Raising his head, Ian no longer stared at the gap of Star Prison Tianyu. Instead, he turned around to look in the direction of Tera Star, where Terra was located.
"I still have a choice now— but another me, you’ve already failed. Humans no longer have the right to choose. You only have five years. What will you do to face this apocalypse?"
He murmured softly, with a latent anticipation and curiosity in the eyes of the youth watched by the anxious gaze of Galewind Dragon King, a feeling more terrifying than madness: "Even if all life in this universe doesn’t believe in you, I will believe in you."
"Because if it’s me, there would absolutely be a way."
The white-haired youth gazed at the distant, flickering sun on the other side of space-time behind him, with brilliance surpassing a thousand suns roaring up and flowing past.
Five light-years away, five years in time, this is humanity’s last chance.
Ian soared, following the light stream that destroyed all things forward, heading towards the sun and Terra, while Galewind Dragon King suppressed its immensely shocked emotions and set off with him. The youth sat on the Dragon King’s back, traveling alongside the light that destroys everything.
Time flowed swiftly under the gaze of the Prophet.
Soon, five years passed in an instant.
Patiently waiting, Ian felt something in his heart and looked ahead.
Terra was already in sight.
But strangely, on the Terra Planet, there were no traces of life or signs of biological activity.
The cities had long turned to ruins, the nation had no vitality... even the forests had completely vanished, the entire continent and ocean seemed to have been completely sifted through by some incredible monster, devoured entirely, leaving not even a trace of insects.
This once prosperous human homeland had become a silent Dead Domain.
Yet Ian raised his eyebrows, showing a look of delight.
"This is how it should be! Thousand-Star Beast, the Spark of Thousand Stars, I knew I could do it!"
Looking up, Ian gazed at the distant sun, his eyes carrying a madness that made the Galewind Dragon King feel a chill: "Next, it’s your turn!"
In the Prophet’s perspective that transcended time and space, he and the Dragon King saw at this moment.
Saw the destruction of the sun.
Accompanied by the enormous gravitational disturbance that began to distort the entire star, one after another, colossal coronal mass ejections burst forth, licking the surrounding cosmic space-time, erupting with super-gigantic star gas structures beyond human imagination — now, the sun looked from afar like a super-gigantic octopus with countless tentacles, where each tentacle was enough to effortlessly pick up a planet and play with it as if it were a marble.
But soon, these tentacles and erupting stellar material began to contract.
Contract towards the core within.
The collapse had begun.
Due to the suddenly emerged strong gravitational phenomenon, the outer layers of stellar material began collapsing towards the core interior, these vast stellar materials being pulled to collide with their own core, in the most terrifying fusion reactions, heavy elements heavier than iron began to form, and unbelievable energies erupted out, mixed with the reactive forces from the collision of stellar outer materials against the core, roaring out in all directions!
This is a supernova eruption!
In the instant Terra’s sun collapsed for unknown reasons and began a supernova eruption, it released energy several hundred times greater than the total energy it had previously emitted, endless light and stellar material turning into an overwhelming flood, rushing out at light speed!
And just at this moment.
Accompanied by Ian’s maniacal laughter and Galewind Dragon King’s lost roars, they saw what was concealed in this light - the ’behemoth’!
It was a spaceship fully transformed into light, a beast thoroughly merged with light!
A dragon as big as the Moon just like that spread its wings in the supernova’s eruption, flying along the momentum of endless flood towards the outside world!
That was the dragon— Light Dragon!
Already phototransformed, accelerated to light speed in the time period after the supernova eruption, flying alongside the erupting streams of light and stellar material, maintaining relative speed— the Light Dragon needed not to counter the unstoppable stellar eruption behind itself but instead utilized this force to ride the waves, maintaining almost eternal ’phototransformation’ and ’light-speed navigation’!
And the force from the collapse of Tera Star causing the supernova eruption instantly swallowed the residual waves of the ’supernova eruption’ leaking from the gap of Star Prison Tianyu!
Yes, perhaps the supernova light leaking from the gap originated from a star larger than Terra Sun, its energy being more massive... but it had traveled through endless space-time, experienced a long stretch of time.
Thus, in front of a newly erupting supernova, its light was instantly devoured, dissolved.
And the Light Dragon roared, following the path of light, dashing towards the gap of Star Prison Tianyu, which was the final exit!
The light of Terra Sun almost eternally enveloped it, ’today’s sun’ will never set, ’yesterday’s brilliance’ will always be left behind.
This ship eternally maintaining light speed, this one bearing the supernova eruption force to counter another supernova— this ’Generation Ship,’ the Ark of Light, would travel to ’tomorrow’ carrying the souls of all humans, all Terra’s creatures!
Such an ending is the chosen path of the Dao by another Ian in the endless future.
Its name is ’Solitary Dragon’, also ’Ark’, and furthermore, ’tomorrow’— to reach tomorrow, to welcome the future; to see the brilliant Galaxy, bathed in the light of stars, even the sun nurturing all beings can be utterly destroyed, transformed into the propulsion to reach afar...
[—Star Extinguishment Path—]
At this moment, Ian was almost unable to see this Light Dragon... but could still barely see some remnants.
Even though the core part was constructed by Ian, just like how the previous Mechanical Dragon was controlled by all crew members together, Ian of Extinguished Stars could not maintain such an enormous dragon’s phototransformation alone.
This gave the current Ian room to continue observing.
—It can fly out! It definitely can fly out!
—Regardless of the outcome, whether hope or despair, this time, it will definitely fly out!
The golden-hued brilliance flashed, the Light Dragon roared, aimed at the inner side of Star Prison Tianyu, towards the final gap—
It passed through the aperture.
Like passing through countless spaces-times.
The still existing but sparse sky full of stars shone.
Light Dragon arrived outside of Star Prison Tianyu!
At this moment, Ian wanted to shout out loud. He saw despair and found hope again. Even though, through the process, indeed he did many unbelievable and exceptionally excessive things, the final result was good!
Yet he didn’t make a sound.
The white-haired youth seemed to fall into an ice cave.
Because the light surging from the inner side of Star Prison Tianyu by the Terra Star did not continue to spread further.
Leading the Light Dragon out of Star Prison Tianyu, the light suddenly got blocked after flowing for a while.
That was... pitch-black, surging, indescribable unfathomable... impossible to describe using any language...
The light halted here.
For the Prophet saw the End.
The pitch-black End that crawled between stars diffusing in the surrounding space-time, it discovered nothing, sensed nothing could perceive neither stars nor Cradle seemed to exist, unable to catch even the slightest attention.
It appears in this world, it alone is the only real existence, the entirety of matter painfully unable to tilt even a shred of vision.
Indeed it was , unexplainable, unimaginable, difficult to describe and ponder existence, hence named The End — The End of stars, the center of civilization, the end of reason, the end of logic. Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on novel~fire~net
The End is blind and foolish, perhaps after wandering for hundreds or thousands of years in human concepts, it would leave this overly flat space-time, heading elsewhere.
But just in this moment.
Just as the Light Dragon left the Cradle by following the supernova light.
The pitch-black End turned — if that movement, twisting, akin to flowing and overturning in universal space-time, is called a ’turning’.
Then, ’looked’ towards the ’Light Dragon’.