"Hello! Are you a new consciousness too? When did you die?"
"So this is the new successor to the Herrscher of Reason?"
"Doesn't look like much. Far inferior."
"Trash. What right do you have? What qualifications do you have to inherit Herrscher authority?"
"Who are you, anyway?"
"A woman? Huh… you look kind of familiar."
In an instant, three hundred thousand thoughts surged forward.
Ideas sharpened into blades, tearing through the void and streaking across the mental sky—
all of them aimed straight at the Stellaron's will.
For the first time since its birth, the Stellaron felt… unclean.
Its appetite—vast enough to consume civilizations—
collided head-on with three hundred thousand minds.
It almost burst on the spot.
Too much.
Way too much.
So it abandoned any attempt to corrupt those thoughts.
Instead, it changed strategy—
find the host consciousness.
Kill the core. End everything in one strike.
Seven hundred years of existence had forged the Stellaron's will into something nearly unbreakable.
Like the eternal ice blanketing Jarilo-VI—
freezing everything it touched.
The Fragmentum disasters it created had already plunged this world into despair.
It was always the invader.
Always the corrupter.
Never—
never—
had it entered a mind this… enthusiastic.
This wasn't normal.
This wasn't logical.
At that moment, the Stellaron felt something dangerously close to despair.
Three hundred thousand consciousnesses.
Three hundred thousand voices.
It nearly exploded from mental indigestion alone.
What kind of person was this?
What kind of mind contained this much chaos?
Who in the universe had an inner world this crowded?!
"I am the Stellaron's will!"
"Show some respect, will you?!"
Too full.
So full.
The Stellaron felt like it was about to throw up.
Seriously—
what kind of normal person's brain looked like this?
If Cocolia's mind had been even half this complicated,
it would have fled long ago.
Corruption?
Corrupt what?
If Cocolia had carried even a fraction of these strange thoughts back then,
the Stellaron would never have dared touch her.
What are you?!
Three hundred thousand minds—are you joking?!
The Stellaron's origins were still unclear.
Across the cosmos, countless theories existed.
Some believed Stellarons were born from the influence of Nanook, the Aeon of Destruction—
after all, wherever a Stellaron appeared, catastrophe followed.
Jarilo-VI's eternal freeze was caused by one.
The Xianzhou once had a Stellaron smuggled aboard, intended to revive the Ambrosial Arbor.
Penacony's entire dreamscape was built upon a Stellaron—
its danger self-evident.
Others proposed a different theory:
That Stellarons were remnants left behind after the Aeon of Trailblaze fell.
Because wherever a Stellaron emerged,
the Silver Railways were severed.
Star routes collapsed.
Interstellar travel became impossible.
Entire star systems vanished from the map of the universe,
their colors erased.
Beyond these macro-scale effects,
a Stellaron's raw power was terrifying.
It tore space apart, creating Fragmentum zones.
And the Fragmentum devoured worlds—
bit by bit, piece by piece—
until nothing remained.
It replicated everything it consumed.
People.
Objects.
Weapons.
All of it twisted into grotesque reflections.
And then—
those reflections were turned against the original world.
The will of a Stellaron was formed from distorted memories.
Under specific conditions, at specific times,
it could develop thought patterns similar to a human's.
But those thoughts were always poisonous.
Tempting.
Twisted.
Unpredictably catastrophic.
A Stellaron with self-awareness
was far more dangerous than one sealed away or left dormant.
Once a conscious Stellaron took control—
a world's distortion accelerated toward destruction.
Even the power of Preservation could no longer stop it.
Fortunately, such conditions were rare.
Most worlds perished long before a Stellaron could awaken fully.
But Belobog was different.
Seven hundred years.
That span of time had warped this Stellaron beyond recognition.
An independent will was inevitable.
And yet—
today, it had finally met its match.
"What kind of sane person has a mind this complicated?!"
"This Underworlder—
his brain is seriously broken!"
The Stellaron had no humanity.
But facing this mental domain—
one that nearly stuffed it to death—
it experienced something new.
Fear.
If it accidentally absorbed those thoughts…
Wouldn't that mean it would die instead?
No.
Absolutely not.
It had struggled for so long to awaken.
Among the Stellaron collective, it was practically an honors graduate.
There was no way it was dying here.
"Once I find your true consciousness—
I'll… I'll trick you!"
No—
I'll conquer you!
With that, the Stellaron accelerated,
forcing its way through the storm of three hundred thousand thoughts—
and finally arrived at a place of silence.
A vast, empty sea of flowers, untouched and still.
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