"Did they destroy themselves in a civil war before we even arrived?"
"Impossible!" the commander's consciousness replied with absolute certainty. "In the regions we've explored over the past few days, there are absolutely no signs of war. There aren't even any traces of development."
"Furthermore, I can feel a massive, cohesive consciousness within this galaxy. They are here; we just can't find them..."
Its thoughts suddenly paused.
An indescribable sensation of being watched made it instinctively uncomfortable.
But the feeling vanished in an instant.
"Continue the search!"
Suppressing the bizarre thought, the commander issued the order.
"Even if they are hiding in the planetary cores, drag them out!"
...
Meanwhile.
In the Solar System, the [Aetherophasic Engine].
The brilliance at its core had already surpassed the moment of any supernova explosion in the universe.
Driven by the full effort of all humanity and the frantic infusion of the Imperium's century of accumulation, the final progress bar was finally... filled.
Aboard the All Tomorrows Space Station.
Luo Ji stood calmly before the massive viewport.
He looked at the "sun" that had completed its final metamorphosis, feeling the overwhelmingly suppressed, majestic power of the entire Imperium and human civilization about to erupt.
He had waited for this day for far, far too long.
So long that the wails of the Trisolarans had already faded.
So long that the brand of the Star People's despair had been etched into his soul.
Now, it was time for it to end.
And time for it to begin.
He raised his hand toward the void and issued the final command that spanned centuries.
"Commence Universal Ascension."
*Hum—!*
There was no earth-shattering boom.
There was no universe-tearing explosion of light.
A "bell toll" that did not belong to the material universe and could not be captured by any instrument echoed instantly from the Solar System into the deepest depths of every human soul!
Whether one was in the Jupiter shipyards, on a distant colony planet, surfing the virtual web, or sleeping in reality.
The bell tolled.
The ascension began.
Endless, utterly pure Aether energy surged through the countless Psionic Wells scattered across the Imperium's territory and the Psionic Network connecting every human consciousness. Like a cosmic flood bursting its dam, it frantically poured into the body and soul of every human!
A college student wearing a holographic helmet, who was being brutally slaughtered over and over by "Valkyrie" Malenia in the retro game Elden Ring, was just about to smash his controller in a rage.
Suddenly.
The world before his eyes changed.
Malenia's blindingly fast Waterfowl Dance transformed in his eyes into slowly flowing lines of underlying data, riddled with flaws.
The game's health bars, poise, attack hitboxes... everything was displayed in his consciousness in the most primitive and naked manner.
He froze.
Then, subconsciously, he formed a single thought.
'Your blade is mine.'
The next second, on the game screen, the glowing blade in Malenia's hand instantly vanished and appeared in the hands of the character he controlled.
"..."
Dumbfounded, he stared at how he had casually rewritten the game's rules, and a classic expletive slipped from his lips.
"Holy shit?!"
Elsewhere.
In a massive interstellar shipyard, a senior technician was performing the final core component calibration for a battleship.
It was delicate work that required atomic-level precision.
Covered in sweat, he carefully manipulated the mechanical arm.
Right at that moment, the bell tolled.
His eyes suddenly pierced through the thick alloy casing, directly "seeing" the quantum structure inside the component.
He could even "feel" the fluctuation of every single quantum particle.
The mechanical arm suddenly seemed so clumsy.
Driven by some inexplicable impulse, he abandoned the physical controls.
With just a single thought.
'Align.'
*Hum.*
The component instantly merged with the hull perfectly and seamlessly, achieving a level of precision that surpassed the limits of any machine.
The technician looked at his hands, then at the battleship, completely dumbfounded.
Scenes like this were happening simultaneously in every corner of the Imperium of Man.
The shackles of the flesh were completely shattered!
The barrier between thought and reality was utterly obliterated!
In this instant, all of humanity simultaneously completed the ultimate leap from three-dimensional biological organisms to transcendent dimensional beings capable of overlooking timelines and manipulating fundamental particles!
And at this very moment.
The Qu fleet, which had been recklessly searching the Milky Way, suddenly came to a collective halt.
"Warning! Warning! Unidentified ultra-high energy reactions detected!"
"Number of energy sources... incalculable!"
"They... they are all over the entire galaxy!"
Inside the flagship, the commander's consciousness was completely overwhelmed by the sudden, deafening alarms.
It abruptly "looked up" toward the universe outside the viewport.
Then, it witnessed the most terrifying, yet most magnificent sight of its life.
The entire galaxy.
Lit up.
It wasn't the light of stars.
But the radiance emitted by a swarm of biological entities.
Then, countless god-like beings—so powerful that it could neither comprehend nor look directly at them—appeared out of thin air in every corner of the Milky Way.
Some manifested as radiant human figures spanning the sea of stars, some as swirling nebulas, and others as streaks of pure light.
Then, they appeared surrounding the entire Qu fleet.
Enveloping all their formations and all their warships.
"Enemy... enemy attack!"
However.
Its warship, the biological flagship that resembled a twisted heart, remained completely motionless.
It tried to mobilize its energy, only to find that its consciousness felt detached from its body; other than thinking, it could do absolutely nothing.
It wasn't just the commander.
The entire Qu race.
Tens of thousands of living warships, along with every Qu member inside them, were completely paralyzed at the exact same moment by an irresistible force from a higher dimension.
Time, space, energy, matter... everything was locked down.
Only their consciousnesses maintained high-speed operation.
Tasting the extreme terror and bewilderment of suddenly falling from hunters to prisoners.
'What happened?'
'What are these things?'
'Where did they come from?!'
The commander's mind roared frantically within its eternal confinement.
It didn't understand.
A second ago, this was still an empty hunting ground for it to roam freely.
A second later, they had become immobilized specimens displayed in a glass cabinet.
Right at that moment.
A calm, vast voice, formed by the convergence of billions of human consciousnesses, slowly echoed in the minds of all the Qu members.
"Were you looking for us?"