Chapter 860 - 478: Celestial Meteor Shower (Part 2)

The sapling grew at a visibly rapid pace, becoming larger and, in the blink of an eye, reached several hundred meters, even thousands of meters in height...

The roots, like raging waves, swept the earth, breaking through the ice layers. Upon contact with them, the violent ice rapidly turned into water, nourishing the earth beneath the glaciers.

The roots seemed to swiftly spread across the entire surface of the planet, turning glaciers into lakes, and ice layers into seas.

At this moment, even a flower broke through the earth at Yi Shan’s feet. Despite his face being covered in ice crystals, countless flowers bloomed at his feet. In the blink of an eye, this place transformed from an extreme cold Hell of minus two hundred degrees into a sea of flowers.

Flowers surrounded the giant tree, akin to the Divine Tree, in vibrant clusters, swaying gently to their own tunes in the breeze.

Yi Shan laughed, bursting into hearty laughter.

"Dominic, did you see? Did you see? We succeeded, everything succeeded!"

"Our sacrifices were not in vain, Avril, Catfish, Odd Eye, Ghost... all their sacrifices, every martyr’s sacrifice, it wasn’t in vain!"

"It’s all back, everything’s back!"

He laughed, dancing clumsily, like a madman, like a child, unrestrainedly performing that awkward dance amid the sea of flowers.

When exhausted from dancing, he fell into the sea of flowers. Looking up, he could see the Great Void in the sky, but none of it mattered anymore.

He reached out his hand, wanting to touch this great tree, his dear friend...

His hand in midair passed through the trunk...

Yi Shan froze. He reached out again, and again, his hand passed straight through the trunk.

"What... is happening?" he stammered, staring at his hands.

Why, in the end, could he not simply reach out and touch his dear friend once more?

"Because, Vice Captain Yi Shan of the 13th Expedition Team, you are already dead," a sudden voice said.

Yi Shan startled and turned his head abruptly. He saw a boy, somewhat similar to the Spirit Race, yet entirely different.

Similarly, following the boy’s silhouette, he saw behind him a body, draped with a flag, frozen on the earth.

The body’s flesh seemed stripped away, leaving just a broken skeleton, yet it stood there, stepping boldly as if willing to continue forward.

Yet, its body couldn’t support the consciousness any longer, fallen there, turning into a statue, frozen and as hard as a stone pillar by the ice crystals.

Only the homemade flag of the 13th Expedition Team behind it continued to sway like a landmark in the gentle breeze.

"So, I am already dead," Yi Shan laughed, neither hysterical nor self-pitying, just looking at his shattered body and the flag swaying in the wind.

"Are you from the future?" Yi Shan asked this silhouette, smiling as if he had let go of all burdens and responsibilities,

"How is the future? Is it already advanced enough to transform the Cosmos, now that the threat of the Cosmic Void is gone?"

"Perhaps it has been realized. I know you probably live better lives than we did. In the future, perhaps all races of the universe can unite without distinction, supporting one another, any race or civilization can become friends, showing empathy to the weak, helping each other, building a more beautiful world together?"

Yi Shan smiled. He lay down among the flowers, surrounded by vibrant clusters, smiling as the breeze lifted his hair, as though wanting to peacefully sleep here.

But Xue Dili was silent. At last, he could only smile bitterly and say, "Yes, it’s been realized."

He lay in the sea of flowers, his shattered uniform turning into the final handful of dust to nourish the soil, with flower roots entwining his gradually transparent body.

"That’s good, that’s good..."

"This... is enough..."

His voice did not sound out, just shaped by his lips, but countless flowers nodded towards him, petals resonating crisply like wind chimes.

The wind came.

It brushed over the flower sea, lifting a sky full of scattered light and petal fragments, and swept over Yi Shan’s nearly transparent soul.

In this moment, he seemed to see many people: his childhood friend Dominic, the one who pushed him this far, Avril, the hearty Beastman Locke, Odd Eye who maneuvered the starship with all might, the doctor Ghost who cared for everyone’s well-being, Agent Catfish who cherished the new watch, the silent Bone Dragon and spirits of Death, the Insect Emperor with a sweet voice, the prank-loving Lying Monster, and the brooding Dark Elf...

Everyone seemed to be here, lying in the sea of flowers with him, forming a circle, letting go of all duties and burdens, quietly sleeping.

The wind stopped.

The sea of flowers was pristine and clean, seemingly immaculate to begin with, leaving only a crude clay amulet lying quietly in the center.

...

In the star domain behind, the United Front.

"My... heroic father and uncles and aunts..." Fuge struggled to say, but when she looked up, she saw none of her familiar people.

Dad didn’t come, none of my uncles and aunts came...

The senior leaders of the United Front set the time, and the next moment, the bell rang.

"Activate all the beacons in the cosmos and start the live broadcast simultaneously," said the leader.

"Tonight, we pray for all the heroes heading to the Great Void!"

"Dong!"

It was as if the bells of the cosmos were ringing.

Everyone seemed to be making their wishes here.

...

At this moment, the Divine Tree seemed to have finally absorbed enough demon element and began to soar into the sky. The beacons established by other exploration teams resonated for the first time.

This is a resonance equation of the cosmos calculated by the God of All Machines after being thoroughly eroded by the demon element!

Throughout the cosmos, countless sacrifices by pioneering teams, the beacons cast towards various star systems, and the simultaneous prayers of countless people, all received the same pulse at the same Planck time.

It wasn’t sound; it was a resonance more fundamental than gravity, reaching directly into the essence of existence.

Next comes the "ascension."

Not material, but light, emotion, and will.

From every planet, from the chest, core, or focus of consciousness of each intelligent being, strands of faint light are extracted and elevated.

Their colors are endless: the resolute gold that guards children, the fiery blue of scholars seeking truth, the gentle white of the departed’s nostalgia for the world, the persistent green of civilization’s desire for continuity...

These tiny rays of light, like stars against the current, breaking free from the shackles of the surface, traversing the atmosphere or energy fields, merging into the orbiting giant beacons awaiting them for so long.

Then, the beacon "lights up."

Two trillion star systems, two trillion beacons, all at the same instant, transformed from silent giant structures into burning torches of will.

Their light did not radiate outward but inward, upward, focusing and jetting toward an absolute coordinate of the universe, the direction of the Great Void.

Thus, the cosmos witnessed the most magnificent "rain" since its birth.

This endless light of prayers, spanning millions of light-years, tens of millions of light-years, disregarding the curvature of space-time, rises from every corner of the cosmos, racing towards the same endpoint.

They converge, intertwine, and merge, forming a boiling sea of light that cannot be described with any color upon reaching the void around the Great Void.

Xue Dili stands on this last planet, watching the gathering of this absolute meteor shower.

"So that’s it..."

"The Venerable King isn’t any specific person, nor is it any particular team..."

"Instead, it is the prayers of the stars."

The thing Yi Shan struggled with most before was that he had also personally caused the death of countless pioneering teams.

But it was precisely because of the sacrifice of the pioneering teams that the Magic Element Beacons spread across the cosmos, creating this trillion-scale, extreme meteor shower.

The demon element is what future generations call the "Venerable King Spirit Particle."

The beacon of Expedition Team No. 13 is the prototype of the Divine Tree.

The Magic Element Beacons left by the pioneering teams are the "Venerable King Fragments."

The flower-covered planet beneath Xue Dili’s feet is also the future...

Mist Council!

The Divine Tree will expand the Dead Star, gradually gathering the atmosphere and water sources of the Dead Star to turn it into a Life Planet, and it will unwaveringly absorb the "Venerable King Spirit Particle" because it is ingrained in its very being, the instinct to absorb demon element.

Because this is the final obsession of that Tree-man leader Dominic.

"So that’s it..."

The light converges inward and takes shape.

From the void, the outline of a giant woven by the prayers of the stars slowly stands up.

"Meteors are truly beautiful."