Ch.186186. The Great Pioneering Era

Anyway, back to the present.

‘What am I supposed to do with this…’

This incident, caused by those damned trolls, was of such magnitude that, annoyingly enough, I—we—had to step in directly to clean up the mess.

Forty-one planetary systems and stars had vanished. Twenty-five cosmic-scale civilizations had been obliterated, and at least three psychic entities possessing divine status had been killed.

Unless they were complete fools, the divine entities of this galaxy would surely have noticed that a powerful psychic being was involved in either the cause or conclusion of this crisis—making a response absolutely necessary.

‘…Should I just wipe them out?’

Of course, as I just considered, the gap between us—between me and other psychic entities—is so overwhelmingly clear that I—we—could easily erase them with just a fraction of my power.

To put the difference between them and me—us—into perspective, if I were nuclear-armed America, they would be the rest of the world without nuclear weapons.

It’s only due to various internal circumstances that we haven’t conquered the galaxy yet, but if I wanted to, I could bring the galaxy under my—our—control at any time.

But… that shouldn’t be done.

After investing thousands of years in nurturing them, why would I destroy these trees (galactic civilizations) that are about to bear fruit (psychic beings with divine status) due to a momentary impulse? That would be the height of foolishness.

So after brief deliberation, I—we—calmed my agitated mind and assessed the current situation.

[What in the world happened…]

[I don’t know… it was all so sudden.]

[Do you know anything about this!?]

Based on what I gathered through a fragment of myself that I had infiltrated into the community of nearby divine psychic entities under the guise of being one of them, it seems they don’t really know much about what happened either.

Well, unlike me—us—who can bypass the usual limitations thanks to terminals, ordinary divine psychic entities perceive the physical world as if through a veil—experiencing significant information delay.

To respond and provide immediate feedback to the material world, one must break through the veil—the homeostasis separating the two dimensions… and breaking this homeostasis is far from easy.

While I used the term “veil,” the actual boundary between the two dimensions is incredibly robust beyond imagination.

It’s relatively easy to momentarily pierce a hole or lift the veil using vast amounts of energy derived from emotions or physical matter, but the problem arises in maintaining this connection.

Not only must one continuously expend the enormous energy used to pass through the veil, but this expended energy paradoxically becomes part of the veil itself, working to repair it and draining them further.

That’s why even I—we—who originated from the material world and can barely use terminals, found it inconvenient under normal circumstances. To think that now, in this situation, I would receive help from the very veil I so despised.

Truly, it was something I never imagined.

Anyway, since the surrounding divine entities and other civilizations didn’t know the exact circumstances, all I—we—needed to do was fabricate an external cause for the planetary disappearances—

And in such situations, the only plausible explanation would be a psychic storm.

Psychic storms. Originally a natural phenomenon where psychic energy erupts from the psychic dimension when the veil momentarily thins for various reasons across the universe. Their scale and form vary greatly.

The most common size is about that of an Earth-like planet, though some storms can be as tiny as a mouse’s tail, while occasionally, mega-storms affecting entire planetary systems occur.

Moreover, material destruction caused by high-concentration psychic energy is a default outcome, and it’s also common for matter’s structure to be altered by psychic energy contaminated with emotions.

Usually, this results in a conglomeration of pure elements and bizarre substances causing massive casualties and property damage, but sometimes even more terrible things happen.

Psychic entities might possess materials or precision equipment by riding psychic storms, or matter might gain life due to psychic energy influence, creating something like an “Event Horizon” scenario.

Of course, psychic storms can also transform all solids within affected areas into psychic crystals, or an invading hostile fleet might be completely annihilated after being caught in a timely psychic storm.

While there are very rare—practically exceptional—cases where benefits occur, it’s like saying “volcanic ash made the surrounding land fertile.”

In reality, almost all psychic storms are terrible calamities, a kind of cosmic natural disaster.

As mentioned earlier, fleets being destroyed by psychic storms happen frequently enough to be commonplace, and occasionally, large storms isolate planets, leading to apocalyptic scenarios or rendering them uninhabited.

In extremely rare cases, groups of psychic entities might appear riding psychic storms to attack humans, or even ships or entire planets might be abducted into the psychic dimension after being caught in storms.

Therefore, objectively speaking, there’s nothing particularly problematic about claiming that a massive psychic storm capable of engulfing dozens of planetary systems had occurred.

‘…’

Click!

I—we—first created a massive psychic storm, covering the entire region that a detached part of me—us—had consumed.

Vast amounts of energy seeping through the veil became powerful, violent currents sweeping through reality, with a concentration visible throughout our galaxy.

Exploration ships in the suddenly emptied space were instantly destroyed, various materials within were shredded—

And this destructive phenomenon didn’t spare the whale-shaped remains that had absorbed psychic energy.

The part of my power that I—we—had directly sent through a complete terminal and then processed had, at its final stage, completed a physical form in the material world, leaving something behind even after disappearing.

They say a person leaves behind their name when they die, and a tiger leaves its skin—this psychic entity returned to me but left behind the massive remains that had been its body.

This whale-shaped conglomeration of hundreds of planets, 41 stars, and various massive materials had previously been merely something forcibly bound together by absorbed psychic energies.

But over time, these forcibly bound materials had fused together, so even after my—our—power was reclaimed, the aftermath remained intact.

Rocks formed skin and flesh-like structures, metals resembled skeletal frameworks, various materials created organ-like structures inside, and gas or liquid substances flowed like bodily fluids through internal passages resembling blood vessels.

Of course, it only mimicked the form of a living body without actually functioning as one, but that wasn’t the important part.

Even these remains with their overwhelming mass began to break apart and decompose due to the psychic storm, and I—we—intended to use this to my advantage.

To explain what happened to the vanished planets to the outside world, and to prevent investigation teams from being dispatched to the area and discovering the truth.

For these reasons, I—we—decided to reconstruct the whale’s remains, which had been broken down to the particle level, to create a space that would be an upgraded version of the “Stone Ocean” I had previously created in this universe.

First, I placed a massive psychic sun that had somehow formed at the center.

This moon-sized object, containing about 500kg of psychicite surrounded by large amounts of psychic crystal, supplies psychic energy to the surrounding area, helping to form a special environment.

Around it, I arranged various materials and planets in bizarre configurations, mixing them together while placing all kinds of hazards to turn the area into a kind of labyrinth, a dungeon.

And following my—our—personal belief that every dungeon must have a solution, I provided methods to overcome each hazard.

Finally, I spread rumors throughout the nearby regions and even the entire Freedom Union (FU) that this zone contained all sorts of valuable items.

Thus, this dangerous region, formed from the whale’s remains and called the “Mausoleum of Moby Dick,” became a sanctuary for outlaws seeking to strike it rich—

And so, the great age of piracy began.