Time stood still.
Space was frozen.
At this moment, Xiao Han's will became the sole law of this Hive Universe. He was like a king who had just ascended to the throne, looking down upon the absolutely still kingdom he had created with his own hands. The emerald flames burning in the eyes of billions of Star Shepherds were frozen into eternal jade; the eternal dead loop in the core logic of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion Overlord was transformed into the deepest silence in the cosmic background.
He is in control of everything.
Except for that one dish.
That shadow, which sprang from the corner of the battlefield, completely disregarding all the rules he had defined, defying cause and effect, and treading on the corpses of logic, rushed headlong towards the fragile brain in the life support pod like an unstoppable ink stain.
He is Ferryman.
Xiao Han's pupils suddenly contracted, and a monstrous wave surged within his soul. He tried to mobilize the laws of the entire universe to crush, imprison, and erase that dark figure, but found that all his commands were like throwing into nothingness, failing to stir even the slightest ripple.
The Ferryman exists outside the rules.
He is the one "outside the rules".
Xiao Han could only watch helplessly, like a god nailed to a throne, forced to watch the worst kind of drama. He saw the dark figure, the face blurred in extreme distortion and ecstasy, like a drop of poison falling into a clear spring, plunging into the brain of the Creator that contained the source of the entire universe without any hindrance or hesitation.
"Ha ha ha ha!"
The maniacal laughter did not travel through sound, but rather reverberated and echoed directly in the gaps of time stillness, between every stationary particle. It was the savage grin of a usurper, the supreme joy of a plot succeeding.
At this moment, the core control center of the entire Hive universe was forcibly occupied.
Anger!
An endless rage, enough to burn one's very soul, exploded in Xiao Han's consciousness. He had become the king of this universe, but at the moment of his ascension, he watched helplessly as a traitor seized the most crucial power beneath his throne. This sense of powerlessness was more despairing than being besieged by thousands of Star Shepherds, and more suffocating than facing the [Logical Mantra] of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion Overlord.
However, just as the Ferryman's will was about to completely devour the brain and declare victory...
That brain, which had been dormant for billions of years, had just opened its eyes, revealing endless sorrow and relief, and spontaneously emitted its last light and heat.
Unable to resist this erosion from outside the rules, it chose to offer its final gift.
It ignored the Ferryman frantically plundering its body, instead focusing on its entire being as the "Creator"—its life's memories, the incredibly complete "Primordial Code" that created this Hive Universe, and the endless regret and sorrow that had imprisoned it for billions of years by the program it had written—a regret powerful enough to engulf the entire galaxy...
Everything transformed into a torrent of information that surpassed the speed of light and the limits of thought.
This torrent, like a river that had breached all the dikes, precisely bypassed the laughing Ferryman and poured into Xiao Han's sea of consciousness with an irresistible force!
Boom--!
The Ferryman's laughter abruptly stopped.
He succeeded; he possessed this supreme body, and he felt the terrifying power to restart the universe with a single thought. But then, a tremendous emptiness welled up inside him.
What he got was an empty shell that had lost its "soul"!
He gained access to the ultimate "hardware privileges" of this cosmic computer, only to discover that the core operating system—the Primordial Code known as "Creation Logic"—was missing!
He became a usurper with inexhaustible power, yet he didn't even know how to turn on the machine.
"No--!"
His furious roar sent shivers down the spine of the brain that had just been occupied by him.
On the other hand, Xiao Han's situation was a thousand times more miserable than his.
If the Ferryman stumbled into an empty vault, then Xiao Han was literally slammed into a vault full of gold.
The moment his consciousness was flooded by that information torrent comparable to the Big Bang, it began to collapse. The phantom of the Eternal Night Sovereign wailed, the Chaos Green Lotus withered, and even the newly stabilized [Paradox Domain] began to flicker violently and disintegrate, as if it had been injected with undecipherable gibberish.
Every memory is like the birth and death of a galaxy.
Every line of code is the breath of a law.
Every trace of sorrow is as heavy as a star about to collapse.
His soul was stretched to the point of transparency, and his consciousness swung wildly on the verge of being torn apart.
Just as he was about to be overwhelmed by this benevolent "gift," an unchanging figure appeared silently in his mind.
It's Skeleton Ferryman.
The Ferryman, who had been observing from the sidelines, finally made his move.
He neither attacked the enraged usurper nor tried to soothe Xiao Han's crumbling soul. He simply stretched out his withered, bony hands and gently brushed them aside from the raging sea of information.
Like a master weaver, he forcibly "wove" together memories, code, and emotions that were capable of destroying everything with incredible power.
They are no longer a chaotic torrent, but have transformed into a grand epic with a magnificent structure, tragic language, and the imprint of creation and destruction.
A story...
A golden scroll fell into Xiao Han's trembling core of consciousness the instant the story took shape.
The Skeleton Ferryman's calm, unwavering voice, tinged with a hint of detached amusement, whispered in his ear:
The story is called "The Creator's Elegy."
"Now, finish reading it, or... be overwhelmed by it."
"Your choice."
The moment Xiao Han's consciousness was forcibly dragged into this "story," the Hive Universe, which he had forcibly solidified with [paradox], thawed in spacetime.
Buzz--
Everything is back to normal.
But everything is different now.
The brain in the life support pod suddenly opened its eyes. It no longer possessed the compassion of the Creator, but rather the madness of the Ferryman, a mixture of endless greed and fury!
Half of it was writhing flesh and blood, and the other half was light and shadow composed of billions of data streams. A terrifying god-demon, tens of thousands of feet tall, slowly rose from the life support pod. His body was connected to every thread of the universe's laws, and his will covered the entire Hive the moment he thawed.
A cold, brutal voice, tinged with a hint of fragility and underlying weakness, heralded the arrival of a new era:
"From this day forward, I am the Heavenly Secrets!"
"I am the new ruler!"
Countless newly awakened Star Shepherds had their emerald flames instantly dyed back to crimson, a symbol of absolute obedience, by this will. They transformed once more into cold war machines, turning their cannons towards the tiny figure suspended in the center of the universe, eyes closed, surrounded by countless golden characters— Xiao Han.