Ch.197197. Towards the End

The Human Federation,

A massive power that claims about 1/3 of our galaxy as its territory,

But fundamentally, it’s still less than 10,000 years old,

Making it a rather delicate entity on the cosmic scale.

Due to the practical reality that the Human Federation’s territory is too vast to be fully developed in such a limited time,

The level of development across different regions is inevitably quite unbalanced.

Therefore, in this era, the Human Federation’s territory is generally divided into three main domains.

First, there’s the frontline domain, commonly referred to as the border region.

This area, marking the boundary between the Human Federation and other cosmic powers, is mostly specialized for military activities,

Consisting primarily of planets and space facilities designed solely to defend against monsters or conflicts with alien civilizations.

It’s a domain where space fortresses are fixed in specific areas to monitor surroundings, with fleets including capital ships positioned to arrive within 10 minutes.

In some fortified military planets under invasion, wars have continued for over 1,000 years,

Making these areas quite distant from ordinary life.

Of course, even in the frontline domain, not all planets are exclusively for military garrisons.

Each planetary system has one engineer world, one mining planet, and one agricultural planet for self-sufficiency in emergencies,

With more of these military supply production planets appearing as one moves further to the rear.

And naturally, even if these planets aren’t military garrison planets, they are still military planets,

So their production methods differ from ordinary planets.

For example, agricultural planets in this region have canneries and bread factories,

And mining planets often have automation rates exceeding 90%, which is rare for civilian-owned mining planets.

It’s not just about military activities either;

There are resort planets for soldiers (with all basic services free of charge), or entire planets with cultures centered around the military.

In many ways, “unique” is a fitting description for these regions.

In contrast to these frontline domains, there are direct territories controlled by the central government,

Which people commonly refer to as the core domain, distinguishing it from the outer regions.

The most notable feature of this area is that it’s within the influence of Waygates, allowing material transport without psychic dimensional travel,

Making it the true body of the Human Federation—fully controlled by the central government.

Residents here have an average lifespan exceeding 150 years thanks to life-extension treatments provided as welfare,

And most difficult and complex jobs (3D: Dirty, Difficult, Dangerous) are completely automated.

As a result, most people can easily pursue their desired occupations due to excellent basic welfare,

And there are even planets where one can earn enough money to live comfortably by doing only what they want throughout their lives.

Since even the common people here live better than nobles from outside regions,

Naturally, most of the Federation’s key industries operate in this zone.

For example, the Macron planetary system.

This system, composed entirely of engineer worlds, is unrivaled in laser weapon production,

Creating the Federation’s best-selling export product.

For example, the Pui planetary system.

As evident from each planet handling a single academic department,

The entire planetary system is a school—the Pui University, humanity’s largest university, is the Pui planetary system itself.

For example, the Zicline planetary system.

Home to the Zicline Shipyard, the only space shipyard capable of producing Enterprise-class battleships,

The entire planetary system revolves around warship production.

For example, the Belliga planetary system.

Housing the core domain’s largest agricultural planets, it supplies food to the Solar System, which can no longer farm.

While the central zone represents the “quality” of the Human Federation,

There is, conversely, a domain responsible for the “quantity” of the Human Federation.

And that domain responsible for “quantity” is precisely the outer domain that I have now swallowed.

Compared to the core domain, it tends to operate independently and was colonized relatively recently in Human Federation history,

Technically classified as outside the influence of Waygates, requiring psychic dimensional travel.

Well, to be frank, the outer domain does have lower importance and living standards,

And it’s often mocked as having only 1/6 of the technological and economic power despite being 6 times larger.

Additionally, most planets here are governed by autonomous dictatorships or corporations,

And even the least dystopian planets have an undeniably bleak atmosphere.

Therefore, these outer regions are commonly dismissed as unnecessary areas or even a disgrace to the Human Empire, but… that’s completely wrong.

This outer region has, in fact, played a decisive role in the Human Empire’s cosmic hegemony.

The population living in this territory, which is six times larger than the central region,

Far exceeds that of the central domain and is like a miracle for the frontlines suffering from chronic troop shortages,

Making it a valuable asset in itself.

Unlike the typical media portrayal of humans having just adequate numbers and technology,

In this world, humanity can secure both quantity and quality through the overwhelming scale of this outer domain.

In the event of all-out war, if troops were deliberately drafted from the outer regions, each planetary system could easily provide hundreds of millions of soldiers—that’s the nature of the outer domain…

And I’ve not only instantly annihilated one of the massive pillars supporting humanity’s cosmic hegemony,

I’ve swallowed it whole.

Based on my analysis through the information network,

And using surveillance nanomachines to monitor the current situation—though the central government doesn’t know yet,

When they find out, it would be miraculous if they considered it merely troublesome.

In this chaos where literally half of the Human Federation remains,

I decided to make my next move with a satisfied smile—

And with that simple mental decision, every interstellar communication network used by the Human Federation completely collapsed.

※ ※ ※

Shifting perspective briefly, I’d like to pose this question:

What exactly is ‘psychic power’?

It’s generally defined as ‘supernatural phenomena impossible under natural laws, produced by souls of humans or other ensouled beings,’

And this explanation is mostly accurate.

However, this explanation is less incorrect than it is incomplete,

And to precisely describe psychic power… it’s roughly the ‘materialization of emotions or thoughts.’

Using psychic energy within the body, one creates a personal mental world—a kind of pseudo-psychic dimension,

Then within this mental world, emotions or thoughts serve as catalysts to manifest psychic phenomena.

Then, using the soul—an entity native to the psychic dimension—

One overlays parts of this mental world onto reality to realize these psychic phenomena.

This is how ordinary humans use psychic powers.

But such examples are exceptions for psychic beings like me who are native to the psychic dimension.

Energy already surrounds me in abundance for me to draw upon,

And as a being whose mental image is its true form, I have no need for such cumbersome processes of creating internal domains and manipulating them.

Moreover, deploying such virtual spaces within oneself is quite burdensome, which further explains why

Ordinary material psychic users primarily employ extremely simple abilities when using psychic powers.

Theoretically, they could use simple yet powerful—or even complex—superpowers like those in ability battle stories,

But implementing these in one’s mental image is an extremely serious burden.

The human brain is quite fragile and unstable,

So at best, it’s limited to simple concepts like ‘moving invisible force,’ ‘raising or lowering temperature,’ or ‘healing wounds.’

No matter how much one’s level rises or output strengthens, there are innate physical limitations that cannot be overcome.

To use an analogy, no matter how sturdy a 2cm thick iron plate is,

It’s impossible to stop a 5cm blade that ignores material strength and simply pierces through.

But reversing this analogy, one could think:

If you prepare three layers of iron plates, or in other words, if there are countless souls, and if there’s a way to ignore these limitations…

If one could overlay any fantasy onto reality,

Wouldn’t whatever that being thinks become reality?