Chapter 609 Soul of Nihility, Part 1 (8000 words, First Update)

In the distance, the surface of Ross 128 continued to rumble.

Kroat's act of extracting stellar energy for his own use had clearly caused irreversible damage to this red dwarf star. Its lifespan had been greatly affected, and it might even face rapid extinction in a short period of time.

But it was all over.

Facing the Star Devourer's corpse, which was gradually collapsing into starlight fragments, Su Zhou calmly released his hand.

The gauntlet on his arm quickly shattered, and the charred plant roots broke apart, dissipating like smoke, revealing the crystal arm bones beneath the outer armor and flesh, now charred and cracked.

After all, the antimatter engines on Su Zhou's arms were not the giant nozzles on the lunar backside. Furthermore, they were temporarily constructed using non-core Divine Wood materials, so their defensive capabilities were indeed insufficient to withstand such intense firepower for too long.

But even a mere dozen seconds was more than enough.

The Extinction Star-Slaying Blade, as Su Zhou's ultimate attack in his cosmic battle, planetary engine colonization form, was indeed incomparably powerful.

The enhanced antimatter jet stream was enough to destroy the Star Devourer's outer shell and completely incinerate its internal structure. The contained Dutian Divine Lightning could even annihilate the soul, making it a supreme strike capable of cleaving through all things.

And to be honest.

The Extinction Star-Slaying Blade, as its name suggested, was indeed only capable of slaying stars.

The technical essence was simple: use a planetary engine-grade engine to propel a super-large thermal cutting blade... but how to make the blade so large was a profound technique, and how to use this blade to hit someone was an even more profound technique.

If the Star Devourer Kroat hadn't been so confident in himself, and had been able to move despite relying on the star for energy, the charging time for the Star-Slaying Blade alone would have been enough for an opponent of Su Zhou's level to run at least tens of thousands of kilometers.

Those faster could have transformed into light and escaped millions of kilometers—how could it possibly hit anything?

Naturally, it could only slay stars.

"Worthy of being a Twilight Kindred..."

Gazing at the now-shattered Star Devourer fragments, Su Zhou slowly deactivated his Divine Wood colonization form, peeling off the layer of Divine Wood armor that had been completely overloaded.

He couldn't help but shake his head slightly, "They really aren't afraid of death."

Regardless of how much the other party had shouted for help from his brethren earlier, and how dull-witted he was.

In the final analysis, Kroat was a member of the Nihilism Order.

His fighting methods obviously had nothing to do with the core principle practiced by most cultivators: 'ensure your own safety.'

If Su Zhou relied on his Undying Blood, modular body, and various transformations to transfer damage, he wouldn't routinely use a fighting method that harmed the enemy by a thousand while harming himself by a hundred. Even then, he wouldn't dare raise the damage ratio too high, because if he wasn't careful and messed up, even Undying Blood might not be able to save him.

But the members of the Nihilism Order, their fighting methods involved locking self-detonation into their souls if they couldn't win.

Fortunately, Su Zhou had slain quickly, otherwise the Star Devourer would have certainly staged such a spectacle.

Rumble... Vibrations came from the star's surface.

Ending his contemplation, Su Zhou turned his head and saw that the side of Ross 128 closer to the battlefield had begun to erupt with a large number of coronal ejections—dazzling flames soared like rising dragons, piercing through millions of meters of space, extending towards the distant depths of the universe.

Coincidentally, a coronal ejection swept towards the youth's location.

But Su Zhou didn't care.

The scorching storm hurtled like a flood. Solar flares, mixed with the star's hot gases, could easily burn a planet's surface into rock vapor.

But the body of the Candle Sun stood firm in this stellar torrent, like a reef enduring the pounding waves, remaining unmoved.

Endless light and the black dragon shape were branded in the vacuum of space, like eternal seals.

Su Zhou allowed this storm to wash away the debris and dust from his body's surface, as if taking a rare hot bath.

The power of a terrestrial immortal allows one to walk on stars and protect oneself in coronal ejections; the power of a celestial immortal allows one to ignore almost all natural phenomena in the universe and explore the interior of stars.

Beyond celestial immortals, one can even use this original cradle of all life as one's energy source, like cosmic behemoths such as Star Devourers, including the Aether Dragons. If they evolve into their complete form, they can all use it as food.

【Swish... Marshal, how are you now?】

Because of the fragmentation of the Spirit Realm and the rampage of the solar storm, the Earth Fleet had to expend a great deal of effort to connect with Su Zhou through a strengthened frequency: 【We observed a very terrible explosion. The aftershock even destroyed the surface of the planet Huoxi. It was truly terrifying.】

【Are you alright?】

"I'm fine."

Hearing Tang Yuan's familiar voice, Su Zhou smiled, shifted his gaze from Ross 128, where coronal ejections and flare explosions were becoming increasingly frequent, and said with some apology, "It's just that I might need you to tell Xiang De, and all the Huoxi people."

"The Huoxi Starfield's star... might explode."

【Ah?】

For a moment, all the Earth Fleet crew members who heard this sentence, and the only member of the Huoxi civilization, Xiang De, were stunned.

My family's star, Ross 128... is going to explode?

But this wasn't strange news.

The existence of the Star Devourer Kroat had already shaken the basic structure of this star.

As everyone knows, red dwarf stars burn differently from typical yellow main-sequence stars. The matter and energy produced by the core's nuclear fusion circulate and repeatedly heat the 'core' and 'star's surface' regions.

In addition, its mass is small and the nuclear reactions are weak, resulting in an extremely long lifespan for this type of star, easily reaching hundreds of billions or even trillions of years. They are one of the most stable types of stars.

This is also why Star Devourers choose red dwarf stars as their nests.

However, the existence of the cosmic giant egg replaced some of this star's self-stabilizing ability, becoming the star's second core.

This greatly accelerated its nuclear fusion phenomenon, and over the millennia, Kroat's lavish suction and consumption of the star's energy made this already increasingly fragile red dwarf star short-lived.

Now that the cosmic giant egg had shattered, the lunar remnants scattered, and Su Zhou and the Star Devourer had fought fiercely, the aftershocks they caused, while insignificant to a star, still triggered the repeated vibrations within the star, further accelerating its self-destruction.

As things stood now, from Su Zhou's perspective, the star before him had basically entered its final stage—it was about to accelerate its burning, vaporize its mass into interstellar matter, and then become a brown dwarf.

Because its mass was too low, a supernova explosion wouldn't occur during this process, which was probably a blessing in disguise.

Although, if Su Zhou hadn't come, the planet Huoxi would have been burned to ashes in the stellar explosion caused by the Star Devourer anyway. But in the final analysis, Ross 128's end was indeed related to him.

【...How can we blame you for this?】

Digesting this news, the stunned Xiang De couldn't help but reveal a bitter smile. He sighed and then calmed down: 【The best ending we originally imagined was that the eight Wandering Arks could start normally, taking nearly ten million Huoxi people away from the desperate situation, and finding a planet to rekindle the flame in the distant starry sea... To put it bluntly, it was just gambling.】

【And now, what we've lost is just the homeland and star we had already given up on in our hearts, but what we've gained is the survival of six and a half billion Huoxi people—a tangible gain.】

【I can only thank you, Marshal. You helped us out of the predicament we couldn't escape and saved everyone.】

On the warship, even if Su Zhou couldn't see it, this leader of the Huoxi, who possessed Azure Dragon blood, still deeply bowed in the direction of Su Zhou.

Indeed, the planet Huoxi was destroyed—and was about to be scorched in Ross 128's self-destruction.

But as the homeland of the Huoxi people, that star which had been approaching dusk… would be forever engraved in the memory of the Huoxi people, even in their DNA!

At the same time, Su Zhou sensed that an extremely pure and unadulterated power of faith was crossing space-time and casting itself towards him.

He couldn't help but smile slightly.

He naturally knew that when all the Huoxi people woke up, the emotions of gratitude and reverence from the six and a half billion people would become another huge source of merit and faith for him.

Naturally, some abnormal guys would blame his existence for causing the Huoxi people to lose their homeland. There wouldn't be few such people. After all, if there weren't any idiots among six and a half billion people, the Huoxi civilization would probably have become the overlord of the galaxy long ago.

But the youth no longer cared about these.

How could a mere few billion people's merit and faith compare to a celestial immortal's firm will?

But… there's no need to dislike having too many medals.

Su Zhou was smiling now simply because his act of helping those in need had helped so many people, and because he had successfully crushed the bones and scattered the ashes of the Star Devourer, a monster that had been sleeping near the Earth civilization.

"Now that things have come to an end... it's time to see what these Twilight Kindred are plotting."

Temporarily shifting his thoughts from the Earth Fleet's channel, Su Zhou turned his head, looked ahead, and then reached out to guide the Star Devourer's overly large evil soul into his hand.

The Star Devourer Kroat's evil soul was the largest evil soul Su Zhou had ever obtained.

This thing was two thousand four hundred meters in diameter. Although it was insignificant compared to the original giant egg with a diameter of twenty thousand kilometers, and the Star Devourer multi-headed Aether Dragon form with a total length of over one hundred thousand meters, it could be said to be unbelievably large compared to most evil souls, which were only the size of a fist.

This wasn't a soul ball, but a soul mountain.

Even the cosmic battle form, a dragon over six thousand meters tall, couldn't help but feel troubled when he saw this evil soul.

"How exactly am I supposed to swallow this thing..."

Although he said that, Su Zhou's final choice was to create a large straw—a Divine Wood tube four hundred meters long with a hollow center—and insert it into the evil soul.

If he couldn't eat it, then he would drink it!

The initial taste was exceptionally bland and tasteless, like boiled water mixed with lime, with an astringent texture.

But soon, this astringency transformed into a fiery, star-like heat.

This heat entered his stomach straight from his throat. The taste of negative entropy was a little sweet, with a faint fragrance, making the Star Devourer's evil soul taste somewhat similar to high-concentration, low-quality liquor, but it was even more spicy, pure, but still carried an irrepressible astringency.

【The Evil Soul of the Star Devourer Kroat】

【Different from its kind, different from all living beings, a purely alien evil soul.】

【Obtained wisdom but cannot communicate, a full body but an empty spirit, seeking the ultimate Soul of Nihility】

【After use, increases Spiritual Qi Affinity and Spiritual Power Limit by an incredible amount】

【Spiritual Refinement, can be transformed into an 'Overturning the World, Devouring the Heavens' Spirit Attachment, attached to all equipment and props】

【Using special forging methods, can be forged into a 'Star Devouring, Heaven Piercing Giant Cannon' Soul Cannon】

【Devour, devour, devour, devour, devour, endless devouring… If this is meaning, then how is it different from having no meaning?】

【What is the difference between life and this universe itself? Celestial bodies also eat, and also have anger, sorrow, compassion, and birth, old age, sickness, and death.】

【Thinking is meaningless, wisdom is the source of trouble… Therefore, rather than choosing nihilistic waiting, the nihilistic believers choose to take action.】

【And this is the biggest difference between nihilism and nihilistic believers.】

The Star Devourer's evil soul was very large, and for the first time, Su Zhou saw the affix 'incredible amount.'

However, it didn't condense into an inheritance—this proved that even though Kroat had gained wisdom, this unusual Star Devourer still hadn't summarized his own path.

This made Su Zhou slightly disappointed. When he saw the eight-headed Aether Dragon body condensed by the other party, he thought that this Star Devourer had accidentally embarked on a path similar to his Candle Sun, able to freely cut and paste the bodies of cosmic behemoths as modules for his own use, considering him a 'fellow traveler.'

But now it seemed that Kroat had probably just eaten a lot of Aether Dragons and simply copied the body structures of those Aether Dragons.

"But the most important thing isn't these."

With the Star Devourer's soul power burning in his stomach, Su Zhou closed his eyes.

While heading towards the increasingly激荡 stellar turbulence, he began to contemplate, analyzing the endless memories within him that belonged to Kroat.

"As an Annihilation Envoy of the Nihilism Order, this Star Devourer's soul must contain important related intelligence!"

The surging soul power surged, and millions of years of memories were burning fiercely. Amidst the interplay of light and shadow created by the Star Devourer's incredibly long memories.

Su Zhou forcefully eliminated a large amount of meaningless memory content with his own will, and began to refine Kroat's life.

—The Star Devourer's life was mostly spent eating.

This cosmic behemoth, its existence itself, was equivalent to a small star, and a very fiercely burning star.

Without eating, a young Star Devourer would burn itself out—in fact, many Star Devourer cubs were unable to grow up healthily because they didn't start eating the moment they were born, and eventually turned into interstellar dust clouds.

Initially, Kroat was a healthy Star Devourer, no different from other members of its kind.

So, when he was conceived by his mother and thrown into a brown dwarf, he began to eat, devour, bite, and suck non-stop... until he became strong, became a behemoth, became a true small star that could exist for a long time.

But by that time, the Star Devourer's instincts were also fully activated, and even if it didn't need to, they would continue to devour stars, strengthen themselves, and transform themselves into a wandering star roaming the universe.

Everything changed during a 'brief' eating process.

Kroat, who had just reached 'complete form', chose a yellow main-sequence star as his food.

Coincidentally, many primitive life forms had been born on the second planet of this main-sequence star.

The Star Devourer, who had just advanced to the complete form and could properly devour stellar energy, didn't think his eating speed was slow, but for short-lived species, it wasn't a question of speed.

—In the process of eating, Kroat witnessed the birth and rise and fall of a civilization.

It was a civilization whose name had long been forgotten, and whose members were only known to be winged beings with wings, capable of flying.

This race was born loving to fly and explore, and their desire for the starry sky was manifested in ancient and desolate times.

The sun was their guide, a beacon guiding their exploration, a guardian deity proclaiming the direction of the 'future': this civilization firmly believed that they were children of the sun, and that their wings existed so that one day they could break free from the shackles of the earth and head towards the dazzling source of light.

Without a doubt, such a belief could help a civilization avoid many detours and lead them smoothly to the interstellar age.

But just when they could explore other planets, this race was stunned to discover that above their 'deity' and 'guide' was a hideous, hateful, yet equally enormous beast… greedily devouring the star's flesh.

Needless to say, how to eliminate this beast became the 'meaning' for this civilization to continue moving forward.

Not only for mythology, faith, and beliefs.

Simply to ensure the stability of their home starfield, for the future of the civilization, they had to fight the Star Devourer and drive it away!

To this end, this civilization worked together, researching technology and learning psionic energy—because they could see the existence of the Star Devourer just by looking up, there was no forgetting, no slackening, and every member of this civilization worked diligently and devoted all their efforts to the great wish of driving away the Star Devourer, just so that one day in the future, they could drive away this star-devouring enemy.

They researched generation after generation of new spaceships, and class after class of powerful weapons. They spent a long time building a massive fleet, and cultivated psionic energy cultivation methods that were becoming increasingly radical, but also increasingly powerful.

Their rate of progress far surpassed any civilization, and could even be said to be among the best in the universe.

But the star continued to dim.

Whether it was a giant purging cannon large enough to burn the planet into glass, or an antimatter bomb; whether it was a psionic user capable of tearing apart continents and destroying ecosystems, or a nanomachinery weapon capable of eroding at the mesoscopic level…

Nothing could work against the Star Devourer.

One type of attack after another was invented and then proven useless, and one idea after another was proposed and then thrown into the trash.

During this process, many heroes emerged who were enough to change the world. They led this civilization forward, constantly exploring and progressing, and even sacrificing themselves to fight the monster in the sun.

But all the effort, all the struggle, all the blood, hope, and even sacrifice, were meaningless.

Just as those tiny people were struggling, the Star Devourer completed its feeding.

The star began to expand—the red giant transformation was about to begin.

Despair enveloped this nameless civilization, so much so that they chose madness, or rather, chose the most resolute means.

They built an unprecedentedly huge warship and created a stellar bomb based on the Star Devourer's psionic fluctuations and the frequency of their sun…

When Kroat temporarily felt full and detached from the expanding star, he could only confusedly notice that a group of tiny things that weren't even ants were creating a small, meaningless spark on the edge of his carapace.

It seemed to be an artillery attack to attract the behemoth's attention.

But obviously, this move was meaningless, because the Star Devourer simply didn't understand what these little ants wanted to do. He just widened his eyes and watched the warship carrying the stellar bomb disappear into the star that was about to turn into a red giant.

Then… there was a dazzling supernova explosion.

And a cosmic behemoth that was inexplicably seriously injured.

【Why?】

【Were they trying to steal food?】

At that time, his simple mind couldn't understand this phenomenon: 【I didn't eat the star completely, they're so small, they should have some to eat, and they could even eat for a long, long time.】

【Too strange, right?】

Because of confusion, questions arose.

Because of questions, answers were sought.

Because of answers, wisdom was needed.

The behemoth, who could traverse the starry sky and devour stars without wisdom, began to crave 'meaningless things' that were not needed for his own life for the first time.

But a long time passed, and when the once ignorant Star Devourer was able to understand why that tiny race regarded him as an enemy, and was willing to detonate the star rather than run away.

This behemoth fell into a great confusion again.

【But with their technology, they could have built arks and left that star system long ago, right?】

【If the meaning of life is to exist, they should have run away long ago—their technological level, after thousands of years, is higher than many interstellar civilizations I've seen!】

【But they still chose to perish with the star without hesitation... Could it be that there is a higher meaning that transcends 'existence'?!】

【But all of this is meaningless!】

Was there anything more closer to the truth than 'existence.'

Was there anything that could make life, which takes 'survival' as its first priority, willing to give, to sacrifice its own life.

Was there anything the Star Devourer couldn't understand that led to the birth of everything, including the universe, including the stars, including all life—everything, everything in the universe and multiverse, that made these things born and exist!

What exactly was it? Even asking members of his kind wouldn't get an answer.

Where could this answer be found? No civilization in the universe was willing to discuss philosophical questions with a Star Devourer.

What was the ultimate end of all of this? Why did everything finally manage to exist, but some lives were willing to sacrifice their existence for something ethereal?

Unable to find an answer, the wandering beast wandered in the dark universe.

【Why, do I have to live?】

The Star Devourer, who was troubled by this question, even thought about committing suicide... no, not thought, he really committed suicide several times, but because he was too strong, he simply couldn't die.

Until a gentle twilight light lit up, clearing Kroat's mind.

【Confused Star Devourer, why are you lingering here?】

At this moment, Kroat realized that he was currently located at the edge of the Milky Way.

A remote star system, but fully armed and completely surrounded by various psionic matrices and steel fortresses.

At this moment, he was located at the edge of the Twilight Kindred's headquarters.

However, the Nihilism Order, which was rumored to destroy everything and send everything into nothingness, did not attack this Star Devourer who didn't even know why he was alive.

A gentle, respectable voice patiently listened to the Star Devourer's incoherent explanations and nodded knowingly: 【I see, you are craving meaning.】

【But poor little Kroat, I must tell you the truth of this multiverse: the birth of all things is just a coincidence, and the existence of all beings is just an accident.】

【You and I, life, all existence, and even the various miracles in the universe, those shining souls and glory, those glowing wills and beliefs, are all things that were born by accident because the multiverse is too vast.】

【In other words, all of this is meaningless.】

【That's not right!】

Hearing this answer, the Star Devourer at that time vehemently retorted: 【There definitely is!】

【Otherwise, why would some lives not fear death, and why would some civilizations not fear sacrifice and destruction?】

【There must be a supreme meaning guiding them, ignoring the 'truth of existence', so they can be so determined!】

【That's right.】

Kroat, thought he would be refuted.

But what he got was a crisp agreement: 【That's absolutely right—that's exactly it!】

He heard the gentle voice, smiling faintly: 【Therefore, we must bring sacrifice and destruction, death and ending, to those who think they 'have meaning.'】

【Only in this way can they understand their true meaning and show us a truth higher than 'existence', that supreme thing!】

Speaking of this, the gentle voice even became somewhat fanatical:

【If we succeed, it will prove that the multiverse is just this meaningless everything, which is truly the essence of nihilism—but if we fail, it will prove that we are the prelude to achieving the 'ultimate meaning', we are the corpses under its feet, the roads it has walked!】

【What a nihilistic, yet meaningful action! The Nihilism Order was born to achieve all of this!】

【...】

Perhaps it was because no one had ever been willing to talk to Kroat before.

Or perhaps it was because what the other party said was indeed very reasonable and logical.

There were many perhapses and perhapses.

But in short.

The Star Devourer was convinced.

Kroat, from this point on, chose to join the Nihilism Order, becoming the first cosmic behemoth in this universe to join the Nihilism Order.

Under Su Zhou's frowning gaze, he saw this Star Devourer, who was very likely to have been scammed, begin a random annihilation of civilizations within the entire Milky Way.

He flew through the starry sky, warped through the star sea, and the behemoth destroyed civilization after civilization, attacked planet after planet, intending to recreate the resistance he had once seen, but whose name he had forgotten.

Death, destruction, and non-existence, are 'nihilism.'

But, precisely because these exist, 'meaningless lives' can instead burst out with sparks that transcend 'existence'!

For all living things, using absolute destruction as oppression, letting them burn their lives, and burst out with 'sacrifice' that transcends life, can instead see the thickest meaning in these souls, even surpassing life and death, even 'nihilism'!

The Nihilism Order, which persisted in this action, finally discovered its limit.

They were, after all, outliers among outliers. Even if they accidentally obtained power fragments from the great existence outside the void, and tried their best, the Nihilism Order was only able to tie with several galactic empires, and it could even be called a failure.

Those galactic empires didn't even spend all their strength to fight them, and spent most of their time being wary of each other.

【We need more powerful power.】

This was a common thought within the entire order.

But where was there more powerful power?

The Nihilism Order, which had many Ω psionic users, had reached the extreme in terms of psionic energy. The path to taking one more step was not that they couldn't think of it, but that would be at least tens of thousands of years, a very, very long time later, and it mainly depended on luck.

And in terms of technology, the Nihilism Order had also reached the extreme. After all, transcendent power reached the same destination by different paths, and the Nihilism Order itself was a very cohesive team that never schemed against each other or suppressed each other. It was a harmonious and well-organized organization in the multiverse, so their scientific research team's results were also extremely remarkable.

Only the Star of the Galaxy—which created the Cenostians and had relics that transcended most things in this universe—could inspire the Nihilism Order!

But the Nihilism Order needed power precisely because it couldn't defeat the galactic empires—but if they wanted to gain power, they had to defeat a galactic empire first?

This 套娃 was too classic, so the high-level members of the Nihilism Order simply gave up on this option.

They chose to find similar things throughout the universe.

Thus, the Nihilism Order discovered.

The ancient ruins located outside the Milky Way, in the subspace starfield.

The ruins of the Pioneer Fortress that sealed the 'Fragment of the Seal.'

The traces of the fragment called 'Final Annihilation Seal.'

There will be one more update later