-Path of Glory-Footsteps of Great Figures-Magnificent Poem-Holy Memories of Jijali-Saint’s Note-Pending Title." Every so often, she adds an impressively sounding term to the title, unbearably egotistical, filled with shame, but fortunately, the book was never published...

And now, the Giant Dragon Kingdom has almost completely overturned, transforming into another place entirely.

With ongoing facility replenishment, the space here has expanded from a mere cluster of broken mountains to accommodate the entire Earth-Moon System, and its usable range is still slowly expanding. Ultimately, it’s estimated the space will double its current size. Due to Qianqian insisting on her aesthetic, and Orelia agreeing there’s no need to spend extra resources to create a planet, it remains as the "fragmented aerial world." All retained Old Empire facilities float in clouds and mist, rearranged into a massive three-dimensional structure, reminiscent of those aerial factories inside the Visca Barrier Star, forming a vast city cluster. The benefit of this approach is evident; post-disaster, only less than a third of the mother star facilities remain, leaving these building clusters unable to maintain the matured structure of the old mother star. Reintegrating enhances these buildings’ operation efficiency, saves space (though this is optional), and prepares for future modification and expansion.

The Empire facilities we collected are not limited to those on the old mother star. After Audemus regained control of the Sky Tower, we unexpectedly discovered large segments of "Lost Worlds" drifting at the edge of the main space, preserving Imperial building clusters not yet touched by ordinary races of the Mother Continent. These artifacts are remnants from other colonial planets within the Fifteen-day Zone Capital—after all, this universe was the capital then, impossible for only the mother star to hold Imperial structures—these unexpected finds are key reasons "Divine Country" space continues expanding, and these new facilities have joined the growing cluster. Big Sister coined a pleasant name for these floating mysterious structures: Heavenly Realm City.

One could say the current Heavenly Realm City roughly sketches the future "Divine Country," with the Sky Tower, Angel City, and Forgotten Garden as the central core facilities, radiating into hundreds of extending building clusters (called Sky Dome Avenue—another name given by Big Sister) forming a spherical world. Within this sphere, building clusters stretch into long narrow structures akin to sea urchins for tens of thousands of kilometers, with fast and convenient space transmission ensuring connections between each "Sky Dome Avenue." If you stand in a Heavenly Realm District, those distant vague buildings may seem randomly distributed, but from Angel City or another control hub showing the "Heavenly Realm City overview," you’d see a...sea urchin...

"Ah Jun, could you stop mocking the sea urchin?" Sandora looked at me with grievance, said dejectedly.

To supplement, the chief designer of the Heavenly Realm City is Sandora, she decided eighty percent of the building layout and connectivity, including the hundreds of radiating Sky Dome Avenues from the central core. Though she maintains such symmetrical and repetitive structures aim to maximize the redundancy system stability rate, I suspect it concerns the seven hundred plus pounds of sea urchin she ate the previous night...

But despite this depiction, the Heavenly Realm City is genuinely beautiful. These cloud-floating buildings evoke feelings akin to a Divine realm or Fairy Tale World, white-cloud cities, angels dancing in mist, auroras connecting towers and castles; it all tremendously accords with Qianqian’s aesthetic (which she claims to be filled with girlish nature). Everyone still remembers Qianqian’s childhood dream: be a witch, then kidnap a princess in a Sky Castle. Now she owns hundreds of thousands of Sky Castles, I dare not imagine her next plan... Perhaps accompanying Qianqian on her "inspection" of Heavenly Realm City is something I must heed in the future; otherwise, I’d have to brace hearing about the Imperial Empress Xu Qianqian ordering macro world auditions for several thousand princesses...

The location is the Platinum Tower in Angel City. We have turned one of the living areas here into a temporary residence and conduct our work here, as we do every day. Right now, Orelia is conducting her routine morning briefing. It’s basically a summary of things: "After emergency repairs, Angel City has essentially restored functionality, and production is expected to start in two days."

I study a crystal ball on the desk that’s projecting an image. The surface of the crystal ball shows the work progress on Sandora’s side. She is still in the Sky Tower, doing final adjustments to space closure; everything seems to be going smoothly. To Orelia’s report, I nod: "This morning, I already saw a layer of pale blue cloud mist gathering under the lower part of the Angel Wall, and those crystals are operational."

"Yes, the Angel Wall was activated ahead of schedule. The subordinate plans to let it generate a batch of Angel Cores first; after two days, these cores will be sent into the incubation grid for the next phase of processing," Orelia nods and continues with the next report, "Currently, all mysterious system commanders have successfully established contact with us. Two hundred and twenty-six people have arrived in Angel City, half of them are racing against time to repair the core area facilities of the Heavenly Realm City under the leadership of Audemus, and this work is expected to be completed by tomorrow. The remaining half are reorganizing the surviving troops we found from the relics, including Gundam Giant Statue, Elemental Guard, and a small portion of surviving soldiers. According to Sandora’s orders, they will be temporarily assigned to the sentry unit in the Heavenly Realm City and assist the Guard Captain in maintaining the order of the Heavenly Realm City. However, these soldiers strongly wish to return to the front-line units; they were originally the main combat personnel, and I’m afraid they are not suitable for being stationed in the rear."

"These veterans are very valuable," I look at Orelia’s indistinct face, "We can’t let them be lost at the front lines casually. We need to establish the Mysterious Side Army quietly and quickly before the Fallen Apostle reacts. This requires a batch of veterans as the backbone. I hope those soldiers can understand what Sandora and I mean."

"Yes, your decision is wise," Orelia slightly bows, "The last report comes from the Capital, the sender being Sivis. The Leaving World Garden System has completed charging and can perform the world’s ’dragging’ work, but before that, we need to gather all the high-level commanders of the mixed side into one network, balancing their respective memory banks. This has been mentioned before, to completely lift the concept separation state. The information possessed by those mixed side high-level commanders is a key point."

With Orelia’s reminder, I also remember this matter, before connecting "New Xiang" and Shadow Space, the concept separation of the two worlds must be completely lifted, or it will trigger a large-scale paradox. Now, the communication between the two worlds is basically fine, so it’s time to start this work.

"You said that only over two hundred people have reported to Angel City?" I glance at Orelia, "When can the rest of the commanders be on site?"

"They are expected to arrive all today afternoon; they have all awakened, just dealing with their physical anomalies on the Mother Continent."

Before this, I have already discussed the network and equipment needed to lift the concept separation with Sandora—okay, I admit, it was Sandora giving herself a lecture unilaterally—I know that such a network needs to handle a very astounding amount of data, and it requires a set of complex information correction equipment. The latter’s function is to convert abstract physical rules, mathematical models, and other world foundational formulas into encodable information, which, after being re-decoded, is injected back into the world rules. Currently, we have chosen and prepared this device, which is the Leaving World Garden System—this time, the Leaving World Garden has a heavy task, not only as the key facility to finally integrate the two worlds together but also responsible for carrying out the largest world regulation rewrite mission in the history of the New Empire. To enhance the success rate of these two tasks to the maximum, Big Sister even started to binge-watch comedy films from yesterday; this was Qianqian’s idea, she thinks only by keeping Big Sister happy can we ensure peace and prosperity at home...

As for handling those vast quantities of data, everything is ready.

On the Shadow City side, Taville has already established a large matrix with the assistance of several super-evolved Xyrin Hosts (Remember? The often dragged around by Little Baobao production hosts that have gained autonomous consciousness due to the latter’s influence. They are now considered squad leaders among the production hosts), with a hundred and twenty-two production hosts in parallel, directly mounted to the universal data interface of the Leaving World Garden, responsible for resolving and deleting the separation points inherited from Mother Star Gaia. Whereas on the Angel City side, we don’t have a host array—nor is there a necessity to establish such a system; all calculations can be handed over to Bubbles and Little Baobao. The two of them are directly connected to each other, enhancing computational power significantly, and both are Mother Machines, much more performant than those production hosts.

Of course, the more crucial reason is, due to the Great Impact back then, much information in the "New Xiang" world has already been destroyed, and what they need to process is far less than that on the Shadow City side.

Sandora returns from the Sky Tower in the afternoon, hence, the division work of the "New Xiang" world has been completed. This world was divided into two parts, one part being the mortal world, the other part being the "Divine Country" space, difficult for the former to access. A solid world barrier was established between the two spaces. That part of the world which accompanied ordinary races through tens of thousands of years on the Mother Continent has forever been erased from their lives. From this moment on, although people on Mother Continent can continue to explore countless lost worlds, they will never again see the most mysterious Xyrin relics, the Gundam Giant Statue, and those other mysterious powerful guardians, who will likely turn into myths passed down orally—however, they themselves are probably too occupied to think about this issue now; they need to first adapt to the magic power abnormally active new world.

And the final batch of Mysterious Side commanders has also dealt with their affairs on the Mother Continent... Cutting to the chase, they’ve addressed their physical anomalies and made proper arrangements for their avatars (Ancient Spirits, natural phenomena, or one of the world’s constants). After reporting to Angel City, they proceeded to their work positions as assigned by Orelia, among which those mixed-type officers holding the key to concept separation were arranged to connect at an ancient information node in the Forgotten Garden, readying themselves for the last task.

Capital time, six o’clock and five minutes in the afternoon, all the equipment connected online, the last stage restriction of the Leaving World Garden System was lifted, waiting for Sandora and my joint command, the two worlds separated for long are finally going to embrace the moment of becoming one. (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets, your support is my greatest motivation.)