Is there anything more surprising than suddenly hearing someone rambling in your ear while you’re exploring the Divine Void, a place where theoretically no other person can exist? I can’t think of anything more shocking. The only similar analogy might be finding someone squatting in the bathroom when you’re feeling your way in the dark at home... This comparison is a bit odd, but it perfectly captures my mood at this moment.

It wasn’t until the other party finally stopped their monologue, and I had time to identify the subtle resonance from the same race, that I uncertainly responded, "Sister Hila?"

"Ah, you didn’t recognize me?" The voice—which wasn’t really a voice but rather information directly transmitted into my mind—resounded again, with a hint of displeasure. I looked around blankly and then suddenly remembered I didn’t currently have vision. In fact, I didn’t have any of the five senses in this state; any familiar means of perceiving the outside world had grown distant from me. After experiencing the peculiar feeling of merging with the Void, my perception seemed to have elevated to a state of "Super Sense," where all necessary information appeared directly in my mind, bypassing the "perception" step. Thus, I could observe the Void from various odd perspectives, producing all those messy illusions. Now, as I gathered my spirit to try finding Hila’s form in this strange state, I finally had a realization: she seemed... omnipresent.

"What are you doing? You’re not looking for me, are you?" Hila’s consciousness emerged directly from the depths of my will. "Is this your first time going for a walk? Ah, right, you seem to have just come of age..."

"Uh..." I had many questions but didn’t know where to start, so I organized my words. "Things are a bit unusual here; I’m with Sandora on a mission, and somehow I ended up in this state, feeling... like something’s wrong with my mind..." I told Hila about my experiences without mentioning the Fifth Fleet, since Hila couldn’t help with that anyway. I could vaguely sense that we were communicating on a level only Void Creatures could reach, while our physical bodies were still separated by the endless void. The sensation was strange, as if my soul were the real entity, capable of reaching any part of the Void, while my true body seemed like a forgotten phantom in some corner.

"Oh, I see," though I couldn’t see King Huron, I could directly sense her current "expression," tinged with contemplation and interest. "It seems you’ve never tried it before—expanding your Void Domain to a certain extent allows you to merge with the Void; it feels like you’re one with the Void, as if returning to the state before we were born. But you probably aren’t strong enough for that; your Void Domain can’t reach that limit. So you accidentally stumbled upon a shortcut. I’m really envious of your luck... Back when I, along with Xingchen, were far more powerful than you, we never figured out how to enter this state. Yet you accidentally stumbled in with your wife while out on a drive."

This mighty Huron God King surely dominated from her Divine Throne, yet with her only fellow race members, she revealed her true nature, becoming carefree and blunt. Honestly, her overly lively nature perplexed both me and Xingchen—for she lacked the usual passivity of a Void Creature. True Void Creatures should be those who could laze around at home all day, whose biggest physical activity each day was sunning their backs on the balcony—though currently, the three Void Creatures seem busier than dogs, and that ideal life remains quite distant for the three of us...

"This state..." I pondered, unsure about the words to describe my situation. "What exactly is the ’walk’ state you’ve mentioned? Initially, I thought something was wrong, but from your explanation, it seems it’s everyday for you all?"

"Not exactly everyday, but it’s a good pastime—and in the past, it was a strategic skill," seeing my cluelessness, Hila enthusiastically began explaining. "We are born from the Void, the origin of our race—oh yes, you must constantly remember that even three people make a race. Don’t harbor pessimistic attitudes about our population; always recognize positively that even with three people, the Great Void Clan is thriving..."

"I know, I know. I have several friends who individually could form their own groups; please continue."

"Alright, then I’ll talk about this state—it’s indeed the perceptual ’Return to Void’ state. Your Void Domain is not just for fighting like a halo, nor for show; its effects are nearly limitless. In fact—since the essence of the Void Domain is the Void—it encompasses everything a Void should have. Of course, since you can’t utilize its full potential yet, we’ll skip that topic; rather, let’s discuss what happens after it’s integrated with the entire Void. When the information exchange between your Void Domain and the actual Void reaches a certain point, their boundaries blur, giving you this current sensation—like returning to a prenatal state... Oh yes, do you remember anything prior to your birth?"

I felt Hila’s question was remarkably sharp and challenging in both logic and ethics. Besides Hila, only Qianqian might comfortably and naturally pose such a question, but after a few seconds, I figured it out: she referred to my memories of the condition before my birth, as a Void Creature.

This means... can Void Creatures record experiences before they are born?!

I was immediately shocked: How did I not know this?

The next moment, I recalled why—because back then, when I reached the top and tower-dived, I got killed suddenly...

"Is that so, really an unfortunate experience, little brother. So you were supposed to be born tens of thousands of years earlier; was our Great Void Clan’s population explosion that early, huh Aru..."

If I had a physical body now, I would surely break out in cold sweat: "... What’s with that suspicious sentence tail just now?"

"Cough, cough, don’t mind the details," Hila’s voice sounded indifferent, "Without memories from back then, understanding the current state becomes difficult: In fact, the current state reflects how Void Creatures perceive their environment before forming, helping you understand why Xingchen and I are so interested in walks—because it evokes nostalgia, just like..."

"Like crawling back into the womb—I feel like it challenges ethics in various ways!"

Hila fell silent for a moment: "...You’d better not comment."

"Oh," I had to agree, though there were still many places I couldn’t quite understand. "Apart from reliving childhood, what’s the point of returning to the Void for us now?"

Having such thoughts seemed normal—for the peculiar experiences I had recently were still fresh in my mind. I could vaguely sense that the wave-like information revealed many things I couldn’t understand yet; either way, it felt deep and profound, leaving me uneasy: the incomprehension was frustrating.

Hila pondered for a while, seemingly considering how to explain those abstract elements: "How do I say this? Once you fully assume Void Form, you view problems from a perspective distinct from any living creature. Many things cannot be directly seen by mortals, nor directly comprehended with intelligence, yet from our viewpoint, it’s as straightforward as an open sheet of paper. Recently... um, possibly eons ago for you, several trillion years back, Xingchen and I observed the evolution of all things in a state of return to Void, using our respective methods to understand the origins of the world, then assisted our children in perfecting the world management systems they designed. This is one of the functions of the return to Void state. I can only tell you this much, but how you proceed during this process and how you interpret what you’ve ’seen’ is entirely up to you; no one else can help."

"I appreciate the immense help," I replied happily, with gratitude. "If I were to study this on my own, who knows how long it’d take to understand what I’m seeing."

"Ha, so you’re really lucky. Back in the day, Xingchen and I had to fumble around ourselves, and almost drove ourselves to a nervous breakdown before we figured things out," Hila’s voice sounded particularly cheerful, then suddenly shifted to a serious tone, "Here’s one last piece of advice for you — don’t rush, take things naturally. There are so many secrets in the Void. Even Xingchen and I started learning from a state of confusion before we understood many things, and you actually have more advantages than us — you were born with an Empire, have two predecessors to guide you, and plenty of established knowledge available to you. And of course, what’s more important is... I think you’ve got the right ideas..."

Me: "..."

Could you, dear sister, act a little more like a predecessor?

After talking to Hila, I also found out that this Return to Void state is not only a means for her to explore the Void but also a way for her and Xingchen to maintain contact, even to the point of instant information exchange between the Star Domain and Huron in critical moments. The span between the Huron Divine Realm and the Star Domain Divine Realm is unimaginably vast, making it almost impossible to establish a stable and fast communication route — at least the two highest Gods haven’t discovered this method yet. So they can only chat after merging with the Void, making them the only ones able to have instant communication between the two Divine Realms. Listening to Hila ramble about these things, I couldn’t help but marvel, this sister’s romance path is probably much more arduous than expected. Simply researching how to maintain contact has taken unknown millennia; those whose long-distance relationships have collapsed dare to compare themselves to my great sister Hila!

"Speaking of which, how do I leave this state?" Perhaps the time stasis effect really made me forget what’s happening outside until after chatting with this King Huron for quite a long time, I finally remembered that I’m supposed to be busy with some serious business. Hence, I quickly asked.

"You should be able to guess it yourself," Hila’s voice carried a touch of laughter, "This is instinctual knowledge — just transfer your will from the deep layers out, and specifically, you should block out all your current perceptions of the Void."

It turned out to be just as I had intuitively thought before. I thanked Hila and then began to transfer my perception. The dizzying feeling I experienced when departing suddenly hit me again.

The "Super Sense" that directly reads all information gradually distanced itself; the Five Senses, which are less efficient but more grounding, started to slowly return. Time started flowing again, the infinitely elongated seconds returned to their original shape like a spring, and in an instant, I felt Sandora’s presence right beside me once more.

The normal sense of time returned, and I found it astonishing how I had been so unperturbedly immersed in an almost stagnant spacetime, even nearly forgetting about the outside world.

Suddenly, the navigation system emitted a faint alarm. I blinked, adjusting to the feeling of observing outside objects with vision again. Sandora was withdrawing her hand from the Guiding Crystal—when we departed, she had just placed her hand on it, a process that took only two or three seconds. The two time concepts slightly conflicted but finally settled back into reality. Gazing at Sandora’s serene and beautiful profile, I leaned over and gave her a kiss.

"Hm!" Sandora surely wasn’t expecting my sudden impulse; for a moment, she seemed a bit flustered. It was only after I pulled away that she looked at me with a puzzled expression, "Ah Jun, what’s wrong with you, suddenly kissing me... is it really that urgent?"

Her face showed no change, and it wasn’t clear if there was a slight blush, but her voice was indeed full of coquettishness.

"You definitely don’t know what I just saw," I cheerfully said to Sandora, thinking to myself, luckily the previous time stasis effect wouldn’t have side effects. Otherwise, if I were immersed in the Void for too long, and came back to the reality feeling as if I hadn’t seen Sandora for tens of thousands of years, the situation would be quite amusing—I just conducted a little experiment earlier and, judging by the taste, the alienation phenomenon I was worried about didn’t occur. "I’ll tell you all about it when we get back."

"Crazy..." Sandora adorably stuck out her tongue at me and turned to continue fiddling with the equipment. "Here’s some good news, the jump was successful. We’ve reached the target location; the shuttle only suffered minor damage—when the engine overloaded, the energy was too high and a safety module burned out, as expected. We’re now moving closer to the Fifth Fleet’s Order Field using fine-tuning methods, hold on... Right, communication established. We can now resume contact with Bubbles via routing through the Fifth Fleet."

Since we jumped over a distance far beyond the theoretical design value, the communication module on the shuttle had gone dumb. Sandora directly pointed it to the frequency of the Fifth Fleet. On the shuttle control panel’s communicator appeared Cocogina’s figure: "You actually made it, and so successfully... It truly was unexpected."

Sandora smiled, her voice slightly rising: "Look, two Imperial Emperors coming on our own without any escort forces, we’re taking a big risk—from all sides."

Of course, Cocogina could clearly understand the implication in Sandora’s words, and he didn’t beat around the bush either: "Indeed, even now, there are still commanders in the fleet who remain vigilant toward you two, but I can assure you, no one here will take any rash actions. At this point, there’s no reason for us to act foolishly."

At this moment, a system prompt sounded in the shuttle’s cockpit: "Entered the Order Field, conventional observation chain initiates; normal sensory information can be observed."

The alloy wall at the front of the cockpit suddenly became transparent, we had entered the Joint Order Field established by the Fifth Fleet, and the shuttle was swiftly heading to the designated position: the center of the Fifth Fleet. Along the way, I finally saw the condition of the Fifth Fleet for myself.

Old, dilapidated, chaotic, far worse than the Fourth Fleet back in the day. Various styles of ancient starships were crowded together in an almost haphazard manner, looking like a giant pile of randomly arranged geometric shapes; most of the spaceship armor showed signs of damage, with some showing contrasting signs of repair—it seems they were repaired during the last century when the Fifth Fleet had painstakingly managed to survive and rest. These patched-up ships turned out to be the "good ships" of the entire fleet. These ships, regardless of size, were arranged in a very compact manner, with sometimes only a few hundred meters between gigantic battleships. Various gravity control devices were running at full power to balance the gravitational chaos that ensued.

"We’re almost breaking every fleet formation regulation now," Cocogina said, "Such crowded formations, along with chaotic gravitational environments, if we were attacked now, the entire fleet would be finished in no time, so I hope you can move quickly."

"This is a necessary means, the Void Domain is limited, and since you don’t want to abandon some people, then you can only take some risks." Sandora maneuvered the shuttle to the fleet’s core position, where I saw Cocogina’s flagship. This might be a two to three hundred kilometers long bulky spaceship, looking like an oversized rugby ball. Such a massive starship is no longer suitable as a conventional warship, yet hasn’t reached the level of a super-ordinary starship (such as a planet battleship), so it should be an immigrant ship, perhaps also serving as the command ship—the Fifth Fleet’s situation no longer allows them to be picky.

"Now listen to my instructions," Sandora looked at Cocogina’s image on the communicator, "Every spaceship must synchronize, anyone who makes a small mistake... well, they’re done." (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you’re welcome to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to cast recommendation votes and monthly votes; your support is my greatest motivation.)